Since the arrival of the Fifth Division and the Xiang Division of the Zhu clan in Nanzheng, the Qin army has withdrawn from Baocheng, Qipanling and the entire Nanzheng Basin, and only the Qin army's warships roamed the water west of Nanzheng City to monitor the Chu warships docked east of Nanzheng.

There were not many war boats in the Chu army. The establishment of the five divisions of the Zhu clan was late, and the war boats were all pawns. If you build a new warship instead of buying the large wing warship that was sold at a discount, the equipment cost of the Pawn Wing warship is the lowest. Xiang Shi purchased it early, but he has always had money, and he built a winged war boat at the beginning. Therefore, eight divisions have one soldier and one boat, and the whole army has only one hundred and twenty-eight wings.

Fortunately, the warboats that were not used by the Yingshi and the Hubei division for the time being were sent up by the Dasima Mansion, and the Yueshi rescued more than 10,000 soldiers placed in Nanzheng from Daze and the soldiers who could paddle in Nanzheng City, adding up to more than 23,000 people, and these people led 83 pawn wing warboats, and the Chu army warships increased to 211.

In addition to the winged warship, during the more than 20 days of waiting, the large-wing gunboats built by the downstream building house sailed to Nanzheng one after another. To this day, the day before the battle, at the end of October, twelve large wing gunboats had sailed to Nanzheng, bringing the total number of warships to two hundred and twenty-three.

The Big-Wing gunboats were all converted from Big-Wing warships, which were the first to be built ten years ago, and were disliked by the divisions because of their breakage when they were sold at a discount, so they stayed in the shipyard. The premise of the modification was to repair and strengthen to protect the fragile keel and ribs, and at the same time, in order to facilitate the targeting and loading of the guns on the ship, an artillery firing platform was placed in the bow and stern.

The most difficult thing to do is the buffer, the gangway of the battle boat is thin, and the ribs are also thin, and it cannot be buffered with rope pulleys like the Chaos class gunboats, otherwise the gunwales and ribs that fix the rope will break or even break if the number of shots is too much. The final solution was the carriage springs, and with the improvement of the heat treatment capacity of Jutiefu, the four-wheeled carriages began to use spring shock absorbers instead of leather suspension.

These low-performance springs were used by craftsmen on the Large-Wing gunboats. The gun was a standard naval four-wheeled trolley gun, but the trolley was housed in a large, narrow drawer. After the cannon is fired, the gun carriage recoils, hitting the back wall of the drawer and driving the entire drawer to recoil. The springs are installed in the long lattice below the drawer and behind the drawer wall.

The muzzle velocity of the fifteen-pound gun is more than 400 meters, the weight of the gun and the gun carriage is one ton, and the recoil speed of the gun is about 1.4 meters per second. Unlike the Chaos class gunboats, the Greatwing Gunboat allows for a longer gun recoil distance (of course, a longer recoil distance will affect the gunner's reload rate, as the gunner will pull the gun back to reload and fire).

The craftsman increased the number of long lattices at the bottom of the drawer by increasing the number of springs, each of which was longer than a foot, and the long lattice in which the springs were placed was also of this size. Corresponding to the position and width of these compartments, the bottom of the drawer protrudes vertically down in rows of baffles, which are pressed against the springs and compressed when recoiling. If the gun spring compresses to the end, increase the length of the drawer, that is, increase or decrease the number of rows of the long lattice, until the spring does not compress to the end, leaving room for it.

The recoil device slows down the recoil of the gun, distributing the recoil to the keel, and the entire drawer springs back into place. In subsequent improvements, the drawer became less like a drawer. The drawer was too long, and the drawer could return to its original position, but the gun could not return to its original position, so the drawer changed from the "" type to the "⊥" type, completely eliminating the spring on the back wall of the drawer, and relying entirely on the spring at the bottom of the drawer. Adjusting the position of the riser on the drawer will adjust the position of the drawer when the gun recoil hits the drawer.

After Zaofu found that the huge recoil of the fifteen-pound gun would damage the gunplate and keel, he came up with a feasible plan in just a few days, and improved this plan when it was refitted. This not only led to a significant reduction in the number of artillery crews, but also to a significant increase in the reloading rate. It was only because of the rush of time that the artillerymen who were testing the artillery while advancing westward did not deliver the latest rate of fire to the combat division Shucao.

However, after Shen Qing, who visited the gunboat a few days ago, he saw that the gunners were testing the guns, and he was shocked to see that the bottom plate of the guncar would rebound in its original position, and he was even more stunned when he saw the loading speed of the gunners. The artillery of the Ling division was not as fast as the gunboat gunmen when they loaded on the ground.

The battle of Nanzheng was almost won by artillerymen, and after Shen Qing saw the loading speed of the big wing gunboats, he began to say on the way back that our army would win, and our army would win. Shen Qing is like this, but Cheng Feng, Jing Gui, Zhao Liu, Qu Xuan, Xiang Chao and others are cautious and not as optimistic as him. There are only two hundred and thirteen warships on their side, how many Qin people are there?

It is speculated that the Qin people had a thousand warships before, and now there are at least three hundred. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the Qin army built 1,000 warships in three months, and more than 300 ships per month. It has been nearly a month since the Battle of Daze, which is equivalent to saying that the Qin people have six or seven hundred warships, and their strength is three times that of their own.

According to the description of Su Kai, who only arrived in Nanzheng today, the Qin army still has one hundred and fifty warships left, and even if the Qin people can build more than 300 warships a month, the number of warships will not exceed 500. The number of war boats is not important, the important thing is that the Qin people's war boats are suddenly proficient in the formation, and the Yue Shi soldiers are proficient in water warfare, but they have no way to attack the Qin people in the array.

Cheng Feng, Jing Gui, Zhao Liu and others are all Lingshi generals, and they don't know much about water warfare, so they took the risk of losing Tho and invited Yu Kai over, and when to fight with the Qin people is also subject to when he arrives. At this time, he mentioned the formation of the Qin people's boat division, and Xiang Chao asked: "Dare to ask Qi Ao, what kind of formation does the Qin people list?" ”

"Circle." The old man couldn't help but feel a little ashamed on his face, the Qin people listed the round formation to make the Yue division invincible, and then went down the river, through Daze, and took the lead to occupy the waterway, and the Yue Shi who was blocked in Daze could only abandon the boat and land on the shore and retreat to Tho.

"What kind of circle?" Cheng Feng, Jing Gui and the others couldn't figure out what the boat master's circle array looked like.

"This kind of circle." Fu Kai didn't ask people to look for paper and pencils, but dipped his fingers in tea and drew directly on the wooden table.

If Xiong Jing is here, he will be surprised that the Qin people's boat division circle array is very similar to the 24-hour navigation clock used on ships in later generations. The ordinary clock is 12 o'clock, and two revolutions are a day. The nautical clock on ships, especially submarines, is 24 o'clock clock, and it only turns once a day. One grid is an hour, and there are twenty-four squares on the clock face.

The difference is that although the circle array is also composed of twenty-four war boats or transport boats, the outer circle is only twenty-one grids, and these clock grids are war boats, all of which are outward and distributed at certain intervals. The last three warships are in the center of the entire circle, and the warships are sandwiched one hundred and twenty degrees from each other, with the bow pointing outwards and the stern touching each other, so as to prevent the enemy boats from rushing into the formation.

Including the Yue Division, most of the water battles between the boat divisions were in large and small waterways, even when they arrived at the lake and pond, because the previous war boats did not collide with each other, such a formation would not be listed. The Boat Master has an infinitely changing formation like the Tomb Master, which is something that is unimaginable including Xiong Jing.

But the Qin people listed such a formation. Twelve warships mixed with twelve or more transport boats lined up in a circle, and when they met the Yue Shi's boats, they cowered without a fight, allowing the southbound water to carry themselves to the downstream frustration. Once these circular formations drifted away and floated out of Daze into the waterway, the Qin people immediately blocked the waterway, and the Yue Shi could only watch the rest of the boats go south, and he was sealed in Daze.

"How is this formation fought?" None of the people in the circle could see the clue of the circle, so they asked.

"General Xiang is invited to fight." Su Kai didn't want to say more, handed Xiang Chao a few boat chips, and asked him to make a deduction.

Xiang Chao was not polite, and after Lu Kai listed the round formation on the chipboard, his battle boat began to attack. At this time, he discovered the problem, his several warships collided with any enemy ship in the circle, and he had to face the counterattack of several enemy ships in the array. Even if he passed through the gap between the warships and shaved off their pulp, the three warships evenly distributed in the center of the circle could push themselves back like the twenty-five short spearmen in the center of the spear array.

"This array is hard to break!" Xiang Chao put down the boat chip in his hand and said helplessly.

"On that day, there were more than 160 Qin people's warships, and our division's warships were only 63, so they all died together, and they were not defeated by the Qin." It was only at this time that he sighed. If it weren't for hard eating, exchanging a boat for a boat, the Qin people's circle formation would not have been broken at all. If you don't eat hard, no matter how flexible your own war boat is, no matter how skilled your hands are, and how good the boat officials are, you can only let it drift when you encounter such a turtle formation.

"Or it can be broken by artillery." Everyone was still thinking about the formation of the Qin people's boat division, and Shen Qing reiterated the theory of artillery victory. He picked up the boat chip that Xiang Chao put down, placed it on the side of the circle at will, and before speaking, he glanced at Bu Liangju, who led the big wing gunboat in battle, and said: "The artillery can hit the enemy from 200 paces away......

"Two hundred steps may not hit the enemy's boat, and one hundred and fifty steps is the best." Bu Liangju corrected.

"Is the stern against the enemy?" In the afternoon, he also boarded the big wing gunboat, because he was under the city of Nanzheng, and he was worried that the Qin people would be alert, so the guns on the boat did not fire. Bu Liangju briefed him on the gunboat's performance and combat methods.

"If you are in the water, it is inconvenient for the boat to turn back, so you can only face the enemy in the bow. What does Su Ao think? Bu Liangju asked.

"Hmm......" Although he didn't see the power of artillery water warfare, Chu Qi had a brief water battle in Zhifu Harbor two years ago, and he had heard people talk about the power of the Chaos-class gunboats. After pondering for a while, he only said: "I heard it, and the war boat was hit with artillery, and it was broken but not sunk, but no? ”

As soon as he said a word, he hit the key point of the surface artillery battle, and Bu Liangju had to nod and said, "Indeed." The gangways of the war boat were too thin, and the shells often passed through the wall, so they could only break the boat but not sink it. It's just that I don't know ...... Qin people."

"I don't know how the Qin people are, if there are other formations besides this formation." He smiled wryly. From the moment he saw the new Wing ten years ago, he felt that the world had changed, becoming unpredictable and more dangerous. "In tomorrow's war, we must be cautious and cautious, and act at the right time."