Chapter 21 Fighting in Qiantang

Regarding Gu Gao's death and the final fall of Jiangyin City, Huang Zongxi, who was hundreds of miles away, would naturally not get the news immediately;Because he himself was facing a life-and-death struggle with an uncertain future. It is frustrating to say that this long-awaited battle, in the end, actually broke out because the fleet of the Qing army sailed across the center of the river on its own initiative, trying to launch an attack on the water village of the Ming army.Originally, before this, Huang Zongxi and Sun Jiaji had jointly put forward the proposal of "surrounding Wei and saving Zhao" with the leaders of several other rebel armies; "Really," was flatly denied.Taking advantage of this vacancy, the Qing soldiers in Hangzhou adjusted their deployment and strengthened their defensive forces; they also transferred a large number of ships from other places, and formed a water fortress on the opposite bank, posing a ready posture.Not only that, but in the early morning of August 19th, the Qing soldiers felt that they had stabilized their position. They probably got inspiration and encouragement from the retreat of the Ming army. Unknowingly crossing the Qiantang River, at the dawn of dawn, suddenly appeared in front of Yuyao Rebels!

For this situation, it is not entirely true that King Lu's army is not prepared at all.In fact, after arriving one after another, the rebel troops from various prefectures and counties have formed camps on the left and right wings of Wang Zhiren's army according to the number of troops and the priority of their positions, forming a formation that echoes each other.Among them, the Shaoxing, Cixi, and Ningbo volunteers were concentrated on the left flank of Wang Zhiren's army; while the Yuyao army, which had the largest number of militias and high morale, was placed alone on the right flank of Wang's army.The leaders of all parties also agreed: If the enemy army came to attack, it is estimated that under normal circumstances they would not directly attack Wang Zhiren's main force, but would attack the weaker two wings first. We should try to wrap it tightly, wait for friendly troops to come, form several sides to attack, and finally gather and annihilate them.Therefore, Huang Zongxi was a little surprised at first when he found that the enemy's attack was aimed at his own wing first, but he did not panic because he had the experience of sending troops across the river last time. On the contrary, he suddenly aroused a desire of bravery.He immediately sent people to report to Sun Jiaji in Hanzhai, and at the same time ordered all the ships to be ready to meet the enemy and stand ready to deal a head-on blow to the enemy.

Now, with the enemy ships drawing closer, the skirmish was about to begin.Standing on the command ship, Huang Zongxi felt both excited and nervous, but not without chagrin. "Hmph, if Governor Xingyuan made a decisive decision at the beginning, why did this happen!" He thought, and at the same time, he was thinking in his heart: Although the right wing has only his own army, it is the closest to Wang Zhiren's main force, only ten miles away, and they are mutually supportive. You will get strong support at any time. "Yes, this time it's going to be real! Let's kill him quickly! Don't look at the Tartar's cavalry, it's on land; in the water, it's no match for us! This is for sure... But, why is the one over there not moving? Why don’t they all sail in?” After discovering that the fleet of the Qing soldiers had already entered Jiangwan, some of them stopped suddenly and stopped moving forward, as if they were also Huang Zongxi couldn't help becoming anxious to beware of Wang Zhiren's army in the upper reaches.Because he had already ordered in advance to deploy a lot of "Underwater Thunder" and "Huangjiang Dragon" at the front of the water village, waiting for the evil "Tarzi" to have a taste of the power of these new mines! "How about waiting for them to come together?" He thought hesitantly.At this moment, there were two loud noises of "Boom! Boom!" before he could figure out what was going on. Water column; then a big river boat on the left "crashed", and a big hole as thick as the mouth of a small water tank suddenly appeared on the top of the well-endowed canopy!Huang Zongxi was taken aback. When he realized that it was a shell fired by the Qing army, he quickly shouted at the soldiers who were huddled together, "Don't panic, don't panic!" Then he turned to send orders. Officer: "Let the water mines go! Order the fire to attack the camp, and let the water mines go!" After saying that, he quickly jumped off the canopy, followed by his own soldiers, stepped over several boats one after another, and ran straight to the front of the water village.

At this time, the approach of the enemy ship became clearer.On the vast surface of the river, illuminated by the morning sun, the huge gray-brown sails are connected unevenly, looking like a group of vicious vultures swooping in front of you.It was the first time in Huang Zongxi's life that he faced such a situation. Although he tried his best to calm himself down, his heart was beating wildly in his chest.He squatted down next to the winch and grabbed the sword with all his strength. He could clearly feel the symphony of shells falling on the water, the sound of "plop" and "bang bang" on the ship, but he didn't dare to pay attention to it at all. Staring at the area where the torpedoes had been released in advance, he anxiously urged secretly in his heart: "Well, why didn't it explode? Hurry up! Explode!" Because of this, the surface of the water is always quiet and there is no movement.On the contrary, an enemy ship walking in front has swaggered into the minefield, sailed without incident, and is about to pass...

"Hey, bastard! What's going on?" Out of anger and fear, a roar rushed into Huang Zongxi's throat. "Hey, it exploded! It exploded! It exploded!" Several surprise calls sounded around.Huang Zongxi quickly fixed his eyes and saw the water surface in the minefield, the waves suddenly rolled violently.The enemy ship that entered was just now going straight forward proudly, but now, as if it had been hit by some invisible blow, it stopped suddenly, and began to shake its whole body, swaying from side to side like a drunk, and could no longer hold on. balance.The enemies on the boat were already in a mess, yelling and jumping into the water to escape...

"So, it was really hit?" Huang Zongxi was surprised and delighted, staring intently at the enemy ship that was obviously blown through the bilge.After a while, I saw that the bow of the big river boat was getting higher and higher, and the tail began to sink; finally, the broken mast and the huge sail were violently dumped on the river; the huge wave stood upright and swept away. Go, the whole water village was bumped up and down. Huang Zongxi couldn't help but jumped up and shouted: "Okay!" To be honest, he had only heard someone introduce that these new mines controlled by rope traction are very powerful. He didn't expect that one guy would blow up and sink the enemy's warship !Now, he felt a lot more at ease in his heart. He gathered himself together, turned over and ran back to the command ship.Finding that Sun Jiaji had also arrived from Hanzhai, he didn't bother to greet him, he just waved his fist triumphantly, and turned to the herald excitedly:

"Tell them it's good! Haha, it's like this! Fuck the fuck!" After finishing speaking, he turned around and briefly explained the situation to Sun Jiaji, and asked the other party to take command, while he returned to the front line... The subsequent offensive and defensive battles became more tense and intense as the enraged enemies began a full-scale onslaught.Cannonballs roared overhead, rockets scurried around, and the shouts of killing were like the tide, rising and falling.One ship of the rebel army was blown off its mast, and many other decks and sides were shot; several ships were still on fire, and naturally, some troops were also lost.Huang Zongxi commanded the soldiers of the rebel army, while doing his best to rescue them, he fought bravely, releasing mines from a distance, and bombarding them with firecrackers from a distance, knocking the enemy back again and again.However, I don't know if it's because the soldiers in the fire attack camp are too impatient, or because of other reasons, the time and position of mine release are always uncertain, either early or on the wrong side.As a result, although one enemy ship was severely damaged and several others were damaged to varying degrees, they were never able to sink the enemy ship.On the contrary, after suffering several losses, the enemy's fleet probably learned the power of the mines, so they were afraid and did not dare to push too much. For a while, the battle became stalemate.

This situation made Huang Zongxi feel quite anxious. He wished to completely defeat the enemy immediately, but he didn't know how to do it.Taking advantage of the break in the battle, he ran back to the command ship and found that Sun Jiaji didn't seem to be more relaxed than himself for a while. The black gauze hat on his head was crooked, and his eyebrows and beard were covered with sweat and stains, and he was wiping them with his sleeves. , while anxiously looking upstream... Huang Zongxi's heart moved, and he followed Sun Jiaji's line of sight, only to notice that although the fierce fighting had been going on for a while, the water village of Wang Zhiren's army upstream was always quiet, the flag was not waved, and the drums were drumming. No sound, as if they didn't know at all. "Hey, what's wrong with Marquis Wu Ning? Why hasn't there been any movement yet?" He couldn't help but yelled out.

Sun Jiaji's thin face became a little gloomy: "I have been paying attention to them for a long time! I sent someone to inform them a long time ago, and I sent someone to urge the battle just now, but they just didn't move!" Huang Zongxi blinked, startled by this turn of events.It was originally a pre-agreed battle plan to lure the enemy deep, and then the two sides joined forces to attack.If in the end the opponent refuses to fight in order to preserve their strength, then wouldn't they be fighting alone? "I think they want to preserve their strength, so they don't hesitate to break the contract and watch the fire from the other side!" Sun Jiaji finally expressed his judgment.

"But, but..." Since it was impossible to imagine that they would do this at the critical point of life and death, Huang Zongxi couldn't find the right words to express his feelings for a while. "However, maybe not yet." Seeing that Huang Zongxi was too surprised, Sun Jiaji gave a wry smile soothingly, "Let's take a look again! But, we have to know what to do later, if we can win, we will fight, and if we can't, we have to withdraw! " "Withdraw? But—" "Hmph, I should be thankful for being able to withdraw. I'm afraid it will be too late! Oh, let's not talk about it, the Tartars are attacking again!" Saying this, Sun Jiaji strode past him and walked towards the bow.Huang Zongxi hesitated for a moment, and had no choice but to follow behind in surprise.The battlefield on the water, which had only been calm for a moment, suddenly became tense again.This time, the Qing army sent seven or eight small boats, filled with thatch and firewood, which probably contained tinder and gunpowder, and they were being driven by the oarsmen and swayed towards this side.Looking at the momentum, it was obviously an attempt to use the lightness and flexibility of the small boat to avoid the mines, get into the water stronghold of the rebels and set fire to it, causing chaos so that the large warships behind could take advantage of the momentum and follow up the attack.I saw that those small boats were really fast, they braved the locust-like arrows from the rebel army to intercept them, and in a blink of an eye, they had already crossed the minefield and approached the front of the water village.

"My lords, don't wait any longer, let's open the stronghold to meet the enemy!" Seeing Sun and Huang, one of them still twitching their beards and the other standing in a daze, Mao Han, the lieutenant general who rushed forward, urgently urged loudly. . Sun Jiaji glanced at the generals who came up to wait for the order, as if he had made up his mind: "Okay, let's send an order: open the camp to meet the enemy! Mao Han, I ordered you to be the forward, lead ten loach boats, Bring rockets and firecrackers, and charge back at the enemy! The rest of the teams, led by Wang Han, Zhang Qinchen, and Han Wanxiang, follow up in three groups, and must go back and forth to disperse the enemy ships and annihilate them separately!" After all the generals were ordered to leave, he turned around and said to Huang Zongxi, "In this case, I will take command here. You go to Hanzhai immediately, gather your troops, and lie in ambush three miles downstream, and wait for me to lead the enemy soldiers ashore. Come on, you will rush out to respond, there must be no mistakes!" After a pause, he added in a low voice: "Wang Zhiren's side is unreliable! We can only rely on ourselves—if this plan doesn't sell, brother don't worry about me, and immediately lead the rest of the troops back by land and report to the prison. Guo Zuo made it clear what happened, and tried to make progress. Do you remember?" Huang Zongxi blinked his eyes at first, a little confused.But then he jumped away as if he had been scalded by a fire: "Ah, no, no! Brother, you can't do this, you can't do this!" He argued loudly, "This water village is under the command of my younger brother. Command! Even if you die, you are willing!" Seeing Sun Jiaji shaking his head and trying to persist, the blood in his body boiled violently, he swung his arms vigorously, made a gesture of not listening, and Guan Zi raised his sword and ran towards the side of the boat.Noticing a boat was slowly sailing out beside him, he immediately jumped up and boarded the boat.Even though Sun Jiaji stomped and cursed at the back, he gritted his teeth and never looked back...