The Fox of France

Chapter 400: Scorched Earth Resistance

However, these subsequent matters need not concern Rear Admiral Treveil and Tayyip Pasha. For them, the most crucial matter now is to "make the best use of the remaining strength to chase the poor enemy," immediately advancing to Tunisia and Morocco, striving for greater victories and more benefits.

Nevertheless, having spent a considerable amount of time in Tripoli, the effectiveness of the surprise attack was naturally unattainable. When they arrived in Tunisia, they discovered that something seemed amiss with the port—almost as if it had just been ravaged by a massive fire.

The Pasha of Tunis, Ahdad, had already met with Yusuf Pasha, who had fled, and learned from him about the terrifying weapons used by those wicked infidels, resembling heavenly fire, and the dreadful conflagration they caused. This news deeply troubled Ahdad Pasha.

"My friend, are you saying that the fortresses are completely powerless against them, and deploying troops in the harbor would be subjected to attacks by fire... How can we fight this war then? It's simply impossible," Ahdad Pasha said directly, with no one around to worry about morale.

"How many torpedoes have you purchased?" Yusuf Pasha asked.

Ahdad Pasha was momentarily stunned, and after a while, he said, "My friend, you know, those Englishmen are asking for an exorbitant price; they're treating us like fat sheep to be slaughtered. So, I don't know if it's even possible to urgently place an order with them."

"God Almighty!" Yusuf Pasha exclaimed in shock. "Did you buy very few?"

"I intended to buy fewer, but those English infidels... as soon as they heard I wanted to reduce the quantity, they immediately raised the unit price. In the end, in a fit of pique, I... I didn't buy a single one!" Ahdad Pasha said with a mournful face.

"Are those English merchants still here?"

"They are, they are. I'll go find them now and buy everything they have." Ahdad Pasha hurriedly stood up.

"My friend, don't be hasty. First, find out where their goods are. Are they near our harbor? If their goods are in Gibraltar or even in England itself, it would be meaningless even if they gave them to you without asking for a penny. The Turks and the French won't give us that much time. Also, I suspect their prices will be higher, but regardless, torpedoes have been the most threatening weapon against our enemies in previous battles."

"Alright, I'll immediately have someone handle this matter. My friend, if... I mean, if the English torpedoes are still in Gibraltar—what should I do then?"

"My friend, torpedoes have some effectiveness, but they're not foolproof. They can use the tide to evade the danger of torpedoes. Of course, this also limits the time they can use for attacks each day. Now, our most important task is to deal with their rain of fire. I have an idea..."

Yusuf Pasha believed that the reason Tripoli had such a massive fire was due to the abundance of wooden structures and roofs. To avoid a similar fate, he suggested immediately clearing all the roofs in the harbor area and other flammable materials. This was to prevent an incendiary attack by the enemy.

However, clearing these things was too troublesome, so progress on this matter remained slow. Soon, news about the actions of the Turks and the French in Tripoli reached them. This news instantly strengthened the determination of the Barbary pirates to resist to the end.

"We cannot negotiate with them, let alone surrender to them. Sultan Selim III, this tyrant, needs a vast amount of land to bribe followers. Besides us, where else can he get land? Look, all the landowners remaining in Tripoli, have any of them preserved their property and lives? What they want, we cannot give, because they want everything from us, including our heads. So, other than resisting to the end, we have no other path!" After receiving precise information, Ahdad Pasha gathered his officers and spoke to them in this manner.

Thus, the pace of demolition increased slightly, but at this rate, it was still impossible to complete the entire fire-prevention demolition work before the arrival of the Turks and the French. Finally, an officer had a sudden inspiration and came up with a better solution.

"Respected Pasha," the officer said, "I think why don't we set a fire ourselves? This way, we can clear all flammable materials in half a day at most."

The residences near the harbor were mostly those of poor people, and Ahdad Pasha, after thinking about it, found the idea quite good. So, with a command, the soldiers immediately took action, driving the poor people out of their houses and setting a fire themselves.

However, perhaps due to insufficient clearance work, many residents had not been evacuated when the fire started. As a result, a considerable number of civilians perished in the fire, and even some soldiers responsible for arson were trapped and burned to death due to poor coordination.

Therefore, now, when the joint fleet of France and Turkey appeared off the coast of Tunis, this is the scene they witnessed in Tunis.

The first move of the coalition forces was, of course, a tentative attack by the Turkish fleet to see if they could lure the fortresses into firing, and then have the French use explosive shells to sweep away all the cannons and artillerymen on the fortresses in one go. Secondly, they wanted to see if those rebels had placed a large number of torpedoes outside the port.

The result was that the most obvious fortress of the Barbary pirates had only one cannon firing, and the French thought it was too wasteful to use explosive shells just for one cannon, so they insisted on not firing for this reason. Moreover, during the approach to the port, no torpedoes were encountered.

The Englishmen told Ahdad Pasha that their torpedoes were on ships outside the port. As long as the deposit was paid, they could immediately be delivered to the port, and payment could be made upon delivery.

Ahdad Pasha's men followed the Englishmen onto their ships outside the port, where they truly saw those torpedoes. Then, after paying the deposit, the Englishmen sold them the torpedoes with a handover of payment along with the goods. However, the Englishmen secretly replaced the concentrated sulfuric acid in the fuses with distilled water and substituted the nitrocellulose in the warheads with real starch—half a month ago, the British government had already notified them not to sell torpedoes to the Barbary pirates.

The Barbary pirates, lacking scientific knowledge, couldn't see through the deception. The Englishmen took the payment and went home.

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