The night was frighteningly quiet, and since entering Wusongkou, the advance of the Allied navy had been unusually smooth, and they had not been attacked in any way, not even from rifle bullets. Seymour was deeply worried about this, and at the same time there was a disturbing place, under the silent night sky, Seymour suddenly woke up, since the breakthrough into the river today, the once busy Huangpu River, all kinds of ships are pitiful, and after nightfall, there is no one, only the naval warships of the coalition forces are left on the river.

When Seymour saw that there was no other ship on the river, he immediately asked Gordon, and Gordon was also very strange, "A few days ago, the ships on the Huangpu River were still going back and forth as usual, why can't you see a single ship today, even if it is night, there should be cargo ships docked at the docks on both sides of the strait." ”

Seymour thought that his fleet must have fallen into an elaborate trap, and he wanted to retreat immediately, but he couldn't, the soldiers and civilians in the concession would not agree, and the warships were now their spiritual sustenance.

"Lower the dinghy and sampan and step up patrolling the upper waters!" Seymour gave an order that the sailors hated, and no one liked to sail up the river in the middle of the night, but they cheered up and began to lower the skiff and sampan, for Seymour added a sentence to the end: "Now you are within the enemy's borders!" Anything can happen! ”

When the Odisha was still slowly lowering the skiff on both sides, a dense spherical object on the upstream river floated towards the fleet, and several sailors sitting in the skiff looked through the lights, and one of the sailors shouted in horror: "The Russians are drifting mines!" ”

In the mid-19th century, the Russian B? C. Yatupi invented an electrolyte-triggered anchor mine. In the Crimean War of 1854-1856. Tsarist Russia used this kind of trigger anchor mine in the defense of harbors. For this kind of swarthy anchor mine with a few tentacles, the officers and men of the coalition navy have a deep memory.

Thunder bodies are usually spherical in shape. Coated with black lacquer, it is not easy to find. Five tentacles on the thunder body. It is the key to causing the explosion of a mine. Each antennae consists of a zinc cup, a carbon rod, and a glass tube filled with electrolyte. The antennae are made according to the principle of the battery, each tentacle is like a dry battery, and the zinc cup is equal to the zinc skin of the outer layer of the battery; The carbon rod resembles a carbon core with a copper tip on the top of a battery; The electrolyte in the glass tube is the viscous substance in the battery. When the ship bends the tentacles, the glass tube shatters, and the electrolyte flows between the zinc cup and the carbon rod, and a chemical reaction occurs, forming an electric current. The current generated by the antennae is passed to the electric detonator, which detonates, causing the mine to explode. This is the reason why the anchor mine is on the verge of breaking out.

The Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Army began the development of this kind of mine as early as two years ago, and their technology and usage are more mature, but it is the first time they have been used in actual combat, so the troops that released the mines have placed more than 300 mines, which are densely spread all over the river. Many of the passing ships were intercepted or guided by the Taiping army to dock at other river bay ports to ensure that tonight's attack would be effective.

Soon the poor Odisha was hit by four mines, and according to the weight of the anchor mines, the Taiping Army subdivided the anchor mines into three types: large, medium and small, because the Odisha had the largest hull. Therefore, it also withstands the most mines.

The violent explosion shook through the quiet night sky, and the left side of the Otdisa was immediately blown open four large openings in the firelight, and the left bow was damaged. Since it is an offensive anchor mine, it has a very high sensitivity. If its own weight is hindered during the rafting process, it may be stormed, and people in the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau like to call this kind of mine nervous.

The explosion of a large anchor mine is very powerful. The pressure wave it generates can damage enemy ships, and its radius of destruction is generally 5-6 meters. A medium-sized ship. One or two mines explode to sink it. or cause severe damage and loss of combat ability. After the violent explosion, its hull quickly tilted to the left side within a few minutes, and soon sank to the bottom, leaving only its more than ten meters high mast on the surface of the river.

This is the middle and lower reaches of the Huangpu River, the depth of the water is generally more than 10 meters, and the deepest depth is 17 meters, which can swallow all the warships of the coalition army. As the Odisha first began to explode after being hit by a mine, several coalition warships on the upstream side of the anchor began to explode. The cruisers Tyria, Cayades, Moldis, Juno, Igisha, Lily, and Lundav began to be hit by mines, and the successive explosions brought about a sky-high fire, illuminating the entire Huangpu River as if it were daylight.

"God, what happened to the ships of the Navy?" The coalition officers and soldiers on the shore concession heard the explosion and looked towards the river, many did not understand that the coalition warships were attacked by something, although the Russians had used anchor mines, but after all, the thing was arranged in a large area of sea and would not move.

"Is it a keg tactic?" At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in the last century, in order to attack a British warship anchored at the mouth of the Trava River in Philadelphia, North American militia made mines in small beer kegs and floated down the river on January 7, 1778. At that time, although these mines did not hit the warship due to the problem of the fuse device, they suddenly exploded when they were picked up by British sailors, killing and injuring some people, and the history is known as the "keg war". This tactic is still told by some sailors as a war history, so some people speculate that the Taiping army cast the same thing upstream, although it is not very accurate, but the general way of fighting is the same.

The explosion alarmed the remaining coalition warships, and because of the mooring position, some of them escaped, and they were sheltered by the warships that docked a little earlier, and the swarming mines were stopped by the battleships. After rescuing several sailors who had fallen overboard, and learning of the deadly mines floating upstream, the remaining coalition warships pulled anchor in panic and set sail, preparing to head downstream.

In the process of escaping, the "Curlew", "Lopwing", "Dwarf", "Her", and "Midge" were hit by mines one after another and exploded, their position was in the center, and after the ships in front of them sank, the mines continued to come towards them, and these ships were hit by mines before they could start. The Guru, Lopvan, Gnome, and Helknight sank one after another, and the Miji was badly wounded and sank halfway down the road shortly after setting sail.

Only the three lucky ships, the Thistle, the Kestrel, and the Vigilant, were able to escape with the skillful control of the sailors on board.

When the ships came to this water, they saw that the water was full of sunken ship masts and burning wreckage, and there was no longer a single target worth attacking on the entire river.

After a ship crashed into his own mine and exploded and sank, the commander of the fleet decisively ordered to abandon the plan to continue the attack downstream, because he did not know how many mines were still caught in weeds, wreckage or other things on this section of the river, and there was no target to attack, so he decided to abandon the death action.

The people on the shore of the concession bravely drove small boats into the river to rescue the sailors who had fallen into the water and did not die, of course, they also encountered a few mines, the experienced sailors used long poles to avoid the tentacles of the thing to push the mines away, and the inexperienced people died of curiosity, they usually touched the tentacles of the mines, which were very easy to break, and they would explode within seconds after breaking.

Seymour swam with a few sailors and fled to the shore, while most of the officers and men sank to the bottom with the ship, because the incident was so sudden that many of the sailors were still sleeping in the cabins, and when they woke up, they were already flooded at the bottom of the river.

The chaotic rescue operation was so shocking with the shouts and cries from the shore that Seymour landed on the bank of the river a few dozen meters below the concession, and he and several sailors were all soaked, and they lost a heavy load, including swords and guns, in order to float in the water. After going ashore, they walked back to the concession, but fortunately they did not encounter the Taiping army along the way.

The Sisir, Gisrael, and Awakening fled a few miles downstream, and at a narrow bend their ships were intercepted by several iron cables across the river, and before they could lower their boats and go to cut the cables, the rocket artillery of the Taiping army on both sides of the strait released dozens of rocket artillery at them. This weapon, which resembles the Congreve rocket, was familiar to British sailors, who had used it on enemy ships in previous naval battles, but this time it was they who were attacked by this rocket. They were surprised to find that the Taiping Army's rockets seemed to be more accurate and more powerful.

Soon the three fish that slipped through the net were also quickly hit by rockets and caught fire, most of the Taiping army used incendiary rockets, three warships ignited a fire, at first the sailors on the ship also came out to put out the fire, but as the fire became bigger and bigger, the sailors also gave up fighting the fire, and jumped into the water to escape, and soon the sailors who escaped by luck were captured by the Taiping soldiers and village soldiers who were waiting on the shore.

After a night of chaos, the mines flowing down the river were stopped by fishing nets and iron cables arranged by the Taiping army, and the Taiping army sent small boats to touch these dangerous torpedoes with long poles and detonate them to relieve the hidden dangers, which was the easiest way to settle the contract.

Just when the allied warships were attacked by the Taiping army, the Taiping army on land also launched an attack on the landed allied army, and the batteries on both sides of the strait were attacked by the Taiping infantry at night...... (To be continued......)