Tangier is a place with a long history. It is said that the Phoenicians established a city here in the sixth century BC, and it was already an important trading city at that time.

Later, it was occupied by many countries in turns, including the ancient Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs. In the 15th century, the Portuguese took over the city from the Arabs and ran it until a few years ago.

A few years ago, the Spanish took this city from the Portuguese!

For more than two thousand years, many rulers have successively controlled it, allowing the city to incorporate a variety of architectural styles and customs.

The reason why this city changes owners every once in a while and continues to be raging is because of its very critical geographical location, located on the Pacific coast at the southern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.

It is only about thirty kilometers away from Europe, that is, Spain in the north of the Strait of Gibraltar, and only more than ninety kilometers away from Cadiz, the important trading port city of the Spanish on the Atlantic coast.

Of course, more importantly, this place can easily control the Strait of Gibraltar. By controlling these and a powerful navy, we can basically control the Strait of Gibraltar.

Coupled with the local climate being pleasant and suitable for living, many countries will naturally be watching.

In the past, it was the locals in Europe and North Africa who snatched it away. Now, it is the turn of the Chu Empire.

The vanguard fleet of the Great Chu Empire's European expedition fleet, after traveling north to the Strait of Gibraltar and wandering around for a while, directly chose this place to stay.

Whether a large-scale military base or trading port will be built here in the future is another matter, but it is very reliable to take it first and use it as a foothold.

As a result, the Chu fleet, consisting of several warships and transport ships, decided to land here.

As for the Spanish in the city?

I'm sorry that I was directly ignored by the Chu people.

Even before landing, the Chu expedition fleet did not send anyone to inquire about the situation in the city. They had no idea that the city had been occupied by the Spanish for several years.

Several major officers in the expeditionary fleet thought this place belonged to Morocco.

Then the Spanish garrison in Tangier were dumbfounded.

What's going on?

How come these Chu people landed directly without making any noise?

It seems that they have not offended these Chu people recently, and there has been no conflict between the two families. Even when the Chu people swept across West Africa and occupied the port city of Tarfaya in southern Morocco, the Spaniards even sent envoys out

Woolen cloth.

When the envoys passed by, they only cautiously asked them why the Chu people came to Europe. As for resisting the Chu people from sweeping across West Africa and invading Morocco?

They didn't dare to mention a word.

Unlike some European countries that do not know the world situation, the Spaniards have traveled all over the world and have a clear understanding of the world situation. They are very aware of the power of the Chu people.

They won't offend the Chu people for nothing. Even if the Chu people bully their superiors, they will actually tolerate it most of the time. For example, in recent years, the Chu people have frequently invaded the Mexican areas controlled by the troupes in North America, and even brought down their subordinates.

The California Peninsula was occupied, and then it continued to march into Mexico, occupying a large area.

However, although the Spaniards expressed a lot of protest, they occasionally organized local resistance.

However, the Spanish never offended the Chu people over this, and they did not dare to send troops to fight back and attack the North American territory controlled by the Chu people. Even the trade between the two sides did not stop for this reason.

In this world, the three countries that have a clear understanding of the strength of the Chu people are Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

And it is precisely because they understand clearly that they are even more afraid.

It will not be like the previous Kingdom of Morocco. When they saw the Chu people coming to attack, they didn't even understand the situation of the Chu people, so they hurriedly organized an army to fight back.

As a result, the five thousand troops dispatched collapsed and more than half of them were lost.

Moreover, the Moroccan counterattack army, which lost more than 2,000 people, did not even see clearly what the Chu people looked like, because they had never seen the Chu people from the beginning to the end, and they were fired upon by a burst of naval gunfire when they were far away from the city.

The shelling collapsed.

The Moroccans did not understand the Chu people, so they attacked recklessly. In the end, not only did they not recapture the city, but they also lost their troops. The most important thing is that I heard that the Chu people later sent warships and captured several other coastal cities of the Moroccans.

It was bombarded again.

What is embarrassing is that the Chu people also hit the wrong person on the way.

It seems that the Chu people don't know much about the situation in North Africa and Europe, or they don't care to know about it. They only know that there is a Kingdom of Morocco in northwest Africa.

Then it is taken for granted that the Northwest Africa region belongs to the Kingdom of Morocco, including those coastal cities in Northwest Africa.

But I don’t know at all that the current Alawi dynasty in Morocco was established not long ago. Most of its controlled areas are in the inland areas, and many places along the coast are actually colonies controlled by Europeans.

Well, just like Tangier.

As a result, several warships sent out by the Chu State Expeditionary Fleet were indiscriminate and bombarded the coastal cities they saw along the way. As a result, many coastal colonial cities controlled by Europeans, mainly the Portuguese and Spanish, were bombarded!

This sounds very strange, and I feel that the Chu people are confused.

But if you understand the psychology of Chu people... then you won't find it strange.

Because in the eyes of the Chu people, the indigenous people in North Africa and Europe are actually just like that. They are a little better than the tribal indigenous people in Africa, but they are not that good either.

Anyway, in front of rifled guns, they are all useless.

This condescending mental state also led to the fact that the Chu people did not care much about how many countries there were in Europe and what the relationship was between them.

No matter what country they are or how powerful they are, they will always be the leeks of Chu State.

The actions of the Chu people in Europe, namely the European Free Trade Plan, have never targeted a single European country, but the entire European region, well, and North Africa by the way.

Therefore, when conducting military strikes, there is no bother to distinguish who is who.

If you have time to figure out the local situation and find out whose city this is, it would be easier and less troublesome to just fire up artillery.

After all, to figure out the situation, you still need to send people to land to inquire about the situation. If there are fewer people sent, you may encounter danger or something. And when direct bombardment, you don’t even need to enter the port, just go directly to the port a short distance away.

There are only a few kilometers of sea left to carry out shelling and that's it.

These days, the cities in North Africa and Europe are quite small in area, unlike the cities in Chu State that often have hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and the city area is also huge.

The urban areas of these European indigenous cities are very small, and many of them are fortress cities. For these small cities with small areas and small populations, there is no need to carry out large-scale bombardments. Direct and precise shelling can destroy them.

The port and the city near the port were destroyed.

The artillery used by the European Expeditionary Force of the Dachu Empire were all rifled artillery. Even the relatively backward front-loading rifled artillery equipped by the navy used cylindrical shells with a very large charge.

The front-mounted rifled cannon equipped on the cruiser fired 150mm high-explosive grenades. Compared with this era, its huge power was devastating.

For those small coastal cities that are indigenous to Europe, it is not necessary to use the entire fleet. Just dragging a cruiser or even a frigate over to carry out bombardment can cause huge losses to them.

And relying on such strong strength, the Chu people's mentality has always been very stable: I will hit you, and I will hit the wrong person, but what can you do?

What we pay attention to is the fine tradition of Chu's foreign expansion: arrogant and shameless!

The same is true now in Tangier. The Chu troops who landed did not care who the people were in Tangier, they just landed directly and that was it.

When the first few armed merchant ships carrying soldiers began to land on the side of Tangier City, there was a frigate approaching from the rear, providing naval gun cover at any time.

At the same time, the cruiser Qiongzhou and a frigate were next door, preparing to conduct a roll call and clearing bombardment of Tangier and other targets.

Then the Spaniards in the city were dumbfounded.

Before they had time to figure out why the other party was coming, and even before the envoys they sent to inquire got on the ship and went to sea, the opposing warships were already shelling a few kilometers away.

After the Chu Navy officially opened fire, huge plumes of smoke and dust began to rise from Tangier Port, accompanied by bursts of dull explosions.

The loudest among them was the sound caused by the explosion of high-explosive grenades fired by the Type 27 150mm front-loading rifled gun on the cruiser Qiongzhou.

The Qiongzhou cruiser is the eighth ship of the Jinzhou-class cruiser of the Chu Empire.

The Jinzhou-class cruiser is the previous generation core battleship of the Dachu Empire Navy, and it is very special. This battleship is the first large-scale mass production of the Dachu Imperial Navy, and it is also the last large-scale mass production, and in

A main cruiser with a front-mounted rifled gun was adopted during the design stage.

Because after the Jinzhou-class cruiser, the Dachu Empire's development of breech-loading rifled guns was relatively smooth. After the Jinzhou-class cruiser, the new generation of Datong-class cruisers began to use breech-loading rifled guns.

This also makes the Jinzhou-class cruiser the only main cruiser in the Chu Empire that uses front-mounted rifled guns in the design stage.

But although it seems that there is only one kind, the number of Jinzhou-class cruisers is actually very large, reaching a total of twenty-eight.

At the same time, this does not mean that the Dachu Empire's cruisers are the only ones that use front-mounted rifled guns. In fact, the Dachu Empire also modified the previous three Fengzhou-class cruisers, and they were modified during construction.

Busan cruiser, then there are four Toongshu-class cruisers equipped with forward-mounted rifled guns.

There are a total of thirty-two ships in the above two classes.

In addition, there are eight cruisers modified from old battleships with relatively small tonnage. Although the performance of these old battleships with iron ribs and wooden hulls and old steam engines is a bit poor, their tonnage is there, no matter what, they are two to three thousand tons.

Therefore, some ships that were relatively new and in relatively good condition were modified at that time, mainly with front-mounted rifled guns, and continued to serve as cruisers after modification.

The forty cruisers mentioned above are the main cruisers of the Chu Empire currently equipped with forward-mounted rifled guns. They are widely distributed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and various coastal waters of the mainland, and undertake the main combat missions.

In addition to them, there are actually more than twenty old cruisers that have no modification value and are still equipped with front-mounted smoothbore guns.

It's just that these cruisers are relatively old, and some don't even have steam engines...the overall combat effectiveness is too low, and they currently have no modification value.

These ships are basically hanging around in the second and third tier fleets. If it weren't for maintaining the establishment and training officers and soldiers, the Navy would want to retire them all.

There are also some older ones that have been mothballed, but it sounds like they are mothballed, but in reality they are just being dumped on the dock waiting to be sold.

Or some ships in better condition may be bought, refitted, and then used as merchant ships, but the fate of most of these ships will be scrapped.

Strictly speaking, these battleships that have been mothballed and sold do not have little combat value. At least they are very good for fighting the indigenous people, but the cost-effectiveness of use is too low.

A battleship has at least two to three hundred crew members, and the crew salary alone is not a small sum. Then a group of highly paid naval officers and soldiers sail an old-fashioned warship equipped with forward-mounted smoothbore cannons to go on a long journey... This is perfectly fine.

It’s an advanced fighter pilot driving a tractor to farm!
To be continued...