Lin Yuan listened to Liu Hao's words, and couldn't help but feel excited, from Taiwan's mineral deposits, he knew that Taiwan has a large amount of coal, sulfur, iron ore, of which iron ore is all over the river estuary area, mining and transportation is very convenient, Taiwan also has a large number of raw materials necessary for the chemical industry, such as dolomite, serpentine, etc., these deposits contain a large number of magnesium, calcium and other elements necessary for the chemical industry.

Lin Yuan's idea is very good, with the help of Liu Hao, a large number of chemical raw materials from Taiwan will be transported to Ryukyu, but this idea is difficult to realize in the short term, because the war broke out!

On December 20, 1894, a British fleet consisting of six Sovereign-class battleships, eight armored cruisers, and fifteen destroyers arrived at Lingdingyang outside the mouth of the Pearl River.

When the fleet arrived at the mouth of the Pearl River, what it did was a replica of the Opium War of 1840, when the British fleet first detained all Chinese ships at the mouth of the Pearl River and launched a tentative attack on the fortress of Humen.

Humen Fortress is located 120 miles southeast of Guangzhou, and is the throat of the Pearl River into Lingdingyang. The terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Ming Dynasty Yongle built a garrison here, the Qing Dynasty from the 56th year of Kangxi to the 14th year of Daoguang, after more than 100 years of operation, the Humen Fortress has been built with 14 forts, three important defensive fortresses.

Before the First Opium War, when Guan Tianpei was operating the fortress, in order to prevent the enemy ships from breaking into the Pearl River and threatening the city of Guangzhou, he laid two obstacles in the Pearl River channel, including barrage cables and large wooden piles, which were destroyed by the British fleet in the First Opium War, and were never repaired since, while the batteries of the Humen fortress group improved the design of the fortress and re-added artillery.

One historian once said, "Every war is enough to make a huge book." "It is true that a war is made up of several battles and hundreds of battles, and there is much to be written about here, and for one of the greatest wars in the history of mankind, we might as well put aside for a moment the big enough to be written in the history books, and start with two small people.

The Humen fortress group has a defense system of three gates, from the entrance of Lingdingyang to the north, there is Shajiao Mountain in the east, and Dajiao Mountain in the west. However, the firing range of the coastal guns is only about 1,000 meters, but the sea surface outside the batteries is as wide as more than 3,000 meters, so it is difficult for the guns of these two batteries to produce substantial damage to the incoming enemy ships, so these two batteries have been changed into command batteries to play an early warning role.

The mighty British fleet approached the Humen fortress group, and the four 343-mm main guns of the Sovereign-class battleships opened fire first, followed by eight armored cruisers, and the dense artillery fire immediately covered the batteries of Shajiao Mountain and Dajiao Mountain, and the batteries immediately sent a signal to prepare for battle, so that the batteries of the second and third portals were ready.

From the first gateway along the river, there are upper and lower rungs of the island towering in the middle of the river, the channel west of the island is more reefs, inconvenient to pass, only the east side of the channel is passable, there are three forts on both sides, this is the second portal, Sun Jiang is a gunner in the Zhenyuan fort in the second portal.

In view of the assassination of the British ambassador to China, Kelhill, in Beijing, and the British repeatedly threatened each other with war, so the fort fortress also strengthened its garrison, and every day it was declared that the battle could start at any time, but Sun Jiang felt that this battle could not be fought!

Sun Jiang thought, "Didn't that British minister be killed by the Boxers in Beijing?" There is no Boxer Rebellion in Guangzhou, and the British should go to Beijing to fight if they want to fight, so what are you trying to do in Guangzhou! ”

Early this morning he heard the sound of artillery from a distance, he thought he had heard it wrong, but soon he saw the cannon of the Dajiaoshan Fort, the so-called cannon was modified with fireworks, although it was in the daytime, it also looked very bright, the first Humen Fort was an open-air fort, although there was a wall around it, but there was no roof on it, so the artillery was easy to rust, in the Opium War, many artillery pieces failed, and later learned this lesson when the fort was rebuilt, and a top was installed on the fort, A fortress-like structure was formed.

Sun Jiang looked through the observation port of the fort and saw five warships heading towards the fort.

These five warships are all British 30-knot destroyers, and the so-called 30-knot destroyers mean that the speed is at 30 knots, and at this time, Hill, the young gun chief on the Havoc, is in confusion.

Destroyers of this class were tasked with defending the main battleships in defense, attacking the enemy's torpedo boats at high speeds; During the attack, it was responsible for the surprise attack task of firing torpedoes at close range, and because the range of torpedoes in that era was generally only five or six hundred meters, few commanders gave this order.

There was only one 76-mm gun and two 47-mm guns on board, which was simply not enough to hit the fortifications on the shore, but why did the commander of the fleet give them an order to enter the channel? The channel was less than 1,000 meters wide, and there were batteries on both sides, but despite this, he still didn't have much fear in his heart, after all, the combat effectiveness of the Qing soldiers was negligible.

At this moment, the deck under his feet began to tremble again, this is because in order to reduce the weight when the warship was designed, the deck was designed to be very thin, resulting in a low natural frequency, and often resonance occurred during the journey.

Due to the lack of attention to air conditioning in the cabin, condensation often occurs on the ceiling, which drips on people while they sleep, and it is cold and cold, but despite this, Hill voluntarily stays on the ship, because there are no annoying, endless duties on large warships, and there is also a more comprehensive study of naval knowledge here, paving the way for future development, and the thought that one day I will be able to wear a general's uniform with lace on my sleeves, a war knife and a scepter embroidered on my epaulettes, and an eight-pointed star, He felt that it was all worth it now!

And his opponent, Sun Jiang in the fortress, wanted to save enough money as soon as possible to bribe Shangguan and find a comfortable and oily errand for himself!

Perhaps it is the differences between these two little people that will ultimately determine the fate of the two empires.

This is not the first time that the Qing Empire has faced an undeclared war, and the Shangguan gave the order, raised the ground and sunk the cannon, and prepared to fire!

Following the order of the officer, the soldiers in the fortress took action one after another, and the transporter transporting the ammunition tore off his jacket, folded it thickly, took it in his hand, and ran down the gentle slope of the ammunition depot into the underground ammunition storage point.

Every time Sun Jiang saw this kind of scene, he would think: "Why don't you make a device like a well when you draw water, wouldn't it be faster to take out the shells?" But every time he had this kind of thought, he would tell himself: "This kind of thing can't be taken care of by himself, but you must not say it, the rafters at the beginning will rot first, in case Shangguan has a bad impression of himself, it will not be good!" ”

At this time, he saw a puff of smoke rising from the warship on the river, and he suddenly thought: The other party has fired first!