The Irish sweeping and anti-sweeping operations have entered the most critical and difficult period. In order to support the Irish Independence Army and keep a bleeding wound for the British, the French government increased the freight fees for transport ships to Ireland by 50%.

As a later mentor said: "Whenever there is a proper profit, capital will become bolder. If there is 10% profit, it will be guaranteed to be used everywhere; if there is 20% profit, it will become active; if there is 50% profit, it will take risks; if there is 100% profit, it will dare to trample on all human laws; if there is 300% profit, it will dare to commit any crime, or even risk the risk of hanging one's head."

Originally, the profit was not low when traveling to Ireland once. In addition, the freight rate increased, although it has not reached the point where people "dare to commit any crime or even risk their heads being thrown", it has also reached the point where people are willing to "take risks". Therefore, over the past period of time, more people have ordered flyshear ships in the shipyards of the military-industrial complex, and the number of flyshear ships going to Ireland for adventures has increased rapidly.

However, the British had been on guard against it. As early as a month ago, the Duke of Norfolk wrote to the British Prime Minister, pointing out possible problems and making suggestions:

"The brigade of clippers lingers in the ocean close to Ireland, waiting for the storm to come. Once the wind blew at the sea, they would rush to Ireland like a shark smelling blood. As far as I know, the French have more and more clippers, and soon, when their numbers are large enough, they can even directly report to saturate our interception capabilities to break through our interception.

On the other hand, the Royal Navy has too few steam ships in its hands, and another weakness of these ships is now fully revealed, that is, the proper rate of such ships is too low. After a period of high-intensity use, this problem has become more prominent. The commander of the First Irish Coast Defense Detachment reported to me: 'Our ships are either repairing or waiting for repairs.' The entire First Detachment of the Coast Defense Detachment has a total of five steam frigates, but now only one can go to sea.

The inconsistency in the manufacturing of steam frigates also makes maintenance more complicated. The five steam frigates in the First Coast Defense Detachment used five models of steam engines, and almost none of the other parts, including paddle wheels and transmission equipment, were the same. This made each ship need unique maintenance. When there was a problem with the two ships, we could not put all the available parts on one ship to ensure that one of the ships could be repaired quickly - I really don't know how this stupid thing happened! Why can't we use the same standards to produce the same steam frigate?

I suggest that the Royal Navy should purchase more steam frigates and adopt completely unified construction standards for steam frigates. Even if the performance is reduced properly, the maintainability of these warships should be ensured. Don’t let these warships become monsters pressing on the docks.”

The British also knew that if Ireland was lost, the blow to Britain would be too great. So while the French accelerated the production of fly-scissors, the British also began to accelerate the production of steam frigates in various shipyards.

In terms of shipbuilding capabilities, the British had considerable advantages over France. However, this refers to the production of ordinary ships. Steamboats have to be equipped with a series of machines and are still significantly different from other ships. In contrast, the difference between fly-shear ships and traditional ships is smaller. Therefore, French shipyards are still much faster than the British to produce steam ships.

Moreover, although the number of British steamships is increasing, the problem of low integrity rate has not been solved well. It has to be said that the Duke of Norfolk's idea that all parts can be interchanged is very genius, but it also exceeds the times, at least beyond the level that Britain in this era can achieve. You must know that in another time and space, at least until the 1980s, the latest fighter jets produced by a major Eastern power could not be interchanged.

Therefore, although the British sank or captured more and more fly-slippers, the Irish people received more supplies.

当然,英国人也不是一无所获.从某条被俘的飞剪船上,英国人缴获了两套完好的喷火器,这使得英国人又多了一种选择,那就是立刻山寨法国人的喷火器,然后装在山寨的飞剪船上,最后依靠强大的产能,用山寨来击败正版.

But it still takes time for all this, and the Irish, who had regained the supplies, began to increase their counterattacks. They launched a flip offensive again and captured a military station again.

In the base areas, due to logistical difficulties and the use of "public security forces" and the British army's losses also increased significantly, and their efficiency in damaging the base areas was significantly reduced due to the passive slacking off of the "public security forces". Why do the "public security forces" passively slacking off even when performing simple tasks such as "destroying potato fields"?

According to the British, that is because: "Irish people are lazy. As long as they have the opportunity, they must be lazy; even if they don't have the opportunity, they must be lazy.

But if you ask Captain Jarvis with the same question, Captain Jarvis will tell you that there is a reason for this. The main reason is that the Irish people are too bad. Whoever ruins crops and wastes the most energy, they will give priority to attacking whoever is going to attack, and they will attack badly and fiercely. But the guys in our public security forces are too stupid. Every time they go to the British army for help, they either go too late or they will take the British army to step on the rebel mines.

In this way, in order to protect the British soldiers, it would be better not to waste crops. Therefore, the "public security forces" can't do anything, and even waste crops are not as good as donkeys.

Since the "public security forces" could not count on it, the British army once tried to do it themselves and ruin the crops. Then, they found that they were also trapped in a vicious circle. If a large group of people were gathered together to do this, the efficiency would be too low, to the point where they were not as low as a donkey; but if they were dispersed to do this, they would always be attacked by rebels in various ways. In these attacks, the authentic British army also suffered heavy losses.

Therefore, even the Duke of Norfolk, who had been shouting "persistence", had to admit that continuing to mobilize in non-security areas was no longer of great significance. So he issued a new order, claiming that the siege of the rebels had achieved phased success and could now win the battle.

If the Duke of Norfolk was right, his actions did cause considerable losses to the base areas. It also caused too much material consumption by the Independence Army. If the British could effectively prevent the Irish from obtaining sufficient supplies before the harvest season when the potatoes were ripe, it would be difficult for the Irish Independence Army to recover its strength within two or three months of the potatoes ripening. At that time, the British would have another big sweep, and they would be afraid that they would directly create a great famine in the Irish Independence Army's base areas.

Of course, all this depends mainly on two points. The first is whether the British can cut off France's supply to Ireland more effectively, and the other is whether the Unified Irish Federation can achieve production and self-rescue as soon as possible. After all, weapons and ammunition may be solved through overseas rescue, but it is almost impossible to rely on overseas transportation capacity to solve the food problem. If overseas transportation capacity can really solve the food problem, it either the UK has collapsed or the base has shrunk to almost nothing left.

In the following days, a new phenomenon appeared on the sea, that is, the scissors departing from France were attacked by the British scissors again. And this time, a "Greek fire" also appeared on the scissors in the British scissors. Because of unexpected surprise and lack of survivors, such attacks were not discovered at the beginning, and people only found that there were a lot of fewer ships that could return to the port.

This situation naturally alerted the crew. Soon after, someone finally brought back the exact news: the British also became popular in Greece.

The news was that a Danish captain named Oleg rescued an Italian sailor floating on the sea with a wooden board on his way back from Ireland. The Italian sailor told everyone that his ship was attacked by a British fly-scissor ship as a French ship. The British first ignited their ship with Greek fire, and then shot and killed the sailor who jumped into the sea to escape. He hid under a large wooden board to avoid the British shooting.

Soon after, the situation worsened, and the British had more and more flying scissors, and they even began to intercept ships heading to Ireland in the form of fleets. In this series of battles, both sides suffered a lot of losses, but with stronger shipbuilding capabilities and closer to the base, the ships were lighter in load and faster in speed, making it easier to gain the advantage of the upper wind position (wind power has a great impact on the sprayer's jet distance, and the party that seized the upper wind position can launch an attack at a longer distance), gradually gaining the upper hand in this series of battles.

Because of the outstanding performance of the copycat version of the scissors, the British converted those expensive and inconvenient steamships into ordinary cargo ships, and continued to increase orders for the copycat version of the scissors.

"In one more month, we will be able to make no French skimmers in the waters near Ireland. Once we cut off this supply line, we will be able to quickly quell the rebellion in Ireland." Prime Minister Addington said confidently when facing the questioning of the House of Commons.

On the day when the Prime Minister made such a promise to the members of the House of Commons, a strange warship with a slender hull and black painted overall was launched at the Toulon Shipyard.
Chapter completed!