The battle continued to take place between each other, and the exchange of crossbow shots between each other. Countless bed crossbows www.biquge.info pen & fun & pavilion hit their respective warships heavily across the distance of 100 zhang between the two sides, sending out a "bang...... Bang", making a "crackling...... Bang". After discovering that the arrows shot with the bed crossbow could be easily used for fire attacks, the Jiangdong army also learned Li Sheng's set. In a matter of days, the Jiangdong Army produced tens of thousands of bamboo arrows to supply the army.

This is a very simple bamboo arrow. To put it simply, a bamboo pole about the size of an arm, two sections of equal length, pierce the middle partition with a sharp object, then stuff cotton into the hole in the partition, inject tung oil from the back half of the partition, and attach a sharp spear head to the first half of the partition, and then put on the cotton that has already been soaked in oil.

It's simple, but it's because of the addition of tung oil. The price of a whole arrow is not cheap. It's just that the power of this arrow is extremely great, once the oil cotton in front of it is ignited, it will shoot out, and it will always make the Li Shengjun battleship that was hit by the arrow burn, and maintain it for a long time, bringing great damage to the Li Shengjun battleship itself. Because Li Shengjun's warships posed a threat to the warships of the Jiangdong Army, the Jiangdong Army did not hesitate to use such expensive sharp arrows in the current shooting.

Although the Jiangdong Army's battleships, even the ballista warships, did not have as many attack points as Li Shengjun's warships, the Jiangdong Navy's superiority in the number of warships completely resisted this difference in the height of a single battleship. The mutual attacks on the wide river caused the warships of both sides to burn in unison. In just a quarter of an hour after the start of the war, several of the battleships on Li Sheng's side and the warships on the Jiangdong side ignited an inextinguishable fire and sank across the river.

The battle was so tragic from the beginning that not only Gao Heng was a little surprised by this, but Jiang Qin, who intended to cause this situation, was also completely surprised. Although several of Li Shengjun's warships also broke out in an inextinguishable fire, compared to the number of warships that caught fire in Li Shengjun's unit, the Jiangdong Army's warship losses were obviously a little difficult for Jiang Qin to accept. In the attack just now, more than ten warships of the Jiangdong Army actually fell into a situation comparable to those of Li Shengjun's warships. Red tongues of fire fluttered on their bodies, and seemed to leap a little faster than they had seen in the previous days.

Faced with such a situation, Jiang Qin's first thought was: "Li Shengjun must have used some new weapon." ”

"Damn it! There are a lot of ghost things on Li Sheng's side. Jiang Qin frowned and cursed in a low voice.

"This is only one aspect, and more importantly, the enemy's reaction is so fast that our army has to engage more warships before they are fully repaired, which is the most important reason for the expansion of our losses at the moment." Lu Meng seemed to regret it a little: "Perhaps, we should have repaired here for a longer time." ”

"Maybe. But don't say anything. What do you need to do now? Jiang Qin's brows did not relax because of Lu Meng's words. He looked up at the sky, and the dazzling light of the sun above his head made his eyes tingle for a while, and he realized another mistake of his own: "Maybe you shouldn't have exchanged fire with Li Shengjun at this noon." God knows that the sun is so hot, and it completely eliminates the dampness on his own board without a trace, so that Li Shenghuo has a very big effect. Although this effect is also effective for Li Shengjun, it seems that Li Shengjun has a countermeasure to this - they actually prepared a large number of sandbags on the ship. Use sand to extinguish the oil fire. That's a very effective move. Why didn't I think about it? Jiang Qin became more and more annoyed.

"Don't be frustrated, let's make some changes to our current plans." Lu Meng gently patted Jiang Qin's shoulder and comforted him: "Actually, our situation is not as bad as you think. Even if we completely abandon the 25 warships damaged in front of us, we still have a strong force of 30 ships, 70 ships, and more than 100 ships, and with such strength, we can at least support the arrival of the other part of our fleet, even if we cannot annihilate Li Sheng's fleet in one go. I think we can use the same strategy that Han Dang suggested at the beginning. The baits have already been chosen, and these battleships that have not yet been repaired are at the moment. ”

"What? Are you crazy? Use these battleships as bait? That's a full ten ships, fifteen ships! There were 5,000 soldiers on him. These 5,000 people may not be anything to a big force like Li Sheng and Cao Cao, but for us, whose population is not large, these 5,000 people are a big number, and giving them up like this is something that you and I can't afford. Jiang Qin looked at Lu Meng in surprise, and seemed to be a little unpredictable in his heart about the true thoughts of this naval governor.

"That's a question for later. The key lies not in whether these people died or not, but in whether or not we can defeat the enemy and win the victory against Li Sheng. If we can defeat the enemy, then today's sacrifice will naturally be justified without anyone arguing with it. If we fail to defeat the enemy, then everything we do today will be considered a mistake, including our abandonment of the city of Ulin to fight the enemy. What doesn't judge heroes by success or failure is bullshit. If we win, we are heroes, and if we lose, then we are bears! Lu Meng said coldly, completely dissecting what he thought was at stake to Jiang Qin.

"This ...... This is really too ......" Jiang Qin listened to Lu Meng's words, and stammered and couldn't say a complete sentence. After all, what Lu Meng said was completely different from what he had always believed. “…… It's so unfair. In the last mutter, he just whispered these five words.

"Unfair? What else is fair in this world? Rather than complaining about this, we should start thinking about the battle at hand. Don't you want to win? Lu Meng shook his head, looked at Jiang Qin, who was a little incoherent by his words, and felt a lot of emotion in his heart. He affirmed that Jiang Qin was a real soldier, but such a real soldier always seemed a little naïve in the face of all kinds of politics. "Maybe there's no way around it." Lu Meng felt so, but he didn't have the kung fu at the moment, and he didn't have the time to change Jiang Qin's naivety.

"The battle at the moment? That's something to think about. But my thinking is different from yours, and I really don't want to give up these five thousand soldiers in my hands. Jiang Qin stubbornly insisted on his opinion.

"You ......" Lu Meng's face turned red and became a little angry: "What if I have a strong order, you have to obey such an order?" I am the governor of this battle, and I am in charge of everything here. I will now order you to abandon the ships that have been hit for the time being, retreat, and use these ships as bait against Li Sheng's sailors. ”

"Can I refuse?" Jiang Qin asked with a bitter face.

"If you refuse, you will lose command of this battle." Lu Meng made the result clear.

"I see......!" Jiang Qin nodded, and said helplessly to Lu Meng: "I will do what you order." But I reserve my opinion. ”

"Whatever you want...... I just want to win. This war has already pinned too many ideas on our Jiangdong. So only victory will satisfy our requirements. Lu Meng nodded indifferently, and said a little gloomy: "Sometimes, some cruel sacrifices are completely necessary. After all, Ci is not in charge of the army. ”

"All for victory?" Jiang Qin looked at Lu Meng.

"Well, it's all about victory." Lu Meng nodded heavily, and his words became very firm.

Looking at Lu Meng's resolute expression, Jiang Qin understood Lu Meng's thoughts a little in his heart: "Actually, he is also thinking about the best interests of the lord." Thinking of this, Jiang Qin decided that he would not continue to oppose Lu Meng, but seize the time to carry out the current plan.

The bright red flag was unfurled on the lookout at the highest point of the building, and a huge four-cornered flag and two smaller pennants conveyed to everyone such an order: the front of the fleet broke through, and the middle and rear parts of the fleet retreated, and then dispersed and rearranged into the traditional formation of the Jiangdong Army - crane wings. Its target was the left flank of Li Sheng's fleet, the group of heavy ballista battleships to the south.

"This is clearly to give up on us!" When the order came, the front army of the Jiangdong Army was in chaos. Fighting to the death, they did not give up in the slightest when their own warships were on fire. It can be said that they all gave their best to win the battle. However, the result of this hard work was not recognized by their own families, on the contrary, they were the first to encounter the abandonment of their own families. "This abandonment is clearly a betrayal." They all feel so. Although some of them also know that this betrayal is actually for their own armies to better defeat each other, it is one thing to know, and it is another thing to fully agree. No one wants to be sacrificed, especially when they are still fighting, and this kind of sharp knife from the rear is too deadly.

"What should I do?" The soldiers on the ship asked their commanders.

"Surrender!" "Evacuate!" "Accept your fate! "The captains of each ship are different, and the orders given to their own men are also different. After the reorganization, the fleet did not have the position of front governor. Because Han Dang, as the front governor, had already been sent to carry out the attack plan, the front of the entire naval army was completely under Jiang Qin's own command. This left the entire front army without a unified command. When his captain decided that Jiang Qin's order was unreasonable, they became confused according to their own understanding. There were those who hoisted the white flag, those who fled, and those who resolutely obeyed the order to charge forward, causing the whole river to boil.

"What the hell are they going to do again?" Seeing the boiling at the front of the Jiangdong Army, Gao Heng was slightly stunned, but he was a little puzzled. In the face of the other party's strangeness, he became a little cautious. He did not know the meaning of Koto's flag, so he could only judge the situation of the other side from the actions of the opposing fleet. After seeing the chaos of the front army of the Jiangdong Navy and the retreat of the rear army, he finally determined: the Jiangdong Army was carrying out a strong man's wrist-breaking move. They wanted to abandon the ships that were not capable of resisting strikes, and then regroup their fleets to fight themselves. Here they use their comrades as bait. Although they retreated weakly, they had much more choice. If our army ignores their own one, then they will certainly send this part of our men to our rear to reorganize the formation. If we try to wipe out this army in one fell swoop, we will spend enough time to get them in formation and outflank from both flanks. This is not impossible, Gao Heng is completely sure that Jiang Qin is playing this calculation. Of course, even Jiang Qin himself could not have imagined that when his intention to sacrifice the former army was exposed, his former army would actually fall into such chaos.

"No one wants to be sacrificed casually. These people in the Jiangdong Army are a group of people with brains, but it is a pity that they cannot be a good soldier. Gao Heng was somewhat regretful, and of course he also revealed a lot of sarcasm: "They are too smart, and soldiers don't need to be so smart." This is his emotion, and it is also a rare loss of mind at his moment. This was obviously not allowed on the battlefield, but fortunately he only lost his mind for a moment, and quickly became upright again, and gave an order to his subordinates: "Surround it, chase it, and eat the enemy first." We need to be short-sighted. This is not a humble word, but Gao Heng's sincere words at the moment, because he knows that he needs to be defeated at the moment. So ...... "how can you keep your defeat from being doubted by the enemy?" "Naturally, following in the footsteps of the enemy and adding some variation of your own is the most appropriate thing to do.

The fleet began to move under Gao Heng's orders. The left flank, as the main combat force, and the right flank, as a high-speed assault force, increased their speed. The bamboo sails were slowly raised, and the fleet was lined up in dense battle columns, constantly roaring and sending out one giant arrow after another that could set the opponent's warship on fire. The flames continued to rise on the wooden deck, and the red flames and thick gunsmoke clearly showed Li Shengjun's battle intentions in front of Jiang Qin and them—Li Shengjun had been fooled, and they wanted to eat the bait they had left for them in one go. Although there is a bit of a problem with the bait, for now, everything seems to be going in a good direction. There seems to be a real chance that our plan will succeed.

The main fleet of the Jiangdong Army, after retreating three miles, began to arrange its formation again. And the front of the Jiangdong Army, those poor people who were abandoned, spent the rest of their miserable lives under the constant blows of Li Shengjun. Of course, this is after excluding those who are willing to surrender. Those who dared to resist, or who wanted to escape, were surprised to find that they seemed to be able to use their ships as floating attack platforms on the river. Needless to say, those who want to escape are frightened to find that they can't escape from Li Shengjun's grasp at all, and it is Li Shengjun's right wing troops who are responsible for blocking them, these are completely composed of medium-sized ballista battleships, after Gao Heng's improvements, they have completely reached the level of heavy ballista battleships in bed crossbow attack points, and their speed is still much faster than that of heavy ships. The damn slow, one- or two-mast battleships of the Jiangdong Army were no match for the speed of these medium-sized ballista battleships. The person who wanted to escape was intercepted, and he was very unwilling to fall into the battle situation in the entanglement.

The battle was soon over. Much faster than Gao Heng and Jiang Qin imagined. Because not many of them will resist to the end under such a blow. Some of them wanted to resist, but after seeing Li Shengjun's powerful attack power and the safety of those comrades who surrendered, they were unwilling to make a helpless choice that tended to their lives. They don't want to die, especially in this battle where there is absolutely no victory in sight. So, the final result came out, and in about half an hour, the 25 warships of the Jiangdong Army that were abandoned, with 3 destroyed and 22 surrendered, made people once again see the strength of Li Sheng's fleet.

"It's strong. Are we going to defeat such a formidable enemy? Jiang Qin muttered this, and his body trembled slightly.

"Are you scared?" Lu Meng squinted at him, and there was some uncertainty in his words.

"How can it? I'm excited, excited! Only by defeating such a formidable enemy can we prove our own strength. Jiang Qin said affirmatively. At this moment, his fleet had taken advantage of the time brought to him by the sacrifice of the previous army to complete the formation of the fleet, the Crane Wing Formation, which had been repeatedly studied by Jiang Qin, Lu Meng, Huang Gai, Han Dang, and Cheng Pu, and only re-improved and determined this formation, and once again opened its wings in front of Li Shengjun.

The teams that had already surrendered were ordered by Gao Heng to advance to the public security in their rear. This is done without any supervision. A large number of smoky battleships left the battlefield on the broken sails, and none of Li Shengjun's warships existed on their left or right. Repeatedly, Li Shengjun's side completely believed them.

"It was a crazy decision." Those who surrendered could not help but think so in their hearts. But even with such madness, they still didn't have the heart to rebel. They had been frightened by the powerful attack of Li Sheng's fleet, and they were also heartbroken by the ruthless abandonment from their original compatriots. They chose to obey Li Sheng's orders and sailed their warships away, far away from the river for which they had shed blood. The war was over for them.

Irrelevant people left the battlefield. At a distance of about four miles, Li Shengjun's Shuanglong Formation and Jiangdong Army's Crane Wing Formation faced each other across the river - the so-called Shuanglong Formation was actually a simple array of two battle lines. When giving a unified name to such a formation, someone once wanted to call him "Snake Formation", because the appearance of the fleets of the two battle lines attacking in one direction at the same time was indeed like two entangled snakes, but Gao Heng felt that this name was not good, he felt that it seemed better to call it "Double Dragon Formation", at least this name was very imposing.

Of course, for the current battle situation, the name of the opponent's formation is irrelevant, the key lies in the intention of the opponent's formation. After seeing that the Jiangdong Army had changed the formation of its fleet to the traditional crane wing formation, Gao Heng had been thinking about a question: "What are the people of the Jiangdong Army thinking?" What made them change their formation again? Didn't they accept the defeat of the last battle? Still is...... Are they all a bunch of fools? ”

Gao Heng shook his head involuntarily as he thought about it: of course his enemies couldn't be a bunch of fools. If you admit that they are a bunch of fools, doesn't that mean that you are also a bunch of fools on your side? You know, until now, the battle between yourself and that side is not over. The two sides seem to be maintaining a tie. "Perhaps, they have discovered a new feature of the Crane Wing Formation." Gao Heng thought like this, but his eyes widened and he observed more carefully, but he was disappointed in the end, because he observed for a long time, and also found some differences in the details of the Jiangdong Navy Army, but he never grasped what kind of actions these differences would play in the war.

The Crane Wing Formation of the Jiangdong Army at present is very different from the Crane Wing Formation formed a few days ago, and even in the past: the warship of the Lou Ship, which is not fast, but has the strongest offensive ability and the strongest defensive ability, is directly erected in front of everyone as the periphery of the entire Jiangdong Army. The Crane Wing Array is still composed of phalanxes, but such phalanxes have a hard shell. As for the small and medium-sized warships such as the ships and the boats, they were all placed in the safe zone surrounded by the ships. The speed of the entire Jiangdong Army fleet was based on the speed of the building ships. Although this baseline speed has decreased compared to the original, after having strong offensive and defensive capabilities, such a decline does not seem to be in everyone's minds.

"It's still worth it." After Gao Heng saw all this, he gave such a definition to the changes in the Jiangdong Army.

"As soon as the battle begins, the advantages of the enemy's fleet so laid out will be brought into play. The strong survivability of the building ships will ensure that the formation of the entire fleet will not be easily broken. This will make our assault difficult, and the time will be delayed, thus giving the enemy the opportunity to compress our space for movement. Gao Heng saw this point for the arrangement of the Jiangdong Army at the moment. He wanted to continue to look at it like this, but the distance between the two armies made it impossible for him to have this leisurely time.

"We have to adjust our battle plan." Gao Heng thought so. He found that with the reduction of warships on the Jiangdong side, the size of the Crane Wing Array gradually shrank. Compared with the original crane wing formation, the current crane wing formation, the two protruding points on the left and right are not very far apart, which makes the attack method that Gao Heng used to disrupt the Jiangdong army's formation unable to be used here again, and the most commonly used tactics of the Shuanglong Array to swim around the two wings have also suffered a strong challenge, and the enemy's idea of the layout of the building ships on the left and right wings is likely to become a dull counterfire, which is unacceptable to Gao Heng.

"The two fleets on the left and right are all moving for me. Our formation is ...... Pair? Radius! Gao Heng thought about it and ordered loudly. For the success of the overall plan, the detachments on the left and right sides must not be merged, so fighting separately has become Gao Heng's only choice. Since they are fighting on their own, how to concentrate the fleet's firepower is very important. Although the battle line was the most suitable formation for Li Shengjun's battleships to exert their firepower, in terms of concentrating firepower to attack his point, such a formation was definitely inferior to the upper circle formation. Although the Fang Yuan Array also had many weaknesses, considering that he had to be reasonably defeated in this battle, Gao Heng still directly chose Fang Yuan as the formation of his fleet.

One mile, the confrontation between the two sides began again.

Li Shengjun's fleet formed a square formation and sprinkled all the attacks on one point in the form of a salvo from the southernmost one to the Jiangdong Army. Although the firepower projected by the entire fleet was not much, because the whole team was in motion and the firepower projected was in one direction, the continuity of firepower was guaranteed to a certain extent. Of course, there is a gap between the attacks of each warship, but for this operation, Li Shengjun's gap is still within a tolerable range.

Countless thunder rockets were sprayed in one direction, and the result was that the building ship in the lead of the Jiangdong Army quickly fell into the raging flames. Although the people on board quickly launched a rescue, the feathers of the arrows, which were entirely oil-incendiary, made the fire less easy to extinguish. Soon the ship was in an irreparable position.

This is just the beginning, not the end. In fact, as the Jiangdong Army's formation continued to press forward, more and more warships entered the range of Li Sheng's fleet and were destroyed by the wave after wave of salvos from Li Sheng's battleships.

"It's like a queue to death. We were sent forward like this, and then we were eliminated one by one under the blow of Li Shengjun. Li Shengjun's battleships were much better than mine in terms of maneuverability. The distance between them and us has not been shortened by our efforts, on the contrary, the distance has always existed, and our counterattack against them has always been in a weak state, which is simply negligible for them. They are like a rotating millstone, and we are like stupid beans sent forward, little by little they are helpless to grind out their flesh and blood. At first, Jiang Qin did not find anything wrong, but as time went on, more and more warships fell into this trouble, Jiang Qin suddenly sensed that the situation was not in his favor, and he found that such an attack was completely suppressed by the other party, and he was always difficult to fight back - this was undoubtedly an unfair war, and perhaps it could be called a massacre.

"Damn, I've never met such a tough opponent." Jiang Qin gritted his teeth, he had already confirmed a fact after fighting Gao Heng so many times. That is, the general of the navy on the opposite side really has water combat skills that are completely comparable to his own, and the two can be regarded as-for-tat in combat.

"What should I do?" Jiang Qin glared at the battle situation ahead, and quickly issued an order to the fleet: "The ship dodges and lets the ships and boats launch an assault on Li Shengjun." ”

Jiang Qin undoubtedly had a high level of water warfare literacy, and he discovered the weakness of Li Shengjun's fleet in such a formation almost in the blink of an eye: Li Shengjun's formation certainly gave full play to their firepower superiority, but at the same time, because of the use of a non-linear formation, the biggest advantage of Li Shengjun's fleet, "speed", was suppressed to a very low level. Li Shengjun was maneuvering, but this maneuver was maneuvering in a limited space, and the scope of their operation was not large. Jiang Qin was absolutely sure that if he used his ships and boats to attack Li Shengjun's fleet in this short distance of about a mile, then Li Shengjun would definitely fall into the melee combat he most wanted to see. At that time, you can be considered to have a victory.

"That's a great idea." Jiang Qin smiled, the essence in his eyes flashed, and he shouted loudly: "Assault! Assault! ”

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