Half an hour after Li Siye fully occupied Hankou, Guo Ziyi led a large fleet across the river to support him. However, what he encountered was the Yong army on the river bank and the artillery arrayed in neat rows. The warships were shot by artillery shells before they even approached the river bank. As a last resort, they
Withdrew to the other side.
After Guo Ziyi withdrew to Jiangxia, he became more and more angry as he thought about it. He immediately ordered people to arrest He Lan Jinming and others who had escaped from the battle, and prepared to take them to the riverside and behead them in public.
Helan Jinming showed no guilt and shouted loudly: "Guo Ziyi, you can't kill me! I am a member of General Yu Chaoen! Even if you beat a dog, you have to look at the owner!"
Guo Ziyi straightened her chest and stroked her beard proudly and said: "Your master Yu Chaoen is also about to be destroyed. Don't expect anyone to come to save you. He will be dragged down and chopped."
The knife and axe-hand waved the Mo Dao, and dozens of people's heads fell to the ground, and their bodies were soaked in the river without anyone restraining them.
After Guo Ziyi killed Helan Jinming, he immediately sent a memorial to Jiankang. The memorial listed the crimes of Helan Jinming and others, and just escaping from battle was enough to kill him several times.
The memorial was passed to Jiankang. After reading it, Emperor Li Yu put it on his desk without doing anything about it. He wanted to do something more important, which was to get rid of the eunuch cancer Yu Chaoen.
In order to get rid of Yu Chaoen, the emperor and Prime Minister Yuan Zai took great pains. First, they secretly bribed the top leaders of the Shence Army with high-ranking officials and generous salaries and gold and silver, completely evacuating them, and then invited him to the palace to see him face to face.
Dozens of major crimes.
It is ridiculous that Yu Chaoen remained calm even when he was about to die. He told the emperor about his past achievements and even contradicted Li Yu on the spot. Li Yu immediately ordered the ambush thugs to rush in and strangle him alive with a rope.
After getting rid of Yu Chaoen, the Tang court finally became a monolith, with Guo Ziyi guarding Jianghuai outside and Yuan Zai controlling the center inside. Although Yuan Zai was a bit greedy, at this time, Jiangnan was the richest in the world, and it was still impossible to support a handful of corrupt officials.
questionable.
At this time, Li Siye's only obstacle was the natural danger of the Yangtze River. Of course, he was not willing to rule across the Yangtze River with the Can Tang Dynasty. Unification of the world was the foundation of previous rulers. What's more, the current emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu, was not a fatuous king. On the contrary, he was
There is a promising emperor, and his successors Dezong, Xianzong, and Wuzong have all made great achievements. If he is allowed to continue, I am afraid that the other party will become more and more stable in the land of Jiangnan. Wouldn't it be like going back to the north and south hundreds of years ago?
In a situation of parallelism, it would be better to take advantage of the current generation gap in military reforms and technology to pacify Jiangnan.
Facts have proved that a wise emperor does not necessarily mean that he is not a conquered king. Hearing this sentence, Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty and Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty must have something to say. Perhaps in the future, when future generations recall this period of history, they will also say that the Tang Dynasty was destroyed by Tianbao, the so-called Suzong
Both Xuanzong and Daizong took the blame for the chaos caused by Xuanzong.
Li Siye ordered people to set up four shipbuilding docks in Anqing, Yangzhou, Gaoyou and Jiangcheng Hankou on the north bank of the Yangtze River. He recruited 60,000 laborers and craftsmen. It took seven months to build a total of 48 gunboats and 130 troop transports. Gunboats
The displacement is designed to be over 900 tons. It is equipped with twelve basalt cannons, one each at the bow and stern, and five artillery pieces on each side. In order to obtain superior fire protection performance, the forty-eight gunboats are equipped with rivets on the decks and sides.
Covered with thin iron plates, there are a total of 140 soldier compartments on the bottom of the boat for paddling.
After the gunboats and fleet were successfully built, Li Siye assigned 50,000 soldiers to the Yangtze River Navy, appointed Wei Yi as the naval commander, and conducted water training for half a year.
For more than a year, the Tang Dynasty did not rest. Since Guo Ziyi did not have the cannon-making technology in the north, he had to fumble forward in the darkness and built a barrel cannon with a thicker caliber and a large charge.
, the range is relatively short and has not yet been tested in actual combat.
Li Siye quickly provided them with an opportunity. In the spring and March of the next year, he ordered Wei Yi to lead the Yangtze River Navy to attack Jiangxia on the other side.
The navy of the Tang Army stationed in Jiangxia also took action upon hearing the news. The two sides started a decisive battle with warships on the river more than ten miles away. Most of the warships of the Tang Army were the Big Huanglong built before the war, which were three feet larger than the Yongjun gunboats.
The ship was adaptively loaded with more than a dozen coarse-caliber cannons. Since the Tang army did not have the confidence to defeat such coarse-caliber artillery, a large number of crossbows and shooting poles were also installed on the ship.
The stick is equivalent to a ship's melee weapon. It is very powerful. Especially the stick on a huge ship like the Big Huanglong. It has devastating damage to small boats. As long as you are unfortunately approached by it, just take the stick and keep it for safekeeping.
Shattered to pieces.
Guo Ziyi knew that no matter how he built his cannon, he couldn't beat Yong's Xuanwu cannon, so he used the Big Yellow Dragon to take advantage of melee combat. A large ramming angle was installed on the dragon's head on the bow of the ship. When encountering the opponent's gunboat, as long as it rammed it, he would at least let it go.
Split into two halves. Even Yong's new warship wrapped in iron plates could not withstand the impact of the collision.
However, Guo Ziyi really underestimated the speed of upgrading of the Yong Army's Xuanwu artillery. In their workshop, they successfully cast the length of the muzzleloader gun to nine times the caliber, and the range was seven times the previous one. Eight times the caliber, an increase of more than a hundred steps, the total range exceeded
According to Tang's calculation of one foot and thirty-two centimeters, the range of three hundred and fifty feet exceeds one thousand meters.
The Yong Army's artillery shells have also undergone great innovations. The charge is no longer filled with slag, but a special oil paper-wrapped charging barrel with a lead, which greatly speeds up the loading speed. There are also three or four types of artillery shells.
There are solid shells used to destroy ship hulls, explosive shells filled with gunpowder, violent thunder bombs filled with gunpowder and grease, and even fragmentation shot fired at close range. What's even more powerful is that the twister of the shell is also waterproof, even if it blooms
Bombs and fire bombs can also explode if they fall into the water.
If Guo Ziyi wanted to win, he could only defeat them in close combat on the water, so that the Tang Army's advantage of having a large number of large ships could be brought into play.
Li Siye understood Guo Ziyi's combat intentions, so he had to take advantage of his firepower and range. In addition to installing a large number of artillery pieces on the gunboats, he also arranged a Xuanwu artillery battalion at the dock on the river bank, with more than 600 guns lined up.
.The Yangtze River Navy used kite-flying tactics to fight against the Tang Army on the river, taking full advantage of the long range of gunboats. Once they found an enemy ship approaching, they immediately retreated to the river bank dock. Once the Tang Army's Dahuanglong and other warships pursued them across the line,
, it will enter the artillery range of the artillery camp on the river bank, and the opponent can only fall into a passive situation of being beaten.
After determining this shameless tactic, the Yong army could attack the Tang army in full force.
The weather was sunny that day. Since it was the turn of spring and summer, the southeast wind was blowing on the river, about level 3 or 4. This kind of wind was very unfavorable to Yong's army. Cao Cao, who was defeated in Chibi, thought the same way.
However, Li Siye still ordered the navy to fight against the wind. This was based on his absolute confidence in weapons and equipment.
As soon as the Tang army sailed out of the water village, they lined up the Big Yellow Dragon warships on the river. They raised their sails and took advantage of the wind. The soldiers in the bottom cabin speeded up their oars. The warships gradually accelerated and headed towards the Yong Army gunboats on the other side of the river.
Rushing straight towards them, the horns of the warships were pitch black, like bulls about to explode.
Wei Yi divided the gunboats into three echelons and lined them up across the river. Each echelon was separated by about one gun's range. When the Tang army's warships charged, the first echelon of warships fired explosive shells, and the shells fell.
Raging waves exploded on the river.
The Yong Army gunboats fired another salvo, and the Tang Army's warships were hit. The masts on the ships were sometimes broken, and the hulls were sometimes damaged. However, they still charged forward with momentum. Some ships sank during the charge.
The gunboat lowered its muzzle again, and the two sides were slowly closing the distance. Wei Yi ordered the first echelon of warships to raise their sails and retreat. While retreating, they continued to bombard the Tang army.
When the first echelon of gunboats retreated to the second echelon, the Tang army faced more intense artillery attacks. The soldiers who were blown away by the shells fell into the water, and the river surface was dyed red with blood.
Guo Ziyi stood on the Huanglong ship at the rear, beating the war drum himself and urging the warship to move forward. He wanted all Tang troops to carry forward the spirit of not fearing death, and completely defeated the Yong Navy in one battle, so that they would never dare to do it again.
Encroach on the Yangtze River.
For a time, all the big Huanglong warships rushed forward one after another, charging forward with a spirit of self-sacrifice.