Li Xinming was taken aback when he saw the Taiping Army's big war ships open fire, and he couldn't imagine that the artillery of the Taiping Army's big war ships was so fierce, and it was difficult for him to stop the Taiping Army's sailors with only fast crab boats and some small boats, so he ordered the fast crab ships to go out of battle quickly, break away from the sampans and the wings of the boats, and rush straight into the Taiping Army's naval division.

Fourteen fast crab boats rushed forward bravely, the speed was the same as Li Xinming expected, but he didn't expect that the generals of the Taiping Army's sailors were very familiar with fast crab boats, and the advance pre-firing of artillery was accurate, and when they rushed to the front, Li Xinming found that only six fast crab boats were left to break through the fire net of the Taiping Army, and the river behind him was full of burning and sinking fast crab boats.

On the river, the figure of the Taiping Army's naval fleet was shrouded in gunsmoke, but when he heard the drums of the civil war, Li Xinming stood at the bow of the ship with the sail cable and looked over, and then roared loudly: "The long-haired thief's warship is coming, ready to fight in close quarters!" The order was given, and the sailors and sailors on the ship were busy, and their melee weapons such as spears, axes, harpoons, and hooks were brought out, and the gunners, musketeers, and crossbowmen each raised their long-range weapons and prepared to fire.

In the smoke of gunpowder, more than a dozen sand boats gradually appeared, and these warships were guarded by some sampan boats. Li Xinming spat at the mouth fiercely, he knew that the sand boats of the Taiping army were powerful, and he couldn't help but beat a drum in his heart.

The sand boat is an excellent ship type in the ancient Chinese coastal sea transportation, also known as the "anti-sand flat-bottomed boat", is one of the "four ancient ships" in China, in the Tang and Song dynasties, it has been formed, and has become the main ship of China's northern sea area and inland navigation. Because it is suitable for navigating the shallow waterway with many sandy beaches, it is named the sand boat.

The Taiping army drove flat-bottomed sand boats along the Yangtze River estuary. It is also a kind of sand boat, this kind of sand boat has a unique structure, square head and square tail, commonly known as square stern, with spacious deck surface, small depth and low freeboard; The use of girder arches allows the deck to quickly drain waves. There is an outbow for easy installation of the elevator, and a virtual canopy for easy maneuvering. The ship is equipped with multiple masts and sails, and the speed is relatively fast. The rudder area is large and can be lifted, and some rudder blades are lowered below the bottom of the ship when going to sea, which can increase the effect of the rudder, reduce the drift, and the rudder can be raised in shallow water. The bottom of the sand boat is flat and you can sit on the beach. Not afraid of stranding, shallow draft. It is less affected by the tide. The sand boat has many masts and sails, high masts and high sails, shallow draft, low resistance, can sail fast at sea, and has good seaworthiness; Large load capacity. It is generally recorded that the carrying capacity of sand ships is 4,000 to 6,000 stones, which is about 500 to 800 tons. During the Daoguang period of sand boats, the total number of sand boats in the country was more than 10,000, and there were more than 5,000 sand ships in Shanghai alone.

After Li Xinming and other Guangdong sailors came to Chongming Island. There are also a lot of sand boats in the formation to help, but most of the people who control the sand boats are the Qing army of the Jiangnan Navy, Li Xinming and other sailors in Fujian and Guangdong are not used to operating, but Li Xinming knows that the size of these sand boats is comparable to that of fast crab boats, and because there are no left and right oars, a lot of space in the ship is freed up, so the troops carried are more than the fast crab boats.

In an instant, Li Xinming made up his mind and ordered all ships to continue to advance rapidly, relying on the advantage that the fast crab boat was faster than the sand boat, he planned to rush into the enemy formation, disrupt the enemy's deployment, and perhaps delay a little more effort.

Soon the ships on both sides approached in the roar of their bow guns, and the sailors and sailors on both sides of the deck were fired with crossbows, muskets, and muskets, and the sides of the ships on both sides were covered with cowhides and fishing nets, and water was poured on them to guard against the enemy's bows and lead bullets, and the dense bows and lead bullets on both sides hit the cowhide and fishing nets and slammed into the nets.

Li Xinming raised his blade high and shouted: "Quickly row, quickly row, rush over!" I heard a bang, followed by the sound of the mast snapping, and when I looked back, it was the mainmast of my ship that was hit by a chain bullet from the Taiping Army. Chain shells are two small iron bullets smaller than the bore caliber of the cannon are connected together with chains, and after firing, one shell will drag the other shell centrifugally and fly out, so it will tear a big hole in the sail, or tear the rigging, and if you are lucky, you can even tear off the mast and paralyze the enemy ship.

Li Xinming's ship's mainmast was unluckily interrupted, and the longsail and mainmast fell and overwhelmed more than a dozen people. Li Xinming licked his dry lips and shouted viciously at the oarsmen on both sides: "Don't pay attention! Keep paddling! ”

Who knew that the oarsmen had just rowed twice more in the sound of the neat trumpet, and the row of oarsmen on the left could not row, and when he looked over, he saw that a row of wooden oars on the left was entangled by fishing nets and hooks thrown by the Taiping army. Li Xinming's boat suddenly turned sideways, and the people on the boat were almost shaken.

Li Xinming saw that the ship had lost the strength to move forward, and immediately shouted: "Prepare to fight with the blade!" Before the words fell, dozens of hooks and cables flew up, and there were more than 20 hooks on each side of the ship, and there was a Taiping Army sand boat on the left and right sides approaching, and the Taiping Army sailors on it struggled to pull the hooks and ropes, and slowly pulled into the distance between the two ships.

Li Xinming rushed over and cut a hook and rope, and shouted angrily to the sailors beside him: "Hurry up and cut the cable!" Muskets and crossbowmen beat Lao Tzu hard! Gunners, turn the bow cannon sideways! ”

Before the words fell, several feather arrows flew by, Li Xinming's left arm was hit by an arrow, he squatted down in pain, followed by a loud sound of ping-pong, several lead bullets hit the side of the ship in front of Li Xinming, and sawdust flew. With a bang, on the side of the ship, which was only three steps away from Li Xinming's location, sawdust and fire splashed, and the huge impact force beat the five Qing sailors there to pieces on the spot, but it was a Taiping cannonball that hit here, and a huge hole appeared on the side of the ship.

Two guards came to protect Li Xinming, Li Xinming gritted his teeth and pulled out his feather arrows, and shouted loudly: "Leave me alone, prepare to fight!" ”

Although the Qing sailors tried their best to cut the cable with axes and broadswords, and the musketeers, crossbowmen and gunners on the ship desperately fought back at the Taiping sand boats on both sides, they were outnumbered in the end, and the bow cannon was hit by a cannonball and immediately rolled out several feet away, and the hot barrel rolled over with huge inertia and crushed two people to death.

Finally, the sand boats of the Taiping army on both sides approached, and the sailors of the Taiping army flew fiercely, or flew over with hooks, and soon Li Xinming was on the deck of the ship, and the sailors of the two armies fought together.

Li Xinming commanded his men to resist to the death, but they were outnumbered in the end, and there were enemy troops on the left and right sides, and the Qing sailors on the ship resisted only a cup of tea, and they were all slaughtered by the Taiping navy. Li Xinming wielded a knife to fight, and the sailors of the Taiping Army saw that there were many Qing army guards around him, and knew that he was a big official.

After Li Xinming was pressed, he scolded loudly and angrily, after the Taiping Army sailors occupied Li Xinming's boat, there was endless cheering, several sailors escorted Li Xinming to the sand boat, and a Taiping Army general wrapped in a red turban and wearing a short coat said hehedaxiao: "Who are you?" What kind of official is it? ”

Li Xinming scolded angrily: "You gang of robbers, thieves, and thieves are not worthy of asking Lao Tzu's name!" ”

The general of the Taiping Army was none other than Zhao Shunping, and he snorted coldly and scolded with a laugh: "Bullshit! You dog officials who only know how to oppress the people, and you are still showing off your power when you die, little ones, send him back and ask for a reward! ”

Li Xinming was tied under the mast, and when he looked around, he saw that the other five fast crab boats on the river were also surrounded by the Taiping army's sand boats, sampans and other small boats, and I saw groups of Taiping army sailors wrapped in red turbans swarming up, and slowly the gray cloth of the Qing army sailors gradually fell into the red ocean of the Taiping army, and the battle flags on the Qing army's fast crab boats were lowered, and then the apricot yellow flag of the Taiping army was raised. The small boats such as the sampan of the Qing army in the back saw the defeat of the fast crab fleet, and they turned around and fled, but most of these small boats had no sails, and they could not outrun the Taiping army's sand boats in the case of going against the water with only oars, and were chased and wiped out one by one.

After solving Li Xinming's fleet, the sailors of the Taiping Army thundered with joy from top to bottom, followed by the red flags of each ship, and continued to move towards the three forks, keeping an equal distance between the ships, the front and rear guide ships were not chaotic at all, and the big ships and small boats covered each other, and they cooperated very skillfully.

Li Xinming witnessed all this under the mast, and a sense of remorse rose, the sailors of the Taiping Army were definitely not as vulnerable as they thought, they were familiar with water warfare, and they were not at all under the elite of the Guangdong sailors, and they were not a gang of thieves who could only fight land battles. The Taiping Army's naval division did not appear until this moment, and after coming to see the combat strength of the Taiping Army's land division and naval division for several days, Li Xinming never believed that Shanghai City was a bait that the Taiping Army could not capture, but a decoy deliberately left by the Taiping Army. Li Xinming faintly felt that the siege of Shanghai was a trap, and this well-designed trap was specially prepared for the Guangdong naval fleet, and it seemed that this must be the masterpiece of the puppet king of the West.

With the destruction of Li Xinming's fleet, the remaining fleet on Ye Changchun's side was also attacked by the Taiping Army's sailors. Ye Changchun personally led people to go into the water to chisel iron chains, and laid three iron cables with thick bowls under the water, Ye Changchun and other Qing army water ghosts desperately chiseled two, but then found that their fleet was bombarded by the Taiping army's big war ship artillery, the Taiping army's sand boats, sampans and other small boats quickly rushed in, and the Taiping army on the boat used fishing forks and long knives to slash and kill the Qing army water ghosts under the water, and dozens of Taiping army water ghosts wore tight water supports, and dived underwater with sharp blades in their mouths to fight.

The turbid river waves rolled, and after a while, blood and corpses floated up, Ye Changchun's body was also among them, although he killed three Taiping Army sailors, but he was still inserted by a fishing fork, and several Taiping Army sailors took the opportunity to rush up and ask for his life.

After solving Ye Changchun's fleet, the remaining Qing army's Hongdan fleet was exposed to the combined attack of the Taiping army's land and water, and the victory or defeat was already clear at this moment. (To be continued......)