The drums on the warships of the Taiping Army were still ringing, but on the ships, the shouting soldiers fell silent for a while, staring blankly at the two big ships in the distance heading towards them, the steam engine roared in a low voice, and the huge paddle wheel blades stirred up four splashing waves on the lake, which was amazingly powerful.

"Foreign-human-of-gun-ship——!" I don't know which soldier cried out in a heart-rending voice, breaking the almost condensed air. Immediately the boats began to make an uproar, and the morale that was still full immediately turned into panic.

Such panic does not mean that the soldiers of the Taiping Army lack courage, but the gap in strength is really too huge. Even the largest turtle ship, compared with these two gunboats, is more than ten times different in size, not to mention the difference in firepower and maneuver, so how to fight this battle?

Sun Sixi, who was on the ship of the former military marshal, was also unbelievable in the face of such a nightmarish scene - how did the foreigner's warship join the official army?

Western countries have always maintained a "strict neutrality" attitude towards the war between the Taiping army and the Qing court. In fact, for a considerable period of time, he even secretly leaned towards the side of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, after all, everyone worships the same God and is considered a brother, and at the same time, he also believes that the rotten court will definitely not be able to resist the powerful Taiping army, and it is only a matter of time before Hong Xiuquan takes the world. As a result, there was an endless stream of missionaries and foreigners of all kinds who went to Tianjing.

However, the foreigners soon discovered that the God worshiped by King Hong did not seem to be the same thing as the God he worshipped, and his doctrine of "worshipping God". and the orthodox teachings of Christianity. It is even more incompatible. It's completely an article that his old man pulled out. When the Taiping army ignored the intimidation of the foreign powers and attacked Shanghai three times, the attitude of the foreign powers completely turned to the side of the Qing court.

But even so, the apparent neutrality was still not broken, and outside of Shanghai, there had never been an active attack on the Taiping army, so why did they now drive the gunboats into the Taihu Lake?

For Sun Sixi. This question is very incomprehensible, but there is no time to think about it now!

"Tell the left division, hang the slanted sails, go around to grab the upper hand, and set the ship on fire!" After getting through the initial panic, Sun Sixi looked ahead with a clairvoyant mirror while giving a loud order, "Order Lang Guokun of the right division to get out of the clipper and sampan immediately." Catch up with Li Chaobin's left team, you must be entangled with me! ”

The two wings are arranged. What to do in the middle? Several officers on the second deck all looked at Sun Sixi nervously.

Sun Sixi, who was born as a water thief, is a Cantonese person, and he has his own ruthlessness, and at the moment of life and death, he showed his true colors, and pulled the embroidered gown of the placket outward with both hands, stabbed it with a sound, and tore it in half together with the short jacket and the close-fitting gown, and threw it on the deck. In the cold winter of the moon, his upper body was naked, revealing a pair of dark and knotted muscles.

"Seventeen turtle boats are ordered to rush with me!" He looked ahead and said with a hideous face, "This is a foreigner's paddle gunboat, the big one, it's the flagship, and it's surrounded by me, as long as the two wheels are broken, it won't be able to run!" That ironclad ship, don't care about it for now, anyway, the more afraid you are, the more you have no way to survive - on the top hard, punch the master to death! ”

He had already seen very clearly that the big one was called Jintai, and the other was called Baiyue. The snake can't do it without a head, and he is determined to fight desperately and paralyze the Jintai first.

His idea could not be wrong, but before the words fell, the Baiyue had already taken the lead in firing the cannon, and after the thunderous sound, the first two shells did not hit the target, only between the fleets of the Taiping army, stirring up two huge water columns, but also overturned a sampan, and more than a dozen people on it all fell into the water.

"Foreign devils can't hit us! Paddle it up for me, rush! Sun Si shouted wildly. At this distance, the Taiping army had no power to fight back, and only by approaching forward, the cannon on the turtle ship could play a role.

The more than 400 ships of the Taiping Army's vanguard began to form a formation according to Sun Sixi's orders. The seventeen turtle boats in the middle of the road made up their minds to play with their lives, and the paddlers shouted and shouted to shake the two rows of paddle boards up and down, and rushed straight towards the Jintai pair.

However, at this moment, I saw the hull of the Jintai trembling slightly, and a flash of red light flashed on the bow of the ship, and there was an earth-shattering loud noise.

*

*

Ding Ruchang, the commander of the Xuanjun Naval Division, stood on the bridge of the Jintai with an interpreter, nervous and excited about the imminent battle. The captain in front of him, "Great Edward", skillfully gave orders one by one as the fleets of the two armies continued to approach.

There's so much to learn! Ding Ruchang thought to himself, I don't know when he will be able to command a battle like Edward?

He was too familiar with the Taiping Army's sailors, five years ago, he himself was a hundred commanders under Tang Zhengcai, with four boats and more than 100 people. Now he is already the commander of the Xuan Army's sailors, the general of Sanpin, with this fleet, to destroy the Taihu Lake Naval Army of the Taiping Army. Thinking that there must be brothers in the past who knew each other in this, even someone like him, who had already broken with the Taiping Army, couldn't help but feel a little uneasy in his heart.

To each his own! When he went out of Beijing with Xuanjun, he was just an "outsider", unlike Ixantulin, who had been following the boss and worked hard in life and death. But Mr. Guan has not only always regarded himself as a descendant, but also supported his Kezi battalion into the main force of the Xuan Army, and now he has put the sailor fleet in his own hands, what a great honor is this? Such a person, just sell his life for him, and he must fight this battle beautifully!

"Tell Edward that the turtle boat with the cyan flag in the middle is Sun Sixi's ship, that is, the flagship of the long-haired former army!" Ding Ruchang patted Edward and said to the interpreter, "The flank of the front army is the fleet of their commander Lang Guokun, you can ignore it for now, as long as Sun Sixi's front army is defeated, Li Chaobin and Lord Li of the Hunan army can deal with Lang Guokun by himself." ”

Whether it is the sailors of the Taiping Army or the sailors of the Hunan Army, Ding Ruchang knows their methods of engagement well. In the case of the Taiping Army, although the large ships converted from civilian ships carried many guns, they were cumbersome and ineffective, and they were often used as "mother ships" and fortresses, and when they really went into battle, they mostly relied on small boats such as clippers and sampans. On the small boat, carrying a cannon, or carrying more than a dozen spearmen and swordsmen, carrying firebombs, several or even dozens of small boats, like wolves, approached the big ship besieging the opponent, or fired cannons, or boarded the ship to fight, or burned with firebombs.

On the Hunan side, there is also a difference, the large long dragon and fast crab are also used as gunboats, and the real engagement relies on sampans and small rowing boats. Under this style of play, every time there is a big war, the fleets of both sides are often intertwined, you have me, I have you. In the battle of Guanpai Gorge, Zeng Guofan's ship Huachuan was once besieged by dozens of small boats of the Taiping army, and he himself jumped on the sampan to meet it, and escaped, but the boat was captured by the Taiping army. But in the battle of Qingshan, the Hunan army concocted it according to the law and snatched his ship back.

It can be seen that in the water war at this time, the big ships not only do not have absolute superiority, but also often become the target of attack. It wasn't until Tang Zhengcai built a turtle boat in Taihu Lake, with sharp guns and tight protection, that this situation was changed. Li Chaobin's Hunan army and naval division were defeated by Tang Zhengcai's men several times, also because there was no way to take the turtle boat, so he had to shrink into a corner and did not dare to fight again.

However, the sudden appearance of the Xuan gunboat finally made the turtle boat rampant in Taihu Lake encounter a terrible natural enemy.

Edward listened to Ding Ruchang's words, picked up the clairvoyant mirror for a brief observation, and then gave the order. The two ships of Jintai and Baiyue made a 30-degree turn, and in the process of driving diagonally, the muzzles of the two cannons in the bow and stern and the four guns on the left side slowly turned and aimed at the turtle boat flotilla that was sacrificing their lives to move forward.

Paddlewheel gunboats, because of their shallow draft and huge blades on both sides, could not deploy dozens of gunwales on the side like ordinary sail battleships. The gun layout of the Jintai was a 110-pounder cannon at the bow, a 68-pounder cannon at the stern, and four 20-pounder guns on each side. This kind of firepower is already a devastating and overwhelming advantage for the Taiping army's navy.

The two positioning shells of the Baiyue were fired first, and a moment later, there was a thunderclap, and Ding Ruchang felt a great earthquake on the bridge, and the huge guns on the bow of the Jintai spewed smoke and fire, and opened fire.

This shot was a solid iron bullet, a killing weapon for destroying a wooden battleship. The huge iron bullet that roared out from the barrel of the cannon hit Sun Sixi's flagship head-on in an instant. The cannonball penetrated through the foredeck, tearing a huge hole in the hull, and with an unstoppable force, it penetrated to the bottom, breaking the keel of the turtle ship in two.

From afar, when the cannonball hit, the ship's mast was immediately shattered, and the debris flew into the lake, and not only the soldiers on the deck were thrown into the lake, but also the pulpers at the bottom were thrown out of the cracks in the side of the ship. As soon as the keel was broken, I saw the two ends of the big turtle boat jerk into the air, as if a person had been hit in the soft abdomen, and shrunk up in pain. Then it bounced back, and the hemp rope that tied and fixed the moso bamboo broke instantly, and there was a crack, and hundreds of tenacious moso bamboos flew out like a rain of arrows, flying out in the air like a goddess scattering flowers, and the personnel, broken wood, and iron cannons that were thrown up from the boat were scattered like raindrops, scattered in the three-foot Taihu Lake.

Such a strange scene stunned the people of the Taiping Army and the Hunan Army fleet, and the Taihu Lake battlefield, which had just been noisy with war drums, suddenly fell into a moment of dead silence.

*(To be continued......)