Led by five tortoiseshell ships, a total of more than 70 large and small warships sailed into the mouth of the Datong River. A large number of wrestlers on the tortoiseshell ship are struggling to paddle and drive the huge battleship. Li Guan, the commander of the Korean naval division, stood on the lookout on the top of the warship and looked into the distance.

A white-haired old attendant whispered beside him: "My lord, the Taedong River is meandering, and we are going upstream, and it will only take two or three days to reach Pyongyang." The ships of the Ming Kingdom are coming and going, but I am afraid that we will soon be discovered. ”

Li Wan stood on the lookout for a long time in silence, and finally only spit out two words with difficulty: "Shipwreck." ”

Ah......, the attendant was dumbfounded, looking stunned.

Li Guan said again with a cold face: "Shipwreck, block the channel of the Datong River into the sea, and prevent the ship of the Ming Kingdom Haikou from coming in from the direction of the sea." Let's just go ahead and get in. ”

It was a painful decision.

Li Guan came with the last strength that the North Korean sailors could gather. Among the more than 70 warships, there are not only tortoiseshell warships nearly 20 zhang long and 2 zhang wide, but also arson boats several meters long. Some of the warships were launched decades ago, and they are old enough to be the grandfathers of most sailors.

Putting together such a fleet has already cost the lives of Lee's Korea. King Li Hui couldn't cry even more when he saw off the generals in Seoul, took Li Guan's hand and almost knelt down, and pleaded: "You are the descendants of the loyal and martial princes, you should work hard to make your uncle brave, and don't make this king a slave of the country." ”

Now the fleet has finally reached the Datong River, and it seems that it is about to fight a decisive battle with the enemy, but the commander of the naval army, the first order of the lord is 'sinking the ship'.

"My lord, these warships are not easy to come by. If you don't leave a dozen warships to defend, your subordinates are willing to personally command the broken queen, and also leave a way for the adults to retreat. "The attendant's name is Jin Yi, who was the retinue of Li Guan's uncle Yi Sunsin more than ten years ago, and now continues to serve Li Guan. Although he is old but has a different identity, today in order to ensure victory, he implored to fight to the death to defend the mouth of the river.

"A way out?" Li Guan shook his head bitterly, "The way out is reserved for the weak, and we have no way out." Win or lose, life or death doesn't matter. He again ordered: "Send the soldiers we have brought ashore, and the troop carriers sink to block the mouth of the river." Even if we lose, we must cut off the survival of this group of Ming Sea Bandits. ”

Li Guan's resolute words, the attendant Jin Yi heard it tragically, and the latter could only stomp his feet to give the order. Both of them know that their opponent this time is by no means ordinary, if they are not ruthless and desperate, they will not even have a chance of winning.

Fighting a war pays attention to 'winning with the right and winning with odds', and it is useless to just fight hard, and it is even more useless to focus on risk-taking and gambling on life. Zhou Qingfeng is very good at putting his imagination into practice. For example, he fled from Fushun to Lushun, and more than 10,000 people slipped away unconsciously in a short period of time - for this unexpected action, Zhou Qingfeng made a lot of solid preparations.

Moreover, the surprise attack of the 'revolutionary army' on Tianjin is also a strange plot. In order to complete this task, Zhou Qingfeng also made a lot of arrangements before and after, and then transported thousands of troops to Tianjin in a dignified manner, and then stirred up the Gyeonggi area of the Ming court - the Ming court, which could have supported more than 20 years under the attack of Jiannu, could only count the days and wait for death by this move.

And if the blow suffered by the Ming court is like a thunderbolt in the clear sky, then Zhou Qingfeng's surprise attack on Pyongyang by sea after winning the Battle of Zhenjiang is a 'dimensionality reduction blow' for the Lee regime in North Korea - the two sides are not the same era at all, and there is no comparison. Li Hui, the puppet king who stayed in Seoul, was stunned when he learned that he had lost half of his country in the blink of an eye.

Zhou Qingfeng stayed in Pyongyang for only a month, but he destroyed the Lee regime with unimaginable speed. Those North Korean security forces who had enough to eat and wanted to pay money showed their teeth and claws, and took the initiative to attack the original North Korean officials desperately.

The 'revolutionary army' stayed in Pyongyang, and the logistical supply supported the expansion of the North Korean security forces, and they even hit Maosan County, North Hamgyeong-do, north of North Korea. It's just because Zhou Qingfeng wants Maoshan Iron Mine, which is a large open-pit iron mine, and the ore taste is quite high, and it is easy to mine.

A large number of North Korean laborers are now being recruited to open mines. How to get the mines out in the later period was a problem, and a large part of the loan of 50 million silver dollars was to be used to build roads and build northern ports. In addition, there are nothing more than many dead people.

Relying on the ruthlessness of this strategy, the puppet king Li Hui couldn't bear this kind of ferocious behavior of digging corners, and sent people to Pyongyang many times to try to hold peace talks. But Zhou Qingfeng didn't pay attention to it at all, he just didn't want to leave trouble for future generations, and it was best to solve any bad things when he was fighting the country - people died and stayed, it's as simple as that.

Faced with this desperate situation, Li Guan, who was about to go on the expedition, had no way to retreat. He rushed to the mouth of the Datong River with his fleet and squatted for several days. Seeing the steam ship that was spewing black smoke and running without sails, he knew it would be difficult for him to win this time.

Standard steamships are 500 tons each, regardless of the wind direction, can go straight on the sea, can easily run six knots of cruising high speed. In contrast, because the tortoiseshell boat is wrapped in iron plates and hardwood, it has no way to rely on the wind and can only move forward by paddling, and the coolies can only run five knots if they are exhausted. When entering the Datong River, because it is a countercurrent, the speed is reduced to two or three knots.

The tortoiseshell ship thought it was very large, but compared to a casual 500-ton steamship, it was really not enough to see. Because he found that the enemy was too strong, Li Guan had no intention of facing the enemy head-on. He could only think of blocking the shipping channel by sinking ships, cutting off enemy support, and then fighting all the way to Pyongyang, hoping that a miracle would appear.

But......

The old attendant Jin Yi arranged for the transport ship to land and unload about 3,000 accompanying soldiers, and on the other hand, sailed the empty transport ship to the center of the river and sank. He reminded Li Guan again: "My lord, it is said that the artillery of the Ming Kingdom is extremely strong, and it is capable of attacking the city. Our ship ....... ”

Other people's artillery can even break the city, but can it break your ship?

Li Wan only said coldly: "My tortoiseshell boat is wrapped in iron plates, and the spell is strengthened. ”

"But the enemy has cannons, not bows and arrows."

"I've sent my uncle's war spirit out to follow ,......。"

"Ah...... have you invited the battle spirit of Zhongwu Gong out?"

The old attendant was surprised, "If the battle situation is unfavorable, I am afraid that it will cause great damage to the Zhongwu Gong." ”

Li Guan only smiled bitterly at this, "If the battle situation is really unfavorable, you and I will be loyal to the king." As for my uncle, what is the use of this remnant? ”

The old squire was even more speechless, even sobbing. Originally, the Li regime lived in a corner, and the small life was beautiful. Who knew that Zhou Qingfeng suddenly appeared, and he was stunned to break the door of the house to kill the head of the household, rob the family property, occupy his wife and concubine, and enslave him - Uncle Zhou is really right, and he will drive people to a dead end at every turn.

Take a look, the people of the Li family are extremely sad and angry, and they are desperate.

There are still more than 100 kilometers from the mouth of the Dadong River to Pyongyang, and except for the steam ships coming and going, Zhou Qingfeng did not set up a guard at such a long distance. When the mouth of the river was blocked, the ships transporting back and forth were inexplicable, and they realized that something was wrong, but they didn't have time to inform Zhou Qingfeng in Pyongyang.

The cordon of the Guards in Pyongyang was set up about 10 kilometers, and the personnel in charge of the guard also saw a large number of boats tracing up the river from a distance. But they made a low-level mistake - the steamships of the 'Revolutionary Army' had no sails, and so did the tortoiseshell ships. These small tortoiseshell boats were initially considered their own by the vigilantes.

After all, the 'Revolutionary Army' has produced a lot of strange things at the moment, and no one can say if this tortoiseshell ship is a new thing that has been created recently. It was not until the warships approached two or three kilometers from the port of Pyongyang, and their turtle heads spewed flames to burn the warehouses on the shore, that the elite North Korean soldiers advancing along the river charged the cordon of the guards, and the sirens sounded.

A brigade of 5,000 men of the Guards was stationed near the port of Pyongyang, and several infantry battalions were immediately organized to resist the enemy attack. Zhou Qingfeng was still watching from the city, and the staff officers of his brigade headquarters, such as Qiao Xuenian and others, gathered the troops and naturally entered the combat state. In the past month, the resignation has achieved good results, and the rookie staff officers finally know how to take the initiative to do things.

The artillery of the Guards was not the first to deal with the enemy ships attacking from the river. In Qiao Xuenian's opinion, these ships could not go ashore, and the biggest threat to them was the enemy infantry attacking along the river. The artillery battalion directly under the brigade headquarters quickly entered the position and gave priority to bombarding those enemies who came ashore.

In the direction of the port terminal, there is only one commuter boat of the 'Revolutionary Army' navy. Commander Zhu Chengxiu saw that the opponent had a warship, and immediately shouted in a hurry: "Raise anchor, make a fire, and prepare for battle." ”

The sailors on the commuter boat began to scramble, but they soon shouted anxiously; "Captain, it will take at least half an hour for the steam engine to raise the pressure, and we can't move it now."

The steam engine is too fucked up at this point, because it's a process of boiling water, and it takes time from starting a fire to pushing the piston under air pressure. Half an hour for the fast, several hours for the slow. Therefore, the naval steam warships of later generations will not cease fire easily, and even if they dock, they must ensure that there is a certain air pressure in the boiler.

But Zhu Chengxiu can be called the admiral of the first batch of steam warships in the world today, and he can't completely simulate actual combat by training. That's what he's losing this time.

"His grandmother is a bear, the boat can't move, the cannon can always move." Zhu Chengxiu hurriedly jumped back to the boat from the shore, and when he saw it, he found that his cannon was not right, "Fuck, go find a few big sticks, lift the boat off the shore, we have to turn around." ”

Because a naval gun was mounted on the bow of the ship, the rotating turret of this gun could only be turned 270 degrees. It can't fire at the rear, because it has a bridge at the back – Zhao Ze designed this kind of commuter boat exactly after the structure of a modern warship. But now the enemy is coming from the rear.

was forced to have no choice, and Zhu Chengxiu could only go ashore again with a vote of sailors. They found a few logs, and a dozen or so men worked together to push the fifty-ton boat away from the dock and turn the bow in a different direction. so that the muzzle of the cannon is aimed at the enemy's incoming shipping lane.

"Captain, the enemy's arsonist ship." On the bridge of the commuter boat, the sailor in charge of the lookout shouted loudly, pointing to a small boat about 200 meters away that was struggling to paddle and rush. Grease firewood was piled up on the bow of the boat, and a North Korean sailor held a torch ready to light it.

In the early days of the Age of Discovery, arson ships were a common tactic used by weak navies against foreign enemies. Relying on the bravery of the sailors, they approached the enemy with a fast oar, and then set fire to them. In later generations, this thing even evolved into a fast-moving 'pole mineboat', that is, hanging an explosive bag on the bow of the ship to blow up other people's big ships - all with small and big tricks.

"Shut up, I see." Zhu Chengxiu is still leading the team to push his own commuter boat. Thankfully, it's only a 50-ton boat, and with the help of a dozen people, it can still float on the water. "The gunner got on board, loaded the shells, and aimed Lao Tzu at the arsonist ship."

The shore was pushing hard, and the ship was reloading rapidly. The gunner, who was in charge of aiming, adjusted the 70-millimeter gun to the maximum declination angle, and aimed the muzzle of the gun at the approaching arsonist ship—the enemy had entered the sprint phase, and the rowing Korean sailors were struggling to feed. The person in charge of lighting the fire was supposed to be a North Korean officer, who was loudly encouraging his men to paddle quickly.

Bang ......, the ship's guns fired!

Amid the deafening sound of cannons, the hull being pushed was quite jolting. Finally, a solid bullet was fired, but it landed in front of the arsonist ship, making a splash of water in the sky. The gunners in the turret were stunned by this, and watched as the enemy closed closer to less than fifty meters away from them.

Zhu Chengxiu on the shore shouted heartbreakingly: "What are you doing in a daze, reload it!" The muzzle of the gun is downward, and our minimum firing distance is thirty meters. ”