Although Sauron gave the order to open fire and sink the model army's exploration ship, no one, including Sauron, had much hope that the ship would be sunk. The Zheng family's small boat is obviously worthless, and as for the people on board, well, in this era, everything is worth more than people. At least in Jianxuan's opinion, the people on the ship are also worthless. But gunpowder and shells are not the same. Since the conquest of Korea, the Qing Dynasty has obtained a more reliable source of gunpowder, but even so, gunpowder is still a valuable thing. Compared to gunpowder, shells are more troublesome. Because the shells were cast from pig iron. And pig iron, until now, the pig iron of my Qing Dynasty mainly relied on the smuggling of Jin merchants. And there are too many uses for iron, it needs to be used in weapons, armor, and all kinds of daily necessities. But now, if you shoot at the sea, one shot is equivalent to throwing ten or even twenty pounds of iron into the sea, and you will never be able to find it back. How much is the boat on the other side worth?

Therefore, the Qing army stationed in Niuzhuang Fort did not use their own imitation Hongyi cannon, let alone the captured one, although it was lighter, but every time the cannon was fired, it had to consume more gunpowder and shoot a heavier, about 20 catties of pig iron cannonballs of the "authentic" Hongyi cannon. Instead, a large Furlong cannon was used.

The shells of this Furlong cannon weighed only one pound. Shoot. The medicine only needs one catty, and theoretically its range is far more than four hundred meters. Although the one-pound shell cannonball can't compare with the cannonball of the Hongyi cannon in terms of power, if it can hit the target, it is enough to destroy the worthless boat.

"Bang!" The Furlong cannon fired, and after two or three seconds, a small column of water rose over the calm sea. Wang Dong, who was making a record on the exploration ship, raised his head and peeked at it, then pouted and said, "Don't panic, stay away, first detect this data before leaving." ”

Indeed, the landing point of this cannon was far from the boat. The cannon was fired too far, and as a result, it deflected by more than 70 meters. In order to pursue a high rate of fire, the Furlong cannon adopted the method of rear-loading the sub-gun. The machining accuracy of this era is compared with that of later generations, which is a joke. Therefore, the caliber of the Furlong cannon is very different from the caliber of the mother gun, and sometimes, a finger can be stuffed into the gap in the middle. The shell itself is smaller than the sub-gun, and the sub-gun is smaller than the mother, and the result is that the barrel of the cannonball is much smaller than that of the mother, and when fired, the internal and external ballistic performance is a mess. But in terms of firing range, this Furlong cannon can hit the shell seven or eight hundred meters away, but after the shell flies out of the muzzle, it is still a little accurate within a few dozen steps, and a little farther away, then I really don't know where the shell can fly.

Wang Dong's apprentice Lin Taiping slowly put down the probe, and after a while, the probe reached the bottom. He leaned down, his eyes widened, and he called out a number: "Two feet and five feet." Wang Dong filled in the number in the notebook, looked at it and said, "Today's matter is almost over, put the guy away, let's go back." ”

Lin Taiping slowly put away the probe rod. Wang Dong watched Lin Taiping's slow and leisurely movements, and couldn't help but kick him lightly with his foot and said, "Can't you be faster?" It's so hard to do anything. ”

Just as he was saying this, a second shell flew over and landed more than ten meters away.

"Well, yes, a little closer than last time." Wang Dong nodded in admiration, then turned his face again, and saw Lin Taiping slowly and leisurely put away the probe rod, so he said, "Okay, go and lift the anchor, and then we can go back." ”

"Why didn't you mention it yourself?" Lin Taiping Road.

"If I have to mention an anchor chain myself, what do I want my apprentice to do? Don't be long-winded, go pick up the anchor chain, we should go back. Wang Dong said as he put away the notebook and looked up at the other side. Another shot came from the opposite side, but it was still a lot off.

At this time, Lin Taiping had already lifted the anchor chain, Wang Dong pulled the rope, raised the sails, and the boat turned lightly in a direction and sailed into the distance, and in a little farther away, there was an armed whaling ship waiting for them there.

……

The constant detection of the "Dengzhou Sailor" made Sauron feel very nervous. He had reported the matter to the higher-ups, but they had not sent him more soldiers as he had hoped. In fact, this is not because his report was not taken seriously, but because Duoduo felt that in terms of the scale of Niuzhuang Fort alone, more than 1,000 people were stationed, and it was not impossible to deploy more troops, but it would also make the fortress overcrowded, which would affect efficiency. Therefore, Duoduo felt that directly increasing the strength of Niuzhuang Fort was actually not very efficient, and it was better to increase the strength of the troops that reinforced Niuzhuang Fort. It's just that you can't be too relaxed in other directions, after the army enters the pass, the garrison strength is not enough, so Duoduo wasted a lot of strength, and only then did he transfer five more Manchurian Niulu from other places, plus the team originally deployed in the nearby villages along the river, once Niuzhuang Fort was attacked, it would take him a day at most, and he would be able to concentrate the strength of ten Manchurian Niulu, five Mongolian Niulu, and five Wuzhen Chaoha Niulu, totaling more than 5,000 people. (According to the Manchu system, a Niu Lu should be 300 soldiers, but in fact most Niu Lu may not be full.) In particular, the Mongolian Niulu and Wuzhen Chaoha (that is, the later Eight Banners of the Han Army) Niulu often only had a little more than half of the number) and then in two or three days, they could rush to Niuzhuang Fort in an organized manner to rescue the defenders of Niuzhuang Fort. Duoduo felt that although the fortress of Niuzhuang was not big, the city walls were quite strong, and in any case, it was no problem to defend it for ten days and half a month.

After that, the ships of the Ming army still came to explore every day, and Niuzhuang Fort also fired cannons every day to expel them. Gradually, it became routine until the early hours of June 17.

As the saying goes, "the moon of fifteen is sixteen rounds", and the moon of sixteen does not set until the morning of the 17th. It was already six quarters of the hour, and the big round moon was gradually turning to the west. The ancient three of the Han army who were on duty at Niuzhuang Fort at night were holding muskets, and together with another Han army named Wang Xiaoqi, they shrunk into a ball and hid in the corner of the battlements to avoid the wind. Gu San trembled for a while, but suddenly heard footsteps coming up from below in the distance. He knew that there must be the masters of the Eight Banners who had come to inspect it.

During this time, the pirates in the south were having a good time, and they ran to the vicinity of Niuzhuang Fort every day and didn't know what they were doing. The master of Sauron was very worried, so he would send people to inspect it from time to time every night, and if the people who were inspected saw that the vigil did not stare at the sea, but shrank in the corner to hide from the wind, he was afraid that he would have to be severely whipped. Last time, two vigils dozed off, and were seen by the master of the Eight Banners who came out to inspect, but they were hung up and beaten, beaten for most of the day, fainted several times, and then woke up with cold water and continued to beat, and finally all of them were beaten to death. Gu San hurriedly kicked Wang Xiaoqi, and stood up straight, making a look of looking at the sea. This look startled him a lot: he saw several large ships appear on the sea in the distance, and by the bright moonlight, Gu San could clearly see the gray sails raised on those ships.

"Yes...... There is an enemy attack! It took Gu San a lot of effort to shout, and the voice was strange, like a knife rubbing against a piece of broken porcelain.

"What?" A person rushed over at once, leaned against the female wall and looked over there, and shouted, "You two, what are you still standing stupidly for?" Go ring the bell! Look at Lao Tzu if he doesn't cut you! ”

Gu San hurriedly answered, rushed to the side of the bell tower, pulled the ram, and rang the bell vigorously.

At the sound of the bell, the entire Niuzhuang Fort was boiling, and soon the city walls were full of soldiers. All sorts of shouts rang out.

The garrison in Niuzhuang Fort was mainly Wuzhen Chaoha, which was later the Eight Banners of the Han Army. Because of the cannons and muskets, the warriors of the Eight Banners of Manchuria really don't know how to use them. In addition to Wuzhen Chaoha, there is also an authentic Manchurian Taijun of Niu Lu. They were responsible for the control of those Uzhen Chaoha, as well as hand-to-hand combat after ascending the city.

At this time, under the supervision of the Manchurian princes, the Wuzhen Chaoha also entered the combat position one after another, and at this time, the Ming warships were getting closer and closer.

"Our cannons are enough to get them, right?" Sauron asked one of the Uzhen Chao Hazhangjing who was following him.

"Master, now they are more than two thousand steps away from us. Of course, our artillery can hit so far, but firing at such a long distance is just not accurate. That Zhang Jing replied.

"Hmm." Sauron nodded, he had also faced the artillery of the Ming army before, he knew that one of the most common mistakes of the Ming army was to fire the cannon indiscriminately outside the range, and the result was that he did not kill a few people at all, on the contrary, he also beat his own cannon red, and when he and the other Eight Banner warriors rushed forward, those Ming army's cannons were too hot to use anymore. So now that the Han army Zhang Jing said that the enemy ships were too far away to open artillery bombardment, Sauron could understand.

"Stabilize your position first, wait for those pirates to get closer, and then teach them a hard lesson." Sauron thought to himself. However, things soon turned out beyond his expectations.

Several warships of the Model Army continued to approach, and the distance between the two sides gradually approached to about a thousand paces. At this time, the battleship of the Model Army opened fire first.