Knock knock, bursts of drums seem to be thunder, Qinluo River, Zhongzhou and Youzhou line, with the sound of the drums, the large and small ships docked on the bank of the river have raised their sails, for a time, the canvas covers the sky, and the boats spread the river.

Youzhou and Zhongzhou are more than 2,000 miles in a remote area, and before the winter of last year, the battle lines of the two sides were almost divided by the natural barrier of the Qinluo River, with the empire in the north and Li Tang in the south.

Throughout the winter, both sides have no idleness, on the Qinluo River, everywhere are shipbuilding sites, whether it is the north bank or the south bank, and in various towns, both sides are also deploying troops, transporting grain and grass materials, and strengthening the city defense.

For this reason, the empire ceded all the occupied territories north of Youzhou, and the forces completely retreated to the first line of the Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain, and even when retreating, it lost more than 50,000, and several fortress towns in the north of the country fell into ruins.

In addition to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, the army still Chen soldiers and horses are still on the northern front, defending Beihu, the third, fifth, and sixth major legions of the forbidden army, the three major legions of Youzhou, and a legion of Liangzhou are all gathered on the first line of the Qinluo River, with a strength of up to one million, in addition, the first line of Qingzhou, there is also a legion of Yunzhou, the second and seventh legions of the forbidden army and the main force of the three major legions of Qingzhou, nearly 700,000 soldiers and horses.

In the south, Chuzhou and Yangzhou each gathered more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, with a total strength of 500,000, and in the west, Yongzhou and Shuzhou, there were also 150,000 soldiers and horses from the waterway, as well as several important land routes to the east.

This is the disadvantage of Zhongzhou in the world, the land of the four wars, there are few dangerous places to defend, although the direction of Chuzhou, because of the fall of Xiangfan County, and temporarily unable to go north, but the pressure on Zhongzhou is still not small.

At the end of March, the land began to warm up, and before the arrival of Lingxun, the northern road took the lead in launching an offensive, and the Qinluo River section of 2,000 miles long was divided into seven roads, and the boat went south from all over the gathering place.

The ten-zhang high giant building ship is like a floating island, taking advantage of the last north wind in spring, stirring up the dozens of canvases to wave through layers of water waves, heading straight for the south shore of Qinluo.

"Report, Li Tang Navy has been found ahead!" The herald ran quickly on the huge building ship, and came to the large conference hall on the top floor of the ship, and said loudly.

"Oh, I didn't expect Li Tang's navy to have the courage to come out, hmph, I want to see how many warships they can piece together to touch me!" "The defeat half a year ago has been a threat to Situ Ming, and Sai Weng knows whether it is a blessing or not, although the Eastern Route Army was almost wiped out, and less than 30,000 of the 200,000 troops survived in the end, but the important thing for Situ Ming is not how many people died, but the strength in his hands has improved.

The death of the Third Forbidden Army Legion is bad news for the empire, but for Situ Ming, it is not bad, because the newly formed Third Forbidden Army Legion has been controlled by him, and this is what makes him more confident.

The Third Forbidden Army Legion is almost rebuilt, but the combat power cannot be said to be not strong, the Dongfang family can be regarded as a bloody capital this time, if it is normal, such a legion is almost wiped out, and it will take at least three or five years to rebuild, and it will take seven or eight years to recover, but under the intervention of the Dongfang family, in less than three months, the soldiers are replenished, and most of them are still veterans, and the proportion of new soldiers is only half.

And the other allocated military funds are also fully distributed, and even more materials are transported in other names, and for this battle of crossing the river, the Dongfang family has transferred nearly one-third of the Yunzhou Qinglong Naval Army, as well as a lot of elites, and the private naval army of the Dongfang Family is also directly incorporated into it.

Situ Ming has a reason to despise Li Tang's navy on the other side, although Li Tang occupies half of Zhongzhou, but today's Zhongzhou is far from the Zhongzhou of hundreds of years ago, and the existence of the forbidden area of the eight cities has made Zhongzhou's status decline greatly, whether it is the population or the available craftsmen, as well as various resources, it is almost completely inferior.

Although Li Tang was also vigorously building ships, but with the momentum of the north shore, it was too inferior, Situ Ming took a group of generals directly out of the cabin, came to the wooden shed platform, and looked far away.

"There are only a few medium-sized building boats, and most of the rest are fast boats such as boats and ships, such a sailor also wants to stop my army from crossing the river, what a joke, Your Highness the Nine, look at how I photographed all those boats into the river as the eighth king!"

A military general who was born as a slave in an Oriental family looked at the oncoming naval army with contempt, and said with a big package.

"Hehe, that king just looks at you, how powerful you are on the sea!" Situ Ming glanced at His Royal Highness the water general who spoke, and looked at it!" After Dongfang Yuwen took the general's order, he immediately issued an order, although most of these naval warships are newly built. However, most of the people who control the ship are from the original team, so there is no problem of indistinguishable orders and wrong coordination.

As the drums beat and the flags flew, the canvas was lifted from the canvas of the throwing carts placed on the main building, revealing the huge spiral arm, from which soldiers hoisted the boulder out of the cabin and into the tail end of the spiral arm.

"First shot, calibration, preparation, shot!"

The rope was cut off, and the huge wrestling arm was suddenly raised high, and the stones in the bucket spoon were not only one but three large stones the size of a basin, and there were three pieces of two legs, and this one flew out, and the three stones were immediately scattered, but because they were about the same size as the polished, although there was a difference in quality, it was not a difference of 108,000 miles. Three boulders smashed down on the surface of the river, and suddenly hit three huge water columns, the first shot was more than a mile away from Li Tang's naval vessels, and the left and right slopes were also hundreds of meters.

But soon, the catapult on another building ship also sent out a calibrated projection, but this time the left and right slope error was significantly smaller, after two errors, the throwers on the two warships not far away quickly communicated, and soon, the third calibration shot was issued, and this time, the scattered stones finally fell in front of Li Tang's navy, although it still did not hit the target, but this was enough.

Catapult is a kind of siege equipment with a range of strikes, and the hit degree is not high, so it is usually used to siege cities, as well as a large number of naval battles, and this catapult is only installed on the building ship with two or three installations, and is the main long-range attack weapon.

The left and right declination angles were determined, and the building ships located on the left and right, front and rear, could quickly be adjusted according to the previous declination angle, and the catapult's blow also had a range, so the rest just waited for the two sides to approach and enter the firing range.

Half an hour later, the distance between the two sides finally entered the attack distance of the catapult, and Dongfang Yuwen, a water general who had been polished in the water army for half his life, did not disappoint, and directly ordered the first round of attacks of the catapult.

This time, it was not the one or two catapults that attacked, in Situ Ming's naval army, there were as many as fifty or sixty large and small building ships alone, and of course the attacks should also be waved, after all, the distance is different, and there is a big difference in attacking successively, and this is the time to test the ability of a water general.

The first wave attacked only eight ships, including the flagship, each of which had two or three catapults, twenty catapults, and a wave of sixty stone bullets.

This huge stone pierced the air, made a screaming sound, and smashed overwhelmingly at the Li Tang Navy on the opposite side, although the hit was not high, it all relied on Meng, but such a dense attack, coupled with a fairly dense formation on the opposite side, even if it was lucky, there would be so many hits.

And in fact, it is true, on a ship that walks, the sailors are extremely nervous to drive the boat, because they are facing several times more than them at the moment, and they are all the kind of imperial sailors who are big ships, although they are not afraid of death, but they will feel a little frightened on the 1st.

The roaring rain of stones was overwhelming, and the sailors on the ship prayed that they would not be hit, but it seemed that their luck was not good, and even the old sailors who had been on this water for many years could hardly judge the weakness of the stone, because they had never faced it at all.

So, when the stone landed on the deck of the ship impartially, the sorrow appeared, and the boulder smashed the deck, but did not smash through, but was bounced by the tough deck, and was immediately bounced away, like a cannonball. Sweeping, several soldiers who were blocking the way to this stone were smashed on the spot with broken bones and limbs, blood suddenly stained the deck red, and several corpses fell in a pool of blood, and just now, the shattered deck, flying out of the sawdust also swept down a few soldiers next to them, and the bamboo armor and cloth clothes on their bodies did not help them block the deadly attack.

The boat was still paddling on the water, but seven or eight people fell on deck, and almost half of the ship's combat strength was swept away.

It's not just them who are the most unlucky, not far from them, a Flying Fish clipper was simply smashed to the bottom, the six soldiers on the ship, two died, one was seriously injured, and the remaining three were lucky, only a little injured, but looking at the whistling sound in the sky again, the people who survived a few chapters felt fear. "Haha, it's really vulnerable!" Situ Ming looked at the Li Tang warships that sank one after another, and the indescribable happiness in his heart seemed to have a shadow in his psychology after the last defeat.

"Report, in the upstream direction, there are a large number of grasshopper boats going downstream!"

"Hmph, do you want to attack with fire, it's really naïve, give the order, let the ship, go away, and the Exocet warship will attack, and sink them for me!"