At the end of the second year of Kangxi, the battle of Zhangzhou, which had been brewing for a long time on both sides, finally kicked off. The strength of the Qing army in Zhangzhou www.biquge.info included Li Shutai's 20,000 Fujian troops, Shang Zhixin's 5,000 Han and Eight Banners, Geng Jimao's 8,000 Han and Eight Banners, and Liu Jinzhong, Yi Yonggui, Tong Guoqi and others' 20,000 Guangdong Green Camp Army.

The Fujian Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners were basically abolished, and were sent to Xiamen by Dasula four years ago, and as a result, they suffered heavy losses in Xiamen, and a large number of Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners were captured, and now part of them have become the Qiongzhou Army, and some of them have become the Nanyang Company Escort. However, the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners in Guangdong sent more than 3,000 horses, and the Guangzhou general Hahamu sent his subordinate Zhu Mala to enter Fujian with more than 3,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners.

Wang Yu sat in the camp of the Chinese army, listening to the information reported from all sides.

The current Ming army is no longer the Ming army of the Chongzhen period, and the current Qing army is not the Qing army of the Huang Taiji period. At that time, Chongzhen cut off his arm and weakened the factory guards, which not only made corrupt officials and traitors such as the Donglin Party and the Qing gossip officials able to do evil unscrupulously, but also made the Houjin Nuzhen rampant.

The Ming army back then was like a blind man, and when they went to the battlefield, they were a smear in front of them. After that, the Jin army knew the battlefield situation well, and it was no wonder that the Ming army did not lose such a war.

And the current Ming army, with secret agencies such as the Heaven and Earth Society, as well as the intelligence system of the Nanyang Company, coupled with the well-equipped night sentry riding scouts, and the spies scattered all over the country, know the intelligence of the Qing army well.

The development of the intelligence system of the Ming army meant that the intelligence system of the Qing army was seriously damaged.

The secret service headed by Fang Chonggong can be said to be leaky in terms of arresting the Qing army, and it is difficult for the Qing army's spies to blend into the Ming army.

The elite night is equipped with rifled guns, electric guns and other new weapons, and the sentry horse hunting the Qing army's sentry horse is not a problem at all, whether it is the Eight Banners Qing Army or the Green Battalion Qing Army's scout level has seriously declined, and the combat effectiveness is not as good as before, and it is often exterminated when even the Ming army barracks cannot get close.

In terms of battlefield intelligence, the Ming army also had hot air balloons that could be used to reconnoiter the battlefield situation.

The maneuverability of hot air balloons is not good, and the wind direction is demanding, so the current hot air balloons are still dominated by ********. However, the Eastern Arsenal has already built airships that can move on pedals.

The new airship uses a spindle-shaped airbag, which is much more expensive to manufacture. Originally, Wang Xinyu thought that rubber had not yet been put into use, and there was no way to build an airship. But Xu Zhengming, Dai Cang, Song Yingxing and others came up with a solution: use eucommia glue as a glue for bonding and preventing air leakage.

A gum extracted from the Eucommia ulmoides tree has strong anti-air leakage properties, and this glue does not need to be vulcanized, so it is much simpler to use than rubber technology.

The canvas is made of an airbag, and a layer of eucommia gum is applied to prevent the hot air inside from leaking out. Under the spindle-shaped airbag hangs a long gondola, which can carry 1,000 catties, on which can carry four soldiers, and carry 300 catties of gunpowder or fierce fire oil cans, and the four soldiers have pedals under their feet, and at the same time press the pedals to drive the propellers to rotate, so that the airship can fly at a speed of eight knots.

The carrying capacity of the airship is 1,000 catties, and after carrying four soldiers, why can it only carry 300 catties of weapons? Because there are more than 200 catties of weight is the propeller transmission mechanism, the airship hot gas stove and the fuel oil of the stove.

The weight of the stove is the heaviest, and the empty stove has more than 30 catties, plus fuel, it occupies 200 catties.

At present, because the steam engine has not yet come out, it is not yet possible to enter the stage of industrial production of sulfur [acid], and there is no way to obtain a large amount of hydrogen, so the airship still adopts the method of hot gas airship.

Despite the use of foot-operated propellers, this kind of human-powered propeller-driven airship is very demanding on the climate, it cannot take off when the wind is too strong, and it cannot take off when it rains, and it can only be used on sunny days with light breeze or no wind, cloudy weather, or cloudy days when it does not rain.

Wang Xinyu did not intend to use the airship as a weapon in the Battle of Zhangzhou, in fact, the psychological shock effect of this weapon was far greater than the lethality to the enemy, and only when attacking a fortified city like Xiangyang suddenly used the airship, it had a surprise effect, and could take the fortified city of Xiangyang with minimal casualties.

In the vicinity of Zhangzhou, the situation of fighting on the water was extremely unfavorable to the Qing army. Originally, the Fujian Navy Division was almost cleaned up by Wang Xinyu's Nanyang Navy, and the remaining Fujian Navy Division was huddled in Zhangzhou Haicheng Port, and they didn't even dare to go out to sea. The Jiulong River and the waters of Xiamen were completely within the scope of activities of the Ming army's naval divisions.

The Qing army's sailors were completely blocked in the sailors' camps, not to mention going to sea, and they didn't even dare to go out on the Jiulong River.

The Ming army's Dafu boat, Haicang ship and other Chinese gunboats approached the Qing army's naval barracks, and rows of cannonballs smashed into the wooden gate of the naval barracks, blasting the wooden gate into pieces.

"Fire attack the ship, rush in!" Wu Haodong roared and gave an order.

More than a dozen fire attack ships converted from Cangshan boats rushed into the camp and rushed towards the neatly parked Qing army fleet in the naval camp.

"The thieves came in more than a dozen Cangshan boats, did they kill themselves?" Seeing more than a dozen Cangshan boats entering, Huang Wu, the commander of the Qing Army's naval division, said disapprovingly.

Although the strength of the Qing army's naval division was weak, there were batteries in the naval division camp to assist in defense, and some of the Qing army's small boats were also equipped with artillery.

Who knew that those Cangshan ships suddenly burst into flames and rushed towards the Qing fleet.

"Oh my God! Minggou is really a loser! Such a big Cangshan ship, they actually used it as a fire attack ship! Seeing the Cangshan boat that broke into the camp of the sailor on fire, Huang Wu screamed.

The Cangshan ship, which is about 200 materials, is already the largest ship for the Fujian Qing Army sailors, and it seems too extravagant and wasteful to use such a large ship as a fire attack ship, right? But in Wang Xinyu's eyes, those two hundred warships are really not eye-catching. If this kind of ship is used as a merchant ship, the displacement is too small, and when it is a warship, it is not high or low, it is not good to have tonnage, it is not to have speed, it is not a big ship, and a small ship is not a small ship.

Therefore, the Cangshan boats of the Qiongzhou Army were eventually eliminated, and the Chinese gunboats only left the Dafu boat and the Haicang boat, and the other small boats were left with centipede clippers, oar rowing boats and small sampans. Since the Cangshan ship is ready to be eliminated, it is the best way to eliminate this kind of ship as a fire attack ship.

It's like in real history, a certain army changed the obsolete old fighter planes such as the five masters and the six masters into suicide drones, and used them to consume the new air-to-air missiles of a certain big country, which is the best way to eliminate them.

The Cangshan ship rushed into the camp of the Qing army's naval division, burning a raging fire, and under the action of the north wind, it rushed straight to the Qing army's warship.

"Shoot them down!" Huang Wu shouted anxiously.

The artillery batteries on the shore of the Qing army and the guns on the warships spit out clusters of fire, and columns of rushing water rose on the sea, and some shells smashed on the rushing Cangshan boats. However, the Cangshan ship is not a very small fire attack ship, the tonnage of the Cangshan ship is actually not too small, and it is impossible to sink immediately after a few shells, and the Cangshan ship that was shot continued to rush towards the Qing fleet.

"Boom" The first burning Cangshan ship crashed into the Qing army's naval division warship, and there was a row of wooden nails on the head of this Cangshan ship, which pierced into the Qing army's ship at once.

The fire spread rapidly and soon set fire to the Qing ships.

The Cangshan boats that caught fire in the back collided with the Qing ships one after another, and the entire naval camp immediately ignited a sky-high fire, and the fire spread to the ships in the naval camp under the action of the north wind.

"Retreat!" The sailors of the Ming army, who were in charge of driving the boat, jumped on the small sampan behind the Cangshan boat and quickly rowed away.

Huang Wu shouted, "Quick, untie the boat!" Rush out all of them! Instead of being burned inside, it's better to rush out and fight to the death with Minggou! ”

Untying the boat and rushing out to fight to the death is undoubtedly the best way. It's just that Huang Wu himself didn't have the consciousness of fighting to the death, if he was really not afraid of death, he would not have betrayed Zheng Chenggong to join the Qing court, and was also named the Duke of Haicheng by the Qing court, and he was also crowned a prince Taibao.

Seeing that the officers and soldiers of the naval division under his command boarded the boat one after another, untied the cables, and drove the warship out, Huang Wu himself changed into the clothes of a small soldier, sneaked to the shore, and escaped while the chaos was in chaos.

The fire in the camp of the sailor was full of flames, and thick smoke was billowing out. The officers and men of the Qing Army's naval division only knew that if they did not drive the boat out, then all the ships would be burned in vain in the harbor. As a result, many officers and soldiers of the Qing Army's naval division who were not afraid of death drove boats and bravely rushed out of the gate of the naval division camp that was opened.

"The tartar inside is out! Fire! Wu Haodong looked at the Qing army's naval division warship that rushed out and shouted.

Fighting at sea is completely the advantage of having more cannons, only the courage not to be afraid of death is useless, when your ship has few small cannons, the more courage you have to die, the faster you will die.

On the sea at the mouth of the river at the junction of green and yellow, the Ming warships spewed fire one after another, and the cannonballs rained down on the large and small warships of the Qing army that rushed out.

The tonnage of most of the Qing warships was very small, most of them were small sampans, and the larger ones were only about 200 gunboats, or about 100 gunboats. Against those small sampans, a small sampan sank into the sea as soon as one shell hits. The larger Qing warships sank after a few rows of shells.

The ships of the Ming army were not only numerous, but also large, and the number of artillery far exceeded that of the Qing army.

The suicide attack of the Qing sailors turned into a real suicide, and almost none of the ships were able to get close to the Ming ships, all of which were sunk halfway.

Several small boats relied on the advantage of small and flexible ships to escape the bombardment of the Ming army.

"Sinks them!" Zheng Cong, who was in charge of directing the naval division's operations, shouted.

Zheng Cong's own flagship was a combination of Chinese and Western gunboats left behind by his father, a 500-ton battleship that raised its sails and rushed towards the Qing army's small boats. The first small sampan was hit and sank into the sea in two. (To be continued.) )