The Ming Dynasty once invented a weapon called the fire dragon out of the water, which was in a water battle, facing an enemy ship, lighting a fuse three or four feet above the water and launching a rocket. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

However, this new weapon invented by the Dongfan Academy of Sciences is called the fire dragon into the water, and there is only one word difference between the fire dragon and the fire dragon out of the water, and the difference between the two weapons is very big. The fire dragon used by the Ming army's pole mineboat to enter the water is to use a long bamboo pole to send the fire dragon into the water, and the head of the rocket in the water is aimed at the target. This weapon has a lighter specific gravity than water and can float on water. There is a rope inside the bamboo pole that is connected to the hair pulling device used by the fire dragon into the water.

When the pole minecraft approached the target at a distance of about 100 paces, the sailors on the pole minecraft would enter the water and put the fire dragon into the water, push forward with the bamboo pole, aim at the target, and then pull the rope inside the bamboo pole.

The rope is connected with the fire pulling device, and the rope is pulled hard, and the mixture of copper wire, glass slag, sulfur and phosphorus at the end is rubbed, and the primer is ignited instantly, so that the gunpowder in the rocket burns and expands rapidly, and the gas is sprayed out to the back, so that the fire dragon floating on the water surface can move at high speed on the water surface when entering the water.

Because the rocket is placed in a sealed shell, the nozzle mouth at the tail is sealed with oiled paper, which can be waterproof, so the rocket can ignite in the water when launched. The gas emitted by the ignited rocket is ejected through an iron pipe, the nozzle of the iron pipe is exposed a little on the surface of the water, and the gas ejected drives the mine forward.

The range of this weapon is about a hundred paces, which is much closer than the range of the fire dragon out of the water. However, the accuracy of this weapon is much higher than that of the fire dragon, and because it is a direct attack on the waterline of the ship, the lethality of the ship is also much greater than that of the fire dragon. In fact, this fire dragon into the water is a kind of mine with a rocket engine, which can also be said to be the most primitive torpedo.

Since the invention of the steam engine, Wang Xinyu wanted to let people develop more powerful underwater weapons, so that his fleet could compete with Western colonists for hegemony at sea in the future. If you want to build a torpedo in one step, it will be too difficult.

In fact, whether it is reliability, range, or accuracy, the fire dragon can not be compared with the torpedo, the real torpedo, even the most primitive white-headed torpedo, has a range of about 200 meters. However, the speed of the fire dragon into the water is relatively fast, and after launching, the muzzle velocity can reach about twenty knots, and then the speed slowly decreases. Because the rocket burns for a short time, it is not as long as the compressed air engine of the bald torpedo, and after only a few seconds, it relies on inertial propulsion.

In terms of accuracy, the fire dragon has horizontal rudders and vertical rudders, which can make this weapon go in a straight line as much as possible, reduce deviations, and the accuracy is much higher than that of the original fire dragon water, but at the expense of range.

In the midst of the reeds, Masao Kuroda saw the steamer in front of him, spitting black smoke, retreating downstream.

After about a quarter of an hour, the steamer passed outside the reeds and headed in the direction of the fleet that was lying in ambush downstream. The ships of the Qing Navy Division in the back were in hot pursuit, and they also passed through the reeds.

Seeing that the Qing army's sailors had entered the ambush circle, Kuroda Masao issued an order: "Prepare, launch an attack!" ”

Ambushed in the reeds, the sailors supported the boats with bamboo poles and pushed the boats out of the reeds. In the reeds, you should not use the pedal to move forward, because the paddles of the water wheel are easily entangled in weeds and various debris, which will make the boat unsailable and may even break the paddles. There are too many underwater weeds in the reeds, and the water is shallow, and if you step on the pedal to drive the water wheel forward, the boat's water wheel will be damaged.

The first pole mineboat slowly sailed out of the reeds, and when it reached the wide water outside, the sailors on the pole mineboat began to step on the pedals, and the pole mineboat rolled back and made two splashes, quickly rushing towards the Qing army's fleet.

Other Ming boats that were ambushed in the reeds also rushed out one after another, went down the river, and launched a surprise attack on the back of the Qing army's naval fleet.

"Ming dog! There is a clear dog boat in the back! "The ships of the Qing Army's naval division, which were chasing the Ming army steamer, suddenly found the Ming army fleet killed behind them, and the Qing army general screamed.

"There's an ambush ahead, too!" The commander of the Qing army at the front also discovered the situation.

In front of the Qing fleet, the Ming army's vehicles and ships and river gunboats had already pulled anchor and set sail, going upstream, killing the Qing fleet. At this time, the Qing fleet was going down the river, and the ambush site chosen by Wang Yuyou was a place where the current was relatively fast, so it was not easy for the Qing fleet to turn around. Behind the Qing army, there were small boats of the Ming army that went down the river and came out from behind, blocking the retreat of the Qing army.

The retreating steamer slowed down, and the guns on board continued to spew fire, knocking the Qing ships into the water. The Ming fleet that came up downstream was divided into three units and entered the Qing fleet.

At this time, the officers and men of the Qing army's naval division found that it was not necessarily a good thing to go downstream, because they had no chance to run if they wanted to, and the Qing army's fleet moved too fast, so they crashed into the guns of the Ming fleet, and after a while they entered the firing range.

On the river, the boats of the Ming army spewed fire, and the whistling shells smashed into the Qing boats in front, the distance between the two sides was very close, but two or three hundred steps, the accuracy of the Ming warships' guns was quite high, and at a long distance, the wooden hull of the Qing army's boats hit by solid shells exploded pieces of debris, and sank into the water in a blink of an eye. After the distance was closer, a shotgun was fired from the Ming warship, and the flesh and blood on the boat flew sideways, and the shotgun swept away the Qing soldiers on the boat in a blink of an eye.

"Retreat!" Seeing that the situation was not good, the big ships behind the Qing army fleet slowly turned their bows, and the large ships such as the Dafu boat, the bird boat, the catch boat and the bow boat turned their bodies clumsily, trying to escape back to Xiangyang.

The small fleet of Ming troops scattered from behind the Qing army opened the way with small gunboats in front and pole mineboats following behind. On the river, the cannon rumbled, the white smoke filled, and the guns on the bow of the small gunboats continued to spew fire, and this kind of small gunboats the same size as the pole mineboats, each with a sub-mother cannon in the bow and stern, had an extremely fast rate of fire.

The shells of the sub-mother cannon were not large, that is, between two and three pounds, and the solid shells smashed on the big ship of the Qing army, breaking the wooden planks one after another, and the Qing soldiers on the ship were killed and wounded.

Originally, the ships of the Qing army's naval division were not special warships, and since the Qing army's Yangtze River naval division was destroyed, the reorganized Qing army's naval division either used the small boats of the collected fishing boats and water bandits, or temporarily built large ships. Those makeshift boats are, to be honest, disposable, and the wood is barely dried, and it will deform after a few more uses. The Qing court built these ships for the purpose of fighting the Ming army on the Han River.

A ship of this mass can be extremely damaging to a ship with a three-pound shell, or even a two-pound shell.