The actions of the Mengyun Mountain group were not considered imprudent, but in the darkness, something was missed after all, and one or two defenders fled back.
After receiving the report, Yang Yi made a prompt decision and ordered the supply ship with two thousand materials to stay at sea temporarily in the middle of the night, while the warship with one thousand materials sailed into the complex and dangerous Bangka Strait overnight;
The Bangka Strait is about four hundred miles long and thirty miles wide. Fortunately, the mouth of the Mosi River is not far from the western end of the Bangka Strait.
After entering the Bangka Strait from the west end, it was not far from the mouth of Mosi River. However, Yang Yi still paid the price of one ship being damaged and one ship being stranded.
When the morning sun rose, the fleet had already traveled nearly half of the way up the Mosi River. The area from the mouth of the Mosi River to the capital city of Balinbang (Palembang City) was mostly plains, covered with dense forests, and the area of ??swamps and lakes accounted for about Thirty percent, the water system is extremely developed.
The houses on both sides of the strait are also very distinctive. Most of them are built on wooden rafts, covered with wooden boards, covered with thatch, and tied to the shore with pile cables. When the water is long, the rafts will float, so there is no need to worry about the house being submerged. If you want to live somewhere else, you will put up piles of houses and move them without any trouble. It can be said that you really live by the water. People come and go by boat.
Therefore, both the military and civilians in this area are extremely good at water warfare. Yang Yi did not dare to take it lightly and issued a first-level battle preparation to the fleet.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? As a fleet of men and women see Srivijaya wearing their hair in buns, mostly wearing cotton and linen short shirts, tied with Tung Chong cloth. When they saw this huge fleet, they all looked at it sideways. Some rowed boats to get closer to watch, while others were frightened and stayed away.
The fleet was still twenty miles away from Bolingbang, the capital of Srivijaya, when suddenly a dark fleet was seen coming upstream. The largest ship was only two or three hundred. The rest were mostly small boats, but there were hundreds of them. Due to the distance, the situation on the other side's ship cannot be clearly seen with the naked eye.
Yang Yi took out a monocular telescope. This thing was produced by the Yang Academy of Science a year ago. Now every captain of each ship has one. It is no longer a rare thing.
Through the tongguo telescope, you can see the flags on the opposite ship, the crowds of people, the swords and guns reflecting the cold light, and the rumble of war drums coming from the ears.
When things got to this point, Yang Yi would not stop doing anything. The combat order was immediately issued and specific command authority was handed over to Le Tao.
Le Tao is twenty-eight years old, tall and tough, with a resolute face. He has performed the best in all previous naval battle trainings. This is the main reason why Yang Yi asked him to lead his team south.
After receiving Yang Yi's authorization, he immediately shouted to the messenger: "Command, order all ships to prepare grenades and rockets. Strictly guard against the enemy's small boats launching wolf pack tactics, and prepare cluster grenades. If the enemy sets fire to the ship to attack, then Use cluster grenades to quickly sink the fireship."
"Here!"
"Order the gunboat in front to test fire one round with a solid bullet."
"Here!"
The soldiers were ordered to use flags. Le Tao's orders were continuously conveyed to each ship. The gunboat in front received the order and immediately stuffed solid rounds into the forward main gun barrel. Light the fuse.
"Boom!" There was a loud noise, and the bow of the ship slumped. A cannonball roared away, and an unprecedented water battle began.
The solid bullet traveled nearly five miles. It hit a small boat hard, and the small boat was immediately torn into pieces, with wood chips flying everywhere. All the ten soldiers on the boat became drowned dogs. One of them was smashed into rotten flesh on the spot, and the rest also suffered varying degrees of injuries. Blood suddenly dyed the water near the boat red.
The surrounding Srivijaya soldiers all changed their expressions when they saw it. At such a long distance, no one even looked at Qingchu. The opponent's shells had already destroyed one of their own ships. How could we fight such a battle? The unprepared Srivijaya soldiers could not help but feel timid.
The expression of Bu Shaoluo, the Srivijaya general who was in charge of commanding this war, changed instantly, because he had heard about the power of artillery. It was said that artillery was used when the Song Dynasty conquered Jiaozhi. Six artillery ships bombarded Jiaozhi. More than half of the 10,000-strong army was instantly killed and wounded, and was completely defeated. In the end, even the capital, Thang Long City, was bombarded.
Bu Shaoluo was full of confidence when he came, and even issued a military order to Pu Ying to annihilate the invaders. He never dreamed that he would encounter the most terrifying artillery.
"Stop moving forward, stop moving forward." Bu Shaoluo immediately ordered loudly, and Srivijaya's fleet stopped moving forward one after another after receiving the order.
Bu Shaoluo looked at the huge ships going upstream. He originally planned to engage in a boarding battle and capture as many of these ships as possible, because even the smallest Qianliu ship on the other side was three to four times larger than the largest ship in Srivijaya. times.
Srivijaya¡¯s current shipbuilding capacity can build ships of up to two to three hundred materials. If we can capture more than 30 enemy ships, it will be of infinite use to Srivijaya.
But now the opponent's ship is equipped with terrifying artillery, forcing Bushaoluo to issue an extremely painful order: set the ship on fire.
Dozens of small boats were filled with dry firewood, saltpeter, sulfur and other flammable materials, connected two by two with long iron chains, and then each boat was rowed down the river by two soldiers.
Yang Yi saw clearly with the telescope, and reminded Le Tao with a smile: "Be careful, the other party is going to set off the fire boat. This fire boat will go down the river very fast."
Le Tao replied confidently: "Don't worry, Captain, we will be prepared for the enemy in the future."
Under the command of Le Tao's flag, the two gun boats in front slowly came sideways, facing the upstream river with their broadsides.
The fire ships put down by Bu Shaoluo were all small boats. If they were ignited prematurely, his own small boat would be burned to pieces before the fire ship drifted into the middle of the enemy ships. Therefore, when setting fire to a ship, you usually have to wait until both parties are within one mile of each other before you can ignite the flammable materials on the ship.
However, these small boats were only two miles away when the gunboats here immediately roared again. This time, what was whizzing away were not solid bullets, but grape-sized shotguns;
The two ships fired four guns at once, and countless iron balls smashed into the sky and the earth with a roar of death. After firing one gun, the gunner immediately pulled out the blunderbuss and quickly replaced it with another loaded blunderbuss. This kind of cannon with a double-shot design can increase the rate of fire several times, and can fire one shot in less than twenty seconds on average.
The Srivijaya soldiers on the boat had just experienced a baptism of death. Before the survivors had time to react, the second shot came again. The whistling iron beads flew in like raindrops. The victim was suddenly bloody and bloody, and looked extremely dead. Unfortunately, after several rounds of shelling, none of the dozens of small boats had time to ignite the flammable materials on board, and basically all the soldiers driving the boats were dead.
When Bu Shaoluo came out, he issued a military order to Pu Ying. At this point, there was no way to retreat. Bolin State was built on both sides of the Mosi River. If the enemy's gunboats were allowed to sail to Bolin State, the capital might not be protected.
In view of this, although the first round of fire attack failed, Bu Shaoluo gritted his teeth and issued the order for a general attack. Hundreds of ships, large and small, flew down the river amidst the rumbling of war drums.
Bu Shaoluo figured out that even if hundreds of his ships were lost, as long as he won, even if he could capture half of the enemy's warships, it would be a huge victory for Srivijaya.
Due to the limited width of the river, the Yang Jiajun's artillery ships could only launch two ships horizontally and fire their guns from the broadside. In addition, two more ships behind them fired their main guns. The six guns first destroyed several enemy ships with solid shells before entering. At a distance of two miles, they all loaded up with shotguns and blasted them fiercely.
The roar of the cannon was earth-shattering, and the whole face was filled with smoke, and tongues of fire were gushing out. Shotguns did little damage to the hull, but the damage to the people on board was staggering;
The soldiers on the Srivijaya side suffered heavy casualties due to the bullets fired from the raindrop boats. Although these bullets could not blow open the hull of the ship, they were enough to blow open the soldiers' heads, causing your brains to splatter and your flesh and blood to fly everywhere.
The fires downstream kept spurting out, and the roar continued, and there was no pause for the fire. The Srivijaya soldiers had never experienced such a brutal battle. The river was soon covered with corpses, and the red blood covered the entire river. All stained red.
Many people were so frightened that they jumped into the water to escape, but they soon discovered that jumping into the water did not reduce their danger much. The w¨¥ixi¨¦ of death had been following them.
¡° Some soldiers on the ship simply hid in the cabin and let the ship drift down the river. This trick was still somewhat effective, because it was difficult for shotguns to hit the thick deck, so hiding in the cabin was safer.
When the enemy ship entered a distance of one mile, Letao ordered the gunboats in front to quickly retreat and be replaced by other warships. These gunboats were too precious and he did not dare to risk the gunboats in close combat.
After Bu Shaoluo discovered that the sound of cannons had stopped, he couldn't help but be overjoyed. He beat the drums himself and directed the surviving soldiers to rise up and fight. He also ordered people to light dozens of small boats. The blazing fire boats drifted down the river, and he Large and small ships followed these fire ships. As soon as the Yang family army's big ship was entangled by the fire ships, they were immediately besieged from all sides.
At the same time, gunfire rang out again on the Yang Jiajun's big ship. Most of the 500 flintlock guns brought this time were on the several warships in front. They were condescending and kept firing at them. , the whistling bullets continued to kill the Srivijaya soldiers, and the Srivijaya soldiers were startled and hid in the cabin again.
At a distance of one mile, the fireship quickly approached. The Yang family army had experienced this kind of simulated battle countless times. They were busy but not chaotic, and their flintlock guns and rapiers kept firing.
At this point, the Yang Jiajun had an advantage in terms of weapons. The Yang Jiajun¡¯s flintlocks and rapiers could hit the enemy¡¯s ships, but the enemy¡¯s bows and arrows had not yet entered the range;
Once an enemy ship is set on fire by a rocket, the flintlock gun firesHe focused on shooting the soldiers on the burning ship and preventing them from putting out the fire. The coordination at all levels was very tacit.
In this case, Bu Shaoluo's side suffered extremely heavy losses. Before they could enter the firing range, twenty or thirty of their own ships had been set alight. Together with the dozens of fire ships in front, the raging fire almost cut off the entire River surface.
Although the losses were heavy, Bu Shaoluo was also secretly happy, because so many fire ships continued to flow down the river, and sooner or later they would hit the enemy's giant ship. By then, it would be the enemy's turn to cry.
One hundred feet, fifty feet, thirty feet, the fire ship is getting closer and closer to Yang Jiajun's giant ship, closer, closer. Looking at the blazing flames, Bu Shaoluo seems to have seen the dawn of victory.