Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 188 Half Crossing

"How far is not far away? How big is a large area, and how many soldiers can be hidden in it?" Lin Hai had a headache when he heard this. He has not yet set up a special reconnaissance force, nor has he formed a staff system for future generations. At present, both sea and land It is difficult for the army to be satisfactory in terms of pre-war reconnaissance and combat planning.

"I didn't ask. The warships that went to reconnoiter were mainly to measure the water depth, and they probably didn't take a closer look at the situation on the shore." Shibi replied confidently, not feeling anything wrong at all.

"Then let's go see the terrain of Gongqian Bay in person tomorrow morning." Lin Hai originally planned to ask the Navy Department to send another ship for reconnaissance, but in the end he decided to go and see it in person.

It is impossible for any piece of reconnaissance information to be without any omissions, and may even be distorted. Even when the staff system of later generations is very complete, the commander often still has to go to the high ground to check the terrain in person.

There were no enemy ships moving in the direction of Dongshan Island. Lin Hai took the mid-level and senior officers of the Army Department, as well as Peter Jinxiu, who knew how to measure the distance of distant objects, and took the Yiyang to Gongqian Bay to check the terrain.

Gongqian Bay faces south. On the tail of the butterfly on Dongshan Island, the area of ​​the bay is not large, and the arc-shaped coastline is about ten miles long.

The Yiyang sailed into the bay along the deep water channel on the east side. The first thing that caught the eye was the two-mile-long cliff. The rocks on the sea in front of the wall were rugged, like sea beasts of all kinds. No experienced sailor would have thought of it. The ship is approaching.

Obviously, it is impossible to land here, unless you intend to commit suicide by running aground on the rocks.

The Yiyang steered and turned left, and the scenery on the starboard side gradually changed from majestic cliffs to white sandy beaches. This beach is four to five miles long and the scenery is quite beautiful, but it is not suitable as a landing site.

To land on these beaches, even if you use a boat with the shallowest draft to ride the tide and hit the beach, you still need to walk and wade for a while after the boat runs aground. After landing on the shore, the soft beach is not suitable for formation. If there are enemy forces blocking the shore at this time, the landing troops will be a living target for a long time.

Nearly ten bays between Nanmen Bay and Gongqian Bay have been excluded, mainly for this reason. Most of these bays facing the open sea are beaches or tidal wetlands. If they want to land, they can only bet that there are no enemy troops nearby, but Lin Hai does not have any information about the deployment of troops on the island.

After passing this beach, we entered the port area of ​​Gongqian Bay. The terrain on the shore was flat and the water was four to five feet deep. Fifty steps away from the shore was enough space for large ships like the Dingyuan and Bowang to sail. This was the area where the former Navy Department The specially measured data matched the hydrological data that Lin Hai obtained from Fujian officials.

But the problem is that the view from the shore is not very wide. The endless woods are not far from the shore, just as Shibi said.

"Stop the ship and measure how far the forest is from the shore." Following Lin Hai's order, the Yiyang anchored in the harbor, and Peter Jinhao took out the dial to measure the distance.

This is an artillery instrument that uses the principle of similar triangles to measure distances. Its shape and usage were introduced in detail in the "Measurement Method" co-authored by Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi in the 35th year of Wanli. Currently, the military of Huiyou Company The only one who knows how to use this thing is Jin Nao.

There is also He Liangtao in the construction department who knows it, but at this time he is on vacation after working overtime for more than a month day and night, and he is probably measuring the depth of water chickens on a flower boat in Tamsui.

Jin Nao took out a square wooden board from his arms. There were two iron rings on one side, and the other two sides were engraved with scales. A wooden board hung on the corner opposite to these two sides. A pendant that is slightly longer on the diagonal.

He put the board upright in front of his eyes, so that the corner of the hanging line was at eye level, then tilted the board forward, aimed at the object to be measured through the two rings, so that it was located on the extended line above the board, and then Read the scale of the pendant on the lower edge of the board so that you can calculate the distance to the object being measured based on your own height.

Jin Hao used a measuring board to measure the distances from the Yiyang to the coastline and the edge of the woods. After some mental calculations, he replied to Lin Hai: "The total distance is about seventy-two steps."

The officers of the Army Department looked on in confusion. Ruan Jin and Scarface both suspected that the ghost was blind. Only Chang Jiang Yu, an officer from the Artillery Bureau, looked on with envy and wanted to learn from the foreign devil. Lin Hai saw everyone's appearance, so he took the measuring board and tried to measure it. The principle of this thing was very simple to him, and he could understand it at a glance.

Soon, he said to Jin He: "This place is fifty steps from the shore and one hundred and twenty steps from the edge of the woods. Is my calculation correct?"

"Chief...Are you learning now or do you already know it?" Jin Nao was stunned. This was faster than he could calculate.

Lin Hai smiled and said nothing, thinking that I can memorize the multiplication tables. It is normal for me to be faster in mental arithmetic than you. Seeing his appearance, Ruan Jin and Scarface finally believed that the wooden board could really measure distance.

"Everyone, I don't think there is a more suitable place. How about we choose to land on the island here?" Lin Hai then asked everyone in the Army Department.

Everyone agreed. This place is the farthest from Tongshan City. Even if there are enemy troops, there will not be too many. He Ying, the general manager of the second round, said first: "Chief, please be the vanguard for the second round."

As soon as he finished speaking, the other three hundred presidents also asked for help, especially Ruan Jin, who had the highest fighting spirit.

Lin Hai didn't want He Ying to fight such a dangerous battle. At the same time, since he had been stationed in Xiamen in the second game, he had never had actual combat experience. But because of this, they did not have to go through the process of taking a sea ship from Keelung to Xiamen, and the personnel condition was relatively better.

After pondering for a while, Lin Hai finally ordered Ruan Jin's general in the third game, allowing He Ying to land on the island in the second game immediately after the third game.

In the afternoon of the same day, the Huiyu Company sent a fleet of nine ships into Gongqian Bay. The fleet took the Bowang as the flagship, and also included six old lock ships and two Calais ships. The main force of the Admiralty still had to be used to blockade Dongshan. Bay.

After arriving at the scheduled landing site, I saw that the coast was still empty, and there was not a single enemy soldier in sight. The deep woods were swaying in the north wind, and I didn't know if there were any enemy soldiers ambushed inside.

Lin Hai didn't care so much anymore and ordered six old lock boats to line up and aim their forty broadside guns at the landing site, ready to provide artillery support to the landing troops at any time.

Immediately afterwards, the two Calais boats, the Princess of Sorrow and the Madame Feng, rowed towards the coast one after another. Both boats were slender hulls, more than ten feet long, but only two feet wide, with a bow length of The circular forecastle has gunports on it, and the lower part in front of the forecastle is an attack angle covered with iron plates.

There were three masts with Latin sails on the ship. Since there was a headwind when landing, there were no sails and it was driven purely by oars. Both boats have twenty rows of oars on each side. The oars are more than three feet long and weigh more than four hundred kilograms. Each oar requires four oarsmen to paddle, with a total of one hundred and sixty oarsmen. The sprint speed can reach nine knots. many.

In addition to the oarsmen and forecastle gunners, the ship carried more than 200 soldiers from the third round. Their task was to establish a relatively stable defense line after landing and cover the follow-up troops to continue landing on the island.

Not long after the two Calais boats started rowing, when they were still fifty steps away from the shore, suddenly a long conch sound came from the woods opposite.

In an instant, gunshots like fried beans rang out in the forest, and white smoke was blown out by the north wind, forming a continuous cloud in front of the forest.

(End of this chapter)