The estuary had just stopped, and the Yuan army on Baisha Island had 'successfully' landed, which was equivalent to opening the door to attack Qiongzhou, but they also knew that they had to cross the threshold to enter the gate, so after stabilizing the battle line, the big ships carrying the infantry cavalry used the original old wharf to quickly land on the island. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info They know that Baisha Island is not only silted up the shipping lane, but also formed a large shoal due to the heavy siltation of Baisha Island. Once the tide is low, the big ships will not be able to dock, so they can only use this short interval to send as many cavalry troops as possible to the island.

The connection line between Baisha Island and Haitian Island and Xinbu Island is roughly an isosceles triangle, they are divided into independent islands by the tributaries of the Nandu River, and they are separated by 60 or 70 steps of water from each other. If the Yuan army wants to land in Qiongzhou, it will have to cross this water surface and reach the two islands, and then use it as a springboard to officially set foot on the ground in Qiongzhou, which means that it will take two more landing operations.

After the Chinese army entered the defensive position, it was divided into two parts, Zhao Mengjin led the direct subordinate team and the five infantry troops to defend Xinbu Island, and the deputy commander Chen Fenglin led seven commanding infantry troops and the ballista battalion and rocket battalion reinforced by the original garrison to defend Haitian Island.

"Your Majesty also knows that most of the Yuan army were northerners in the past, and they didn't know about water, let alone water warfare. And our dynasty is all southerners, the best at water warfare, and has the Huai River and the Yangtze River, two natural dangers, so that the Mongols can not go south to the south of the Yangtze River for 40 years. Later, Liu Quan betrayed the country and surrendered to the enemy, taught Tatar water warfare, and told him the art of crossing the river. Zhang Shijie said and pointed to Baisha Island, "Your Majesty, please see, the method of erecting a pontoon bridge to cross the river by boat was granted to the Tartars, and it was through this that the Mongolian army was able to conquer Xiangyang and no longer regard water warfare as a fearful way." ”

"Oh, I see!" Only then did Zhao Yu understand why Zhang Shijie remembered Liu Cheng at this moment, nodded and said, "The Yuan army originally wanted to build a pontoon bridge by connecting these ships, so they turned the water war into a land war and gave full play to their strengths!" ”

"Your Majesty." Zhang Shijie arched his hand, and secretly praised this kid in his heart for being really smart, "So the enemy army just wants to build a pontoon bridge, and then capture Haitian Island, and then attack the Acropolis and land in Qiongzhou." At this point, we should stop them from building bridges, otherwise they will swarm and it will be much more difficult for us to defend ourselves! ”

"Yes, yes, the cardinal commander reminded him very much, immediately order the defenders on the two islands to fire artillery to prevent the enemy from erecting pontoon bridges!" Zhao Yu said in a loud voice, thinking that it was indeed a misjudgment to think that he had completely abandoned the defense of Baisha Island at the beginning, and provided a rare springboard for the enemy to land.

When arranging the coastal defense of Qiongzhou, Zhao Yu also went to Baisha Island, and he found that the island was a water network zone, and the land route was blocked by the more than one-mile-wide barrage river and more than a dozen sea forks, not to mention the time-consuming and laborious construction of fortifications; In addition, he found it very difficult to move on the island, and it was very difficult to mobilize troops and transport supplies; In addition, when he first arrived on the island, his troops and funds were limited, and he thought that as long as the navy blocked the sea lane, even if the enemy army captured the island, he would be trapped to death. Others also felt that wasting manpower and material resources on the island was also of little significance, so he decided not to fortify the island, and as soon as the fight began, the defensive flaws were exposed.

"In this case, why didn't Your Majesty send troops to retake Baisha Island?" Zhang Shijie was a little strange, since the little emperor accepted his suggestion, he only stopped and destroyed the pontoon bridge erected by the enemy, and refused to take advantage of the enemy's unstable foothold to recapture Baisha Island.

"Commander, now that the enemy army has landed on the island in a big way, if we are fighting for it at this moment, it is a sacrifice of our own strengths to defend and attack, which is in line with the enemy's intentions. In addition, even if it is successfully recaptured, there are no fortifications on the island, and it is difficult to hold it without firearms support. Zhao Yu said that he knew that if the battle was fought on Baisha Island, it would likely be a war of attrition, which would be one less death for his own side, and he would not be able to fight with the enemy.

"Your Majesty, there are more and more enemy troops on the islands, and if they cannot be expelled, the pressure on the two islands will also increase dramatically, and it will be more difficult to attack in the future." Zhang Shijie is still deeply worried.

"What the cardinal commander said is not impossible, but our naval army has not yet launched an attack, as long as the enemy naval army is defeated, the soldiers they landed on are like water without a source, and no matter how much they are, it will be difficult to shake our defensive line!" Zhao Hao smiled.

"Hehe, the minister actually forgot that His Majesty still has a backhand! But why hasn't Liu Dutong launched an attack yet? Zhang Shijie laughed self-deprecatingly and asked again.

"Commander, Liu Dutong is sure to wait for the low tide to attack, when we occupy Shangshui, we can use the water to attack the enemy, and the enemy will have to fight against the water, and these troop transports will have to withdraw from the shallows, let alone support the land on the island." Zhao Yu explained.

"Well, Your Majesty is right, as long as the enemy warships can be defeated, it will be difficult for the enemy troops who land to increase their troops, and the damaged warships will be difficult to repair and replenish for a while, and the enemy troops who cannot get reinforcements will do nothing even if they can land on land." Zhang Shijie has no objection to His Majesty's strategic arrangement, but his face still can't hide his worries......

Things are often easier said than done, after all, this is a big battle with 200,000 troops invested by both sides, and it is also the biggest battle that Zhao Yu has experienced since his 'debut', and the cruelty and hardship are beyond his imagination, the enemy army is not defeated under the blow of his superior firearms, but it has launched waves of stubborn attacks.

As he spoke, the tide had reached its highest tide, and the rough sea gradually returned to calm, and more than a dozen large and medium-sized warships of the Yuan army took the opportunity to detour from the west side of Baisha Island to the front of Haitian Island, while some small boats rushed up against the fire of Song ballistas and archers, and the soldiers on it used large axes to smash the wooden stakes arranged on the shoals in an attempt to open up a waterway that could accommodate large ships to seize the beach.

According to Zhao Hao's original conception, the beachhead would be the focus of contention between the two sides, so the distance between the anti-landing barrier and the first sand embankment defense line was about seventy or eighty paces, which was the best range of light ballistas, and it was also within the effective range of bows and arrows. The first line of defense was also within the range of the enemy's stone throwers, and the medium warships of the Yuan army found that the soldiers who had broken the barrier were killed by the crossbows of the Song army, and they also began to move forward, and the stone throwers fired stone bullets and gold juice cannons, and the bed crossbows fired huge arrows to suppress them, and tried to destroy the sand bank and open a breakthrough.

Chen Fenglin also immediately organized the heavy ballistae of the ballista battalion to launch a counterattack against the enemy warships, destroying the enemy's stone throwers and bed crossbows, and covering the infantry in front. For a time, stone bullets and long arrows shuttled back and forth in the air, and explosions came and went. The enemy ships hit by the flowering shells and the sand banks hit by the gold juice cannon were all on fire, and the billowing smoke was blown by the sea breeze.

The Song army's most hated thing was the golden juice cannon, which was actually not very lethal, it was a clay pot full of crude oil, the mouth was covered with cowhide, and wrapped in oil-soaked linen, which was set on fire before being fired. After hitting the ground, the clay pot cracks, the crude oil splashes down, and it flows everywhere, and it catches fire wherever it hits, and it is difficult to extinguish it with water, and it can only be extinguished by covering it with sand or soaked bedding. Fortunately, there was a hidden part under the built sand embankment, in which the soldiers of the Song army could take refuge, and the heavy stone bullets smashed on the sand only left a pothole, at most the supporting wooden stakes were broken. The crude oil in the gold cannon could only be burned empty, and it was quickly depleted.

But in this land-to-sea artillery battle, the Yuan army could not have an advantage. The narrow waterways here make it difficult for ships to maneuver quickly, and the slow rate of fire of the catapult and the inferior range of heavy ballistae make it even more difficult to compliment the accuracy of hits. Therefore, the battle is very aggrieved, too close is easy to be hit by the ballista, far away and the range is not enough, just like a crab although looking at the dancing pair of scary claws, but still unable to resist the accurate and powerful pecking of seabirds.

In less than half an hour, two of the enemy ships that came to the aid were blown two large holes in the side of the ship by flowering shells, and sank at sea as they tried to escape from the battlefield. Two other rudders may have been damaged, and they were spinning in place, unable to advance or retreat. In addition, three medium-sized warships had a hole in the bow of the ship, which turned into upside-down onions as the sea poured in, and the stern of the destroyed ships stood on the surface of the sea like a tall giant. Seeing that they were defeated, the remaining enemy ships began to retreat backwards, escaping out of the range of the ballistas.

The worst thing is still those warships equipped with gold juice cannons, don't look at the usual majesty, but once they are hit on the deck by the flowering shell, the end has come, and the oil tanks piled on top have been soaked in grease and dipped in fire, and they can't be extinguished at all, they can only watch themselves being cremated, and the friendly ships are hiding as far as they can. The most unfortunate were the paddlers in the bilge, who had no chance to escape.

Taking advantage of the suppression of the Song army's forward defenders, the Yuan army began to force the crossing again, and this time they sent forty or fifty light warships to line up in a horizontal line on the sea, and opened up a distance to attack the northern defense line of Haitian Island. Behind them there was another flotilla build-up, and the enemy crossed the ships to the small boats as a second landing force.

"Order Zhao Mengjin to fire rockets at the enemy fleet assembled on the west side of Baisha Island to prevent follow-up enemy reinforcements!" Zhang Shijie looked at the situation on the battlefield, Haitian Island has now become the target of the enemy's key attack, and the battle is in full swing, but Xinbu Island is quiet, he frowned and ordered.

"This battle is awkward on both sides!" Zhao Hao put down the binoculars and muttered.

The enemy was obviously very unfamiliar with this long-range duel, which was very different from the previous mode of disembarking and attacking the beachhead, and now they had to cross a long sea if they wanted to go ashore; However, the Song army was carrying out an anti-landing operation for the first time, and it was obviously inexperienced, especially the lack of mutual cooperation, and it only knew how to protect its own one-third of an acre.

In addition, Zhao Yu felt that the establishment was not reasonable, the Song army was basically a commander as a combat unit, and then jumped directly to the general, so that there was a lack of intermediate command layer, and the large corps was okay to fight, but in the face of this kind of conservative division of troops, a commander had to take into account the command of more than a dozen battalions, which was obviously inadequate, and he lost the other. The command of medium and heavy ballistae and catapults is in the hands of the command, and the command level has no right to command, but can only command the light ballista attached to the command level. The dispatch of troops is in the place of command, and the position is inevitably a little awkward.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Although Zhang Shijie didn't hear what the little emperor muttered clearly, he knew by looking at his expression that it was not a good word, so he said in passing.

"Military reform is already imperative, and we will discuss it after this battle!" Zhao Yu turned his head to look at Zhang Shijie when he heard this, and wondered if he also had this thought, and he was not sure for a while, but he still blew the wind on him.

"Huh?! Your Majesty, the enemy army has already begun to build bridges! Zhang Shijie was stunned, and didn't have time to think carefully and pointed in the direction of Baisha Island.

"They're going to attack on all fronts!" Zhao Yu looked in the direction of Baisha Island, and then looked at the direction of the estuary.

Just now, the artillery battle here was urgent, and the Yuan army on Baisha Island over there was also busy erecting pontoon bridges. The Yuan army first rowed the boat into the waterway, then fixed it across the anchor, and then connected it with the ships in front and behind it with ropes, and put on wooden planks, so that a pontoon bridge was formed. Now several pontoon bridges were being built at the same time, pointing at Kaitian Island at the same time, and it was clear that the enemy wanted to seize Haitian Island first after the failure to capture the estuary. In this way, you can attack the Acropolis, and if you stick to it, you can contain the defenders of Xinbu Island, attack the rear army guarding the estuary from the flank, and cover the fleet to go deep into the Nandu River.

"Exactly, the enemy army wants to capture Haitian Island in one fell swoop, so as to occupy the key point and seize the initiative in the battle!" Zhang Shijie said, "Your Majesty, do you want to transfer the right army over to reinforce the Acropolis?" ”

"Now that the battle has just begun, don't worry, their main attack on Haitian Island may not be a failure. Moreover, the enemy's strength is strong, and it is likely that he will also launch an assist in strengthening the left bank of the Nandu River in order to control the mouth of the river, so that the pressure on the rear army will increase dramatically. The right army should not move for the time being, and it will not be too late to adjust when the battle situation becomes clearer. Zhao Yu shook his head and said.

"Your Majesty is right, but in case Haitian Island is lost, is it a little late to transfer the right army?" Zhang Shijie understood what His Majesty meant, the enemy's attack on Haitian Island would be flanked by the coast and Xinbu Island, but the premise was that the rear army defending the coast must still be able to hold the position. Therefore, he was still a little worried that it would be difficult for him to undertake this heavy task with only one rear army.

"Don't forget, the rear army is stronger than the Chinese army, and it fought very well in the Battle of Quanzhou. And our navy has not yet moved, as soon as they join the battle, the situation will change dramatically. Zhao Hao smiled. When the Hou army and Jiang Xuan sent troops to Leizhou, the number of soldiers was greatly expanded, and there were nearly 20,000 people at its peak.

......As soon as Zhao Yu's words fell, explosions sounded again and again, and the rockets on Xinbu Island began to cover and shoot at the enemy troops gathered in the south of Baisha Island, and Haitian Island also fired at the enemy troops who were passing the ship, and the ballistas hit the enemy ships on the sea, and the rear army also fired at the flank to support the Chinese army......