Li Xin and the others took out more than 200 pack horses from the secret passage, and the rest were taken out by Li Bingcheng to make a fire bull array. These horses can't fight, they can't run fast. But it was no problem to carry food, gunpowder, guns, and weapons. Four hundred and eighty-two men were withdrawn. Three hundred of them were wounded, and dozens of them were seriously wounded, and they could only lie in the nets between the two horses. Men and horses have cloths wrapped around their feet, and they bite wooden sticks in their mouths and sneak silently.

After walking all night, when the sky was almost dawn, there was a shout of killing in front of him, Li Xin, Zhao Chengda, and Lin Dong lay on the hill and looked carefully. Find Cheng Da and said: "My lord, it is the 200 scouts sent out by the chief soldier, and they have been wandering outside and have not returned. I heard that he was ordered to attack the enemy's food route. ”

In the distance, two cavalrymen were slashing at each other. Facing away from him were the cavalry with a white flag, about two hundred people, and the cavalry wearing red mandarin duck jackets in the Ming Dynasty was about one hundred and fifty or sixty people. Clearly at a disadvantage.

"Muskets are ready, Lu Mi guns are ready, come to a salvo" Li Xin said, this retreat, although the cannons were blown up, but the rest were carried by more than 1,000 muskets, each carrying two.

"Hit" Li Xin gave an order, and more than 400 muskets opened fire together. The white flag cavalry on the opposite side seemed to be shocked, and a group of men and horses fell. Immediately afterwards, each of the Fengjibao soldiers picked up a second musket, especially more than a hundred Lumi guns, and immediately opened fire. The enemy's cavalry fell another forty or fifty people.

"Brothers, rush up with me" Li Xin shouted, pulled out his sword, and rushed out, the cavalry of the white flag was instantly bombarded by muskets and dismounted eighty or ninety people, and saw that I don't know how many people rushed out in the dark, and they had no intention of fighting, turned their horses and ran, and the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty chased for a while and came back.

"Zhou Yuji has seen all of you, how did you get here," Zhou Yuji said strangely.

"What about your thousand households," Li Xin asked.

"Senhe-sama was killed in the battle just now, and he was hit by an arrow in the eye," Zhou Yuji said.

'Fengji Fort is broken, the chief soldier rushed out with the cavalry, we broke through, you are now under my command, join the army, and go to the camp together. Li Xin said. Now he is the biggest official in Fengji Fort, and he is not polite to give direct orders.

"Oh" Zhou Yuji didn't say anything, and bowed down to receive the order.

Then the whole team joined forces, not daring to light torches and walk downstream along the Hunhe River in the dark. At this time, the Hunhe River had already opened, and with the sound of rushing water, the large ice floe on the river surface rose and fell. Everyone remained silent and walked quietly.

At this time, Li Jing had already left Yingkou and returned to Beijing, Fengji Fort had fallen to a foregone conclusion, this battle was a test of Liaoshen by the Later Jin, an attempt to conquer Jiancheng, and a hard encounter with the strongest army in Liaodong. After this battle, Nurhachi will repair for a short time, after all, the loss this time is not small. Through these several contacts, Li Jing found that Houjin's forces were very strong, usually a large number of slaves and servant armies, and new annexed armies were not counted, such as the battle of Fengjibao and Hupiyi, there were not many regular soldiers, and there were many miscellaneous soldiers.

In the past few decades, the Qing Dynasty almost drained the young and strong tribes of the Northeast and Siberia, and filled them into the war millstone with the Ming Dynasty in large quantities and crushed them into meat paste. Later, Tsarist Russia often sent dozens of people, and hundreds of people could easily occupy Siberia all the way, and even built a castle in Yaksa on the side of the Heilongjiang River, which was not too far from Qiqihar. The real casualty figure is definitely much larger than the historical records, especially the uncircled "Manchu Old Files" records that Nurhachi dispatched 100,000 people when he set up an army to attack Fushun. These were written for the Yellow Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the data is more real.

The Qing Dynasty was not so strong, and the Ming Dynasty was not so weak.

This time, Li Jing did not take a sea boat, but took the first batch of inland river foot propeller boats brought by Chen Chong. There are six ships in total. The displacement is a little more than forty tons. The draft is only 1.5 meters, and there is only one deck. Single mast, hanging sylvester. The boat is 27 meters long and 3 meters wide. The aspect ratio reaches 9 to facilitate speed.

There is a spindle in the cabin, on which 20 bicycle devices are arranged horizontally, and 20 strong men fly on the flywheel, which use a chain to drive the gears on the spindle, so as to achieve a speed of up to 9 knots in the absence of wind. With a draft of up to 1.5 meters, it can sail most inland rivers.

The upper deck bulwarks and the ship's planks on the waterline were reinforced with three-mm steel plates. The top of the deck was closed with a curved steel plate roof, and the canopy could be slid to facilitate the lifting and maneuvering of the shoul, as well as climbing to the lookout at the top of the mast.

Armament, a six-pounder gun was mounted in the bow and stern. Three three-pounder guns were installed on each side of the ship's broadside decks. The conditions on board were tough, and everyone had to sleep in hammocks. Li Jing and the four maids lived in a small enclosed house on the back deck, and there was also a cannon in the room. Five hammocks are usually put away.

From Yingkou to the mouth of the Haihe River in Tianjin, then along the Haihe River into the Grand Canal, through Tongzhou to Beijing. A total of 600 km. 400 kilometers at sea and 200 kilometers by inland rivers. Raise the shoulk, and in a day and night you will reach the mouth of Dagu, and then / into the channel of the Haihe River.

Usually, the gun windows are closed, and it is impossible to see that there are guns on the ship, and the steel plates are painted with black anti-rust paint. It looks similar to those canopy boats. Along the way, the sailors and tax customs saw the flags of the Fujian and Guangdong general town government and were directly released. The journey was very smooth, and Li Jing chose to take the first batch of inland river and offshore clippers made by Chen Chong this time to see the actual performance.

At sea, due to the shallow draft, it is necessary to use a large number of stones to ballast, and at the same time, the simple stabilizer fins designed by Li Jing are put down to prevent the ship from capsizing. Due to the streamlined design of the hull, the aspect ratio reached 9, the head of the flying shear, plus the sylon and the nose jib. The speed on the sea is very fast, and the 400-kilometer sea route soars to the outside of Dagu in 24 hours.

The one Li Jing took was different from the others, with the bulbous bow in Li Jing's experiment. The width of Li Jing's boat was enlarged to five meters. In this way, the aspect ratio is reduced to about 5.4, and the speed will go down. In order to keep up with other boats, the boat experimentally added a bulbous bow.

The bulbous bow appeared super early, and similar designs were found on the warships of the Phenekians and the Roman Empire and the Carthaginians BC.

The so-called bulbous bow is a stick with a ball on the head of the boat that extends out in front of the water in the bow of the boat. Very similar to the organ characteristics of males. Why can you add this to increase the speed? The most widely accepted explanation is that the main resistance of the boat in the water is the wave resistance, that is, the resistance of the waves, although the flying shear bow splits the waves, but the waves still have crests and troughs acting on the side of the ship, which greatly increases the resistance. The solution is very simple, which is to add this "yang/fixture". It will create new waves, and the crest of the wave will coincide with the trough on the side of the hull, and its trough will coincide with the crest of the wave on the side of the hull. In this way, canceling each other out, there are no big waves on the side of the boat, which greatly increases the speed.

The experimental effect was successful, and despite the two-meter widening and increased drag, it was able to keep up with the speed of the entire fleet.

Sails are of little use when entering inland waterways. The Haihe River has nine twists and eighteen bends, which requires frequent turns, which is very difficult to drive, and it is difficult for boats that are too big and too long to turn around. During the Republican period, the British once turned the Haihe River into a straight channel despite the opposition of local boatmen. As a result, the straight Haihe River could no longer hold water, and at its deepest time it was no more than nine feet, and no boat could enter. In the end, the British had no choice but to restore the old river.

Chen Zhong personally went down to the cabin and commanded the manpower to step on and drive the propeller. Even though he had already experimented, he was still a little nervous. On the other boats outside, sailors, officers and soldiers, civilians, and coolies saw a small fleet of sailors, without sails or oars, which was gradually accelerating and sailing upstream. They were all dumbfounded.