Li Xuan guessed that they should have built these ships at the rear, and then used a lot of manpower to transport them directly.
The boats and rafts they built are very small and can be lifted by more people.
It is no wonder that the spies of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty did not find any trace of their large-scale construction of river crossing tools.
"It seems that they are preparing to cross the river in the near future!" Zeng Ziwen said to Li Xuan on the hillside on the west bank: "And the crossing of the river will probably be very fast. They are going to get ashore in one go!"
The Ming army deliberately kept it secret and built tools for crossing the river in the rear, surely with the idea of taking it by surprise and attacking it unprepared.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a problem for them to just build the tools for crossing the river directly on the river beach!
Li Xuan turned to Xie Ziwei at this time and said: "The artillery team is ready. As soon as the ships of the puppet Ming thief army appear densely on the river beach, we will fire!"
The Ming army already knew that the artillery of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty could hit the river beach about 400 meters away, so although they also built some defenses on the river beach, they were all built piecemeal, and the barracks were even more repaired.
By being several hundred meters away from the river, we can effectively avoid artillery attacks from the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
But if the Ming army wanted to cross the river, they had to move the boat to the river beach, or even put it directly into the river. The Ming army soldiers also had to walk out of the military camp, and then crowd on the river beach to board the boat.
At this time, they will become the target of the artillery team.
The dense crowd will prevent the artillery team from missing every shot.
The only pity is that the land on the river beach is too soft. After the solid bullet is hit, its kinetic energy will be quickly absorbed by the soft soil, greatly reducing the lethality of the solid bullet.
Xie Ziwei also said at this time: "I obey the order, as soon as the puppet Ming rebels set foot on the river beach, our artillery team will fire six guns!"
Xie Ziwei's artillery team now has one 800-jin artillery and five 500-jin artillery pieces. Needless to say, the 800-jin Italian cannon is quite powerful.
Even if it is a 500-pound small cannon, it is actually not small, just smaller than the Italian cannon. Its longest effective range can reach about 400 meters.
This distance is enough to effectively kill the river beach area on the east coast.
These two kinds of artillery are actually basically the same except for their different weights. You can simply think that the 500-jin artillery is a smaller version of the 800-jin artillery.
Since it is the same style of artillery, its weight and size have been reduced, and its power has naturally been relatively reduced. However, the shortened effective range of 100 meters does not focus on the actual effectiveness of this small artillery in the Lanjiang defense battle.
.
Sure enough, as expected, the Ming army and the others took advantage of the cover of darkness to begin transporting boats, rafts and other tools for crossing the river to the river beach that night.
At this time, Xie Ziwei's artillerymen also opened fire immediately!
This can be regarded as the first actual night artillery attack by the new army of the Tang Dynasty. However, they have also fired several artillery shells at night before. One was to frighten the Ming army and see if they could hit a few people. The second one was also
For training.
In addition, they have been in this ghost place for more than three months. Not only are they familiar with every inch of land on the east coast, but at least the several hundred meters of river beach on the east coast, they are definitely familiar with it, not to mention the last time.
In the Battle of Lanjiang, in the past three months, whenever they saw a relatively large number of Ming troops appearing on the river beach, they would fire such a shot.
Sometimes when I see generals of the Ming army going to the riverside for inspections, they will fire a few cannons to see if they can deceive a high-ranking Ming army official.
Although the results of the past three months have been few and far between, and no high-ranking officials have been hit, the artillery has been able to fire well, and it will naturally become experienced. Now Xie Ziwei and the others are quite familiar with the terrain there, even in the dark.
, all know how to adjust the gun position and then fire.
As the rumble of cannons sounded, the night on the Lanjiang River became lively again.
On the west bank, the six gun emplacements on the parapet built by the New Army of the Tang Dynasty emitted a ball of orange-red fire from time to time. As the fire flashed, the rumble of the cannons also spread across the Lanjiang River for several miles.
At this time, on the river beach on the other side of the river, solid black iron balls will flash out of the darkness and then hit the land on the river beach.
The cannonballs picked up and then fell, penetrating the rafts that had just been brought up, causing these rafts built by the Ming army to fall into pieces, and sawdust flying everywhere.
Some of the shells hit the Ming soldiers who were transporting these boats and rafts. Most of the Ming soldiers who were hit by the solid ball shells died on the spot without saying a word, because such a big solid iron ball hit people at high speed.
The whole body can be smashed to pieces by the impact.
Those who did not die on the spot were those whose limbs were shot, but they could only scream a few times, because most of their limbs had been carried away by the shells, and they lost their arms and legs very quickly.
Will die due to excessive blood loss.
However, although screams continued to be heard amidst the rumbling cannons, the Ming army's transport of tools for crossing the river to the river did not stop, but instead accelerated the progress.
Also, although Xie Ziwei's artillery team worked very hard and kept firing, the distance of more than 300 meters was a bit far, and it was impossible to say where to hit.
And very importantly, it was night now, and the Ming army on the other side of the river did not foolishly light a large number of torches to carry tools for crossing the river. They only lit a few torches and carried them with the help of weak firelight.
And after these weak firelights were separated by a few hundred meters, the artillerymen on the other side of the river couldn't see clearly. They could only vaguely see some figures. They couldn't hit the place with dense Ming troops at all. So naturally,
This reduces the lethality of the shells.
After all, this kind of solid artillery shell must directly hit the enemy to cause damage. Otherwise, even if the shell flies a few centimeters away from the Ming army, it will be useless.
This means that if you want to achieve a good killing effect, you have to hit the crowd. If the enemy troops disperse quickly, the killing effect of the solid shells will be greatly reduced.
After fighting like this for half the night, even though Li Xuan could not see the effect of the bombardment, when the Ming army did not retreat, but instead speeded up and sent more people to carry the boats and rafts, Li Xuan knew that this night
Bombardment is unreliable.
If we fight all night, we probably won't be able to hit many Ming troops. Instead, it will cause a waste of ammunition and shorten the life of the artillery.
The ammunition of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was very precious. Every cannonball and every pack of gunpowder were produced after purchasing materials from outside at a high price. The cost was quite, quite high.
So after midnight, Li Xuan simply ordered the bombardment to stop, and then gave the order to the entire army. Except for the security troops on duty, everyone else should sleep.
Now even a fool can guess that the Ming army will definitely cross the river on a large scale early tomorrow morning. If we don't refresh ourselves tonight, it will be bad if we fight with dark circles under our eyes tomorrow.
At the same time, he also asked the messenger to pass the news that the Ming army was preparing to cross the river to the first and second mixed battalions overnight, and asked the two troops to rush back overnight.
Since the Ming army has decided to cross the river here, there is no need to guard against the Ming army coming from other places. As for the small-scale Ming army sneaking across the river, it will not affect the battle situation for a while.
Now the most critical thing is here at the Lanjiang Ferry. Li Xuan must gather all the main forces and the Ming army for another life-and-death battle!
After all, it is expected that the battle that may come tomorrow will be another battle for the fate of the country that the Tang Dynasty will face. It is hard to say what will happen if it wins, but if it loses, everyone will definitely not end up with a good ending.
The Tang Dynasty's rebellion has reached this stage. It's not just Li Xuan who can't be kind. None of the other senior civil and military officials can expect that the Ming Dynasty will let them go.
You occupied a whole county and killed thousands of Ming troops. The most important thing is that you were defeated.
Under such circumstances, the Ming Dynasty would definitely catch and kill everyone!
If you want to survive, you can only pray that you can escape quickly enough.
After the two mixed battalions of the Tang Dynasty New Army received orders from Li Xuan one after another from the messengers, they naturally did not dare to delay and set off overnight to rush back to the Lanjiang Ferry.
The First Mixed Battalion is about eight miles away from the Lanjiang Ferry, and they did not bring any baggage. Daily supplies were transported directly to them by the baggage troops. At the same time, they were fighting at home, and the roads were quite familiar, so they traveled lightly.
It's relatively quick and we expect to be back tomorrow morning.
The second mixed battalion was slightly further away, ten miles away. It was also marching lightly, and it was probably not close to being able to rush back until dawn.
And they didn't know that when they left Two Hours Tiger, around three in the morning, a large number of Ming troops suddenly appeared at a small ferry not far from the original First Mixed Battalion, and then they moved out directly from behind.
There were a lot of boats and rafts. After walking to the river, we put down the boats and rafts and started crossing the river.
The movements of these Ming troops were naturally discovered by the dozen or so soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty who stayed here to monitor the situation.
"There are so many of them, at least hundreds of boats!" The platoon leader of these soldiers looked at the rafts on the river and the lights on the boats, and his expression suddenly changed.
These hundreds of boats can carry at least more than a thousand Ming troops across the river!
"Quick, ride your horse back immediately and tell the adults that the Ming army is about to cross the river." Seeing the scale of the Ming army crossing the river, the platoon leader knew that something bad was going to happen.
This is not the kind of small fight before. The Ming army only sent a few boats and dozens or hundreds of people to cross the river. Instead, there were hundreds of boats at one time. The Ming army crossing the river was at least thousands.
, it may even reach two to three thousand people.
Now our main force is on guard against the Ming army on the other side of the Lanjiang Ferry. If two to three thousand Ming troops bypass the rear of our main force at this time, we will be in big trouble!
Immediately, two soldiers got on their horses, and then without any regard for the physical strength of the horses, they whipped their whips fiercely, urging the horses to run fast. They wanted to tell the battalion official Xitong of the First Mixed Battalion the news, and they also wanted to tell this news.