On September 17, two Yuan troops entered the canal from Wudai River and attacked Pingjiang under the dark night. The Song army's Marine Brigade stationed here caught off guard and relied on the remaining city base after destroying the city to fight fiercely with the enemy. The two sides fought until dawn, and the Zhending Army was unable to break through the position of the Song army. The army transported grain from the Qianhusou of Kunshan sneaked into the city from the original southern city. After the Song army discovered it, they divided their troops to block it, but it was too late.
The Song army's naval army was organized into three regiments and the direct troops with 5,000 soldiers. Because they were responsible for guarding the military port and landing operations, they were equipped with light infantry in order to facilitate mobile weapons and lack heavy weapons. Now there is no navy to assist in the war. When the strong enemy attacks on the front and the rear route is to be cut off, they had to give up their positions and alternately cover to break north.
Pingjiang City had five city gates before, but each gate had a land gate and a water gate, which allowed them to "rob" a large number of civilian ships to escape into Songjiang and enter Taihu Lake. After the sea route transport grain Wanhu Mansion succeeded, it immediately chased after it. The Zhending Army of the Yuan army fought hard for a night and suffered a lot of losses. As an old strongman, he was also angry. So he chased along the land. After seeing the enemy entering the lake in a panic, he immediately chased and annihilated with the Longwan Navy, one in front and one behind and one in the lake.
It was already dawn at this moment, and the Song army was chasing and crawling into the water village on the west island. Zhu Qing, a ten thousand households of the sea grain transport road, turned red when he saw the water village. He found that the eyes of the ships parked in the water village were red. They were all grain boats robbed by the Song army from Liujiagang. I thought that if he died today, he would have been a pirate for life. In the past, he would have only robbed others of his share, but now he was robbed by others. He still hid under his nose, so how could he not be angry?
However, Zhu Qing had been a pirate after all. Seeing the flags fluttering on the enemy water camp, as if he was ready, he couldn't help but wonder. He did not launch an attack rashly, so he arranged warships to form an array outside the enemy water camp to block the large gap to prevent the enemy from escaping. At a moment, the Longwan Navy also arrived with the Zhending Army. As soon as the two sides planned to attack the city and seize the village, the strength of the Zhending Army was the only one who could do this job.
Zhu Qingji was naturally aware of the fact that the Song army in Qiongzhou could defeat the Yuan army's naval division repeatedly, and even the brothers Zhang Hongfan died at their hands. This time, he expeditioned thousands of miles to destroy the Yidu Army and Shangdu Army, and forced the Yingzhou Army to surrender. He was definitely not a good person. However, he could not do anything without a powerful navy. Therefore, he did not hesitate to destroy his reputation and believed that his canal soldiers had low combat effectiveness, so he took the initiative to plunder the formation for them and gave them the opportunity to "make meritorious service".
Zhang Xingzu also had his own little pirates. Although he was also a Han Chinese, he looked down on the southerners. He thought that he followed Shi Tianze to fight south and north, destroyed Jin Ping and Song to make countless military achievements, so he was named ten thousand households by the Khan and managed a single army. Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were just a bunch of pirates. After surrendering to the Yuan Dynasty, he took advantage of the opportunity to open up a sea route and became ten thousand households, thousands of households, wearing tiger talismans, and hanging silver medals. He was rampant with the Khan's favor and made money by in charge of the smuggling of the sea.
But when the fight started, the Wanhu Mansion, which had more than 10,000 troops and managed the transportation of several governments, lost Liujiagang in one battle, lost thousands of them, and lost hundreds of stones of food. On the other hand, he became a master, and Zhang Xingzu knew that the water battle was not his main force. Instead of swaying on the boat, it was better to attack the water camp and seize the lost food. This was a special achievement. Therefore, even though he knew that Zhu Qing had made a trick, he still agreed.
The Longwan naval army was called to the beard, but it was a newborn calf who was not afraid of tigers. He was born in Mongolia and was Miaohong. He was young and went to the Song Dynasty from Boyan to conquer the Song Dynasty. He joined the navy, attacked Xiangfan and fought against Jiaoshan, and suffered from military achievements to hundreds of households. He did not know whether he was lucky or unlucky. After destroying the Song Dynasty, he kept training in the Jingxiang naval army. He failed to conquer the two conquests of Japan and attacked Champa. Annan was not on the way. Although he lost the opportunity to make meritorious deeds, he saved his life.
After several foreign wars, all the elite troops of the Yuan naval army were lost, and Hubidao became the only remaining veteran. During this reorganization, the waters rose and became a 10,000 naval army. Elite troops were drawn from four provinces to form the Liangzhe naval army to serve as water and sea combat tasks to defend the prefectures in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. However, after more than a year of establishment, he did not find a decent battle. Now that the opportunity comes, he is of course unwilling to let go. He volunteered to be a vanguard to attack the water camp, but he did not know that he was plotted by two old slippers first.
The call to the bet is really unambiguous. After the negotiations, the Song army that fled into the water camp had not yet firmly defeated them. They immediately led the Longwan naval army to go forward and smashed the water camp with a stone throwing machine, destroying the wall, and then smashed the gate with a large warship. Sure enough, as soon as the gate was broken, the Song army that fled into the water camp had no time to set up defenses, and they immediately fled on a boat. The Zhending army changed the boat and rushed to the island, and seized the Song army's water camp without bloodshed.
"No, I'm trapped!" After Zhang Xingzu boarded the West Island, he found that the water camp had been empty long ago. There were only a few old ships parked inside. He searched the island and found no robbed food at all. The grain stockpiles were just piles of soil surrounded by mats, and there was no grain of food. It was obviously a newly abandoned village.
‘dong, dong, dong…’ At this time, the sound of war drums sounded. When Zhang Xingzu climbed up, he saw two and three warships of the Song Shui Army from the south to the east and the west wings spread out from the island, trying to encircle them. However, the Song army, who had returned from Pingjiang, just flicked a shot and headed towards the south bank.
"Go on the ship and seize the East Island!" Zhang Xingzu found that he had been trapped and the Song Shui Army had already surrounded him. He reacted quickly and immediately ordered his troops to stop going to the island. The troops on the ship quickly seized the East Island.
Because it is well known that the best place to visit Taihu Lake from Pingjiang to the east and west, and in fact, the two mountains are small islands in the lake. Since the Song Dynasty, the east bank of Taihu Lake has accumulated land and gradually formed the Taihu Plain, which is called the east of the water, belonging to Wuxian. It extends into the center of the lake, and the lake is surrounded by three sides, and the south is from Baiyang Bay. There is a ferry crossing and a ferry bridge connecting the two islands in the lake. The ferry crossing is on the north bank of Taihu Lake, and the ferry bridge is on the east mountain island of Taihu Lake.
Zhang Xingzu realized that the other two armies were naval forces, but he was the infantry. Once the two armies started to defeat, it would be fine if they could evacuate by boat. If they were defeated, they would be isolated on the island and could only swim back. The East Island has a ferry bridge connected to the south bank, so he could return from the bridge to the shore, so he took the lead in occupying the East Island and controlled the ferry bridge. He had a way to retreat regardless of the victory or defeat.
"Welcome the enemy!" Zhang Xuan cursed in his heart. He really encountered a ghost today. He tried his best to avoid making a move, but he still didn't. Now the Longwan naval army is attacking the island, and he can only push it up on the periphery. However, what made him a little relieved was that his warships were large, and most of them were large ships of two thousand stones, and their overall strength was not inferior to that of them. In addition, it was the time of high tide, and he was at the forefront of the tide and attacking the enemy with the advantage.
Zhang Xuan ordered the front army to line up in a row, staggered in three rows to use the water to collide with the enemy's still in line. While disrupting their formation, he used his strong strength to seize the ship in close combat with the enemy. But when the two armies approached quickly, a team of medium-sized warships of about 1,000 stones suddenly rushed out of the Song army's formation. He was very surprised that these ships were obviously much smaller than their own ships and would definitely not be able to take advantage of the collision. Could it be just used to delay time?
‘Swish swish swish swish…’ Just as Zhang Xuan was full of suspicion, the two armies were still around the corner, and the warships that were coming out of the Song army suddenly flashed, followed by a sharp whistling sound. But when fire dragons soared into the sky, flew quickly towards us, climbed up in the astonished eyes of everyone, and then fell down again.
‘Boom, boom, boom…’ I saw those fire dragons falling down and violently exploded after falling. The fires surged into the sky as soon as they fell on the ship and exploded. The soldiers within a few feet of the surrounding area were either dead or injured, and the crying sounded. Some rockets fell and smashed through the deck, fell into the bottom cabin and exploded. The huge airflow generated broke through the ship’s gangway and sank down.
"Meteor Fire..." Zhang Xuan swallowed hard and said tremblingly. In the past, he only heard that the Song army had a firearm called Meteor Fire, which had a range of two miles away. After the explosion, it could not escape from ten feet. The middlemen could not escape. With this weapon, he repeatedly defeated the Yuan army. It is said that Liu Shen and Zhang Hongfan were both defeated here. Before Ali Hague's expedition and suppression army launched the attack, they were destroyed by Meteor Fire in the water camp, resulting in the two years in Huguang Province that it was able to launch an expedition to Qiongzhou, but it was still defeated.
"Who, what should I do?" The warships of the Song Shui Army became more and more intense. After a wave of meteor fire, there was another wave. At this moment, the formation of the former army was already in chaos. Some were shot and fired and circulated on the water surface. Some ships were destroyed and sunk. Those who were not hit also dodged in all directions. The water columns that were blown up were shaking and inevitably collided with each other. Zhu Qing, a thousand households who led the central army, asked with a frown.
"Now the tide is rising and cannot retreat anymore. Let the front army accelerate forward and disperse the enemy fleet. Can't you see that the meteor fire is far away? As long as you get close to them, there is no way; let the small ships of the central army move forward, their targets are small and difficult to be hit, take the opportunity to board the ship and fight and seize the enemy warship!" Zhang Xuan ordered in a deep voice.
Although he was a slippery man, he knew that he should be cruel at critical moments. If he couldn't make up his mind, how could he attack those innocent business travelers and how could he command those cruel and ruthless pirates? In fact, he also understood that the front army could no longer do anything. Only by sacrificing them could he disrupt the enemy's formation and fight with it was his strength, and those small boats used their flexibility to entangle the enemy...
"Your Majesty, this pirate is indeed a bit weird!" Zheng Yong accompanied the little emperor to watch the battle, and chuckled when he saw the situation in front of him.
Zhang Xuan's alternative style of play did cause trouble for the Song army. The enemy troops who had fought with them in the past would panic after being hit by rockets. Some would retreat on their own initiative, and some would be in chaos. However, after the initial chaos, they did not disintegrate, but instead launched an attack again under the command. The formation seemed scattered, but they could maintain a certain distance between each other, which greatly weakened the effect of rocket covering and shooting.
"It seems that we all despise this group of pirates!" Zhao Bing nodded, "At the beginning, the pirates were all for the people and gathered for pirates. Therefore, the leader had a strong control over the various gangs and his methods were extremely cruel. Only in this way can all parties comply with the orders, and their discipline even exceeded that of some troops, so they could be in chaos without collapse. Moreover, the pirates had not received strict military training, and how to fight was more based on experience. It was their instinct to seek profit and avoid harm. So there was no rule for them, which made them always choose the tactics that had the least losses, played their strengths, and had the best effect!"
"Well, at first we judged that the seaway canal weapons were simple, and most of the ships were canal ships and lack training, so they had the weakest combat power, but now it seems to be more difficult than the Longwan Navy!" Zheng Yongshen thought it was authentic, "The enemy's vanguard fleet attracted the firepower of our rocket fleet, and the subsequent small boats took advantage of the advantages of fast speed, good mobility and small targets. However, although our rocket ships have strong firepower, their self-defense capabilities are poor, and it will be troublesome to be entangled by them."
"Don't worry, Dong Yicheng had done a business of suppressing bandits before. He knew their routines and fighting styles and would not suffer any loss!" Zhao Bing chuckled. He was still very confident in his navy army. He would definitely grow from weak to strong back then, and he would grow up through a little accumulation. He would also save himself and eliminate the enemy's routines. These generals under him would not forget all their basic skills.
Sure enough, as soon as Zhao Bing finished speaking, several columns of gunships in the Song army array interspersed from among the rocket ships. They used two as a group to meet the enemy's vanguard fleet. After the Song navy was reorganized, most of the gunships used more than 1,000 stones of warships. While ensuring speed, it also facilitates maneuvering to seize advantageous battle positions. The two marshals can support each other and also help concentrate firepower to increase the strike force.
If the rocket covers and fires are indiscriminate attacks, then the gunship is a weapon for fixed-point removal. After they enter the firing distance, they first use bow cannons to launch chain bombs to attack the mast sail of the enemy ship, destroying their forward momentum, and burning the flowering bullet to kill the enemy soldiers exposed to the outside. When approaching, they insert it between the enemy ships to exert the power of the side cannons. When they are fired left and right, the enemy ships hit are often severely damaged, and sailors suffer heavy casualties.
Under the eyes of the commanders of both sides, the two Song army gun ships in front avoided the collision of the Yuan army warships after destroying the sails and walked opposite each other at about fifty steps on the side of the side. This distance was within the effective range of the crossbow, and the Yuan army archers fired at the Song ship, and the first ship formed by the Song army immediately counterattacked with the side cannons to bombard the archers on the side and decks of the enemy ship.
Chapter completed!