After Jiujiang, not far away, the sky is dark, and the fleet is more convenient to hide their whereabouts, because the size of the fleet is too large, and the water bandits and thieves along the way are nowhere to be seen, saving a lot of trouble, so go all the way down to Anqing.

Anqing in the Ming Dynasty is only Anqing Mansion, belongs to the jurisdiction of Nanzhili, the government of Huaining County, under the jurisdiction of six counties, is also an important throat on the Yangtze River, so there is also a water division, of course, there is also a local inspection department.

Since it was night, and there was a fleet of sailors patrolling, this time the fleet was not so easy to fool around. When the fleet of sailors approached and shouted loudly to stop the ship for inspection, Yang Renri decisively ordered the ballista to attack.

Using his ship as a signal to attack, 200 ballistae on each ship attacked a large ship at the beginning, attacking with fire, wrapping stones in oil-soaked cotton rags, igniting them, and then firing them.

The hit rate was very low, and less than 20 percent of the shells hit the officers and men's boats, and the officers and men were defenseless, and the guns were not charged, so for a while, there was no means of counterattack, and in addition, there were fires everywhere on the ship, and two unlucky soldiers were hit by stone bullets, and they were seriously injured immediately, and the officers and men immediately became a mess on board.

The south had been peaceful for a long time, and the vigilance of the officers and men was too low, and they were negligent in training, and they only heard the shouts and curses of the officers on board, but the soldiers were in a hurry, and the fire was not effective in extinguishing the fire, and the fire became bigger and bigger.

It was also Yang Renri's luck, it just so happened that the ship was the main general of the officers and soldiers, and the other warships didn't care about attacking their own fleet, they just wanted to help put out the fire.

With a single thought, he let his own fleet go. Later, it may be that its chief general ordered his subordinates to pursue, and the officers and soldiers chased down, but it was so easy to catch up, everyone was a boat, except for the centipede boat used for communication, the speed of the ship was not much different, and it was estimated that there was no hope of catching up, and the officers and soldiers could only fire a few cannons from a distance, as if they were seeing off their own side.

In ancient times, there was no telephone, and if there was a situation, it was impossible to notify the downstream sailors in time, which was the reason why Yang Wenli had the courage to break out of the Yangtze River, otherwise it would be better to call all the way to Liaodong by land!

Wuhu and Tongling, like Anqing, have only one naval fleet, so the fleet has broken through, but it is different when it comes to Dangtu, which is the upstream gateway of Nanjing, with different statuses, and there is a whole fleet of naval divisions stationed there, with more than 300 large and small ships.

In addition, it was daytime, and the two chief flag officers, Yang Rentian and Yang Renyue, who had listened to Yang Yiteng's introduction, frowned.

This level is not easy to break through, the disparity in strength between the two sides is too great, and several checkpoints along the way, the artillery of the officers and soldiers left a deep impression on them. If that cannon goes down, the jade will be shattered, and it will be a possible enemy if it is not human.

"Tenth brother, what do you say next?" Yang Rentian asked Yang Renyue, who was the smartest and smartest among the ten brothers.

"I don't have a good plan for a while, so I can only see the move, but it's better to be able to fool the past." Yang Renyue replied to him with a sad face, and he also lost confidence in his tone.

"How can it be so easy!" Yang Rentian did not approve of Yang Renyue's naïve ideas.

Yang Rentian then said with a fierce face: "I don't have time to think about it, I can only order the fleet to turn into a long snake formation, about ten meters apart, and order the soldiers to all wear armor and shields, and force them over, hoping that this will reduce a little casualties." ”

"Good! It's according to the arrangement of the eldest brother. Yang Renyue also cheered up and agreed loudly.

Yang Rentian immediately ordered his subordinates to convey the order, and after a while, the fleet turned into a long snake formation, and dozens of ships were several miles long, coming down in a stream.

When the Tu Shui Division was led by a general army, with more than 3,000 troops, the strength was far beyond what Yang Wenli's fleet could resist, so Yang Wenli's hard move was actually dangerous.

During the day, when the sight was good, the small boat of the local inspection department did not come up to inspect when it saw that it was a fleet full of soldiers, but sent a boat to inform the sailors of the abnormal situation.

When Tu was the upstream gateway of Nanjing, when Tu Shui had a heavy responsibility, when he heard the report of the Inspection Division, the Sailor did not dare to slack off, and immediately sent a detachment of more than 30 warships to intercept and investigate.

Because it was daytime, Yang Wenli also got up, and when the Tu Shui Master dispatched the ship, he also saw it clearly, he stretched out his right hand and said, "Telescope"

For the time being, the two sides are still separated by a distance, and only with binoculars can we clearly see the movements of officers and men. His slave Yang Lichu handed him the binoculars, and he immediately examined them carefully.

"Hiss......" Yang Wenli couldn't help but gasp when he saw this, it turned out that he saw that the officers and soldiers were already loading the artillery, and they were obviously prepared.

"Someone, pass my order, all the soldiers who are not operating the ballistas, all take refuge in the ship's cabin to defend the artillery, and try to resist with thick things. The archers were ready to wait for the ships to approach before going out of the cabin to join the battle. Yang Wenli ordered on the spot.

"Yes" a few slave soldiers who were in charge of verbal orders immediately saluted and responded to the order. They went to the bow and stern of the ship and conveyed orders to the front and rear ships, respectively.

Officers and men come prepared, and a vicious battle is inevitable, and only in this way can casualties be minimized.

The unusual movement of Yang Wenli's fleet, the officers and men who were rushing to patrol the ship quickly, saw it clearly, so they immediately warned the rear fleet.

The officers and men immediately became vigilant and were already stepping up preparations for battle and setting up an attack formation. The loading of artillery intensified the loading of artillery, the musketeers also stepped up the loading of muskets, the flags of each ship flew and the battle was about to break out.

The officers and men first sent a small clipper to deliver the message, ordered the fleet to stop and inspect, and when they saw that the other side did not listen and the speed of the ship did not slow, they took the lead in starting to bombard the Hongyi cannon in the bow.

The sound of the cannon was very loud and a bit deafening, but it was useless and missed a shot. The Hongyi cannon is a front-loading smoothbore cannon, which was originally imported into China from the Dutch, and later purchased from Macao and Portugal due to the Dutch occupation of Taiwan, and then can be produced by itself, and is collectively called the Hongyi cannon by the Chinese.

The official firearms of the late Ming Dynasty were of poor quality and had a very short firing range, a cannon with a length of 3 meters and a weight of more than a ton had an effective firing range of only a pitiful 500 meters and a maximum firing range of 1500 meters, and it was easy to blow up, because when casting, due to the rough workmanship, there was a large amount of trachoma, and a few shots must be cooled, otherwise the iron will definitely explode.

The two sides are still three miles apart, and they just reach the farthest range of the Hongyi cannon, so it is naturally impossible to hit.

The momentum of the officers and men was so great that as soon as the cannons rang out, they went incessantly, and dozens of ships took turns firing their cannons, causing water to splash on the surface of the river.

The owners and sailors of the dozens of boats were terrified, but they could only steer the boats and strive to sail downstream.

That night, when they broke into Anqing, they wanted to strike and stop the ship because they were afraid, but they were taught a good lesson by this group of mountain kings, one person only had one guy to eat, and no one dared to disobey the orders of this gang of outlaws of the mountain king, so although the artillery of the officers and soldiers was loud, they could only operate the boat hard, and they could only hope that the gods and Buddhas could bless themselves.

…… To be continued