Kai Fu Han

Chapter 173 The Battle of Tsushima 2
"You command well and don't worry about me." After Liu Xinqi finished speaking, he walked away, not intending to affect Li Cang's command.

When we came to the side of the ship on the west side, the speed of the ship was very slow because there was no favorable wind from north to south. The fleet of the Xinghan League and the pirate fleet from Changdao began to approach slowly. These pirate ships had no intention of avoiding them.

When the two fleets were about a mile away, Li Cangrang's order to prepare rockets was heard again.

Liu Xinqi understood that Li Cang planned to lose power to these ten ships again, and then concentrate on annihilating the seven ships coming from the west.

Suddenly, Liu Xinqi saw several small boats rowing out from behind the ten ships on the opposite side. The oarsmen on the boats rowed the oars very fast. After the small boats separated from the big ships, they formed two rows, sandwiching the fleet of the Xinghan League.

Liu Xinqi looked at this familiar scene, his mouth slightly opened, a little stunned.

"Attention everyone, get ready for the battle!" Li Cang's shout came again. Liu Xinqi looked back and saw that the signalman on the mast was delivering orders to the ships behind.

Half of the sailors holding shields next to Liu Xinqi immediately put down their shields and ran to the other side of the ship. A few of the remaining half also put down their shields and pulled up the throwing rope, preparing to hook the ship.

The following ships that received the order began to fine-tune their course, slightly staggering away from the Qizhou, to prevent the Qizhou from being hooked by an enemy ship and the following ships from hitting the stern of the Qizhou.

This fine-tuning caused the originally neat formation of the Yizi Long Snake Formation to gradually turn into only half of the Yanxiang Formation.

Facing the Xinghan League's Banyanxiang Formation, the pirate ships still maintained a three-by-three square formation. In order to avoid being besieged by a row of pirate boats to the east, the Qizhou directly docked with a ship in the southeast corner of the square formation. Together, the two sides threw ropes and hooks at each other, and the two ships were simply "tied" together.

Liu Xinqi has never seen the type of pirate ship that was attached to the Qizhou, so he doesn’t know its name.

The hull is not big, it seems to be about [-] stones. It has a single mast, a pointed bow, and a slender hull. It seems to be very maneuverable. There is a circle of protective armor on the deck. It seems that the material is made of bamboo boards. As a result, this circle of bamboo board protection made the ship look like a bungalow being carried on the ship. It also caused that although the ship was not big, the upper deck was very high, basically the same as the bottom deck of the [-]-kou Fu ship.

Before the fight started, the rockets fired from the upper deck of the Fuzhou ship set the ship's sails on fire.

The pirate ship quickly separated some pirates to put out the fire, otherwise if it continued to burn, the entire ship would be ignited.

Some brave sailors put the springboard on the sides of the two ships, and the melee pirates on the pirate ship immediately jumped along the springboard toward the deck of the Qizhou.

These pirates were greeted by wave after wave of crossbow arrows. Most of the pirates were shot down and fell into the sea before they even jumped onto the deck of the Qizhou. Those who jumped on the deck could not survive. The crossbow arrows were unable to evade at all. , occasionally a few fish slip through the net, and the Marines waiting on the deck will stop them from advancing.

Liu Xinqi stood on the deck and saw forty or fifty pirates shot to death, and then he stopped the gang-hopping of these desperadoes.

"Come forward and kill all the enemies on the deck of the enemy ship." Li Cang's order came from the upper deck, and the impatient Marines immediately jumped along the springboard onto the deck of the pirate ship.The crossbowmen on the upper deck of the Qizhou continued to provide long-range fire support.

Liu Xinqi did not join the gang to fight. More than 40 brave pirates had died on this pirate ship, and they had basically lost the ability to resist.Come to the starboard side (looking forward from the stern, the left side of the ship is called the port side, and the right side is called the starboard side.) to see the combat situation of other Xinghan League ships.

After the Qizhou was trapped by the pirate ship, other ships of the Xinghan League passed directly from the starboard side of the Qizhou and then turned to the left. Those small pirate ships worked together to intercept the two county-level sand ships and the other seven ships. They all went around to the rear of the pirate fleet, semi-surrounded the stopped pirate ships, and used crossbows, rockets, crossbows and other long-range attack weapons to gradually eliminate the active forces on the pirate ships.

Liu Xinqi originally thought that this kite-flying tactic could last for a while. Unexpectedly, these pirate ships had dozens of paddles sticking out from both sides. The boats were either one-on-one or two-on-one, and the gangs were entangled together.

"Does using oars increase the boat's speed so much?" Liu Xinqi thought to himself, then suddenly realized something was wrong and looked toward the southeast.

Sure enough, the five pirate ships that had come from the direction of Iki Island with their sails burned were now paddling towards this side, and the fires on the decks had all been put out.

"Bang!" A loud noise.

A small pirate ship on the starboard side of the Qizhou was directly smashed through by the ship's racket pole. The small ship took in a lot of water. The pirates on the ship rushed to jump into the sea and then swam out to avoid being taken to the bottom of the sea by the about-to-be-silent ship.

Seeing that the battle situation was becoming more and more tense, Liu Xinqi was just about to jump from the port side to the pirate ship to help kill the enemy, when he heard Li Cang's loud order:

"Abandon this ship! Pull everyone back!"

Liu Xinqi quickly ran to the port side, and saw that the battle on the deck of the opposite pirate ship had ended. Looking around, there were no pirates standing.The sailors of the Xinghan League on the deck of the pirate ship were quickly returning to the Qizhou.

"Cut the hook rope! Close the racket!" Li Cang ordered.

Liu Xinqi conveniently cut off several hook ropes next to him.

A sailor used a push rod to push the pirate ship away, and then the deputy captain of the Qizhou began to direct the rigging crew to adjust the sails and turn the rudder. The ship began to move slowly driven by the wind.

The Qizhou had many advantages over the [-]-stone county-level sand ship, but because the hull was too large, it could no longer be driven by manpower and lacked maneuverability on the battlefield. This was why Liu Xinqi was anxious to build a special warship.

After walking less than a hundred steps, we came to a Xinghan League sand ship. This ship was sandwiched between two pirate ships on the left and right. Moreover, its original role in the fleet was that of a "cargo ship". The sailors on board His combat power is not high, and he is currently struggling to defend under the leadership of several warriors.

The Qizhou slipped on the left side of the sand ship and came close to the port side of the pirate ship on its left. Then several waves of arrows shot down the opposite deck, knocking down all the pirates standing within sight, and then the Qizhou The melee sailors jumped onto the deck of the pirate ship, wiped out the resistance on the ship, and jumped onto the deck of the sand ship again to help the sailors on the sand ship deal with the pirates who had already attacked the deck of the sand ship.

This time Liu Xinqi did not stand idly by and took the lead in the charge. After a while, he rushed onto the deck of the sand ship. More than ten pirates had died under his sword, and all three short guns on his back had been projected.

(End of this chapter)