Seeing the fierce battle between the two sides of the navy in the waters two or three miles from the mouth of the Yuxi River, Zhong Changqing groaned in pain. Many of the guards around him also stared at this scene with their mouths open. They couldn't believe the water in the direction of the river mouth.
The battle will be one-sided.
The Yuxi River is shallow and large warships with deep draft cannot enter flexibly. Zhong Changqing can see that the general of the Laizhou Navy who was responsible for supervising the battle in the front line at this time put more than 40 small and medium-sized warships into the Yuxi River at one time.
In the middle, he was thinking about attacking the invading Beijing-Xiang navy warships from the Xukou camp and driving them away or annihilating them.
Yuxi River is a naturally formed cave mouth between Fengsha Lake and the Yangtze River. The river channel is not only forty or fifty steps wide from beginning to end. After the first flood gate blockade, there is a gap three to four hundred steps wide.
Chawan - looking at the Yuxi River as a whole, it looks more like a series of small lakes strung together.
They chose to build a floodgate camp outside this branch and blockade the Yuxi River because they considered that when the warships of the Beijing-Xiang naval army forcibly broke into the Yuxi River, they could assemble the warships in the branch in advance and arrange the ships.
Formation, more complete pre-battle preparations were made, and even at the entrance to the bay, a situation was formed where the numbers were overwhelming and the numbers were overwhelming.
At this time, Zhong Changqing had already seen more clearly the number and shape of the turtle-shaped iron armored ships of the Jingxiang Army.
Not counting the warships parked on the river outside the river mouth, the Jingxiang Army put a total of twenty turtle-shaped iron-clad ships into the Yuxi River to fight.
Among them, six turtle-shaped iron-clad ships are long and narrow, with a length of more than eight feet from head to tail. They are similar to warships and should be their main warships. After the iron chain ropes of the river barrage were lowered at the flood entrance camps on both sides of the river, these six
Each of the armored sterns, driven by twenty pairs of large oars, took the lead in launching an assault into the bay, and it could even be said that they rushed through it.
The generals supervising the battle in the front line must have known that the enemy ships were difficult to damage with arrows and were not afraid of fire attacks. When they saw this scene, they immediately organized eight stern warships to directly move forward for hedging.
Zhong Changqing originally thought that the two sides' ships were of the same type, so the result of the collision would be mutual damage, and the outcome would be indistinguishable. However, in fact, their eight stern warships were swept up and down as soon as they engaged in the battle.
, utterly defeated.
Their warships were either squeezed out of the way, or the planks of the ships were violently cracked during the collision, tearing a hideous hole, and cold river water surged into the cabin; there were two other warships.
After being forcibly turned over, the generals on the deck and in the war tents fell into the cold river like dumplings.
This result not only shows that the six armored ships of the Jingxiang Army are not only astonishing in weight, but also far stronger than their warships.
Zhong Changqing, who reined in his horse and stopped not far from the river bank, also noticed that the six armored stern boats of the Jingxiang Army, in addition to the thicker armor covering the bows, even installed iron plow-shaped rams on the front ends.
During the collision, they used this iron plow-like collision angle to break holes and crack their warships with extremely sharp force.
These six iron-armored stern ships were simply built for the ramming tactics of water warfare.
Taking advantage of the fact that their intercepting ship formation was disrupted, four small armored warships shaped like walking boats, or armored walking boats, behind the Jingxiang Army quickly charged forward.
Most of the armored warships were covered in armored battle sheds, but there were still decks nearly ten feet deep at the bow and stern of the ship. After approaching, while their stern warship was being hit,
Shaking endlessly, most of the generals had not yet recovered. The front hatches of the four armored boats suddenly opened from the inside, and dozens of armored soldiers filed out of the cabins, quickly throwing fire oil cans into their cabins.
It was thrown into the warship and quickly set on fire.
The fire spread rapidly, including the two warships that capsized and ran aground on the shoal. They were the first to intercept the eight warships that collided, and soon they were all engulfed in a sea of flames - because of the iron-armored warships of the Beijing-Xiangang Army.
They were still running rampant near the mouth of Chawan Bay, so the generals on the eight stern warships were definitely unable to organize themselves to put out the fire. Even the four armored stern warships of the Jingxiang Army were still moving flexibly and coquettishly, and kept throwing kerosene cans.
Come over and intensify the spread of the fire.
The Xukou fortress also failed to provide support.
In the previous battle, the generals on the wall of the Xukou camp suffered heavy casualties in the exchange of fire. They threw kerosene cans and shotgun shells, which failed to damage the armored warships of the Beijing and Xiang army, but consumed a large amount of reserves in vain.
At this time, the Jingxiang Army mobilized more than a dozen ordinary warships to rush into the Xiyu River and quickly approached their Xunkou camp. However, the sporadic counterattacks by the Xukou camp were completely out of scale, and Jing could only watch helplessly.
The Xiang Army's dozens of ordinary warships used the catapults deployed on the top of their war sheds to quickly throw the fire oil cans over.
Seeing the black smoke billowing into the sky from the two fortresses at the mouth of the river, Zhong Changqing was so desperate that he almost closed his eyes.
Although the main camp at the southern foot of Dafan Mountain immediately dispatched troops and horses to reinforce the outer Xunkou camp, hundreds of cavalrymen on both sides of the bank were still halfway up the road. Seeing this scene, they all looked at each other in tacit understanding and turned around to go to Fengsha Lake.
Then go to the other two flood gate camps in the direction of the entrance.
At this time, everyone knew that it was impossible to hold the two outer fortresses at Flood Gate. Unless the Jingxiang army landed, there would be no need to send infantry and cavalry over.
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The really fierce water battle broke out near the second blockade of the Yuxi River, which was the water near the mouth of Fengsha Lake.
The prisoner general supervising the battle saw that the outer flood camp and intercepting warships were destroyed like melons and vegetables. He clearly saw the sharpness of the armored warships in water battles and reacted very quickly. He ordered the enemy to be moved into Fengsha Lake.
The moored boats filled with sand and gravel were moved into the river south of the second barrage, preparing to sink the boats and block the river.
These sand and gravel boats anchored in Fengsha Lake have been prepared for a long time, mainly to block the river channels and water mouths in case of emergency.
This time, the general who was supervising the war did not expect that they would be so unbearable in the water battle on the outer river. They would definitely not be willing to adopt such a passive defensive tactic at first; after all, they used sunken ships to block the river, and their main naval forces could not survive in a short time.
It will also be completely isolated in Fengsha Lake.
However, at this time, no matter how stupid they were, they could still imagine that if they did not block the Yuxi River waterway in time, their warships anchored in Fengsha Lake would become lambs to be slaughtered.
And their other main naval force is still anchored in Chao Lake - the straight-line distance between Chao Lake and Fengsha Lake may be only two hundred miles, but to reinforce it, they have to walk three hundred miles of waterway; one hundred miles of which are narrow
The slow canal waterway goes upstream for 200 miles. Now that the naval reinforcements have been dispatched in time, it will have to wait at least until around noon tomorrow before they can reach the river outside the mouth of Yuxi River for reinforcements.
By that time, how would we know that the navy of the Beijing-Xiang Army had not already ended the Fengsha Lake water battle and was waiting for work on the river outside the mouth of the Yuxi River, waiting for their reinforcements to arrive in embarrassment?
For the leader of the army, it is a top priority to urgently block the waterway from Yuxi River into Fengsha Lake.
The blockade of iron rings and water booms alone is no longer enough. A shipwreck blockade must be carried out - and even a shipwreck blockade may not be enough, after all, sunken ships can also be forcibly towed away.
As for the Jingzhou navy, it is about buying time to ensure that the river is not completely blocked before entering Fengsha Lake.
Therefore, when the water battle in the outer branch bay was fierce, Wang Zhang dispatched nearly a hundred light walking boats - which were also the warships with the largest number of naval forces and the highest proportion of naval forces in Tianjing Lake - quickly along the Yuxi River.
Going up Hebei, withstood the enemy camp offensive at the entrance of Fengsha Lake on both sides, and fought fiercely with the Japanese soldiers and navy.
After all, the tortoise-shell and iron-hulled boat itself is still a bit larger. Even though the bottom cabin of the iron-clad boat has thirty-six pairs of large oars and seventy-two sailors, the speed is still slightly slower; at this time, you need to use ordinary walking boats to rush in quickly.
Fighting to intercept.
A small boat carrying thousands of navy generals advanced in surprise. They encountered the opponent's main warship at the mouth of the lake. At the same time, they had to withstand the enemy's attack from the flood entrance camps on both sides. The casualties were naturally extremely tragic, and there were constant casualties.
Soldiers were knocked into the river, and warships were constantly being sunk or set on fire.
However, nearly a hundred gouging boats still rushed forward to attack regardless of their own safety, forcing the enemy ships filled with sand and gravel to stop in the river and dig calmly.
Shen, buying time for the armored warships to arrive, and some even went straight into Fengsha Lake in small boats to disrupt the enemy ship array preparing for battle at the mouth of the lake.
The soldiers were also very aware of the consequences of losing Hukou, so they mobilized various warships at all costs. If the heavy trebuchets were difficult to move, they reinforced the crossbows and catapults from nearby camps.
Push up the embankment and attack the Jingxiang army warships at the mouth of the lake.
The water battle became more intense, with Japanese warships almost crowding the water area about three to four hundred paces square at the mouth of the lake. There were even three to five enemy ships connected together with hooks, sickles or iron cables to resist the collision of the armored sterns, or to force the ship to join the side.
During the battle, Wang Zhang, who was in charge of water warfare, dispatched more warships and battleships into the Yuxi River, mixed with turtle-shell and iron-hulled ships, and launched a fierce battle with the Japanese navy.
The two sides were equivalent to compressing the water battle that was supposed to take place in Fengsha Lake into the river at the mouth of the lake - this was actually the only option for the Japanese soldiers and navy to avoid falling into a greater disadvantage.
The soldiers even slowly drove six five-toothed giant ships over - once Hukou was lost, these clumsy giant ships would become living targets that were difficult to move. It was better to just pull them over and hit the bottom and anchor steadily at the mouth of the lake.
In the inner waters.
At this time, the small and medium-sized warships of the Lu soldiers, the racket poles, catapults and other war equipment on the Wu-ya giant ship, cooperated with the naval soldiers on the Wu-ya giant ship, and fought tenaciously against the tortoise-shell and iron-hulled ships of the Beijing-Xiang army.
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Of course, Mibao and the others' secret drills and training a month in advance were not fruitless. For such a surface battlefield, they gave priority to expeling and sinking the small and medium-sized warships of the Japanese soldiers - at this time, the tortoise-shell and iron-hulled ships were still
It acted as the absolute main force, and ordinary warships mainly cooperated to cover the tortoise-shell and iron-hulled warships in combat.
The water battle lasted until the sun set in the west, and then it came to an end.
At this time, the navy reinforcements stationed in Chao Lake did not yet know where they were, but the six five-tooth warships and the two Xunkou camps at the entrance of the lake were already engulfed in a sea of fire, and both sides in the nearby waters did not know
How many warships were sunk or burned, and countless bodies were floating on the lake.
Dusk was approaching, and the navy of the Beijing-Xiangang Army had no intention of sweeping across Fengsha Lake at night. The warships withdrew in batches to the river mouth outside, while sweeping the battlefield nearby...
