The task force waited in the reeds for a day and a night. At dawn the next day, the intelligence officer who was watching on the shore came by horseback to report that Zeng Yiben's fleet had retreated to the area of Wanghai Prince's Palace, less than twenty miles away from the mouth of Hanjiang River.
The surveyors had already measured the flow rate of the Han River, and based on the current wind direction and speed, they quickly calculated the time it would take Zeng Yiben's fleet to arrive at the ambush site.
The well-trained police officers immediately tore off the gun covers, moved out the shells, and carried out battle preparations in an orderly manner.
Accompanied by Wang Rulong, Zhao Hao stood on the deck of the Yixue, looking at the misty river surface.
After nearly a month of gloom, a smile finally reappeared on Mr. Zhao's face.
The retreat of Zeng Yiben's fleet naturally meant the lifting of the siege of Chaozhou, and he was basically relieved.
"Brother Wang, we don't need to seek results in this battle. It's enough to just weigh their weight. We can settle the accounts with them later." Master Zhao's mood improved and his murderous aura was not as strong anymore.
"I understand." Wang Rulong responded first, and now he dared to talk nonsense. "I came to Guangdong twice with Marshal Qi. The first time was to eliminate the Japanese pirates in Chaoshan; the second time was to pacify the Nan'ao Island bandit Wu Ping. I didn't expect to come a third time. I really have an indissoluble bond with Chaoshan."
"Haha, then we should meet a lot of 'old friends', right?" Zhao Hao asked with a smile.
"Of course." Wang Rulong nodded and grinned, "Zeng Yiben and the other sea masters were all Wu Ping's lackeys back then. In the battle on Nan'ao Island, they were beaten so hard that their egg yolks came out by our brothers."
"He got the name King of Hell at that time." Haierge interrupted with a smile, "It is said that in those days, the three words 'Wang Rulong' could stop children from crying at night."
"Then let them recall the terror of being dominated by Qi's army and the shame of being scared and fleeing in all directions." Zhao Hao raised his eyebrows and looked at the top of the mast slowly appearing in the mist in the distance.
~~
A huge fleet consisting of hundreds of ships of all sizes was sailing downstream on the Han River.
These were naturally the pirates who had suffered a setback at the foot of Chaozhou City. Compared to the arrogant scene before, the huge fleet was now immersed in an extremely depressed atmosphere, with shouting, cursing and crying heard from far away.
Because the pirates were all fathers, sons, brothers, and people from the same clan and family who went to sea together, almost all of them had relatives who died under the city of Chaozhou.
When passing by Wangshanwangye Palace just now, the sailors rushed to the deck and kowtowed and prayed to the Three Mountain Kings from afar... The Three Mountain Kings are also called Chaoshan Three Mountain Gods. They are the oldest and most influential patron saints in the Chaoshan area. The people call them "Di Tou Ye". Whenever a newborn baby or a relative dies, they have to go to the temple to report to the three Di Tou Ye, which is considered to be registering or canceling their household registration.
So someone first reported that his brother had just died. Then the pirates reported the death to the King of Sanshan, and there was a great cry of grief on all the ships. The pirates cried and cursed Zeng Yiben, the bastard, for overestimating his own abilities and wishful thinking, and for killing everyone's relatives.
If they were not on different ships, they could have used this momentum to fight against that damn dragon head!
Zeng Yiben's flagship, the 5,000-hu Wuwei ship, was filled with his relatives and loyal friends who shared weal and woe. When they heard the cursing from the other ships getting louder and louder, they were all terrified and quickly armed themselves to prevent any other ships from approaching and causing trouble.
Zeng Yiben could hear clearly the loud noise outside, but he no longer cared. He drove everyone out, locked himself in the cabin, and got drunk.
The defeat in Chaozhou was an extraordinary blow to him, making him deeply feel that his luck had really run out and that the monkeys would scatter like the trees when they fall.
The strong sense of failure made him feel deeply disgusted with the world, so even though he knew that he had not escaped yet and could be ambushed by the enemy at any time, he still didn't want to care about it at all.
Let them be destroyed if they have to. Anyway, once they leave Hanjiangkou, they will become strangers or even enemies.
The boss dropped the burden, so Da Jin Ya, Ji San and others had to pick it up first. Amid the annoying cries and curses, they tried their best to command the fleet to slow down and pass through the waters ahead in an orderly manner, which seemed vast and calm but were actually very dangerous.
Similar to the Huangpu River, the Hanjiang River, which is seriously lacking in management, is also seriously silted up in its lower reaches. The Hanjiang Plain is densely populated, with half of Chaozhou's population living there. There are many bridges on the river, and each village and clan uses water for irrigation and dikes to build farmland, which results in a slow flow of the river. Especially during the dry season in autumn and winter, a huge amount of silt is deposited at the estuary, causing the riverbed to rise continuously and the flood discharge capacity to decrease continuously.
In the flood season, the runoff increased suddenly, and the river water naturally overflowed the riverbed, flooding large areas of land on both sides. Therefore, the river, which looks extremely wide, is only two or three meters deep in most areas, and only the original river channel can pass large ships. Especially their one hundred thousand-ton sea ships, they have to line up in a long line and carefully pass through the deep water area less than a mile wide. If they are not careful, they will run aground, and then they can only abandon the ship.
The reason why Xu Wei had Zhao Hao and his men ambush in the reeds by the river was to wait for this opportunity. He wanted to use the navy version of attacking the enemy halfway across the river, so that he could defeat the enemy with fewer troops!
~~
Just as the pirate fleet was heading towards the mouth of Han River like a swarm of carp crossing the river, a cannon shot was suddenly heard from the north.
At this time, the sailors were gathered on the deck, crying and denouncing Zeng Yiben.
The shell seemed to have eyes, and it whizzed down on the deck of a large ship. The crowd was immediately covered in blood, and heads and arms flew everywhere. It was a horrible scene. The shell was still going strong and smashed a big hole in the deck.
"There's an ambush!" The cries and curses on the boats turned into screams of panic.
With the screams of the pirates, dozens of cannons roared one after another, and the shells they fired were incredibly accurate. The two sides were nearly two miles apart, but 70% of the shells hit the target!
If it were the pirates, the leader would not allow them to fire at this distance, because it would be a sheer waste of shells. Except for a few brass long eagle cannons produced by the Bugalo Cannon Foundry in Macau, most of their cannons had a range of less than two miles, let alone hitting the target.
In fact, even well-trained Coast Guard gunners cannot achieve such good results under normal circumstances. But this was an ambush on a calm river surface, and they could accurately calculate the firing parameters, adjust the elevation angle and charge, and if this still cannot ensure that most of the shells fall on the river channel, then the artillery class in the Coast Guard School should be cancelled directly.
The Art of War says: Those who arrive at the battlefield first and wait for the enemy are at ease, while those who arrive at the battlefield later and rush into battle are tired.
Although the task force only had ten small ships and thirty bow guns, it had a very high hit rate and caused continuous casualties to the pirates who were dozens of times more numerous, causing them to fall into great chaos.
The bigger reason was that Zeng Yiben was drunk and the pirates were leaderless. Of course, even if he was awake, it would be impossible for him to command such a large fleet.
Although the other sea lords were not drunk, they could only command their own fleets and had no control over the actions of other ships.
This is a complete mess!
Some fleets wanted to raise sails and row their oars to rush out of the mouth of the Han River.
Some fleets wanted to turn around and attack those damn ten black-tailed ships.
Some fleets saw shells falling in front of them and wanted to stop and turn back to avoid the attack.
As a result, some ships wanted to move forward, some wanted to go back, and some wanted to turn, and chaos ensued. In the densely packed waterway in the middle of the river, ships collided with each other everywhere, and many sailors lost their balance and fell into the water.
The ruthless shells kept falling, not only killing many pirates, but also sinking several ships - the pirates' ships were mostly made of crude pine and fir wood, how could they withstand the attack of shells? The well-made Yongle cannon could smash a hole as big as a washbasin on the deck with one shot, and then penetrate the bottom of the ship.
It can be seen that there is a reason why the Portuguese in Macau could roam the coast of Fujian and Guangdong with only three large Western sailing ships...
The captains of the ships tried desperately to steer their ships, trying to extricate themselves from the chaos of death, but many large ships accidentally ran aground, which further exacerbated the chaos.
For the pirates, if the Daguan ship ran aground, they were doomed. Who could wait until the water level rose after the heavy rain to free the ship?
So once the ship ran aground, the people on board had to abandon the big ship and escape in small boats.
Small boats that could sail in shallow waters were in a much better situation. Countless small boats abandoned the large ship and escaped to the sea at the mouth of the Han River.
The big golden tooth also tried his best to organize an offensive. He sent out more than a dozen fast boats to meet the ten black-tailed boats. He did not seek to defeat the enemy, but as long as he could stop them from firing and buy time for the large army to retreat, it would be a great success.
A speedboat that can only carry a dozen or twenty people naturally cannot be equipped with cannons. When they approached the ten Wuwei ships, what awaited them was the continuous saturation fire of the marines operating the large Portuguese machine guns. With such a small force and such a small ship, it was impossible to break through the task force squadron's close defense firepower network.
As a result, they could only leave behind hundreds of corpses and retreat in disgrace.
In fact, if the pirates were united, or if the battlefield was changed to the sea, hundreds of ships would rush forward and overwhelm ten enemy ships.
But those who are good at fighting have dangerous momentum and short time. The momentum is like a crossbow, and the time is like a trigger! Wang Rulong used this little force and the advantage of the terrain to make the pirates explode...
In the end, half of the 100 large ships were left at the mouth of the Han River. In fact, there were not many ships that ran aground, but a few of them could block the already narrow channel, making it impossible for the large ships behind to move forward. Escape back was also a dead end, so the people on the ship had to abandon the large ship and take a small boat to escape to the mouth of the Han River.
In fact, the casualties of the pirates in this battle were not too heavy. At most, a few hundred people were killed or drowned, which was not as great as the losses in a day's siege.
However, the capacity of the small boat was limited and it could only carry half of the pirates to escape at sea.
Fortunately, the river was not deep, the current was not fast, and the pirates were good swimmers. Those who didn't get on the boat jumped into the water and swam to the south bank of the river, and they all escaped with their lives.
Just run away, Zhao Hao doesn’t care.
In the Chaoshan area, pirates are worthless, just like leeks, there is always another crop after you cut it.
However, the dozens of large Guangdong ships that were left behind were enough to deal a heavy blow to the pirates, given that Yin Zhengmao had severely cracked down on Guangdong's civilian shipyards, making it increasingly difficult for sea owners to obtain warships.