Fox of France

Before the tide receded, the Turks retreated, and their losses were quite serious. At least, the French have rarely seen their own people lose so much over the years. However, the Turkish commander Tayyip Pasha didn't care much about it. Tayyip Pasha had fought the Russians and the Austrians in the Balkans, and he had seen many more Turks dead than that. In his opinion, today's loss is nothing more than a drizzle. Well, although the specific figures have not yet been calculated, but the rough figures have come out, Tayyip Pasha lost less than a thousand people. You see, there are less than a thousand people. If this is not drizzle, what is it?

Of course, Tayyip Pasha still had some dissatisfaction with his French allies. He also saw the effect of the French high-explosive bombs on the warships. If the French also bombarded the port of Tripoli with such shells in today's attack, the Turks can completely occupy an area, and then rely on With superiority in military strength and firepower, the occupied area was gradually expanded, and finally the entire Tripoli was captured.

So after the day's offensive was over, when the generals of the two armies came to the conference room of the "Imberado" again to discuss the follow-up combat plan, Tayip Pasha immediately proposed that the French should strengthen Fire support, supporting the Turkish Army with "explosive shells".

But the Frenchman turned him down without hesitation.

"Dear Pasha, please forgive me for having to refuse your request. We can support you with firepower, but the high-explosive bombs that can explode are not." Admiral Treville immediately refused, "This kind of shell production It is difficult, expensive, and the output is limited, and we don’t bring many ourselves. Today, a small half of the stock has been destroyed. There are still several cities behind us that need to be attacked, and we must keep these shells for use until then. However, if you agree, we can still provide you with equally effective fire support."

"My friend, what plan do you have, let's discuss it..."

The next day, the Turks and French again made an offensive posture, waiting for the rising tide outside the port of Tripoli. The Barbary pirates also made plans to fight against the Turkish landing.

This time the French fleet still stayed at a relatively distant position like yesterday-obviously, it is still up to the Turks to do things that may suffer great losses such as direct landing operations, perhaps when the Turks capture a relatively stable position. The French would join in after they gained a foothold.

The French army, especially the French army, has been so prestigious over the years that even the Barbary pirates have heard of it a lot. When the Barbary pirates boarded Italy to rob a few years ago, they also had some small-scale battles with the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Even the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia was no longer something the Barbary pirates could resist. So how powerful is the French Army, which is far superior to them?

Therefore, Yusuf Pasha believes that those Turks must not be allowed to land easily, and they must not be allowed to control a stable territory. Otherwise, things will be really difficult when the French army lands. . But yesterday's attack by the French on the fort with high-explosive shells almost completely ruined it. Most of the cannons on the fort were damaged, and more importantly, the artillery on the fort was all dead. So now, no one is willing to go to the fort again. So the defense of the fort has not been restored. However, considering the time limit of the tide, as long as the pirates can hold for two hours, the enemy will retreat. So Yusuf Pasha felt that he should be able to hold on for a while longer.

The tide gradually rose, and the Turks' warships approached along the tide.

There was no firepower on the fort, and the Turks' warships approached the port smoothly. The pirates also came to the iron cannons arranged in the port and made preparations to resist landing. At this time, the French warships behind them also formed an artillery formation, and then began to attack the port.

Although the French did not use high-explosive bombs in this bombardment, for this port, the shells fired by the French were even more powerful than high-explosive bombs, because this time the French warship fired white phosphorus incendiary bombs .

The output of white phosphorus is not high, but when it is used as an incendiary bomb, its fuze is relatively simple, basically you can use the set of shrapnel. Just throw the tinder out.

As one of the bases of the pirates, the Port of Tripoli is quite chaotic and disorderly, and the distance between the buildings is very close. Although many of the buildings themselves are made of stone and adobe, the walls are piled up, but the roofs are not. They are all wooden structures, and then they are piled with bark and weeds, which are most suitable for setting fire. Now the pirates are concentrated here to resist, and it happened that a fire burned them down.

Last night, when Admiral Treville asked his staff to tell Tayyip Pasha how to attack the enemy with incendiary bombs, Tayyip Pasha quite agreed with this.

"Such rebellion should be burned like this, otherwise, how could they be willing to submit to us?" Tayip Pasha said.

"Just doing this will cause a lot of damage to the port, and many people will die, many of whom may be peaceful residents. This will cause a lot of accidental injuries. Moreover, in the future, they will also be your subjects, Pasha. ’” said Admiral Treville.

Tayip Pasha laughed and said, "Thank you, General, but this port is a pirate port. How can there be many peaceful residents? If there are men in this port, they are male pirates; if they are female, they are female pirates." ;If you are a child, you are a little pirate. These people have always been arrogant and powerful, and they will not accept the king. They only believe in force. If you don’t beat them hard, no matter how good you are to them, they will only think that you are afraid. They, if you want to rule them well, you have to kill them ruthlessly first, until they are all heartbroken, and they will truly understand your tolerance and kindness towards them.

Besides, there are still several cities behind us to take down. If you really fight one by one slowly, how long will it take and how many people will die? It's better to let them die here at once. In the ports behind, we only need to go over and set up the cannons, and we can make them kneel down and surrender. "

Since people who want to be pasha here in the future don't worry about killing too many people, why should Admiral Treville worry about him? Of course, this fire will cause a lot of damage to the port. But after France gains control of the port in the future, it will also undergo major reconstruction of the port. These messy buildings were originally to be demolished.

The year before last, Bonaparte had widened and rebuilt some streets in Paris when he was in power. As a result, a lot of demolition fees were paid. Of course, demolition here is definitely cheaper than in Paris, but France is a country ruled by law and a place where laws are taught. According to the "Civil Code", France protects the sacred and inviolable private property. If the owners of these buildings are still alive, then France must first obtain their consent if they want to demolish these buildings. After all, the French are all reasonable and law-abiding. Therefore, for the convenience of demolition in the future, it is better for these buildings to become unowned ruins first. Why are we French people being reasonable?

Of course, this is just a self-proclaimed statement by the French. If it were the British, they would definitely say: "The biggest characteristic of the French is that they are unreasonable. As long as they have the opportunity to be unreasonable, they will definitely be unreasonable. If they occasionally reasoned, it must be because the situation is unfavorable and they have to reason."

In short, since burning Tripoli has so many benefits, it would be a pity for myself not to set it on fire. So when the pirates came to their artillery positions and were about to fight against the landing, the French warships began to bombard them.

One after another, the shells spewed out from the French gun barrels, but they did not land on the front, but flew directly behind the pirates across the front, and then exploded in the air, turning into hundreds of bullets with white smoke. The tinder fell like a rain of fire.

These fires crackled and fell on the streets and on the roofs. Coupled with the sea breeze blowing, almost in the blink of an eye, those roofs were ignited by these fires.

If the pirates were a little more sensitive when the fire fell just now, they immediately dropped everything and turned around and ran away, maybe they could escape from the fire scene before the fire was completely burned. But when these pirates saw this weapon for the first time, how could they expect its ferocity, and how could they react immediately and correctly? Therefore, this little escape time was suddenly missed. In a blink of an eye, behind them, the fire was blazing.

The wooden structure roof, plus the various flammable products covered on it, plus the strong sea breeze. The fire quickly got out of control. The red flames rose more than ten meters high, forming an impenetrable wall of fire, and burned towards the place where the pirates stood.

The fire was not yet approaching, but the heat from the flames was unbearable for the pirates. They ran towards the bay trying to jump into the water to escape the flames. But at this time the Turks' warships were approaching. The Turks showed no mercy to these pirates who had the same beliefs as them, and their warships fired violently at these pirates who fled into the sea with cannonballs. The sailors on the ship were also standing on the side of the ship with guns, and kept firing at the pirates who jumped into the sea.

If it was just one or two shots, the pirates would not be afraid. Take a deep breath, and then plunge down with a fierce thrust. Pierce it deeper, and any bullets will not work well if they get into the water. But the problem is that people are not fish after all, and it is impossible to really sink in the water and not come out. Once you float up to breathe, bullets will fly towards you immediately. As long as you pant slower and dive slower, you will be dead immediately.

The Turkish soldiers on those warships were very relaxed. They were leaning on the side of the ship and shooting at the pirates on the sea at this time, which was a bit like a game called whack-a-mole in later generations. On the surface, every now and then a head pops up, and they shoot it. Sometimes, those heads shrank all of a sudden and missed. Sometimes, the head was hit by several bullets at the same time, and it immediately exploded like a watermelon. The blood also immediately dyed the surrounding seawater red.

In the beginning, the surface of the sea was almost full of human heads. But with the constant shooting, soon there were not many gophers to fight at sea.

At this time, the fire also burned to the shore, and the fire became bigger and bigger. The flame rose to a height of tens of meters, because the hot air rose rapidly, and the surrounding cold air quickly flowed into the fire scene with a large amount of oxygen. The wind fueled the fire, and the intense heat and surging cyclone sucked in a large amount of burning debris, and formed a convergence with the influx of flammable gases, igniting the spinning and rising fire dragon. There is even a terrible spectacle on the fire ground-fire tornado.

This is a tornado composed of flames. It is a constantly twisting fiery red funnel that rises straight up hundreds of meters high, throwing all kinds of burning things in all directions. At this time, the sea water near the fire began to boil, and even the Turks' warships had to retreat, otherwise, they might also be involved in the fire.

But maybe they were so happy playing whack-a-mole just now that they didn't notice that the tide had receded a lot by this time.

In fact, it's not that no one has noticed this, it's just that everyone didn't expect that the fire would burn so badly. Everyone thought that the distance between their ships and the fire scene should already ensure safety. But now, just the light of the fire shining on their faces already made them feel stinging. And the fire tornado with a height of hundreds of meters threw a large amount of burning fire very far, and even one of them was thrown not far from the Turks' battleship.

The warships of the Turks are still sailing warships, and now some fire has fallen on their sails. Although the flames caused by these fires were quickly extinguished, this situation also forced them to constantly retreat. Until—"Boom!"

With a violent explosion, a Turkish warship began to sink rapidly - because the tide receded and the water level dropped, the mines laid by the pirates finally began to work.

But even at the risk of being hit by mines, the Turks' warships did not dare to stay so close to the sea of ​​​​fire. They continued to retreat, and after paying the price of two ships being struck by mines and sunk, they finally withdrew from the harbor.

The power of this fire not only exceeded Taip Pasha's imagination, but also exceeded Admiral Treville's expectations. The whole of Tripoli was engulfed by the fire.

"This is really...even the Great Fire of London back then, shouldn't it be more terrifying than this?" Looking at the burning city, Admiral Treville couldn't help but say this.