With five tortoiseshell ships in the lead, a total of more than 70 warships of various sizes sailed into the estuary of the Datong River. A large number of strong men were paddling hard on the tortoiseshell ships to drive the huge warships. The commander of the Korean navy, Li Guan, stood on the observation deck at the top of the warship and looked into the distance.
An old white-haired attendant whispered, "Your Excellency, the Datong River is winding and we are going upstream. I'm afraid it will take us two or three days to reach Pyongyang. The Ming pirates' ships are coming and going, I'm afraid we will be discovered soon. "
Li Guan stood on the observation deck and was silent for a long time. Finally, he spat out two words with difficulty, "Sink the ships."
"Ah …" The attendant was speechless and shocked.
Li Guan said again with a cold face, "Sink the ships and block the estuary of the Datong River so that the Ming pirates' ships can't enter from the sea. We just need to go forward and kill our way in. "
This decision was too painful.
Accompanying Li Guan were the last of the North Korean navy's forces that could be gathered. Among the more than 70 warships, there were tortoiseshell warships that were nearly 200 feet long and 20 feet wide. There were also small fire boats that were several meters long. Some of the warships had been launched decades ago and were old enough to be the grandfathers of most sailors.
Putting together such a fleet had cost the lives of the Li family in Korea. When King Li Hui saw off the generals in Seoul, he was sobbing uncontrollably. He pulled Li Guan's hand and almost knelt down. He pleaded, "Thou art the descendant of Duke Chungwu. You should exert your uncle's remaining courage and not let this King become a slave of a destroyed country."
Now that the fleet had finally reached the Datong River and was about to fight the enemy, the commander of the navy's first order was to "sink the ships."
"Your Excellency, these warships were not easy to come by. Why don't you leave a dozen warships to defend? I'm willing to personally lead the retreat and leave a way out for Your Excellency. " The attendant was called Jin Yi. He had been the attendant of Li Guan's uncle, Li Shunchen, for more than a decade and continued to serve Li Guan. Although he was old, his status was different. Today, in order to ensure victory, he begged to fight to the death to guard the estuary.
"A way out?" Li Guan shook his head bitterly. "A way out is for the weak. We have no way out. It's either victory or defeat. Life and death are not important. " He ordered again, "Send the soldiers we brought ashore. Sink the transport ships and block the mouth of the river. Even if we are defeated, we must cut off the path of survival for these Ming Kingdom pirates. "
Li Guan's words were resolute. Jin Yi, the attendant, heard it and felt sad. The latter could only stomp her feet and give the order. Both of them knew that their opponent this time was extraordinary, and if they didn't put their lives on the line, they wouldn't have the slightest chance of winning.
In a war, the most important thing was to fight head-on and win by surprise. It was useless to just fight head-on, and it was even more useless to focus on taking risks and gambling with one's life. Zhou Qingfeng was very good at putting his unconstrained imagination into practice. For example, when he fled from Fushun to Lushun, more than ten thousand people slipped away in a short period of time without anyone noticing. For this unexpected operation, Zhou Qingfeng had made a lot of solid preparations.
Moreover, the Revolutionary Army's raid on Tianjin was also an ingenious plan. In order to complete this mission, Zhou Qingfeng had also made a lot of arrangements. Then, he openly shipped thousands of troops to Tianjin and turned the Ming Kingdom's capital into a mess. The Ming Kingdom, who could have held on for more than 20 years under the Kennu's attack, could only count their days and wait for death.
If the blow that the Ming Kingdom suffered was like a bolt from the blue, then after Zhou Qingfeng won the Battle of Zhenjiang, he raided Pyongyang by sea. This was a 'dimensionality reduction' to the Lee regime of North Korea. The two sides were not fighting in the same era, so there was no comparison. The fake King Li Hui, who stayed in Seoul, was stunned when he learned that he had lost half of his territory in the blink of an eye.
Zhou Qingfeng had only stayed in Pyongyang for a month, but the speed at which he destroyed the Lee regime was unimaginably fast. Those North Korean public security forces who had eaten their fill and wanted to get their pay bared their fangs and claws. They took the initiative to desperately attack the original North Korean officials.
The Revolutionary Army stayed in Pyongyang and provided logistics to support the expansion of the North Korean public security forces. They even attacked North Korea's North Hamgyong Province's Maosan Commandery. This was because Zhou Qingfeng wanted the Maosan Iron Mine. It was a large open-air iron mine with a high grade of ore. It was easy to mine.
At present, a large number of North Korean laborers were recruited to mine. It was troublesome to transport the ore in the later stage. A large part of the loan of 50 million silver dollars would be used to build roads and the northern port. In addition, it was nothing more than more deaths.
With the ruthlessness of this strategy, the fake King Li Hui could not bear this kind of fierce poaching behavior. He sent people to Pyongyang many times to try to negotiate peace. However, Zhou Qingfeng did not care at all. He was determined not to leave any trouble for future generations. It was best to solve all the problems when he conquered the country. It was as simple as that.
In the face of such a desperate situation, Li Wan, who was on an expedition, had no way out. He took his fleet to the estuary of the Datong River and waited for several days. Seeing with his own eyes the steam ships that could move fast without sails, he knew that it would be extremely difficult for him to win this time.
Standard steam ships were 500 tons each. They could move straight on the sea without looking at the wind and could easily reach a cruising speed of six knots. In contrast, the tortoiseshell ships were wrapped in iron plates and hardwood. They could not use the wind and could only move forward by rowing. The laborers could only run five knots even if they worked themselves to death. When they entered the Datong River, their speed was reduced to two or three knots because they were going against the current.
The tortoiseshell ships thought they were big, but compared to the steam ships that could easily weigh 500 tons, it was really not enough. Because he found that the enemy was too strong, Li Wan had no intention of facing them head-on. He could only think of using the sunken ships to block the channel and cut off the enemy's reinforcements. He could then fight his way to Pyongyang and hope for a miracle.
However …
The old attendant Jin Yi arranged for the transport ships to land and unload about 3,000 accompanying soldiers. At the same time, he drove the empty transport ships to the center of the river and sank them. He reminded Li Wan again, "Sir, it is said that the Ming pirates' cannons are extremely powerful and can attack cities. Our ships … "
Their cannons could even destroy cities, so how could they not destroy your ship?
Li Wan said coldly, "My tortoiseshell ships are wrapped in iron plates and strengthened by spells."
"But the enemy has cannons, not bows and arrows."
"I have asked my uncle's fighting soul to follow us …"
"Ah … Sir, you asked Duke Zhongwu's fighting soul to come out?"
The old attendant was extremely surprised. "If the battle goes badly, I'm afraid it will cause great harm to Duke Zhongwu."
Li Wan only smiled bitterly. "If the battle goes badly, you and I will both be loyal to the king. As for my uncle, what use does he have for this remnant soul? "
The old attendant was even more speechless and even sobbed. Originally, the Li family's regime lived in a remote corner and lived a happy life. Who knew that Zhou Qingfeng would suddenly appear and break into the house to kill the head of the family, rob the family property, forcibly take his wife and concubines, and enslave them — Master Zhou was really something, always forcing people into a dead end.
Look, the people of the Li family were so indignant that they came to fight desperately.
It was still more than 100 kilometers from the estuary of the Datong River to Pyongyang. Except for the steamships coming and going, Zhou Qingfeng did not set up a guard at such a distance. When the estuary of the river was blocked, the ships coming and going were puzzled and realized that something was wrong, but it was too late to inform Zhou Qingfeng in Pyongyang.
The Imperial Guard's cordon in Pyongyang was about 10 kilometers away, and the personnel in charge of the guard also saw a large number of ships going upstream along the river from a distance. But they made a rudimentary mistake — the steamships of the Revolutionary Army did not have sails, and it just so happened that the tortoiseshell ships did not have sails. These large tortoiseshell ships were initially regarded as their own people by the guard.
After all, the Revolutionary Army had made a lot of strange things, and no one could tell if these tortoiseshell ships were recently made. It was not until these warships approached two to three kilometers away from the port of Pyongyang, and their tortoiseshell spewed flames to burn the warehouses on the shore, that the North Korean elite soldiers moving along the river began to attack the Imperial Guard's cordon that the alarm finally rang.
A brigade of 5,000 people of the Imperial Guard was stationed near the port of Pyongyang, and several infantry battalions immediately organized to fight against the enemy. Zhou Qingfeng was still watching from the top of the city wall. His brigade headquarters' staff officers such as Qiao Xuenan and the others gathered the troops and naturally entered the battle state. The action of letting go for nearly a month had achieved good results. The rookie staff officers finally knew how to take the initiative to do things.
The first thing that the Imperial Guard's artillery soldiers dealt with was not the enemy's warships attacking on the river. In Qiao Xuenan's opinion, these ships could not go ashore, so the biggest threat to them was the enemy's infantry attacking along the river. The artillery battalion directly under the brigade headquarters quickly entered the position and bombarded the enemies who went ashore first.
In the direction of the port, the Revolutionary Army's navy only had one commuter ship parked there. When the commander Zhu Chengxiu saw that the opponent actually had a warship, he immediately shouted anxiously, "Weigh the anchor, light the fire, and prepare for battle."
The sailors on the commuter ship began to get busy, but they soon shouted anxiously, "Captain, the steam engine will take at least half an hour to raise the pressure, we can't move now."
The steam engine was too troublesome because it was the process of boiling water. It took time from starting the fire to pushing the piston to move. The fastest one would take half an hour, and the slower one would take a few hours. Therefore, the naval steam warships of the later generations would not easily stop fire. Even when they were docked, they had to ensure that there was a certain amount of air pressure in the boiler.
However, Zhu Chengxiu was known as the world's first batch of naval steam warships, and it was impossible to completely simulate actual combat by training. This time, he was at a disadvantage because of this.
"Motherf * cker, the ship can't move, but the cannon can move, right?" Zhu Chengxiu hurriedly jumped back to the ship from the shore. At a glance, he found that his cannon was also not right. "Damn it, go find a few big wooden sticks and push the ship away from the shore. We need to turn around."
Because the ship was only equipped with a ship's cannon at the bow, the cannon's rotating turret could only rotate 270 degrees. It could not fire at the rear because there was a bridge behind it. When Zhao Ze designed this commuter ship, it was completely based on the structure of a modern warship. But now, the enemy was coming from the rear.
Forced to do nothing, Zhu Chengxiu could only take a group of sailors ashore again. They found a few logs, and a dozen people worked together to push the 50-ton ship away from the dock, turning the bow of the ship in a different direction. This was so that the cannon could aim at the enemy's attack course.
"Captain, the enemy's arson ship." On the bridge of the commuter ship, the sailor in charge of the lookout shouted loudly, pointing to a small boat that was paddling with all its might about two hundred meters away. The bow of the small boat was piled with grease and firewood, and a North Korean sailor was holding a torch, preparing to ignite the firewood.
In the early days of the Age of Discovery, arson was a common tactic used by weak navies to fight against foreign enemies. Relying on the bravery of the sailors, they would paddle quickly to close in on the enemy and then set them on fire. In later years, this thing even evolved into a fast-moving "torpedo boat," which was hanging a bag of explosives on the bow, specifically to blow up other people's ships.
"Shut up, I saw it." Zhu Chengxiu was still pushing his own commuter ship. Thankfully, it was only a 50-ton boat, and with a dozen people pushing it, it could still float on the water. "Gunners, get on the boat, load the shells, and aim at the arson ship."
The people on the shore pushed hard, and the boat quickly loaded. The gunner, who was in charge of aiming, adjusted the 70mm naval cannon to the maximum angle, and aimed the muzzle at the Arsonist that was getting closer and closer. The enemy had already entered the sprint stage, and the North Korean sailors rowed with all their might. The person in charge of igniting the fire was probably a North Korean officer, and he was loudly encouraging his own people to paddle quickly.
Bang … The ship opened fire!
In the deafening sound of the cannons, the hull of the ship was quite shaky. It took a lot of effort to fire a solid bullet, but it landed in front of the arson ship, creating a spray of water. The gunners in the turret were all stunned. They could only watch as the enemy closed the distance between them to less than 50 meters.
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