Chapter 174 The Prime Minister must resist! (Please subscribe, please vote)

UK, 10 Downing Street.

A very critical cabinet arms meeting is being held.

The protagonist of this meeting today is not Prime Minister George Canning, nor the new Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Palmerston, nor Earl Nelson, who has just returned from India to take up the post of First Sea Lord. Instead, he has accumulated rich experience in naval warfare.

Because of his rich and valuable experience in defeating battles, George Elliot was unanimously recommended by Earl Nelson and Viscount Palmerston to serve as the Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty.

The British cabinet secretaries and permanent secretaries of various ministries are not ordinary "little secretaries", but high-ranking secretaries! Because today's Britain implements a responsible cabinet system, and the majority party in the House of Commons is responsible for forming the cabinet.

Sometimes a coalition cabinet is formed. However, no matter what method of forming a cabinet, it is inevitable that laymen will lead experts. For example, the current British Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Palmerston, does not know much about the navy, so there must be a group of experienced professionals.

They are assisted by professionals or career bureaucrats. The permanent secretaries of various ministries are responsible for leading these experienced professionals or career bureaucrats!

However, the power of the Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty is much smaller than that of the Permanent Secretaries of other departments (excluding the War Department of course).

Because the Admiralty also has a First Sea Lord and a Second Sea Lord, who are responsible for the command and training of the navy. They also have a great say in equipment and personnel issues. Moreover, the permanent secretaries of the Admiralty are all active military personnel, and

The First Sea Lord is the highest-ranking British naval officer!

Therefore, the First Sea Lord is the end point for the promotion of Royal Navy officers, and the Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty is just a step on their way up, so the Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty is replaced more diligently than the Lord of the Admiralty.

For George Elliot, who had been humiliated and suffered a huge defeat in Japan before, this was the last chance to save his career.

If he cannot assist and coordinate the Lord of the Admiralty and the First Sea Lord as the Permanent Secretary of the Navy, and work out a naval expansion plan that satisfies all parties, then the Permanent Secretary of the Navy will be George Elliot in the Royal Navy.

The last position among them.

And he will also become a sinner of the British Empire!

"The first lesson the Battle of Kii taught us is: firing accurately and firing quickly is more important than having a large caliber! And to fire accurately and quickly, we cannot choose a main gun with the largest caliber possible. In Sovereignty

It is too big to install a 13.5-inch main gun on a hull of less than 15,000 tons! As for the 16-inch front-loading gun on the Indomitable, it is completely, completely, completely outdated and has no use in naval battles, and it fires once

It will also cause the hull to shake violently, making the usable 6-inch half-rapid guns unable to exert their power. Therefore, I suggest that the 13.5-inch main gun of the Sovereign class be removed and replaced with a 12-inch or 11-inch main gun.

Guns. At the same time, the Sovereign-class battleships need to be equipped with as many 6-inch secondary guns as possible. They are very useful in naval battles.

The second lesson from the Kii Naval Battle is: Speed ​​is better than protection! The advantage of speed does not lie in seizing the T-shaped position, but in choosing the right to engage. In the Kii Naval Battle, the initiative of whether to fight or not is always with the Ming Dynasty.

On the navy side, they can fight if they want, leave if they want, and can turn back and fight again after leaving. It can be said that they have the upper hand!

The third lesson from the Battle of Kii is: the air defense of the fleet needs to be strengthened! The airship is actually a very fragile weapon. It has a huge air chamber and is easy to be hit. But the premise is that we have the ability to shoot into the air and have an effective range.

It's far enough, and it also has anti-aircraft weapons that shoot high enough.

The fourth lesson of the Kii Battle is: the role of large long-range airships is very, very, very important!"

"Wait a minute," British Prime Minister George Canning suddenly interrupted, "Commodore, you just said that airships are a very fragile weapon."

"Yes, Prime Minister." George Elliot said, "But no matter how fragile it is, as long as we can't hit it, it won't fall from the sky on its own!"

"Can't hit? You mean dropping bombs at an altitude of 3,000 meters or higher? Does that make sense? Can it hit?"

"I don't know," George Yilu replied, "but I have a guess. It's a very well-founded guess!"

"Oh? What guess?" George Canning asked.

"I guess they already have a radio station!"

"Radio station?" George Canning was stunned, "Can you send a telegram without wires?"

"Prime Minister," Viscount Palmerston answered after taking the question, "the Admiralty has provided funds to several experts or companies dedicated to developing radio stations a few years ago. However, considering that Ming Dynasty's psychic telecommunications have always led the way,

Telecommunications technology has invented the telephone and the telegraph, so it is very likely that it has developed wireless stations!"

"That's it"

Seeing that the Prime Minister did not understand the seriousness of the problem, Lord Nelson, the First Sea Lord, further explained: "Prime Minister, as we all know, large rigid airships can stay in the air for a long time and fly long distances. Many large airships can fly continuously.

24 hours or even 48 hours, the flight distance can reach thousands of miles! If they have a radio station, they can promptly notify the fleet flagship and shore base of the location of the discovered target. This means that the whole, at least one

Large areas of the ocean will be under 24-hour surveillance by the Ming Navy!

In addition, an airship with a radio station can also perform ballistic corrections for its own artillery during fleet battles, and can even uniformly direct the main gun fire of the entire fleet to attack the same target! This will greatly improve the hit rate of the artillery!"

"Ah, this is really terrible"

As soon as George Canning said the word "terrible", there was a loud knock on the door of the conference room, and then the voice of Cabinet Secretary Harker: "Prime Minister, it's me, Harker."

"Come in!" Although he knew that Huck would do nothing good if he knocked on the door at this time, George Canning still let Huck in.

Huck quickly opened the door, walked to the Prime Minister with a copy of the telegram, bowed politely, and then said unhurriedly: "Mr. Prime Minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just sent an urgent telegram from the Embassy in Japan.

Nagasaki has been captured, and our friend Shimazu Sairyo was buried in the flames, and as many as 70,000 to 80,000 people were killed or buried in the flames at the same time as him!"

"Wait a minute." George Canning quickly interrupted Huck, and at the same time he took out a bottle of Ya'an tincture, took a sip of it to calm his shock, and then said, "Go on."

"Yes, Prime Minister," Huck continued, "According to the report of the Embassy in Japan, the coalition forces besieging Nagasaki took just one day to completely destroy and capture this fortress city that had been painstakingly built for many years!"

"One day? Impossible!"

"How can it be?"

"Absolutely impossible!"

Viscount Palmerston, Earl Nelson and George Elliot in the conference room all shook their heads together.

Huck looked at these three people and smiled bitterly: "Earl, Viscount, Brigadier. The impossible has happened! According to the report of the Embassy in Japan, more than a hundred airships of the Ming Navy Air Force dropped thousands of bombs that day.

An incendiary bomb that can cause violent burning turned the entire Nagasaki Castle into a sea of ​​flames! At the same time, a flag symbolizing the personal expedition of the Japanese Emperor appeared opposite the main Yatsutengatake position outside Nagasaki Castle, greatly inspiring the attacking coalition forces.

.So the coalition forces immediately launched a general offensive after Nagasaki turned into a sea of ​​flames. The panicked defenders were unable to resist the rapid collapse of the defense line. Nagasaki Castle was captured that night! Of course, what was captured was actually a large charred ruin.

Because Nagasaki no longer exists! And Japan has been completely controlled by the Ming Empire!"

Japan is completely controlled by Ming Dynasty!

Of course George Canning knew what this news meant for the world today? What did it mean for the British Empire?

George Canning, who was already sick, could not bear this blow. He became anxious and angry. Suddenly his vision went dark and he collapsed on the Prime Minister's throne!
Chapter completed!