The day of the sneak attack has finally arrived. Liu Xian was still parked in Songhu, and it was impossible for him to go to Lanfang in person, so the weather conditions there could only be predicted by good domestic meteorologists.

On the day of the sneak attack and the day before yesterday, it was sunny and breezy!

It's a rare good day!

Airships were loaded with fuel, and in order to cross the 1,100-mile flight distance, they had to sacrifice some of their space to carry fuel. The airship's huge air sac is filled with a large amount of hydrogen and helium. Just like the watertight cabins of warships and ships, in order to minimize costs and improve safety, China's airbags are divided into two parts: the inner airbags are filled with cheap and very available hydrogen, and the outer airbags are filled with precious helium, which is not easy to catch fire or explode.

The latter was a very readily available gas in the 21st century, but at the end of the 19th century, it was an inactive gas that could only be obtained by mining natural gas and treating bituminous uranium ore with sulfuric acid. At room temperature and atmospheric pressure, helium is a colorless, odorless gas. It has a volume content of 5.24×10-6 in dry air. The density is 0.1786 g/L (0 °C, 0.1 MPa), which is the lowest critical temperature found by human beings.

If it can only be obtained by treating bituminous uranium ore with sulfuric acid, China will definitely not have the capital to use it on a large scale. It was still in the oil extraction companies in the South Seas that the Chinese military could get large quantities of helium. But the cost of transporting this helium from Nanyang back to China or Lan Fong Province is also much higher. Because this thing has not yet been able to liquefy, its own quality is too low and too low.

Sixty airships flew up at 5 p.m., at their highest speed of 25 knots. The fastest flight was towards Singapore Harbour. This is the first batch of airships, and the second batch of airship troops is in an hour later. Take advantage of the afterglow of sunset to fly into the sky, and at the same time set off with all the main forces of the Nanyang Fleet!

The whole of Pontianak was closed. No vessel shall leave the port, and no one shall use the telegraph. This is an era when there is no radio, there is no wireless mobile phone, the telegraph is isolated, the ship is isolated, and the cross-sea telephone is isolated, even if some people know that it is wrong, they cannot quickly deliver the information to Singapore in a timely manner.

The speed of the airship can reach more than 90 miles per hour, and it can fly over the port of Singapore in 12 hours. That is, at dawn tomorrow, there may be the first rays of sunshine from the morning sun, and bombs of three or five hundred catties or even heavier will be dropped on the heads of foreigners. More than a dozen submarines that have arrived outside the port of Singapore will cooperate with the airship force in attacking. It is sure to inflict heavy losses on the arrogant Combined Fleet, and it is better if the damaged ships can only be blocked from the port.

The next hour was followed by the second bombardment, and soon after that the arrival of the South Sea Fleet. The airships that had finished the bombing would not fly back to Pontianak, but would continue westward to the prepared flight base in the Malay Peninsula. At 10 o'clock in the morning, the third wave of bombardment will fall on Singapore's head again. When it gets dark, the paratroopers will be dispatched. One by one, paratroopers fell from the sky. Capture the coastal defense batteries of the Singapore defenders, seize the material warehouses of the Singapore defenders, and even the residence of the Governor Maxwell, it is a matter of course to take Singapore!

Liu Mingchuan personally watched two groups of airship troops take off. Saw the departure of the Nanyang Fleet with his own eyes. He knew that tomorrow would be a day that would shock the world, and that it would start tomorrow. The Wehrmacht on the Western Front will also use their first killer weapon in this war - Airship Army + Paratroopers.

The airship army that can drop bombs overhead is incredible. The mode of warfare has developed from the surface of the earth to the sky, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. Think about it. When groups of paratroopers land behind the defenseless Russian army, what kind of nightmare will it bring to the Russian army?

Liu Mingchuan was an important minister of the dynasty. You can get the highest level of internal staff in your hands, and you know how many troops the Russians have amassed on the Western Front. That's no less than the strength of the Wehrmacht. In the month since the start of the war, the Wehrmacht has not shown any momentum, and the media in various Western countries are already shouting that the magic of the Eastern army is no more. I wonder if they will be able to withstand such a huge contrast after tomorrow?

The night was dark, the sea breeze was crashing against the shore with thin waves, and the sea was not calm under the cold moonlight.

This is the Malay Peninsula across the water from Singapore, and the Straits of Johor is at the foot of Lau Yong Hock. The width is only 1.2~4.8 km (0.75~3 miles). It seems that it can be crossed in one step. On the other side of the Straits of Johor, however, there were 50,000 troops - a coalition of British and Malay soldiers.

Liu Yongfu is very good at rainforest operations, but his troops are also mainly used for tropical mountain rainforest operations, and do not have much heavy equipment. The 19th Division under his command was a standard light infantry division, with only 30% of the artillery of conventional infantry divisions, and almost no heavy artillery of more than 100mm caliber. This unit, like the two mountain infantry divisions in Sichuan and Tibet, was armed with a large number of light and heavy machine guns and semi-automatic rifles, but lacked heavy artillery. In the sequence of the Wehrmacht, its density of fire is the top three of the weaker alongside the Marine Corps and the Paratrooper Corps!

Of course, the 19th Division's armament is not weaker than that of the Taiping Army. Relying on such equipment to force the crossing of the Straits of Johor is obviously to send his soldiers to death. Since the imperial court has a unified arrangement, Liu Yongfu will not fight to the death with the British.

He had trouble sleeping tonight. He was very excited. He wanted to see the birth of the world's first air raid operation. He was going to watch the airships fall in front of him.

Shi Dakai is also very interested in airships and bombing. But he was old, and he couldn't afford to stay up late, so he simply set up a marching bed in the headquarters and slept here. Wait until four or five o'clock to wake up and look at the scenery. And next door to his bedroom is the telegraph room of the headquarters, and the news of the airship bombing can be transmitted back to China as soon as possible, and it will definitely not delay time.

Now, Shi Dakai is sleeping on the marching bed, and several staff officers of the 19th Division are sitting outside the door, studying the map with a lantern. Since yesterday, the army in the Malay Peninsula has entered a state of 'first-class combat readiness', and everyone does not dare to be sloppy, and they all know that the war against Singapore is about to start. Among them, the staff officers of the two armies of the command headquarters were especially cautious, and simply sat at the door on duty to study the map.

It was soon 3:30 a.m., and there was still some time before dawn, when Shi Da woke up. When asked where Liu Yongfu was, he learned that Liu Yongfu had gone to the flight base ten miles away from the headquarters at two o'clock in the morning.

Shi Dakai didn't plan to go to the flight base, but washed up, drank a bowl of millet porridge, and boarded the observation balloon at a position near the strait. Soon, the bombing is coming.

At this time, Liu Yongfu also left the flight base and was rushing towards the strait position in a car. The huge flight base was full of things, except for the large, flat landing and take-off field, other places, pools, maintenance workshops, storage depots, dormitories, and so on.

Even some places outside the venue were piled up with many iron oil drums, which contained a mixture of oil and cotton wool, and as long as a small bomb was stuffed into it, and when they fell from the sky, it would be a big incendiary bomb.

Four o'clock passed, and Shi Dakai and Liu Yongfu became nervous. But the sky was so dark that they couldn't see anything.

At this time, Li Xin, the commander of the 2nd Regiment of the Airship Army, who was in charge of the air raid operation, was sitting in his car, constantly twisting his head around, and looking at the sky and land in front of him through a high-powered telescope. Although the sky is still dark and the view is not very good, at this altitude, whether it is the light of the land or the light of the sky. Can't escape his eyes.

Li Xin is the eldest grandson of Li Shien, who has been out of the army for many years and died of illness in the second half of last year.

Li Shien can be said to be the first general to die in the founding class of meritorious service. But he still has a lot of connections in the army, Li Xin is not yet thirty years old this year, so he hung up the rank of colonel and joined the airship army with the support of the prince.

Ahead, the black island line is already in sight, looking through the binoculars, Li Xin judged some sizes, locations, if not bad, it should be Bindan Island. It is an island that is almost the same as Singapore, larger than Singapore Island, bordering the Singapore Strait in the north, 40 kilometers away from Singapore, and 246 kilometers of coastline in the South China Sea in the east. It covers an area of nearly 1,100 square kilometers, with a maximum length of about 50 kilometers from east to west and north to south.

But such an island was abandoned by the British, because it did not have a deep water bay like Singapore Island, and its existence was also a barrier for Singapore, shielding Singapore Island from the wind and waves on the eastern sea.

The route is correct. All that's left is to fly to Singapore. Li Xin breathed a sigh of relief, "Send a signal to the back, we were on top of the British in an hour." ”

Five o'clock is approaching.

Shi Dakai and Liu Yongfu were all nervous, a trace of morning light had appeared in the sky, and when the red color was so white, black dots finally appeared in the whiteness.

Sixty huge airships, at an altitude of one thousand meters, are like a group of small black dots.

Singapore has arrived, and the goal is at hand. Through the high-powered telescope, Li Xin was already able to see the warships docked in the harbor of Singapore. These cold behemoths look as small as toys in small second-hand ones at the moment. So small that Li Xin couldn't even tell which warship was a battleship and which warship was a cruiser.

Li Xin glanced at the watch on his wrist, five o'clock, now it's five o'clock.

"Tell everyone that the target is ahead, ready to fight-"

The signal soldier turned on the signal light at the tail end of the airship, and the order was transmitted, and Li Xin felt that the speed of the airship seemed to be faster.

At 5:30, the port of Singapore raised a piercing alarm! (To be continued......)