The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 342 Qing Dynasty, you have passed the first round of imperialist qualification test! (Please subscribe, please vote)
The sky was bright, the morning breeze was blowing, and the morning mist covering the sea off Shinagawa gradually dissipated. The full view of the Shinagawa Battery, which guarded the Shinagawa Port, the water gateway of Edo, finally appeared in the sight of the officers and soldiers of the Shikoku Combined Fleet.

Shinagawa Battery is not a solitary battery, nor is it a battery built on the coast of Edo Bay. Instead, it is a group of seven Western-style batteries built on the sandbanks off the coast of Shinagawa, in square or pentagonal shapes made of stone and earth. The battery is not tall, just a few meters above the coastline, and is not easy to hit. Moreover, there are thick stone walls protecting the gun positions, so even if they are hit by a few large-caliber solid bullets, it is not a big problem.

However, the Japanese "victims" guarding the Shinagawa Battery at this moment probably don't know that the times have changed. It changed last November! It was the Sinop Bay Battle where the Russian Black Sea Fleet showed its prowess.

In that naval battle, the Russian Navy carried forward their fine tradition of reckless action, and for the first time loaded large-caliber naval guns with shrapnel shells that were more likely to explode on their own people for actual combat, and achieved unexpected results. At the cost of zero warship sinking, 13 Turkish ships were sunk and three land artillery batteries were destroyed!
It is rare in Europe for a fleet to destroy land artillery with naval guns!
Because as long as the generation gap between the artillery of both sides is not too big, the shore artillery will always have a great bonus over the naval artillery!
The Turkish batteries in Sinop Bay were built under the guidance of British and French engineers, and they used cannons from the same era as the Russian artillery, but in smaller numbers.

If the Russians only used solid bullets to bombard the battleships, even if they used up all the ammunition, they might not be able to destroy any of them.

However, after using shrapnel shells, although the base of the Turkish artillery was not destroyed, the artillery placed on it without the protection of an armored turret was blown to pieces, and a large number of artillerymen were killed!

Luo Xueyan had long known that the Battle of Sinop would change the rules of the game in naval warfare, so after Matthew Perry arrived in Shanghai, he paid for it out of his own pocket and imported a batch of relatively advanced shrapnel shells from India through Bonham for his and Matthew Perry's naval guns and large-caliber coastal defense guns.

This batch of shrapnel and the news of the Battle of Sinop arrived in Shanghai almost at the same time.

So it was natural for Luo Xueyan to distribute most of these shrapnel bombs to the British, American and French fleets as capital for the Qing Dynasty's invasion of Japan!

As Matthew Perry's orders were conveyed to the ships below through light language, the 19 warships of Britain, the United States, France and Qing Dynasty on the sea quickly reorganized their team, and the more than ten transport ships that followed them headed for the open sea.

The combined fleet that formed the bombardment formation was not far from the Shinagawa Battery, only about two or three thousand meters away.

At this distance, the Japanese artillery shells could occasionally hit the warships on the sea, but the caliber of those artillery pieces was not large, and they were not equipped with shrapnel shells that used trigger fuses. Moreover, they aimed at the large ships weighing more than 2,000 tons. However, their artillery shells could not penetrate the hulls of those large ships.

So after bombing for a long time, I just heard the noise.
And now, it is their turn to taste the iron fist of imperialism.

As the muzzles of dozens of cannons weighing more than 12 pounds were pushed out of the gun ports, the short fuses at the gun tails were ignited, and flames spurted out of each muzzle! Among them, the large-caliber cannons weighing more than 30 pounds were all equipped with powerful shrapnel shells.

These shrapnel shells were loaded into the gun barrels and then spewed out. Above the Japanese artillery positions opposite, suddenly a cloud of smoke columns rose up, each with a different posture, straight into the sky. At first, the smoke columns rose in rows almost at the same time, but later on, there was no distinction between the explosion points, just a bunch of pieces rising in all directions.

The guns on the Shinagawa forts were all placed in the open air. Not only did they not have turrets, they didn't even have wooden and sandbag covers, and there were no bunkers around the guns. Dozens or hundreds of shrapnel shells were thrown down, and the bronze cannons were blown to pieces. You could vaguely see human bodies being lifted into the air! After firing about 17 or 18 rounds, the seven forts on the sea off Shinagawa all stopped firing and were shrouded in blue-black smoke, as if they were about to be swallowed up.

At this time, two steam transport ships with a displacement of about 1,000 tons approached cautiously and lowered a dozen small sampans less than 1,000 meters away from one of the artillery batteries. The soldiers of the Nanyang Army, wearing blue-gray uniforms, bald heads without braids, and warm hats without red tassels or tops, climbed down to the small boats along the net made of thick hemp ropes hanging on the side of the ship. Then, driven by the oars, the small boats sailed towards the artillery battery not far away.

Luo Xueyan, Qian Zhenlun, Rosen, and Zhao Liewen were all standing on the deck of the Powhatan, staring at the landing battle that was taking place through binoculars.

This was the first time that the iron hoof of Japanese imperialism, no, it was the first time that the iron hoof of Qing imperialism set foot on Japanese soil!

Well, it means a lot!
Because here in East Asia, in the next hundred years or so, there is only one imperialist spot, either China or Japan!
There is only one criterion for testing imperialism: whether it can fight.

Although China's civil war has not yet ended, China in the midst of civil war still has the strength to land in Japan. Doesn't this just prove that China's military power far exceeds that of Japan?

In this case, the only imperialist spot in East Asia belongs to China!

"It's on board!"

Luo Xueyan saw a "The Great Wall Will Never Fall" flag suddenly pierce through the blue-black smoke and appear on a sandbar where a five-pointed star-shaped artillery platform was located, and he shouted excitedly. However, the people around him were not very excited, but instead cast strange eyes at Luo Xueyan - how did this little Japanese offend Luo Xueshuai?
At the same time, on the British gunboat HMS Rattler, British Minister John Bowring and his secretaries James Legge and Li Taiguo were observing the ongoing landing battle through telescopes, and the three of them were whispering to each other from time to time.

"Well, we're on board. It's going well!"

"Oh, it seems that they have formed several rows of teams. It seems that their daily training is effective!"

"Those Chinese seemed to have thrown a smoke bomb. What was it made of? What a huge smoke! Does our army have the same equipment?"

"No! It seems we don't."

"Minister, look! The Japanese are counterattacking!"

"Use cold weapons? Those Japanese want to use samurai swords and spears to fight back against the rifles and bayonets of the Nanyang Army? How stupid!"

Wen Xian put down his telescope when he saw this: "It seems that the Shinagawa Fort will soon fall into the hands of the Chinese!" He looked at the two people beside him, "What do you think? Is this a rising power?"

"Great powers. They seem to be comparable to Türkiye."

Legge thought for a moment and then said, "Mr. Minister, it seems that the Chinese are more capable of fighting than I originally expected!"

Li Taiguo said: "Perhaps only the Nanyang Army can fight."

Legge shook his head: "The Taiping Army can also fight!"

Wen Xian smiled and said, "Isn't that natural? With such a large territory, how can we not fight? Judging from their current performance, they should be on the same level as the Ottoman Empire. They may not be able to fight against the European powers, but they are enough to bully the small countries around them. If they are well armed, they may be able to fight against Russia!"

"With Russia?"

"Mr. Minister, are we about to go to war with Russia?"

Wen Xian nodded and whispered, "Before I left Shanghai, I received an express letter saying that war might be declared in April or May! We will fight Russia together with France and Turkey! Viscount Palmerston wants to know if the Qing Dynasty can send an army to attack the Russian strongholds in the Pacific with us? This is also the reason why I came to Japan. I need to see the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army with my own eyes!"

"Victory!"

"We've taken down a fort!"

Before the conversation between Bonham, Legge and Li Taiguo was over, the battle on a fort off the coast of Shinagawa had already come to an end.

Although the Japanese samurai guarding the fort were very brave, they lacked practical experience and their equipment was too backward. When faced with enemies equipped with flintlock rifles and bayonets, they actually rushed out of the fort and tried to defeat their opponents with samurai swords and muskets. As a result, before they could rush to the enemy, more than half of them were knocked down by bullets fired from rifled brown bass. The remaining survivors could not stop the bayonet jungle of the Nanyang Army lined up in a horizontal formation.
The first artillery battery outside Shinagawa Port was soon trampled by the iron hoof of Qing imperialism!

Wenxian looked at the red flag flying above the fort and said thoughtfully: "It seems I have to go to Tianjin!"

(End of this chapter)