Chapter 685: The Decisive Battle (Central)

Although Dongting Lake is not as distinct as the sea, it is also clear in the abundance and dry water periods.

During the flood season at the turn of spring and summer, the lake surface has greatly widened. There are no shallows and reefs in this area close to the northeast shore, and any ship can pass through. However, as the rainy season leaves, the height of the lake gradually falls back, and this water area naturally becomes much shallower, and some places even have reefs exposed. If the winter dry season is reached, it will turn into a lakeside swamp, completely losing the possibility of traveling with it.

It is the turn of autumn and winter, and the water is already very shallow. Only experienced helmsmen can find a hidden waterway. If you sail randomly, you will definitely be stranded. It can be seen that there is a risk through this place. If the other party does not chase after him, but watches the show in the distance, wouldn’t it be thankless?

Of course, there are benefits - as long as you pass through this shallow water area with a radius of dozens of miles, you will directly arrive at the other side of the battle between the two armies, and immediately form a favorable situation where the troops are three times stronger than the enemy. If you want to detour, it will take more than an hour. Such a long time is enough to deal with the left wing of the Qin army.

The Ming Dynasty was a three-way showdown between the left, middle and right. In fact, the left fleet was used to first lead the Qin army's right fleet away, and then use the shallows to leave it on the south side, forming an absolute advantage in local forces. This is the proud work of the General of the Shangzhu Kingdom!

The general who chose to execute the order was also very cautious. He first used several red horse boats to quickly pass through this passage of about 500 feet in parallel and confirmed that there was no explosion. Then he commanded the troops to fight and retreat, and entered the shallow water area.

Relying on the familiar terrain, they walked between the reefs and shallows like a snake, and their speed was naturally not fast, as if they were provoking the Qin army and whether they dared to follow.

But the Qin fleet stopped advancing and slowly formed a formation, as if it was about to block the Chu army in shallow water.

"It is too stupid to choose to fight in the enemy's Neihu country; if you don't even understand the water situation, you will dream in the daytime!" In the eyes of the Chu generals, the Qin army is doomed to fail. As long as his left-wing squadron passes through this shallow and attacks the Qin army on the left and right sides with the right-wing squadron. How can there be a reason to be invincible when attacking the enemy army on the same route with nearly three times the strength?

As soon as he thought of this, the general of Chu was so excited that he couldn't control himself. He seemed to have seen victory waving to him, so he ordered the troops to advance at full speed.

However, at this moment, a shocking explosion woke up the general of Chu's dream. He watched a warship ahead beating up and broken by the water column soaring into the sky, and the broken limbs were flying all over the sky. Then there were a few loud noises, and the warships were overturned and exploded one after another. The casualties floated all over the lake, and the entire front team was in chaos.

The water column flew into the sky and turned into a pouring rain, so it drenched the general of Chu into a chicken. He stared blankly at the constantly exploding lake and said blankly: "Isn't there no thunder?"

This is why he is ignorant. The Qin army can even produce trigger mines. The simpler non-triggered ones are naturally no problem.

The same coffin-like underwater thunders are different. The difference is that there is no tree-shaped touching device, but the firing devices of hundreds of underwater thunders are tied in series with ropes, and then a long string of mines is anchored underwater, quietly waiting for a ship to pass by. Once the line is hung, the firing fuse will be pulled, it will cause a series of explosions and destroy the enemy ship.

The legendary "no ghosts don't hang strings" means this.

Because the explosion timing of this kind of thunder can be controlled as much as possible without worrying about hurting oneself by mistake, or just blowing up the head boat and alarming the remaining enemy troops, the Qin army carried a large number of such guys called "underwater thunder" and used two nights to dispatch blackened transport ships to quietly place the mines in a pre-set location, including this shallow water passage that the Chu army is likely to use.

What the Chu people didn't know was that the extremely powerful South Chu Intelligence Agency of Qin had already figured out the water conditions of Dongting Lake a few years ago. And the intelligence showed that at this time last year, the Chu army was still practicing how to successfully pass through this water. This gave Marshal Bo Shang at least two points of information. First, the decisive battlefield chosen by the Chu army was Dongting Lake; second, they wanted to use this water to do some work.

He regarded Zhu Lie as the enemy of life and death and spent his whole life studying Marshal Bo Shang, and guessed the articles of the Chu army without any trouble. Using the tricks is the best choice.

The old marshal had already made a decision on how to use it. His subordinates just needed to follow the steps and let the Chu army tie themselves up and lifted stones and hit their feet.

Facts proved that Marshal Boshang's prediction was completely correct. The Chu army really crashed into this dead water. The Qin water ghosts who were ambushing behind the reef naturally accepted them all. When the Chu army filled the passage, the death knell leading to the underworld sounded.

What's worse is that even if we see the terrible scene in front of us, the subsequent warships could not stop immediately. They slowly and firmly crashed into the bombed ship... If they could push them away, it would be considered that the Chu State was not exhausted and the Qin State had not arrived. However, the narrow waterway in the shallow water area limited the speed of the warships, and the impact generated was not enough to push the broken and out-of-control warships. After barely pushing them out for several feet, they slowly stopped.

The warships behind also had no time to stop, and dozens of warships collided head-to-tail, and the huge impact force spread to the front row, and finally knocked the damaged warship out of the channel in half. Even the first warship that collided into was pushed out.

Seeing that the warship suddenly became clear, he felt the warship speed up suddenly. The officers and soldiers on the warship cheered and shouted, "God bless Da Chu!" and he was about to work hard and rushed to the right-wing battlefield, beating the Qin army so hard that his mother didn't recognize him!

The warship drove for a distance, and the overly excited officers and soldiers remembered to look back. It didn't matter when they saw it, and it immediately wiped out the enthusiasm of the soldiers. The battleship, which was still lively, suddenly became silent.

Only three warships followed behind them, and the fourth ship actually deviated in the impact, tilted and stranded, blocking the channel again. The warship behind him was blocked by it and suddenly twisted and no longer had the momentum, and was blocked on the channel.

This time it was completely blocked...

Looking at more than a quarter of the warships, the Chu army general was ashamed of his heart, but he had no time to express his pain, because there were more important things waiting for him - now he had to turn around the more than 150 Chu ships that had not yet entered the passage and compete with the Qin army again.

The difficulty of the matter is that it is really difficult for the warships who are in intensive teams to complete the turn.

The Qin army naturally would not miss this excellent opportunity to "take his life while he was sick". In the formation of wolves that had been arranged, they rushed straight to the Chu army fleet from all directions. The Chu army quickly blocked it with the stone-tower cannons placed at the stern of the ship. The Qin army did not show any weakness and fought back with the strongest firepower. Both sides did not give in to each other, with both arrows and stones, and the smoke filled the gunpowder, which looked very fierce.

But in a short while, it was clear who was stronger and who was weaker. When the Qin army was at a disadvantage in quantity, they all relied on accuracy and power to gain a slight advantage in this kind of mutual shooting. Now the Chu army has lost 25% and cannot turn around, so they can only fight back with 40% of the stone-throwing cannons on their butt. The power is naturally broken and then broken, and they are no longer a rival to the Qin army.

After completely suppressing the opponent, Chu Po gave up this safe style and ordered his subordinates to rush up, crash the enemy ship, and quickly resolve the battle with the platoon battle. Even if the losses would increase greatly, he would not hesitate. Because the scout came to the news, the situation in the middle was a little bad...

Just as the left wing started the battle, the battle in the central waters of Dongting Lake also started, and this is also the main battlefield for both sides.

At this last moment, Zhu Lie finally took out his last trump card, fifty "giant spirit ships". You have to admire the shipbuilding ability of the Chu people. They have completely digested and absorbed this technology in just five years since they imitated the most primitive paddle ships of Qin and developed it to build a giant warship that suits their aesthetic views.

These big guys, called the "Giant Spirit Ship", have five floors of building, ten feet high, can accommodate more than 800 soldiers, and have four huge poles. They are surrounded by cowhide iron armor on the waterline, and have all kinds of rolling stones, wood, stone casting cannons... But if you think this thing is a big slow elephant, that's wrong. It has only twenty-four wheel paddles, and it won't suffer any loss after speed... Of course, slow start and difficulty in turning are common problems for all big men, and it cannot be avoided.

On the Qin army, the main battleship was only three floors, six feet high, and accommodated more than 400 officers and soldiers. There was no weapon that was considered to be eliminated, which was considered to be eliminated. Compared with the Chu super warship that looked like three heads and six arms, the Qin army did lose three points before the battle... After all, the higher the ship, the greater the ship, the more powerful it is. This is an indisputable fact.
Chapter completed!