The Paraguay River is wide and deep, but compared with the vast sea, the space for the operation of ironclads is extremely limited, and the width of the river channel of more than 100 meters is not enough to provide space for Brazilian ironclads to provide roundabout cover.

The muzzles of the Chaoyang and Dawn turned, sending a salvo of shells as the Brazilian ironclad was blocked by the chaotic friendly ships.

At a distance of only more than 100 meters, the Brazilian ironclad became a live target for the novice test of the Chinese Independence Army Navy, and two shells hit the target at close range, and the Brazilian naval soldiers who were still operating the warship on the river heard two explosions one after another, and then fell to the ground under the blow of the fragments provoked by the shells, and the two shells hit the batteries and decks of the ironclad ships respectively, a gun was overturned by the shells and lost its combat effectiveness, and the watchtower was pierced by the shells A large hole.

The Brazilian ironclad ship was in shambles, and more than 20 soldiers were affected by the shells, most of whom were injured and fell to the ground.

The Brazilian ironclad ship was embarrassed on the surface, but in fact, the core power system of the warship was not hit, and the entire warship still maintained most of its combat capability.

While the Chaoyang and Dawn salvages hit the main Brazilian ironclad ships, seven gunboats and hundreds of sail warships took advantage of the situation, and the Chinese Independence Army soldiers on board stood on the bow of the ship, holding hooks, ready for a broadside battle.

Broadside combat is a typical way of fighting in the era of sails, many veterans of the Taiping Army who fought with the Qing army along the Yangtze River have experience in broadside battles, originally this combat method has been eliminated from the battlefield in the West, but on the Paraguay River, the eliminated mode of war has found its place again.

The Paraguay River, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean, gave the Brazilian Navy access to the interior of Paraguay, and similarly limited the ironclad ships that fought in the open seas to the inland river.

In less than a minute, seven gunboats, powered by steam, arrived on the battlefield first.

"Bang" A gunboat crashed into the Brazilian ironclad, and the Chinese soldiers on the gunboat shook for a while, then threw up the hook and crawled along the rope towards the ship.

"Quick, get to the bow of the ship quickly, we can't let them board the ironclad ship."

The Brazilian Navy soldiers, who had escaped the shells, quickly ran from the deck to the bow of the ship, and the soldiers below the cabin also rushed to the deck hill under the leadership of the officers to defend themselves against the attack of the Chinese Independence Army.

Seven gunboats approached the Brazilian ironclad ship at about the same time, and more than 210 Chinese soldiers landed around the warship, and the fierce battle took place between the soldiers of the two sides at close range.

The bow of the ironclad ship was less than four meters from the surface of the gunboat, and the Chinese soldiers and the Brazilian navy fired at close range, and in just a few minutes, the casualties on both sides exceeded 200.

In order to seize the last ironclad ship of the Brazilian Navy, the first wave of Chinese soldiers who attacked by gunboat suffered more than half of the casualties, and at the same time caused no less than the number of casualties to the Brazilian Navy soldiers, the Brazilian ironclad ship was full of 300, and more than 20 people were incapacitated by shells before, and more than 100 casualties were paid in the battle on the sideboard, and less than 150 soldiers could still take up arms and fight on the entire warship.

The heavy casualty ratio quickly swallowed up the will of the Brazilian soldiers on the ironclad ship, the gunboats surrounded the ironclad ship to attack, and the warships that relied on the traditional wind power to sail arrived on the battlefield a few minutes late, and as soon as the three sail warships with a displacement of more than 2,000 tons came into contact with the Brazilian ironclad ships, the decks of the two warships were basically the same, and the Chinese soldiers who had already prepared crossed the gap between the warships and rushed to the Brazilian ironclads.

The disparity between the enemy and our forces was too great, and all but 30 of the remaining 100 soldiers of the Brazilian warship were killed.

The only ironclad ship is the temporary flagship of the Brazilian Navy, the command ship was captured, and the other Brazilian ships were not much luckier, the Chaoyang and the Dawn occupied the center of the Paraguay riverbank, striking the Brazilian warships with the ability to return fire, and nearly a hundred modified warships approached the attack, and the transport ships behind were spread along the river bank to block the breakthrough of the Brazilian ships, and a hundred modified warships formed the first circle of encirclement, and the transport fleet blocked the retreat of the fish that slipped through the net, and the two ironclad ships served as patrol missions, The warship responsible for escaping the encirclement of the first layer of encirclement.

An hour and a half later, the battle on the river ended, and more than 120 Brazilian ships and seven or eight gunboats escaped while the initial encirclement was not tight, sinking and damaging more than 30 Brazilian ships and capturing more than 70 Brazilian naval vessels, including ironclads.

In the two water battles, the Chinese Independence Army captured three ironclad ships, 15 sail warships with a displacement of more than 2,000 tons, and 30 warships with a displacement of between 1,000 tons and 2,000 tons.

Twenty large transport ships and seventeen gunboats.

As for the small ships with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons, there are more than 300, these ships are simple to manufacture, small in size, only suitable for transporting materials and personnel in inland river areas, and have weak combat capability; after the end of the war, except for a part of the wooden ships with good performance left to join the Navy's coastal patrol fleet, the others will be sold at low prices to meritorious soldiers for use as fishing boats and merchant ships.

At the end of the battle on the river, the Chinese Independence Army routed the Brazilian defenders on the river bank and occupied the base at the estuary.

The riverbank base is the logistics supply area of the Brazilian army and the river passage to the sea, and the occupation of the riverbank base is equivalent to pinching the neck of the Brazilian army and isolating the main force of the Brazilian army from the rear troops.

The riverbank base is very important to the Brazilian army, Garcia will not sit idly by and watch the loss of the base, it will not be long before Garcia will definitely send troops to counterattack, leaving little time for the Chinese Independence Army to prepare, Li Mingyuan got off the ship and personally commanded the troops to build fortifications.

The artillery placed in the camp by the Brazilian army was pulled out by the Chinese soldiers, and one by one the artillery pieces were placed on both sides of the defensive line of the position under the command of Li Mingyuan, and Luo, as the commander of the artillery brigade, could only follow Li Mingyuan and listen to Li Mingyuan explain the use of artillery tactics.

"Artillery is mainly used in the mainland to defend the city, as for field operations, artillery most of the time only plays an auxiliary role, but with the improvement of artillery technology, siege artillery, portable field howitzers and other artillery with more specific functions appear on the battlefield, and the significance of artillery on the battlefield is becoming more and more important.

Artillery, you remember, artillery is not just an auxiliary weapon on the battlefield, when used properly, artillery can play a decisive role on the battlefield. ”

In normal times, Li Mingyuan also introduced the importance of artillery on the battlefield to Luo Artillery, but he rarely gave such a high evaluation to artillery as it does today.

Artillery had a dominant position in the later large-scale wars, and due to the problem of insufficient artillery performance in the hands of the Chinese Independence Army, the artillery brigade never reached the position envisioned by Li Mingyuan, and conquered the shore base of the Brazilian Navy, and the Chinese Independence Army not only captured a large number of warships but also obtained a number of artillery with superior performance.

The artillery that the Chinese soldiers were carrying was made in France

The M1857 12-pounder (5.44 kg) field gun, also known as the "Napoleonic gun". This is an artillery named after the French Emperor Napoleon III.

The Napoleonic cannon has strong mobility, fierce firepower, and a maximum attack range of 1,500 meters, which can cause effective damage to the enemy at a distance of 1,000 meters, and due to the use of explosive shells, more than ten shells can destroy the offensive strength of a battalion of the enemy.

The Qing army suffered a great loss of Napoleonic artillery in the Second Opium War, and the Napoleonic artillery on the North American continent was also powerful during the South American War.

It will take a certain amount of time for 40,000 Chinese troops to land, and before the landing is completed, a mixed position of artillery and machine guns will serve as the main force to block the enemy's counterattack.