When Zheng Rong heard this, he got up and walked around the side of the ship, returned to the throne, and said: "The Lingnan Army just put some garbage on the dock, and the situation has not changed much, why is Yizhi discouraged?" Why don't you hurry up and tell Zhao Chengxiao to go down quickly and occupy Yanziji Wharf quickly, so as not to delay the hour and affect the morale of the army. ”

Qiu Yizhi's heart suddenly tightened when he heard this-forcibly attacking under such an unfavorable situation would inevitably be resisted by the opponent with all his might, although these centaurs under his command were strong, they would inevitably be damaged, which Qiu Yizhi did not want to see anyway.

In desperation, he raised his eyes and saw that his master Zhong Li Kuang was standing silently behind the emperor's lineup, and he couldn't help but glance at him with eyes that were almost pleading. Unexpectedly, Zhong Li Kuang also happened to stare at Qiu Yizhi with the same helpless eyes, as if to tell him to obey the emperor's orders, and hurriedly ordered to storm the Yanziji dock.

Qiu Yizhi was already cold at this point, suddenly gritted his teeth, turned around and walked to the side of the boat, beckoned Zhao Chengxiao, swallowed hard, and said: "Brother Zhao, now that the arrow is on the string, I have to send it." Although Zheng Yu, this kid has exhausted all the tricks and made so many pieces on the dock, as long as we make proper arrangements, we can also take this dock smoothly. ”

Zhao Chengxiao is also a person who knows the soldiers, and he has long seen the scene of the wharf, and he can't help but feel a little weak in his heart, and said: "My lord, now our army is a landing operation, so the starting point, the attack route, and the target of the intention to capture are very clear, there is no trick to play, it seems that we have to attack strongly......

As he was talking, he saw a burst of war drums beating from the Yanziji Wharf, and then suddenly from the houses on both sides, countless Lingnan soldiers walked out, each holding a long and short, far and near weapon, and quickly lined up in formation-some frontal formation, some flank-answering, and some covertly shooting-obviously had been prepared for a long time, waiting for the imperial soldiers and horses to attack.

Seeing this situation, Qiu Yizhi knew that if this battle was stupid and hard, he would have to defeat and cripple his group of cronies, so he gritted his teeth and said fiercely: "I have a countermeasure, I have a countermeasure." ”

After he finished these two incoherent sentences, he suddenly heard the war drums beating on the dock, and the soldiers of the Lingnan Army on the garrison opened their bows and arrows, and shot at the boat in unison.

Fortunately, Li Shengjie's ship—now the emperor's imperial boat—was still far away from the archers of the Lingnan army, and the ship was extremely tall, so few arrows hit the deck, but a dense layer of turns was nailed to the side of the ship, shooting a majestic ship like a huge hedgehog.

Qiu Yizhi hurriedly persuaded the emperor to move to the cabin, but saw Li Shengjie running up in three steps and two steps, seeing that his beloved ship was shot by a bow and arrow as if he had a numb face with smallpox, not to mention how distressed he was: "Brother, why don't we take anchor first and retreat some distance from the dock?" ”

Qiu Yizhi was about to answer, but saw that the Lingnan army had brought over dozens of charcoal basins lit on fire from nowhere, and brought up arrows prepared in advance, and the arrows were tied with fire oil gauze, and after igniting them, they shot at the giant ship again.

I saw that the rockets, with the light of fire and the smoke in tow, were nailed to the side of the ship, and the gauze of the arrows was still burning.

Li Shengjie was really afraid that his flagship, which had taken a lot of manpower and money to build by the Li family, would be burned down on the edge of the Yangtze River, so he hurriedly ordered his sailors to hit the river water with buckets and pour them on the other side of the burning flames.

Thinking that it was a naval battle, it was also a common tactic for the opponents of the two sides to fire each other rockets and set fire to the ship, so this group of sailors extinguished the fire very quickly, and in the blink of an eye, hundreds of rockets were all extinguished, leaving only the unpleasant smell of fireworks rising along the side of the ship.

Li Shengjie risked being sniped by enemy arrows, poked his head out to watch the fire, and saw that although the fire did not hurt the hull, it also left unsightly black flames on the hull of the ship that had been polished to a knail.

When Li Shengjie saw it, he immediately became angry, and said to Qiu Yizhi: "Brother, you will let me take anchor and retreat one arrow first, and let me use artillery to bomb all these Lingnan troops into pulp!" ”

This sentence immediately reminded Qiu Yizhi, and he hurriedly answered: "What you want is to win the first battle, and you can't take half a step back." However, the artillery of the virtuous brother can try its power to see if there are any copper-headed and iron-clad people in this Lingnan army. ”

Li Shengjie hesitated when he heard this, and said: "Brother, this thing is artillery, not afraid of hitting far, but afraid of approaching." Now the enemy is too close to me, I'm afraid I won't be able to kill them all. ”

Qiu Yizhi himself has never operated artillery, nor has he commanded the use of artillery, and after listening to Li Shengjie's words, he was still a little inexplicable, and only said: "Brother, just do it, knock on the mountain and shake the tiger first." If the virtuous brother is reluctant to pay for the artillery, he can deduct it from the foolish brother's monthly draw. ”

With these words, Li Shengjie finally stopped hesitating, shouted a few words, and twenty or thirty gunners caught up with the deck, and skillfully manipulated the artillery and aimed it, but one of the leaders stepped forward and said: "Young shipmaster, the distance here is too close, and it can only hit half of the south side of the pier, and the firepower can't cover all the defenders on the pier......"

Li Shengjie had already thought of this, so he replied a little impatiently: "If you are told to beat you, you will fight you, you can kill as many people as you want, where is so much nonsense?" ”

With the orders of the young shipowner Li Shengjie, the gunners naturally had nothing to say, adjusted the firing range to the nearest distance, lit the fuse, and activated the five guns on the side of the ship in unison.

The power of the artillery was really huge, and a burst of artillery bombardment almost blew half of the Yanziji pier to pieces, and even the people on the boat felt the huge shock wave caused by the explosion of the cannonballs.

Qiu Yizhi was lying on the side of the ship, seeing that the Lingnan Army had died after this artillery bombardment, and those soldiers who had not been bombarded also had a look of fear on their faces, and couldn't help shouting excitedly: "Good fight, good fight!" ”

Qiu Yizhi was happy, but he heard a stern scolding voice behind him: "Yizhi, what's going on?" How did you set up the artillery? I made a decree yesterday, did you take my words as a deaf ear? Which one allows you to do that? ”

Qiu Yizhi heard this voice that Emperor Zheng Rong was speaking, and he was a little relaxed just now, and suddenly became nervous - on the battlefield, as long as he can achieve victory, whether it is a conspiracy or a trick, he always does everything, and being able to disobey the holy decree without harm is also the cheap right of the generals in battle, and what is the big deal about fighting two cannons?

However, Qiu Yizhi is a sensitive and delicate person, and from Zheng Rong's attitude towards him in the past few days, he has already noticed some seemingly nonexistent changes, and he always feels that Zheng Rong is so angry about his use of artillery, and he should have another deep meaning.

He suddenly had an idea, pretending that his ears were temporarily deafened by the loud noise of the cannon fire, as if he couldn't even hear his own voice clearly, he raised his voice vigorously, and shouted: "Li Shengjie, good bang, give me another shot!" ”

Li Shengjie was still young and did not have as much thought as Qiu Yizhi, and when he heard Qiu Yizhi's loud shout, he immediately ordered his gunners to shoot at the front dock for a while.

When this cannon was charged, the gunner had already gained experience, and deliberately filled the gunpowder in the barrel smaller than usual, and the distance pushed out by the gunpowder explosion was indeed much closer than before, and it was able to hit the middle of the dock, killing and wounding many Lingnan soldiers.

Seeing this, Zheng Rong reprimanded again: "Qiu Yizhi, are you deaf? I ask you, why did you open fire without permission? ”

"Deaf? I was indeed deaf. Qiu Yi thought secretly in his heart, but he ordered Zhao Chengxiao in a loud voice: "If you don't get off the boat and land and attack immediately, don't grind!" ”

As he spoke, he turned his head and swept his gaze to Zhao Chengxiao, but he happened to see Zheng Rong with a gloomy face, and he was about to walk quickly. It was only at this time that Qiu Yizhi finally remembered that it didn't matter if he was pretending to be stupid, it was Jiejie who had committed the crime of defrauding the king. However, now is the time when the war is tense, and he can only continue to pretend to be stupid, just after winning, taking advantage of the emperor's good mood, with his master and brother by his side, he can forgive his sins.

So Qiu Yizhi pretended not to hear the emperor's voice clearly, and said in a non-questionable manner: "Your Majesty, Zhao Chengxiao is about to land and fight, come and see his heroic appearance!" ”

While talking, Zhao Chengxiao took the lead, leading his seventeen strong bandit brothers, pulling on the top of several soft ladders that were put down, climbing a few steps down, and when he was still more than a zhang high from the ground, he jumped down, holding a sharp knife in the crowd to chop melons and vegetables.

The Lingnan Army didn't expect that more than a dozen people in this area would be so brave and good at fighting, and they had just experienced a few shellings, and they were blinded for a while, and they were killed by Zhao Chengxiao in the first round and retreated more than ten steps.

These ten steps are worth a lot of money, and with this little space, it is enough for the follow-up troops to board the dock.

Sure enough, when Zhao Chengxiao's army was still fighting, the follow-up Xiangyong soldiers had already taken action and climbed down from the soft ladder to enter the battle.

The Lingnan Army was not slow to react, seeing that the enemy's offensive was very urgent, fearing that there would be a steady stream of soldiers and horses landing in the future, they hurriedly strengthened the offensive, wanting to drive the imperial court officers and soldiers who had just jumped from the boat to the dock down the Yangtze River.

At this time, the crossbowmen who had been prepared on the ship in advance saw the situation and immediately began to fire crossbow bolts into the crowd of the Lingnan Army. The crossbow machines they used were all re-replenished and repaired after entering Beijing, and they were particularly handy in use, a burst of crossbow bolts were shot, and in an instant, another burst of crossbow arrows were shot, and the locust-like crossbow bolts flew towards the soldiers of the Lingnan Army in this way.

The Lingnan army was hit by this rain of arrows, and the offensive immediately stalled.

At this moment, several large baskets were swung down from the ship, and the baskets were filled with nothing else, but dozens of copper shields more than one person high and dozens of iron spears more than one zhang long.

Needless to say, these bronze shields were made by Qiu Yizhi in imitation of the old Youyan Dao's "Dangya Ying"; And these iron spears were specially built by Qiu Yizhi after summing up his experience in the confrontation with the Lingnan Army. The equipment was heavy and large, and it was difficult to carry it with you when landing, so it could only be equipped in the hands of the soldiers in this way.

Zhao Chengxiao, who was fighting, saw the equipment on the ground, and immediately shouted: "All the troops are arrayed!" ”

The soldiers who heard the order shouted in unison, "Order!" Immediately, under the cover of Zhao Chengxiao and the seventeen bandits, they took up the giant shield and spear, and quickly set up a formation with the giant shield blocking in front and the spear covering in the rear. The crossbowmen, who had just been covering the boat, had also climbed down from the soft ladder and spread out on both flanks of the infantry, and in the blink of an eye, they had also fired their crossbows and arrows, waiting for orders.