"Even if the people on both sides of the canal hate us, they are also our Han people! If they don't listen to the dissuasion and insist on refusing to leave, and the Tartars blow up the Gaojiayan embankment in a frenzy, this clan will also be heartbroken! Let Chen Yonghua's people do this, and try to evacuate the people! We cannot pin our hopes on the mercy of our enemies. Pen %Fun %Pavilion www.biquge.info," Wang Yu said.

"Students, let people do it." Wang Yuyou said.

Wang Yu said again: "In addition, let someone tell Wu Sangui that if the Tartars really blow up Gaojiayan, then if you capture the capital, you will slaughter all the banner people in the capital!" This news also finds a way to let the Tartar court know! ”

"Chen Yonghua will naturally do these things." Wang Yuyou replied.

After the Qiongzhou army captured Fengyang, it did not rush into Hongze Lake, but let a large number of agents of the Tiandihui mobilize to persuade the people on both sides of the canal in Huai'an, Sizhou, Gaoyou and other places to evacuate.

"The two armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties will fight a decisive battle on Hongze Lake in the near future, and once the Gaojiayan embankment collapses, Huaiyang will become a thousand miles of Zeguo!" There is such a news among the people in Huai'an and other places.

"What a sin!" A gray-haired old man sighed, "Why do you want to fight? Because of the war, the transportation has been cut off, and our shipwrights have not been paid a penny for a long time! Today we are going to blow up Gaojiayan again, forcing us to move, and this will not let people live? ”

A young shipwright said, "Our ships have been requisitioned by the imperial court!" I don't know what I can get back. ”

The boatman did not know that after their canal boatmen's boats were requisitioned by the Qing army, it would never be possible to get them back, because many of the boats had sunk to the bottom of the Huai River to block the Ming army's sailors. Some of the ships were converted into warships by the Qing army and were to be sunk in the water battle of Hongze Lake.

Despite the complaints of the common people, most of them left their homes for generations in tears and moved to the higher terrain to the west.

After more than a month of evacuation, the people on both sides of the canal have basically retreated. The weather is gradually getting colder, and snowflakes are falling on the land of Huaibei.

On both sides of the Huai River, the main force of the Qiongzhou Army lined up on the embankment, and the land division marched east along the Huai River; On the surface of the Huai River, the Qiongzhou Army and Naval Division went down the river and slaughtered towards Hongze Lake.

Several small boats were at the front of the flotilla, and from time to time the sailors on board lowered their bamboo poles to try out the situation in the water, and sometimes there were sailors who were very good at the water, jumped into the water, dived to the bottom and fumbled for the situation in the water. As soon as an underwater pile is discovered, the boat drops a mine and blasts a passage in the river.

The further downstream you sail, the more obstacles there are in the river.

The boat hit something and stopped, but fortunately the boat was not fast enough to break the bottom of the boat.

"There's something in the water!" The commander of the Ming army sailor on the small boat said.

A sailor picks up a bamboo pole and plunges into the water, only to come across an object that appears to be large. Looking through the water, I saw that the boat had just hit an object that looked like a wooden pole. The bamboo pole reached under the water and stirred a few times, as if there was a sunken ship underwater.

"Sir, let's go down and take a look!" A sailor volunteered to go into the water to check on the situation.

The sailor put on a diving goggle made of eucommia gum and glass, a snorkel made of eucommia gum in his mouth, a rope tied to his body, and a heavy load, disembarked from the boat and slowly dived to the bottom.

There is a shipwreck underwater, and the cabin is full of stones, so even if the shipwreck is blown up with mines, the stones in the hold can still block the channel.

The small boat of the Ming army continued to explore the way, and found that countless large and small shipwrecks had sunk under the water, a large section of the channel was blocked, and the cabin of the sunken ship was full of large stones.

"Blow up the wreck, and salvage the rocks!" Liu Guoxuan, the chief general of the inland water division, gave an order to the soldiers.

The Qing army's trick of blocking the channel with a sunken ship could not stop the Qiongzhou army at all, and the small boat dropped mines, and a column of water rose on the surface of the river, and the sunken shipwreck was blown into broken planks in a blink of an eye, and floated to the surface of the river one by one. Large boulders in the hold rolled out of the hold, still blocking the channel.

The Qiongzhou sergeants rowed a small boat with a winch and drove above the wreck, the divers dived into the water, tied the stones with ropes, and the sailors on the small boat shook the handles, used the winch to lift the stones out of the water, put them on the boat, and then transported them to the shore. The river is buoyant and it is not difficult to lift the stones out of the water.

Qing warships came from downstream in an attempt to obstruct the operation of the Ming army's small boats. However, the four river steam gunboats bombarded from a distance, and the breech-loading rifled guns hit the target accurately and quickly, and they could accurately hit the target from a distance of one mile. The Qing warships that came from afar to make trouble were shot one after another, and the planks were shattered, and the flesh and blood on the ships flew everywhere.

The water column on the river rose one after another, and some small boats were hit by a single shell and sank into the water, even if the larger ships could not withstand a few shells, and even if the high-speed rotating shells hit the upper deck, the shells could penetrate several bulkheads in succession, and a large hole was drilled in the bilge, and soon the ship began to sink.

After the four gunboats sank more than 30 Qing warships, the Qing navy no longer dared to make trouble.

The most difficult part of clearing the channel is the diver launching into the water. The weather has turned cold, and no matter how strong a person is, he can't last too long underwater, and the stones under the water are very dangerous, and if you are not careful, it is easy to break the skin, and even cause a broken arm and lower leg.

After more than 10 days of hard work, the Qiongzhou Army finally cleared the channel so that the warships could enter Hongze Lake.

"Minggou's ironclad fire dragon is here!" When the four river steam gunboats sailed into Hongze Lake, the Qing army sailors were as frightened as if they had seen a monster.

The officers and soldiers of the Qing Army's naval division had heard of this kind of ship before, and in the Battle of Jingzhou, the Qing Army's naval division was beaten by the ironclad fire dragon and was powerless. A while ago, in order to obstruct the dredging of the navigation of the Qiongzhou military and naval divisions, the Qing army and naval divisions suffered from this kind of gunboats, and their warships were sunk far away, but their own cannons had no effect on these ironclad monsters.

"Minggou has finally entered Hongze Lake! We don't have to be afraid of them! We ship more! If there are more ants, they can bite and kill elephants! As long as we surround it, we can sink Minggou's iron-armored fire dragon! "Dadu ordered the sailors to attack.

The water battle on Hongze Lake began, and the Ming army, with four ironclad inland river steam gunboats as the main force, led a group of small boats to kill the Qing army's naval division. The cannon roared on the lake, and the twenty-four breech-loading rifled guns on the four river gunboats opened fire in turn, the muzzles of the guns spewed fire, and the shells pierced the Qing warships with a piercing scream.

The Qing ships fired their guns from a distance to counterattack, but at a distance of one mile, the hit rate of the smoothbore guns could not be compared with the rifled guns at all, and most of them could only be heard.