In the lower reaches of the Wushan Gorge, the large and small warships of the Qing army's sailors who went upriver from Hubei rushed straight to the Wushan Gorge in an attempt to rescue Li Guoying. On the large Chinese army ship in the rear of the Qing army's naval division, Zhang Changgeng, the governor of Huguang, stood on the helm. This time, he personally took command and led 10,000 green battalion sailors and 20,000 land divisions in Hubei to rush to the aid of Li Guoying's troops in Sichuan in more than 400 large and small ships.

The Huguang Green Battalion Naval Division was a relatively powerful naval division of the Qing Army in those years, and this naval division served as a patrol of the Yangtze River on weekdays, responsible for escorting grain from Hubei and Hunan provinces to Beijing. The Huguang Water Division has four large naval divisions under its jurisdiction in Wuchang, Jingzhou, Changde, and Yuezhou, with more than 20,000 officers and men, and more than 700 warships and transport ships.

The main warships of the Qing army are 36 large warships, which are about 36 meters long and 7 meters wide, with two masts and two rudders, carrying more than 80 sailors, with a Franc machine fast gun at the head and tail, and a number of small cannons on both sides. In addition to the big rush boat, the rest of the Qing army's warships were medium rush boats, bird boats, fast crabs and sampans, all of which were the standard ship types of the Qing army's inland river divisions, and they were mainly based on broadside warfare. If such a naval division is pulled to the mouth of the Yangtze River, let alone encountering the Nanyang Navy, even the naval division of the Zheng family army and the naval division of the Zhejiang army will not be able to defeat it. But in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, this Qing army sailor is a giant-like existence.

"Report to your lord! The fire attack raft of the upstream thieves has come down! "A pro-soldier came to report.

Zhang Changgeng looked in the direction of the soldier's finger, and saw that a dense raft appeared on the river upstream, rushing down the river and rushing towards the Qing army's fleet. The rafts were piled with firewood, and it was obvious that the rafts were on fire.

"Let the boat stop the thieves! We can't let the thieves' fire attack raft get close to our big ship! Zhang Changgeng yelled.

The big ships of the Qing army opened artillery bombardment on the fire rafts that went down the river, and a few rafts were hit by shells, and the firewood on the rafts was torn apart, and the rafts were also smashed. The tied ropes loosened and the raft began to disintegrate. The volunteer soldiers who were shot on the raft immediately flew with their flesh and blood. Because the raft disintegrated, the soldiers who were not hit by the shells also fell into the river.

However, fortunately, because of the relatively long distance, the hit rate of the Qing army's naval division was not high, and most of the shells only fell in the river and rose into the sky. The vast majority of the rebel rafts were intact. Continue to go down the river and go straight to the main fleet of the Qing army.

A large number of Qing army sampans were killed from the fleet, and the Qing army's sailors and soldiers rowed their boats hard, going up the current to kill the rafts of the righteous army that were drifting down.

Purely in terms of numbers, the number of naval divisions of the Qing army far exceeded that of the Righteous army. But the rebels were going down the river, and there was no need for paddlers, as long as there were a few archers, a few hand-to-hand fighters, and a few people who were responsible for lighting the fire on each raft. And if the Qing army wants to swim upstream, it needs to spend a lot of manpower to paddle. Although it is said that after entering the broadside battle. Oarsmen can also pick up a knife and participate in battle, turning into hand-to-hand combat, but in the process of paddling, a lot of physical strength is consumed, and the combat effectiveness is reduced.

The distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer, and on the raft of the rebel army, the archers standing behind the firewood were stretched out their bows and arrows, shooting overwhelming feather arrows at the oncoming Qing army sampan.

"Shield! Shield! The Qing sergeant on the small sampan shouted.

Although the Qing army was numerous, it was not very advantageous. Because of the large number of people who had to paddle by hand, there were naturally fewer archers on board. Unable to form suppressive fire on the rebel rafts. Moreover, the wind direction was also unfavorable to the Qing army, and the arrows fired by the archers of the rebel army who came down from the upstream came with the wind, and the range also increased.

"Whoosh" feathered arrows shot from the raft of the rebels rushed to the face.

The Qing soldiers on the sampan were shielded with rattan cards, blocking most of the feathered arrows. However, there were still many arrows that drilled through the gap between the rattan cards and the rattan cards, and pierced into the Qing soldiers, and a heart-rending scream suddenly sounded on the small sampan.

The few archers of the Qing army also drew their bows and arrows. Launch a counterattack against the rebels. A row of feathered arrows flew towards the raft dozens of paces away, most of which landed on the firewood in front of the raft. A few arrows were fired at the rebel soldiers behind the firewood, but all of them were blocked by the rebels with wooden signs, and only a very small number of unfortunate people were injured by the arrows.

"Rush forward!" The Qing officer shouted anxiously.

Only by rushing forward as soon as possible to engage in hand-to-hand combat can the numerical superiority of the Qing army be brought into play. Otherwise, the advantage in numbers is offset by the disadvantage against the wind and the current. The Qing army can basically only be beaten passively and is unable to fight back, which is too passive.

"Boom" a Qing army sampan that had no time to dodge to the side was hit by a rebel raft down the river, and the huge raft overturned the small sampan at once, and the Qing soldiers on the boat fell into the water like dumplings.

Another Qing army sampan dodged the impact of the raft, went around the side, and attached the raft. The Qing soldiers on the small sampan dropped their oars, drew their knives, shouted and jumped on the raft, and slashed at the rebels on the raft.

The rebel archers on the raft hurriedly shot a few feathered arrows, then threw away their bows and arrows, and drew their short swords to fight. The hand-to-hand fighters of the rebels drew their waist knives and axes one after another, and faced the Qing army to kill. These volunteers who drove the raft were all elite soldiers who were fierce in combat and were not afraid of life and death, and as soon as the two sides fought, the number of the rebels was small but they did not fall behind at all, they slashed and axe, and cut down the Qing soldiers who jumped on the raft one by one into the water.

Helplessly, the Qing soldiers were numerous, and the small sampans leaned up, and more and more Qing soldiers jumped on the raft and started fierce hand-to-hand combat with the rebels above. Under the pressure of the Qing army's continuous reinforcements, on the rafts that were entangled by the Qing army's sampan, the righteous soldiers were either killed or jumped into the water to flee for their lives. There were also some brave volunteer soldiers who lit firewood and crashed into the sampan of the Qing army with a raft that lit a raging fire. When the Qing soldiers jumped on the raft, they neither dodged nor jumped into the water to escape, but jumped on the sampan of the Qing army with the firewood and oil cans that caught fire, and died with the Qing army.

The rafts of the rebel army were constantly stopped by the small sampans of the Qing army, and there were fewer and fewer rafts that could continue to rush towards the large fleet of the Qing army.

The few fire-attacking rafts evaded the entanglement of the Qing army's small sampan and rushed straight to the Qing army's big ship, but they were all ignited in advance by the rockets fired by the Qing army's big ship, or were disintegrated by the artillery on the Qing army's big ship, turning into logs floating on the water. In the end, only two fire-attacking rafts succeeded in setting fire to the two Qing army's central boats.

The first batch of 83 fire-attacking rafts was completely annihilated, and more than 600 officers and men of the Righteous Army's naval division were killed or missing, and the result was the sinking of two large ships of the Qing army and 31 sampans of the Qing army. More than 700 Qing troops were killed, and the losses on both sides were roughly equal.

"The thief is not Erer!" Seeing that the fire attack raft formation of the rebel army was broken, Zhang Changgeng was overjoyed and ordered the whole army to advance, rushed into the Wushan Gorge, and rescued Li Guoying.

The Hubei Qing army entered the narrow Wushan Gorge. They found that the second group of fire-attacking rafts of the rebels had appeared on the river ahead, and they were going down the river and killing the Qing fleet.

Zhang Changgeng repeated his old trick and ordered the small sampan to intercept the raft.

White smoke rose from the jungle on the shore of the "bang", and the Western Expeditionary Army did not use the lightning bolt with a very high rate of fire at night to fire fiercely at the small sampan of the Qing army on the river. More than 30 electric guns were worth hundreds of birds, and the dense bullets continued to shoot into the river. The river here is narrow, and the narrowest point is less than 100 steps. Wherever the ships on the river are hiding, they are within range of the electric guns on the shore.

The bullet hit the Qing soldiers, constantly spraying a mist of blood. Many of the Qing soldiers who were rocking their oars were shot, killed on the spot, or wounded and lost their strength. A small sampan of fifteen or sixteen men was killed and wounded seven or eight oarsmen, and the speed of the boat immediately slowed down.

The tiger squat cannon on the shore of the "boom" also spit out fire, and the shell hit the sampan of the Qing army in the middle of the river, and a shell smashed down. The ship was just a hole, and the small sampan could not withstand the shelling at all. Hit by a bullet and sink.

Zhang Changgeng anxiously shouted: "Let the gunboat go up!" Shelling thieves on both sides of the strait! ”

The Qing army's Dazhong warships, bird boats, and fast crab boats poured into the canyon and sailed upstream, trying to suppress the shore rebels and the Western Expeditionary Army with the artillery, birds, and bows and arrows on the ships. Just when a large number of Qing gunboats with deep draft entered the canyon, a fast crab boat that suddenly rushed to the front slammed into something, and the bottom of the boat was immediately torn open a hole, and the river water poured into the boat.

Then there was a violent vibration of another medium-sized ship. A large hole was made in the bottom of the boat, and the raging river roared into the cabin, and the speed of the ship immediately slowed down.

"The thieves have set up a lot of underwater piles!" Seeing his large ships sinking one after another, Zhang Changgeng understood. The previous small sampan enters the canyon, and the underwater pile has a certain depth underwater. Small sampans with shallow draft will not be knocked and sunk. But as soon as the big ship entered, it was different, and many Qing army ships hit the dark pile and sank.

The Qing fleet slowed down, and Zhang Changgeng ordered the small boat to clean up the underwater piles, and the big ship followed slowly behind.

At this moment, countless rebel archers appeared on both sides of the river, and the overwhelming rockets were like fire crows in the sky, rushing straight to the Qing warships in the river. Rockets were fired onto Qing warships, igniting sails and decks. Although the Qing army used sandbags, wet felt, and buckets to extinguish the fire, there were too many rockets that fell, and many boats were still ignited.

What made Zhang Changgeng even more stunned was that among the rockets fired from the shore, there were also several particularly thick rockets, which made a piercing scream when they flew and exploded immediately when they landed on the ship, igniting flammable materials such as sails. One of the large ships was hit directly by a rocket into the powder keg next to the gun emplacement, causing a violent explosion that ignited the entire ship. The swept air wave lifted more than a dozen Qing soldiers on the boat and flew down into the river.

This kind of large rocket is the rocket used by the Western Expeditionary Army.

Taking advantage of the chaos in the formation of the Qing army's naval division, the rafts upstream also killed the Qing army. The big raft overturned the sampan of the Qing army one after another, and rushed straight towards the big ship of the Qing army. Soon a raft collided with a large bird boat of 400 materials, and the volunteer soldiers on the raft lit firewood and kerosene, and immediately jumped into the river to escape.

The Qing army's large bird boat, which was hit by the fire attack raft, burst into flames, and soon the entire ship was engulfed in flames.

The fire-attacking rafts that came one after another kept knocking over the sampans of the Qing army and crashing into the big ships. In the blink of an eye, more than thirty sampans were knocked over and eight large ships were set on fire.

"There are a lot of thieves on the shore! Let the Lu Division land to deal with them! Zhang Changgeng shouted.

The transport ships full of green battalion soldiers advanced at full speed against the dense firepower of the rebels and the Western Expeditionary Army, and the Qing soldiers on the ship protected themselves with shields and shouted and rowed. As soon as the boat landed on the river beach, the Qing soldiers on board jumped out of the boat, carried feathered arrow projectiles, stepped on the knee-deep river, and desperately charged to the shore.

Dense projectile feather arrows were fired, and the Qing soldiers who landed fell one after another. But none of the Qing soldiers flinched, they went one after another, shielded themselves with shields, and continued to advance in the rain of bullets.

The Western Expeditionary Army, which was sent by Wang Jinzhong to assist the Righteous Army and fought side by side with the Kuidong Righteous Army, did not collect the troops and artillery at night at this time. Rockets were fired one after another from the woods on the shore and burrowed into the crowd of Qing troops. Rocket Slip, this kind of individual rocket, played a huge role at this time. A rocket drilled into the dense crowd of Qing soldiers, and seven or eight Qing soldiers could be brought down at once.

The small mortars of the Western Expeditionary Army also began to show their might, and the shells continued to rise into the air, smashing into the crowd of Qing troops, causing bursts of bloody rain.

The rebels also threw in the most powerful firepower, with trebuchets, tiger squat cannons, general cannons, bird guns, and bows and arrows raining bullets one after another, knocking down large swaths of the Qing soldiers. On the yellow, orange and orange beaches on the riverbank, a large number of corpses of Qing soldiers fell horizontally, and large areas of golden sand were dyed red. On the surface of the river, the water is glowing with red foam, lapping against the reef on the shore.

Seeing that the situation was not good, some Qing soldiers turned their heads and wanted to flee back to the ship, but they were beheaded by the warlords around them.

Seeing that many deserters were killed on the spot, more than 100 people fell under the knives of the overseers in an instant, and the Qing soldiers could only charge hard, and no one dared to turn back and escape. In fact, even if there was no supervising team, they would have nowhere to run, because the officers and men of the sailor division driving the ship would definitely not dare to let the land division get on the ship and flee for their lives without receiving the order to retreat.

"Brothers, kill! As long as we rush up, the bright dog in front of us can't stop us at all! Kill! A Qing army general yelled.

When the Qing soldiers fell a large number of corpses and rushed to the rebels, they found that the rebels had actually erected a wooden fence in the woods! The pikemen behind the wooden fence continued to assassinate with their spears, killing many Qing soldiers. However, the Qing soldiers armed with short weapons could not hurt the rebels behind the wooden fence at all.

A wooden fence separated the Ming army from the Qing army, so that the short weapons of the Qing army could not exert their power, and they could only attack it by cutting down the wooden fence. The pikemen in front of the Ming army and the archers in the back continued to output firepower, causing great damage to the Qing army.

Seeing with his own eyes that his "warriors" had landed on land and were attacking the rebels, Zhang Changgeng thought that it would not take long to get the good news. However, after waiting for a long time, he found that his landing force was like carrying snow to fill a well, and as much as it was filled, it would be eaten as much as it was filled, and there was no reaction at all, so Zhang Changgeng asked about the situation. (To be continued.) )