As mentioned last time, after Liu Hou's explanation, Fei Yi and Guo Youzhi no longer blindly insisted that he return to Chengdu, Liu Hou breathed a sigh of relief, and discussed with them about the countermeasures, and decided that Guo Youzhi would be responsible for guarding the city, and Liu Hou would go to Jingzhou to act on the opportunity.

Liu Hou didn't dare to delay, the military situation was like fire, and the soldiers were fast, he immediately called Guan Xing and Zhang Bao to lead the 500 guards battalion to the riverside wharf.

After Liu Hou and the others boarded the Jingzhou, they immediately started the ship and headed southwest at full speed. Because at this time, they had already faintly seen a dark cloud-like shadow floating in the east, and it seemed that it would not be long before they could reach here, and if they could not distance themselves from them, they would be easily surrounded.

Once surrounded, the Jingzhou loses its speed advantage, and even if the artillery is sharp, it will be killed by people. Jingzhou's reliance is nothing more than the two advantages of speed and artillery, both of which are indispensable.

Like a flying fish, the Jingzhou slid briskly through the waves and slid southwestward, and when it reached the center of the river, it turned westward. At this time, the distance between Soochow's fleet and the Jingzhou was less than a thousand meters.

The uppermost building of the Jingzhou is the captain's quarters, where you can see the black and oppressive fleet in the distance. Liu Hou was now in the captain's room looking out of the wide window at Soochow's fleet, which made him feel ridiculous. I am like a fly standing in front of a giant, and I am like Don Quix. Hade held his spear and drove towards the huge windmill.

At a distance of a thousand meters, the Jingzhou crossed the hull and faced the Soochow fleet with its sideboard. Liu Hou also saw clearly at this time, the number of ships in Dongwu was very large, and the river was densely arranged, because the big ships in front blocked the view, how many ships behind could not be seen at all, and the specific number could not be estimated.

There are big and small ships, the big ones are bigger than the Jingzhou ship, there are three in total, and the flags hanging on the bow of the ship are "Chang'an", "Feiyun" and "Gaihai" from a distance, which should be the name of these three building ships. Liu Hou counted it, and couldn't help but smack his tongue secretly, this kind of building ship actually has 5 floors, and he has only seen such a tall ship on TV even in later generations.

What Liu Hou didn't know was that the "Chang'an" was Sun Quan's car, and if Guo Youzhi, who was familiar with the military of Eastern Wu, was present, he could be sure that it was Sun Quan's personal expedition when he saw the "Chang'an". Each floor of these buildings is built with a defensive female wall, and there are sword holes, spear holes, etc. on the first floor of the female wall, which can be attacked from a distance and can be defended at close range, and there are also defensive weapons such as stones and iron thorns, which is worthy of being a war fortress.

Due to the long distance, the small boat looks about the same size as the fishing boat with bamboo poles in later generations, the boat is long and narrow, and the appearance is covered with cowhide, which is probably the ship that Guo Youzhi said. If you look closely, this kind of boat is actually not small, it is 5 zhang long (11.5 meters).

Liu Hou wanted to see more details clearly, but unfortunately the distance was still too far, and at this time he longed for a telescope like never before. Secretly made up his mind, and when he went back, he must ask someone to collect crystals and grind a few lenses to make a play.

The Soochow fleet didn't seem to care about a ship that slipped away in front of it, even if the ship looked a little weird and was a little fast. Seeing that the destination they drove to was Jingzhou Wharf, they obviously wanted to land at Jingzhou Wharf and then surround Jingzhou City.

Standing next to Liu Hou was the deputy captain Li Qiu, the nephew of Li Hui in Yizhou, who was in his twenties, and he was quite discerning and strategic. A few years ago, when the big names in Xishu went to the colleges and research institutes of the "Ministry of Industry", Li Hui stuffed his son Li Yi (wei) and nephew Li Qiu into it.

This Li Qiu is a studious person, he has learned a lot of mathematics, physics and chemistry knowledge in a short period of time, and he is also hungry to absorb all kinds of scientific knowledge taught by the "Dahan Longteng Academy". Later, he aroused Liu Hou's interest, and Liu Houtong came into contact with him, and was surprised to find that he was also familiar with military strategy, and even could talk about water warfare.

Because of Li Hui's uncle, Li Qiu naturally received a good education since he was a child, and Li Hui also attaches great importance to the education of the next generation, not only asking Mr. to educate them in traditional Chinese culture, but also teaching them the knowledge of marching and arranging. Therefore, Li Qiu and Li Yi are both capable people who can lead troops into battle.

Later, when the Jingzhou was completed and the naval army was formed, Liu Hou served as the captain, and after careful consideration, Li Qiu was finally selected as the deputy captain. Liu Hou is just a name, in fact, the management and training of the navy are all under Li Qiu's control.

Li Qiu also did a good job, after taking over, he learned a lot of knowledge about water warfare, and using artillery to conduct water warfare is an unprecedented way of fighting, except for Liu Hou to mention him from time to time, there is no master who can teach him, so he will explore it himself.

With a large number of actual combat exercises, he has now accumulated a wealth of experience in firearms and water warfare, and has become a qualified gunboat captain.

"Prepare for shelling." Liu Hou said to Li Qiudao beside him.

"No!" Li Qiu responded. Then, he turned to the communications officer beside him and said, "Order the first, second, and third gun crews, bow and stern gun crews on the port side to prepare for shelling." ”

"No!" After the signal soldier complied, he trotted to a pile of copper pipes behind him and gave orders to the corresponding copper pipes. In this area of the captain's room, there are no less than 20 hollow copper pipes, and on the edge of each nozzle are sticky notes with the names of the main parts of the ship.

For example: the 1st Gun Group on the port side, the watchtower, the power engine room, the main mast, etc. The captain can issue orders to these copper pipe mouths, which lead to the appropriate place, where there is also a special communications officer who is responsible for listening to orders.

In this way, the captain can very quickly convey commands to all parts of the hull, and the transmission efficiency is directly catching up with the radio. Of course, what happens in various parts of the hull needs to be reported to the captain, and you can also say it through these channels, so that the captain can know it at the first time and buy time for the captain's decision.

The port side was facing the side of the Soochow Naval Army, and I saw that a row of windows on each of the three floors was opened, revealing three rows of black hole muzzles. The artillerymen were busy filling these cannons with gunpowder, shelling, compacting. After a while, all three platoons of guns had finished loading their ammunition, and the herald reported the situation to the captain's office through a copper pipe.

Liu Hou listened to the herald's report: "The second artillery group has completed loading. "The first artillery group has completed loading", "The third artillery group has completed loading......" Liu Hou squinted his eyes and looked at the Soochow fleet in the distance, looking for his target.

At this time, the herald who was in charge of listening next to the brass came and reported: "The watchtower reports that the Soochow Forward Fleet is 400 zhang (about 920 meters) away. ”

Above the mainmast, there is a rattan basket that resembles a bird's nest, on which two discerning observers observe the enemy and constantly report the observations to the captain's room through guò copper pipes.

Liu Hou was still unmoved, "350 zhang." "Another herald report.

"300 zhang (about 690 meters)." When the herald reported this number, Liu Hou finally gave the order: "Order all artillery groups to scatter, three rounds of strikes, and the target is the "Chang'an", a distance of 290 zhang. ”

The order was immediately communicated to the various artillery groups. The artillery of each gun was nervously shaking the joystick, calibrating the elements, aiming at the target. These guns are fixed to the gun carriage and can be used to swing the muzzle from side to side or up and down with two joysticks to aim at the target.

After a while, each artillery group successively reported that it had completed the calibration of Zhuyuan, and Liu Hou ordered each artillery group to start firing in turns. There are three rows of 12 kg guns on each side of the Jingzhou, 15 guns per row, a total of 45 guns, plus two super cannons with a load of 18 kg in the bow and stern, the firepower is very amazing.

As soon as the order was given, I heard the roar of "boom, boom, boom......" one after another, and I saw black smoke rings rising from the left side of the ship, and then one by one the big black pills flew towards the Soochow fleet, and at the same time the hull shook violently.

The reason why the cannon is scattered instead of a salvo is that it is afraid that when so many high-powered cannons are fired in a salvo, the recoil will be too large, and the guide hull roll will be too large, which will easily cause the ship to roll over. After all, the ability of a flat-bottomed boat to resist rollover is far less than that of a sharp-bottomed boat, and Liu Hou has to guard against this.

Liu Hou had already instilled these principles in Li Qiu, and Li Qiu had also done a lot of training in peacetime for this, so it was said that it was scattering, in fact, all the shells were also shot in about 1 minute, and the effect was similar to that of a salvo, but it could effectively disperse the recoil.

"Hit one 'Chang'an' building ship, hit 3 medium-sized ships, and hit 5 small ships." Listening to the number reported by the watchtower, Liu Hou couldn't help frowning.

Of the 47 projectiles, only one really hit the intended target, and the hit rate was so low that it was too embarrassing to count. Although it also hit a few other ships, it was only because there were too many ships in Soochow and it was too dense, and its large number of shells were lucky enough to hit the auxiliary vehicle, which was a matter of luck rather than skill. And Liu Hou dislikes to rely on luck the most, and he likes to rely on technology the most.

"The 'Chang'an' has not broken the bottom of the ship, the status of 3 medium-sized ships is unknown, and 5 small ships have signs of sinking." Then the watchtower reported.

"Chang'an" has 5 floors, shells smashed all the way down from the upper floor, first break a layer of ceiling, then break a layer of floor, then break the next layer of floor, and so on, even if it is a 12-kilogram solid bullet, flying more than 600 meters away, the kinetic energy is not enough to break 6 or 7 layers of planks in a row, not to mention that the planks used to make the bottom of the ship are still thickened and thickened.

Therefore, the medium cannon of the "Chang'an" this time only caused a commotion on the ship, and with the bullet pressure of officers at all levels, it quickly calmed down. On the other hand, a small ship such as the Ship, in front of 12 kilograms of solid bullets, is as thin as paper, and a single shot can smash a hole in the bottom of the ship, and the river water pours into the cabin, and no matter how much the Soochow soldiers on board rescue it, they cannot stop the sinking trend of the ship.

Fortunately, these unfortunate officers and men were well-trained and water-oriented, and when they were sure that the ship was irretrievable, they abandoned the ship and swam to the nearest ship like lost dogs. As a result, the casualties caused by this round of shelling were minimal.

As he spoke, all the artillery crews had finished reloading and started a new round of scattering. Before the Soochow fleet had recovered from the chaos just now, it was horrified to hear another "rumbling" sound from the strange ship in the west, and when it looked up, it was indeed a bunch of black balls flying over. Many of the Eastern Wu soldiers were so frightened that they shouted loudly and ran around on the deck, and in the distance they looked like a swarm of headless flies spinning around.

The results of this round of shelling were a little better, the "Chang'an" was hit twice, and the number of other medium-sized and small ships was about the same as just now.

There was only less than a minute between each round of shelling, and before the chaos brought to the fleet by the previous round of shelling was over, the people of Dongwu were desperate to find that a bunch of small black dots flew in the sky, which they originally thought were flocks of birds, but soon turned into large round balls. Then the large black balls fell into the water, splashing the old high. The few large black balls that hit the ship caused great damage to the ship.

Needless to say, the boat will be smashed directly through the bottom of the boat, and the river will rush in, and the boat will sink in an instant. Large and medium-sized ships will also be broken several decks in a row, if you are lucky, the iron ball will be smashed down from the top layer in turn and will not smash through the bottom of the ship, and if you are unlucky, you will be smashed into the boat from the side of the ship, and the entry point of the iron ball is very close to the bottom of the boat, and it will also smash a big hole in the bottom of the ship.