Chapter 644: The End of the Cochin Water Army

The battle between the two sides was in full swing. Due to the fact that the four Song ships sank a large number of Jiaozhi warships with artillery, Ruan Kui had to order the Jiaozhi fleet to adjust its formation and try to avoid the four Song ships. Chen Guozan was well aware of the shallow size of the Jiaozhi warships, so he asked the fleet to sail as close to the narrow bay as possible, so that the large warships of the Song army would not dare to approach too closely, and their firepower superiority could not be brought into play. At the same time, he divided his troops into two routes, one to engage the main force of the Song army, and the other to attack from the flank. Regarding Chen Guozan's bold attack, Gao Hu immediately noticed it.

At this time, this strange force had appeared in the rear of the Song fleet's flank, and began to attack the Song ships exposed on the flanks. Gao Hu immediately drove his flagship to the gap, hoping to plug the gap. The tree was so strong that he was immediately besieged by a stormy siege by the Cochin warships. The first round of arrows turned his command cabin into a "hedgehog", followed by a number of cochin warships attempting to engage in broadside battles. The bows and arrows of the Jiaozhi people were as dense as raindrops, and the Song army returned with powerful firearms and crossbow arrows. Relying on their superiority in firepower, the Song warships quickly repelled this wave of ferocious attacks by the Jiaozhi people, and many Jiaozhi warships were destroyed. And the three big ships of the Song army were red-eyed, like lions into the flock of sheep, and restrained a large number of Jiaozhi people's troops. The sea was filled with gunsmoke and the sound of cannons rumbled, and because he was wearing heavy armor, Chen Guozan, who was commanding near the mast, felt that it was difficult to convey the order, so he rashly lifted his helmet. Suddenly, a cold arrow came and hit him in the right eye. Chen Guozan immediately collapsed on the deck. The injuries were fatal. The surrounding guards hurriedly carried Chen Guozan into the cabin, Chen Guozan lay on the bed, struggled for a while and then died. The morale of the Cochin army suddenly dropped, and panic began to spread like a plague.

Another large ship of the Song army joined the battle group in time and bombarded the already wavering Jiaozhi army with heavy artillery fire, and some of the Jiaozhi warships began to rush to the beach in order to escape, because they knew that there were heavy land troops deployed on the shore, they sat on the beach and fled for their lives. The escape continued to expand like a snowball, and although some of the Jiaozhi people still resisted stubbornly, they were gradually overwhelmed by the outnumbered Song army. After Chen Guozan's death, the deputy general Chen Qingyu took over the command, but his flagship was shelled by the Song army's large ships, and the rudder was completely damaged, so he could only drift helplessly with the current, and finally ran aground on the coast. Chen Qingyu was hit by several arrows and was dying, although he was barely saved by his subordinates, but was soon captured by the Song army. Considering that he had died of his injuries and fearing reprisals, he prayed to the Song officer for a quick death, and the Song officer complied with this request with the grace of a Confucian general, having his head cut off with a knife. After the Lord was killed, the last of the Cochin sailors who resisted also surrendered. The estuary bay was littered with ship wrecks and the corpses of Cochins, and the sea was red with blood.

The nightmare that Fan Wulao feared the most had appeared. The remnants of the Jiaozhi Army's right-flank navy were like lost dogs, and the soldiers even used the corpses of the dead to build "pontoon bridges" in the hope of landing and escaping for their lives. In the face of the unmotivated Jiaozhi people, the Song army has been swallowed up by the desire for revenge, and they are unwilling to accept prisoners, but want to pay for their blood debts. When the Jiaozhi soldiers put down their weapons and begged for mercy, the Song soldiers shouted: "Xue Xi Ning is ashamed!" Revenge for Yongzhou! Then the knife fell. There were even soldiers who stuck the Cochin alive on the beach with bamboo poles because they did not have the weapons at hand.

At the time of the collapse of the water army on the right side of Jiaozhi, the Chinese armies of the two sides also began to fight head-on. The Song fleet uniformly slowed down in order to keep the formation in order—and they did. But the Cochin people were not so lucky. Fearful of the firepower of the two huge Song ships in the center, Nguyen arranged for two gaps to leak out of the fleet's horizontal column in order to avoid their firepower. Although Nguyen Kui had ordered the fleet to slow down, such an adjustment inevitably caused some confusion, so that the warship formation of the Jiaozhi people became even more uneven and loose.

"Capture the thief and capture the king first." This is a truth that the commanders of both sides are well aware of. The fiercest battles revolved around the flagships of the two armies. On the side of the Jiaozhi people, Ruan Kuai, dressed in gold armor and purple robes and armed with bows and arrows, sat on his own ship, with the general Chen Xiu on his right side, and the military envoys Wu Ning and Ruan Kuai's two sons covering his left flank. Around him, there were also a group of elite soldiers such as Cheng Jinpeng. On the Song army's side, Yue Lun held a long sword and wore armor, standing on top of the ship's building, and the big flag with the word "Yue" above his head was waving in the wind. Although he was advised by the guards to enter the cabin to avoid the arrows, he insisted on fighting alongside the soldiers. Both sides have made up their minds to the death, and they want to fight it out.

As the main ships of both sides continued to approach, Ruan Kuai took the lead, firing three stone shells from the bow of the ship, two missed, and the third hit the deck of Yue Lun's flagship, knocking down two Song sailors. The Song gunners turned their guns and fired fiercely, causing great damage to Ruan Kuai's flagship. Ruan Kui found that his ship was downwind in the counterfire, so he decisively ordered a ramming and engagement. Initially, he seemed to mistake another large Song ship for a flagship, but at the last moment, he corrected his mistake by turning the rudder and collided head-on with Yue Lun's flagship. Although the Song army was out of the limelight in the initial shelling, it looked a little embarrassed after being hit head-on because it did not hit the corner. Ruan Kuai's flagship ramming angle was deeply embedded in the hull of the Song warship, sweeping the sailors at the point of impact. The two wounded flagships were entangled together, and Ruan Kuai felt that the battle situation had entered the melee combat that the Jiaozhi people were good at, and he couldn't help but let out a long breath. He stood on the ship's tower and drew his bow and shot arrows, and the elite Jiaozhi soldiers behind him flocked to board the Song ship. Due to the thick smoke, it was difficult for the firecrackers and crossbowmen to aim at their targets, and the Song soldiers immediately engaged in a white-knuckle battle with the Jiaozhi people.

At this time, what made Fan Wulao most unforgettable was the indescribable loud sound on the battlefield. The roar of cannons, the cracking of oars, the ramming of ships, the sound of men falling overboard, the chatter of firecrackers, the dying cries of wounded soldiers, and the murderous cries of white-knuckle combat. Both sides showed no mercy and fought the enemy in the most bloody way. The damage dealt by weapons in melee combat is particularly terrifying, scimitars, spears, copper hammers, iron axes, and even daggers cut through a miserable white arc, and the sea turned red for a while.

The battle on the flagships of both sides was unprecedentedly bloody, the decks were covered with blood and grease, and the soldiers on both sides were unstable and unsustainable. At the same time, the supporting ships of the two armies also tried to replenish the flagship. At such close range, the power of the bow and the firearm became deadly. Ruan Kuai's lieutenant Chen Xiu, who was wearing fine armor and charged at the forefront, was hit in the chest by a fiery gun, and although the heart guard did not completely penetrate, he still died from the huge impact. The flags and shipyards of the Cochins were also shattered by the projectiles of the firearms.