The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 980 This battle will determine the fate of the Pacific for the next 100 years!

Port Moresby Airport, dusk, March 12, 1886.

The setting sun stained the runway crimson. Sixteen "Flying Swallow" single-seat fighter jets were neatly lined up on the east side of the airport, and ground crew were busy loading bombs onto them. The 25-kilogram cast iron bombs were hung under the fuselage with special hooks, looking like a flock of thin sparrows trying to pick up an oversized insect.

Luo Xinbei put on his leather flight cap and carefully inspected every component of the No. 01 aircraft—the wooden propeller had no cracks, the canvas cover was undamaged, and the steel cables were at the right tension. He patted the wing and took a deep breath. This was his first combat mission, and it was impossible not to be nervous! This time, he was going to pilot a biplane cobbled together from wood, canvas, wire, and other odds and ends to challenge a battleship forged from steel. Thinking about it now, it seemed really dangerous!
“Sir,” the ground crew leader handed over a wooden board with a simplified diagram of the British fleet, “as planned, the funnels and bridge will be the priority.”

Luo Xinbei forced a smile, revealing two tiger teeth: "Don't worry, I'll make sure the British get what's coming to them!"

A sharp whistle sounded in the distance. Luo Xinhua strode over with his staff, followed by a group of soldiers carrying bowls of wine.

"Third brother," Luo Xinhua's voice was hoarseer than usual, "drink this bowl of wine."

Luo Xinbei took the rough porcelain bowl, the pungent smell of the cheap rice wine filling his nostrils. He didn't care about "driving under the influence" anymore, tilted his head back and drank it all in one gulp, the liquid dripping down his chin onto his flight suit.

“Remember,” Luo Xinhua suddenly grabbed his shoulder, “Don’t be reckless. If you can’t blow them up, come back. I still have four ‘Hidden Dragon’ ships waiting to take care of them!”

Luo Xinbei nodded solemnly and laughed, "Don't worry, Lao Dou said that no country has artillery capable of shooting down aircraft yet—current artillery doesn't have altitude fuses or proximity fuses, so unless it hits directly, it can't damage the aircraft at all. To be honest, using a 150mm or 88mm secondary gun to shoot down aircraft is not as good as setting up a machine gun!"

Luo Xinhua nodded and said, "Then you'd better be careful of the main gun turrets and both sides of the bridge; there might be machine guns in those areas."

Luo Xinbei smiled indifferently: "I know, the British machine guns can't hurt me."

As he spoke, he confidently climbed into the cockpit. The engine roared like a cough, and the propeller churned up clouds of red dust.

From the air, about 80 nautical miles from Port Moresby.

Onboard HMS Invincible, the flagship of the Royal Navy's fast task force, Vice Admiral John Fisher was observing the direction of Port Moresby through his binoculars. Suddenly, the lookout screamed:
"Unidentified object in the air! At the ten o'clock position!"

Fisher frowned and looked up—in the azure sky, a dozen black dots were approaching at an alarming speed.

"Is it an airship?" the adjutant asked.

"No!" Fisher's pupils contracted sharply. "Much smaller than an airship, and much faster! God, it's an airplane!"

He suddenly recalled the Navy Ministry's report from the previous year, which had been shelved—"A Feasibility Study on the Application of Aircraft in Naval Warfare." At the time, he had scoffed at it, believing that "toys made of wood and canvas could not possibly threaten battleships." But now, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had actually deployed them in actual combat!

"By the way, what should we use to shoot down planes now?" Fisher quickly thought of another problem. The Royal Navy hadn't even considered using the still-primitive method of bombing warships, let alone shooting down planes.
"Sir, the Invincible has two 3-inch guns that can shoot down airships, and its 6-inch secondary guns can also shoot down airships." At this moment, Rear Admiral James Johnson, the captain of the Invincible, suddenly shouted a reminder to Fisher, who had not yet reacted.

"Tell all ships to use their 3-inch and 6-inch guns!" Fisher roared. "Aim at those damned aircraft!"

However, shooting down an airship is completely different from shooting down an airplane. Airships are huge! They fly slowly, so you can take your time to aim and shoot them. Moreover, you don't need altitude-setting fuses or proximity fuses; a contact fuse is enough.

But the enemy's small plane was no match for them. With such a small plane, it was impossible to aim while circling at high altitude. They fired wildly, but not a single plane fell. Instead, many shells fell, all exploding in the sea near the warship! Some shells landed so close that they were almost misses!

Fisher was furious: "Stop firing at yourselves, you bunch of useless idiots!"

While the British were firing their cannons in a chaotic frenzy, the pilots on those dozen or so wooden planes in the sky were still quite panicked, because they were being bombarded by dozens of 3-inch and 6-inch cannons!

These pilots were all graduates of the Naval Officers' Academy. Didn't they know how powerful 3-inch and 6-inch cannons were? So when they saw the cannon fire below, they flew their planes around in the sky, dodging the shells—and they actually managed to "dodge" them!

As the British fleet on the sea ceased its ineffective bombardment, Luo Xinbei's No. 01 "Flying Swallow" was still circling at an altitude of 2000 meters, its engines humming and its canvas wings trembling slightly in the wind. He took a deep breath, pressed down on the control stick, and the plane began its descent in a shallow 20-degree dive. "Altitude 1500 meters!" he muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the battleship "Invincible" below. That steel behemoth was cutting through the waves at 24 knots, the waves cleaved by its bow gleaming golden in the setting sun.

"Increase the angle!" Luo Xinbei slammed the control stick all the way down, and the nose of the aircraft plummeted, increasing the dive angle to 45 degrees. The wind pressure suddenly increased, the canvas wings groaned under the strain, and the steel cables were stretched to their limit. He felt the wind tearing at his face, making it difficult to breathe, but his hands remained firmly gripping the control stick. His eyes were fixed on the increasing number of warships below, estimating the altitude based on the extent to which the warships "grew" larger.

1000 meters!
900 meters!
800 meters!
500 meters!
At that moment, Luo Xinbei's pupils contracted, and all he could see in his field of vision was the massive smokestack of the "Invincible". He slammed down the bomb release lever, and two 25-kilogram bombs detached from their racks and hurtled toward their target.

"Pull up!" He gritted his teeth and pulled back on the stick. The plane shuddered violently as it leveled off, the wings nearly ripped apart. The contrails of bombs streaked across the sky—

boom! boom!
The first bomb landed 10 meters into the water on the starboard side of the HMS Invincible, creating a huge column of water. The second bomb struck directly at the base of the funnel, and the shockwave shattered several pieces of armor plating around it, sending black smoke billowing into the sky!

"Hit!" Luo Xinbei shouted excitedly, but before he could celebrate for long, a dense hail of bullets swept in from below—one of the Maxim machine guns on the "Invincible" opened fire!

The British sailors on HMS Invincible finally remembered that machine guns could shoot down airplanes!

The bullet whizzed past the wing and pierced a piece of canvas on the right wing.

"Damn it!" He rolled to the side to avoid it, waving his arms at his wingmen behind him to signal them to split up and attack.

The 15 "Flying Swallow" fighters in the sky had already split into two groups—7 of them followed Luo Xinbei to attack the "Invincible" battlecruiser, while the other 8, led by Vice Captain Li Yongfu, headed straight for the "Unyielding" battlecruiser.

Li Yongfu's No. 02 aircraft was the first to dive down. He aimed at the forward funnel of the "Indomitable" and dropped bombs at a height of 600 meters. The first bomb missed its target and exploded in front of the bow, creating a column of water; but the second bomb hit the inside of the funnel precisely, and the hot fragments ignited the coal ash in the exhaust duct, causing thick smoke to gush out from all the gaps in the hull.

Aircraft No. 03 followed closely behind, piloted by Wang Guodong, a rookie fresh out of flight school. He was too nervous, and his dive was too steep, causing the fuselage to make a terrible cracking sound. But the young man gritted his teeth and dropped the bomb at an altitude of 400 meters, then pulled up with all his might—a bomb exploded near the bridge of the "Indomitable" ship, and the flying shrapnel knocked down the navigator and two signalmen.

Aircraft No. 04 was not so lucky. Just as it was diving to 600 or 700 meters, it was hit by machine gun fire, struck by six bullets, and instantly turned into a bloody mess, dying on the spot. The plane, like a kite with a broken string, crashed into the sea.

Aircraft No. 05 through No. 09 dropped bombs in turn, and 10 bombs rained down on the "Indomitable". However, these bombs were unlucky, and only one hit the starboard secondary gun group, causing a small fire.

Meanwhile, Luo Xinbei's squadron also completed an attack on HMS Invincible. Plane number 10's bomb accurately hit the aft funnel, the blast wave sending two British sailors flying as they were repairing the ship. Plane number 11's bomb struck the top of the bridge, destroying the rangefinder. The bombs from the other planes all missed their targets.

However, the air raid still achieved results beyond expectations. Two battlecruisers that could have played a significant role in the subsequent battles were "wounded," not seriously, but their damage would certainly affect their operations. As for the cost, of the 16 "Hien" sorties, one was shot down by machine gun fire, the pilot was killed, and four others returned to base with damage.

Luo Xinbei's No. 01 aircraft had three large holes punched through its left wing, and the rudder was almost completely unusable. He gritted his teeth and pulled the plane up to an altitude of 1500 meters, when suddenly he saw a large column of smoke rising from the horizon again—the main British fleet had arrived!
"Retreat! Retreat!" he frantically gestured to the surrounding planes. The Flying Swallows, having already dropped their bombs, staggered and fled towards Port Moresby. Behind them, the British fleet had deployed into battle formation, all their dark cannons pointed at Port Moresby.

Meanwhile, outside Port Moresby, the steel behemoths of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's South Pacific Fleet slowly sailed out of their anchorage, the smoke billowing from their chimneys casting long, dark shadows in the twilight.

On the bridge of the flagship "Tianjing," Luo Xinhua stood with his hands behind his back. He had already learned the outcome of the recent air-to-ship battle from the "Honghu" airships that had been observing the battle from the sky. He gazed at the billowing smoke rising from the distant sea, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Admiral, all ships are ready," Chief of Staff Deng Shichang said in a low voice. "The main guns of the four 'Qianlong' ships are loaded, and the 'Donghai' class ships have deployed into vanguard formation."

Luo Xinhua nodded, his gaze sweeping across the nautical chart—the British sixteen battleships, eight armored cruisers, and a large group of cruisers and destroyers were approaching in battle formation, like a group of sharks that had smelled blood.

"Give the order," his voice was calm yet firm, "the entire fleet, set sail southwest at 18 knots." He paused, "and order each ship to raise the 'Great Wall Never Falls' flag, and tell our soldiers that this battle will determine the fate of the Pacific for the next 100 years!"

At the same moment, Admiral Kiel had already heard Montagu read out the telegram Fisher sent from the Invincible, and his face was extremely gloomy—although the Invincible and Unyielding were not seriously injured, they were still fighting with injuries, especially at this decisive moment!

Thinking of this, he took a deep breath: "Raising the Z flag requires everyone in the United Kingdom to fulfill their duties!"

(End of this chapter)