Chapter 89 Shooting into the sky, throwing in the face of the enemy
The sea outside Beacon Mountain was extremely calm just now, but now there was loud gunfire.
A full one or two hundred fireships lit fires one after another, filled their sails and rushed towards the Ming army anchorage.
Because those who set the fire had to evacuate in advance and could not adjust the course, the soldiers on the fire ship also knew that it was almost impossible to hit a moving enemy ship.
We can only bet that the military discipline of the Ming Dynasty was poor, that they slept too hard at night, and that the emergency anchoring speed of the ship at anchor was slow, so as to ensure that there was no time to avoid the fire ship when it rushed in front of it.
Since ancient times, the use of fire ships has had great limitations.
Unless you are facing a clumsy serial ship like Cao Cao, or a bunch of parked ships in the port, it can work wonders. But if you want to hit a big ship in sailing state, it will be extremely difficult.
In the Battle of Liaoluo Bay nine years ago, Zheng Zhilong actually burned and sank two Dutch heavy Galenic warships while they were sailing, and burned several more.
But that time was a special case. Zheng Zhilong laid a dragnet, ambushing hundreds of arson ships, and dealt with less than ten large Dutch warships. They surrounded them from all directions, leaving the Dutch with no way to hide.
Unfortunately, this time Kong Youde obviously underestimated the reaction speed of the Shen family's elite sailors and the dispatching ability of Zheng Chenggong's trusted pirate officers.
Since there is an advance warning of gunshots, the reaction time in the last mile or two is enough.
When the fireships rushed in front of them, most of the docked warships had already left their berths. Even if it was too late to fully operate the sails and supplemented with temporary vigorous rowing as auxiliary power, they had to start quickly.
Although there are still a few ships stuck in the inner berths that were burned due to channel congestion, this has not affected the overall situation.
Anyway, it is close to the port, and the soldiers can immediately flee back to the shore to avoid casualties. If the ship is slightly burned, it will be repaired in the future.
If the ship is saved and the people are lost, both the people and the ship are lost. If the people are saved and the ship is lost, the people and the ship are saved.
The only unavoidable major loss on the Ming army's side was that the wooden trestles on the docks were all completely burned down, and the port facilities were severely damaged. These fixed facilities cannot be escaped, and if a fire ship hits them, they can only watch.
It was destroyed.
After this battle, either emergency repairs were carried out or people were to be evacuated to the ship later, so the only option was to use a small sampan to ferry them.
Considering that Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong are not too afraid of Azig attacking the water village in a short period of time, the loading and unloading speed is not bad.
The Ming army's counterattack was also very swift. Zheng Chenggong immediately directed the warships that had just set sail to search for and kill the small sampans on the sea. He stared at the retreating arsonists and fired and fired arrows.
It hit it directly and sank the small sampan.
Suddenly, the sound of wailing gradually rose on the sea.
At least dozens of small sampans used by the soldiers to retreat and set fire to the dead were surrounded and killed by the Ming Navy. Hundreds of people were shot and wounded in an instant, and they fell into the sea. Moreover, the speed of this loss was still increasing at an extremely fast rate.
speed growth.
The main ships of Kong Youde's rear army in the distance have not arrived at the battlefield yet. This kind of battle between big ships and small ships is of course a one-sided crushing.
It's like an assassin who only has the power of one blow. He wants to assassinate a powerful general. If he misses the first blow, he has no choice but to let himself be slaughtered unilaterally.
On the battlefield of the former army, the only variable factor was the thirty medium-sized North Korean clippers.
…
It is a pity that at the same time that Kong Youde was cursing the North Korean general "Li Yue" for his incompetence, he expected "Li Yue" to help him bring back more dead men on fire ships.
In front of the battlefield, on a ship with the largest shuttle-shaped wooden house, North Korean general Li Yu was acting passively and sabotaging his work.
"Continue to implement the plan secretly agreed upon before the war! Charge towards the center of the Ming army! Each ship will adapt accordingly! Act bravely!"
"When you encounter a large Ming army ship, keep firing into the air! The Ming army should be able to see that we are not a threat and will not deliberately oppose us. Let all the gunmen hide behind the bunker of the wooden house without having to look out to take aim.
As long as we are not attacked by the Hongyi artillery, our cabin boats can block all other bows and crossbows. If the Ming army ships insist on coming to join us, let those who can speak Chinese shout surrender in unison, indicating that we are Koreans!"
The reason why this North Korean general named Li Yu was mistaken for "Li Yue" by Kong Youde and other Qing army generals has to be explained a little bit from a public eulogy two years ago.
Li Yu was the concubine of Li Sibai, the current military judge of North Korea, and could be regarded as a distant relative of the royal family of North Korea.
After Bingzi's chaos in the tenth year of Chongzhen, North Korea surrendered to the Qing Dynasty. Three more years later, in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the Qing Dynasty asked North Korea to send Wang Shizi and the legitimate son of Liucao Gongqing to Shengjing as hostages.
Everything about North Korea's official system is modeled after the Ming Dynasty, but because North Korea is a kingdom rather than an empire, it is not qualified to set up "six ministries", and the corresponding institutions have to be downgraded one level and are called "six ministries".
North Korea's Bingcao Banshu is equivalent to the Ming Dynasty's Minister of War.
Therefore, Li Shibai was considered a high-level minister in North Korea. Historically, a few years later, he also became the "Leading Councilor", which was equivalent to the "chief assistant of the cabinet" in the Ming Dynasty.
But now the Li family is in a big trouble:
When the Qing Dynasty asked to send hostages two years ago, the Li family should have sent their legitimate son Li Yue over. However, Li Shibai's first wife, Yin Shi, was very strong and doted on her own sons. She would not allow her husband to send any of his legitimate sons as hostages.
Li Shibai was helpless, and finally remembered that his concubine Li Yu and his brother Li Yue were very similar in appearance. In addition, Li Yu's mother was from a humble background and was dead, so no one in her family was making trouble. Li Shibai asked Li Yu to pretend to be Li Yue.
Being a hostage.
It turns out that this matter has been going on for two years, and Li Yu has not found any flaws in the Qing Dynasty. But his brother Li Yue, who escaped the fate of being a hostage, is still in North Korea.
Because Li Yue wants to live as Li Yu, he loses the prestige of the legitimate son in the past, and has no face to socialize with others. For the sake of his own dignity, this guy actually let it slip that he was the real Li Yue.
Seoul was trembling with prestige, and then it was overheard by Qing spies through certain channels.
Lee Si-baek's family is about to get into trouble because of this. Historically, this embarrassment will break out this year, and then Lee Si-baek will be dismissed from his post and questioned by the King of Joseon, Lee Joo, and exiled to Dojosan Mountain in Chungcheong, and then secretly exchange protons with his credentials.
Ask the Qing Dynasty to apologize for the problem.
It would take two years for the limelight to pass before Li Shibai would be secretly appointed by King Li Zhu again.
As for the fake hostage Li Yu, her fate was even worse.
Historically, because Li Yu was the hostage of the North Korean army, during the Qing Dynasty, he could help the Qing Dynasty command the reinforcements of the musketry team sent by North Korea (but the Manchu Qing Dynasty would send senior generals to supervise it, and Li Yu needed to listen to Jierharang)
(commander), he stayed at the siege battlefield of Jinzhou for two years without a chance to escape. In the end, he was directly captured by the Qing Dynasty and held accountable.
Now, because of the butterfly effect of Shen Shuren and Zheng Chenggong, Li Yu got an opportunity to follow Kong Youde to fight at sea. This made him realize the God-given opportunity last night——
His father had given him a secret letter a while ago, and he burned it after reading it. The letter said that his third brother was out of tune and talking nonsense in Seoul, which seemed to cause a big problem, and told him to be careful in the Qing Dynasty.
In this case, now that there is an opportunity to directly confess, then pretend that he and his subordinates were all killed in the battle! There will be no proof of death! So no one can prove whether he is Li Yu or Li Yue.
As for the third brother, let him live with his identity for the rest of his life! Let him be reduced to the treatment of a bastard for the rest of his life! This is also the retribution for his arrogance and talk!
Kong Youde didn't pay attention to this, and it can't be blamed on Kong Youde's low IQ. It's just that he really didn't know there were so many inside stories.
In the past two years, Li Yu has always been diligent when helping Jierhalang to besiege Jinzhou. The North Korean gunnery team under his command also did so every time they encountered Jierhalang and asked them to provide fire cover for the troops ascending the city.
Work hard.
Who would have thought that the model unit that had shown resignation over the past two years would suddenly have such an undercurrent in the mainland?
Kong Youde himself felt that it was honorable to be a traitor to the Han Dynasty, and to save others by oneself, he also felt that the troops who came from North Korea to surrender to the Qing Dynasty should also be very proud to be a traitor to the Han Dynasty.
…
Of course, Zheng Chenggong's troops would not realize that the general of the North Korean musket unit in front of them had so many twists and turns.
However, as the battle lasted a little longer, they also saw abnormalities in the combat performance of this strange North Korean fleet. (The country of the ship can be seen at a glance, because the North Korean ship looks like Ming Dynasty.
Qing’s ships are different)
First of all, as long as the gunners on this fleet approached the Ming warships, almost no one would show their head at the porthole. They would just stick out the barrel of the gun diagonally upwards and shoot into the sky.
Secondly, after observing for a while, the Ming army officers and soldiers discovered that many sampans carrying dead soldiers from the Qing army's artillery ships that had fled far away were actually intercepted by the Korean ships when they tried to approach these Korean ships to request rescue.
The bird cannon shot in a sneak attack——
Of course, if these North Korean ships are also very close to the Ming warships, then for their own safety, they will not take aim. But if they are a little far away from the Ming warships, and there are only fire ships and dead soldiers sampans nearby, they will be bolder.
Take aim with a large outcrop.
This can be proved by the screams coming from a distance. Many of Kong Youde's confidants who died were suddenly killed and screamed in agony when they were far away from the Ming army and far before they were overtaken.
After some trial and error, Zheng Chenggong finally figured it out and ordered his men to try to jump up and catch anyone alive.
As expected, the Koreans did not resist. Several boats shouted kills in vain, and then the flags were changed and new fire horns were lit.
In the dark, just by watching the rhythm of the torches waved by the boarding sailors on the cabin roofs, friendly forces in the distance can confirm that these ships have been captured.
Zheng Chenggong was reassured, and then he calmly took action in person. With a flagship equipped with red cannons, he directly forced the largest ship in the North Korean fleet, and then used hooks and other objects to pull the ship. Zheng Chenggong, a group of pirates,
Jinglii immediately jumped to help.
Of course, Zheng Chenggong himself was the son of a rich man and could not sit down in court. He would not have boarded the ship himself before the situation between us and the enemy was fully understood.
However, he was also cautious, and while letting the Zheng family's servants join the team, he also included several Shen family servants in the team - these Shen family servants were all chosen by Zheng Chenggong after temporary consultation, and they all followed Shen Ting.
Yang has escorted North Korean trade for many years and can speak North Korean.
The Zheng family is only the king of the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and Fu Chuan is not suitable for North Korean trade. Therefore, the trade between Ming Dynasty and North Korea has been monopolized by the Shen family over the years. They have a deep talent pool in this area, and foreign languages are certainly not a problem.
Soon, Ming army soldiers led by Shen family translator Ding swarmed onto Li Yu's boat, preparing to capture them all.