Jia Yujing of Red Mansion

Chapter 301 Breaking the situation

At nearly noon, the fleet led by Ni Ying sailed into the Kanmon Strait and launched a feint attack on the port of Fukuoka Prefecture.

However, Qi Xiang had already received Jia Qiong's order at this time, so no matter how provocative Ni Ying was, Qi Xiang did not take the initiative to attack. Instead, he relied on the terrain of the port and the Chu army's artillery range advantage to defend.

Ni Ying pretended to attack for a long time and lost more than a dozen warships, but did not induce the Chu army to leave the port.

Seeing that nothing could be done, Ni Ying was planning to retreat.

Unexpectedly, after receiving Jia Qiong's order, Liao Yongan, who rushed his troops back to defend the port, arrived with his troops and blocked them.

Ni Ying's troops were caught off guard and their formation was in chaos. Qi Xiang saw the opportunity and decisively moved out, flanking Liao Yong'an.

After a fierce battle, Ni Ying's troops suffered heavy losses, and even Ni Ying's own ship was sunk.

The pirate coalition lost its command, and the eastward route was blocked by Liao Yongan, so they had to flee in a hurry.

Qi Xiang and Liao Yong'an took advantage of the situation and pursued them one after another, beating up the drowned dog and almost crippling Ni Ying's men.

Fang Guozhen saw something was wrong and came to the rescue. The two sides briefly fought. Qi Xiang and Liao Yongan saw that the enemy was strong and were afraid of losing the port, so they did not continue the pursuit.

The Chu army won a complete victory in this battle, which also allowed Fang Guozhen to see the powerful combat power of the Chu army, but it also made him even more slippery.

Although the Chu army had the upper hand in terms of overall strength, Fang Guozhen did not engage in a head-on confrontation with the Chu army. Instead, they took advantage of the fleet's numerical advantage to play guerrilla warfare, dividing their fleet into several teams and cruising in the waters near Fukuoka.

With this group of eager sea wolves watching from the sidelines, the warships of the Chu army did not dare to leave the port easily, and the transport fleet could not transfer troops on a large scale.

Otherwise, once the two sides start a war, with the enemy's numerical advantage being so large, the transport ship with little combat effectiveness will inevitably be besieged and suffer heavy losses.

Jia Qiong couldn't bear such a loss, so he could only temporarily stop his activities and find other strategies.

However, naval battles are all about hard power, and it is not easy to win with tactics, so Jia Qiong thought about it for several days but couldn't come up with any good ideas.

In the morning, Jia Qiong came to the port military camp and continued to discuss countermeasures with Wang Guangyang, Qi Xiang and Liao Yongan.

Liao Yonganhui reported: "General, through the prisoners' accounts and the reconnaissance in the past few days, it is now basically certain.

Fang Guozhen's troops also had about 500 large and small warships and about 15,000 troops.

Most of these five hundred ships are flat-bottomed sand ships. Although there are many in number, they have few firearms and low combat power, so they do not pose much threat to us.

However, Fang Guozhen has a fleet directly under his command, with about a hundred warships.

These ships are excellent Guangzhou ships, with strong hulls, fast speeds, and equipped with many firearms.

If we fight head-on with this fleet, even if we can win, we will definitely suffer a lot of losses. "

Jia Qiong frowned and asked: "How could Fang Guozhen, a pirate leader, have such a large-scale and sophisticated warship? Why have I never heard of it before?"

Wang Guangyang and Liao Yongan both shook their heads to express that they were unclear. Qi Xiang said: "General, I know a little about Fang Guozhen's affairs."

Jia Qiong said happily: "Oh, Qi Shenjun, tell me quickly."

Qi Xiang clasped his fists and said, "Yes, I heard someone mention it by chance.

Fang Guozhen was from Jinling and was originally a steward at Longjiang Shipyard.

His ancestors were shipwrights for three generations. He has superb shipbuilding skills and has high prestige among shipwrights.

At that time, the Longjiang Shipyard supervisor and other officials deducted wages from shipwrights and embezzled shipbuilding funds. After the incident, they falsely accused Fang Guozhen of corruption and wanted to kill him to take the blame. Fang Guozhen killed the factory supervisor in anger, robbed a dozen warships and a large number of firearms that had not been delivered to the navy, and took hundreds of shipwrights to sea to become pirates.

Not long after this incident happened, there was a huge flood in the Yangtze River. The court may have been busy with disaster relief, but there was no movement, and it seemed that the matter was settled later.

After Fang Guozhen went to sea, he has been active in Korea and Japan, and has never raided our waters, so not many people know Fang Guozhen.

This person has superb shipbuilding skills, masters the construction drawings of Guangzhou ships, and has many craftsmen at his disposal. Those Guangzhou ships should have been built one after another over the years. "

Jia Qiong nodded after hearing this, and after thinking for a moment, asked: "General Qi, when Fang Guozhen grabbed the ship and went to sea, did he bring his family with him?"

Qi Xiang shook his head and said, "I have never heard of this general."

Jia Qiong pondered for a moment and said to Wang Guangyang: "According to what General Qi Shen said, this Fang Guozhen has never been plundered in our waters. Maybe this person still cares about his homeland.

Guangyang, go to the prisoner camp to learn more about Fang Guozhen and find out if Fang Guozhen's family members are still in our court and see if there is any chance of recruiting him. "

Wang Guangyang cupped his hands and said, "It's Mr. Hou, I'll go now."

After Wang Guangyang accepted the order, he went to investigate the situation. Jia Qiong continued to discuss countermeasures with Qi Xiang and Liao Yongan.

In the previous naval battle, the Chu army sank dozens of enemy ships and captured more than 400 pirates. These people are now being imprisoned next to the navy camp.

After Wang Guangyang arrived at the prisoner camp, he had all the Han prisoners in the camp sent for interrogation one by one.

He knew that the hundreds of shipwrights who came out with Fang Guozhen must be his confidants and should know Fang Guozhen's situation best, so he directly interrogated the Han prisoners.

However, Wang Guangyang didn't gain much after asking around.

There were not many Han Chinese in the prisoner camp, only about twenty, and they all came to Fang Guozhen later. They didn't know much about him, and they didn't even know anything about his family members.

Wang Guangyang then interrogated several Koreans and Japanese people in anticipation of the unexpected, but still found nothing.

Just when he was at a loss what to do, the captain in charge of guarding the prisoner camp said: "Wang Canjun, there is a Han in the wounded camp who seems to have a high status.

When the man was unconscious, other wounded soldiers would change his dressing, and some would even feed him their own food. "

Upon hearing this, Wang Guangyang immediately said: "Where is this person? Take me to see him quickly."

On that day, Fang Guozhen wanted to launch a surprise attack on Fukuoka Port by diverting the tiger away from the mountain, so he ordered Ni Ying, the second in command, to lead his troops to feign an attack.

As a result, Ni Ying's feint attack failed, and when he wanted to retreat, he happened to encounter Liao Yong'an who was returning to defend, and was caught off guard.

Ni Ying's ship was sunk, and he himself was seriously injured and almost died.

However, Ni Ying was lucky and physically strong. He was fished out by the Chu army and sent to a prisoner camp. After simple treatment, he survived.

Ni Ying has been recuperating in the wounded barracks, and there are very few prisoners who can see him, so his identity has not been exposed.

While Ni Ying was recovering from his injuries, he was secretly planning to find an opportunity to escape.

However, the appearance of Wang Guangyang completely failed Ni Ying's calculation.

He originally wanted to hide his identity, but who Wang Guangyang was, he soon found out Ni Ying's true identity through other wounded soldiers.

(End of this chapter)