The shortage of personnel and troops has always been something that Lu Ren and Shirley attach great importance to, so in many places that can save personnel, Lu Ren and Shirley have not put much effort into it. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

For example, at this time, when Lu Ren's troops assembled in Quanzhou, the army side was 2,000 remnants of Quanzhou's defenders, Yizhou's reinforced army was 3,000, and the total number of naval troops was 8,000. And now it is to fight a naval battle with Sun Quan's reinforcements, and the 5,000 people of the army have not been brought, so they can only rely on 8,000 sailors.

However, among the 8,000 naval forces, a total of more than 180 ships, 2,000 men and 30 ships were of a supply nature and had no combat effectiveness, so Lu Ren's actual personnel who could be put into battle were only 6,000 and 150 ships. Divided into the vanguard of Gan Ning and Huang Zhong, there were only 2,500 men and 60 non-artillery ships. Therefore, Gan Ning has been trying to avoid the old-style hand-to-hand combat during the confrontation, after all, he can't afford to fight on his own side. And after the mid-range stone throwing, the crossbows of each ship also began to fire.

Looking at the crossbows of the ships in Yizhou, considering the shortage of personnel, Lu Ren and Shirley further improved the arrow magazine into a structure similar to the drum type in modern automatic guns, but it was inverted above the crossbow. There are more than 100 arrows in a single arrow drum, and the replenishment of arrows is also quite convenient and fast, as long as the lid above the arrow drum is opened, and then a large number of arrows are placed in the right direction. And when necessary, you can also directly replace the entire arrow drum!

Next is the firing structure. The firing lever of the original crossbow is above the crossbow, and the machine crossbow made by Jiang You and Li Xue can be set up with a bow drum, and the firing lever naturally cannot use the structure of the original crossbow, so the lever is changed to the bottom of the crossbow body, and at the same time, the simple rod structure is improved into a relatively more labor-saving and faster gear winch structure, and the archer sits behind the crossbow and keeps rotating the winch, and this operation method is a bit like ...... Two pedals for the bike! Although it is done with two hands, the archer can lie on the deck and use two legs to play with the deadly kick when necessary.

Finally, there is an improvement to the crossbow mount. This Lu Ren and Shirley adopted the structure of the later gun carriage, so that the crossbow could be adjusted by 40 degrees in the longitudinal direction and 60 degrees in the left and right directions. In this way, when several crossbows on one side of the ship are combined, there will be basically no shooting dead spots on the medium-range shooting surface. However, due to the relatively high weight of this arrow drum machine crossbow and the limitation of the technology at that time, the adjustment of the elevation and depression angles is not very convenient, but there is no problem with the adjustment of the transverse strafing surface.

Therefore, in actual use, the crossbow should first adjust and fix the angle of elevation and depression, and then carry out rapid strafing in the lateral plane. In order to make up for the large hull and high deck position of the crossbow and arrow line caused by the large hull and high deck position of the Lu ship, a crossbow and arrow window are also placed in the middle of the hull, which can further expand the coverage of medium and short-range arrows in the longitudinal direction and reduce the dead angle. Like Ganning's flagship and the other two wingmen, as a large ship, there are even two rows of crossbows in the hull alone!

In terms of staffing, each crossbow is operated by two people, that is, one person is responsible for the main wheel to fire arrows, the other person is responsible for shooting and aiming the crossbow, and the replenishment of arrows is done by a special team. Taken together, this crossbow can do three arrows in two seconds under normal circumstances, and the physical exertion of the operator is also less. If you encounter a rocker with a lot of strength and a life-threatening shake, you can even do five arrows in three seconds! This was already a terrifying burst of fire at the time.

Finally, after Zhen's first-class ironmakers arrived in Yizhou, the bowstring was replaced by spring steel wire from animal tendons! The use of spring steel wire directly makes a qualitative leap in the range and lethality of this machine crossbow, and compared with the animal tendons that are easy to deteriorate due to moisture, the spring steel wire is more durable and durable, and easy to maintain. This is conceivable, when you are really floating on the sea, the water vapor is so heavy that the animal tendons are easily deteriorated by moisture, and the spring steel wire does not have this concern. To put it another irresponsibly, just take a small brush and apply a layer of animal oil or vegetable oil to it.

I don't know where this is going, so I quickly got back to the point. It is only said that on the sea battlefield at this moment, Gan Ning's fleet is completing a rapid roundabout, with the intention of cutting off the retreat of Dong's fleet after going around this small circle. On the left and right sides of the ships of the Ganning fleet, the stone bullets thrown and the rain of arrows formed a relatively dense barrage net, which pressed so directly that the ships on the two wings of the Dong Raid fleet could hardly even lift their heads.

However, the blow to the Chinese army of Dong Ning's fleet was relatively small, and it can even be said that there was no attack, and Dong Raid also saw Gan Ning's intentions, so the ships of the Chinese army were eager to support the left and right flanks, as shields to block the barrage of Gan Ning's fleet first, and the rest of the ships quickly adjusted their course, preparing to throw off Gan Ning's fleet as quickly as possible.

Dong Xi is also a person who mixes on the water all the year round, so he knows that Gan Ning's tactics need the cooperation of the follow-up troops, otherwise Gan Ning's fleet must be interspersed like this, and he must go straight through but dare not stop the ship, otherwise he will rush into an encirclement by himself, waiting to be eaten by Dong Ning's two-sided attack. But no matter how you look at it now, Dong Xi has decided that Gan Ning wants to cut off the way for his return and prevent himself from merging with Sun Quan's main force behind. Judging from the number of ships and tactical intentions of Gan Ning, there must be a successor fleet on the Yizhou side that has not appeared. Under this premise, Dong Xi did not dare to risk a strong attack on the Ganning fleet, so it was a wiser choice to get rid of the entanglement of the Ganning fleet and strive to merge with Sun Quan's main force.

It's just that when the attack is downwind, and when it is withdrawn, it is a headwind, and how can the relatively old-fashioned, and single-sail ships of the Dong Raid fleet return so quickly? A few small and medium-sized warships turned and moved faster to stop the road of the leading ships of the Ganning fleet in time, but then ......

"Xingba, there is a ship blocking the road ahead!" This is Huang Zhong urgently shouting: "Quickly instruct this ship to ......"

Gan Ning sneered and interrupted Huang Zhong's words: "Old man Huang! This kind of small fish and shrimp, don't be so alarmed! ”

Bowing his head slightly, Gan Ning walked towards the herald of the command platform...... It is the pipe used for communication between the command station and the helm station and the engine room, which is still used in modern naval warfare. Anyway, Gan Ning shouted loudly: "Right rudder for half a moment!" ”

"Right rudder for half a moment!!"

As the wheelhouse responded, the bow of the Gan Ning Shuai ship shifted slightly, but this small shift was not to avoid the Wu army ships in front of it, but to ...... Aimed at the middle waist of the Wu army ship on the opposite side, and crashed straight over!

Huang Zhong was startled, and just wanted to ask Gan Ning, but Gan Ning laughed with a little arrogance: "I haven't encountered this kind of thing for a long time!" Old man Huang, hold on tight!! ”

Twenty steps, ten steps, five steps...... The soldiers on the Wu military ship who were selected as the target by Gan Ning were all dumbfounded, looking at the behemoth that was rushing towards their own ship, only a few people jumped out of ship with a slightly faster reaction, but the rest of them just had a thought in their hearts: "Won't it?" Just bumped into it!? ”

Right! That's how it just hits!! In a dull and huge crashing sound, this poor medium-sized warship of the Wu Army was hit by Gan Ningshuai's ship, and it was directly broken into two from the middle of the hull!

When Dong Xi and many Wu Jun saw this scene, their faces immediately turned pale with horror, and even Huang Zhong's face changed in horror during the violent earthquake at the time of the impact. But when he glanced at the soldiers on Gan Ning's ship again, few of them showed any frightened looks, but they were calm and a little excited.

Looking back at Gan Ning again, he saw Gan Ning laughing and said, "Happy, happy!" ”

Huang Zhong said dumbly: "Xingba, it seems that this kind of thing, you often do it when you are in the northern seas......

"That's right! Especially in the battle with the pirates, there were no less than 20 enemy ships that were directly knocked over by my handsome ship!! ”

“…… You lunatic! It's just a pleasure! ”

Saying this, Huang Zhong quietly wiped his sweat in secret. It's not that Huang Zhong is timid, in fact, Huang Zhong also has a certain amount of research on water warfare, but compared to Gan Ning, a guy who floats on water all year round, Huang Zhong is still a little worse in terms of water warfare ability. As for the tactic of vigorously ramming, Huang Zhong of course also knew that it was just that the ships on the side were now in a state of semi-headwind, and the speed did not seem to be enough, so Huang Zhong would stop Gan Ning...... To put it simply, Huang Zhong's experience in this area is somewhat inferior to Gan Ning. No matter what, Huang Zhong is also in charge of the army in Lu Ren's hands.

Although he made an assessment of Gan Ning as a "madman", Huang Zhong soon found that his conclusion seemed to be a little early. Because Huang Zhong didn't expect that the soldiers in Ganning's fleet were all crazy.

As the first branch of the Wu army was "torn" into two sections by Gan Ning like a hungry wolf tearing a sheep, several subsequent ships also found the target one after another, and then "tore" the target Wu army ship into two sections. And faintly, Huang Zhong heard the soldiers on the ships behind him shouting and scolding, scolding the ships in front of him for not leaving some goods for them to be happy, and Huang Zhong was secretly speechless, and said in his heart that this is a typical strong general with no weak soldiers, and the soldiers brought out by the madman will also be a group of madmen.

In fact, in the history of water warfare, it is a very common tactic to use a ship to forcibly ram the opponent's ship, such as the Three Kingdoms era, there was already a special collision ship "艨艟", ...... "艨艟" is actually the sound and meaning of "rushing", that is, the kind that is to slam into the opponent's ship, and later there is a special type of sharp collision angle in the bow of the ship, which can basically open a big hole in the opponent's hull by hitting the past...... (To be continued.) )