"Toot ......"

The sound of the whistle broke the tranquility of the Yangtze River, and a fleet was sailing in the river fog, as for the whistle, it was a reminder of the boats on the river, barely colliding, and now for the fishermen, boatmen and even the Taiping army or the Qing army sailors, they have become accustomed to and adapted to the steamers in the river. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

No one would risk stopping these ships, and if nothing else, the cannons on board were enough to make them fearful. More importantly, the warships that come down from Wuchang or go up from Chongming will always appear on the Yangtze River from time to time, and those foreign-style warships are the real pressure.

The officers and men on the warships have long been well aware of all this, and every time they sail on the Yangtze River, they have never worried about being attacked by both sides of the strait, and now they are naturally no exception.

However, when the fleet was about to arrive in the Zhenjiang area, out of caution, the fleet still issued a combat readiness order through the flag. The officers and men on the ship entered the combat posts one after another, operated the artillery, and vigilantly watched the river bank and the batteries of the Taiping army on the shore. The officers and men on the ship were vigilant, but for the Taiping troops in the fort on the shore, they were watching the fleet in the river with fear, for fear that the other side would blow up the fort if a cannon fire came from the other side.

But in the end, the two were still peaceful, and neither fired first.

"Lin Qirong won't fire!"

Standing on the armored cruiser Fenghai, Shen Ming's tone seemed very flat.

"Lin Qirong is Yang Xiuqing's person, he was stationed in Yangzhou before, if it weren't for the Qing army's troops pressing the border and repelling it many times, what kind of heaven is this, and where he is used, I am afraid that he would have been killed as the remnant of the East King! Now he has been transferred to Zhenjiang, ostensibly to protect Nanjing, but in fact he just wants to kill people with a knife......"

The captain's words made the corners of Zhang Di's lips rise and he mocked.

"In the land of four wars, intrigue is still like this, what kind of heavenly kingdom is this, if it doesn't die, it will really be unreasonable!"

Zhang Di, who was the commander of the Yangtze River Fleet, was the deputy commander-in-chief of this naval battle, and in addition to the Nanyang Fleet, the Yangtze River Fleet also dispatched as many as 13 river gunboats, but as we all know, there are many shoals in the Yangtze River, such as the "Fenghai" and other sea ships are easy to run aground, in fact, this is also the reason why the fleet was later transferred to Chongming and Guangzhou, and the current Yangtze River Naval Division is based on four river gunboats: "Zhenbei", "Zhennan", "Zhendong" and "Zhenxi".

The displacement of this river gunboat is 430 tons, the length of the ship is also the same, the same is 38.1 meters, the beam is 9.14 meters, the draft is 2.41 meters, the power system uses a three-expansion steam engine, and the speed is 10.5 knots. Different from the steel plate construction of the navy's cutting-edge warships, it directly adopts pure wooden hulls, and only lays iron armor in some important parts, which can avoid rust, save materials and money, and reduce the tonnage of the ship, so that the navigation is faster.

And what really makes people feel strange about it is probably the firepower that is not equal to its tonnage - its bow is equipped with a 254 mm breech steel gun, and two 88 mm breech secondary guns, and the cost of the whole ship is only 43,900 silver dollars, of which half is the cost of weapons. In a way, it's affordable.

In particular, its powerful firepower can destroy any ship at sea. Since its service, it has always been regarded as a sharp weapon for river defense and the main force of the Yangtze River Fleet.

However, although its main gun is comparable to that of the "Fenghai", because it is a short-barreled gun, the firing range is relatively short, and the shells are lighter. But even so, these four "Zhenzi-class" are still insurmountable hegemons on the Yangtze River.

But now, their limelight is completely overshadowed by the "Fenghai", the world's first all-steel armored cruiser, and even as the captain of the fleet, they have jumped to the "Fenghai". As a matter of fact, everyone knows very well that once the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is annihilated, the Yangtze River Naval Division will soon lose its role -- this is also the reason why the Yangtze River Naval Division did not build ironclad ships, and the navy has long had a clear plan for its future, and in the future the navy will be mainly composed of the Beiyang and Nanyang fleets, supplemented by the Pacific Fleet and the Western Ocean Fleet respectively, and as for the Yangtze River Fleet, its mission will soon come to an end. As for these four seemingly powerful river gunboats, they will also be eliminated in the near future.

"It is precisely because it is not finished and there is no heavenly reason that we are here."

Shen Ming said with a smile, from the sailor who could never become the captain of the foreign ship at the beginning, to the captain, to the commander of the fleet, he has always been loyal to the lord.

"This time, as long as we cooperate with the army to conquer Nanjing, when the time comes, the lord can enter Nanjing, and he can worship the spirit of the ancestor in the sky in Nanjing!"

When Shen Ming made this sentence, he suddenly realized a question - after the lord entered Nanjing, in what capacity would he enter Nanjing, or would he be the governor of the Han Dynasty? Or the descendants of Jianwen, or...... Emperor!

For the first time, Shen Ming found that his thoughts seemed to be a little chaotic because he didn't know what he was supposed to do. So much so that he took a deep breath and forced himself to shake these cranky things out of his head.

"When the time comes, my Chinese orthodoxy will be restored, and I think that the spirit of the ancestor in the sky can also be blinded!"

Orthodox!

This orthodoxy seems to be nothing, but for officers and officials such as Zhang Di and many scholars in the Righteous Army and the Governor's Palace, this orthodoxy means that they are not "thieves".

Perhaps for some scholars, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which has been in the Central Plains for more than 200 years, is "orthodox", and for some scholars, the emperor of the Han people is "orthodox", but for the vast majority of scholars, all they need is the name of "orthodoxy", and the identity of the Han Duke "after Jianwen" undoubtedly allows them to take refuge in it without any psychological burden.

In fact, this is also the original idea of many generals and officials such as Zhang Di. However, now, with the overwhelming superiority of the Righteous Army over the Qing Army over the Taiping Army, they are more willing to attribute all this to "orthodoxy", especially for high-ranking officials, who are convinced that they will go down in history in the future, and naturally want to make their original choice more "decent", and it is precisely because of this that they emphasize "orthodoxy", especially now.

However, Shen Ming, who is not a scholar, naturally does not know the thoughts of officers who are born as scholars like Zhang Di, of course, not everyone is like this, for Wen Zishao, who was on the "Zhennan" inland gunboat, he never knew what orthodoxy was at all, and the reason why he joined the rebel army was entirely because of his hobby.

As a native of Guangdong, he has been obsessed with all kinds of Western machinery since he was a child, at first it was a self-striking bell, then a steam engine, and even the reason why he was admitted to the Whampoa Naval Academy, one of the most critical reasons was to go to the navy's Western steam warships and ships, which even led to his break with his father - his grandfather was Wen Rushi, a soldier in the Jiaqing period; His father, Wen Chengyi, was the head of the official criminal department, and although his father was already in the township at that time, after all, he was "deeply favored by the emperor", so he naturally couldn't accept his son to join the "anti-thief".

But even this did not prevent Wen Zishao from entering the navy, and after graduating last year, it took only a year and a half for him to become the first officer among the cadets of the same period to be promoted to captain -- although he was only the captain of a river gunboat, it was not an easy task.

However, those who know him know that Wen Zishao is a little "not doing his job", compared to being a naval commander, he prefers machines, when he was in Chongming Island, he spent almost all his spare time in the ship repair yard, where he studied all kinds of machinery and guns, and even later learned that after he learned that there was a school in Wuchang, he regretted that he even had his intestines annoyed, thinking that he had entered the wrong industry, he intended to deal with machines, but who would have expected that he would take the wrong path and become a naval officer.

But in spite of this, he found a new way for himself to study warships, and even in his captain's room, in addition to aeronautical charts and the like, there were more books on the theory of ship design, and if the naval officer school gave him anything, I am afraid that it taught him fluent English, so that he could understand those Western theoretical books.

But a hobby is a hobby after all. As a naval officer, he was certainly well aware of his duties. Just like now, when the warships are sailing towards Nanjing with the fleet, Wen Zishao, who is more like an engineer, studied the walls of Nanjing there.

"Nanjing, Nanjing......"

Looking at the city wall of Nanjing on the map, Wen Zishao knew very well that the city wall of Nanjing was extremely strong, and he also knew very well that the city wall would be the biggest obstacle for the rebels to attack Nanjing.

As long as the walls are solved, then everything will be very simple. In order to solve this problem, a month ago, he designed a new type of explosive armor-piercing projectile, which, unlike a grenade with a nodal fuse with a warning head, has a thicker body and a time-delay fuse mounted on the bottom of the projectile, so that it can penetrate the steel plate and explode after penetrating the steel plate.

However, the shells he designed were not prepared to destroy the ironclad ships, but to destroy the walls of Nanjing. The Chongming Ship Repair Factory produced 50 new shells, which were carried by Fenghai and Zhenzi-class warships, which theoretically exploded violently after hitting the walls of the city walls, thus ensuring that they could destroy the city walls.

However, Wen Zishao did not put everything on the shells, he was still considering other possibilities.

"The Taiping army used the Yifeng Gate in the north of the city as a breakthrough point, and used the method of attacking the city from the cave, burying mines underneath and blowing up the city wall. At the same time, the cloud ladder was divided into hundreds to attack each gate, pretending to attack the city to confuse the Qing army. At dawn the next day, the city wall near the Yifeng Gate was blown up for more than 2 zhang ......"

Looking at the information he has so far, Wen Zishao knows very well that the newly built city walls are often not solid enough, which means that the city walls around Yifengmen should be the most vulnerable.

"That's it!"

Drawing a circle on the map with a pencil, Wen Zishao said in a heavy voice.

"Just choose this place as a breakthrough!"

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The town level is both a "mosquito boat" in history. (To be continued.) )