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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 237: Battle of the Boarding

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    Li Ming was shocked when he saw the Taiping warships firing. He did not expect that the artillery of the Taiping warships was so fierce. It would be difficult for him to stop the Taiping navy with only crab boats and some small boats, so he ordered the crab boats to fly out of the formation.  , broke away from the protection of sampans and boats, and rushed straight into the Taiping Navy's formation. He planned to rely on the speed advantage of the crab boat to quickly close the distance, engage in a boarding battle with the Taiping Army, and neutralize the Taiping Army.

    The fourteen crab boats rushed forward bravely, and the speed was just as Li Ming expected. However, he did not expect that the Taiping navy generals were very familiar with the crab boats, and their artillery pre-fires were accurate. When they rushed closer,  , Li Mingcai discovered that there were only six fast crab boats left that broke through the Taiping Army¡¯s fire net. The river behind him was full of fast crab boats that had caught fire and sunk.

    The figure of the Taiping Navy fleet on the river was shrouded in smoke, but when the drums of the civil war were heard, Li Ming pulled the sail and cable and stood on the bow of the ship to look, and then roared loudly: "Long-haired  The thief's warship is here, prepare for close combat." The order was issued, and the sailors on the ship got busy. Spears, axes, harpoons, hooks and other close combat weapons were all taken out. The gunners, musketeers, and crossbowmen  They each raised their long-range weapons and prepared to launch them.

    In the smoke of gunpowder, more than ten sand ships gradually emerged. These warships were flanked by some sampan boats. Li Ming spat hard. He knew that the sand ships of the Taiping Army were powerful, and he couldn't help but beat a drum in his heart.

    The sand ship is an excellent ship type among ancient Chinese offshore transport ships. It is also called a "sand-proof flat-bottomed ship". It is one of the "four ancient ships" in China. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, it had taken shape and became the northern sea area of ????my country. , the main vessel for inland river navigation is named sand ship because it is suitable for sailing in channels with shallow water and sandy beaches.

    What the Taiping Army drove was a flat-bottomed sand boat from the Yangtze River Estuary, which was also a type of sand boat. This kind of sand boat had a unique structure, with a square head and square stern, commonly known as a square stern. The deck surface was spacious, the molding depth was small, and the freeboard was low; it had a stern lift.  It is convenient to install the elevator, and the stern canopy is equipped with multiple masts and sails for easy maneuvering. The rudder has a large area and can be raised and lowered faster. When going to sea, part of the rudder blades are lowered below the bottom of the ship, which can increase the effect of the rudder and reduce side drift.  In shallow water, the rudder can be raised to the flat bottom of the sand boat, so you can sit on the beach without fear of being stranded. The sand boat has a shallow draft and is less affected by the tide.  Good; the load capacity is large. Generally, records say that the load capacity of sand ships is 4,000 to 6,000 shi, which is about 500 to 800 tons of sand ships. During the Daoguang years, the total number of sand ships in the country was more than 10,000, and there were 5,000 sand ships in Shanghai alone.  More than one ship

    When Li Ming and other Guangdong navy arrived at Chongming Island, there were many sand ships in the formation to help out, but most of the people manning the sand ships were the Qing troops of the Jiangnan Navy. Li Ming and other Fujian and Guangdong sailors were not used to operating them, but Li Ming knew about these sand ships.  The size of the crab boat is about the same as that of the crab boat, and because it does not have left and right oars, it frees up a lot of space inside the ship. Therefore, it carries more troops than the crab boat. Currently, there are only six crab boats left under his command, and  More than ten sand ships must have lost more than they have won.

    In an instant, Li Ming made up his mind and ordered the ships to continue to advance rapidly. Taking advantage of the speed of the crab boats compared to the sand boats, he planned to rush into the enemy's formation, disrupt the enemy's deployment, and perhaps delay the enemy's formation for a while.

    Soon the ships on both sides came closer amidst the roar of their bow cannons. The sailors and sailors on both sides of the deck were firing crossbows, muskets, and firecrackers. The sides of the ships on both sides were covered with cowhide and fishing nets, and were poured with water.  The enemy's crossbows and lead bullets were thrown into the water. The dense crossbows and lead bullets from both sides hit the cowhide and fishing nets with a bang.

    Li Ming raised his sharp blade and shouted: "Row quickly, row quickly, rush over." He heard a loud bang, followed by the sound of the mast snapping. When he looked back, he saw that the mainmast of the ship he was riding on had been hit by a Taiping soldier.  To fire a chain bullet, a chain is used to connect two small iron bullets smaller than the caliber of the cannon bore in series. After being fired, one cannonball will drag the other cannonball out centrifugally and fly out, so it will pull out a ball on the sail.  If you are lucky, you can even tear off the mast and paralyze the enemy ship.

    Li Ming's mainmast was unlucky to be interrupted. The long sail and mainmast fell and crushed more than ten people. Li Ming licked his dry lips and shouted viciously at the rowers on both sides: "Ignore it and keep paddling."  "

    Unexpectedly, the oarsmen rowed twice more amidst the neat sound of trumpets. The row of oarsmen on the left could no longer row. Looking around, they saw a row of wooden oars on the left being thrown by the Taiping Army.  Li Ming's boat was entangled in fishing nets and hooks, and the boat was suddenly knocked sideways. Everyone on the boat was almost shaken.

    Seeing that the ship had lost its final strength, Li Ming immediately shouted loudly: "Get ready to fight with swords." After he finished speaking, dozens of hooks flew up, and more than twenty hooks on each side hooked the sides of the ship, left and right.  There was a Taiping Army sand ship approaching on both sides. The Taiping Army sailors above struggled to pull the hook rope and slowly closed the distance between the two ships.

    Li Ming rushed over and cut off a hook rope with a knife, and shouted angrily at the sailors beside him: "Hurry up and cut off the rope. The musketeers and crossbowmen will give me a hard beating on the cannonists."The bow cannon comes across"

    Just as he finished speaking, several feather arrows flew past, and Li Ming was hit by an arrow in his left arm. He squatted down in pain, followed by a loud ping-ping-pong-pong sound, and several lead bullets hit the side of the ship in front of Li Ming.  There was a bang, and wood chips and firelight flew on the side of the ship, which was only three steps away from where Li Ming was. The huge impact beat the five Qing sailors there to pieces on the spot, but it was a Taiping Army artillery shell.  Hitting here, a huge hole appeared on the side of the ship.

    Two personal guards came to protect Li Ming. Li Ming gritted his teeth, pulled out the arrow, and shouted: "Leave me alone, prepare to fight."

    Although the Qing sailors tried their best to cut the cables with axes and machetes, and the musketeers, crossbowmen and gunners on the ship fought back against the Taiping sand ships on both sides, they were ultimately outnumbered. The bow cannon was hit by a shell and rolled several feet away.  Far away, the hot barrel rolled over with huge inertia and crushed two people to death.

    Finally, the Taiping Army's sand ships on both sides approached. The Taiping Army's sailors leaped over fiercely, or flew over with hooks. Soon, on the deck of Li Ming's boat, the sailors of the two armies were fighting together.

    Li Ming commanded his men to resist desperately, but in the end they were outnumbered. Enemy troops came from both sides. The Qing sailors on the ship could only resist for a cup of tea before they were all slaughtered by the Taiping navy. Li Ming waved his sword and fought.  , the Taiping Army sailors saw that there were many Qing army guards around him, and knew that he was a high official. After killing all the guards around him, Li Ming was hit by a knife in his hand.  Get up

    After Li Ming was pinned down, he cursed loudly. After the Taiping Army sailors occupied Li Ming's boat, they cheered endlessly. Several sailors escorted Li Ming to the sand boat. A man wearing a red turban and a short coat stood beside him.  The Taiping Army general laughed and said, "Who are you? What kind of official are you?"

    Li Ming cursed angrily: "You guys, this group of robbers and thieves, you are not worthy of asking me my name."

    The general of the Taiping navy was none other than Zhao Shunping. He snorted and scolded: "Bullshit, you dog officials who only know how to bully the people still show off their power even when they are about to die. You guys, send him back and reward him."

    Li Ming was tied under the mast. Looking around, he saw that the other five crab boats on the river were also surrounded by Taiping Army sand boats, sampans and other small boats. I saw groups of Taiping Navy sailors wrapped in red turbans.  Swarming up, the gray cloth-wrapped heads of the Qing army sailors gradually sank into the red ocean of the Taiping army. The battle flags on the Qing army's crab boats were lowered one after another, and then the apricot-yellow flag of the Taiping army was raised behind them.  Seeing the defeat of the Crab fleet, the Qing army sampans and other small boats turned around and fled one after another. However, most of these boats had no sails and could not outrun the Taiping sand ships with only oars and oars going upstream. They were overtaken and destroyed one by one.

    After solving Li Ming's fleet, the Taiping navy cheered thunderously, and each ship raised a red flag one after another and continued to move towards the three forks. The distance between the ships was equal, and the front and rear guide ships were not messy at all. The big ships and  The boats cover each other and cooperate very skillfully.

    Li Ming witnessed all this under the mast, and felt a sense of regret. The Taiping Navy was definitely not as vulnerable as he thought. They were well versed in water warfare and were not inferior to the elite of the Guangdong Navy. They were not  The Taiping Navy, a group of thieves who only knew how to fight on land, had not appeared until this moment. After seeing the combat capabilities of the Taiping Army's land and naval divisions in the past few days, Li Ming never believed that the Taiping Army could not capture Shanghai City.  The Taiping Army deliberately left a bait. Li Ming vaguely felt that the siege of Shanghai was a trap. This carefully designed trap was specially prepared for the Guangdong Navy fleet. It seems that this must be another masterpiece of the pseudo-Western King.

    With Li Ming's fleet destroyed, Ye Changchun's remaining fleet was also attacked by the Taiping Navy. Ye Changchun personally led people into the water to cut iron chains, and laid three bowl-sized iron ropes underwater.  , Ye Changchun and other Qing army water ghosts fought desperately to cut off two of them, but then they found that their fleet was bombarded to pieces by the Taiping Army's warships and artillery. The Taiping Army's sand ships, sampans and other small boats rushed over quickly.  The Taiping soldiers on the boat used harpoons and long knives to kill the Qing army water ghosts underwater. Dozens of Taiping army water ghosts wore tight-fitting water bags and dived underwater to fight with sharp knives in their mouths.

    The waves of the turbid river water rolled, and soon blood and corpses came up one after another. Ye Changchun's body was also among them. Although he killed three Taiping Army sailors, he was still stabbed with a harpoon. Several Taiping Army sailors took the opportunity to swarm up to attack him.  took his life

    After Ye Changchun's fleet was eliminated, the remaining red single fleet of the Qing Army was exposed to the joint attack of the Taiping Army's land and water forces. The outcome was now clear. To be continued) Go&nbp;Read&nbp;Read&nbp;om  )
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