The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 968 Australia, open the door now!
South Pacific Ocean, near Port Moresby, Fairfax Bay, April 25, 1885, dawn.

On the towering bridge of the battleship "Jiangsu," the flagship of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's South Pacific Fleet, Admiral Zhang Bao, commander of the South Pacific Fleet, stood motionless like a mountain. He slowly moved the heavy Zeiss 8x telescope in his hand. In the telescope's field of view, the originally pitch-black sea was suddenly covered by countless points of light—not twinkling stars, but the lights released by the main force of the South Pacific Fleet ships that had just lifted blackout restrictions.

At this moment, there are more than two hundred ships of various sizes on the sea!

The massive formation stretched out to the left and right of the flagship, seemingly without end. The capital ships were as tall as moving mountains on the sea, while light cruisers and destroyers moved among them, and a large number of landing ships followed closely behind the main fleet like soldiers ready to launch an attack at any moment.

Zhang Bao lowered his binoculars, his knuckles slightly white from the effort, and muttered to himself, "More than thirty years... more than thirty years." He turned his head to look at Rear Admiral Yang Yonglin, the fleet's chief of staff, standing beside him, equally stunned by the sight. "More than thirty years ago, when I was at the Shanghai Naval Academy, the largest warship I could imagine was no more than two thousand tons! And now..."

He didn't finish speaking, nor did he need to. Because everything was laid bare before him! This was the most powerful force an industrial empire producing 11 million tons of crude steel annually could muster in the age of steam-powered battleships!
Yang Yonglin snapped back to reality, his right index finger pointing unhesitatingly at the location of Port Moresby on the unfolded nautical chart: "Admiral! After a long period of reconnaissance, we have a general grasp of the defenses of Port Moresby! The British devils think they can stop my South Pacific Fleet with a mere forty-eight shore guns and a chain of coral reefs? It's like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, utterly laughable!" His fingertip traced the Veganey Hill fortress complex on the chart, "Their greatest reliance, those 'incredibly sturdy' 10-inch shore gun emplacements, are nothing more than hard turtle shells in front of my fleet's 305mm and 280mm main guns!"

As if to confirm his words, a dazzling and intense orange-red fireball suddenly tore through the darkness on the horizon to his right! What followed was a deafening roar—the four twin-mounted 305mm main gun turrets of the battleship "Tianjing" not far in front of the flagship suddenly spewed out deadly flames!

Eight 305mm shells left the gun barrel at an initial velocity of 780 meters per second. The heavy steel shells tore through the air, emitting a shrill sound like a train whistle, and crashed with tremendous force toward the Aalborg main gun emplacement behind the reef!

A dozen seconds later, in the distance beyond the reach of sight, a blinding flash of light appeared, followed by a deafening roar! Through the telescope, a mushroom-shaped cloud of flames, thick smoke, and dust rose from the hilltop where the Aalborg Battery was located!
"Guns! Enemy guns are firing back!" the observation post on the South Pacific Fleet flagship "Jiangsu" roared in a report.

Almost simultaneously, a more muffled cannon roar came from the direction of Aalborg—it was the Australian army's 254mm heavy howitzer hidden on the reverse slope! Several dark figures, accompanied by sharp whistling sounds, flew over the reef and the sea surface, rushing towards the waters near the "Tianjing"!

One of the missiles struck the Qinghai, a Type 3 Hailong battleship parallel to the Tianjing, about 50 meters off the starboard side, creating a water column tens of meters high!

"Near miss! The 'Qinghai' has been hit by a near miss."

Hearing the sound of the observation post, Zhang Bao muttered under his breath, "They got a close miss on their first shot. What a stroke of luck! But a 254mm close miss won't do anything to the 'Sea Dragon III,' at most it'll just leak a little water."

Almost at the same instant, his fleet chief of staff, Yang Yonglin, issued an order to the communications staff: "Battleship formation, target: the reverse slope behind Aalborg! Suppress the enemy's medium and large caliber guns! First support artillery formation, approach the coral reef and suppress the enemy's beachhead positions with all your might!"

The order was relayed like lightning. Several heavily armored shallow-draft gunboats, converted from old Zhenyuan-class ironclads, roared and accelerated, ignoring the looming threat of floating mines (their thickened hulls were strong enough to withstand small mines), and brazenly charged into the dangerous shallow waters less than four kilometers from the coral reef! As the four 200mm main guns on the bow roared, the 24 newly mounted 120mm rapid-fire secondary guns on both sides simultaneously began unleashing shells on the British artillery positions and beachheads that had just been exposed. Fireballs and columns of smoke rose up, sweeping across the entire beachhead bit by bit.

Meanwhile, as dawn broke, the main fleet of the South Pacific Fleet became clearly visible between the sea and sky:

Ten imposing warships (two 21,500-ton "Qianlong II" class, four 17,500-ton "Hailong III" class, and four 16,000-ton "Hailong II" class) proudly arrayed themselves in a single column, from the lead ship "Tianjing" to the rearguard "Sichuan," their steel broadsides stretching for over seven kilometers! Forty massive twin-mounted main gun turrets slowly rotated, their muzzles all pointing towards Aalborg. Meanwhile, ten sleek, faster "Jingyuan" class armored cruisers maneuvered between the main fleet, their massive twin-mounted 210mm main gun turrets rising and falling rhythmically with the waves, their muzzles firmly locked onto targets deep within the beach, ready to launch tiered precision strikes or provide close-range fire support at any moment.

Above them, several Skyhawk airships were already in position, with observers on board holding high-powered telescopes, taking in the entire defensive layout of Port Moresby and ready to make corrections for the main battle group's artillery fire at any time.

Suddenly, a series of earth-shaking roars resounded as all 80 massive 305mm, 280mm, and 240mm cannons unleashed enormous orange-red fireballs. Eighty huge high-explosive shells whistled through the sky, crossed the Aalborg Heights, and rained down on the reverse slope positions behind it.
Beneath Aalborg, deep within the earth, lies the core fortress's underground command post, hollowed out from the solid rock of Mount Vegani. The heavy concrete dome insulates most of the deafening cannon fire, but each heavy salvo from the naval guns still strikes like a dull drumbeat against everyone's heart, causing a few specks of grayish-white dust to fall from the ceiling.

At that moment, Major General William Horn, commander of the ANZAC First Expeditionary Force, was observing the "spectacular" scene in the Gulf of Papua through a periscope, a scene that was so spectacular it was hard to believe.

Through the eyepiece, the scene in Fairfax Bay made his eyes twitch – the once peaceful harbor was now being swallowed up by a fleet larger than he could have imagined. The telescope's field of vision was filled with huge, iron-gray ship shadows; their towering masts, densely packed turrets, and cold, flowing lines all exuded a chilling, oppressive aura belonging to the new world's powers.

A soft clang broke the suffocating silence of the command post. Major White's slide rule and pencil slipped from his hands and fell onto the map table. "God..." the young staff officer's voice was dry and trembling, filled with disbelief and despair, "The intelligence... the intelligence reported with absolute certainty that the Chinese only had six real capital ships! And now we... we're going to lose Australia!"

Horn abruptly pulled back, his face showing no sign of panic. His gloved fingers gently brushed away the chalk that had fallen onto his gold-rimmed general's epaulets, every movement deliberately maintaining an air of impeccable elegance. He strode to the massive central model of Port Moresby, his gaze sweeping over the meticulously marked minefields, gun emplacements, trenches, and fortifications.

"Major!" Horn's voice suddenly rose, tinged with contempt for the native white Australian officer. "Shut up your effeminate wailing! Moresby! This is Moresby! The Empire's most fortified stronghold in the Southwest Pacific! A wall of steel forged by the blood and discipline of us Imperial Army officers!"

He grabbed the heavy brass megaphone connected to the fortress's internal communication system, his voice booming and clear to every gun emplacement and observation post: "Order all coastal heavy artillery! Concentrate fire! Bombard them! Bombard them hard! Aim at those two 'Qianlong'-class ships that are the most conspicuous, the tallest, and the most arrogant in your field of vision! Let these yellow-skinned farmers who just crawled out of the rice paddies see what the precision of the Royal Artillery is! What the dignity of the Imperial Coast Guard is!"

Putting down the megaphone, Horn's gaze returned to the area on the sand table that had been deliberately tinted light red—the Red Beach. It was the spot he had personally chosen, the most likely and most suitable location for a large-scale enemy landing. The narrow beach connected to a gently sloping hillside, seemingly offering no natural defenses.

"Trying to establish a foothold here?" Horn's lips curled into a cruel yet confident smile. Through his binoculars, the massive steel and wood barricades, faintly visible beneath the intertidal zone in front of the beach, had their sharpened top stakes resembling the fangs of a giant beast, occasionally peeking out from between the water. Scattered among the barricades were camouflaged deep pit traps. Further closer to the edge of the dense forest along the shore, dozens of barrels of viscous tar and waste engine oil had been quietly dumped into a large open area, and beneath the camouflage netting lay a large quantity of dry palm leaves and branches—just a spark away…

“Perfect!” Major General Horn muttered to himself, his cold gaze like that of someone looking at a perfect graveyard. “Come on, you yellow-skinned monkeys… I will make this red beach live up to its name, dyed even redder with your blood! This place will be the mass grave of your landing craft and two-legged beasts!”

At the same time, in the distant Prime Minister's Mansion in Tianjing, Luo Yaoguo stood with his arms crossed in front of a huge sand table, his eyes fixed on the gateway to Australia in the South Pacific—Port Moresby! He muttered to himself, "Australia, Australia, open the door quickly!"

(End of this chapter)