Imperial City Island is located in the middle of Penglai and Lushun waters, and is roughly the same distance from Liaodong and Denglai. In order to monitor the surrounding seas, Lin Qingye installed 200 garrison soldiers on it and built camps and other infrastructures. These infrastructures have now become the living tools for the Ming army to resist the attacks of the Qing army.

Han Kuo used himself as a temptation to lead thirty sea ships to the south and acted as a rescuer to Denglai. In fact, there were only more than a thousand soldiers on these thirty ships.

Kong Youde sent ships to investigate and found that there were no other ships following the surrounding waters, and the thirty ships were alone. He was overjoyed and sent a clutch to follow the Ming army fleet and delay their speed as much as possible. At the same time, he led all the fleets westward to completely eliminate the Ming army.

The main forces of the two armies met in the waters around the Imperial City Island. After a battle, the Ming army was defeated and turned to retreat towards the Imperial City Island.

Because of its slow speed, the Ming army's large ships were first caught up by Qing army ships. As the general who knew the use of artillery in the Qing army, Kong Youde deployed more than a dozen Fran machine guns on each ship that could carry artillery. After several rounds of rapid fire, two of the Ming army's large ships sank and three were injured. Soon after, the three injured were completely sunk.

Because they were far apart, Kong Youde could not see the details of the Qingming Army ships. He could only see the Ming army dropping the boats from the large ships and fleeing in the panic. When the remaining large ships approached the Imperial City Island, they seemed to be hit by their own ammunition depots. After making a few earth-shaking loud noises, they slowly sank into the water.

What made Kong Youde even more excited was that from the beginning to the end, the Ming army did not launch any organized resistance. The artillery was sparse and basically negligible, which shows that these ten large ships were the Ming army's troops transport ships. Only in this way can we explain why the defense force is so weak.

Because the ship was silent too quickly, most of the soldiers on it had no chance to escape, so they sank to the bottom of the sea with the ship.

The remaining Ming army were all North Korean turtle ships, which were small in size and fast in speed, and the losses caused by artillery were very limited. For this reason, Kong Youde ordered the artillery to stop shooting and attack with a small boat to catch up with the Ming army to fight it in close combat.

When the soldiers on both sides are far away, they shoot at the same time. When they get a little closer, they jump onto the opponent's ships to cut each other in close combat, or even use ships to collide.

The battle was fierce, but it didn't last long.

About one hour later, the Qing army, which had the advantage of numbers in the world, finally won the victory. At this moment, there were less than ten ships left in the Ming army, and under the leadership of Han Kuo, retreated to the Imperial City Island in a hurry. At this moment, there were only about 600 soldiers left, and many were injured.

They took a boat to the shore and smashed the bottom of the damaged ships through the seaside, and worked together to drag the remaining three intact ships. The original 200 garrison soldiers on the island also came to help the battle. The two men and horses joined together and used the original camps to make tenacious resistance.

Kong Youde arrived on the flagship, looking at the distance of only a thousand people from the other side, but he was able to block the attack of his own army again and again. Some shocked expressions flashed on his face. He ordered the flag officer to wave the flag and shake it, and let the front team retreat first.

Cao Dewang climbed onto the big ship panting, his face full of complaints: "Prince, why did you order your retreat? I can definitely take down those Ming dogs when I charge a few more times."

Cao Dewang and Liu Chengzu, who went to attack Dengzhou, both followed Kong Youde since the Wuqiao mutiny, and were his right-hand men. The three of them had close relationships and naturally had no scruples in their speech.

Kong Youde ignored Cao Dewang's rudeness, just smiled faintly, pointed forward and said, "Old Cao, take a closer look. Although the camps built by the Ming army on this island are not high, they are all built with solid sea stones. There are also arrow towers and mercerations on it, which are extremely easy to defend. If you continue to attack, even if you can take it down, our losses will be extremely heavy, and it will not be worth the loss!"

Cao Dewang was stunned for a moment, then picked up the telescope handed over by Kong Youde and looked at it. Then he patted the back of his head and said, "It's true. Prince, do you explain why the army built such a camp here, and there are Ming troops stationed on it?"

"This camp is extremely strong and has a high height, but not large area, so it is not used to station the army at first sight. I think this should be an observation post of the Ming army to monitor the movements of the passing ships. If we can seize it and send people to station it on it, the situation around nearly a hundred miles can be seen at a glance. If the Ming army wants to send reinforcements, it must pass under our noses. We will block here, which is enough to block any Ming army leading to Denglai."

Cao Dewang was a little puzzled. "Prince, weren't you unwilling to fight directly with the Ming army at first? Why do you seem to suddenly change your mind now!"

Kong Youde smiled and said, "This is the time and the time! At the beginning, I thought that Prince Su could easily win Jinzhou, and there was no need to use the main force to fight against the Ming army, but now his attack is blocked. Think about it, if we win a big victory at this time, how exciting it would be! Now there have been people in the court that criticized Your Majesty for letting me take charge of the army alone. I will let them see how much role the navy can play in the future."

Cao Dewang nodded and said, "I understand. But what about you! How can we take down these hundreds of Ming troops? Through their attack just now, I found that their combat power is really good!"

Kong Youde smiled and said, "It's easy to deal with. This camp has various advantages, but the only disadvantage is that it's too narrow. Hundreds of people gathered there, and a stone could hit several people. Let the cannon ships line up along the coast and shoot at the camp. In addition, you send a team of people to land on the beach on the left, and cut off their retreat from the rear of the Ming army."

Cao Dewang happily gave a thumbs up and said, "Jiang is still so hot. You can think of such a ruthless method. The prince is worthy of being the prince."

Kong Youde gave Cao Dewang a look and thought to himself, no matter how you hear these words, it seems like you are scolding him. "Why don't you talk so much nonsense? Why don't you go and arrange it quickly?"

Cao Dewang laughed twice, then hurried down and ordered loudly.

Looking from a distance from Kong Youde, the sun had already begun to deflect. There were only hundreds of Ming troops on the island, so there was no reason why they could not be defeated in an afternoon.

I have been staying at the sea these days, and I’m almost exhausted this old bone. If I could go ashore to rest tonight, what a comfortable thing this would be!
Chapter completed!