Daqin Engineering Corps

Attack the target obliquely above by yourself, and hand over the enemies on the flanks to the friendly ships behind.

This tactic is very effective.

Because the oarsmen of the Chu army suffered heavy casualties in the first place.

Then there was the embarrassment of substitutes that Shen Bing said: the combatants must replace the oarsmen, otherwise the warship would not be able to move normally, and the combatants would seriously weaken the combat effectiveness if they replaced the oarsmen.

What's more important is that the combatants don't have the special armor of the oarsman, especially without the shoulders, so the replacements are just like targets, and they are almost one by one to die...

The Qin army's chariot warships had no worries about this at all. Their oarsmen were at the bow and stern, and they were protected with rattan shields.

Commanding this Chu army was a lieutenant named Zhang Yao.

The 2000-man navy originally only needed to send an army to command, but Xiang Yan thought it was very important to block the reinforcements of the Daliang navy, so he sent a deputy general.

As soon as Zhang Yao saw this situation, he realized that the situation was wrong, and hurriedly raised a banner and ordered people to send out a beacon for help.

On the other hand, he commanded the water army to fight in close combat.

Zhang Yao's decision is obviously correct, at least within the scope of his cognition.

If the bow battle is at a disadvantage, of course it cannot continue like this, but the water army should be used as infantry to entangle it and fight close combat.

So the warships of the Chu army approached the enemy ship one after another, and then stretched out their halberds to hook the target or even directly hit them and tried to attack the enemy ship.

However, Zhang Yao soon discovered that melee combat was not a good option, or even worse...

But I saw something like a mast on the enemy warship turning aside, and then a huge boulder fell from the sky with a "boom".

The Chu army's warships that were approaching in an instant were smashed into a big hole, and some even lost their balance and capsized.

Seeing this, Zhang Yao couldn't help but change his face, and asked:

"What is that? It's so powerful?"

But none of the guards at the side could answer.

That's actually a "stick".

This racket pole is also called a lifting pole. Its structure is very simple, that is, one end of the crossbar stands on the warship and the other end is tied with a huge stone and tied with ropes.

When there is an enemy ship approaching, turn it to the direction of the enemy ship and let it go down...

This is something unique to the Song Dynasty. The records in the history books are: "Put the pole aside, and the official boat will be broken when it meets it."

Shen Bing used it to prevent close combat.

This made Zhang Yao feel a headache:

How can you fight this battle if you can't fight close combat and can't reach your body?

So he had to hastily ordered to withdraw his troops.

Chapter 182 Water Battle

The shooting pole is almost another kind of trebuchet, but the throwing distance is very different.

This era is actually not suitable for installing trebuchets on ships for water warfare.

There are two reasons: one is that there is no room for the first one.

Maybe the head is easy to understand, even if the trebuchet is not accurate enough on land, the new trebuchet can hit three out of ten shots, which is not bad.

If this trebuchet is moved to a warship...

The warship will fluctuate with the water surface, so the trebuchet will also shake left and right with the hull.

There is a saying that "a small mistake is a thousand miles away". The thing with a long range is the most taboo to have an unstable base. Even if it is just a little bit away and hits a hundred steps away, it is still far from the target.

So if you move the trebuchet to the boat, hitting the target is purely luck.

As for the lack of space... Small warships are commonly used in this era, and this warship can't even fit a trebuchet, let alone carry a stone bomb.

It is not impossible if you insist on loading trebuchets, such as a boat where two warships are put together, or you can make the warship bigger and put together a few more warships.

But then a series of problems arise:

How many stone bombs are enough?

How many people do you need to operate the boat?

How many operators do you need?

Plus arrows and other supplies... Is this ship suitable for sailing in rivers?

Can the speed keep up with other warships?

How to resupply if the stone bomb is finished?

Then, after sacrificing so much, it was barely done, and the trebuchet still missed nine out of ten shots. Even if it was lucky, it would hit an enemy ship with 25 people... It would be easier to knock it over with a boat.

but it does not matter.

Catapults that require both space and stone bullets are not suitable, but this "shooting pole" is suitable...

The advantage of the shooting pole is that it can be reused: after the shooting, several soldiers will lift the stone up high for the next time.

Just like now, when the Chu water army fled, the wheel warships caught up from behind.

Both armies are going down the river, and the wheeled warships have the advantage of speed and can easily catch up with the Chu army's warships.

Then there was no need to shoot arrows at all, I leaned on it and hit the rod hard, a warship capsized with a scream, and then caught up with another ship, and then caught up with another...

In Shen Bing's eyes, it was as easy as a fly swatter hitting a mosquito, and all Chu Jun could do was to dodge as much as possible other than shooting arrows.

However, dodging requires speed. If the speed is not enough, the Chu army's warship can only watch the Qin army's warship approach and then the huge stone falls from the sky...

In the end, there was no way to escape, and some warships simply refused to escape, stopped and dropped their bows and arrows, withdrew their shields and surrendered.

The Black Armored Army came up to receive the prisoners.

The former army bypassed these warships and chased them all the way non-stop. After chasing for a quarter of an hour, another batch of warships came up along the waterway.

These warships were exactly the two thousand sailors sent by Xiang Yan to reinforce them.

It was Liang Jin, the commander of the army under Xiang Yan who led the navy. When he saw the defeat of the Chu army from a distance, he ordered his subordinates to raise a banner to inform Zhang Yao's troops to join forces and fight again.

But I didn't want Zhang Yao to call the banner of withdrawing troops continuously.

Liang Jin frowned and cursed:

"Why is Vice General Zhang so unbearable? He was defeated in just one stick of incense!"

"And the reinforcements and even our army are already superior to the enemy, so why are you afraid of him?"

After thinking about it, he ignored Zhang Yao's order, and shouted majestically towards the surroundings with his head held high:

"The whole army obeys the order and prepares to meet the enemy!"

"Wait until I kill all the Qin Man before making meritorious service and awarding rewards!"

The subordinates responded with a bang and got ready, the arrows were wound up and the swords were unsheathed, and the paddlers rowed vigorously to speed up and rush forward.

However, handsome is only three seconds...

After a while, the fleet arrived in front of Liang Min.

Only then did Liang Mo see clearly the Qin army's warship that was chasing and fighting at the same time. The Chu army's warship that approached it was either sunk or overturned, and the river was full of corpses of Chu water army soldiers.

Liang Mo was shocked:

"What is that? Actually..."

Before it finished speaking, Zhang Yao, who had fled towards the river, shouted at him:

"Withdraw troops, withdraw troops!"

"Qin Jun is powerful, we are no match for you!"

Liang Mo hesitated for a moment.

The reason why he hesitated was because he had just ordered to prepare for the war, and he also made a bold statement to kill the Qin army.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing to withdraw the troops immediately before the battle started?

But he only hesitated for a moment, and finally thought that life is more important than face, so he hurriedly shouted:

"Withdraw the troops, Ming Jin withdraws the troops!"

However, withdrawing troops at this time was not the right choice. As soon as Liang Jin's fleet turned around, all of them lay across the river, and then Zhang Yao's fleet went down the river in a hurry to escape. A ship crashed into a ball.

All of a sudden, the screams and wailing rang out, and many warships huddled together and circled in the river, countless of them were overturned and sunk.

Many sailors fell into the river and shouted for help, but they were wearing heavy bronze armor, and they only had time to splash a few times in the water before disappearing.

At this time, Shen Bing led the warship to rush forward again, only to beat Chu Shuijun into a river of blood, crying ghosts and howling wolves.

Since the battlefield was out of Xiang Yan's sight, he didn't know much about the battle situation.

He just looked at the wreckage of warships floating upriver from time to time and couldn't help frowning... Xiang Yan recognized from the fragments of flags on the warships that they were all Chu army warships.

Xiang Yan was puzzled:

Shouldn't the two armies fight with each other's casualties?

Why are the wrecks of the Chu army's warships all the way down?

Just when he was wondering, the Chu Shui Army who had been killed in a mess had already flowed down the river and appeared in Xiang Yan's sight.

Looking from a distance, Xiang Yan saw that the Qin army's battle flags were neatly organized while the Chu army was in disarray.

But it was too late to withdraw troops by this time.

The main force of the Chu water army that was attacking Qiancheng was similar to the situation that Li Yan's troops encountered before. They were fighting with Li Yan's water army happily, and they retreated as soon as they said they would.

Before they had time to respond, the Black Armored Army had already arrived, and there was another burst of bows and arrows flying wildly, clapping poles and striking...

After the war, according to Chen Duan, the Marquis of the Army, the thousand vanguards he led had all shot their arrows, and after that, they relied entirely on shooting poles to kill the enemy. Some warships even had their shooting poles damaged, so they had to board the Chu army's warships to take arrows. fight again...

This has never happened in the history of water warfare in the Warring States Period. How can you kill an enemy ship to get an arrow without arrows?

On the one hand, this shows that the Chu army has been beaten to the point of losing morale, and on the other hand, the Qin army has been killed so vigorously that it can even be said to be so arrogant that it does not take the enemy seriously.

Even Wei Wei sighed to Shen Bing watching this scene:

"The old leader has never seen such a scene in decades."

"The weak soldiers of the past have now become the army of tigers and wolves."

"The old man can't even believe that they are soldiers."

"Hey! With this battle, the old soldier will have no regrets in his life."

Shen Bing just smiled.

If just this kind of battle can satisfy you, then Wei Wei's appetite is too small.

Chapter 183 Surrounded

In this battle, the Chu water army was defeated and suffered more than [-] casualties.

The number of casualties is still second, the point is that the speed of its defeat is so fast that even Xiang Yan has not reacted...

The whole battle took only one hour from the beginning to the end, which was almost the time it took for the Qin army to rush to the battlefield from the upper reaches.

More importantly, Xiang Yan has no way to deal with this Qin Shuijun.

The deputy general Zhang Yao who had escaped reported to Xiang Yan:

"General, the Qin army is not afraid of arrows in full body armor, and we will not be able to fight with bows from a distance."

"The subordinate wanted to go up to melee, but was caught by the falling rock..."

At this time, the Chu army didn't know that it was called "shooting the pole", so they called it "falling rocks".

Xiang Yan was so anxious that she walked up and down the Shuai's mansion, not knowing what to do.

All his plans are based on the dominance of the navy.

This was not a problem originally, because the Chu Shui Army did have obvious advantages, both in terms of quality and strength.