On the morning of the fifth day, the scouts came to report that there were three routes of officers and troops advancing by land and water, from Zhiling, Haiyang, and Taiping.

Lin Xiao felt that he had overestimated the reaction speed of the Annan army, fifty or sixty kilometers, a distance of more than a hundred miles, and it took five or six days to arrive.

On the wharf of the Zhujiang River in the north, the "Unicorn" had already arrived, and the people of the Haiphong trading houses were not only frightened when they saw such a large ship, but they also had some confidence in the strength of the rebels, and they also worked hard to relieve the refugees.

Lin Xiao and the others took the time to go to the bazaar and the wharf to take a look, although the houses here were short and simple, the bazaar looked quite prosperous, because the soldiers of the old port camp did not disturb the civilians, all kinds of people came and went, and their expressions were calm.

Most of them wore ochre-colored coarse cloth clothes, and in addition to their appearance and figure, they were dressed quite similarly to the Ming Dynasty. There are also some people who look like the Ming Dynasty, even if they are refugees who have taken refuge, they are generally better dressed and taller.

Like all the places in Southeast Asia where Chinese maritime merchants set foot in, it is a mixed market of Chinese and Vietnamese. The goods brought by the Ming merchant ships were bundled and stacked on the dock with straw ropes, and the amount was quite amazing.

Haiphong Wharf is at the mouth of the Zhujiang River, the scale of the stone wharf is not small, and there is even a wooden trestle bridge that stretches out into the river to facilitate the docking of merchant ships.

The large open space in front of the wharf has been filled with straw huts, and the thousands of refugees who have fled from China finally do not have to endure the rain and wind.

"Longsheng Commercial Bank" originally wanted to donate 10,000 stone of rice, but after Lin Xiao refused, he doubled the amount of soup every day, and Lin Xiao also specially sent a few trucks of frozen beef, so that the refugees could eat minced meat porridge and make them recover their strength as soon as possible.

Other businesses also donated money and goods, and the refugees gradually stabilized and stopped wandering around begging.

……

Scouts kept coming to report, among them more than 10,000 people who had arrived from Hai Duong as the main force of the officers and troops, and they went down the Taiping River by boat, and after going ashore at a place 40 miles west of Haiphong, they waited for a day, until they met with more than 3,000 people who came from Taiping, and then they came eastward slowly.

However, more than 3,000 people who came from the north to act as a partial division to attack Haiphong were divided into hundreds of boats and went down the river, and the momentum was extremely strong, and it was less than 10 miles away from the Haiphong wharf.

Lin Xiao had already ordered the battleship "Unicorn" to lie behind a river bay upstream of the dock, where the river was relatively narrow. The portholes of the cannons on the two decks were all opened, and the muzzles of the black holes pointed directly to the upstream river, and the back of the cannons went straight to the deck, and the round tray was full of shells, and the small iron stove had already lit a fire for a long time, and the iron chisels of the ignition guns inserted in it were burned red.

Because the cannon on the other side of the boat was useless, about half of the sailors disembarked and took a large inland boat to block the river on both sides of the "unicorn", which was about 300 meters wide and the "unicorn" was only 63 meters long.

All the sailors were personally commanded by Xiao Kaifeng, and Lin Xiao prudently sent Xiao Kaifeng, the most powerful comrade-in-arms, to sit in the naval battle.

The two infantry squads of 100 people, led by Ding Shuai and Liu Xulei, two Guangxi soldiers, were ambushed on the upstream riverbank.

The other four teams immediately rushed to 20 miles southwest of Haiphong Town, where there were two hills, one of which had a large road between it and a tributary of the Taiping River, which was the only way to enter Haiphong by land from the southwest.

At the same time, Xia Bomin was ordered to lead a team to set off from the seaside camp and march 20 miles to meet, leaving only Zhu Yujia to lead a team to guard the camp.

……

Near noon, the northwest of the Yangtze River took the lead in fighting.

The water of the river flows through this place, and because of the proximity to the mouth of the sea, the flow rate has flattened. More than 100 inland river troop carriers, large and small, lined up in two columns, stretched two miles away, and slowly descended. The speed of the fleet slowed down significantly, and the commander ordered to dock and disembark after crossing the river, and then form a team to attack and advance after landing.

Dozens of soldiers armed with knives, guns, bows and arrows sat in each troop transport, their uniforms were generally tattered, but their emotions were still high, and on the bow decks of several ships stood officers in armor and swords at their waists.

This is an army fully equipped with cold weapons.

Ding Shuai and Liu Xulei separated 100 soldiers five meters apart and crouched on the river embankment three miles upstream of the "unicorn", and the team of 100 people formed a skirmish line about one mile long.

The largest 24-pounder cannon of the "Unicorn" caliber has a smoothbore barrel made by drilling the borehole method, which makes the inner chamber of this gun very smooth, which is the most advanced casting method in the world in this era, and its effective range is more than one mile, and the maximum range can reach three miles. The remaining dozens of 12-pounder, 8-pounder, and 6-pounder naval guns ranged from 100 to 200 meters, but the rate of fire was relatively fast; In addition, there are several large-caliber short-barreled mortars, which have a range of less than 100 meters but can fire shotguns, and mainly play the role of killing and injuring deck sailors in a large area in close combat.

Turning the river bay and seeing the huge warships across the river, the formation of the officers and soldiers began to be confused, and the officers and men on board had never seen a large ship of more than 1,000 tons, and they were all frightened. Those in front slowed down or even stopped, but those behind were still rushing forward.

In a short time, the first half of the flotilla was huddled together, slowly approaching the "unicorn" along the river, and the front boat was already close at hand, and the people on board could even see the ghostly light from the black hole in the muzzle of the battleship.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! With the roar of the three 24-pounder guns, dozens of guns of various types on the "Unicorn" opened fire one after another, and one after another black round solid iron bullets flew towards the official fleet with fireballs.

A heavy 24-pound solid artillery shell flew over a distance of more than 400 meters, right in the middle of the cabin of a troop carrier, and with a loud bang, the iron bullet smashed into the crowd, like an iron plough plowing, flesh and stumps flew in the air with the trajectory of the cannonball, the troop carrier broke into two pieces in the smoke, and the soldiers on board were either killed or wounded, screaming again and again......

Another shell swept over a troop carrier, slicing off the head of a general-looking officer shouting with a sword, and continuing to fly in a slightly curved trajectory until it hit the side of another troop carrier, taking more heads, thighs and torsos. A big hole was instantly broken in one side of the troop carrier, and the river rushed into the cabin, and the soldiers screamed and retreated, and those who knew how to swim jumped into the river.

Most of the shells did not hit the troop carriers, but with a terrifying whistling sound and fireballs swept past the masts and sails and crashed into the river, stirring up columns of waves that rushed into the sky.

After several rounds of bombardment, the troop carriers on the river became denser and denser, and the flotilla huddled together in the thick smoke you hit me, I hit you, like bumper cars, dizzy and huddled into a ball that could not disperse at all, and several warships that had lost their captains were like headless flies, one by one, circling in the center of the river......

The "unicorn" began to fire shotguns, which were fired by mortars with a short range but a large lethal area, and the cannons swept towards the fleet in pieces, leaving the soldiers on board with nowhere to flee and mourning...... More and more soldiers jumped into the river, and then they were called by the M16 sailors on the river boats on both sides of the "unicorn", and they sank into the river one by one.

Behind the flotilla, dozens of troop carriers that had not yet entered the river bay were about to turn their rudder and flee when they saw that the situation was not good, when suddenly a row of gunfire rang out on the river embankment, and the soldiers on each boat were called by the infantry on the shore, and they were powerless to fight back.

The river is less than 300 meters wide at its widest point, while the effective range of the M16 is 600 meters, and the maximum range is more than 1,000 meters.

Lin Xiao gave the recruits who went into battle for the first time to kill people a good enough opportunity to temper their psychology.