Just when the Qing army arrived at Bailuoji, the gunships cruising in the Yangtze River also received news of the flagship. Admiral Ding ordered the sandbanks in the Yangtze River tonight to rest, and at the same time ordered the ships to do a good job of guarding the night.

Ding Hai looked at the Qing army on the other side and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. As long as the Qing army and the Ming army in Guangxi were angry tomorrow, his mission would be completed. Ding Hai had not had a good rest this month, for fear that the Qing army would make any small moves. However, although it was the last moment, Ding Hai could not relax his vigilance and ordered the two gunboats to be on duty at night to prevent the Qing army from attacking in the dark.

Jiergalang stood on the shore and looked at the Ming army naval division in the center of the river, and asked Ma Jiaolin, the navy general beside him: "General Ma, can your navy attack the Ming army naval division at night?"

Ma Jiaolin is the general of the Huguang Navy. He has had many contacts with the Ming Navy this year, but he was defeated and returned. Now he was told to attack the Ming Navy, which scared Ma Jiaolin to speak.

Ma Jiaolin is the subordinate of Luo Xiujin, the governor of Huguang. Luo Xiujin was angry when he saw his subordinates like this and cursed: "General Ma, Prince Zheng means you don't have to fight to the death, but try to sink the Ming army's gunship!"

When Ma Jiaolin saw that both Shangguans said this, he did not dare to refute it. He quickly nodded and said, "Don't worry, two sirs, the officials must find a way!"

"General Ma, go down and find a way. You can call all the supplies in the army. If the surprise attack is successful tonight, you will be a great achievement. If you fail, the whole family will wait for your head to land!"

When Ma Jiaolin heard Jiergalang's order to die, his eyes turned around. He knew that his whole family would be dead when he was not thinking about it. Ma Jiaolin gritted his teeth and said, "Prince Zheng, I want to ask the prince to transfer me several thousand kilograms of gunpowder!"

Wuchang City has strong defenses. In order to capture Jiergalang, ten red cannons were specially transferred from Shaanxi. Although the gunships in the river were not reachable, there was some gunpowder in the army.

Jirgalang was stunned. What do you do with gunpowder when water war is used? "Can water war use gunpowder?"

"Your Majesty Zheng, what the officials plan to do is to wrap every hundred kilograms of gunpowder into a pack, tightly use oil cloth, then use bamboo to form a bamboo raft, and then flow down the upstream river. The bamboo raft is low and it is very difficult to detect in the night!"

Jirhalang heard what Ma Jiaolin said make sense and nodded repeatedly: "Okay, just do what you said, give you five thousand kilograms of gunpowder, go down and prepare!"

Ma Jiaolin received the order and returned to the camp to select 500 water ghosts. He led his confidant general Ma Xiong. Each of them gave 500 taels of silver, and promised that no matter how much life or death, there would be 1,000 taels afterwards. With a huge reward, the 500 people promised to complete the task.

Then Ma Jiaolin mobilized people and prepared twenty bamboo rafts, and two large gunpowder bags were placed on each bamboo raft. However, two gunpowder bags were 200 kilograms, so I couldn't ride the people. The water ghost team had no choice but to float in the water and act with the bamboo rafts. Although it was already March, the river water was still very cold. Staying in the water for a few hours was enough for these water ghosts to suffer.

After all the preparations were completed, Ma Jiaolin took advantage of the night to release bamboo rafts ten miles from the Ming Navy and drifted towards the gunship along the river. He returned to the army to prepare the ships, hid on the riverside, and waited for news to be heard in front.

There was no light pollution in this era, and there were no coal transport ships coming and going on the Yangtze River. Now, as soon as the Yangtze River is night, it becomes absolutely dark, and more than 20 bamboo rafts that are only one meter higher than the river are hard to find. At the same time, Ma Jiaolin was very good at choosing. He released the bamboo raft at midnight, and after two hours of drifting, he happened to arrive at the periphery of the Ming army navy at the time of Yin.

The Yin hour is from 3:00 to 5:00. At this time, people are the most sleepy and the darkest. The Ming army navy has been drifting on the Yangtze River for a month, and no matter how physical and energy are exhausted, they have not found these water mice.

In order to ensure the success of the first battle, Ma Jiaolin sent his confidant, Ma Xiong, his tribe member, as the leader, and he guaranteed that he had to succeed and would recommend him as a general.

After soaking in the river for two hours, Ma Xiong had already frozen wood, but when he was about to get close to the Ming Navy's gunship, he forgot about this and paid full attention to the movements on the ship.

Fortunately, the Ming army relaxed its vigilance and did not find these rats, which made Ma Xiong and other guys lean on the side of the ship without any danger.

Seeing the Ming army's large ship reaching, Ma Xiong was overjoyed, which means that the surprise attack tonight was half successful.

Ma Xiong took ten people and tried hard to shake his numb body, letting the bamboo raft gently lean on the side of the boat, while not making any sound. Then Ma Xiong took out the drill bit beside him and gently fixed the gunpowder bag outside the hull.

Ma Xiong and others soaked in the river for two hours, their hands and feet were numb and they were afraid to exert force. They took half an hour to put the gunpowder bag. At this time, the sky was already a little brighter, and they could see clearly the people within five meters.

Just as Ma Xiong and others were ready, a shout came from twenty meters away: "Who? There are people in the water!"

As soon as the scream came out, the twelve gunships parked in the water immediately opened the pot. The soldiers on the boat were watching each other, shouting: "There are people in the water! Some people are leaning on the water!"

When Ma Xiong saw that he was discovered, he ignored the others and took out the flint wrapped in oil paper from his arms and lit the seal of the gunpowder bag.

At this time, someone on the ship had already discovered the gunpowder bag on the ship, but it was too late. After more than twenty seconds, the gunpowder bag made a loud noise. One hundred kilograms of gunpowder exploded outside the hull. At the same time, many explosions came from a distance. It seemed that other water ghosts had succeeded.

Ma Xiong floated in the water and looked at the Ming army gunship in the distance. Two huge holes two meters wide were blown up below the waterline of the ship. The river water poured into the ship one after another, and the ship had already overturned seriously.

Ma Xiong nodded and took more than 200 remaining people to swim to the shore.

At this time, Ma Jiaolin, who was hiding by the river, also heard the explosion coming, and he was ecstatic. He hid in the reed marsh by the river with more than 100 remaining ships of the Qing army, listening to the news on the river in fear.

Now hearing Ma Xiong's success, Ma Jiaolin was overjoyed and stood on the bow of the boat and shouted: "Brothers, the Ming army navy was caught. Let's go up and beat the dogs in the water! I promise you that those who bravely kill the enemy will be rewarded with 100 taels of silver. Those who capture officers above the Ming army will be given a thousand households and a thousand taels of silver!"

After hearing the general's reward, more than 5,000 officials from the Qing army's naval army heard that they were given such a reward, they all shouted excitedly, "Kill the enemy!" and rushed towards the Ming army naval army two miles away.

Ding Hai was afraid that he would be in the Qing Dynasty at night, so he didn't take off his clothes and just lie down with him. Now when he heard the explosion, he quickly got up to find out the situation.

Ding Hai's face turned pale as soon as he left the cabin door and saw this miserable appearance. It turned out that eight of the twelve ships had capsized, and two of them had holes above the waterline. They could still remain stable, but they could not fight. The only two were intact, including one of the flagships.

This is really not a complaint about the poor quality of the Guangdong Navy ships. In order to save money, Zhu Hongsan's inland river fleet was converted from some merchant ships worth about 100 tons. Anyway, it was traveling inland rivers, and the wind and waves were not big. In order to ensure firepower, each ship was equipped with twenty artillery gunboats. At the same time, because the quality of these modified gunboats was uneven, some ships were made during the Wanli period, so such warships could still be better, but it was enough to deal with those Manqing Navy, which had only a dozen tons.

Now this kind of gunboat with thin skin and big stuffing has been blown out of a hole, and naturally it sinks quickly. As eight ships capsize, the alive sailors on the ship jumped into the ship to escape.

Fortunately, the anchorage was not far from the river sandbank last night. Ding Hai quickly asked the messenger to take the banner, and all the sailors abandoned the eight gunboats that had overturned, swam to the sandbank.

At this time, Ding Hai saw a large number of small boats rushing out of the north bank of the Yangtze River, and knew that the Qing army was coming to pick up the bargain.

Ding Hai cursed angrily: "Come here, I'll order the two unmovable ships to stay to protect the sailors! The one who is fine will go to meet the enemy with me!"

Ding Hai was completely burned by his anger at this time and his reason was not the time to fight to the death. Instead, he should form a defensive circle with the two inactive gunboats. Relying on the cannons on the ship to protect himself is the right way.

Now Ding Hai is so happy to go out to fight hard, but he divides the already insufficient firepower into two. Inland gunboats are no more than the first and second-level warships of the navy. Each of them has dozens of artillery gunboats, and the side of the ship is extremely high, so they cannot jump up with manpower alone. However, inland gunboats are different. These gunboats modified by merchant ships are only one person taller, and the enemy can completely use the flying claw rope to jump. In addition, each of these gunboats has only twenty cannons, which is also an army-type twelve-pound cannon.

In this way, Ding Hai rushed into the Qing army's fleet with two small boats. The Qing army was a small ship with a trolley of more than ten tons. After paying more than ten, they finally entered the dead corner of the artillery and successfully jumped to the gang.

Ding Hai's gunboat was only 150 sailors. Seeing the Qing army rushing up one after another, Ding Hai knew that he was completely defeated today. He sighed and shouted: "Your Majesty, Ding Hai is sorry for you!" After that, he committed suicide with his waist knife.

Ma Jiaolin was overjoyed after seeing the two large ships seized. The ship was secondary, and the artillery on the main ship was too important. The Qing army and the Ming army in Guangdong had been fighting for many years and suffered a loss from artillery. Now that he has seized so many cannons himself, Prince Zheng will definitely be able to reward him heavily.

After the battle on the river was over, Ma Jiaolin turned his head to deal with the Ming sailors on the sandbank. With the superior forces of the Qing army, hundreds of sailors on the sandbank were either killed or captured, and the two inactive gunboats sank themselves. The remaining sailors were less than thirty people escaping from the sky on a small boat.

Ma Jiaolin's battle was a great success. At the cost of two thousand Qing troops, he killed 820 Ming army sailors, captured four Ming army gunboats, thirty-seven artillery pieces, and countless ammunition.
Chapter completed!