Soon Zheng Jie of Thang Long Province (Hanoi) received a report that a group of pirates had landed in the area around the mouth of the Red River, and then quickly swept through the large and small villages dozens of miles away nearby, captured a large number of villagers, eliminated several small troops of the Li Dynasty at the mouth of the Red River, and also sent boats to probe the depth of the water along the Red River, as if they were preparing to go upstream. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

When the Red River is upstream, the water is turbulent and the drop is very large, and there is hardly any section of the river that can be navigated. But since entering the plains, the flow of the Red River has become gentler and the channel has become deeper enough for a considerable number of boats. This means that, theoretically speaking, a fleet of ships can go against the current during the flood season and kill directly under the city of Thang Long Province in one go.

Zheng Jie didn't know the origin of these pirates, but he estimated that most of them were inseparable from the Zheng family of the Ming Kingdom, after all, he had just rejected their non-dividing request. Of course, there is another possibility that the Ruan family in the south pulled the team, and of course, there is a worse possibility, that is, the Zheng family in the Ming Kingdom and the Ruan family in the south have united.

Either way, it's the right thing to do with the army to expel these guys first.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that these pirates should not be those rebellious people." A short, thin official said, "The Red River is navigable from the mouth of the sea to Thang Long, so that if an enemy comes from the sea, it can go directly to the capital." If those pirates are those rebellious allies, they should wait for our army to march south before they come from the sea, and at this time our territory is empty, I am afraid that they can only return to the division. And the rebellious tail attack, our army is in a worrying situation. Although, however, the sea must be prepared. The minister thought that the southern expedition should be postponed first, and after the repulsion of the Haikou invaders, the king should build a city in his place and increase the garrison, thinking that it was coastal defense. ”

"Chen Qingjia's words are reasonable, we were indeed negligent in this coastal defense before. Ladies and gentlemen, since there are Haikou invaders, I don't know which one of them is willing to raise a brigade of troops to exterminate them? Zheng Jian frowned and asked the ministers.

"Your Majesty, our dynasty has already reorganized its army and is about to march south, and now it is easy to mobilize the army to repel the Haikou first." Another minister said, "It's just that the pirates come and go, and after expelling them, the city cannot be built at once, and if there are enough men left to prevent the pirates from returning and returning, it is inevitable that a large army will be left behind." In this way, I am afraid that the southern expedition will be delayed. Therefore, the king, if this battle does not affect the southern expedition, it is not only necessary to expel these pirates, but also to kill and injure those pirates as much as possible, so that they will not dare to look at me Dayue in the future. ”

Zheng Jie listened, nodded and said, "Wu Qing is reasonable. I don't know if Wu Qing has a strategy to retreat from the enemy? ”

"Your Majesty." The minister, surnamed Wu, replied, "It should not be difficult to expel the Haikou and the others, but it is not easy to keep them because their ships are fast. When the minister heard that they were surveying the waterway, he thought that he wanted to continue the raid inland along the river. They relied only on the ship's artillery fire to support the land. Our army can show weakness first, and lure those pirates to continue to go up the river. Most of the pirates will go both by land and water. Your Majesty, our army may set up an ambush in a suitable place. Although the Red River is wide and deep, it is not the sea after all, and the sea boats in the Red River must be very inconvenient. At the same time, the ambush troops on land will be killed, and they will inevitably be defeated if they cannot correspond to each other. With this blow, those Haikou will not dare to be afraid, and they will definitely not dare to come again. ”

Zheng Jian thought for a while, picked up an arrow and said, "What Wu Qing said is reasonable. This king will give you 5,000 men and horses, and a hundred elephants, and you are willing to destroy this court for this king! ”

The minister surnamed Wu immediately knelt down and took the arrow and said, "The minister takes the order." ”

……

Captain Cha sailed on the Red River with the Anjiang, which was much narrower than the Yangtze River, but the water depth was still deep enough to support the navigation of his inland warship. A month ago, the Yasue set out from Songjiang and traveled south along the coastline for almost a month before arriving here. The Yasugian is closer to a sand ship in shape, and although it may not be suitable for the open sea, it is not a problem to sail along the coastline.

Today, the Yasugian is completely armed according to the model of a river warship, with three large furlong cannons capable of firing three-pound cannonballs at the bow and stern. Compared with the bronze cannons commonly used in the fleet, the Furlong cannon is far inferior in power, accuracy, and range because of the inevitable air leakage and other problems, especially after multiple shots, the barrel is heated and expanded, so the gap between the gun body and the sub-gun becomes larger and larger, the air leakage is more and more serious, and the ballistic performance of the projectile is constantly changing. This further reduces the accuracy of the shot. Therefore, on a serious battleship, no one will regard the Furlong cannon as the main artillery. But it is different on the river warship, first of all, it is fought in the river river, and for the Zheng family's river warship, the most dangerous opponent must be the opponent's fireship. The Zheng family is an expert in the use of fireboats, and when it comes to playing with fireboats, there is no one in the whole of Asia who is more proficient in using fireships than the Zheng family. Therefore, when the Zhengjia River Fleet was first established, the first object of combat was the opponent's fireship.

Compared with ordinary artillery, although the Furlong cannon has many flaws, it also has some very obvious advantages: first of all, the rate of fire is fast, if the gunner is well prepared, the ordinary front-loading bronze cannon can fire five shots in the time it takes to shoot one shell. Such a high rate of fire is particularly important against fireships. As for the range, the river bends and many times when the fireship suddenly rushes out, the density of fire is much more important than the range. Lack of accuracy? When fighting on inland rivers, the battleship needs to deal with mainly close-range targets, and the accuracy of the Furlong cannon is indeed insufficient, but at close range, its accuracy is completely sufficient. It is true that the Furlong cannon was significantly less powerful than the front-loading gun that fired shells of the same weight, but in the river there would be no ship with a plate thick enough to bounce off the shells. Especially for those fireships, their most important performance is speed, which means that their boards must be very light and thin, and the three-pounder shells fired from the Furlong cannon can definitely penetrate them with ease. Even if they were close enough, even a bow and arrow could pierce the planks of these ships.

In addition to the high rate of fire, the barrel of the Furlong cannon could be made thinner due to the low chamber pressure, which allowed the Furlong cannon to be lighter than a gun that fired the same shells. Similarly, because of the air leakage, because the power is smaller, the recoil of the Furlong cannon is also smaller, so that the Zheng family can even design a rotating gun mount for it, and then set this gun mount on the iron slide laid on the deck, so that this gun can not only shoot to the port side, but also turn to starboard to shoot, and even deflect a certain angle to shoot, so that the flexibility and utilization rate of the gun has also greatly increased. On an ordinary battleship, to ensure that there are six guns on each side to shoot, the entire ship needs at least twelve guns, and with the Fran cannon, six is enough. This is very important for inland river warships, which are very sensitive to load in order to ensure a shallow draft.

A little behind the Yasujiang is its sister ship, the Pingjiang, which is newly built, and its basic structure and firepower configuration are basically the same as the Yasujang.

Now both the An Giang and the Peacegang have lowered their speed to match the Marines on the shore. Just now, the Marines had already defeated several groups of Vietnamese troops who had come to attack them. These Hanako-like Vietnamese troops looked very poor, and every time the Marines put a platoon of guns and knocked down a few people, they would turn around and run. Along the way, all kinds of flags and a mess of tattered weapons were thrown all over the ground. And the Furlong cannon on the Yasugian hasn't even gotten a chance to shoot.

"The swords that the Vietnamese are equipped with are too bad, aren't they?" Zhang Chao looked at a single knife in his hand, pursed his lips and said, "No one wants to take it back and sell it as a firewood knife." You see, it's rusty here, it's rusty here, and it's almost rusting out of a hole. And the blade, look at it! ”

Zhang Chao said as he touched the blade with his hand, and said, "The blade is full of curls. There are also many places that are rusty. This knife doesn't say killing, even if it kills a pig, it can't be killed. The Vietnamese let the soldiers go into battle with such knives, isn't that sending them to death? It's better to give an iron rod, at least the iron rod is much easier to smash than this. ”

"Come on, Zhang Chao." Song Ran said, "If you don't want this knife, how about giving it to me?" Anyway, there is such a big piece of iron, take it and sell it to the king blacksmith, what is not good? You really don't want to? ”

Zhang Chao immediately put the knife back and said, "Who said I don't want it, platoon commander, you also said it, this thing is such a big piece of iron." I'm just saying that the Vietnamese let their soldiers take this to the battlefield, isn't this a pit man? There shouldn't be any problems here, right? "Before the Industrial Revolution, metal products were always very rare, even scrap iron was a rare good thing.

"Isn't that normal? Look at those officers and soldiers of my Daming, in addition to those family members, how many people have good guys in their hands? Do you really think that if you are a soldier, your equipment can be the same as ours? It's the family of those military generals, and how many of them really have a good guy in their hands? If it were my Ming officers, the knives in their hands would work, and they would not have lost to the old slave in the original battle of Ulsa. Another soldier interjected.

"Brother Yu Yong is right, this is normal." Song Ran nodded and said. In order to make the soldiers full of contempt for our Ming court, in order to prevent some guys from having the psychology of loyalty to the court for no reason, in the military academy of the model army, as well as various learning activities, our Ming court is always promoted as a negative example. In the battle of Ulsa, the story of Shang Fang's sword killing the cow made by my Daming was publicized to everyone in the model army.

"Grandma's, in fact, Tartar or something is like that! They can't even do the fools of the Army. It's a hairy one! Don't say that you will fight with us, even if it is my Ming Dynasty's officers and soldiers, if it weren't for the knife in your hand and not the kind of rags that can't be pierced by stabbing cowhides, how can they have the opportunity to blow any 'invincible' cowhides! This is all harmed by the traitors in the court! If you want me to say, from the emperor to the ministers in this court, there are either stupid things or bad things, in short, there is no good thing! Zhang Chao also scolded.

Strictly speaking, the model army should also be regarded as the official army of my Ming Dynasty, although my Ming court may not know that there is such an army. But Zhang Chao's rebellious words caused everyone to nod frequently. Because most of the soldiers of the Model Army came from homeless youth, for them, the imperial court had never brought them pain. Coupled with the propaganda that has always been there, although these guys really can't be said to be unpatriotic, they really don't mean to be loyal to the monarch at all.