The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 969 Next stop, Sydney!

Morseby, April 25, 1885.

Time ticked by, each second accompanied by the roar of cannons and the clang of steel. Thick smoke, flames, and explosions dominated the entire bay.

The massive conning tower of the battleship "Tianjing" was now filled with smoke and tension. The piercing whistling of shells cutting through the air echoed intermittently. Just seconds before, shrapnel from a British rapid-fire cannon had violently grazed the thick armored portholes of the conning tower. Fortunately, the specially reinforced portholes had withstood the test this time, with only a few small fragments slipping through the gaps and entering the conning tower. The ship trembled intermittently with dull, violent vibrations—sometimes the recoil of friendly main gun salvos, sometimes the heavy impact of enemy shells!

Vice Admiral Luo Xinhua, deputy commander of the South Pacific Fleet, pressed his hands firmly on the chart table, his body rising and falling with every jolt of the ship, but his hawk-like eyes remained fixed on the main peak of the Veganey Mountains, amidst the raging gunfire, unwavering in their focus. A small cut on his forehead, from a tiny shrapnel fragment, bled and congealed at the corner of his eye, but he seemed oblivious to it. "Report the situation!" his deep voice pierced through the cacophony.

"The enemy's reverse-slope artillery fire has not diminished! It should be field cannons of 100mm or more! At least four artillery groups are pouring fire on our left-wing cruiser squadron! The trajectories are concealed and extremely tricky!" His adjutant, Captain Onodera Tsubaki, said urgently.

Luo Xinhua turned and strode quickly to the intercom, dialing the main fire control station located above the command tower. "Colonel Li Dingxin!" his order was crisp and decisive, "Calculate the coordinates of the G7 artillery group! Position! Suppress!"

"Yes, sir!" came the extremely calm, clear, and unquestionable voice. Then, the gunnery officer of the "Tianjing" personally knelt down on a state-of-the-art German-made Zeiss large stereoscopic rangefinder.

The heavy, precise optical prism and dial of the rangefinder seemed to come alive in his hands. Through the lens, he filtered out all interfering information, seeing only the fleeting flashes of light representing muzzle flashes and shell trajectories on the distant mountain ridge, and the constant stream of correction data transmitted by the airship observer through Morse code flashing lights.

This top student from the Shanghai Naval Officers Academy and Naval Staff College was thinking at an astonishing speed: "Target position calculation. True meridian reference: 273 degrees 42 minutes. Combined wind direction: southwest, gusts: seven knots, crosswind, deflection, ship speed, and ground speed vector synthesis."

As he observed, he uttered a string of parameters that were difficult for others to understand in a low voice and quickly.

Meanwhile, several second lieutenants, the astronauts, were furiously scribbling away in their artillery calculation books, leaving behind complex formulas and final firing parameters. In their minds, the numbers translated into the gun's posture, the angle of the cannon, the trajectory of the shell, and the point of destruction of the target.

"Got it!" In just over ten seconds, the final calculation was complete. The artillery calculation book was handed to the loud-voiced telephone operator, who then picked up the receiver and shouted, "Left lateral deviation correction of 37 mils! Ammunition selection: Type 31 armor-piercing high-explosive shell. Estimated trajectory angle of impact: 19.3 degrees. Delay fuse: 0.8 seconds. Ensure it penetrates the fortifications before detonating. Main turret aiming data set complete! Target locked! All main turrets, listen up—standard armor-piercing shells! Three rounds in rapid succession! Fire!"

The four massive main gun turrets of the "Tianjing" roared in unison! All eight 305mm guns simultaneously unleashed a devastating roar! Almost at the same time, the other nine main warships in the Taiping Fleet's battle line, all within range, also roared in unison, following Luo Xinhua's orders and their own observations! Seventy-two enormous 240mm, 280mm, and 305mm shells crossed the ridgeline of Mount Vegani in a near-perfect parabolic arc!

The explosions this time were far more muffled than those hitting the coastal artillery positions—they were erupting from the back of the hill! Major General Horn's prized reverse-slope concealed artillery group, its meticulously laid camouflage netting, was easily torn apart like paper under the immense kinetic energy of the bombardment! Several large-caliber shells, as if guided by eyes, precisely penetrated artillery bunkers, ammunition depots, and personnel shelters! The delayed-action fuses were then suddenly detonated after penetrating sufficiently deep!
In an instant, the lush back slope of Mount Veganey erupted like a series of volcanic eruptions! Thick smoke, carrying trees, soil, twisted metal, and human remains, shot into the sky! One after another, huge fireballs rose violently behind the ridge! At least three British artillery positions were instantly engulfed in flames! Exploding ammunition boxes ignited like giant firecrackers, their piercing screams shattering entire 6-inch rapid-fire guns into pieces!
A massive shockwave traveled along the mountainside, even sending Major General Horn, who was in his fortified underground command post, staggering several steps and nearly falling. A torrent of lime dust rained down from the solid concrete ceiling above, turning his star and uniform gray! "Damn it! This is impossible!" Horn roared, leaning against the wall. "How could those Eastern monkeys calculate so accurately? So quickly? A reverse slope! It's a reverse slope!"

"General!" Major White, his voice trembling, produced a report from the highest mountain artillery observation post. His voice was filled with terror and despair. "It's an airship! Their observers are right above us! Their radios are likely more advanced than ours, so their airship observers can continuously transmit our impact deviation data to the warships behind them! They're using a pincer movement! First, they set the range limit with a small number of shells, then they cover the probing area with concentrated fire! Forcing our backup gun positions to expose themselves when they move or fire!"

Despite Major White's rational analysis, Major General Horn shook his head in despair, exclaiming, "No, this is impossible! It's magic! It must be magic!"

From dawn till dusk, the battlefield seemed trapped in an endless vortex of destruction. The intense shelling lasted for a full thirteen hours! The entire Fairfax Bay was transformed into a hellish battlefield! The sea breeze carried an overwhelming stench of gunpowder smoke, blood, and the acrid smell of burning wood and flesh, swirling endlessly above the battlefield. The sky was bathed in a golden-red hue, the sunset merging seamlessly with the burning forest and collapsed fortifications.

The ANZAC's proud Fort Moresby, under the relentless, high-intensity, and high-precision firepower of the Pacific Fleet, began to crumble like dominoes, collapsing from the periphery to the core.
At 2 PM, one of the pillars of the defense on the eastern side of Mount Vegeta—a 10-inch coastal defense railway gun hastily deployed via a railway branch line in an attempt to salvage its flank—had just completed its positioning and entered firing position when it was unfortunately spotted by an airship observer. Just one minute later, a powerful 280mm armor-piercing shell fired from the battleship "Sichuan" (Type 3 Hailong, 17,500 tons standard displacement), which was conducting precision strikes in the open sea, struck the rear half of the railway gun's carriage at a tricky angle! The violent explosion completely twisted and deformed the heavy gun barrel, followed by thick smoke and flames from the ammunition detonation, instantly engulfing the entire area.

At 4:20 PM, the last 10-inch main gun turret of Aalborg, still desperately spitting flames, fell silent. A 305mm armor-piercing high-explosive shell, fired from the "Beijing" ("Qianlong II, 21,500 tons"), with deadly accuracy, pierced directly through the concrete reinforcement layer on the side of the turret, exploding violently inside! The exploding ammunition uprooted the entire gun mount!

At 6:45 PM, Colonel Li Dingxin, personally operating the rangefinder, once again locked onto a crucial target—a semi-concealed ventilation shaft in the ammunition depot area of ​​the core fortress beneath the main peak of Mount Vegani!

This cunning ventilation shaft was extremely well hidden, and would normally be difficult to detect. However, some of the continuously falling shells ignited a fire, and the flames somehow spread into the bunker, turning the ventilation shaft into a chimney! "Calculate the data correction! Target: ventilation shaft! Armor-piercing delayed fuse! All turrets fire three rounds simultaneously!" With Li Dingxin's series of orders, a barrage of shells followed, two of which, at 305mm, penetrated the weak points around the ventilation shaft! The delayed fuses detonated deep within the cave! Then came a series of muffled explosions! Finally, with a deafening roar, the entire slope of the main peak of Mount Vegani suddenly collapsed amidst violent shaking! It turned out that the underground ammunition depot, upon which the core fortress depended for survival, had been detonated by this series of explosions!
As dusk fell, the devastating bombardment that had lasted for thirteen hours finally subsided.

Inside the command tower of the "Tianjing" warship, the smell of gunpowder mingled with the stench of sweat and blood. Lieutenant General Luo Xinhua pulled out a handkerchief that had turned grayish-black and vigorously wiped away the dried, congealed blood from the corners of his eyes. His bloodshot eyes stared at the distant coastline, still billowing with thick smoke.

At that moment, the adjutant Onodera Tsubaki's voice suddenly rang out: "The flagship has sent Admiral Zhang's order! The artillery formations are to rest and regroup! Replenish coal and ammunition! The landing forces are to be on high alert! Dawn! Dawn will launch the general offensive! Target—Red Beach!"

Meanwhile, deep within the tunnels of the Morsby core fortress, Major General William Horn sat like a statue in a dust-covered chair, clutching a freshly arrived casualty list, its ink still wet. Major White's voice was as somber as if delivering a eulogy at a funeral: "Heavy artillery...more than 70% destroyed; combat artillery reduced to only 40%; personnel casualties, excluding minor wounded, confirmed dead, missing, and seriously wounded: 570."

Major General Horn took a deep breath of the gunpowder-smelling air: "Order! Hold the beachhead! Every last man must be held! No retreat! No retreat! Let those yellow trash see the courage of Anglo-Saxon warriors! We have trenches! We have barbed wire! We have Maxim machine guns! The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's army? Even if they manage to climb ashore, they won't get past my three anti-tank trenches alive!"

With all his remaining strength, he shouted this final order, then said dejectedly, "Send a telegram to the Australian fleet command. Request reinforcements. Tell them we can't hold out much longer."

April 26, 1885, dawn. The Pacific tides, as always, lapped against the long, narrow beach—Red Beach—that still shone with an eerie red hue under the morning glow.

Private Jackson of the ANZAC, who had spent a sleepless night huddled at the bottom of a damp, collapsing tunnel, was startled by a muffled, unprecedentedly loud sound! It was a deep, continuous, and terrifying rumble, interspersed with sharp, piercing hissing steam!

Jackson scrambled to the narrow firing port he was in charge of, his face, covered in mud and terrified, pressed against the cold concrete observation hole as he peered out.

"God! Save...save us..." An unconscious prayer slipped through her throat, then choked up, leaving only desperate gasps.

At the very edge of his limited field of vision, where the shallow waters of the Red Beach met the inland, that open shallow water zone, once filled with steel and wooden barricades and tar traps, which Horn had placed high hopes on, was being swallowed up by an unprecedented "flood":

One after another, massive landing craft, their bows gaping open like shark jaws, slammed against the edge of the shallow water! Heavy steel doors crashed down, sending up waves of mud and water several meters high! Then, a gigantic steel figure, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen and spewing thick black smoke, roared forth from its open bow! Tracks churned through the seawater and the soft, wet mudflats with a piercing, screeching sound! The circular rotating turrets spun left and right, the slender barrels of 37mm rapid-fire cannons already relentlessly pointed towards the tunnel where Jackson was located!

One, two, three... hundreds of crudely designed tanks, known as "Type 33 tanks," roared out of the landing craft! Their tracks relentlessly crushed the reefs, gravel, and wreckage, cutting through everything in their path!
Behind these steel war machines came an even larger amphibious assault! Nearly three hundred landing craft of various sizes surged toward the red beach! The bow panels fell, and countless Taiping Heavenly Kingdom marines, clad in khaki combat uniforms, carrying heavy backpacks, and with bayonets gleaming coldly in the morning light, shouted "Long live the Heavenly Kingdom!" and poured out like a flood bursting its banks! A wave of thousands covered the entire area from the intertidal zone to the inland slopes! The jungle of bayonets, with its chilling sharpness, rushed toward the positions held by the ANZAC.

Behind the landing force, the fire support reached its most ferocious peak! Eight Zhenyuan-class armored cruisers, with shallow draft and heavy armor, after a night of emergency repairs and ammunition replenishment, brazenly approached to an extremely close range of less than 1,500 meters from Red Beach! At this distance, shelling no longer required precise observation and calculation; a quick aim and the shot would be almost certainly accurate!
Forty-eight 200mm main guns and hundreds of secondary guns of various types roared simultaneously with earth-shattering force! Countless high-explosive shells were launched at visible speeds into the depths of the beach! The target was no longer the fortress, but rather the reserve assembly areas, rear supply lines, and the whimsical "tar trap zone" meticulously planned by Major General Horn! Violent explosions erupted in waves! Huge walls of fire instantly rose from the ground, igniting the area along with the deadly fuel beneath! The scorching blast wave and billowing black smoke even temporarily obscured visibility on parts of the beach! The shockwaves of the explosions swept across the ground, utterly devastating!
Inside the tunnel, Jackson felt as if all the bones in his body had been removed. His Lee-Enfield rifle slipped from his limp hand and fell with a clatter into the tunnel's waterlogged surface. Beside him, an ANZAC veteran with a stubble-covered face and a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his right arm roared like a wild beast as he lunged at a Maxim machine gun that still looked somewhat intact. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the Type 33 tank that was rapidly approaching from the front, and with his last ounce of strength, he slammed the trigger!

"Boom boom boom boom boom—!" A burst of heavy machine gun bullets slammed into the tilted turret and front armor plating of the steam tank! A sharp metallic scraping and impact rang out, sending up a series of blinding sparks! But the tank only paused slightly! The observation port on top didn't even close! The heavy tracks continued their rumbling advance without any hindrance!
At the same time, the machine guns mounted on the tank turrets began to spew fire, mercilessly sweeping over the positions still held by ANZAC troops!
Jackson slumped limply into the muddy ground, watching the ever-growing, hellish steel figure approaching like a messenger from hell outside the tunnel firing port, and the overwhelming, surging crowd behind it. The old soldier's desperate machine gun fire seemed so weak and futile, and it didn't last long before he was "sent off" by a 37mm shell, departing peacefully.
The ANZACs also had some 37mm rapid-fire guns serving as anti-tank guns, but their numbers were too few, and after thirteen hours of continuous artillery fire yesterday, only a handful remained capable of firing.

"Useless, useless. Their armor. Our bullets can't penetrate it. They can't stop it."

Jackson looked up, his gaze passing over the broken firing ports, and could only see the massive, mud- and blood-stained tracks of the tank rumbling over the flimsy earthen bunker above him.
"There are more of them than the grains of sand on the coral reef. So many more! So many more!"

At the same time, aboard the South Pacific Fleet flagship "Jiangsu," Admiral Zhang Bao put down his binoculars and let out a soft sigh: "Finally aboard!" He turned to Chief of Staff Yang Yonglin and said, "The door to Australia has been opened for sending a telegram to Tianjing. The next stop is Sydney!"

(End of this chapter)