As mentioned last time, Liu Hou saw that the several ships that had caught up opened up distance, which made him see that it was cheap, so he asked people to slow down. Li Qiu turned around and gave an order, telling the people in the power room to stop pushing the propellers and take a break from manpower and animal power.

The speed of the Jingzhou dropped suddenly. There were about 4 Soochow boats that quickly narrowed the distance between them and Jingzhou. The people on the Jingzhou had seen the pointed pegs on their bows glistening in the sun. Liu Houyi is not afraid, as long as he is not approached by the tactics of the wolves, he is not afraid.

"Musketeers prepare!" Li Qiu gave an order to the aft deck. After the herald at the stern of the ship heard the order from the brass pipe, he immediately conveyed it to Zhang Bao at the stern. Zhang Bao led 250 musketeers to defend the stern and the left side of the ship, and Guan Xing led another 250 musketeers from the Guards Battalion to defend the bow and right side of the ship.

After receiving the order, Zhang Bao ordered his soldiers to load their muskets and set them up in the firing holes at the battlements to prepare for firing. The edge of the ship is made like a castle wall, and the structure of the female wall battlements is continuous, that is, a continuous concave and convex toothed structure. There is a small square hole in the upper part of the battlement, that is, the lookout hole. The left and right sides of the lookout hole are in the shape of a figure-eight inside and outside, which is to make it easier to look out for the enemy and not be easily shot by enemy arrows. There is a small square hole in the lower part, which is the shooting hole of the bow and arrow. The bottom of the perforation slopes downwards to make it easy to shoot enemies below.

A new round of water warfare is about to begin.

"100 zhang!" "90 zhang! "80 zhang! ...... "50 zhang!" "40 zhang! The observer kept counting down the distance between the two sides, and when the observer reported to 40 zhang (92 meters), Zhang Bao gave an order, and the first row of musketeers fired 60 guns at the nearest stern at the same time. Almost at the same time, the four ships of Eastern Wu that were relatively close also fired crossbow arrows at the Jingzhou, and the range of the crossbow arrows was not at all closer than that of muskets.

The musket had sights, which were held in the hand for fine aiming, and the aim was much more accurate than that of the gun. Six or seven people were shot and fell down in an instant, and two soldiers on the deck even fell directly into the river with their lives unknown.

On the Jingzhou side, because all the soldiers were hidden behind the female wall battlements and shot through the guò shooting hole, under the blows of dozens of crossbow arrows from the four ships of Soochow, there were no casualties.

When the Soochow people were still reloading the crossbow arrows, the musketeers in the second row had already stepped forward to rotate the musketeers in the first row, and after a little aiming, they opened fire, and their target was another ship. After receiving a sudden blow, the ship that had just been shot at paused and was overtaken by the second fastest one, so the original second place became the first place, and it was logical that it became the target of the second row of musketeers.

Similarly, in the sound of frying beans, 5 or 6 people were planted, and the Eastern Wu soldiers began to feel frightened, and did not dare to expose themselves anymore, so they looked for a place to hide themselves.

Fortunately, the structure of these ships was designed to protect them from enemy crossbow attacks, and when the soldiers hid, only the oars protruded from the oars, and there was little other place to shoot people. The outside is also covered with cowhide, which is anti-arrow and fire-proof, and even Liu Hou's musket is also protected by the way.

When it was the turn of the musketeers in the third row to shoot, the results were essentially zero. "What a shrunken turtle." Liu Hou couldn't help but scold. But fortunately, although their muskets could not hit people, they were also suppressed so that they did not dare to reach out and fire crossbow arrows, and their soldiers did not have to fight under the threat of the opponent's crossbow arrows at all times.

"The prince must be careful, these ships are not only extremely defensive, but the key is that they will set fire as soon as they get close. See, they all have a nail hook on the bow of their ships, and if they hit an enemy ship, they will be firmly nailed to the enemy ship, and then they will be set on fire and die with the enemy ship. Seeing Liu Hou's order to reduce the speed of the ship, Li Qiu was worried, and couldn't help but remind.

Liu Hou couldn't help but nod secretly after listening to Li Qiu's words, it seems that this deputy captain is not looking for the wrong person, he is a careful person, and he has a deep study of the ships and tactics of Soochow.

"Hehe, so that means these ships are full of flammable materials?" Liu Houxiao asked.

"That's right, Soochow's usual trick is to fill the small boats with oil, firewood and grass, and set fire to the enemy ships as soon as they catch them. This is how the burning of Chibi was done back then, and Cao Cao's hundreds of thousands of troops were all taken by them. Li Qiu explained.

"That's good, knowing yourself and knowing that you can't fight in a hundred battles, now that you know their tricks, you can't think of a way to deal with them? Send the order down, let Zhang Bao and them wait for the enemy to get close and throw thunderbolts, I don't think they can be blown up. Liu Hou said confidently.

By the time the order reached the stern, the nearest stern had approached about 10 feet, and the soldiers on both sides could see the pimples on each other's faces. Zhang Bao gave an order, and the musketeers who had just finished shooting leaned their muskets against the women's wall, took out an iron pineapple hanging from their waists, pierced a layer of cardboard with their fingers, and pulled out a lead from the small hole exposed.

Then, he took out a fire fold from his arms, blew it up, and waited for Zhang Bao to give the order to throw. When the observer reported "7 zhang", Zhang Bao gave another order, and 10 soldiers lit the fuse at the same time and threw it with force, and 10 thunderbolts flew towards the nearest ship. The soldiers were apparently well-trained and had good throwing accuracy, and all but two of them landed on the roof of the ship and were catapulted into the water, while the other eight fell on the deck and in the cabin.

Needless to say, this ship's tragedy was over, and only the eight roars of "boom, boom, boom......" sounded in 1 or 2 seconds. Thick black smoke rose from the ship, accompanied by screams, and it was obvious that many people were injured or even killed.

Not long after, an open fire broke out on the ship, and the remaining crew members who were not killed jumped into the water to escape. The fire developed rapidly, and suddenly the whole ship became a huge torch, and the firewood and oil that the Soochow people had prepared to burn the enemy ships turned into fuel to burn their own ships.

Although the burning ship lost power due to the crew jumping into the water, it still crashed into the Jingzhou under inertia. When the burning warship was about to hit the Jingzhou, two soldiers on the deck of the Jingzhou held a long bamboo pole with iron at the end, and pushed it away with force.

These long poles with iron sheets at the end were one of the countermeasures that Liu Hou temporarily prepared after listening to Guo Youzhi's analysis of the warship.

The ship was already at the end of the crossbow when it lost power, and it slowed down as soon as it was blocked by the long rod, but the Jingzhou was still driven forward by the sails, and the ship was getting farther and farther away from the Jingzhou, and it was impossible to catch up with the Jingzhou again.

At this time, the second row of musketeers also came up, the second row and the third row of musketeers took turns to put the muskets on the shooting hole, and used the muskets to suppress the nearby ships, so that they could not easily fire crossbow arrows, although there was a row of musketeers missing, it was impossible to form a complete three-stage shot, but the firepower density was still not low, and the Dongwu soldiers who suppressed several ships could only hide in the cabin and did not dare to show their heads to shoot arrows.

Zhang Bao saw that the second ship was almost at a distance, and gave an order, and the other 10 musketeers in the first row threw thunderbolts. Not surprisingly, the second ship also turned into a torch with a roar.

When the fourth ship was blown up and ignited, the ships and fighting ships behind them all slowed down, losing the courage and sharpness to rush forward into the enemy. Don't you dare to ram the enemy's ship, is it still a ship? They lost their greatest advantage, and at best they were a small arrow ship, and the threat to the Jingzhou became very small.

After getting rid of these piranhas, Liu Hou was about to give the order to speed up his escape, and his eyes skimmed over the two medium-sized ships that surrounded him left and right, obviously trying to attack the Jingzhou left and right. It is said that it is a medium-sized warship, which is relative to the building ship, and in fact its scale is not smaller than that of the Jingzhou. The development of the shipbuilding industry in Soochow can be seen.

It turned out that these two warships took advantage of the Jingzhou slowing down and fighting with the fighting ship just now, quietly approaching the Jingzhou, and launched a charge from both sides of the Jingzhou at the same time, obviously wanting to jump from the left and right directions at the same time to attack the Jingzhou, so that the Jingzhou left and right sides were stumped.

Seeing that the enemy ships on the left and right sides were less than two hundred meters away from the Jingzhou, and the two Dongwu warships were in the field of vision like two prehistoric monsters, Liu Hou was excited, these Dongwu sailors, after the shelling just now, did not know whether they were alive or dead, and dared to come.

The right cannon window, which had not yet been used today, also opened one after another, revealing the muzzle of the black hole. The gun columns on both sides of the ship were loaded with ammunition early in the morning, aimed at the enemy ship, and waited for the order to be given. Under Liu Hou's order, the 92 cannons of the whole ship were fired in just one minute.

The sound of "boom, boom, boom" could only be heard, and within a minute, it rang incessantly, shaking people's ears. The hull of the ship shook under the huge recoil of the guns, and everyone in the captain's room could not stand on their feet in this seismic shaking, and had to urgently grasp some furniture, handrails and other objects to help stabilize their bodies so as not to fall to the ground.

Fortunately, all the settings on the ship are fixed and will not be moved due to the shaking of the ship, which can not only prevent the crew from being hit or injured by the furniture and facilities that are sliding or even collapsed due to the shaking of the ship, but also enable the crew to have a place for handrails to help the crew stabilize their body shape in time.

In addition to the shaking caused by the recoil of the artillery, the Jingzhou was also hit by about 10 giant crossbow arrows the thickness of a baby's arm, which were fired from the bed crossbows installed on the Soochow battleship, and were so powerful that they could penetrate several people in a row and nail them into a string of mutton skewers. More than 10 unlucky people became the first to die on the Jingzhou. There was a crossbow arrow nailed to the frame of the observation window of the captain's room, looking at the tail of the thick crossbow arrow that was still trembling, Liu Hou broke out in a cold sweat on his back, as long as he was a little more off and shot into the captain's room, he and the high-level inside would be in danger.

Fortunately, the results of the artillery were gratifying, and the Soochow people were not given the opportunity to fire the bed crossbow again. At such a close distance, the artillery accuracy finally did not disappoint Liu Hou. Each of the Soochow warships was hit by at least 10 rounds of solid bullets, and both ships were obviously smashed to the bottom of the ship, and the Soochow soldiers who were still densely lined up on the deck just now or with bows and arrows, or holding spears and spears, or holding swords and shields and preparing to jump into the gang immediately became chaotic.

Because they stood so densely packed that a single shell could hit one or two people, causing the ships to scream so much that no less than 20 people were killed in each boat. This is still because there is no ricocheting to cause secondary damage, and the deck is as unbearable as paper paste under the bombardment of cannonballs, and it is smashed through at once, falling to the next floor, and continuing to smash the floor of the next floor.

The biggest reason for the confusion of the Soochow sailors was not that the more than 20 comrades who were smashed into two and terrible deaths, but that more than one hole was smashed through the bottom of the ship. The raging river poured relentlessly into the bilge, and the Soochow sailors frantically resorted to various remedial measures in an attempt to slow down the ship's sinking.

It's a pity that all the qiē is in vain, the water and fire are ruthless, and they often drift in the rivers and lakes, so they can not drown. The two medium-sized battleships of Soochow still sank slowly, and all the sailors on board jumped into the water in advance to avoid the whirlpool caused by the wreck, and if they were lucky, they found a plank or something that could increase buoyancy and held it, and those who were unlucky could only rely on their own water nature.