Chapter 222 Defeat the South Australian Sailors

Hong Mingxiang, the former admiral of the Qing army, led the fleet to approach first. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

I saw Hong Mingxiang leading his boat and using a rocket fire canister to ignite it and project it at the warship of the captive army. For a time, the two red single boats were hit by fire canisters, and suddenly the hull began to ignite, and the begging army on one ship hurriedly took water to extinguish the fire, but the other ship was unlucky, and was ignited in the powder compartment where the gunpowder was stored.

Liang Peiyou's eyes were torn and he ordered his subordinates to fire and concentrate on bombarding Hong Mingxiang's ship, while personally leading a group of brothers to shoot at the Qing soldiers on the enemy ship with guns and muskets.

It was also Hong Mingxiang who rushed too fiercely, only to hear a few rumbling sounds, his boat was hit by more than ten shells, two of which exploded suddenly, and suddenly the ship began to catch fire, and the hull of the ship tilted, and the sea water began to pour into the cabin.

The rest of the ships hurriedly came to the rescue, but Liang Peiyou was willing to let go. With the complete capsizing of the boat, Hong Mingxiang, who was more than 60 years old, also fell into the sea and was never seen again.

But at the same time, Hong Mingxiang's warships and more than 80 red single warships and rice boats led by Wu Yuanyou also rushed close to Liang Peiyou's fleet and quickly interspersed them.

For a while, the formations of both sides were all disrupted and turned into a scuffle.

There was no longer a command, and all the ships were fighting on their own.

At this moment, a loud rumbling sound sounded, but it turned out to be a huge armed steamship emitting black smoke sailing over, it was the Iron Bull in the Capture Army Naval Division.

Luo Xuan's fleet of the 5th Division finally arrived!

Wu Yuanyou's fleet, which was closest to the east, saw the Iron Bull and the Humen in front, and the huge hull made the Qing soldiers almost forget to fight and open fire. The sense of oppression that came over alone made the Qing soldiers on the millet boat feel depressed for a while. A feeling of being incomparably small, and being incomparable to such a behemoth, arises spontaneously.

And the splash of water alone made several millet boats shake and almost capsize.

The Humen rotated at a beautiful 90-degree angle, and then the gun bays on the two decks opened one after another, aiming, and thirty or forty large guns roared angrily, all of them were extremely accurate, although they were very close, but more than one-third of the hit rate still made Wu Yuanyou frightened.

But South Australia is already his last retreat, and he can't retreat anymore. Gritting his teeth, he ordered his warships: "Push it up, and the ships will use fire canisters to spray rockets against it!" ”

Under his command, the Qing army surrounded several red single warships and nearly ten large rice boats. However, as if the "Humen" was deliberately playing tricks on them, it opened fire while disengaging to the north.

At this time, the Iron Bull and Chen Kai and the Four Eyes on the side opened fire one after another, and a round of artillery bombardment showed that the Qing army was a red single warship and three large rice boats were hit by guns, and the rice boats leaked on the spot, and the Qing soldiers on the ship were so frightened that they quickly wanted to evacuate the battlefield and fled in the direction of Nanao Island.

This is actually a medium-sized warship of the type of flying clipper ship, relying on the soft sail to adjust the angle, it is much faster than the ordinary red single boat, that is, the large Guangzhou ship, so it quickly caught up with the Qing army's red single boat, which was about to sink, and placed a good angle to make up a few shots.

The Qing army's red single boat sinked to the bottom of the water, and the Qing soldiers on the boat jumped into the sea one after another, but this is already more than ten miles away from Nanao Island, if there is no boat to rescue, it will definitely die.

Seeing this, the other 3 large rice boats were even more frightened, and hurried to flee north, but in less than two pillars of incense, they were easily caught up by the Feisha, which easily set up the ship's position, avoided the direction of the rice boat's artillery, calmly opened fire, sank 2 rice boats, rammed and sank one, and then, continued to wait in the outer circle for the fleeing Qing warship.

And the rest of the warships of the 5th Division also followed, under the leadership of the Humen, the Iron Bull, Chen Kai and the Four Eyes, without saying a word, they lined up in a line, and it was a round of salvo.

Occasionally, ear shells could accidentally damage the ships of the 5th Division that were mixed in the battle formation, but most of the shells passed over the warships of the two sides that were fighting and fell into the rear, which was the Han Jiamo fleet parked behind. With the addition of four Western warships, the firepower of the 5th Division is so fierce.

Covered by two rounds of shells in a row, the sky seemed to be dark, and the bullets fell from the sky like hail, and Han Jiamo's more than 150 warships lost nearly 20 in an instant.

Seeing that his fleet had suffered heavy losses, and the firepower was far inferior to that of the thieves, Han Jiamo ordered the fleet to rush into the enemy ship battle zone, wanting to engage in close combat with Luo Xuan's fleet.

Under his supervision, the fleet endured two rounds of artillery and the huge cost of damaging more than 30 ships, and finally succeeded in rushing into the Luo Xuan fleet.

On the Humen, next to Luo Outline, a foreigner worked hard to suggest to Luo Outline through the general affairs.

The British naval officer meant to retreat, so he withdrew and fought, taking advantage of the artillery superiority of Western warships to fight against the Qing naval divisions.

Luo Outline had another idea. He did not heed the advice of the foreigners, did not retreat, but advanced, ordered the fleet to press on the whole line, and after firing the last shot, he prepared iron hooks to engage the approaching Qing warships.

Although Luo Jian likes Western warships with powerful artillery, he prefers melee combat on board. Artillery bombardment, even if it is victorious, it is a miserable victory, and the fleet of your own side will definitely suffer huge losses. Therefore, Luo Xuan decided to fight head-on with the Qing army's naval division, and he was confident that with the advantage of having many captured soldiers and daring to fight hard, he could also defeat the Manchu Qingshui division.

At this time, the rest of the two flotillas of the captive army had been staggered with the three flotillas of the Qing army, and the large artillery on the ship could no longer be fired, first, it was easy to accidentally damage their own warships, and second, it became difficult for the ships to adjust the direction and the angle of the muzzle, and, most importantly, the two sides were scuffled, and the smoke was filled, and it was impossible to see the distant line of sight at all.

Occasionally, when they found that it was an enemy ship in front of each other, they would still turn their guns and fire, but mainly in hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons.

The iron hooks of both sides were thrown out, the side of the ship was connected, and Luo Xuan gave an order, and the battalion commanders of the Fifth Division of the First Division led the soldiers to rush out of the cabin, holding card knives, jumped on the board of the Qing army, and fought bravely with the oncoming Qing soldiers.

The most lethal was still the fire-breathing canisters and rockets, and the Qing army had several ships that constantly breathed fire and fired rockets at the warships of the begging army around them. Several of the Red Singles warships of the captives were burned, and the captives on board dodged the flames while hooking the boats to the Qing warships next to them, connecting them and burning them together.

Many soldiers on both sides were burned, drowned, or killed each other.

A platoon commander of Luo Xuan's personal guard, under the command of Luo Xuan, led 14 or 5 soldiers of the naval division of the captive army, jumped from a red single boat, jumped onto a Qing army's ship, and suddenly, more than 20 Qing soldiers surrounded him with waist knives and shotguns, and the Qing soldiers were about to raise their hands and ignite the fire to prepare to release the guns, but the four people next to the platoon commander were holding Brown Bess flintlock smoothbore guns, and with a few bangs, the Qing soldiers fell in response, and several shotgunners were shot and fell to the ground.

The remaining Qing troops, there were also a small number of fierce soldiers who were not afraid of death, relying on the large number of people, howling and rushing up, and the platoon commander also roared, leading ten soldiers of the capture army to wave cards and slash over.

Both sides slashed and slashed. The four captives armed with foreign guns in the back took the opportunity to load ammunition, and soon, finding the right opportunity, there were a few more bangs, and several Qing soldiers fell to the ground again.

The red-eyed Qing soldiers divided a few people and rushed towards the four foreign gunners, but unexpectedly, a red single boat next to them came up again, and more than 20 soldiers of the capture army with red scarves on their heads jumped out, and the spears in their hands stabbed straight over.

There were only more than ten Qing soldiers left, and after seven or eight were cut to the ground, the remaining few hurriedly jumped onto other ships and fled.

A scuffle between the two sides, with gunsmoke billowing and killing.

Slowly, the Qing soldiers found that there were more and more begging soldiers with red scarves around them, so they retreated.

Half of the commander-in-chief Han Jiamo was a Fujian Provincial Naval Division, and when he saw the army that looked like a mad demon, a chill rose in his heart, and he was afraid. Under the leadership of several Fujian generals, they retreated, and then, driving the boat, withdrew to the northeast.

As soon as they retreated, the pressure on the Qing warships in the battle formation suddenly increased. Especially Shui Yong, who was recruited by the local squires brought by Hong Mingxiang, saw that there were more and more thieves and it was difficult to win, so he also began to prepare to retreat.

At this moment, there was a sudden loud noise, which frightened everyone, and then looked, it was the huge Western warship Humen, which opened its sailboat and rushed towards a rice boat of Qing soldiers, directly knocking over the rice boat, and the Qing soldiers fell into the water one after another.

However, it turned out that Luo Jian saw that the battle was fierce, and because the hull of the Humen was too high, it was impossible to engage the Qing soldiers in a broadside battle, but he heard from the two foreign staff officers on the ship that the bow of the ship was equipped with ramming horns, and it could directly ram and sink the small wooden boat of the Qing soldiers.

So, the Humen began to retreat and then accelerate into the Qing warship. Since they were all huddled together, the ship crashed into it and couldn't dodge at all.

Seeing that three large rice boats were overturned one after another, the Qing warship finally became afraid. As more and more Qing warships were captured, occupied, and captured.

Admiral Wu Yuanyou knew that the general trend had gone, but in his current situation, he could only choose to die in battle, and he could avoid the court from harming his family with his crimes. And the chief soldier Han Jiamo also looked like earth, he didn't expect that after a fight, the loss would be so big, but at this time, he had to choose to gather the warship and strive to break through and flee to Nanao Island.

Seeing that the smoke of gunpowder slowly dissipated, there were fewer and fewer Qing soldiers and ships resisting. The battle situation has been decided, and Luo Xuan breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he ordered the Iron Bull and the Feisha to cut off the Qing army's return route back to Nan'ao Island. Together with Liang Peiyou, he led the 5th Division A and the 5th Division B to clean up the warship, and rescued the brothers of the captive army and the Qing soldiers who fell into the water.

In the end, only Han Jiamo, the commander-in-chief of Nanao, collected more than 60 large and small warships and fled to Nanao Island in panic, more than 90 ships were sunk, and the remaining 150 or so ships were wounded and captured. The captives themselves were also sunk by more than 40 ships, more than 70 were seriously damaged, and the rest of the ships were slightly damaged.

As for the soldiers of the captured army, the 5th Division also killed more than 300 people and wounded thousands; The 5th Division suffered 400 casualties and hundreds of wounded.

After a little list, Luo Xuan ordered five warships to be the main force, and the other 5th and 5th Divisions each sent 50 large red single ships to form a joint fleet to attack Nanao Island and completely uproot the last naval battalion of the Qing army in Guangdong! (To be continued.) )