Chapter 272 Sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight
Dorgon and Duduo, surrounded by Hong Chengchou, Fan Wencheng, Ning Wanwo, He Luohui and others, stood on the bank of the Yellow River and watched thousands of coated pontoons with white flags build a pontoon bridge.
"Master, this slave has already tried it. Directly pulling the iron cable to block the river won't work."
He Luohui said: "First, building an iron cable with a length of more than five miles is too time-consuming and iron-intensive, and it is also too heavy. There is no fixed object to tie the iron cable on both sides of the strait."
After Ning finished, I asked, "How much does a five-mile-long iron cable weigh approximately?"
He Luohui didn't say much and just asked Bao Yi to use a cart to push an iron rope over.
He Luohui pointed to the iron rope coiled around the cart like a python and said to Ning Wanwo: "Mr. Gongfu, this iron rope is about twenty paces long and weighs a thousand kilograms."
"It's only twenty steps long and weighs more than a thousand pounds?"
After Ning finished, I was surprised: "Doesn't the one-mile-long iron cable weigh more than 15,000 kilograms?"
Fan Wencheng continued: "A five-mile-long iron rope weighs more than 70,000 kilograms?"
"Seventy thousand kilograms is just a little more." He Luohui said, "So there is no fixed object to tie such a heavy iron cable on both sides of the Yellow River. No earth pile, wooden pile or stone pile can withstand such a heavy weight.
The iron cable weighing more than 70,000 kilograms needs to be straightened to expose it to the water, and the pull it needs to withstand is too great."
"It might be possible to build iron piles, but they would require very large and long iron piles."
"The problem is, we simply can't find that much iron now."
"In order to build the hundreds of twenty-step-long iron ropes in front of us, we almost collected all the iron tools in Shangqiu City, and we didn't even leave them with the iron pots from the wealthy families."
After saying this for a while, He Luohui said: "If we want to build five iron cables to block the Yellow River, even if we collect all the iron tools from Guide Prefecture, Kaifeng Prefecture and Dongchang Prefecture, I am afraid it may not be enough."
Dorgon nodded and said: "Since the iron material is not enough, let's not pull the iron cables to block the river. Anyway, there are pontoons across the river that can stop the Ming navy. Moreover, troops can be garrisoned on the pontoons. The defense is tighter than the iron cables, but only one
The pontoon bridge is not enough, we still need to build more pontoon bridges, at least five pontoon bridges."
"Hey!" He Luohui responded and said, "Master, don't worry. The fishing boats, hemp ropes and iron cables we have collected can build at least five pontoon bridges. The fishing boats in the middle of the pontoon are relatively light, so we use three strands of thick hemp rope.
Twist them into one and connect them in series. The fishing boats on both sides have the heaviest load, so they are connected in series with iron ropes, and finally they are fastened to the stone piles on the shore with iron ropes."
Dorgon hummed softly and then specifically warned: "Troops must be stationed on the bridge, and beacon towers must be set up on fishing boats. If the Ming Navy attacks at night, they will immediately light up the beacons on the boats to illuminate the forts on both sides.
Without the firelight of the beacon tower on the ship, the warships of the Ming Navy would be unable to hide, and they would not be able to break through the blockade of the red cannons."
