Chapter three hundred and twenty first water battle
Although both Zheng Ping and Li Shihong did not agree with the use of firearms and kerosene, they could not persuade Chen Qing, who decided to board the ship himself to practice his water warfare concept.
Zhao Xiaoyi's information was from two days ago. When Chen Qing's fleet arrived in Hanyang, the information had changed. There were forty warships taking the Han River to the north, transporting wounded soldiers to Xiangyang, and at the same time transporting grain and grass supplies from Xiangyang.
Go south.
It was easy to be discovered by the enemy's sentry boats on the river. They were still thirty miles away from Hanyang, so they were spotted by several enemy sentry boats. The sentry boats immediately rushed back to report the news.
Thousands of infantrymen brought by Chen Qing from the northwest stayed in Yueyang to guard the city. They were not accustomed to water and did not board the ship. Among the 10,000 troops on board, 6,000 were surrendered by Yang Yao's army and the other 4,000 were former soldiers.
The Yuezhou Army left by Wang Yan basically grew up by rivers and lakes, and their water quality is good. They are more adaptable to the water conditions of the Yangtze River.
On the contrary, their opponent was the Mingzhou Navy, which was actually a coastal navy. Although it was a regular army, they may not be adapted to fighting on the Yangtze River.
It was early November and early winter. The north wind was strong and the waves on the river were very strong. The river was extremely wide and had the feeling of vast waves.
Chen Qing stood on the only 5,000-stone warship. He stayed here because it had been renovated. The other 19 ships were all 3,000-stone warships and were captured from Yang Yao. Of course, they
It was also the Huguang Navy that first captured it after being defeated by Yang Yao.
"The warships are coming out ahead, in the northeast direction!" shouted the soldiers watching on the mast.
"How many ships are there?" Li Shihong asked loudly.
After a while, the observer saw clearly and shouted: "There are about ten ships!"
Li Shihong hurriedly stepped forward and said to Chen Qing: "Qi Dutong, this should be a guard ship. They thought we were just passing by, so they didn't put up a large-scale combat posture. In fact, it meant they didn't want to fight."
"What if we fight?"
"If we want to fight, the main force of the enemy army behind will come up to kill us."
Chen Qing thought for a while and smiled: "Then let's try the sword with these ten ships first!"
"Send the order to implement Plan No. 1!"
There are no wireless signals in naval operations, only simple semaphores. It is impossible to deploy complex tactics at the last moment. Generally, various combat plans have been arranged and numbered. The semaphores only need to be represented by color flags, and all warships will display the same
Signal language, and then everyone takes their place.
The semaphore was hoisted on the mast, with a huge red pennant at the top indicating attack, a black pennant indicating retreat, and a white pennant indicating surrender. Then below was a numbered flag, a blue pennant indicating a case plan.
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All the ships behind raised the same battle flag, so that more than a hundred warships knew how to fight.
Plan No. 1 is for Chen Qing's main ship to lead twenty vehicles and ships to test and attack the opponent. The twenty vehicles and ships are actually escort ships. If the main ship's situation is critical, they will even use the hull to block the opponent's pursuit.
The puppet Qi army sent out ten warning ships, also called surveillance ships, to monitor the other party's crossing. The leader was a commander named Zhang Sheng, who was also a confidant of the commander-in-chief Xu Yun.
He didn't expect that the opponent actually came up with ten warships, which made him stunned for a moment. Do you want to compete with his own ten warships?
Zhang Sheng sneered and ordered: "Come forward and fight!"
He also hung up the red pennant, and ten warships worth three thousand stones raised their sails and rushed towards the Song warships.
The war drums on the river sounded "Boom! Boom! Boom!" and the atmosphere became tense and murderous.
Chen Qing ordered: "Prepare the crossbow! Prepare the trebuchet!"
Twenty crossbows and five ballistae were installed on each side of his warship, as well as sixty throwers, a ship whip seven or eight feet long, and fifty short spears and giant shields.
Soldiers, fighting hand-to-hand with enemy soldiers.
There were no archers, but crossbows were used instead of archers. Together with the soldiers manning the ships, there were a total of 250 people, almost all of whom could go into battle.
Li Shihong was responsible for commanding and operating the warships, while Chen Qing was personally responsible for the operations.
Among the sixty throwers, twenty were soldiers from the firearms battalion and could throw a new type of gunpowder barrel. The so-called new gunpowder barrel was just improved by Xie Changzhi. It was a double-layered wooden barrel, each weighing five kilograms and containing poisonous nails.
There are two types: the non-toxic spike type and the non-toxic nail type. There is also a throwing handle on it, which can be thrown by powerful soldiers more than 20 paces away. Of course, the non-toxic spike type is used in warship operations, otherwise the poison spike will hurt itself if it is too close.
The middle of the double-layered wooden barrel is filled with sawdust carbon powder for buffering, which overcomes the defect of shattering when dropped. It will not break when thrown from the city wall to the soil, nor will it be thrown on the deck, unless it is thrown on a hard stone.
This new type of gunpowder barrel has a stronger explosion power and poses a great threat to wooden ships. It has just been improved and has not had time to be sent to Jiangling.
The firearms battalion only has a total of 500 people. It is impossible for each ship to be equipped with 20 people. In fact, except for Chen Qing's handsome ship, each other ship only has four firearms throwers.
Another forty throwers were responsible for throwing fireballs. They wore special asbestos gloves. They hid behind the side of the ship and threw gunpowder barrels and fireballs at the same time during close combat.
Long-range combat and mid-range combat are handled by bed crossbows and ballistae.
Chen Qing never believed that the powerful gunpowder and kerosene would be ineffective in a water battle. This was the Song Dynasty with the most advanced technology, and they still wanted to use pirate-style combat methods?
The ships gradually approached, and nine vehicles and ships accelerated forward, surpassing Chen Qing's main ship. The soldiers on the vehicles and ships fired gunpowder arrows at the sails of the enemy ships. Several warships unloaded their sails late, and the sails were hit by gunpowder arrows.
lit.
The soldiers on the other side also shot arrows at the cars and boats, and arrows rained down on the river.
Li Shihong shouted: "Remove the sail!"
The huge sail suddenly fell down, and the large ship could use the rudder to maintain weak power, but the speed was not as fast as before. This was also forced by the situation of water warfare. The sail was only used for long-distance sailing, and it must be removed for close combat, otherwise
It will definitely be burned by rockets or gunpowder arrows.
The advantages of cars and ships being fast and flexible in turning around are fully demonstrated. They sail around the big ship at a very fast speed.
At this time, the warship headed by the enemy rushed towards Chen Qing. Everyone saw that the five thousand stone warship had an unusual status. The idea of capturing the thief first and the king first filled the mind of Commander Zhang Sheng.
About a hundred paces away, the two ships passed each other. Fifty soldiers from the other side fired their arrows at the ship, but what greeted them was twenty crossbows and a hundred jackdaw arrows whistling.
Shoot at enemy soldiers.
Of course, bed crossbows are only available on Chen Qing's captain's ship. The main cost is too high. Jackdaw iron arrows cannot be recovered if they fall into the river. Unlike on land, which can be recovered and reused, it is impossible to promote it on a large scale.
The jackdaw iron arrows had the power to split stone and pierce gold. The flesh and blood of the soldiers could not withstand it. In an instant, more than twenty soldiers were pierced by the iron arrows and died tragically on the spot.
The two large ships turned around at the same time, ww. When they met again, they were only more than ten steps apart. They entered into close combat. Several enemy soldiers threw iron chain hooks and hooked the side of Chen Qing's ship. Chen Qing shouted.
, "Throw!"
Sixty throwers showed their power at the same time. They suddenly stood up and threw forty burning kerosene balls and gunpowder barrels towards the opponent's ship. The soldiers squatted down one after another.
Forty kerosene balls fell to the ground, and the thin-skinned clay pot inside shattered, and a large amount of kerosene poured out. Song Jun's kerosene was not viscous petroleum, but the craftsmen carried out purification processes such as filtering impurities and sedimentation to achieve
Only when it ignites and burns immediately can it be military kerosene, also called fierce kerosene. Otherwise, how could the famous fierce oil fire cabinet in history use viscous petroleum.
The big ship suddenly burst into flames, but what really showed its power were the twenty gunpowder barrels. The twenty gunpowder barrels fell on the deck and in the cabin, and immediately exploded one after another. Blood and flesh were scattered everywhere, sawdust flew everywhere, and the mast was broken.
The heavy impact caused several large holes to be blown out of the ship's wall, river water poured in, and the ship began to tilt.
"Open the boat hook!" Li Shihong shouted,
More than a dozen soldiers worked together to break the iron chain hook from the side of the ship. The two ships quickly separated and were soon several miles away. They watched the other ship slowly sink.
