In the early morning of the 12th year of Kang Mazi in the Qing Dynasty, when the sky was slightly bright, almost at the same time as the dust of the battle of Hanyang Wharf settled, Wu Lao Han Jian also led a large group of important civil ministers and generals of the Wu army to the mouth of the Linxiang Ruxi River across the river from the Luoshan camp of the Qing army.

It was also at this time that the Luoshan Qing army finally discovered the sudden arrival of the main force of the Wu army, and scolded Wu Laohan for being despicable, shameless and obscene, and the infantry and cavalry of the Qing army in the Luoshan battalion were also completely chaotic, and the infantry cavalry hurriedly came out of the camp to assemble and rushed to the riverbank position to fill the defensive line; The sailors hurriedly rushed to the warship, Zhang Fan set up the pier, and lined up on the river crossing route to block the Wu army from crossing the river; The Qing generals such as Tuhai, Chani and Yang Jie rushed to the ferry to set up a flag formation, and roared like thunder, "What about the scouts? What about fine work? What do you eat? Why did the old thief Wu Sangui come to Luoshan in person and report to us? ”

"Back to Dashuai, this is already the fastest speed." The previous Luoshan guard, who is now in charge of the enemy reconnaissance in the Luoshan area for Tuhai, replied with a sad face: "Our scouts found that Wu Gou's main force suddenly went north in Qinggang, and they immediately rushed to Luoshan to report, but Wu Gou's Yuezhou garrison suddenly closed the large and small passes, and no one was allowed to enter and exit, and our scouts finally made a detour to the Yangtze River, and came back here to report the news, but as soon as they entered the camp with their front feet, Wu Gou's forward and back feet went to the opposite bank. ”

"And what about our fine work?" Tuhai shouted: "What about the fine work we sent to Changsha? The main force of Wu Sangui's old thief sent troops from Guiyi, no matter how fast it was, it had to be dispatched the evening before yesterday, why did none of our meticulous work come to the police for more than a day? ”

"This, the last general doesn't know." Enai's expression was even more mournful, and he replied: "Of the dozen or so fine works sent by the last general to Guiyi, none of them have returned so far, and it seems that they have either been arrested or killed." ”

"Rubbish! Idiot! Tu Hai roared and roared again: "Now Lao Tzu is too lazy to bother with you, immediately bring your headquarters army to Jiangxin Island, where Wu Gou crosses the throat of the river, and hold it, Lao Tzu will spare you from death!" If you can't keep it, don't come back, and when you come back, you have to settle it with your new account and old account! ”

"Za, zha." Enai agreed, hurriedly rushed back to the direct team, led the men and horses of the headquarters to hurriedly board the ship, and rushed to Jiangxin Island, which was guarding the throat of the river, and cooperated with the defenders on the island to consolidate the defense of this place.

The Qing army hurriedly arranged the defense on the north bank, and the main force of the Wu army, which was fully prepared in advance, arranged the attack on the south bank of the Yangtze River unhurriedly, and the cavalry dismounted and rested on the spot after setting up the formation, feeding the horses with fodder and saving physical strength, while the infantry put the large and small artillery guns brought from the Dongting Hukou Fort in place, installed and debugged, and urgently strengthened the wharf and built a temporary wharf. In addition, there was also the Wu Army's naval division, which had been hiding in Dongting Lake for nearly a year under the cover of the fort, and this time it was also dispatched to guard the large and small civilian ships urgently requisitioned from the people, and unhurriedly went down the river along the south bank to the Luoshan ferry to listen to it.

The Qing army had a garrison of 20,000 on the side of Luoshan, including more than 8,000 sailors, more than 50 sand storming boats suitable for carrying troops and artillery, more than 20 flexible and fast bird boats and thunder boats, more than 80 small warships such as bluffing boats and sentinel boats, and hundreds or thousands of small boats and ordinary civilian boats and fishing boats -- this was also the most important naval background of Kang Mazi on the battlefield on the Yangtze River. In addition, the Qing army also had nearly 100 artillery pieces of various sizes, of which more than eighty percent were installed on sand boats, bird boats, and thunder boats, and their combat effectiveness was quite strong.

On the Wu army's side, the original 13,000 garrisons in Yuezhou were almost dispatched, as well as the 3,000 troops that the Wu army had secretly infiltrated into Yuezhou and assembled, plus the 30,000 main infantry cavalry brought by Wu Laohan from Changsha and Guiyi, the strength was more than double that of the Qing army, reaching more than 45,000, including nearly 10,000 new naval troops. However, most of the Wu army's sailors were either Yunnan-Guizhou landlubbers who had only been trained on the water for a year, or they had never been on the battlefield Yangtze River fishermen, and only less than 2,000 Qing army sailors who had surrendered before had real experience in water warfare.

In terms of warships, because the Wu Army's naval division was newly formed, Wu Laohanjian, who had received technical support from Taiwan's naval division, decided to use all medium-sized bird boats as the main warships, with a total of 35 warships. This kind of bird boat from the sea navigation technology is named because the bow resembles a bird's beak, and it has great advantages in resisting wind and waves and surface combat, but the disadvantage is that the carrying capacity is not as good as the main force of the Qing army's water warfare, and it is not suitable for carrying troops to land operations, and Wu Laohan did not plan to use this kind of warship to transport troops, but hoped that this fleet could compete with the Qing army's naval division on the water, so as to cover ordinary civilian ships to transport troops across the river.

(Note: The information of the Wu army's warships is from the "Pingdian General Record", which also records that after Wu Laohan was killed, this Wu army fleet surrendered to Mites Qing under the leadership of Lin Xingzhu, a good friend of Lord Wei, and helped Mites Qing control the Budaikou of Dongting Lake and cut off the grain route of the Wu army in Yuezhou, resulting in the fall of Yuezhou.) ）

In addition, the Wu army also had more than 20 warships of the Qing army, large and small, brought by Li Guozhu, a general of Yuezhou who volunteered to serve as the internal response of the Wu army, when he surrendered to the Wu army, as well as more than 500 civilian boats of various sizes and fishing boats of various sizes that were collected or forcibly robbed. Naturally, it came from the hands of our fat man Lu Yifeng.

As for artillery and firearms, it was completely the domain of the Wu army, and among them, the Wu army had more than 60 Hongyi cannons with a maximum range of 10 miles, and more than 180 sub-cannons and 12-pounder bronze howitzers, and each of the 35 bird boats was equipped with two such light guns, 40 rockets, and countless grenades and incendiary grenades -- and they could be supplied on the spot, thus having a huge advantage in firepower. However, the Qing army was also equipped with more than 200 continuous muskets, which the Wu army had never seen, and the newly equipped firing pin guns on the Wu army's side had never been known by the Qing army, so when it came to the shootout, it was necessary to test which of the two new muskets was more practical and which was more powerful.

After introducing the comparison of the troops, warships and weapons of the two sides, let's talk about the topography of the Luoshan Ferry, in fact, compared to the Wuchang Ferry, the Luoshan Ferry is not the most ideal army ferry, because this ferry is too wide, the widest part of the river reaches seven miles, and there is an area of about seven or eight hundred acres of Jiangxin Island in the center of the river, tightly choking the throat of the river crossing channel with gentle water flow, the Wu army's troop transport fleet crosses the Yangtze River, and must pass under the high cliff in the east of this Jiangxin Island. The Qing army had already built strong fortifications on this Jiangxin island, deployed heavy troops to defend it, and covered the channel with bows and arrows, artillery and muskets, which was the first sharp knife on the route of the Wu army crossing the river.

If you change to someone else and encounter a hard nail like Jiangxin Island, you will inevitably frown, but Wu Laohan, who personally commanded the decisive battle of crossing the river, is also an old loach on the battlefield who has been rolling and crawling on the battlefield for decades, and after carefully observing the terrain and distance, Wu Laohan couldn't help but smile and said: "Tuhai Xiaoer, smart is mistaken by smart, you deploy heavy troops on this Jiangxin Island to guard the channel, do you think it is a very clever strategy?" Wrong, according to the old man's opinion, this Jiangxin Island is actually your talisman! ”

"Father-in-law, this Jiangxin Island is clearly a nail that a full dog has driven into our throat, why do you say that it is a life talisman for a full dog?" Hu Guozhu asked in surprise.

"If we don't have a new flowering cannonball for Yifeng, then Mangou deploying heavy troops on this Jiangxin Island is indeed a very clever arrangement." Wu Lao Hanjian pointed to Jiangxin Island and said with a smile: "Because this island is quite large, with seven or eight hundred acres, if it is replaced by the past, we use solid cannonballs or landing cannonballs, even if we fire thousands of cannons, I am afraid we will not be able to kill not only the dogs on the island." But now, is the flowering cannonball that Yifeng made for us comparable to a solid cannonball and a landing bomb? Also, this Jiangxin Island is close to the south coast, the farthest three miles and the closest is less than two miles, not to mention the Hongyi cannon, even our sub-mother cannon and bronze cannon, can't it still be easy to hit the island? ”

"My father-in-law is clever, and he knows everything." Hu Guozhu suddenly realized, slapped a sycophant and hurriedly said: "Father-in-law, son-in-law will arrange it, concentrate all the artillery on Jiangxin Island, and pull out this nail first." ”

"Wrong! You can't rush to pull out this nail! Wu Laohan stopped it decisively and shouted: "The old man wants to use this nail of Tuhai Xiaoer as bait to pull the whole team full of dogs to accompany the funeral!" ”

"Pull a full dog fleet to accompany the funeral, so what to do?" Hu Guozhu asked in surprise.

"Herald." Wu Laohan shouted loudly: "The first order is to let Du Hui and Lin Xingzhu's warships seize the upstream position at the western end of Jiangxin Island, and if the full dog fleet approaches, immediately meet the battle, and the civilian fleet will dock on the south side of Jiangxin Island!" The second order, Xia Guoxiang led the artillery team to move to the lower reaches of Jiangxin Island, and the gun muzzle was aimed at the entrance to the east end of Jiangxin Island. The third order, Han Daren led an army of 3,000 to the shore on the south side of Jiangxin Island to board the ship, preparing to land on the island to attack, Zu Shushun led 3,000 troops as the second team, Yang Fengxian and Ba Yangyuan as the third and fourth teams! ”

"Order!" Although Hu Guozhu didn't quite understand the intentions of the old man of Han for a while, he immediately agreed and quickly went down to give orders to arrange. Wu Lao Han turned to the guard next to him and ordered, "Go, let people bring Kabula up." ”

The guard took the order and left, and after a while, Kabula, whose whole body seemed to be tied up into a zongzi, was escorted by the Wu soldiers to Wu Lao Han Jian, whimpering desperately while whimpering, but unfortunately his mouth was blocked by a sackcloth, and he couldn't hear what he was talking about. When Wu Laohan tried to pout again, the guard understood, and pulled out the sackcloth in Kabula's mouth, and Kabula immediately scolded, "Old thief! Old thief! Despicable, shameless, treacherous, shameless! Shameless shameless old thief! ”

"Slap your mouth, let him be quiet." Wu Laohan ordered quietly, and the guards such as Lu Shrimp next to him did not hesitate, went up and opened their round arms, and scolded the old man Kang Mazi Kabula is wild pumping, until Kabula is face is full of flowers, teeth fall out, mouth and nose bleed, until Kabula can no longer scold, Wu Laohan Jian nodded and stopped before stopping.

"See what this is?" Wu Lao Han showed Kang Mazi's handwritten warrant with one hand, and pulled Kabula's pigtail with the other, pulling his head up, so that he could see the content of Kang Mazi's handwritten warrant, and said with a cruel smile: "Now you should understand, why did the old man lie to you, right?" The revenge of killing the son is not shared, the old man doesn't say that he is playing tricks on the peace contract, that is, he killed his Kangxi child's whole family, and his Kangxi child's mother, and people in the world will only say that the old man killed well, and he killed well! ”

"No way, this can't be!" Kabula's mouth was full of blood, and he screamed, "This is fake, it must be fake!" How could the emperor give such an order? No way! When pigs fly! Definitely you faked it! ”

"Is it forged by the old man, go back and ask your son-in-law." Wu Lao Hanjian sneered and said: "Originally, the old man wanted to sacrifice the flag with your head, but the mind is that you are the messenger, the two countries are fighting, and if you don't kill the envoy, the old man will spare your dog life today and let you cross the river." After you go back, tell your son-in-law that the old man's beloved son's revenge must be avenged by the old man himself! also tell the old man about the Manchurians, so that they all know what kind of deceitful and shameless character your Manchu Emperor is, and what will happen to him if he sells his life! ”

After that, Wu Laohan kicked on Kabula's lower abdomen and shouted: "Escort him down, send a small boat to send him across the river, hand it over to Mangou, and by the way, tell Mangou on the other side that surrender early, and the old man can spare them from dying!" Then pass on the old man's decree, behead all the dog guards brought by Kabula in front of the battle, release the whole family of Aobai, and crown Namufu, the son of Aobai, as the Marquis of Shunyi, and give it to the Lumi Mansion! ”

"Bring some loud voices, take this warrant from the Emperor Mangou, and show it in front of the various military formations." Wu Lao Han also learned a lot of heart-attacking methods from Lu Fatzi, handed Kang Mazi's warrant to Lu Shrimp, and instructed: "Tell the soldiers of the whole army that it was the old man and the son who was personally killed by the Emperor Mangou, and he blamed the dead man Aobai, despicable and shameless, and the crime deserves death!" Kill the Emperor Mangou who avenged the old man, and the old man named him the Marquis of Ten Thousand Households and rewarded him with ten thousand taels of gold! ”

When Wu Jun showed Kang Mazi warrant ironclad evidence to promote hatred and boost morale, Kabula was sent to the north bank of the Yangtze River by a civilian boat in advance, Tuhai and Chani and others heard that Kang Mazi's old man had returned, so they naturally hurried to the dock to greet him, and when they saw Kabula whose cheeks were beaten with blood, Tuhai and Chani and others were first surprised, and then naturally hurried to Kabula to learn about the situation, and asked why the main force of the Wu army suddenly tore up the peace treaty, and how the divine soldiers descended from the sky and suddenly killed the other side of Luoshan.

It was also through Kabula's introduction that Tuhaichani and others knew that it was as early as the afternoon of October 16, the main force of the Wu cavalry stationed in Changsha arrested Kabula and his entourage, and at the same time, the main force of the Wu army infantry stationed in Guiyi and the Yuezhou garrison of the Wu army used the excuse of arresting the jewelry thieves to tightly seal the large and small passes from Changsha to the Yangtze River, and suddenly started to search and kill the Qing army that had already been discovered, which ensured the sudden surname of the action to the greatest extent, and the Wu army had a very accurate grasp of the calculation of the travel time. The Qing scouts who had penetrated deep into the territory of Biyuan were hardly given the slightest time to react, which caused the current situation where the intelligence and the main force of the Wu army arrived in Luoshan at the same time.

As for the reason why Wu Jun suddenly tore up the peace treaty, Kabula said that he didn't believe that his son-in-law would do such a shameless thing, scolded Wu Laohan for being despicable and shameless, forged Kang Mazi's handwritten warrant, slandered and planted, Chani and Yang Jie and others didn't believe that Kang Mazi would be shameless to the point of marrying the trouble, and scolded with Kabula, only Tuhai, who knew the inside story, was drenched in cold sweat on his forehead, and knew that the warrant was true!

At this time, the tactical arrangement of the Wu army has been basically completed, and after carefully observing the tactical deployment of the Wu army through the clairvoyant mirror, Tu Hai quickly perceived the first tactical purpose of Wu Laohan's annihilation - to use the artillery array and the naval fleet as a cover to storm Jiangxin Island and pull out this nail nailed to the throat of crossing the river! So after thinking about it for a while, Tu Hai immediately ordered: "General Yang Jie, your sailors will immediately open sail, and after Wu Gou starts to attack, he will immediately divide his troops into two routes, go all the way upstream, and go to the west end of Jiangxin Island to entangle Wu Gou's sailor fleet, looking for an opportunity to annihilate!" All the way up the river from the eastern end of Jiangxin Island to annihilate the Wu Dog troop fleet! ”

"Don't be afraid of Wu Gou's fierce artillery fire, Wu Gou's warships are all in the west, there is no extra warship to escort, as long as half of the ships rush through Wu Gou's artillery fire, Wu Gou's troop transport ship will be dead!"

"Wait!" Yang Jie was taken aback, and hurriedly arched his hand and said, "Tu Zhongtang, you're not joking, are you?" The division of troops is the most taboo in water warfare, and our naval division has the advantage, but after dividing the troops into two ways, the advantage of dividing troops in front of Wu Gou's fleet has been greatly weakened, and Wu Gou still has the advantage of upstream, which will give Wu Gou the opportunity to break us all! According to the last general's opinion, the best way is to concentrate the sailors into a single force, and go directly north to fight with Wu Gou's sailors, as long as Wu Gou's sailors are annihilated by our army's sailors, the Luoshan ferry can be as stable as Mount Tai! ”

"Fart!" Tu Hai was furious and asked sharply: "Then let me ask you, I will hand over all the sailors to you and let you go to a decisive battle with Wu Gou's sailors, how much time will it take to annihilate Wu Gou?" ”

"This ......." Yang Jie was a little dumbfounded, and said in his heart that the battlefield is changing rapidly, and there are more cases of the defeat of the water than on the land, who dares to guarantee how much time it will take to destroy the enemy's entire army?

"Don't have anything to say?" Tu Hai pointed to Jiangxin Island and shouted: "See, that Jiangxin Island is located in the center of the river, if you are still entangled with Wu Gou's sailors, Wu Gou has already seized this island, and carried the sub-mother cannon and bronze cannon on Jiangxin Island, then our sailors will have nowhere to hide on the river!" If Wu Gou moves the Hongyi cannon to Jiangxin Island again, then not only our sailors, but also our Luoshan battalion will be completely exposed to Wu Gou's artillery fire! If you want to defend Luoshan, you must first defend this Jiangxin Island for me! ”

"Zhongtang is clever, and the last general will obey orders." Yang Jie agreed suspiciously and helplessly, so he had to quickly call his deputy Zhang Tao to arrange, let Zhang Tao lead one-third of the fleet to attack the Wu army's troop transport fleet, and he personally led the remaining two-thirds of the fleet upstream, to fight a decisive battle with the Wu army's naval division.

At the beginning of the hour, the war drums in the Wu army's formation sounded, and Han Daren's 3,000 forwards, carried by civilian ships, first launched a charge towards Jiangxin Island controlled by the Qing army general Hunan, and the large and small ships were like a fragmented arrow, charging towards Jiangxin Island at full speed. At the same time, the Qing army was also beating drums, and the follow-up troops that were ready to reinforce Jiangxin Island boarded the troop carriers to prepare, and the main battleship fleet was divided into two routes, all the way straight to attack the water mouth at the east end of Jiangxin Island, and all the way upstream, charging towards the main force of the Wu army's naval division, seeking a decisive battle.

Seeing this scene, Wu Laohan was not surprised, applauded and smiled: "Okay, the full dog really hit the old man's plan, quickly, send an order to Wu Yingjing, let him prepare forty suicide blasting boats, let us select a good death squad to board the ship, once the Wu dog fleet in the east breaks through our artillery blockade and approaches our troop transport fleet, immediately launch a charge, and we must completely annihilate the full dog fleet in the east!" Tell those brothers in the death squad that those who died on the battlefield will be rewarded with five hundred taels of silver tattoos for their families! Those who come back alive will be rewarded with a thousand taels of silver per person, and the official will be promoted to two levels! ”

"Father-in-law, use the suicide boat now?!" Hu Guozhu was so frightened that he almost didn't jump up, and exclaimed: "When Yifeng first offered the plan, he emphasized that this trick was too big to kill, and it was best to use it only at the last moment. Now that the war has just begun, father-in-law, why don't you ....... ”

"That oiled loach would have such a good heart?" Wu Laohan glanced at his son-in-law, and said with a cruel smile: "Learn a little, do you think he doesn't want the old man to use this trick early in the morning and frustrate the sharpness of the dog water master?" He was just embarrassed to open his mouth, so he said something to cover his face, and the old man just didn't want to break him. ”

(To be continued)