At this time, the distance between the two sides had been shortened to only about fifty paces, and many sharp-eyed Qin soldiers found that the twenty or so boats rushing to the front were all small boats that could only accommodate twenty or thirty people, but there didn't seem to be many people on each boat, only five or six people, and none of them were wearing armor, all of them were cloth, and they couldn't figure out whether they were ordinary civilians or soldiers.

And they all stood in the bow or stern of the boat, and the cabin was full of things, but they were covered with green cloth curtains, and they floated lightly in the river, as if the draft was not deep.

Originally, many Qin soldiers had already bent their bows and arrows, or had crossbow arrows loaded, but when they saw this scene, they couldn't help but be stunned, is this the enemy's fleet? But there were still a few Qin soldiers who shot their bows and arrows in their hands, but they basically fell into the river.

At this moment, I saw that the people on the first few boats "plopped" and "plopped" a few times, and all jumped into the Yellow River, and before the Qin soldiers could react, they saw smoke coming out of these boats, and then the fire flashed, and flames appeared. It turned out that all the dry firewood and hay were loaded in the green cloth curtain tent, and in the blink of an eye, the whole ship burned into a raging fire, and rushed to the Qin army's fleet along the river.

And in such a short time, the distance between the two sides was shortened to less than thirty paces again, and the Qin soldiers had already seen it very clearly, and only then did they understand that the other party was actually planning to attack with fireboats.

Although the Qin soldiers have always fought bravely, it is inevitable that they will be flustered at this time, after all, water and fire are ruthless, and it is not something that can be resisted by manpower, so many Qin soldiers shouted one after another: "Hurry up and start the boat, open the boat, dodge the fire boat, avoid the fire boat." ”

But in the water, it is not as good as on the shore, a distance of twenty or thirty paces, if it is on land, there is naturally enough space to dodge, but in the water, this distance is difficult to dodge. And now the Yellow River is already crowded with the Qin army's river-crossing boats, everyone is better to move in the same direction, but in order to avoid the fire boats, suddenly there is chaos, some turn left, some turn right, some forward, some backward, as a result, many ships hit each other together, some boats overturned, some boats did not overturn, but swayed left and right, many Qin soldiers stood unsteadily on the boat, and fell into the river.

At this time, in the middle of the river, two ships were colliding together, and the sailors who were operating the boats were sweating profusely, and were hurriedly rocking the oars and swinging the rudder, about to separate the two ships, and the Qin soldiers on the boat scolded and kept hitting the side of the ship with the weapons in their hands.

I don't know who shouted: "The fireship is coming." ”

I saw a fireboat full of flames colliding with these two boats, less than ten steps, and the boatman saw that the situation was not good, and immediately jumped into the river to escape, and the Qin soldiers on the boat were suddenly in chaos, some scolded the boatman, some dodged to the side, and some raised the spear in their hands to stab at the fireboat that hit it.

"Boom!"

The fireboat accurately hit the side of a boat, and the fire immediately spread to the Qin army's boats, some Qin soldiers were on fire, and some Qin soldiers were forced to jump into the river, but the fire did not decrease at all, and quickly spread to the other boat that collided, and the three ships on fire were swept away by the waves, and each rushed towards the other Qin ships.

At this time, more than ten ships of the Qin army were hit by fireboats, and they soon became fireships. The river was suddenly misty with smoke and fires, and the fleet of the Qin army was in chaos.

Takahara stood on a large ship, staring at the water ahead. He was seated on the largest ship ever recruited, which could accommodate up to 150 people, and after the renovation, a building with a capacity of about 10 people was added, so it was the most suitable ship to be the command ship.

Although this was only the first round of attack by the coalition fleet, and only twenty small fireships were used, it caused a big mess of more than 600 warships of the Qin army, so Wei Jiao, who was responsible for collecting ships, also admired it and said: "Wu Anjun is really a clever plan, with only a few small boats in this area, you can defeat the Qin army." ”

Gao Yuan smiled, although he has not fought a water war, but after all, he has more than 2,000 years of knowledge than the people of this era, and he has never eaten pork, but he has always seen pigs run. If there is a water war in the river, there must be one more, that is, the downstream is better than the countercurrent.

And in the era when there was no artillery, the best weapon in water warfare was fire. Several famous water battles in Chinese history, such as the Battle of Chibi during the Three Kingdoms period, the Battle of Chenjiadao in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Battle of Panyang Lake in the late Yuan Dynasty, were all won by fire.

The plateau has never thought of blocking the Qin army on the shore, firstly, because there are indeed not enough troops on the plateau now, and secondly, this combat method is too passive, so the method taken by the plateau is to set the battlefield on the Yellow River, take advantage of its own residence in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, and the Qin army is located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and use fire attack tactics to break the Qin army's river-crossing fleet in one fell swoop, eliminate the Qin army's river-crossing boats, and control the Yellow River waterway, so that the Qin army's route to cross the river can be completely cut off, even if it is to accompany the Qin army to cross the Yellow River. There is no food and grass, and there is no reinforcements, and there is only a dead end.

Therefore, when renovating the warships, Gao Yuan also focused on the transformation of the fireships, and the 200 small boats were converted into fireships, and the main changes were to fill the cabins with firewood and grass, drizzle them with grease, and cover them with green curtains, and add spikes and barbs to the bow, once they hit the enemy ships, they could be hooked or wedged. Then wait for the fire to spread.

This trick really worked, and the plateau spared the Qin army's vanguard river-crossing army, and waited until the Qin army's brigade crossed the river, and then killed from the upstream, and first launched an attack on the Qin army with fireboats.

Although the results of the first round of attacks were very satisfactory, the number of ships of the Qin army was too large, and there were many small ships, and these twenty fireships were not enough to defeat the Qin army. So Gao Yuan ordered the release of the second batch of fireships, taking advantage of the advantages obtained in the first round, to continue to expand the results.

So the second group of twenty fireboats rushed down the river again, rushing towards the Qin convoy that had been in chaos, as a result, more Qin ships were on fire, some of them escaped the first round of fireboat attacks, or the Qin ships that were fighting the fire on the ship were fighting hard, this time they could not dodge again, and some of the ships that were not yet on fire were paddling desperately, some rushed to the opposite bank, and some hurriedly turned around and returned to the north bank.

Immediately after that, the plateau launched a third round of fireboat attacks.

After three consecutive rounds of fireboat attacks, the Qin army also completely lost the power of resistance, almost all the ships were spread by the fire, and the sinking ships exceeded 100, and there were at least more than 100 ships that had ignited an inextinguishable fire, and it was a matter of time before they sank, and the river was full of Qin soldiers, who were desperately struggling.

The soldiers of the Qin army are basically from the northwest, only a very few people know how to water, and they are wearing heavy clothes, it is impossible to survive in the water, some people grab the broken ship plank, the broken mast, so as not to survive, and there are many Qin soldiers in order to fight for a plank, a log, in the water, the sword and gun of the companions.

There were also a considerable number of soldiers who clung to the side of other ships and begged their fellow shippers.

At the beginning, there were some Qin soldiers on the boat who tried their best to rescue their companions in the water, but there were too many Qin soldiers who fell into the water, and every boat was already full of Qin soldiers when it set off from the north bank, and there was not much space to accommodate the rescued Qin soldiers.

Later, no boat dared to save anyone, because there were so many people in the water that not only could not be saved at all, but also affected themselves, so whenever a companion in the water approached his boat, he would shoot with his spear and arrow, and slash the hand that grabbed the side of the boat with his sword, and then throw the severed fingers from the cabin into the river.

Screams, wails, shouts, and angry scolding filled the entire river, and the scene was so miserable that people did not dare to look any further.

Although the boat that Yang Duanhe was riding was also hit by two fireboats, it was very fortunate that it was not hooked, and although the ship was also spread by the fire, the size of this boat was relatively large, and the fire on the ship was not large, so it could not sink for a while. After all, Yang Duanhe is a battle-hardened general, so he can finally keep calm at this time, and he ordered to turn around and return at the very moment.

It should be said that Yang Duanhe's order was correct, because his ship was the last ship to go offshore, and it was not far from the shore at this time, so he turned around at the extreme time and sailed back to the shore, and there was still a great hope of sailing back to the shore.

Sure enough, in the process of returning home, he hit several of his companions' boats in a row, but fortunately, his ship was larger, so he also had a big advantage in colliding with him, and each time he knocked other ships away, but when he was about a hundred steps away from the shore, he was hit head-on by a fireboat, and as a result, the ship suddenly burst into flames. Many soldiers and shipwrights were panicked and wanted to abandon the ship and flee.

At this time, Yang Ruihe arrived at Su zhì, who was a famous general, he first ordered a few personal soldiers to restrain the boatmen who were about to jump off the boat and escape, and drew his sword, beheaded two soldiers in a row, and then shouted at the soldiers, those who don't know how to water, jumping into the water is also a dead end, so they can only stay on the boat and sail back to the shore with all their strength to have the possibility of escaping. Finally, the soldiers were stabilized at the last time. Then he ordered the boatmen to ignore the fire, row the boat to the shore at full speed, and the soldiers tried their best to put out the fire, but they could not put out the fire, and tried to prevent the spread of the fire.

As a result, under the command of Yang Duanhe's extreme time control and calmness, the ship, which was burning with fire, finally sailed back to the shore on time, and the soldiers and sailors on board also went ashore safely.