"There are ghosts, there must be ghosts!"

Secretly said in his heart, Jiang Jie shouted, and pointed to the shore:

"Look, my lord!"

Baili Yan took advantage of the situation to look, the Jin Xuedi people on the shore were eyeing the tiger, but the huge collapse left on the shore was particularly blinking, and there were still a large number of stout logs scattered on the shore beach.

"Bastard, what a fucking lack of morality!"

"My lord, you can't get it from land!"

Jiang Jie had already guessed, but he couldn't figure out why he dragged the boat ashore.

"It's fucking pulled over land. They used fangs and unicorns to pull the boat out of the water, and then they simply put logs under the boat, so that they could drag it all the way to the place, chisel through the bottom of the boat and fill it with heavy objects, and finally throw it into the water. ”

A wooden ship carrying 2,000 stone does not weigh 2,000 stone empty, at best only one-third to one-quarter, or even lighter, and several mammoths or dozens of unicorns can be dragged ashore even if they are dragged on flat ground. By laying logs on the bottom of a ship, it is easy to transport a ship overland.

"I really didn't expect it, so exciting, I really let them do it, I really underestimated them. Why did I forget, it's so big on land that we can't see it! ”

"My lord, they are attacking here, and he must have been blocked elsewhere."

"It's not just that it was blocked, but I dare to conclude that the first part of its naval army must have made a detour south to the upper reaches of the Bertila River, and this is to flank our army up and down."

"Isn't that General Sikong more than lucky!"

"It won't. Immediately ordered the flotilla to turn around and return to the mouth of the Bertila River. ”

"Yes!"

The mouth of the Bertila River is about 130 miles from the western end of the nameless creek, and the fleet is only halfway there, and it will not take half a day to return. It is impossible for the Jinxuedi people to close the river as soon as the coalition fleet has passed through, and cut off the back route again, even if they push a ship into the water, it is not possible to do it in a moment.

The flotilla arrived at the mouth of the upper reaches of the Bertila River in the first half of the night, and as soon as the group arrived, the Clipper Scouts reported the following:

"General Qi Baili, the downstream Jin Xuedi Navy suddenly appeared two days ago, hundreds of boats all over the river and I don't know what to do."

"A boat? Are they all such fishing boats? Baili Yan pointed to the fishing boat and asked.

"Exactly, these fishing boats, there are hundreds of them in total."

At this time, Jiang Jie said:

"My lord, the enemy is trying to block our gunpowder ship with a small boat, and then force our army to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the superiority of its large ship."

"Well, that's a possibility. The herald ordered the royal scouts to drive the speedboat owner overnight to check the situation of the waterway, and as long as it was allowed, he immediately contacted Sikong Nan. ”

"Yes!"

Jiang Jie's judgment was very accurate, and the Jin Xuedi people prepared a large number of small boats, which were gunpowder ships to intercept and deal with the coalition forces.

The powder boat was still a small boat driven by a man, and after ignition, the crew jumped into the water, causing the boat to crash into the target and explode. The Kincherdi, heavily equipped with small boats, and at a relatively small cost prevented the gunpowder ships from approaching their ships, undoubtedly thwarting the coalition's attempts to blow up the ships.

Obviously, with the current technology, the explosive agent cannot reach the level of delayed underwater detonation after sealing, and can only be delivered by primitive human delivery.

The next day, the clipper boat that went east to explore the way returned to report that four shipwrecks had been found forty miles east of the mouth of the Bertila River, and another shipwreck ten miles to the east.

At the same time, Jin Xuedi's naval army went upriver from the downstream, and the fleet was mighty in the hundreds.

"My lord, the scouts just reported that the enemy ships downstream are less than 100 miles away from our army, and they will be able to arrive in the second half of the night tonight." Jiang Jie said quickly, sweating profusely on his forehead on the not hot weather.

"What about upstream?"

"There has not yet been a report upstream, and according to the scout's estimates, it is at least one hundred and fifty miles away from our army."

"Well, to be exact, there should be more than two hundred miles."

Bai Liyan said affirmatively, Jiang Jie was puzzled:

"How do you know that the enemy ship is still two hundred miles away?"

"Think about it, the enemy ships downstream are a hundred miles away from our army, and their speed against the current is half to one-third that of the river. The two armies upstream and downstream must have agreed to arrive at the same time, or it was expected that our army would flee south or choose other land and water to flee eastward.

Therefore, the journey time of the upstream enemy ships is about 1.3 times that of the downstream enemy ships, so as to ensure that our troops can still catch up with our troops at the same time as the upstream enemy ships, so that 200 miles upstream is at least. ”

"But our army can go down the river, so won't our army be able to fight for more than half a day."

"Yes, then do you know what are the disadvantages of our army swimming down?"

"My lord is saying that the enemy ships intercepted our gunpowder ships with small boats, and at the same time attacked and burned us with fire."

"Exactly. Our troops are going downstream, and the enemy ships are going upstream, and the two are moving in opposite directions, and the speed of the instantaneous relative collision is the greatest. He blocked the river with hundreds of small boats, fixed iron forks in the bow and pierced our warships, and then with a fire, our big ships were completely destroyed in the fire. If our army also sends small boats to compete with it for the water, it will be in the hands of its war of attrition, which will be extremely disadvantageous to our army.

Second, the enemy army is fortified downstream, and even if our troops rush through, they will not be able to break through from the rest of the river downstream, and they must have blocked the river in advance, and our troops will not be able to pass, so they can only go down the river into Lake Bograt.

I dare to predict that it has been transferred from Boglaat to detour upstream, blocking the upper reaches of our army in Tarun and Bertila. If our troops fail to see through this, they will definitely think that there are still a large number of enemy ships waiting for our troops in Lake Boglath, so they will definitely swim upstream and choose other upstream and east and west to escape by waterway.

However, in fact, it is bound to attack our army from the north and south, otherwise there are many villages of the Central Plains people in the upper reaches, and once our army docks on the shore and relies on the waterway to maneuver with the infantry army and incite the abduction of the Central Plains people, the situation will be difficult to control. Therefore, it must be heavily fortified upstream, but it is useless to blockade the Bertila and Tarun rivers by land, so it can only mobilize the navy and swim down to squeeze the maneuver of our navy.

And if our army goes against the current, the advantage of the powder ship will be greatly reduced, which will be beneficial to it. Under the attack from top to bottom, it is difficult to guarantee that our army will not be completely annihilated. ”

The battle on the battlefield is the same as playing Go, where the space of the pieces on the board is contested, and the battlefield is about the space for movement.

Of the three armies of infantry, cavalry and water, the infantry army has the lowest requirements for space, followed by the navy, and the cavalry has the highest requirements for space. The higher the space requirements, the stronger its sports combat ability, and vice versa.

However, the required space dependence is not as large as possible, such as cavalry, once it loses its movement space, its mobility is worse, and the cavalry does not have a numerical advantage, after being surrounded by the infantry and losing movement, the combat effectiveness of the cavalry is greatly weakened. [Note 1]

Due to the poor mobility, the infantry needs to maneuver relatively little space, and the infantry is easy to switch between attack and defense, while the cavalry is mainly attacking, and the defense is not superior, so the infantry can better occupy the initiative in a small space. As long as the cavalry's maneuver space is squeezed and restricted, the cavalry is the turtle in the urn.

The space of the navy depends on the river, even if it has the geographical advantage of the upstream, once the downstream is occupied by the waterway, squeezing the movement space, the upstream will impact downward, regardless of the size of the downstream ships, which is extremely unfavorable to the upstream ships.

The Kinchedi would fix iron forks in the bows of hundreds of small boats and carry incendiary materials, and the coalition fleets, whether in formation or in single columns, would face wolf attacks, and the relative instantaneous speed of the top-down counter-attack could reach 40 kilometers per hour. The iron car could not withstand a collision, and the wooden warship could not resist it.

Of course, the bow of the Kinchodi warship was equipped with an angle of attack, but not at all for a small ship. And the number of warships is much larger than that of the coalition forces, and it will hedge against the coalition forces face to face at any cost, and the coalition forces have no chance of winning.

"It seems that I still underestimated this legion commander. Jiang Jie ordered the fleet to enter the Bertila River, lined up with thirty ships and two in column, with the big ships in front and the clippers behind, and the extra ships behind the brigade, and the fleet went down the river and sailed at full speed. ”

"Yes, my lord!"

The Bertila River is four to seven miles wide, which is conducive to the frontal wide frontal assault of the large battle line, and the Baili Yan is expected to be lined up in the front of the downstream, with the small boats in front, and the big boats lined up on the river, so as to go upstream, and pursue the coalition warships that fled against the current.

The fleet quickly adjusted its attitude and sailed into Bertila, and thirty ships marched in unison.

At the same time, the Mooney Naval Army downstream went up the river with great momentum. Hundreds of warships were densely packed on the river, tightly stuffed, and impermeable.

Mooney's flagship was sailing along the coast, when a fast horse came at a rapid pace and boarded the flagship in a small boat:

"Commander Qiqi, the northerner fleet is not heading upstream, but is heading towards our army at high speed."

The Scout spoke quickly, and Mooney was surprised to hear the news, and hurriedly asked:

"How many ships are there?"

"About sixty or so."

"Is there a boat?"

"No, the small boats are tied to the outboard of the ship, or they are tandem to the stern, and the enemy ships that come on the front are all large ships."

At this time, the head of the regiment, Nolunga, said excitedly:

"Your Excellency, the northerners are here to die, as long as they dare to rush down, we will burn them."

"No, there must be something wrong with it. They shouldn't go downstream, they should go against the current! ”

In order to intercept Bailiyan and Sikongnan, Mooney had 80 ships in the lower reaches of the Tarun and Bertila rivers, and at the same time transferred 100 warships from Lake Boglath to detour to the upper reaches of Bailiyan and Sikongnan, but Bailiyan and Sikongnan should theoretically not know that they had transferred troops upstream.

Therefore, in addition to the eighty warships in the lower reaches of the Tarun and Bertila rivers, Bailiyan should theoretically not know that the Boglath Lake is empty, so if he continues to attack downstream, he will face two blockades from the Jin Xuedi naval army, so fleeing against the current is the first choice, and he will encounter a joint attack from top to bottom and fall into encirclement.

Now that he suddenly did the opposite, he must have been seen through by Baili Yan.

"Norenga, order the navy to draw ten large ships from each of the east and west flanks, and sail in a single column, close to the shore. When the northerners and our army encountered, the ship stopped in this formation, and when the boat attacked head-on, the two winged warships attacked together! ”

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

The large ship is a large ship that can carry 3,000 stones, full of goods and sailing in the ocean, and can carry 145 people on board.

Nowadays, because it is an inland river navigation, there is no logistical and ocean-going self-sustaining burden, and the warships are loaded with people and a small amount of supplies. In addition, there are no artillery and gunpowder heavy loads at the moment.

Therefore, if it is purely stuffed, the empty 3,000-stone ship can fit four or five hundred people according to its volume, but the narrow space and safety factors can fit more than 300 people at most. But if they are all loaded with people, they will not be able to get rid of the supply needs of the shore base, and they will not be able to sail to the sea.

[Note 1] In any form of warfare, what is fought for is space, whether it is for the key rush, the canal, or the place where it must be contested, it is essentially the space to be fought for, and the nodes of the space. For example, the pass is the node of space, and the river is the noose of land space.

Although the cavalry is powerful, the biggest fatal wound of the cavalry is that the space requirements are too high. Cavalry, as a mobile unit, is not the main thing to use horses to charge and kill, of course, it is undeniable that the power of the cavalry group charge is terrifying. But the real advantage of cavalry is its mobility, which is often misinterpreted as combat effectiveness. The essence of the so-called mobility is the struggle for space.

Why Qin Shi Huang built the Great Wall was not because a wall could keep it safe, but because the Great Wall limited the space for the Hun cavalry to maneuver south.

During the farming period, transportation and communication were backward. It was a dream for the infantry to catch up with the four legs. A million infantry troops are guarding the 10,000-mile border, and if there is no Great Wall, this million-man army is actually even more fictitious, full of loopholes. Because the infantry army wants to watch the border, it can only be scattered and stationed.

But the cavalry is different, it relies on horses to quickly move around the field, pick out the places where you are not around, and hit your rear, which is very helpless, so it can only limit the maneuver space of the cavalry.

In addition to relying on long-range weapons and long-pole weapons, by carrying a large number of vehicles, arranging fixed tripwires, and rejecting horse formations, in order to create terrain obstacles on the battlefield, and at the same time, by mobilizing infantry troops, forming a tactical combination of movement and static, it can also balance the cavalry.

Once the cavalry loses the space for movement and is surrounded by the infantry, the horses cannot be charged and killed, and the speed cannot be pulled, the cavalry may be weaker than the infantry, and the long-pole weapons will be directly poked to death on the horses.

(End of chapter)