Wu Xuanyi originally thought that the sailing boats of the two Haikou must have been close to the shore, and must have lowered their speed in order to obtain good support, but now he saw that the sailing boats of the two Haikou were not close to the shore or lowered their sails, but were located in the middle of the river, and even retreated a little, and after spotting the arsonist boats, they turned their bows in a different direction and began to move slowly in the direction of the other side of the river, while facing the fireboats with their sideboards. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Damn! These pirates are so cunning! Wu Xuanyi scolded. Seeing such a scene, Wu Xuanyi naturally knew that those Haikou had already taken precautions. But now it's ready to fly, and it has to be sent.

"Paddle, speed up and crash over!" Wu Xuanyi ordered.

Twenty fireships all accelerated and rushed towards the sailing ship of the pirates on the opposite side.

On the river warship Anjiang, the six Furlong cannons were ready to shoot, the first one had been loaded, and the others were also loaded and placed aside. A young lieutenant quickly used the secret position to measure the distance of the enemy's ship. When the two sides were about six hundred meters apart, the Yasugian fired the first volley. Immediately afterwards, the Pingjiang also fired the first volley.

At such a distance, the probability of hitting with a Furlong cannon is not high, and it can even be said that it is just a sound. However, Captain Cha did not dare to let the enemy's fireship get too close, and although this distance was a little farther, what if he was blinded? You know, it's a fireship! The front of the ships was piled up with all sorts of fire-starting things—firewood, grass, sulfur, oil, and so on. As soon as a shell lands on it, it ignites these things immediately, and as soon as these things burn, the fireship immediately loses control: the sails will be burned at the first moment, and the sailors will quickly jump into the water to escape. Then the speed of the fireship drops dramatically without sails and oars, and it is no longer able to attack actively, and it is simply too easy to avoid them.

However, Captain Cha's luck was not too good, and the first round of salvo did not hit even a single shot. And the salvo of the Pingjiang missed a single shot. The gunner, wearing the asbestos gloves, quickly removed the newly fired gun from the gun, while the other gunner loaded a new one.

Within more than ten seconds, the river warship Anjiang was ready to shoot again.

In the second round of shooting, because the distance between the two sides was closer, the Yasugian got the first result. A three-pound cannonball struck a fireboat, which shook violently, and then a stream of orange-red flames quickly rose from the fireboat, and then several sailors could be seen jumping into the water.

However, the second salvo of the Pingjiang was still fruitless.

"One more volley, and then we'll turn and distance ourselves from the enemy." Captain Cha said.

In the third salvo, another fireboat was hit, and a fire broke out. This time, it was the Anjiang that hit the target, and the Pingjiang still missed. At this time, the distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer.

"Rush up, rush up and win!" Wu Xuanyi waved the sword in his hand and shouted loudly!

Yes, the distance between the two sides is indeed very close, only a few tens of meters. However, by this time, the two ships of the pirates had already completed their turn, and dozens of large oars stretched out from both sides of the bottom of their ships, and under the wave of the large oars, as well as the combined action of the current and the sails, the two ships of the pirates began to accelerate rapidly. Of course, at least for now, the speed of the fireship is still slightly faster than the two ships of the Haikou. So the distance between the two sides continues to be closer. It's just that the pirates' warship also has a furlong cannon in the stern.

Today, the closest cargo ship to Pingjiang is only 20 meters away from Pingjiang. However, the speed of the Pingjiang and Anjiang is not much slower than that of the fireships, which gives the Pingjiang plenty of time to aim.

The wind is calm, the distance of about 20 meters, the ample aiming time, and the relatively fixed position, in such a state, they can't hit, and the gunner on the Pingjiang will be reincarnated as the main striker of the Chinese national men's football team in the future.

Therefore, this shelling of the Pingjiang hit the target very accurately, and the fireship closest to it suddenly burst into flames, and its speed plummeted.

With the rapid acceleration of dozens of oars, the taller masts, and the larger sails relative to the size of the ship, the speed of the Anjiang and Pingjiang was no longer the same as those fireships. They retreated and kept firing, and although now both ships had only one cannon to fire, the hit rate had increased greatly due to the closer distance and the relative stability of the positions of both sides, and in the blink of an eye, several more fireships had become large torches.

In the chase, Wu Xuanyi had already lost nearly a third of the fireship. The enemy ship is a little ahead, it seems that the next moment can catch up, Wu Xuanyi ordered the oarsmen to paddle desperately, but, after all, people are not machines, due to the consumption of physical strength, although the oarsmen are still rowing, but the speed of the fireboat is not only not accelerated, but is constantly decreasing.

Fortunately, the other oarsman's oarsmen were also tired, and the speed at which their oarsmen rowed their oars had also decreased significantly, so the speed of the two pirates' warships was also decreasing.

"Maybe, maybe with a little more effort, we'll be able to catch up!" Wu Xuanyi couldn't help but think like this as he looked at the Haikou warship not far away. Then a detail made him chill.

The battleship still had a lot of oars sticking out, but these oars were just sticking into the river, not paddling. The oars are inserted into the river without paddling, which undoubtedly greatly increases the resistance of the boat, and generally has only one purpose, that is, to slow the boat. Obviously, the pirates were not unable to distance themselves from the fireships, their ships could run faster than the fireships, and it was only in order to be able to kill and injure them with their guns more effectively, so that they could maintain the same speed as the fireships. This fact also means that these fireships under his command will not be able to catch up with their opponents at all. And to continue in the current state is almost tantamount to suicide.

"Maybe I should retreat?" Wu Xuanyi thought. However, he was worried that even if he retreated, his ships might not be able to escape the pursuit of the two pirate warships.

Thinking of this, Wu Xuanyi turned his head and glanced at the sailor who was working hard to paddle. The sailors were already a little slack, but when they saw Wu Xuanyi looking over, they hurriedly rowed again.

"You take a break and gather your strength before rowing." Wu Xuanyi said.

The sailors stopped in disbelief, and the boat that Wu Xuanyi was on gradually fell behind. At this time, more fireships also turned into torches.

As the losses mounted, the sailors on the remaining fireships began to see that something was not quite right. Some of the ships began to slow down.

"Mingjin, let's retreat!" Wu Xuanyi ordered. Just now, he carefully observed the entire battle situation: on the land, the Li Dynasty army had completely collapsed, and the situation on the water was also not optimistic. However, Wu Xuanyi's condition was not bad: he was the first to notice that something was wrong, and he began to slow down first, and now the boat he was in had fallen to the rear. This ended up, which in turn meant that his ship was at the front of the retreat. And before giving the order to retreat, he had already asked the sailors to turn the bow of the ship.

"Quick! Drop all of this stuff out of the water! Wu Xuanyi pointed to the ignition paths piled up on the bow of the boat.

Several soldiers hurried up and pushed the things down the river.

Even so, Wu Xuanyi was not sure that he would definitely be able to outrun the two Haikou warships, but he also understood that he didn't really need to be able to outrun them, and his years of battlefield experience had already made him understand a simple truth, when retreating, it didn't matter if he couldn't outrun the enemy, as long as he could outrun his own people. The other fireships were still behind, and the enemy would destroy the other fireships first for security reasons before they could get him. And by that time his ship had long since run away.

The development of things was also as Wu Xuanyi expected, when all the fireships began to turn and retreat, the two Haikou warships also turned their heads and chased after them, using the cannon on their bow to continuously fire at the fleeing fireships. However, at this time, the people on the fireboat, in order to reduce the load, had already pushed those things that ignited the fire into the river, and the effect of the shelling naturally could not catch up with just now. Therefore, Wu Xuanyi felt that although most of the ships could not escape this catastrophe, his ship should still be able to successfully turn in.

……

On land, the Marines had completely defeated the army of the Li Dynasty and were in pursuit. It's just that the artillery could not participate in the pursuit. The cannon can't outrun the Li Dynasty soldiers.

Since the artillery was not useful in pursuit operations, the artillerymen naturally transferred these cannons to the river embankment to see if there was a chance to support their own battleships. But by the time they had set up their cannons, the two river warships, as well as the other fireships, had already gone further downstream.

"They'll be back. We'll wait here for them to come back, and then we'll give them a little bit more awesome. Yu Xin said that the battalion commander Gan Hui led his troops to pursue the enemy, while he was left behind to direct the coordinated operation of artillery and warships.

"Hurry up, get some branches or something, hide the gun emplacement." Yu Xin estimated the width of the river and gave such an order. The river is very wide, and if the enemy sees these cannons from a distance, they will probably sail as close to the river bank as possible. Although the five-pounder could easily shoot shells across the river, at this time, everyone wanted the target to be closer to them.

And at this time, Wu Wenyong, who had lost his war horse, had just fallen into the hands of the marines.