Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 476 The Reborn of the Yangtze River Navy

Zhao Xin was taken aback by Zhong Huai's sudden move, but because he couldn't drive the autopilot, he had to keep his hands on the steering wheel at all times, so he stretched out his left arm and said, "Zhong Xiucai, why are you doing this? I'll save you all again." It's not for you to kowtow to thank you, get up quickly!"

Zhong Huaihong choked up his eyes and said: "You have countless elite soldiers under your command, King Zhao, why do you need to go to a dangerous place in person? Gentlemen don't build dangerous walls, you really shouldn't do this."

Zhao Xin chuckled and said, "Confucius also said, 'Prevent disasters first and not hurt them later'. If a friend is in trouble, Beihai Town will not ignore it. Besides, I have made sufficient preparations in advance. There is no other way. When Jiang Ziping was in an emergency, he saw that I and the person above me were the closest to you, so we came here quickly. If you waited for others, you would have to suffer at least five or six days."

"Jiang Ziping?" Zhong Huai suddenly realized.

"Yes, you should thank him first."

Zhao Xin looked at the waterway in front of him, and kept babbling, but it fell into Zhong Huai's ears, but he was very moved.Looking at the history books, although Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty went to the battle to defeat the enemy in person, no one would do it for a few scholars and ordinary people.

And this guy was so courageous, Zhong Huai felt scared when he thought about it.The two dared to enter the Yangzhou government office, and then swaggered out of Yangzhou city.If a arrow shoots out from somewhere halfway, no matter how ambitious it is, it will be wiped out in ashes.

In fact, the reason why Zhao Xin took the risk alone this time, apart from the lack of time, was also because he wanted to win people's hearts.With such a time, it is self-evident what other scholars who want to seek refuge in Beihai Town will think.

What Yu Deli said was correct, Beihai Town was not enough in the layout of Jiangnan, but this had a lot to do with Zhao Xin's overall military strategy for the Manchus.

For a long time, Zhao Xin has always had a point of view, whether it is in the customs or in the south of the Yangtze River, the meat is rotten in the pot, and you will not be able to escape Wuzhishan sooner or later. However, if the frontier issue is not resolved first, the Northern Navy after entering the customs will inevitably be In a hurry.So what Zhao Xin has been doing these years is actually cultivating "seeds" that can start a prairie fire.

Don't talk about the fake empty words that "great order must first lead to great chaos", the unlucky people have always been ordinary people, and Beihai Town today is built by thousands of such "unlucky" ordinary people.Zhao Xin hopes to find out a set of practical solutions before entering the customs to solve the predicament of the era of agricultural bankruptcy.

As Zhao Xin and Zhong Huai chatted in bits and pieces, the yacht named "Bingfeng" by Zhao Xin had sailed past Taixing, and Jiangyin was on the way.

After the "slender horse hijacking incident" that happened in the 50th year of Qianlong, Wang Yuanfang and the others drove the high-speed official boat all the way, not only caught the water camp along the river by surprise, but also the two forts at Wusongkou. A shot was not fired, which made Qianlong very angry.

Historically, since the early Ming Dynasty, the Ming government adopted a strategic defensive measure of "emphasizing both east and west" for the defense of the Huangpu River Estuary.In the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, in order to defend Zheng Chenggong's navy from attacking Nanjing from the Yangtze River estuary again, the Qing court built a fort at Yangjiazuikou in Wusong in Puxi; in the 57th year of Kangxi, it built a Pudong Baoshan fort.

Afterwards, Sa Zai, then governor of Liangjiang, asked Qianlong to build a fort on Huangshan, north of Jiangyin City, in view of the lack of forts along the river and the difficulty of speed for wooden boats in the water camp, in view of the fact that the fast boats in Beihai Town entered and left the Yangtze River Estuary as if there was no one in it. And expand the Jingjiang Fort on the west bank of Shiwei Port on the opposite bank to form a north-south pincer attack.In addition, he also requested to rebuild the Wusong Fort in Puxi and expand the Baoshan Fort in Pudong.

After Min Eyuan, the governor of Jiangsu at the time, was unwilling, he also asked Qianlong to build a system of beacon towers in Wusongkou, Haimen, Fushan Port, Langshan Port, Zhonggang, Jiangyin, and Jingjiang in order to defend against the "Northern Sea Pirates". When the "Northern Sea Pirate" entered the Yangtze River, a warning was issued in time.

For the request of the two governors, Qianlong readily agreed, and soon made an approval, and allocated money for the repairs, and the states and counties along the river shared the repayment.As a result, the Yangtze River Navy of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties entered an era of rebirth ahead of schedule.

It is said that in the coastal defense and river defense forts in the early and mid-Qing Dynasty, there were only two types of cannons, the General Victory Cannon and the General Weiyuan Bronze Cannon.

The winning general's cannon weighs 113 catties, is five feet one inch long, and has a muzzle of three inches and four minutes (170mm caliber); the firing makes the charge one catty eight taels, and the shell weighs three catties, which is a four-pound gun.The Weiyuan General Bronze is a small cannon, more than one meter long and weighs [-] kilograms.

The artillery drill is also only once a year. According to the regulations of the Ministry of War, on the [-]th of the first lunar month every year, it will be inspected by the local prefectural and county officials.In the era of casting artillery, it was a lot to fire a cannon ten times during a drill.If you really want to shoot too much, the cannon will be scrapped quickly.

Although the considerations of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties are not inconsiderate, and the idea is not bad, they think that even if the Beihai town fast boat breaks through the Wusongkou Fort and enters the Yangtze River, it will be immediately attacked by more than 300 artillery pieces from the North and South Forts when it reaches the river in the Jiangyin section. hit hard.

But the biggest problem here is that everyone wants to block the enemy from the outside.No one expected that the Clippers in Beihai Town rushed from the inside out again
So when the "Ice Wind" passed the Jiangyin section of the river from west to east, the defenders of the fort and the soldiers of the water battalion on the shore were all dumbfounded.

Even if a winning general gun on the fort of Huanghuashan fired in a panic, it turned into a salute for Zhao Xinming, and almost sank a fishing boat.After that, the Qing army guard on the fort ordered his men to light the beacon tower, while jumping and cursing.

Although it was too late to fire guns here in Jiangyin, Fenghuo delivered the news very quickly, so when the "Ice Wind" sailed to Fushan Port, the flustered Langshanshuiying still dispatched four warships in a hurry.The largest of them is eleven feet long, longer than the "Ice Wind", a two-masted hard sailing ship of nearly 37 meters, equipped with two cannons at the head and tail.

When the guerrillas of the Youying Camp in Langshan Town who led the army to the battle saw the white shuttle-shaped hull of the "Ice Wind" protruding from the horizontal line, they immediately ordered: "Beat the drums! Raise the battle flag! Be sure to give me that ship." Stop it!"

The four large and medium-sized chasing boats immediately changed from full sails to half sails, and the sailors on the boats adjusted the hulls by shaking the sculls, intending to slant across the river and stop the enemy ships; and the gunners on the boats also began to fill the gunpowder and iron bullets .

Wang Yuanfang, who was guarding the flying bridge, saw the Qing army warship in front of him, and first notified Zhao Xin on the main deck with a walkie-talkie, then put the machine gun bipod on a small table, and the corner of his mouth was exposed. A smile.

"AEK-999" is an upgraded version of PKM, and its effective range is 500 meters.The biggest difference in appearance between it and PKM is that the wooden grip has been changed to a black plastic grip, and a huge silencer is installed at the muzzle, which can not only reduce the shooting noise, but also eliminate the muzzle flame and improve the accuracy. .

Because there were not many stocks in another time and space, Zhao Xin bought twenty of them from Andrew, and kept the others except for a few distributed to the reconnaissance brigade.

By the way, the two small frigates that paid the deposit out of impulsiveness at that time, after Zhao Xin hesitated for a long time, decided not to do so during the Spring Festival this year.For this reason, he personally met with Andrew and the person behind him, and made a very sincere apology.

For Zhao Xin, bringing the two frigates back from another time and space is too eye-catching, and it will definitely attract the attention of many people, which will have a great impact on his future actions.

Furthermore, after last year's Changxing Island naval battle, the four second-tier battleships that Beihai No. 75 fought with only [-] [-]mm guns had no power to fight back, and they performed really well; The speed also surpassed the sail battleship too much.

In this way, Zhao Xin, who had been worried about the lack of firepower at sea, was finally relieved.The sailing boats with motors are all like this, so what about the modified clipper boats?It's very touching to think about it!
In order to eliminate the dissatisfaction of the people behind Andrew and to ensure continued cooperation in the future, Zhao Xin gave up the deposit he had paid, and it was like feeding the dog.But in this way, he also bought some equipment that he wanted very much at a relatively favorable price; such as ten 2S3M2s and 53 rounds of shells, and the charging formula and production of "530-OF-[-] high-explosive bombs" Craft drawings.

Of course, with the current industrial level of Beihai Town, it is still a daydream to manufacture 122 and 152 shells, but I believe that with the completion and commissioning of Boli's steel plant in the future, the manufacture of shells will no longer be a big problem.

When the "Ice Wind" was one kilometer away from the Qing army's warship, Wang Yuan, who was already ready, conveniently pulled the trigger.

话说清军的赶缯船的船板有多厚呢？答案是7~12厘米。也就是说最厚的部位只有12厘米，而“AEK-999”所用的7.62毫米子弹打木头的穿透力是50厘米。

So when the bullets hit a chasing boat along a straight line of splashing water, casualties immediately appeared on the warship.

The problem is that this machine gun is equipped with a silencer, and the shooting sound cannot be heard at all 600 meters away, and the flames from the muzzle of the gun cannot be seen, so the people in Youying in Langshan Town were immediately frightened.

The silent but dense rain of bullets extended along the ship's plank to the upper deck, and the bursting and splashing sawdust accompanied by hundreds of bullets turned the deck into a flesh mill.Those Qing soldiers who tried to hide behind planks or masts were shot and killed, and the survivors jumped into the river from the other side of the ship.

The other three Qing soldiers on the boats did not understand what had happened.The water battle they are familiar with is shelling tens of feet away, and then fighting close to the gang.All of a sudden, those who rowed, steered, sailed, fired guns, and beat drums all stopped, and hundreds of people all looked at the warship that suddenly became rotten.

A sailor murmured: "Monster, there are monsters in the river!"

The other Qing army with a shotgun turned around and cursed: "Fart! This is a sorcery, and the North Sea pirates know sorcery! It will only work if you pour black dog blood on it!"

With a sound of "Plop", several sailors suddenly knelt on the deck and kowtowed their heads, chanting, "Dragon Lord bless you! The merciful Bodhisattva bless you!"

When Wang Yuanfang turned his gun on the largest boat, a short water line jumped up again, and then the hull of the wooden boat shook, and the crackling sound of wood crackled again, followed by the sound of people on the deck. The howl of the bomber.This time, like a basin of icy water pouring down their heads in the dog days, the officers, soldiers and sailors on the three warships were completely awakened.

"Turn around! Turn around and go back!"

"It's too late! They're all diving!"

"Swim to the shore quickly! The North Sea Pirates know sorcery, and there are no dead bodies in the places they pass!"

When the "Ice Wind" quickly drove to a distance of 200 meters from the four empty warships, the Qing soldiers thumping in the water were already visible.At this time, Wang Yuan conveniently heard Zhao Xin yelling "Give them a shot" in the walkie-talkie, so he put down the machine gun and picked up the RPG beside him.

With a sound of "嗖", the tail flame of the rocket brought out a straight white smoke, which hit a boat in the middle, and then there was a loud noise, a ball of fire exploded from the middle of the hull, and countless pieces of wood chips flew Jiang Nian.

At this time, the people in the "Ice Wind" who were sleeping were awakened by the sudden explosion, men, women and children were frightened until their faces turned pale and they trembled all over.Zhong Huai, who hadn't slept all this time, was busy explaining comfort and persuading everyone.

Jiao Xun and Huang Chengji also woke up. When they heard Zhong Huai say that Zhao Xin was on the boat, they were stunned immediately, with incredible expressions on their faces.But then, the two ran and climbed up to the main deck, and they saw Zhao Xin who was sailing.

"This..." Jiao Xun and Huang Chengji, like Zhong Huai, roughly understood what was going on, so they kowtowed their heads in thanks.

"Get up, go back and sit down!"

After Zhao Xin finished speaking, he ignored the two of them.He passed the gap between the wooden boats at a low speed, and then began to accelerate again.He has already seen the beacon smoke rising straight into the sky on the shore, and now passing Langshan Port is only the first hurdle, and he still doesn't know what is waiting for him behind.

When the boat passed Xupu and entered the waters of Taicang, the sky was already bright, and there were more and more boats on the river.Zhao Xin kept ringing the whistle while reducing the speed of the boat to avoid the fishing boats that were too late to dodge.However, in this way, enough preparation time was left for the Qing army on the Wusongkou Fort.

Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, if ships on the Huangpu River wanted to enter the sea through Chongming Island, they had to go through Wusongkou in the south of Chongming Island.

This is mainly because Chongming Island itself is an estuary sand island formed by sedimentation. With the formation of Pingyangsha and Dongsansha in the northeast of the island, the waterway on the north side of Chongming Island has become narrower and more likely to run aground.On the south side of Chongming Island, there are many waters with hidden sand dunes, such as Xisha, Changxingsha and Hengsha.

Because of this, the importance of the Qing court setting up Pudong and Puxi forts became more prominent.Since the 53rd year of Qianlong, the number of artillery for the east and west fortresses at Wusongkou has increased to more than 200.

At this time, Zhao Xin and Wang Yuanfang didn't know that the Qing army had already opened its bloody mouth, and they were just waiting for him to come!
　Note: Historically, before the Opium War, the Qing army installed a total of 1842 artillery pieces on both sides of Jiangwan Donggoukou, Suzhou Creek and Lujiazui, half of which were placed on the east and west sides of Wusongkou. In 16, British warships invaded Shanghai. Niu Jian, magistrate of Baoshan County, was ordered to mobilize [-] defenders to form six combat units. Chen Huacheng, the admiral of the Jiangnan Navy, guarded the West Fort of Wusongkou, Zhou Shirong guarded the East Fort, Niu Jian guarded Baoshan County, and Wang Zhiyuan Guard Xiaoshabei, Ji Lun guards the mouth of Jiangwan Donggou, Feng Yaozu guards Shanghai City, and [-] warships are deployed in the river.The entire deployment is impeccable. If all the ministries can work together and support each other, it will not be difficult to defeat the British.In fact, two hours after the battle with the British ship, the British ship was severely frustrated and the blue flag was hoisted to cease fighting.Unexpectedly, Niu Jian, the county magistrate guarding Baoshan City, was greedy for meritorious service and arranged a guard of honor to go to Wusongkou to snatch the fruits of victory. He was spotted by the British ship and fired at him, scaring him away from his sedan chair and fleeing to Jiading. Turned into death in battle, the city of Shanghai fell.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)