In early April of this year, all kinds of armies gathered, and the Xiangfan water battle was officially started.

Born in the far north, the Tartars were not accustomed to water warfare, and the battalions of the Tartar Naval Army were mainly selected from the surrendered Green Battalion generals, and the morale of the whole army was low.

Wang Fuchen personally led hundreds of Flying Tiger warships and sampan boats to assault the Tatar Naval Army in front of Dazhai, while Tan Wen led two Jingjiang-class gunboats to continuously use the artillery on both sides to open fire in the rear.

This kind of tactics Tartar has never encountered, and it is even more impossible to have any shore defense artillery in the water village, and it is powerless against this kind of attack by the loyal and righteous army.

During this period, although more than 100 ships went out of the village to fight to the death, the Tartar naval army was poor, how could it be the opponent of these people living next to the big river.

I saw that the sailors of the Loyal and Righteous Army rushed up on a rampage with the support of artillery fire, and saw that after being hit by the collision angle, the people on the boat fell sideways and vertically on the boat, and some were even transferred directly into the water.

The ship that was hit left with a huge hole, and the raging river flowed in, and the whole boat lost control in a moment, and finally slowly disappeared into the river.

After an hour of fighting, the prince of the barbarian Qing Dynasty, Mandahai, hurriedly arrived, because he did not have time to carry the artillery of the army, and saw the loyal and righteous army attacking from the shore, he could only shoot arrows to block the attack in vain.

At the same time, Guo Chonglie, Feng Youqing and others led the infantry army to cross the Han River to kill them, and the two sides fought fiercely for a day, and the loyal and righteous army finally occupied the camp in the north of the Yangtze River, and then burned the water village, plundered the ships that Wu Sangui and Man Dahai had worked hard to build, and finally left.

After the loss of the naval army, some of the Tartar camps that crossed the Han River appeared to be isolated, and some people retreated north despite the swelling of the river.

At this time, Tan Wen led the water army to kill, cruising back and forth on the river, the Qing army suffered countless casualties, and the entire river was full of floating corpses, and the river changed color.

Those Tartars who had no time to escape back to Jiangbei also became turtles in the urn one by one, and with the assistance of artillery marks, they were annihilated by He Zhen and others one after another.

The Qing army was defeated and retreated to Fancheng, Jiangbei, in an attempt to resist stubbornly, but the Qing troops in Fancheng were panicked, and the whole city was in chaos.

Since then, the two sides have reverted to the pre-war pattern, and everyone has confronted each other on both sides of the Han River, forming a stalemate.

At the same time, Yang Xuan was actively planning the Second Eastern Crusade, and in the past few months, in addition to being busy with the military masters every day, he was with the main generals, discussing how to reorganize the army and fight again.

Through many field visits to Portuguese mercenaries in the past few months, Yang Xuan often lamented that he was a layman in his previous life, and although he led troops to fight in this life, he had not fully mastered the essence of Western musketeers.

Even if he has many innate advantages in crossing the clan, if he leads an army of the same size to fight against Western mercenaries, he will probably lose more and win less.

Whether it is platoon training, shooting training, combat training, or logistical support, Western armies are far superior to the current loyal and righteous armies.

In many respects, the only strength is probably the spirit and will to die, the Portuguese mercenaries can go out of the city and surrender when the war is not natural, while the loyal army pays more attention to military integrity.

During these months, Yang Xuan divided the Portuguese mercenaries into two, the Blue Army as the Loyal Hall Cadets and the Blue Army guarding the town.

Set up a target in front of everyone, suppress the arrogance in the hearts of young generals, and hope that everyone can learn from each other and defeat each other in the future.

As the battle of Xiangfan gradually came to an end, the Eastern Crusade was once again on the agenda.

Considering the importance of water warfare, considering that Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Mingzhen's naval army are strong, Yang Xuan is also gradually increasing the strength of his naval army.

On this day in late May of this year, Yang Xuan boarded the Wumu Jinghai-class gunboat for acceptance.

The gunboat was very large, moored next to the pier and needed to be climbed up by a ladder.

This kind of warship is fifteen zhang (48 meters), two zhang six feet (8.3 meters) wide, 8 meters high, 5 meters draft, including the depth of the ship with a full load displacement of 1,000 tons, capable of carrying 500 tons of cargo (according to the large Fu (Jianni ship template) out of the water.

As with the Jingjiang-class gunboats built in the past, steel plates were nailed below the waterline to prevent wood from rotting and protect the hull.

The entire ship has five floors

The lowest level stores heavy loads

The second floor serves as a crew rest compartment

The third layer that surfaced on the left and right sides were each equipped with 6 10-pound red-coat cannons weighing 1,800 kilograms.

On the left and right sides of the fourth layer that surfaced, 10 5-kilogram guns weighing 1,400 kilograms were installed on each side.

This 10-kilogram heavy gun is also a naval gun in the real sense, with a barrel length of 17 meters, an inner caliber of 117mm, an outer diameter of 300mm, a gun body weighing 1800 kilograms, and a total weight of 3000 kilograms (modeled on the M1857 12-pounder field gun, the barrel is 1.676 meters long, the caliber is 117mm, the gun body weighs about 556.57 kilograms, the wheel diameter is 1.45 meters, and the full weight (gun body, gun carriage plus wheels) weighs 1109 kilograms).

On the top deck there is a deck with a conning tower, observation post, main mast, etc.

Yang Xuan called this kind of large ship the Jinghai-class gunboat, which was mainly used for operations on large rivers.

The red-coated cannon and the Franc cannon generally fire three kinds of shells, namely solid shells, scattered shells, and flowering shells, of which solid shells are mainly ground into spheres by stones, and this kind of shells can hit far and accurately.

Scattered bombs and flowering bullets are completely different, scatter bombs and flowering bullets are mixed with different gunpowder and projectiles, and they are loaded separately when fired, which is not only slower, but also has a far worse firing distance than solid bullets.

Through many experiments, the Hanyang Arsenal mastered and improved the manufacturing process of flowering bullets, that is, gunpowder and iron pellets were ground and stirred, mixed and kneaded together, and then loaded into an iron ball with a protruding table on the surface of the sphere.

According to the different launch distance, the lead is inserted in the small hole to detonate, after the explosion, the ball body is scattered, and the iron piece wrapped in it explodes like a "heavenly maiden scattered flowers", and the power can reach more than ten zhang.

The explosion effect of this kind of shell is far greater than that of flowering shells, and the firing distance can also reach the level of solid shells, and the maximum firing range of a 10-kilogram gun can reach 2500 meters.

Through the binoculars, I watched the shell fall into the distance like an arrow from the barrel, and watched as the shell landed and rolled on the ground for some distance before landing and exploding.

10 rounds were fired, 9 of which exploded, and 1 was presumably during the operation when the lead detached from the gunpowder inside and did not explode.

Zhang Jimeng shook his head and said: "Shengshang, maybe the lead is not ignited, or the lead is out of position during operation, or what's going on, this often happens."

It's very good to be able to explode 9 shells in real combat. ”

Yang Xuan carefully recalled all kinds of knowledge in his previous life, and it seemed that he often heard of such things as duds, as if detonators could help cannonballs explode, but he didn't know how to make them as a layman.

Nevertheless, everyone congratulated the improved shells on their power and range.

The chief soldier Guo Chonglie waved his hands and said: "Shengshang, this, this flowering shell is too far, the same as the solid shell, we will not worry about the Tartar cannon at all when we use this kind of shell in the future, far away, we will use this shell to beat them these sons of bitches." ”

General Chen Huaixi said excitedly: "Shengshang, after the promotion of this kind of cannonball, we can beat them with cannonballs when the Tartar cavalry is far away, in the past, the Franc cannon could only fire two rounds and the Tartar cavalry rushed to the front, but now it is different, we have twice the firing distance and twice the firing speed, so that when the Tartar cavalry rushes forward, our Franc cannon may fire at least two rounds, and it is very accurate." ”

Yang Xuan nodded and looked at everyone: "This, this is everyone's credit, you Chen Huaixi suggested to me the gunpowder customization method, which is divided into several different specifications, and different specifications of cannonballs and gunpowder of different specifications are fired together, so you are a great contributor."

Of course, it's right for you to put forward a good idea, but the most important thing is the cooperation of Song Shihui, Song Shangshu, and Zhang Jimeng of the arsenal, after hundreds of experiments, I heard that 4 or 5 masters were injured, and they have made outstanding achievements. ”

When Chen Huaixi, Song Shihui, Zhang Jimeng and others heard this, they didn't dare to say it again and again.

Yang Xuan walked up to the red-clothed cannon and analyzed the gains and losses of this flowering bomb with everyone.

Yang Xuan said with a smile: "Everyone, we had this kind of iron-shelled flowering bomb as early as the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Yuan army used him to conquer the Japanese state.

In the Hongzhi period, it was invented the "poisonous fire flying cannon", "thief god hit pomegranate cannon" and other explosive bombs, these shells are shaped like pomegranates, the size of a bowl, wrapped in an iron shell, in which "built-in arsenic, poison, explosion after landing, medicine and iron shell fragments, etc."

There is a protruding table body on the surface of the sphere, and there is a round small hole in the middle of the table, and a medicine twist is inserted in the small hole, and a special slow-burning fire is used to throw it into the enemy formation, and it is shocked and exploded.

These are all things that our ancestors had, and we just make improvements.

For example, our gunpowder is thinner, the iron shell has been changed to wrought iron, and the iron fragments inside have been changed to be more regular, and we have now formed a customization, which is more conducive to aiming and shooting.

Just now I compared the Portuguese red-coated cannons, and the power of our red-coated cannons has reached the level of foreigners, which is really gratifying. ”

When everyone heard this, they couldn't imagine that they had only reached the level of foreigners after working hard for a long time, and they couldn't help but show a trace of disappointment in their hearts.

Looking at everyone's expressions, Yang Xuan continued: "Don't be discouraged, I have some places where we are not worse than foreigners, such as the dud problem, we are better than foreigners, we can guarantee that ninety percent of the shells will explode, but some foreigners can't."

We can't be complacent, anything can be allowed to fail, especially for this kind of new thing, we have to study what is causing the problem, and then find a way to solve it.

We can find out the reason through simulation experiments, how much of the lead is not ignited? How much does the lead deviate during operation, and what is the proportion of poor contact between the lead and the inside of the shell?

Find the problem, solve them.

We all say that we are a big country in the Celestial Empire, but we are worse than Hongyi in many things, so what are we not Yelang arrogant? ”

After discussion, Yang Xuan put forward four problems for Zhang Jimeng and others to solve.

There should be a proportional relationship between the firing speed of the shell and the amount of gunpowder, the size and shape of the shell, the length of the barrel, the size of the caliber, the angle of fire, etc., four of the above five variables remain unchanged, and what will be the result of the other change?

Considering that the manufacturing level of foreigners is far above that of Chinese, everyone agreed to communicate with foreigners such as An Siwen, Lisisi, and Qu Shawei. This is also the stone of its mountain that can attack jade. As the saying goes, it is better to travel thousands of miles than to read thousands of books, and people have traveled tens of thousands of miles from far away Portugal to China. ”

Chen Huaixi said with a smile: "Holy Lord, that Ferreira was quite angry at first, but after seeing Wei Chen go to find other gun commanders, he hurriedly told Wei Chen what he had learned.

To say that our redcoat cannon does not have a sight, to say that our redcoat cannon also has a problem with the dial, and to say that the Europeans have special people to observe and measure the distance when they are firing artillery."

Yang Xuan smiled and said, "This is very good, you go and tell Ferreira that if you really want to help us do things, why worry about not being rich." As long as they help us solve these three problems, I will promote him to a guerrilla general.

Song Shangshu, when the time comes, you can also cooperate with them, two days ago, I saw the arithmetic and natural science presented by Ling Zun and Western missionaries, and the Westerners are not much worse than us. ”

Hearing that there was a Westerner to help, Song Huiyu seemed quite happy, and nodded yes again and again.

China is an agrarian society, in ancient times the war could not go against the season, with the return of the main force of the loyal army, although the situation in northern Hubei is becoming more and more stable, in order to ensure spring ploughing although the day and night planning of the eastward expedition, but the real eastward expedition still needs to wait until after May.