Optimus One Pillar of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 247 Chapter 240 Five gunfire washes the ground

Early the next morning, the battleship set sail and entered the Chao Phraya River. The Chao Phraya River is indeed the largest river in Siam. It is located in the rainy tropics, and its water volume is very sufficient. The river is at least 800 meters wide, and it looks a bit vast. .

Standing on the bow of the flagship of the Ming Navy, with the river breeze blowing, the beautiful tropical scenery on both sides of the river is really picturesque.But on both sides of the river, the large groups of Burmese soldiers and war elephants running with the fleet were a bit distracting, reminding Wang Daoqiu that this was not a ten-day tour between Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, but a war.

The Ming Dynasty and Burma are currently at war. Mang Ruiti has a grudge against the Ming Dynasty for killing his father. The Ming Dynasty army is stationed in the Bay of Bangkok. Naturally, he will not be unprepared.After all, the straight-line distance between Bangkok and Ayutthaya, the current capital of Siam, is only [-] kilometers. In later generations, it would only take one hour by car.

Therefore, before Wang Daoqiu arrived in Bangkok, Mangrui Ti deployed more than 2 troops around Bangkok to monitor the Ming army.He planned to concentrate his main force to destroy Siam first, and then return to drive the Ming army into the sea.But Mang Ruiti never imagined that the Ming army, with only such a small number of men and no war elephants, would actually dare to take the initiative to attack him northward.

In this way, after Wang Daoqiu led the Ming army to the north, the Burmese troops who were responsible for monitoring the Ming army had no choice but to send people to inform Mang Rui Ti immediately. On the other hand, [-] troops were divided on both sides of the Chao Phraya River to follow and monitor the Ming army going north.

The Burmese troops on both sides of the river, either running or riding elephants, yelled at the Ming army and made various provocative actions.However, in order to hide his strength, Wang Daoqiu ordered the Burmese army not to attack the Burmese army on both sides of the river when he arrived in Dacheng.

Anyway, the Chao Phraya River is 800 meters wide, and the fleet takes the central route. The fleet is at least 300 meters away from both banks of the river.At this distance, not to mention bows, arrows, matchlocks, and even trebuchets cannot hit.So as long as they ignore them, the Burmese army will just amuse themselves there and sweat in vain.

Standing on the bow of the boat, I looked at the tropical scenery on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the various physical arts of the Burmese troops on both sides of the Strait, and the strange sounds and screams.Wang Daoqiu thought it was quite interesting at first, but as time went by, he got tired of it and it became boring.

At this time, Wang Daoqiu began to complain about the speed of the boat. The big wooden sail boat was on the sea. With the strong wind on the sea, the speed was only [-] to [-] kilometers per hour. After entering the Chao Phraya River, it was only the river wind that allowed him to paddle. Alas, the speed dropped to about ten kilometers per hour, which was the touching speed of Yao Dapang when he sprinted. It was so slow!

Seeing the fleet's speed, Wang Daoqiu unconsciously began to complain about those stupid people in future generations.Ma De, you also said that when Zheng He sailed to the Western Ocean, his fleet was very large, and the largest ship displaced tens of thousands of tons.

Mud, before the advent of steam engines and internal combustion engines, it was driven only by the wind at sea and sailors paddling.Thousands of rounds!What speed can it reach on the sea? Ants can climb faster than it!

Just like the British-French struggle for hegemony in the [-]th century, France built a five-thousand-ton sailing warship, hoping to establish an advantage at sea by relying on the ship to carry mostly cannons.As a result, the ship only went to sea once and then came back to be used as a training ship.

Why is this happening?Quite simply, the ship is too big and the wind force cannot guarantee its speed at all.It has slow speed and poor maneuverability. If you fight with others at sea, if you win, it will not be able to catch up with others and cannot capture prisoners.If you lose, it won't be able to escape, and you will have to be a prisoner.And in order to be consistent with him, other ships in the fleet have to reduce their speed, and everyone slows down together.Therefore, this French five-thousand-ton sail warship only went to sea once and could only return to the port. From now on, it will only be used as a training ship.

So those idiots in later generations said that Zheng He sailed to the Western Ocean in a [-]-ton ship. Then I would like to ask Zheng He, how did Zheng He's [-]-ton ship sail on the sea?Common sense, common sense!

In the age of human exploration, there have been two to three hundred years of experience in using sailboats. If the sailboat exceeds 300 tons, it has no practical significance.Because the ship is too big, the wind cannot guarantee its speed.

Just like Wang Daoqiu's current Ming Dynasty Ocean Fleet, the largest flagship is only [-] tons, and the other largest warships are only [-] tons.The maximum speed of such a small warship at sea is only eighteen kilometers per hour.

If a ship as big as a 100-ton ship relies on wind power to sail, its speed on the sea will be as fast as an ant can crawl. Even if it takes [-] years to crawl, it may not be able to climb from the Yangtze River Estuary to the Pearl River Estuary!It would take hundreds of years for a ship at this speed to transport goods from the Yangtze River Estuary to the Pearl River Estuary. So what practical value does it have?
Complaining in his heart about those idiots in later generations who had nothing but passion, Wang Daoqiu got tired of seeing the people and scenery on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, so he went back to his cabin, opened the windows on both sides, and slept in the river breeze.Ayutthaya is [-] kilometers away from the mouth of Bangkok in a straight line, and the speed of the Ming Fleet is [-] kilometers per hour.Starting in the early morning, at three or four in the afternoon, I saw the majestic city wall of the big city.

However, the city wall of Ayutthaya is only two to 300 meters away from the Chao Phraya River, and there is a waterway to enter the city through the water gate.Therefore, it is of course impossible for Mangrui to let the Ming army fleet approach the city wall to join forces with the Siamese army in the city.So as soon as he received the news from Bangkok in the morning, the Ming army fleet had moved north.

He immediately organized his own 20-strong army, drove hundreds of thousands of Siamese people, and blocked the Chao Phraya River downstream, which is five or six kilometers away from Ayutthaya.When Wang Daoqiu arrived here, on both sides of the Chao Phraya River blocking Wang Daoqiu, there was a dike more than 200 meters deep into the river bank and 500 meters wide. There were rows of tall trebuchets erected on the dikes.

The Chao Phraya River is only 800 meters wide in total, and 500 meters have been eaten away by the two dams, leaving about 300 meters in the river. Now if the Ming fleet passes through there, the distance between the ships and the two banks is only about 150 meters , already within the range of the opponent's trebuchet.

Moreover, on these two dams, in addition to trebuchets, the other side also deployed a large number of archers and lit piles of bonfires. This was obviously preparing to shoot rockets at the Ming fleet and burn the ships.

In addition to the military arrangements on the two dams, the Burmese army also stood in dense rows on the river bank behind the dams, led by thousands of elephants.

Seeing the Burmese army's arrangement, Wang Daoqiu showed a cruel smile. He ordered to Ouyang Junqing beside him: "Don't worry about those two dams for now. Send the order, and the artillery will bombard those elephants first. Remember, artillery fire cannot be used to kill the elephants." The purpose of blowing up elephants is to scare them. I really want to see if thousands of elephants are frightened and run around, the rows of infantrymen lined up behind the elephants will be trampled into meat pies by the elephants. look like."

"Here"

After receiving Wang Daoqiu's order, Ouyang Junqing hurriedly went down and asked the signal soldiers to raise flags and notify the ships.

After a while, the entire fleet of more than [-] warships and thousands of artillery pieces, under the command of the flagship signal trooper, fired at the Burmese elephant troops on both sides of the Mekong River.

Thousands of artillery were fired in unison, with an overwhelming force, and thousands of explosive bombs filled with yellow explosives exploded in front of and among the Burmese army's elephant team.

The thick smoke and fire, the deafening sound of the explosion, and the violent shaking of the earth caused by the explosion.Immediately, the thousands of elephants of the Burmese army roared and trampled on the bodies of the Burmese army infantry, running around like crazy.As for the Myanmar army elephant soldiers sitting on the elephants, it would be great if they could not fall off. As for controlling the elephants, that is simply nonsense.

And when he saw 10,000+ Burmese troops running for their lives howling like ghosts and wolves under the stampede of elephants, Wang Daoqiu was very bad and let the artillery fire fire freely. He shot east and west. It didn't matter if he could kill a few, as long as he could scare everyone. Just run around and stomp around.

After more than ten minutes of cross-era crushing, when Wang Daoqiu ordered the bombardment to stop and the gunpowder smoke was blown away by the river wind, both sides of the Mekong River in front of Wang Daoqiu were now littered with corpses and rivers of blood.Looking at the Burmese army in the distance, which was gradually disappearing into the tropical rainforest, Wang Daoqiu ordered the fleet to pass through this section of the river and head towards Ayutthaya.

(End of this chapter)