Section 187 Zuihou's fire attack

To intensify the fire, barrels of sulphur and fire were piled up on the ship, and a number of so-called poisonous materials were added. According to Xu Tingfa's estimate, so many fire-attacking rafts were attacking at the same time, and no matter how powerful the thief's cannon was, he couldn't reach it. As long as you can burn a third of the thief's ship, it can serve the purpose of fighting the thief's defense. Xu Tingfa concentrated all the remaining naval warships and more than 40 rice boats and salt ships that were recruited to serve as division ships at the time of the expedition, and prepared to take advantage of the fire attack to work. Li Fengjie offered an unprecedented reward: one person who cut a fake hair will be rewarded one tael, and a real one will be rewarded with fifty taels. Burn a thief warship, the reward of xiǎo is fifty taels, and the big one is one hundred taels; If you capture a thief's warship, you will be rewarded with two hundred taels.

Just when the Fu Bō army occupied Ershawei and was busy cleaning up bandits on Henan Island and was temporarily stranded, Xu Tingfa ordered Chen Qian to lead the fire attack fleet to slowly descend along the provincial river, and he personally led the naval division to press the formation behind.

"You have escaped from the battle for the second time, this time you will have the opportunity to make meritorious service and atone for your sins" Xu Tingfa said viciously to Chen Qian before leaving, "Lord Fujun has ordered me to act cheaply, you can do it yourself."

Chen Qian secretly scolded Xu Tingfa for running faster than a rabbit, and this time he was going to take him to death as a striker. But he didn't dare to make a mistake, everyone knew that Li Fujun was already red-eyed, and if he lost another battle, he might really have his head cut off.

"The last general must be brave to take the lead," Chen Qianyan said insincerely.

"If the official has a word, stay it for later." Xu Tingfa snorted and said viciously, "The thief entered the White Goose Pond and fired three or four cannons at the provincial capital, you and I have to move our heads Of course, you are the first."

"The last will know." Chen Qian crossed his hands and said respectfully. Sweat has flowed. The ability to shirk as an officer is all first-class, and the problem now is that it is difficult for him to shirk. His own defense is in Hu Mén Village, and he fled all the way to Guangzhou, and Fu Jun really wants to have the idea of killing people, and he is the absolute candidate.

But if he really wants to move forward, he doesn't have the courage - Chen Qian can see very clearly that Jiāo, who is trying to face to face with the thief on the water, is looking for death or death.

But now that Li Fengjie and others are under pressure, they have to go even if they are sent to death. Chen Qian had no choice but to choose two fast and flexible long dragons as his boats, and he carefully selected dozens of pro-soldiers who were good at water and good boats. Prepare to wait for the fire attack ship to go up and quickly hide to the side, depending on the situation.

Night sè falls.

The task force anchored at Ershawei had lowered its military flag and entered a state of rest at night. The sentries lit piles of bonfires on the abandoned Ershawei fort of the officers and soldiers. The sentinels watched the river in the distance with alarm, and the officers on land had sent out long-range patrol posts, all specially trained to spot the silhouette of a man in the dark night. It is impossible for anyone to attempt to attack the task force from land.

The danger comes from the water. Despite the elaborate arrangement: large ships at the core, xiǎo boats at the perimeter to form fixed posts, and patrol boats for non-stop night patrols. However, on such a narrow water surface that is not conducive to maneuverability, there is a lot of room for maneuver in the event of a sneak attack.

At night, the commander Le Lin sat in a chair in the fort, wrapped in a thick military sheep máo felt cloak, which was made of materials bought from the Portuguese, warm and waterproof, and was one of several material preparations for the future mainland raiders. Armies and sailors can never be in the tropics forever.

Le Lin wrapped his cloak tightly, he had never felt so cold at night in Cantonese in the old time and space - even if it was Christmas in Lan Kwai Fong, he was just a coat at most. Here, however, even wearing his own British Navy máo shirt still feels chilly. The cháo damp air penetrates pervasively.

"Why is this ice age so cold-" he muttered, and from time to time he raised the Russian-made infrared telescope in his hand to look around, in order to pass the boring time and space.

Sun Tianbiao secretly scolded his mother -- since he escaped from the starry night of the Lingao Guard Station and ran to Haikou Qianhu Station to report the emergency, he was like a leather ball, being kicked all the way from Haikou, Zhaoqing, Guangzhou, and Haikou. When Chengmai was defeated, he escaped by jumping into the water in Húnluàn, found a fishing boat on the shore and escaped back to the mainland. It was not easy to get to Zhaoqing all the way, and he was almost taken for a beggar. After Wang Zhijun asked him a few words, he became very bad, and then he was gone. Sun Tianbiao was so nameless and scoreless in the governor's standard for a few days, and was kicked to Guangzhou to "listen to use",

Zuihou managed to make up for an errand in the Tiger Mén Sailor - but he didn't have any soldiers, so he just received a salary. I also have to go out from time to time to patrol, where is the original life of the landlord in the guard house comfortable.

That's not all, this time the matter of attacking with arson ships had to be his turn again - it is said that because he was familiar with the situation. Sun Tianbiao was helpless, so he had to get on the first batch of ten boats, crouched in the cabin, and calculated when to jump into the water to escape. I couldn't help but scold Chen Qian's ancestors for eighteen generations.

Seeing the dark shadow of the thief's fleet in the distance, it has appeared in a shadow. Sun Tianbiao's heart was in his throat. Others don't know, but he knows the "legends" of all kinds of thieves very well. In addition to powerful firearms, there are also legendary clairvoyants that can see people at night. Sun Tianbiao originally wanted to report the matter to Chen Qian, who commanded the battle, but he didn't expect that the other party didn't bother to see him at all, and only told him to "move forward bravely".

"Brave to death?" Sun Tianbiao muttered and scolded again, "Paddle slowly, the water is too loud"

The boat hardly needed power, and floated slowly along the current, and Sun Tianbiao secretly decided that in this way, everyone from a long distance could jump into the water to escape, and there was no need to row the boat to the point where it could hit the enemy ship. Before he could finish his thoughts, the river was brightly lit, and for a moment he could barely open his eyes—to his astonishment, a pillar of light had been thrown from the direction of the thief's fleet, illuminating the entire arsonist fleet.

What came over was only a medium-power stage shè lamp, but it was enough for the attacking arson fleet to shine on the water clearly.

"Ignition"

"Fire"

Orders were given almost simultaneously from the batteries and from the arsonist ships.

The thief's cannon roared almost instantly, mixed with a crisp scream that seemed like tearing clothes, and shells and lead bullets flew one after another. Fell in the middle of the fleet. Several of the fire rafts were sunk before they could be ignited. An arsonist ship suddenly shuddered, and pieces of wood flew in the air, as if someone was constantly chōu hitting it with an invisible whip. The sailor above chōu twitched and jumped up and fell into the water.

A cannonball whistling and flying directly hit a fireship, and the ship full of fuel immediately turned into a sea of fire, and Sun Tianbiao even felt that he heard the screams of the sailors.

Sun Tianbiao hurriedly picked up a tinder jar and threw it into the front cabin that had been sprinkled with fire, and the flames were rising. He didn't bother to say hello, and jumped from the side of the boat with a tumbling overboard, followed by the rest of the boat.

Ignition was an order, and one ship after another set on fire, and a dozen or so arsonist ships of the first bō drifted down the current towards the task force on the hill of the Ershawei River.

"Brothers, pay attention, hold steady" Chen Qian, who was following behind, didn't expect that the thief would have such a hand, and he would be able to release such a huge light out of thin air in the dark night. Now there is no possibility of a sneak attack, and the only way to escape safely is to immediately set fire to the boat and the raft and float down, hoping that the thief will be caught off guard, and the blind cat will catch the dead mouse and crash into several enemy ships.

However, this distance is also too far, Chen Qian thought to himself - if he drifts down like this, the thief will probably run away a long time ago, where can he still hit the enemy ship? On weekdays, everyone should run for their lives, this time there is no room for blame, Chen Qian ordered the rest of the ships to speed up the rowing and rush over, and did not light the fire until they reached the enemy ship.

"If anyone ignores the ship without permission, kill it," he shouted, brandishing his saber in his boat, "everyone rushes up and the thieves will be damned if they hit us, and if they don't hit, we will have a fortune."

The people who attacked the ship were all outlaws, and when he drank it like this, there was only silver in their eyes, and when they saw that the cannonballs had fallen in Sun Tianbiao's avant-garde fleet, they hurriedly rowed their heads one by one, and desperately sailed towards the fleet.

Three minutes after Le Lin gave the order to fire, the main commanders of the fleet ran to the deck, Chen Haiyang raised his binoculars, and the river in the distance was full of burning ships, which were the enemy's spy boats that were covering the outside of the fleet under fire and were violently shelling with artillery and typewriters. Searchlights roamed back and forth across the river. Chen Haiyang estimated the distance, and his heart was slightly settled - the nearest fire was still about 2 kilometers away from the outer perimeter of the fleet. According to their general tactics of attacking ships by fire by the Ming army and pirates, after the fire was lit, there was no one left on board, and it was all propelled by the current and the wind -- at the current speed of the river, it would take at least 30 minutes to float to the anchorage of the fleet.

At this rate, I am afraid that many fire attack ships will be burned and sunk before they have time to float to the anchorage of the fleet. Not to mention the fact that artillery and typewriters are constantly shooting at them.

"Tell Lelin to follow the plan of countering the enemy fire attack ship." Chen Haiyang ordered, "It is necessary to strengthen the observation of whether the enemy may have ignited ships moving in secret."

The ships pulled up their anchor chains. The sailors took their positions, especially the typewriter's shère, who quickly removed their tarpaulin jackets, loaded the cartridges, and turned their gun mounts as they watched, staring at the dark water.

Sun Tianbiao's avant-garde was beaten to pieces by artillery and typewriters, turning into clumps of burning wreckage on the water, slowly drifting, whirlling, and sinking. The fire attack ships behind passed through the wreckage on the surface of the water and continued to carry out special attack operations with a courageous posture that has rarely been seen recently.

Several Xiǎo boats, which had been in a state of fire, also rushed from the anchorage, and went out hundreds of meters forward to sweep the follow-up fire attack ships with typewriters, and the dense bullets swept across the deck, beating the sailors to pieces, and the fire attack ships that rushed to the front lost their control, slowed down, and some simply fought on the water and collided with the ships behind.

Chen Qian saw that the striker was intercepted by the Australians again, and knew that there was no hope of breaking through the blockade, so he had to order the fire with hatred. More than 30 fire attack ships and nearly 100 fire rafts caught fire, and for a time the water surface was blazing with fire, which was magnificent.

These fireboats and rafts slowly drifted along the current, and because the speed was too slow and there was no one to do it, they collided with each other and sank a few on the way, and several more were huddled together on the water, burning a jīng light first. The rest were pulled one by one by the sailors on the sampans who had arrived at a distance of 500 meters to the bank of the river with long-handled iron hooks, and let them burn out.

Xu Tingfa saw the flames in the river, thought that he had succeeded, and immediately led 40 division ships down the river, preparing to take advantage of the momentum to attack. Unexpectedly, before they could get to the front, they were hit by a fierce artillery fire from the spy boat, and the three divisional ships in front of them were immediately hit by fire. Xu Tingfa stiffened his hair and ordered a fierce attack, put dozens of silver ingots of fifty taels and one ingots on the deck, waved his sword and shouted: "Those who advance, reward those who retreat, behead"

When he was shouting and rushing forward, "to repay the grace of the court", someone brought the ** Sun Tianbiao to him.

"My lord - the thieves in front of him are fierce, and the ship can't pass ......"

Before Sun Tianbiao's words fell, Xu Tingfa immediately shouted: "Drag it down, cut it"

The soldiers on the left and right immediately pulled Sun Tianbiao, who had not come back to his senses, to the bow of the boat and cut off the head with a knife. Present the bloody human head.

"Hanging on the mast" Xu Tingfa said loudly, "Whoever dares to escape from the battle will end up like this."

The army suddenly shuddered, and while shouting loudly to kill, they put the firearms on the ship in the direction of Ershawei, what two dragons out of the water, a swarm of bees, and fire pigeons, no matter whether the shè Cheng was enough or not, the shè went out in one go, but it was magnificent. Not to mention the thief, he accidentally injured a lot of sailors who jumped into the water to escape from the fireboat.

"You're a hit...... See clearly and then hit ......" Shui Yong, who had been hit by a rocket for no reason, cursed and sank.

"Pay attention to the distance of the enemy ship at a distance of 430 meters. Solid ammunition is loaded with one round," the gunners on the spy boat shouted loudly as they observed.

Xu Tingfa led the general attack of the sailors to last until midnight, and the entire river was blazing, and the sound of guns, screams, cursing and cries for help filled the night sky. As the night sè sank deeper and deeper, more and more ships caught fire. Finally, the counteroffensive of the Ming army Zuihou was also declared bankrupt. Xu Tingfa only escaped with his own body and fled ashore with his own soldiers. Chen Qian fled into the Xijiang River with his own boat. All but 40 of the 40 ships that participated in the counteroffensive were lost in battle. When the sky was dawning, Le Lin and the others, who were full of tiredness, only saw the corpses floating in the river and the broken wreckage, and the wreckage of the ship was still curling with green smoke.

The contingent lost 5 sampans and 1 dragon in this night battle. A steam motor boat was hit by a shell in the boiler, causing an explosion that killed 2 sailors and severely damaged the boat. This was the heaviest loss of the Navy. In addition to this, a number of ships were shot, but this did not affect the fighting. The total number of casualties is 3 dead and 14 wounded. They could not count the losses of the Ming army, and there were very few prisoners captured in the night, and many people took advantage of the night to swim ashore and escape. However, after the war alone, five or six hundred corpses were recovered from the water by nearby villagers.

On November 3, 1630 in the Western calendar, the mist on Baietan, just after the mist dissipated, the Zhujiang Task Force of the Austro-Song Fu Bō Army sailed into Baietan.

The iron chains rattled, and one by one the iron anchors were thrown from the ship into the blue bō of the White Goose Pond. The muzzle of the ship's black dòngdòng was facing the city of Guangzhou.

The city of Guangzhou was closed - the news of the failure of Xu Tingfa's counteroffensive had long since been brought back to Guangzhou by the rout. The city of Mén, which was supposed to be opened early in the morning, was not opened for the first time.

Yu Baocun, the prefect of Guangzhou, was watching from the city wall, and when he saw the fleet coming, he hurriedly got off the city wall and got on the sedan chair.

"Go to the Governor's Office"

Li Fengjue was completely helpless at this time. Xu Tingfa's counterattack failed, and he didn't even know where the others were. None of the forts along the way worked. The 5,000 Shui Yong recruited by Huā ran away with less than 2,000 people left. And the Francoman, who originally had high hopes for him, had no intention of dispatching warships to cut off the back road of the thieves. According to Li Luoyou's letters, the Francophiles seem to have exactly grasped the news of Gao Shunqin's request to seal the customs and even expel them, not to mention "borrowing troops to help the war", not taking advantage of the fire to rob is already a lot of effort for him Li Luoyou.

Although the letter did not say it explicitly, the implication was very obvious: he wanted to make peace with the thief as soon as possible, so as not to suffer a greater blow.

Discussing peace, discussing peace, Li Fengjie was half frustrated, half annoyed. He originally wanted to negotiate peace, but he miscalculated at the time, hoping to save a little face and contact the Australians again, but now not only does he not have face, but even the inside is about to fall off. Now the thief's fleet is anchored at Baietan, ready to bombard Canton at any time and place -- he is suddenly in a dilemma.

The negotiation of peace will inevitably encounter attacks from many people, especially Gao Shunqin, who is extremely hostile to all overseas people. God knows how he will impeach the imperial court.

If a war starts, there is no certainty of victory at all -- even if the thieves do not take Guangzhou, it is a sure thing to lose their officials and resign after this round of tossing, and if the thieves break through the city, they will not even be able to save their lives.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but frown. He sighed.

He Chengzong said in a loud voice: "My lord, now there is only a quick way to let the thief's sailor withdraw from the White Goose Pond. After a long time, I can't do it."

"There's no way to replace Jiāo now," Li Fengjie said in a hurry.

"My lord, there is always something to say right now. In case this thief fights outside Guangzhou again, I'm afraid there will really be no explanation."