Seeing that the naval department had made up its mind, the Marquess of Salisbury thought for a while and realized that for the sake of national hegemony, he had to go all out this time.
Now in the mind of the Prime Minister, he never imagined that the enemy's four giant battleships would put such great pressure on the entire navy.
But they don't know that these four giant Ahua-class battleships have become the second-line warships in the Liu Hai Navy.
After reaching an agreement with the Marquis of Salisbury, another telegram was delivered to the expedition fleet overnight.
The current expedition fleet has arrived at the East Canal after several days of trekking. As long as it enters the subcontinental ocean through the East Canal, it is equivalent to reaching its destination.
Marshal Richard Meade, commander of the expeditionary fleet, felt an even greater headache after receiving the intelligence from London.
Unexpectedly, the subcontinental fleet was completely wiped out, even though the subcontinental fleet was nothing compared to the expedition fleet he led.
But this fleet is second to none in the Far East and Asia. Such a powerful fleet was annihilated by the enemy's fleet within a day or two, which shows how strong the opponent's warships and strength are.
As a wily general, Marshal Richard Meade did not dare to take it lightly when faced with such a difficult situation.
He immediately ordered his expedition fleet to carry out repairs near the East Canal, and at the same time check the status of the warships, so that they could fight immediately once they left the protection of the East Canal forts and entered the subcontinental ocean.
The fleet led by Liu Da off the coast of Mumbai set sail as a whole at the beginning of the second day and once again appeared outside the port. This time Liu Da could be said to have gone all out with 6 battleships and a
Ironclad ships, plus a dozen cruisers and armored cruisers, such a large fleet launched an artillery attack on the port.
This time the port saw what it means to be a meteor falling to the ground. Almost every inch of their land was under heavy shelling every minute.
And as the shelling continued, the entire port's piers had been completely destroyed.
Then Liu Da did not stop there, but ordered the artillery to extend into the city.
Just like that, artillery began to bombard the city. As the bombardment continued, the city became a mess.
The colonial army and the servant army that had entered Maimeng City and were preparing to resist the landing of Liu's fleet were in bad luck.
Due to the dense buildings in the city, it is a natural fortress if fighting in the streets. However, once it is bombarded by large-caliber artillery, these dense buildings become living coffins for these officers and soldiers.
Therefore, one day later, all 20,000 regular troops and tens of thousands of Indian servant troops were lost.
Seeing this situation, Governor Victor Bruce knew that there was no point in continuing the fight, so he could only order the troops to withdraw from the city and retreat beyond the range of the naval guns.
After Liu Da learned that the local government had withdrawn from the city, he did not immediately withdraw his troops. Instead, he ordered his sailors to organize a landing force of nearly 2,000 people.
After the formation of this force, they were immediately transported by transport ships and entered the city.
Their purpose this time was not to capture the city, but to loot the city.
Because when he came, Liu Dako heard from Liu Hai and knew that this was the most prosperous city in the subcontinent.
Therefore, what Liu Da thought in his mind was that if he had the opportunity to rob him this time, the money he would get should be able to make up for the funds needed to send troops this time.
After two days of looting, the 2,000 sailors happily returned to the warship.
When Liu Da counted the final results, he was so happy that he was almost speechless.
It turns out that Liu Da's fleet gained a lot from this looting. Not to mention the jewelry and gold and silver Buddha statues, just the various gold and silver coins, according to Liu Da's statistics, were worth 20 million taels of silver.
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This is because Liu Da and the others don't have enough time. If they can stay in the city for a month, the gold and silver they harvest will probably be several times this amount.
While Liu Da and the others were evacuating, the enemy expedition fleet had also left the East Canal in a mighty manner.
This fleet was too huge. They had just left the East Canal, and soon their news reached Liu Hai's hands.
After Liu Hai learned that the enemy's expedition fleet had left the East Canal, he immediately summoned various naval generals in Lion City to hold a meeting.
At this meeting, the main discussion was how to deal with the enemy expedition fleet.
In the end, everyone agreed that the role of modern warships should be brought into play and missiles should be used to attack them from long distances in order to minimize the losses of our own warships and personnel.
After Liu Hai reached an agreement among the naval generals, he immediately issued an order for ten guided missile destroyers to leave the Lion City Pier one after another and go out of the strait to the subcontinent to meet up with Liu Da's artillery fleet.
After the fleet left the Lion City Pier, Liu Hai immediately handed over the command of the navy to his confidant Liu Wei.
Because Liu Hai is very clear about how important he is to himself.
Although he has gone through some naval command training, he only knows a little bit about it. If he wants to command these 10 modern warships, he does not have the ability yet.
Therefore, it is better to leave the navy to the command of professionals to avoid losses to the navy when something goes wrong.
As a biochemical man, Liu Wei's command ability has surpassed all the current naval generals in the Qing Dynasty through the knowledge infusion from Zhi Nao Bai and the installation of biochips.
Because his eyes were no longer focused on those naval gun attacks, but on modern data links and missile strikes.
After Liu Wei took over the command of the fleet, he immediately ordered the 051-class destroyer as the vanguard to turn on the search radar to alert the fleet ahead.
At the same time, the helicopters equipped with the Sovremenny-class destroyers were ordered to take turns to take off to conduct aerial reconnaissance for the fleet.
Although the helicopter equipped on the modern-class destroyer is not a professional early warning aircraft, as the only machine in the Qing Dynasty plane that can fly in the sky, it can provide powerful reconnaissance capabilities for the Liu Hai fleet in the sky.
Liu Hai's fleet sailed forward for three days after leaving Malacca, and finally reunited with Liu Da's artillery fleet.
By now, Liu Hai's Nanyang Navy was ready for a decisive battle with the enemy's expedition fleet.
The only difficulty now facing Liu Hai's Nanyang Navy is to find the location of the enemy's expedition fleet in the vast ocean.
Faced with this situation, Liu Wei also made a judgment that the enemy expedition fleet now has no foothold in the ocean, and the only place they can get supplies is the Port of Surat in the north of the subcontinent.
Therefore, Liu Wei led the Nanyang Navy to the north, and at the same time released helicopters to search within 200 kilometers of the fleet, hoping to find traces of the enemy's expeditionary fleet.
However, the current enemy expedition fleet did not sail to Surat Port in the north of the subcontinent as Liu Wei thought.
Instead, it made a mighty circle and quickly approached the Strait of Malacca.
Marshal Richard Meade is a man who has been in battle for a long time. He has clearly seen himself on the map. The only port on the subcontinental ocean is the Port of Surat.
In this way, if he were an enemy general, he would definitely ambush near Surat Port.
Therefore, the marshal thought that he was avoiding the truth. Didn't you ambush me near the port of Surat? I will go to your hometown.
Not to mention, the marshal's strategy really worked.
The expedition fleet, consisting of more than 100 warships and nearly 70 transport ships, made a large circle and happened to pass Liu Hai's Nanyang Navy.
Now both parties are pursuing their own goals.
Not to mention that the Nanyang Navy led by Liu Wei wanted to ambush the expedition fleet near Surat Port.
Besides, the fleet led by Marshal Richard Meade arrived in the Strait of Malacca in a mighty manner.
The current strait can be said to be very empty. Except for some servant troops on land for defense, there is almost no maritime power.
Therefore, facing nearly a hundred warships, the ports on the strait were unable to fight back.
Just like that, the expedition fleet shelled all the way, destroyed several coastal ports, and conducted a small-scale beach landing at one of the ports, hoping to obtain a strategic landing point from the west of the Lion City.
However, as soon as these troops landed ashore, they encountered strong resistance from Liu Hai's servants.
The Japanese army now is no longer the poorly equipped army it was during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894.
Now that they have taken refuge in Liu Hai, their artillery is almost on par with the Hunan Army, except that their rifles still use domestic standard rifles.
Moreover, the leader of the battle this time was Major General Nishi Kanjiro of the Army's 2nd Brigade. He was not as stubborn as Nogi Nogi, the division commander of the 1st Division.
Kanjiro Nishi saw that the enemy army clearly outnumbered his own and was covered by powerful naval artillery fire, so he immediately led his army to retreat inland.
Marshal Chad Meade's landing force did not even think that the enemy was retreating on its own initiative. They thought that these indigenous troops were not their elite opponents at all, so they advanced all the way without even being vigilant.
As a result, their unit was ambushed by Nishi Kanjiro in a small mountain col immediately after leaving the protection of the naval guns.
This ambush battle let them know that the enemy's artillery fire far exceeded their regular troops.
In this ambush battle, Nishi Kanjiro concentrated all the 122 mm caliber howitzers and conducted a fierce bombardment on the retreat.
Other 80mm, 60mm, and 120mm caliber mortars also conducted continuous shelling.
With just one round of fierce shelling, the Geely Army's army of three to four thousand men was defeated.