On the first day of the fourth month of the third year of Taijian, at noon, the sun was shining in the south of the Yangtze River, the southeast wind was blowing, and the scenes on both sides of the Yangtze River could be seen clearly.

Wu Mingche, who had already followed Chen Xu to worship in the Taimiao Temple this morning, led a group of generals to hold a solemn flag sacrifice ceremony at this moment! Taichangguan burned incense and paper, Wu Mingche stabbed a black sheep to death with a sword, poured blood on the war drums and battle flags, and then offered cattle, sheep and pigs and various sacrifices, recited the Northern Expedition aloud, and then burned dozens of packs of firecrackers sent by Zu Yuan. All the soldiers quickly boarded the ship! The forward battalion immediately attacked the water village on the opposite bank!

Xiao Yao, who was in charge of taking the lead and was already on the gunboat and was always ready, saw Wu Mingche's command flag waved, and immediately rang the bronze bell on the warship, and the soldiers were in place, and the two gunboats immediately entered the combat state, sailed offshore, and led the first wave of attack with dozens of warships of all kinds to go straight to the Jiangbei Water Village!

Observing the sudden sound of artillery on the opposite bank, and even the warships going offshore, the Qi army in the Jiangbei Water Village was taken aback, they knew that the attack of the Chen army should be in the next few days, and even they had already guessed that it might be today, but they just didn't expect that the Chen army would attack at noon!

You must know that general water battles basically occur at night or in the early hours of the morning, because of the lack of light and poor vision, it is easy to sneak attack and avoid the opponent's attack! And at noon, the sun is strong, everything can be seen clearly, how else to sneak attack, how to avoid the opponent's main warship? Now Chen Jun's unconventional combat caught the Qi army a little off guard, and the soldiers on the water village hurriedly sounded the gong to warn, quickly assembled, and boarded the ship to meet the battle!

In fact, at this noon, the scorching sun launched an attack in the sky, not to mention that the Qi army couldn't think of it, even Wu Mingche couldn't think of it, he also thought that it was in the early morning of a certain morning, leading the warship to sneak close to the opponent's water village, and then make a surprise attack on them.

But Xiao Yao, who was in charge of taking the lead, strongly demanded that he must attack at noon, and the reason was also very good: the strength of the two sides was equal, so it was necessary to sneak attack and rob the camp. The artillery needs to see the opponent's target clearly before it can be aimed, of course, choose the brightest noon, if it is dark at night, where do you let my artillery shoot?

Therefore, Wu Mingche, who knew the power of artillery, agreed to Xiao Yao's request and set the attack time at noon for the first time.

The two gunboats led by Xiao Yao personally took the lead, riding the southeast wind and rushing to the front, while the various warships behind them were sparsely scattered and separated by a certain distance, because they had to avoid the boulder attack of the Qi army's catapults!

Immediately behind the first wave of attacking convoys was the death squad led by Cheng Wenji, who were going to take advantage of the scuffle between the two sides, and then wait for the opportunity to rush into the inland waterway leading to Qin County and pull down the barrage there.

At this time, the width of the Yangtze River, the narrowest part is also 2 kilometers, when I saw that the warships of the Chen army had rushed through the center of the river, the catapults on the positions of the Qi army were also ready, and they could throw boulders at the warships on the river at any time!

The bulky catapult can make hundreds of catties of boulders projected 500 meters away, and now these dozen catapults on the north bank are the first line of defense of the Qi army, and it is also the most powerful line of defense, and the boulders falling from the sky can easily sink any warship, which is why Wu Mingche chose to fight at night at the beginning, and it is also the reason why he is worried about whether the battle across the river can be successful!

There were still 500 meters from the north shore, and the catapults of the Qi army fired a salvo, and more than a dozen boulders smashed into the Chen army's fleet, boom! A slow-moving warship behind the gunboat was hit by a boulder and sank in an instant! And the light, flexible and fast gunboat escaped the catastrophe, which is why Xiao Yao chose the small and fast warship to transform into a gunboat, that is, in this kind of attack, it can move quickly, so that the enemy has no time to aim!

Syllable! Syllable! Syllable! The boulder that did not hit the warship smashed on the river and splashed more than ten meters of waves, making the gunboat shake violently, Xiao Yao held on to the hull of the ship and ordered to continue to move at full speed, as long as he dodged this wave of attacks and rushed through this distance, the attack of the projectile car would be ineffective: these bulky catapults, adjusting the range is not a simple matter.

There were still 300 meters away from the north bank, and he rushed past the range of the catapult, which was considered to have temporarily escaped the attack of the boulder, Xiao Yao breathed a sigh of relief, calmly picked up the binoculars and carefully observed the formation of the opponent's warships.

I saw that the Qi army was really concentrating on defense, dozens of warships with hundreds of small boats, lined up in front of the water village, guarding the mouth of the river into Qin County, and now the Chen army's warships have broken through the first line of defense, so they rushed to the front of the water village, and they did not take the initiative to attack to meet the battle, or formed a tight ship formation to guard in front of the water village.

In the ship array, the main battleship of the Qi army is 5 three-story ships equipped with clap poles, each building ship, are equipped with 4 clap poles up to 20 meters high, as long as the opponent enters the range of 20 meters, immediately let the clap pole tied to hundreds of pounds of stones move freely, and the opponent's ship can be smashed instantly!

Xiao Yao's target is this kind of clapping warship, as long as he sinks them, the other small and medium-sized warships such as Mengchong and fighting ships are basically not the opponents of Chen Jun's large clapping warships, and then they can create an opportunity for the daredevils to break through their defenses!

The speed of the two gunboats was still unslow, and they soon rushed to a distance of 100 meters from the Qi army's water village, because this distance had not yet entered the killing distance of the Qi army's archers shooting bows and arrows, even if the sharp arrows shot could hit the target, they would not have any lethality, so the Qi army had not yet given the order to release arrows to resist the enemy, and still patiently waited for Xiao Yao's gunboats to continue to rush over!

But this distance is already the attack distance of the guns on the gunboat!

Xiao Yao's two gunboats, one led by himself and equipped with 10 large-caliber sub-mother guns, were the main warships dedicated to dealing with the Qi army, while the other was led by Li Nong, with more than 30 projectile guns on them.

Entering the attack distance of the artillery, the warship equipped with the projectile gun stopped, Li Nong ordered the projectile artillery team, ready to attack the Qi army ship formation, and threw a round of incendiary bombs and explosives packs at the enemy, with explosives bags weighing dozens of pounds that can cause violent explosions and incendiary bombs that can cause fires, so that their ship formations will not fight and be chaotic.

The infantry battalion has been established for more than a year, and the second company of the infantry battalion has long been proficient in various operations of artillery under Li Nong's devil training.

"Fire!" Li Nong gave a decisive order!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! I saw that the more than 30 "big oil drums" fired a salvo, and more than 30 explosive packages were thrown at the most dense place of the Qi army ship formation in front of the opposite side!

And the length of the fuse of these explosive packs was adjusted, and just when they landed on the boat or on the water, the soldiers of the Qi army didn't have time to see what these things were, and suddenly there was a loud "boom", a violent explosion occurred, and then a huge mushroom cloud appeared!

The explosive bag that fell on the ship boldly blew the whole ship out of a big hole, and the soldiers on it had already been blown away; When it fell on the water, it instantly exploded a huge splash, overturning all the surrounding boats at once!

The dense black mushroom clouds produced by these explosive packs more than 30 meters high, as well as the loud sound that continuously pierced the eardrums, such a shocking and spectacular scene, not to mention that Qi Jun was scared silly, even Chen Jun on the south bank of the Yangtze River separated by two kilometers was thrilled!

Just when the Qi army was overwhelmed by these sudden and violent explosions, Li Nong's second round of shelling had already been launched! But this time it was not an explosive packet that was fired, but an incendiary bomb!

These more than 30 incendiary bombs flew to a place more than ten meters above the Qi army's ship formation, and suddenly exploded, and the mixed oil inside was quickly ignited and exploded! Although these gasolines are mixed oils refined by Xiao Yao from oil, the quality is far inferior to those fractionated gasoline in modern times, but they are already the most easily ignited combustibles in this era, and now it is like a rain of fire, and the fire is dripping on the boat, on the water, and even on the soldiers' bodies, and then quickly ignites a raging fire!