In the twelfth month, the sky is filled with ice and fire, and Xuanming moves his seeds to Zhurong Palace.
On the afternoon of the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Xiaowusha, the former northern channel of the Yellow River, and the natural harbor behind the old dike had already been reduced to a sea of fire.
There was no desperate counterattack, nor was there any secret message from traitorous merchants crossing the river to report it... In the morning, the imperial camp navy that was floating downstream met up with Li Bao, the commander of the imperial camp's front army, and then, under the latter's leadership, they rushed straight to Xiaowusha without stopping.
However, by the time the large fleet of ships sailed downstream and arrived near Xiaowusha at noon, the Jin general's outpost on the west side of the Yellow River's old northward course had actually already noticed such a large navy in the river, and came galloping over on horseback to report the success.
At the beginning, the guard general of Xiaowusha didn't believe it at first... It was normal not to believe it... But when he personally walked up the old embankment of the Yellow River that served as the port wall and saw with his own eyes the huge fleet appearing in the shadows upstream, he did not slack off or delay at all. He almost immediately gave orders to those who knew how to operate ships in the port to enter the port to operate the ships, and then leave the port as soon as possible.
If you can fight the enemy, fight the enemy; if you can escape, escape.
To be fair, this was a very correct military order.
Unfortunately, hundreds of ships were crowded in the harbor, or water fort, behind the old dike. Although the Jin army controlled most of the ships in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, they neglected the construction of the navy and only used them as ferry reserves. In fact, because they only had ships in their hands, they were completely defenseless against the enemy on the water.
Therefore, how can so many ships escape in an orderly manner at one time?
What's more, the Song army's navy was sailing downstream, not much slower than the fast horses on the road. As soon as the outline was seen and the military order was given, the Song army's navy would arrive in the blink of an eye.
Li Bao, the commander of the front army of the Imperial Camp, led dozens of small boats of the Song army on the south bank as the vanguard, and rushed downstream into the old northward course of the Yellow River and rushed into the exit of the water stronghold. Soon after, Xiao En, the commander of the navy of the Imperial Camp, led hundreds of small boats to follow. The two of them, one light and one heavy, one sharp and one dull, were both accustomed to fighting on inland rivers. They just rushed head-on and coordinated well, and blocked hundreds of Jin army ships of all kinds inside the water stronghold.
Then, the fleet continued to move forward, suppressing with bows and crossbows on one side, and charging in small boats on the other, throwing gunpowder bags and torches into the harbor to launch a fire attack.
Almost at the same time, dozens of ships, under the personal command of Zhang Rong, lined up along the main channel of the Yellow River, across the broken old river embankment, and blindly fired gunpowder bags with fuses into the Jin army's port.
Besides, Zhao Guanjia's gunpowder bags could never solve the problem of airtightness, so even if the formula was more scientific, it could not make this thing with great potential out of the category of combustion aid... Needless to say, the disadvantages of this are obvious, but the advantage is that if a novice makes a mistake, no one will feel afraid or panic.
As for gunpowder, it was developed during the Song Dynasty nearly a hundred years ago. From fireworks to military gunpowder, who doesn’t know about it?
Therefore, when the small gun carriage malfunctioned and fired too slowly, causing the four ships to be ignited by their own gunpowder, the sailors calmly jumped into the water and let the ships sink. Of the more than 100 small boats that rushed into the old dike to block the port, as many as 17 or 18 of them sank in a short period of time due to collisions, battles, and accidental ignitions.
But all this was worth it, even not worth mentioning, because the target of this battle, that is, the huge fleet of reserve ships of the Jin army, suffered a devastating blow in a very short period of time.
And this achievement is strategic.
With the steamer outside and the small boat inside, the small counterweight artillery carts fired in unison and manpower approached to hurl artillery, and under the two-pronged attack, the scale of the fire was already earth-shattering in just a quarter of an hour, and the absolutely correct military order issued by the general before made the fire completely out of control... After being ignited, the first reaction of many ships controlled by the Jin army sailors was of course to try to get out of the Song army's projection range and try to get out of the densely packed mooring area full of wooden boats.
The result was that these ships on fire were like rats with their tails on fire, and they were the ones who actually caused the most ships to catch fire.
But unfortunately, Emperor Zhao would not reward these people. It was not because Emperor Zhao was unwilling to do so, but because it would be too difficult to escape under such a fire.
The fire covered the entire river. The crude water fortress that was built to collect boats in the past became the biggest obstacle for the Jin army sailors to escape. Most of these people were fishermen from Hebei Province. They were forcibly conscripted to take care of the boats. Logically speaking, they were indeed innocent... But war has always been like this. Good guys and bad guys, innocent people and guilty people, are just a small existence in war.
No one cares about them, and no one can care.
Even as they saw the fire was unstoppable, the small boats of the Song army that had broken into the old Beiliu channel had begun to evacuate in an orderly manner and return to the main channel of the Yellow River.
"Captain Zhang!"
A three-meter-long boat sailed out from the broken old embankment, but did not form a formation, but turned towards the ship. The people on the boat only wore leather armor and leather helmets that were convenient for water combat. They looked no different from ordinary sailors. From a distance, they shouted loudly towards the large ship where Zhang Rong was. It turned out to be Li Bao, the former military commander of the imperial camp who had served as a guide and vanguard.
"Call me the commander-in-chief." Because they were far away from the battlefield and there was a huge fire across the embankment, they were sweating from the heat. Zhang Rong simply didn't even wear leather armor, but just opened his chest, exposing his dark chest. When he saw Li Bao coming, he smiled at him with his hands on his waist beside the huge water wheel on the side of the ship. "Li San, I have heard of your reputation in the rivers and lakes for a long time, and today I finally see you. Let me ask you first... Now that I have arrived at the Yellow River and am the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Camp Navy, I will be in charge of all the navy on the Yellow River... If I let my son-in-law write a letter to the emperor and ask for you from General Yue, are you willing to come?"
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