The speed of the tortoiseshell ship was too slow, and the sailors were extremely tired from sailing against the current for two consecutive days. Except for two or three hours of rest at anchor last night, they all had to paddle and fight against the currents all the time—in contrast to the sailors of the 'Revolutionary Army', who had only to let the steam engine work on its own.

When the sailors' physical strength was exhausted to the limit, Li Guan could only use the precious elixir and talisman seals to maintain the combat effectiveness of the entire fleet. The old squire Jin Yi even had to be glad that he had sunk a dozen troop carriers, otherwise the slow and clumsy ships would have dragged down the entire fleet even more.

With such a ruined plan, Li Guan has always been worried that his actions will be discovered in advance. But when he finally led the team to the outside of Pyongyang, he couldn't help but feel ecstatic when he saw the rows of new wharves, boats, warehouses and roads along the Taedong River. There are only four or five 500-ton transport ships in the state of loading and unloading at anchor, and these strange ships emitting black smoke all the way are big targets.

Knocking out these 'black chimney ships' should be able to inflict heavy damage on the Ming Sea Bandits, right?

"Let the arsonist go up first." Li Wan shouted loudly, "Use our last talisman seal and let the sailors hurry up and paddle." ”

The tortoiseshell boat, which only had a speed of two knots against the current, was too slow, and it seemed that it was only a short distance in the end, but it would take half a day to rush through. That's a slower speed than a tortoise. Only small, human-powered arsonist boats can attack quickly, and the most important thing right now is to cause chaos and demoralize the enemy, so that the enemy will be crushed without a fight.

More than 30 arsonist boats left the ...... and quickly closed the distance in the direction of the pier. The lead one was even more focused on a ship moored by the dock with a black chimney. All North Korean sailors were told that the chimney-covered ship was particularly dangerous and that it would have to be the first to be killed if possible.

When the arson ship was killed quickly like an arrow from the string, Li Guan felt his blood boiling on his tortoiseshell boat. Piloting an arson ship is a very dangerous act, and if you get close to an enemy ship, you will likely be intercepted halfway. If the control is not good, let alone setting fire to the enemy's ship, it will not be able to reach the enemy's side but will be sunk.

At this time, it is all about speed......

"Go!" Li Wan stood on the lookout platform at the top of the tortoiseshell boat and raised his fist to cheer loudly. At his shout, the immobile 'black chimney ship' on the opposite side also ran out in fright, and struggled to push the hull of the ship to turn around the dock with thick sticks, and something like an iron house in the bow of the ship also rotated.

A cloud of white smoke suddenly rose from inside the 'Iron House', and a second or two later the sound of cannon fire came.

There is a cannon on board?

The shelling landed in front of the arsonist ship, splashing into the sky.

Li Guan's heart ached, and he stopped for a few seconds to wait for the splash to fall, and he shouted in a more excited tone: "I didn't hit, these Ming Sea Kou didn't hit." Hurry up, hurry up! ”

There were also guns on the tortoiseshell ship, and the sides of the hull were small cannons that fired some shotguns, which had a very short range and were not very powerful. There is also a heavy cannon in the bow, which is particularly slow to reload. Li Guan saw that the 'black chimney boat' on the opposite side had fired a cannon, and immediately felt that his arson boat had won. According to common sense, by the time the other party reloads, the other side will already set the opponent's ship on fire.

But just as Li Guan and the sailors of the ship shouted for joy, only ten seconds later, thick white smoke rose from the 'iron house' at the bow of the enemy's ship—it was a semi-open turret. As soon as the fire was fired, there was smoke in the front and back, and even more in the back.

The second shelling did not miss, and the kinetic energy of the projectile at close range was transferred to the arsonist ship. As soon as the cannon went down, the whole ship exploded, and the piled up firewood flew all over the sky. The North Korean officer, who was about to light the fire in the bow, was torn apart by the bombardment. The projectile penetrated the hull and led to the disintegration of the ship. North Korean sailors paddling on the side of the boat capsized and sank with the ship in a violent concussion, and all of them fell overboard.

Li Guan was in a daze from a distance of several hundred meters - our naval guns generally hit some iron sand, and often a shot over to make people face will lead to disfigurement. Your naval guns don't look big, but what the hell is this fighting? As soon as the cannon went down, the ship was gone.

But this was just the beginning, and the walls of the ship's guns were thicker, which could withstand more prolonged shelling. Zhu Chengxiu, who finally managed to prop up the bow and turn around, jumped back into his commuter boat again, and he personally ran to the turret to direct the aiming - Zhao Ze is not a professional ship designer, and the whole ship is equipped with armor in this one place, not even the bridge. Zhu Chengxiu is also thinking about his own safety.

"Brothers, work hard, the opportunity to receive awards for meritorious service has come. Aim and hit, be sure to sink a ship with one shot. Zhu Chengxiu scolded viciously: "I don't know where the turtle grandson came from, he dared to come to pick the tiger whiskers of my revolutionary navy." This is their own death. ”

In the face of more than thirty arsonist ships, the gunners in the turret were not only not afraid, but began to get excited. They all know one thing, that is, the artillery of their own 'revolutionary army' is very powerful, far from being comparable to ordinary sailors. Due to the use of a longer barrel, the range of the 70 mm naval gun is comparable to that of the 150 mm army battalion artillery, and the rate of fire is faster and longer.

The recoiled gun was easily reset, the muzzle was slightly adjusted, and another shell was reloaded.

When a cannon was fired, an arsonist ship was shattered and turned into a splash of water on the surface of the river, as well as drifting timber and floating corpses.

Li Guan was amazed at the 'black chimney boat' that kept firing. He listened to many North Korean officers and soldiers who had escaped from Pyongyang, and they all showed that the artillery fire of the Nationals was extremely sharp and the rate of fire was very fast, but he did not expect that it would be so incredibly fast. Moreover, this fast-firing artillery is often less powerful, but the power of this cannon in front of you cannot be underestimated.

Li Wan couldn't think of the black technology of setback and fixed ammunition at all, and could only think of whether there was a monster with more than a dozen arms in the iron house opposite, how could there be such a fast speed?

Boom, ......, another shell.

The three arsonists at the front were all finished, although there were still twenty or thirty rows behind them. But even the brave sailors will lose any courage to attack in the face of these naval guns firing four or five rounds per minute. When the turret turned and the muzzle was aimed at the fourth arsonist ship, the Korean officers in the bow were stunned. The sailors on the side of the ship simply jumped out of ship and fled, and no one wanted to die.

The arsonist ships that could not get close to the target were just targets, and no matter how fast they rowed, they could not be as quick as the extremely excited naval gunners. The arsonist boat, which had just been fighting for the lead, was hit head-on, and one after another the broken wreckage of the boat floated on the surface of the river, floating and sinking downstream with the current.

"Thank goodness, I still have a cannon." Zhu Chengxiu wiped the sweat from his forehead and laughed loudly with the gunners beside him. At close range, they fired more than a dozen rounds in one go, reaching the limit of the burst fire of the naval guns, and all but two misses were hit - the morale of the incoming North Korean sailors collapsed, and the remaining arsonist ships all turned around and fled.

Zhu Chengxiu breathed a sigh of relief, they had to reduce the rate of fire. Because the barrel is already hot, it will spontaneously combust if the charge is stuffed into it. He himself looked out through the observation hole in the turret, and could see several huge tortoiseshell ships a few hundred meters away. Those were clearly the main forces of the enemy, tall ships, with armor on their hulls and bows......

"Wait for Lao Tzu's artillery to cool down......." Without waiting for Zhu Chengxiu to finish sighing, the bow turtle head of a tortoiseshell ship opposite opened open, revealing a 'thick and large' cannon muzzle. White smoke came out of the same bang, and a projectile flew towards him with a whistling sound—a black lead ball flying quickly from afar. Zhu Chengxiu's face was suddenly shocked, and his heart stopped beating.

It was very cool to shell others just now, and now it is even more 'cool' to be shelled by others.

The projectile speed of the old breech gun is slow, and the person who is shelled can watch the shell come towards him. Zhu Chengxiu felt that his brain was blank, and his muscles were stiff and he couldn't move. It wasn't until the shell whizzed over the head of the commuter boat that he jumped up and scolded: "Quick, cool the barrel with water, we must fire immediately." ”

"Captain, it is stipulated in the drill code that you can't just use water to cool down. The barrel life will be greatly reduced. The artillery commander on the side did not see the scene of the enemy's shelling, and he reminded him with good words.

Zhu Chengxiu jumped even more, "If it's gone, who cares if it's a cannon or not?" Those turtle grandsons on the other side are also firing cannons! ”

The splash caused by the enemy's shelling just now was rising into the air, and everyone in the turret immediately exploded, and all of them felt the threat to their lives. No one resisted watering the barrels, pouring water on the barrels that had been prepared to extinguish the boats—the vapor of the water rising from the turret. Some people were so anxious that they even wanted to pour it into the barrel, and this kind of fool was immediately beaten up by his colleagues.

After a quick cooldown, another shell was stuffed into the chamber. The gun commander aimed at a tortoiseshell ship about 600 meters away on the opposite side, and a large hole was opened in the turtle head of this ship, and a large-caliber heavy cannon could be clearly seen in it—probably an old-fashioned bronze cannon with a thick barrel, weighing at least a few thousand catties. This cannon was very difficult to move by land and could only be carried by boat.

"I'm aiming for a hit, it's best to hit from that black **." Zhu Chengxiu's heart was still beating wildly, how frightened he was just now, how angry he was at the moment. "There should be gunpowder piled up behind that cannon, and if it hits, it will make those turtle grandchildren look good."

That's right...... artillery only understands artillery. A bunch of gunners laughed when they heard this, but when they laughed and looked at the same amount of gunpowder piled up in their turrets, they were silent. Zhu Chengxiu also turned his head and scolded angrily: "What is he meowing, who is piling up so much gunpowder in the turret?" In the future, it is not allowed to put too much gunpowder in the turret, and this should be written into the drill code. ”

The turret is already the safest place for a commuter boat to have armor protection, where to put the turret if the gunpowder is not placed? Nobody knows. In short, not long after the battle began, the nascent 'Revolutionary Navy' felt that there was much to improve in its discipline. And their first goal now is to ......, "Fire!" ”

The tortoiseshell ship on the opposite side was about 650 meters, which was close to the limit of the effective range of the naval guns. A little farther away doesn't mean that it can't be hit, but it's hard to see with the naked eye. It's just that the hull of the ship is undulating on the surface of the river, which makes the artillery commander in charge of aiming even more uncertain. Zhu Chengxiu also knew that the hit rate of naval artillery was lower than that of land artillery, and he couldn't help shouting: "Fire first, and then correct." ”

A shell was fired, and two or three seconds later it hit the tortoiseshell ship on the opposite side.

The shell did not hit the enemy's turtle head, but the part of the tortoiseshell. The projectile clattered and hit several iron plates covering it, and smashed the lookout at the top, but it didn't do much damage. It is already extremely lucky to be able to hit more than 600 meters, after all, the shaking of one centimeter on the hull will be magnified into a deviation of several meters at a distance of 600 meters.

"Reload." Zhu Chengxiu gritted his teeth and said, "We have a fast rate of fire, a small hull, and a better chance of hitting us by fighting luck." ”

The commuter boat fired four or five shots, and only one shot was fired back on the other side. The two sides crackled and beat each other, but neither of them could cause much harm to the other party. Zhu Chengxiu's cannonballs were powerful, but they missed every time. Except for the first shot, all the others flew past the side of the tortoiseshell ship, and it was no longer as accurate as hitting an arson ship within 100 meters.

And the North Korean artillery on the opposite side has a slow rate of fire, and the quality of the artillery is not good. Their shelling was even more sparse, and the nearest shot was more than 100 meters away from Zhu Chengxiu and others, and even 100 meters away. But as long as they are hit, Zhu Chengxiu's thin hull will be finished.

Is it really a matter of luck? Probability is a matter of face!

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, we have a fast rate of fire, and we are also better lucked to fight luck." Zhu Chengxiu tried to comfort himself, but just as he turned to appease his gunners, the North Korean sailors on the opposite side also found that a cannon was too thin to deal with Zhu Chengxiu. Thereupon......

"Oh my God, they pulled five tortoiseshell boats up and bombed us." The sailors watching from the bridge screamed in shock, and the water jets that fell around the commuter boat suddenly increased several times. Zhu Chengxiu shouted anxiously: "Engine room, if you don't raise the boiler pressure, you won't need to raise it in the future." ”