Chapter 1038

After a day and a night of sailing, the warships led by Yue Yun arrived in the waters off Manila.

Along the way, they did not encounter any attacks, and the voyage was very dull. But when they arrived in Manila, their spirits were immediately lifted.

“The Dutch have actually built a trench position on the beach. It seems they are ready to fight us to the end.” Through his binoculars, Liu Chen discovered Dutch soldiers moving around in the trenches.

In addition to the Dutch, they also found dark-skinned local natives in the trenches. These natives were wearing the same khaki-colored military uniforms as the Dutch and were watching them with weapons in their hands.

“There are about four thousand Dutch soldiers. They have trained quite a few local natives, about five thousand of them.” Liu Chen continued to analyze.

Yue Yun was also observing the Dutch’s beachhead position. He had to say that the commander in charge of the defense was somewhat capable.

But to him, such a defense was not enough to stop the marines from landing. After all, the warships he was leading were floating artillery positions, and these Dutchmen putting their position so close was simply asking for death.

“Go directly into the harbor and let the Dutch see what an ironclad warship is.” Yue Yun was at ease. The King-Class’s armor, which was over three hundred millimeters thick, was not just for show.

Upon receiving the order, the fleet sailed directly into Manila’s harbor, and at the same time, the muzzles of all the warships were aimed at the position the Dutch had built.

“Boom boom boom…”

The Dutch artillery first opened fire. The explosive shells flew over five hundred meters and directly bombarded the Great Yu Empire’s warships, causing explosions.

But in this round of shelling, the exploding shells did not cause any damage to the hull of the warships.

Ironclads were built for the purpose of defending against explosive shells, so their armor was very thick, and ordinary explosive shells could not penetrate the warship’s armor at all.

In the beachhead position, Eric was observing the damage caused by the explosions through his binoculars. To his disappointment, their shells did not cause any damage to the fleet.

Then the artillery in the harbor continued to bombard the Empire’s fleet, but the result was the same. The explosion of the shells could not even deform the ironclads’ armor.

“You should recognize the reality now, we are just waiting to die here,” Eric said to Simon, who was observing the imperial warships with binoculars.

“These ironclads are simply incredible. How on earth were they built?” Simon’s eyes were filled with fear, because he had not had much contact with the Chinese Empire in Manila.

When he agreed to hold the position, he never thought he would encounter such a situation. The steel warships lined up on the sea had truly scared him.

But he still held a glimmer of hope. He said, “Eric, hold on. Don’t forget our goal. As long as we get our hands on the Han-style rifles, we can live a prosperous life after we return to the Netherlands.”

Eric’s reason for agreeing to stay was also for this purpose. He understood the high price of the Chinese Empire’s technology in Europe.

Now the entire Europe was eyeing the Chinese Empire’s technology, especially its weapon technology. The generous rewards had caused many desperate people to travel to Asia.

They either pretended to be merchants or were members of pirate crews, but their purpose was all the same: to get the Empire’s technology.

“Are the escape boats really ready?” Eric asked again.

Simon nodded heavily. “We will leave once we get what we want.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a fierce roar came from the sea. Flames and white smoke spewed from the muzzles of the ironclads, and then countless flames erupted on the trench position he had dug.

At this moment, the earth seemed to be trembling.

Eric and Simon immediately lay on the ground in the trench at the sight of this. The bombardment was still ongoing. The impact of the explosions constantly shook the mud, and pieces of clothes and severed limbs and blood flew everywhere.

In just this one round of bombardment, the Dutch soldiers in the position were in a sorry state, but this was only the beginning. Round after round of shelling began.

Huge explosions constantly sent clouds of dirt flying from the position. Some shells landed in the trenches, directly blowing up a section of the trench.

And the artillery emplacements in the harbor were destroyed one by one under the bombardment. After five rounds of firing, the sound of the artillery suddenly stopped. At this time, the position was as silent as a no-man’s land.

On the King-Class, Yue Yun clicked his tongue as he watched six soldiers stuff a huge shell into a turret. This cannon was a 305mm main gun.

After such a long period of technological accumulation, the Empire’s navy had initially entered the ironclad era of dreadnoughts.

With a shell of this size, one shot in a naval battle would be enough to destroy a sailing warship, leaving nothing behind.

Looking around and finding that all the artillery emplacements had been destroyed, he said to Liu Chen, “Now it’s time for you marines to make your appearance.”

Liu Chen had already assembled his soldiers. At this time, he had the signalman wave flags to notify the marines on the other warships to prepare to land.

In this bombardment, at least two-tenths of the Dutch and native armies on the position were killed, but in his opinion, the threat caused by the shelling was more frightening than the deaths.

One landing boat after another was lowered from the warships into the sea. The troop transports quickly advanced towards the beach. After all the artillery emplacements were destroyed, there was no threat to them at sea. If the Dutch ran out of the position, they would suffer from the bombardment of the warships.

After successfully landing, Liu Chen immediately ordered the soldiers to advance towards the beachhead position in a skirmish line. At the same time, the machine gunners, under the protection of the soldiers, looked for an open area to set up their guns.

After all this was done, the marines advanced towards the Dutch position step by step, but what everyone found strange was that the Dutch position was as quiet as a grave.

“Chen Wei, lead your men in a charge,” Liu Chen said. He hated trench warfare the most, because both sides would confront each other in a stalemate for years on end.

Chen Wei was the company commander of the First Regiment of the Marines. He waved his hand, and over a thousand soldiers charged towards the Dutch position.

Three hundred meters, two hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters. The distance to the Dutch position was getting closer, but the Dutch still did not counterattack.

Seeing that they were about to charge into the trench, Chen Wei suddenly ordered all the soldiers to lie down and commanded, “Prepare grenades, throw a wave of grenades, and then everyone charge. Don’t hold back.”

The order was passed down one by one. After a moment of waiting, Chen Wei shouted, “Throw!”

Following his action, the soldiers all threw their grenades into the trench. Immediately, the foremost trench was filled with fire and smoke.

At the same time, they heard the screams of the Dutch being killed by the explosions.

At this moment, Chen Wei shouted, “Kill!”

Eric had been waiting for the Chinese Empire’s charge. To him, this battle was nothing more than a transaction to exchange lives for Han-style rifles.

Therefore, he had dug the trenches very deep this time, with the purpose of having the imperial soldiers jump into the pit to fight them in hand-to-hand combat. In this way, they would have a chance to seize their equipment, and this was his only chance. If he failed, his life would be very miserable.