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Longjiang Wharf, in Longjiang Bay, warships gathered,.

Zuo Liangyu and Jianyu attacked from both sides, and Nanjing was in danger. In order to appease the hearts of Nanjing Shishu, the first assistant Ma Shiying held a grand departure ceremony at the Longjiang Wharf and invited the people to come to watch the ceremony.

Zuo Liangyu Qingjun side momentum is huge, after starting from Wuchang, all the way to plunder and coerce, thousands of large and small ships, boats cover the river, flags cover the sun. In order to fight against Zuo Liangyu, Ma Shiying mobilized all the troops at hand.

Zheng Cai, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Yongwei Battalion Water Division, was the main surface force for this reinforcement.

On the ground division, all three major battalions were dispatched. The remaining defenders of Nanjing City only had less than 3,000 soldiers and Ma Fu's Yongwei Battalion and Land Division, all of which were worth more than 10,000. This point of strength, plus less than 10,000 people in Zhenjiang Zheng Hongkui and 5,000 Wu Zhikui, the two mixed water and land troops are all the defense forces below Nanjing and Jiangnan today.

Ma Shiying took the stage to bid farewell to Inspector Ruan Dacheng, "Jizhi, this army is our last strength." In order to gather reinforcements for you, Nanjing and the lower reaches were almost evacuated. The army of the little prince of Jiannu Duoduo is pressing over from Henan, you have to quickly defeat Zuo Liangyu, and then transfer back to the water division. ”

Ruan Dacheng took a deep look, "I will definitely live up to the trust of Duke Yao." ”

The long and cumbersome departure ceremony of the Ming army continued, but many people did not look at Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng at the city tower.

The plywood gunboats and the four giant ships were so conspicuous among the river boats and junk ships of Zheng Cai's division that they attracted the attention of most people, from Ming soldiers to ordinary people. The dense cannon doors and gyroscope cannons are a very visual display of the energy contained in the warship.

A large sampan swayed the ship, and the Admiral, dressed in dark blue, stood firmly in the bow of the ship. Broadside, as the Admiral's flag was lowered and the mast was raised again, Melville's horn fired a 9-gun salute. Gunpowder smoke rose on the surface of the river, and the strong sound of cannons echoed throughout the Longwan River, shocking the ritual of the Ming army.

Ma Shiying snorted coldly, "Barbarian." ”

Ruan Dacheng only felt full of confidence: "With the help of this boat, the certainty of winning is a little more certain." Yao Gong, please sit in Nanjing and wait for my good news. ”

It is better to hear than to witness, after seeing the 22 Hongyi cannons of the Yangtze River Detachment, Ma Shiying felt that the money spent by Ruan Dacheng was not a loss. Although the salute may seem barbaric and impolite, it is the power of one's own side. If the Zheng family is removed, the 22 Hongyi cannons have more than the total number of artillery pieces owned by the army under the control of Nanjing.

"I heard that the Yi chief of this fleet lived in the courtyard of a Qinhuai woman some time ago?"

"Exactly, because of this woman, Chief Yi and Gao Jinzhong also had a fight."

"There can be no more such things. When the battle is over, send people over, so as not to cause any trouble. ”

"Don't worry, Yaogong, I've made arrangements."

……

The flotilla set sail for Longjiang Bay, and the Melville became the undisputed protagonist with 12 shipborne cannons. It wasn't until the sail of the battleship disappeared that the two black hats disappeared into the crowd at the dock.

On the way home, Song Huixiang suddenly felt a little lost.

Li Xueyi took her hand and said, "Don't worry, there are so many red-clothed cannons on the ship, the left thief must not be an opponent." ”

"Yes. Sister, I believe in him. ”

"Yo, it's only been a few days, and you're stuck in it?"

Song Huixiang smiled lightly, "Sister, don't make fun of me, haven't you been with Mr. Fang all this time?" ”

"Don't mention him, just leave a letter, and the person will be gone." Speaking of Fang Yizhi, Li Xueyi was a little unhappy, "Wuhu where the fleet is going is close at hand, and only God knows where Fang Mizhi went." ”

Song Huixiang sighed slightly in her heart, "Sister, I will definitely see you again if you have fate." ”

……

The stern deck of the Melville.

Shou Xu first asked Xiaguan Hydrology, "Have you measured the water depth of Longjiang Bay?" ”

Captain of the Melville, Jacques Brown. Rosilly: "Your Excellency, the depth of the water has been marked, and our ship can approach as far as 600 meters to the city wall. ”

"With the goal of destroying the Longjiang shipyard, draw up a plan for preparing naval artillery fire."

Harris was a little surprised, "Your Excellency, doesn't the Longjiang Dockyard belong to friendly forces?" ”

Orderly leaned on the bulwark, "Maybe not soon." ”

……

The forward of the fleet is the large sampan and eight-oared boat of Zheng Caibu. The main types of ships of the fleet, such as the labra and the sand boats, followed. The Jincheng Yangtze River Squadron was at the rear of the flotilla formation.

Judging from the experience of the Yangtze River water warfare in all dynasties, large sampans and other small boats without decks that can turn around at any time and are easy to maneuver are the main force in water warfare. Large building ships often have unfavorable results due to unfavorable wind direction and bulky bodies. For example, in the famous Battle of Huang Tiandang, the former Jin Jurchen, who knew nothing about water warfare, relied on a small sampan to choose a day when the wind was very weak, and used the small sampan to burn the big ships of Han Shizhong's department. Han Shizhong was almost wiped out, and he was spared.

Judging from the experience of the Hunan army's water warfare after the order, the suppressive ability of large oars and sailing ships in the Yangtze River is very questionable. The Qing army's Hongdan boats from Guangdong were actually also supported by inland water divisions. In the battle with the Taiping army, although it once crossed Nanjing and traced back to the vicinity of Wuhu, it was more of a battle with the grain fleet. At most, the Red Single fleet, which had nearly 60 ships and hundreds of foreign guns, theoretically had an overwhelming advantage over the Taiping Army's naval divisions, but they were unable to prevent the Taiping Army from maneuvering across the Yangtze River and breaking through the Jiangnan and Jiangbei camps. Even on the Xiaguan River, there was an outrageous exchange ratio of losing 7 large and medium-sized red single boats and destroying 7 small boats of the Taiping Army. In the end, it was the Hunan army's big sampan and long dragon fast crab that actually controlled the Yangtze River.

For Order, the big ships had to work with more small ships. In the narrow Yangtze River, the threat of fire attack ships is much greater than at sea. The Melville, as strong as it was, could not withstand the swarm of dozens of sampans. The pirates who were once active in the Caribbean and took down Galen with small boats had a clear understanding of this.

As a mercenary, keeping yourself safe comes first. Shou Xiang only intended to provide fire support for the Ming army with naval guns, and would not break away from the protection of the small boats of the Ming army's sailors and act alone.

At the beginning of April, the fleet arrived at the assembly destination, Quarry Rock, Wuhu County, Taiping Province.

Wuhu City is now a super large military camp, Ruan Dacheng led only the last reinforcements, in fact, all the mobile forces of Nanming are now concentrated in Wuhu.

Among the flags that cover the sky and the sun, only the main flags that can be identified are:

Army Jingnan Bo Huang Degong, Guangchang Bo Liu Liangzuo, Chi Tai General Bing Hangzhennan General Yin Fang Guoan, Jingying Bu Congshan, Du Hongyu, Mou Wenshou;

Sailor Wuhu Huang Xiang Mingshi, Yongwei Battalion Zheng Cai, Sincerity Bo Liu Kongzhao, Jiujiang General Huang Binqing.

The rest of Xu Tongzhen, Li Furong, Zhu Zhiqing and the troops withdrawn from the upstream, a total of more than 100,000 troops gathered in Wuhu. There are only two civil inspectors, the crown prince Taibao, the governor of Jiangshang, Zhu Dadian, a scholar of Dongge University, and Ruan Dacheng, a newcomer to the military department. In order to gather the Wuhu camp, Ma Shiying evacuated the defensive line of Jianghuai and the lower reaches of Nanjing.

Zuo Liangyu came along the river, due to the mountainous and hilly area of southern Anhui, his main army force Li Guoying, Lu Guangzu, Jin Shenghuan and others were still located in Jiujiang, and the naval division and the army forward went down the river and approached Tongling.

As soon as Ruan Dacheng arrived, Zhu Dadian immediately convened a military meeting. The civil official's meeting, the order is too lazy to go, he waits for the result in the tea.

The main force of the Ming Army's naval division near Quarry Rock was Huang Fei, and after handing over the sea ship to Zhang Pengyi, the chief soldier of the Shanhaiguan Marine Division, Huang Fei was left with only small and medium-sized boats. Looking at the order, there are still a lot of ships. In the Ming Dynasty, the number of ships on the Yangtze River remained at more than 10,000 all year round, and Ma Shiying transferred the ships that could fight among them to supplement the various naval divisions, and the Huang Fei Department alone now has thousands of warships. Huang Binqing and Zheng Cai entered the Yangtze River from the sea, and most of the departments were sea vessels with large tonnage. Liu Kongzhao, the commander of Caojiang, was the weakest, and there were a few miscellaneous sailors who were put together, a total of four or five thousand people.

Since the Melville and the four Calais ships entered Quarry Rock, it was like an orca entering a pod of dolphins, and the local Ming soldiers looked sideways. Shou Xu felt that Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng were very nervous, and they had so many soldiers in Wuhu.

Zuo Liangyu is a landlubber, and most of his sailors are cobbled together by civilian boats. Ma Shiying's side, Huang Fei, Huang Binqing, Zheng Fan, etc. are all elites at sea, and they should have an overwhelming advantage over the miscellaneous sailors in Zuozhen. Ma Shiying's plan was to take advantage of the mobility of the Yangtze River, concentrate on destroying Zuo Liangyu completely, and then turn around and go down the river to Nanjing Zhenjiang to guard the Yangtze River. In order to buy time for Ma Shiying, Shi Kefa went to Yangzhou alone to rectify the rout troops returning from the north, planning to at least hold Yangzhou City, block the canal, and buy time for Ma Shiying to solve Zuo Liangyu.

Ma Shiying and Shi Kefa are the last two civilian officials of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and this plan is actually quite feasible. Several enemy forces took Nanjing as the target and presented a centripetal offensive, and the Ming army was fighting on the inner line, with the advantage of mobility on the Yangtze River. Shou Zhi sighed, the plan was good, but the army that executed it was not very good.

A sampan rowed towards the Melville, and the Ming army sent someone to deliver a letter, and Huang Fei invited him.

Shou ordered to put down the teacup, and he had to go to the battle meeting.

Huang Fei's boat is a new big sand boat after entering the Yangtze River, and the area of the official hall on the ship is okay. The generals who participated in the military conference, except for Zheng Fan and Huang Fei, everyone else met for the first time. Among them, Huang Binqing attaches the most importance to the order, and the Zhoushan Islands are his territory. Shou Xuan knew that Zhang Mingzhen, the general of Shipu in Ningbo, and Ruan Jin, a pirate, were spending a lot of money to build a new sailor, but they had not yet completed it. And Huang Binqing has guarded Zhoushan for many years, controlled the sea surface of Zhejiang, smuggled and collected sea taxes, and was very rich, and was now second only to Zheng Zhilong in terms of strength.

Huang Fei, the commander of the naval division, first conveyed the overall battle plan, and the combat site for the attack on Zuozhen was in Banziji, Digang Town, Fanchang County, and the army had Huang Degong and the naval division to act together. The Ming army built stone cities on both sides of the port town, and placed thousands of cannons, Francos, light artillery, and various firearms.

Huang Fei planned to transfer the elite combat forces of various naval divisions, with a total of more than 20,000 people lined up behind the Shicheng forts on both sides of the strait.

Zheng Cai asked, "How wide is the river in Hagigang Town?" "Like Shou Order, Zheng Cai is also new and unfamiliar with the battlefield.

Huang Fei said: "Less than 2 miles, within the range of the Hongyi cannons on both sides of the strait. ”

Zheng Cai laughed, "Huang Shuai, Zuo Mengeng is here to find death." ”

Shou Xuan asked quietly, "Huang Shuai, what should we do after defeating the Left Army's Water Division?" ”

"Pursue, at least recover Tongling."

Zheng Caiman didn't care, "This battle is a battle in this domain, Huang Shuai, please wait for good news." ”

Huang Binqing snorted, "This is the first battle between the Wuhu camp and the Zuozhen rebellion, and Brother Yu still has to be cautious." ”

Zheng Cai sneered and did not speak. After Shou Xuan met Zheng Cai, he did some background checks on him, Zheng Cai and Zheng Zhilong's kinship was attached, and Zheng Zhilong was recognized as his uncle, in fact, within Zheng Fan, Zheng Cai was somewhat independent. Zheng Jun's military discipline is very poor, and he has done a lot of things in Jiangnan to plunder. At the beginning of the year, Ma Shiying gave Shi Kefa military salaries, but was robbed by Zheng Cai on the way, and took 10,000 taels of silver for his own use, and Nanjing had nothing to do about it.

Unlike other Ming troops who retreated all the way to Wuhu, Zheng Fan's water division was a cutting-edge force with high morale. Huang Fei decided to equip Zheng Cai with more sampan boats as the vanguard of the whole army.

After the meeting, Shou Xiang found Zheng Cai, "Brother Yu will definitely win the battle, and destroy the left town and attack Zhengrui." ”

Zheng Cai was also not modest, and accepted the compliment with a big laugh.

"Brother Yu, can you do me a favor?"

"Lord, please speak."

"If Tongling is laid, I want to exchange silver with you for some coppersmiths in Tongling."

It took a lot of effort to sort out the number of Wuhu Daying, and it was even later.

The water in Xiaguan is deep, referring to the report of the British army of the Opium War,

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