Chapter 681: A small test

Seeing that the Qin army was launched, the Chu army was not willing to be outdone and immediately blew up the horn of advancement. Countless warships bravely advanced to the enemy, and the battle finally began.

When they arrived at the center, the Qin navy suddenly divided into several small fleets, attacking the left wing of the Chu army from different angles, preparing to concentrate their forces to attack one place, so that the huge Chu army could not exert all its strength.

The name of the Chu army was not for nothing. As soon as I noticed the intention of the Qin army, the left wing slowly retreated, while the right wing advanced at the same speed. The front of the formation slowly deflected to the left, always facing the Qin army. Advance and retreat as much as possible, this is the advantage of the slurry ship.

If the Qin army advances in the original direction at this time, it will expose its right side to the Chu army, which will be very dangerous.

However, there is no need to worry about them. After years of war baptism, the Zhennan Navy has fully matured and reached its peak state. They quickly raised their sails, and with the sudden acceleration of the northwest wind on the river, they soon opened a distance from the Chu army again. Before they knew it, they both fell off.

Zhu Lie sent a squadron composed of 200 steamships, which also raised sails and followed the Qin army. The Qin fleet seemed unwilling to use this awkward posture to face the enemy, so they accelerated again and gradually escaped from the range of the Chu army.

When the main fleet of the Zhennan Navy passed by, the Chu army officers and soldiers who were chasing him were surprised to find that the central fleet of Qin did not follow the south, but used the main fleet as a cover, quietly left the formation and rushed towards him.

At this time, the squadron of the Southern Chu faced the south, while the Qin army's central army fleet rushed straight from the southeast direction, facing the flank of the Chu army!

On the battlefield, the flanks of the army are extremely fragile. Once attacked by the enemy, they are easily cut off in half, and then they cannot take into account both the beginning and the end, and they are trapped in a situation of being beaten up, basically killing one by one.

The commander of the Qin Central Fleet was already a white-bearded Qin Youde. The generals in Zhennan were generally amphibious and were stronger than land on the water. Therefore, when the water battle came, he, the infantry president, transformed into the most skilled water dragon.

Under the leadership of Qin Youdetou, the Centre Fleet opened fire and penetrated directly to the flanks of the Chu army, barely talking about any tactics, and was unscrupulous in the fight.

The Chu army had no power to fight back for a while... Because in order to increase the shooting accuracy of the catapult and reduce the damage to the warships during launch, the warships of both countries directly fixed the catapults to the deck, generally six in front and four in the back, and there were also large ships that could install more cannons. But no matter what, in order to avoid sinking or even rolling, there were no dares to install catapults on the side of the ships on both sides - so before turning around, the threat of the Chu army to the Qin army was equal to zero, which is also the reason why the two armies desperately attacked the other side's flanks.

How could Qin Youde let go of this difficult battlefield advantage? He adopted a concentrated attack method and ordered five warships to attack one enemy ship.

After confirming the attack target, the tactical staff officers equipped on each ship calculate the advance amount and convey the shooting parameters to the soldiers. In this way, the shooting accuracy will be greatly improved. Coupled with the intensive shooting of five to one, all the thirty warships targeted were almost all shot and caught fire in the first shooting, and countless officers and soldiers on the ship were killed and injured.

After several rounds of volleys, most of the Chu army warships had a sea of ​​fire on the deck... However, although it seemed terrible, such a short attack would be at best to smash a few holes and burn a few fires. As long as the pipes were damaged and fired properly, the ship would not be destroyed or killed.

However, the Chu warships were already in chaos, because the fire must be rescued and the holes must be blocked, otherwise the warships would be burned or flooded. Moreover, the Chu army did not have special team members to damage the management team, and when the situation occurred, they would fall into chaos. They didn't even care about the "complete turn immediately" order issued by the flagship.

However, at this chaotic moment, Zhu Hongjun was extremely awake. In fact, at the moment when Qin Youde ship appeared, he had determined the enemy's attack direction and accurately foresee that while the Qin army attacked the flanks of his squadron, it would also expose its flanks.

So while the Qin army was launching, he sent a squadron, complimenting the rules and using the fleet attacked by the Qin army as a cover. Until he could not hide his tracks, he suddenly rushed out and headed straight for Qin Youde's flank.

Qin Youde didn't care at all. He ordered the ships to do their best to increase the speed to the fastest. Before the Chu army arrived, they had already rushed into the chaotic prey group.

Just as the chaotic scene was cleared, the officers and soldiers of the Chu army squadron discovered in despair that the Qin army warships rushed forward and hit hard. With the deafening sound of impact and the sound of wooden beam breaking, several warships of Chu were broken in the waist, and countless officers and soldiers were killed and injured.

According to the plan formulated by Marshal Boshang during his lifetime, the warships of the Qin army this time were equipped with thick iron collision angles three meters long, mainly focusing on close-body collision and strait battles.

Although more Chu warships were severely attacked, they still floated tenaciously on the water surface. However, the officers and soldiers were not as strong as warships, and fell into the water one after another in the huge impact. The officers and soldiers on the ship screamed and fell into the water. The bullets and equipment piled up on the deck were also hit into the sky, and then fell into the water, killing many unlucky sailors.

At this time, the second squadron of Chu State also rushed over, but when they saw the warships of the two armies that were already in chaos and were not divided, they were in trouble. You should know that the accurate head of the Chu army's stone casting cannon was not covered, and basically the error was within ten feet, which was normal. With such a precise head, it was really a questionable question to deal with such a situation.

In recent years, the naval forces of Qin and Chu have always pursued non-contact combat, that is, they have widened their distance and shot each other with cannon stones to see who can hit accurately and who is lucky. As we all know, the Chu army's rock casting cannons are not as good as the Qin army in terms of range and accuracy. The reason why they can maintain a balance in this kind of mutual shooting is that they win by volume - one is that there are many warships, and the other is that there are many stone casting cannons on each warship.

The Qin army's stone casting cannons were six in front and four in the back, and the Qi army had at least eight in front and six in back and fourteen in front, and there were twenty on the large ships. One more large cannon would take up a larger area, use a group of cannons, and put an additional bullet. If the ten or eight more stone casting cannons were added according to the original personnel configuration, there would be no place to put them.

What should I do? Reduce the staff and move the local area. The officers looked around the ship, and the steering, rowing, loading, and cannoning were all inseparable from these, so they could only reduce the combat teams. Anyway, the two sides don’t meet now, so what would they have to do? If Zhu Lie hadn’t been clear-headed and ordered at least one team of hand-to-hand combat personnel to be retained on each ship, the Chu generals could drive all the combat teams down.

But who expected that this time the Qin army would give up the "bombardment tactic" they were good at and turn into a boarding tactic?

Seeing that the Chu reinforcements were staggering, Qin Youde was not polite and ordered the combat team members who had already been on standby to fire spears at the Chu ship. After getting closer, he immediately stretched out a pedal with a hook claw and firmly placed it on the enemy ship. With the hook claws, the Chu army could not move even if they wanted to lift the pedal.

The next moment, there were teams of Qin troops who quickly passed through the pedal and jumped onto the enemy ship to form a mandarin duck formation or a three-talent formation, and stood with the Chu army who was in a hurry to face the enemy.

The powerful mandarin duck formation seems to be tailor-made for the battle on the shore. Due to space limitations, the soldiers will not face too many enemies at a time. With a few wolves and a few shields, they can easily block most of the attacks.

When the defense is worry-free, its fierce attack power can be fully exerted. The fighting soldiers of the Chu army came up and were killed in a short while. The gunners and sailors also rushed up with weapons, and were also killed.

Seeing that the Qin army had a huge advantage in hand-to-hand combat, many Chu soldiers dived in the hope of escaping their lives, but were shot by the shooters on the Qin warship with crossbow arrows.

The Qin soldiers rushed under the ship again, cut off the paddle wheel linkage rod, and then quickly left the paralyzed enemy ship and turned to the next one.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of ships were destroyed or even sunk. Zhu Hongjun's eyes were filled with fire and he said furiously: "Let Team B fight me, and hesitate to execute me immediately!"

The Chu army's Yi character submarine finally stopped hesitating and fired out tens of thousands of kilograms of stone bullets that had been prepared. The Chu State's stone bullets were also very distinctive. In addition to solid bullets used to smash ships, they also had the so-called "scattered bullets" - after being hit by the Qin army's flowering bullets, the Shangzhu Kingdom ordered the craftsmen to develop similar shells. The craftsmen racked their brains and really came up with a good solution - they placed the chiseled stone bullets on the fire, and when the stones were roasted hot, they immersed them in cold water, and used the principle of thermal expansion and contraction to make the stone pop open.
Chapter completed!