Landing Battle

After being hit by the sudden attack, the Turkey squadron immediately lost the courage to continue and turned back to move away from the Tripoli fortress. During this process, two more ships were hit by the fortress, but the damage caused by solid shells was not so great.

This probing attack came to an end. After the Turkey attack ended, the Barbary Pirates became active again. They even sent two ships out of the harbor and began throwing large, barrel-like objects into the sea.

"The pirates are laying mines! Sir, should we stop them?" Major Kohler asked hastily.

"What did we promise? The agreed deadline isn't until tomorrow?" Admiral Treville asked.

"Yes, Your Excellency, but this is them actively threatening our freedom of navigation," Major Kohler replied.

"Ah, so you're saying we were acting in self-defense?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. I am absolutely certain."

"Very well! Since they've taken the initiative to threaten us, we should retaliate without hesitation and never give the enemy a chance to fire a second shot..."

So the France fleet, consisting of several warships equipped with new cannons—the battleships Imperator Caesar, and the armored cruisers Free Trade and Common Market —lined up in a row, their turrets rotating and their guns pointing at their targets.

"All ships, take aim and fire at will," Admiral Treville ordered, and the four newest warships opened fire one after another. At this time, the distance between the France warships and the Barbary Pirates' mine-laying vessels was still quite far, about 1.5 kilometers.

In the past, even on land, such a distance of artillery fire would have been difficult to hit, let alone at sea. However, the effect of this volley of fire greatly exceeded everyone's expectations. Although the first salvo failed to hit even a single shell, judging from the impact points of the shells, the closest point of impact was only a few dozen meters away from the pirates' ships.

Based on the observation posts' observations of the impact points, the France fleet quickly adjusted and fired another salvo. This salvo also failed to hit its target, but the result greatly pleased Admiral Treville, as the observation posts clearly saw that a straddle shot had occurred during this salvo.

The term "crossfire" refers to a salvo from warships where, although the shells do not directly hit the enemy vessel, their impact area surrounds it. To put it more vividly, shells are falling from all sides of the enemy ship. This means that all the data from the firing side is accurate, and whether or not a hit occurs becomes purely a matter of probability. As long as several salvos are fired, a hit is guaranteed.

This volley of crossfire terrified the Barbary Pirates. They never expected the France shells to be so accurate at such a distance; the water jets kicked up by the shells had even splashed onto the deck.

"Quickly, drop all those mines!" Captain Ali shouted.

Several Black men were dragging a small cart carrying a mine towards the stern of the ship. They pushed the cart onto a slipway there. One of the Black crew members pulled out a knife, preparing to cut the rope attached to the mine—this would separate the cart, anchor chain, and other components from the mine, allowing it to function effectively. But just then, a shell landed on the ship, splashing seawater onto the deck. One of the Black men controlling the cart slipped, and the mine, still attached to its cart, slid down the slipway.

"You idiot! You've wasted a precious mine! Do you know how expensive it is?!" Captain Ali grabbed his whip and charged forward, ready to teach these foolish black men a lesson. But then his ship jolted violently, and a deafening roar reached his ears—his ship had been hit by a cannonball.

"Quick, retreat!" Captain Ali no longer cared about whipping the black men; his ship still had several mines that hadn't been deployed yet. If these were hit by cannon fire, it would be a real disaster...

The two-masted sailing ship clumsily made a turn, preparing to return to port, but at that moment France cannonballs rained down.

"God is great, and Maimaiti is God's messenger..." Ali prayed to God while personally operating the steering wheel, making erratic turns to avoid the shelling.

It seemed as if God was protecting him, because thereafter, the France cannon fire always missed his ship by just a hair's breadth. Several times, the shells landed not far from the ship, splashing seawater that even drenched him, but they never hit his vessel.

"God, please unleash your thunder upon those rebels!" Tayyip couldn't help but pray fervently to God as the France had already opened fire, but the pirate ship seemed to be divinely aided in always dodging the cannonballs.

By this time, Captain Ali's two-masted ship was approaching the harbor. The France seemed to have given up the pursuit and were no longer determined to sink it. They fired a final salvo from a great distance, and then—and then the two-masted ship exploded into pieces right before Tayyip's eyes—apparently, a shell had struck the ship and detonated a mine.

"God is great! God is great!" Tayyip cheered, and the Turkey soldiers around him joined in. If Joseph had seen this scene, he would have found it familiar, the only difference being that two things were missing: an AK-47 and a Toyota pickup truck.

The day's fighting ended there. The France took no further action, and the Turkey, having lost a warship, showed no intention of continuing their relentless attack. Furthermore, it was getting late, and the sun was gradually sinking below the horizon. Thus, the day's operations appeared to have come to an end.

In fact, the military operations did not end that day. That evening, several small boats were rowed from the Turkey fleet. These boats carried the bravest warriors, who were ordered to go ashore first, infiltrate the port, and wait to act as inside agents when the main army landed.

That same night, the Barbary Pirates also organized a night raiding party, consisting of straggling fast ships loaded with explosives, intending to attack the Turkey fleet. As for why they didn't attack the France fleet, the reason was simple: the France ships were too fast for them to get close enough.

However, the conditions that night were not ideal for launching such an attack, as the darkness was excellent and visibility at sea was quite good, so the raiding fleet was spotted before it even got close. The Turkey then unleashed a barrage of artillery fire, driving the stragglers back.

Of course, neither the Turkey nor the France attempted to pursue the pirates. Everyone knew these pirates were cunning; their ships had a shallow draft, making them immune to the hidden mines, but if you foolishly chased after them, you might just get hit with a deafening roar...

Of course, the Barbary Pirates laid mines again that night. But the France weren't too concerned, because as far as they knew, the number of mines the Britain sold to the Barbary Pirates was very limited, far fewer than the number sold to the Turkey —so what was there to worry about? Besides, moored mines, especially those of this era, actually had many limitations and weren't truly without ways to deal with them.

The next morning, as the sun once again painted the sea red, the France ultimatum to the Barbary Pirates expired. Now, the war could officially begin.

According to the plan reached at the operational meeting last night, the French Navy will first launch a fire attack on the Tripoli forts today, while the Turkey fleet will patiently wait until high tide at noon. The France explain that the Britain mines are controlled by a fixed-length anchor chain. Since this chain is of fixed length, at high tide, the mines will be too deep to reach the bottom of the ships. Therefore, it will be relatively safe for the Turkey fleet to attack at this time.

Of course, this was just the France's conjecture, and no one could say for sure what the actual situation would be. However, Tayyip still had great faith in the France —he needed merit, and the number of deaths was not a big problem.

By around 8:00 a. m., visibility at sea had improved considerably. Four new France warships formed a column and began shelling the Tripoli from a distance of about four kilometers.

At that time, apart from the France, no other warships could fire upon targets on shore from such a distance. Even for the France, due to the immaturity of their gun stabilization systems, this distance was almost the only distance at which they could guarantee some accuracy in their artillery fire.

However, this time, the French Navy did bring something good: high-explosive shells. Although the effectiveness of the fuses for these shells remains a problem, less than 60%, and they cannot be mass-produced, only in laboratories, they represent a revolutionary improvement in power compared to the solid shot of the past. The entire France fleet carried approximately eighty of these shells, France used this new type of shell in this bombardment.

At that time, since high-explosive shells had never been used before, most of the cannons on the forts were placed in the open air, with at most a few pieces of cloth propped up on them as sunshades.

If we disregard the threat of high-explosive shells falling from the sky, there's actually nothing wrong with this design of adding a sunshade to the cannon. Especially in this era, it was virtually impossible for a naval cannon to accurately hit another cannon. Naturally, there was no need to add a thick concrete cover to the cannon like in later fortifications, capable of withstanding a direct hit from a tall cabinet. In an era without high-explosive shells, adding such a cover to a fortification would be a complete waste of money.

However, in the era of high-explosive shells, such an open-air gun emplacement, whose location was clearly visible to warships at sea, was no longer very safe. In the first round of shelling, the France fired twenty shells at the turret. Excluding those that missed or did not explode, seven shells still detonated on the turret.

The high-explosive shells of the 150mm cannon were incredibly powerful. When they exploded (if they could even detonate), they could produce thousands of shrapnel fragments that could easily tear a human body even after traveling forty or fifty meters. As a result, these shells wiped out all the soldiers on the gun emplacement, including Commander Barbary, who was directing the battle. More than a hundred people perished in such a bombardment.

On the other hand, the blast waves from the high-explosive shells even overturned the cannons on the fortress. It can be said that after such a round of shelling, the Tripoli fortress was completely out of threat for a short period of time.

After this round of shelling, the France fleet stopped firing. After all, high-explosive shells were too expensive—at least much more expensive than Turkey soldiers—so they wanted to save money wherever possible.

After the France bombardment was completed, the tide gradually rose, and the Turkey warships began to ride the tide toward the port. Just as the France had predicted, the Britain anchor mines did not have an automatic depth-adjusting function, and none of them detonated due to the high tide and the great depth.

With the mines not detonating and the fortifications suppressed, the Turkey fleet quickly approached the port and launched its sampans. Some Turkey soldiers boarded the small boats with various weapons and rowed towards the port dock.

The Barbary Pirates were no pushovers. Although the France bombardment had inflicted heavy losses on them, and the mines they had bought at a high price from the Britain were not as effective as they had been the day before, their resistance remained extremely resolute.

Besides purchasing some mines, the Barbary Pirates also bought a considerable number of cheap iron cannons from the Britain. These cannons were of poor quality and therefore unfit for use on gun emplacements (as there wasn't enough space on the emplacements anyway). So the Barbary Pirates simply placed these cannons on the docks and hid them in dilapidated shacks. When the Turkey approached in their small boats, they used these old cannons to unleash a barrage of grapeshot at the Turkey.

The continuous firing of more than thirty old-fashioned iron cannons turned the Turkey soldiers, who were still on small boats with nowhere to escape, into a bloodbath. The Turkey warships caught up and used their cannons to support their own soldiers. The Barbary Pirates also replaced their iron cannons with solid shot and exchanged fire with the Turkey warships.

The cannonballs fired from these old-fashioned iron cannons would only make a bang if they hit the new France warships. But when they hit the historically significant Turkey warships, the effect was very noticeable. In less than an hour of fighting, two Turkey warships were sunk, and six or seven others were damaged to varying degrees.

Some Turkey soldiers managed to reach the shore, but they were immediately subjected to heavy fire from pirates hiding in various houses, armed with all kinds of guns.

Time passed slowly, and the tide began to recede, but the Turkey made little progress. Once the tide dropped to a certain level, the mines would become useful again. To avoid losing warships due to the mines, the Turkey had to withdraw from the battle.