Chapter 868 Montevideo Does Not Believe in Tears (Third update, please subscribe)

“Success!”

Not only was Ding Yunhai shouting excitedly, but everyone else in the cabin was also cheering loudly.

As an airship officer, Ding Yunhai has been studying how to attack airships in the past few years.

"As countries around the world are equipped with airships, we must study how to intercept them!"

Airships are difficult to destroy, and bullets hitting them have little effect, except for a little hydrogen leakage.

So, after much research, Ding Yunhai turned his attention to the leaked hydrogen. His tactics were very simple. He used a machine gun to make holes in the airship, preferably concentrated in one area, and then fired a flare to ignite the leaked hydrogen.

This looks simple.

But the actual operation is not easy. First, the holes made by the bullets must be dense enough, second, the leaked hydrogen must be large enough, and third, the flare must hit the leaking area exactly...

Although it was not easy, after destroying the first airship, when the Brazilian airship turned into a blazing torch, unlike the cheers of the officers and soldiers of the Ming airship, Peasso and others were all scared silly. They no longer cared about maintaining formation and fled to the north. The Brazilians were fleeing, and the Ming airship was chasing them. Dense rain of bullets strafed the airship, and flares dragging fire dragons drew beautiful arcs in the air.

Because the Brazilian airship descended to an altitude of more than 500 meters, people on the ground also saw this exciting air battle.

This was the first air battle in human history!

In the air battle that lasted for an hour, the Brazilian airship force lost two airships!

Although it was just an airship, the result still stunned the people on the ground, especially Major George of the British Navy who was about to leave Montevideo and several other foreign naval officers. They had come here as observers with the Brazilian fleet, but when they were about to leave, they witnessed this fierce air battle.

They were stunned, staring blankly at the falling airship in the distance, and watching the airship turn into a torch. After a while, Major George spoke.

"Damn it, the Ming people have apparently mastered the technology of airship aerial combat!"

"Oh, it seems that the airship is not as powerful as imagined. They used flare guns, right? Can flare guns penetrate airships?"

Several officers from the United States, France and other countries standing on the deck were talking to each other.

What is certain is that this air battle taught them a lot, or at least gave them some enlightenment.

"Flare guns can't penetrate airships!"

Major Pearce, the U.S. Navy's military attaché in Brazil, said this directly.

“We have experimented with it.”

Every country has studied how to fight airships, but the results are always somewhat unsatisfactory.

But now, they actually saw how the airship was shot down.

"But how did they do it?"

"Once we return to Rio de Janeiro, we can naturally obtain this information from the Brazilian airship officers."

They were returning to Rio de Janeiro. This was the last merchant ship to leave Montevideo. The passengers on board were either rich or noble, and of course there were many foreign expatriates.

"May God bless them!"

When the merchant ship's whistle blew and it slowly sailed away from the port, George and the others still looked at the sky. Today, this sky gave them too many surprises...

The shelling and bombing never stopped in the following days. What did the people in Montevideo feel?

Of course it was fear, because the airship bombing was not limited to the outer defense lines or fortresses. Sometimes, the airships would also bomb the city, but they bombed the warehouses at the docks and the arsenals in the city. The biggest impact of the bombing of these places was that prices in the city were getting higher and higher. After the meat supply was cut off, the price of flour also rose.

Although the high prices have a great impact on ordinary people, for people in the city, they are now more concerned about the situation on the front line.

Now, most of the people in Montevideo are women. Whenever they have time, they gather in groups at the door of the telegraph office or the locked newspaper office. However, no one will go to the door of the Brazilian army headquarters, because everyone knows that the Ming people's airships have bombed the headquarters many times, and the beautiful Army Ministry building was destroyed in the bombing. So now people are waiting in the telegraph office and newspaper office, waiting for telegrams from the front.

What are people waiting for?

Of course it was family information. The women didn’t say anything, but their stern faces looked serious and earnest.

Almost every family in Montevideo had someone on the front line, their sons, brothers or fathers, and of course lovers or husbands. The women were waiting for the news that someone in their family had died.

People died every day, and the women were waiting for the news of death. Their families, their husbands, lovers, brothers, and sons could die at any time in the Ming artillery bombardment.

Cosette was very familiar with this scene. A few years ago, before the fall of Buenos Aires, women there were also crowded at the door of telegraph offices or newspaper offices like now. What they were waiting for was not news, but the death list!

At about three o'clock in the afternoon, a notice was posted outside the newspaper office. It was the list of names of those killed today. As the list was posted, many women burst into tears.

"Andre, my Andre..."

Cosette suddenly burst into tears. She was crying out her husband's name. Her husband was dead.

She had lost a husband in Buenos Aires a few years before and had fled here to marry André.

But what about now?

She lost her husband again!

She lost two husbands in two wars. Both of her husbands died on the battlefield. She looked around in a daze, looking at the women around her who were crying like her. Some of them were crying, and some were thankful, thankful for God's blessing, that their family members' names were not on the list.

"Damn it! I'm a widow again!"

After leaving the newspaper office, Cosette talked to herself as she walked. She even felt a little regretful now. Why did she run away here?

If she had married a Ming man like Amisia did, at least she wouldn't have to go through such torture again.

"Oh, God, how can this be right?"

While Cosette was talking to herself like this, another thought suddenly occurred to her.

"Maybe it's not too late now. If the Ming army occupies this city, maybe I can find a Ming officer to marry him. Oh, God, how could this happen?"

When this thought came to her mind, she couldn't help feeling a little melancholy. In fact, she had such an opportunity a few years ago, but what did she choose at that time?

Looking back now, I was so stupid back then. If I had stayed in Buenos Aires, maybe I wouldn’t be like this now, becoming a widow again and losing my husband…

(End of this chapter)