Chapter 116: Fast Crab

Early the next morning, the gunners, who wanted to continue to suppress the enemy, realized that something was wrong. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

At the very front of the pontoon bridge near the mouth of the sea, there was an overnight fishing boat slightly larger than a sampan, piled with sacks, and the enemy, under the cover of the sacks, continued to advance and repair the bridge.

The gunners fired a few shells, but they saw that the fine sand was flying in the sky, and their own small cannons could not penetrate the enemy's fishing boats.

Although the other two pontoon bridges were still suppressed and could not be further built, this protected pontoon bridge quickly extended towards the south bank.

That night, Chen Xin sent a few soldiers with better water skills, wore water supports, and drove four small sampans straight to the brightly lit fishing boats and three pontoon bridges opposite.

The crowd on the sampan paddled gently, not daring to make too much noise, and it took half an hour for a distance of more than 100 steps.

Coming to the upstream area of their respective targets, each sampan takes out 5 explosive packs, pulls the fuse, and puts the explosive packs into the water, letting it flow downstream.

The explosives bag weighed 5 pounds, all of which were waterproofed, and a wooden board was fixed underneath to make floats.

The explosives bag that pulled the fuse went down the water, and after a while, it was blocked by a pontoon bridge and stopped there.

The sound of the burning fuse alarmed several soldiers who were on the night watch, and when they followed the sound to find something that made the sound, the fuse of the explosive bag had burned to the end, and in the continuous sound of several earth-shattering cannons, the three pontoon bridges were disconnected from the middle, and the half that leaned against the center of the river had been broken into several sections.

By the next morning, the disconnected pontoon bridge near the center of the river had collapsed under the washout of the current, and the fishing boats tied to the pontoon bridge also floated out of the sea with the river, and the enemy's work for several days was completely in vain.

The Jin army was not discouraged and continued to repair the pontoon bridge, and also made improvements to the pontoon bridge.

They planted long wooden poles on both sides of the bridge deck, and the wooden poles several feet long were fixed on the bridge deck at one end, and the other end stretched out far towards the river and pressed against the river, so that the explosive bag could not be approached.

Two days later, the enemy's pontoon bridge was again repaired to within range of its own artillery fire.

But this time, the enemy was more prepared, and they connected several sampans together, piled them with sandbags, and blocked the front of the pontoon.

No matter how your own small guns fire, they just can't inflict too many casualties on the enemy.

Seeing that the pontoon bridge was already less than 80 steps away from the south bank, the situation suddenly became sinister.

The enemy had already built the pontoon bridge to a distance of 50 paces from the south bank, and the two sides began to rain arrows at each other.

Because the artillery was not powerful, the artillery could only be temporarily withdrawn from the battery and the archers could come up.

The height of the turret was still not high enough for the archers standing on it to shoot directly, so they had to use blind projectiles to try to block the enemy's speed in building pontoon bridges.

Chen Xin had already gathered the whole army and prepared to fight a blocking battle by the river to prevent the Houjin army from crossing the river.

Officers at all levels were busy and constantly adjusting their formations.

Suspiciousness is one of Chen Xin's shortcomings, whether it is the establishment of a statistical office or the entrapment of the old officers of the Han army, it has exposed Chen Xin's distrust of the new recruits.

Now, it's really about to start, and Chen Xin's distrust of the recruits has once again affected the deployment of troops.

Chen Xin kept struggling, "Is it appropriate to arrange the recruits in the front as cannon fodder, or is it appropriate to let them be in the back as reserves?" Go to the front, what if they collapse and mess up the formation of our army? What if they were to be in reserve, and there was no bullet pressure from the army, and they fled? ”

While Chen Xin was struggling, the reinforcements that had been waiting for a long time finally arrived.

From the mouth of the sea, five ships came quickly.

I saw that the five boats were completely identical, 10 zhang (30 meters) long and 1 zhang four feet (4.3 meters) wide, the hull was dyed black, and from a distance, there were rows of oars on both sides of the boat, about 20 on each side.

There are also two masts on the ship, probably because of the headwind, the sails are all folded, and only the oars on both sides are used to move quickly on the river.

After a while, the boat approached the pontoon bridge 300 paces away in the frightened shouts of the Jin army, and after a horn sounded, the oars on both sides were retracted at the same time, and under the action of inertia, the ship continued to move forward.

When they were close to 200 paces, there was a loud bang under the raised bows of the five ships, and then a fire suddenly erupted.

Five black iron balls smashed accurately on the pontoon, and with a creak, the outermost pontoon broke into several sections.

One of the shells from the far south hit the sampan full of sandbags, and the heavy iron ball passed through the three sampans in a row and fell into the water, and the sand boat was quickly submerged by the incoming river.

The five clippers with their bow guns shook violently and immediately stopped in place.

After a melodic horn sounded on the boat again, the oars on one side stretched out and rowed rapidly, and the five boats spun in place in unison, forming a flank against the enemy.

Amid the panicked roar of the Jin army behind the bridge, the small-caliber guns arranged along the center line of the deck on the five ships aimed their guns at the pontoon bridge and opened fire.

A total of 25 small-caliber guns fired scattered shells that swept across half of the pontoon bridges, which were emptied as soon as they landed, and the blood stained the Yalu River red, which could not be diluted for a long time.

After that, the fleet started again, turned around with a row of oars, and after making a large circle, passed through the open space on the Nan'an side where no pontoon bridges had been built, and headed for the other two pontoon bridges.

When passing by Chen Xin's side, several officers on each ship stood neatly, wearing the blue-gray armor common to Chen Xin's battalion, and respectfully gave Chen Xin a chest-beating military salute.

Chen Xin stood on his horse and returned the salute.

In the blink of an eye, the fleet passed in front of Chen Xin.

Han Da, as Chen Xin's guard platoon leader, saw Chen Xin's side more clearly, and he asked curiously, "Commander-in-chief, is this our own person?" But how come I've never seen one? ”

Chen Xin looked at the back of the fleet in the distance, and the anxiety in his heart was swept away, and after scanning around and finding that it was all his own people, he opened his mouth to explain: "It's the comrades of the Korean Southern Detachment." Ever since I decided that I wanted to stop the Houjin army in the Yalu River, I ordered them to send a few clippers to support it. ”

Tong Laosan scratched his head and said, "I also grew up by the sea, but why haven't I seen this kind of boat?" Commander-in-chief, what kind of ship is this? ”

"This is a modified type of ship based on the centipede ship, and I don't like the name centipede ship, so now we call it the fast crab ship."

Everyone suddenly realized, and the slipper almost drooled when he looked at the flotilla in the distance, "Commander-in-chief, can I ask, how many shells can the gun in the bow hit?" The shot just now was so handsome, we couldn't hit the sand boat that we couldn't penetrate for a day, so it sank with one shot, it was so enjoyable. ”