Poor Family 1

  Chapter 405 River Surface Warning

The soldiers quickly moved out several trebuchet parts wrapped in oil paper from the ship. The giant trebuchets could not be transported by a ship of 500 shi. They could only send a batch of medium-sized trebuchets. The trebuchets sent were disassembled parts. , requires a special craftsman to install, although there are professional carpenters in Daming Mansion, but Daming Mansion itself is a hundred miles away, and it will take two days to come and go. The town asked some carpenters to help.

Two hours later, the soldiers brought seven or eight carpenters. There used to be a shipbuilding factory in the old town. These carpenters were all shipbuilders. The leader was an old man in his sixties with white beard and hair, but he was still full of energy. Red all over.

  Everyone stepped forward to salute Li Yanqing. Li Yanqing led them to the parts of the trebuchet that had been disassembled, pointed to the parts and said, "Can you assemble these trebuchets?"

   "As long as there are blueprints, it's easy to put together." A middle-aged carpenter said.

"unnecessary!"

The old carpenter headed by    waved his hand, "This thing is actually very simple. The key is to make it strong. The mortise and tenon joints can be made to fit together, and then fastened with cowhide ropes. And they are not big."

  Li Yanqing asked expectantly again: "Can you fix it on the boat?"

  The old carpenter frowned, "There is no problem fixing it on the boat, but these boats are too small, and the length of the throwing rod is not enough!"

   "No! No! My husband misunderstood, I didn't mean the trebuchet, I meant fixing the cannon on the boat." Li Yanqing pointed to the other cannons beside him and said.

The old carpenter walked up to the cannon, gently stroked the thick launch slot, nodded and said: "Barely can be installed, but I have something to say first, this kind of cannon is not a ship cannon, it will shake violently when it is fired, and the ship will fall if you don't pay attention. There is a danger of overturning, the general has considered it clearly."

   "As long as it can be installed, how long will it take?"

  The old carpenter thought for a while, "I can finish it in a day and a half!"

  One and a half days is too long, Li Yanqing said again: "What if we only install three?"

   "If only three planes are installed, it can be completed before dark!"

  Li Yanqing clasped his fists and saluted, "Then I will thank you all, and I will thank you after the work is done!"

  The old carpenter nodded. He stepped forward and looked through the tool bag. All the tools were used, so they didn’t need to go back to get them. He took off his coat and said to the carpenters, “Let’s do it!”

   All the carpenters took off their coats one after another, revealing their strong and shiny muscles. They stepped forward to disassemble the cannon package, and under the command of the old craftsman, they first erected the cannon's firing slot and began to install the bracket.

   Li Yanqing urges Malay to the Yellow River, staring at the vast river, wondering if the fleet from the other side has arrived

The 20 ships of the Liangshan Army arrived at the Yellow River Wharf in Yanggu County at dusk. The Liangshan Army did not have a thousand-stone ship, and the largest cargo ship was only 500 shi. Hundreds of people, but the Yellow River is too windy and rough to be fully loaded, so one ship can only transport 80 people across the river at most, 20 ships can carry 1,600 people at a time, and 5,000 support troops can be transported across the Yellow River in three times. , Enhance the defensive force of Shen County.

  But the Yellow River cannot cross the river at night, so we have to wait until dawn the next day before sending soldiers away.

  Early the next morning, the low-pitched horn blew, and five thousand soldiers of the Liangshan Army temporarily stationed outside Yanggu County lined up to the Yellow River Wharf. Eighty people formed a team and began to line up to board the ship.

  The sails were hoisted, the cables were untied, and the first batch of five ships full of soldiers left the pier and sailed slowly to the opposite bank

At the same time, Shen County also received news that reinforcements were coming, but the defenders of Shen County did not dare to go out of the city to respond easily. Their spies found an ambush in the woods a few miles away from the west city. They show signs.

Standing on the city wall, Zhang Cen stared at the large forest five miles away to the northwest. His spies found a cavalry ambushing in the forest, about a thousand men. This made Zhang Cen nervous and at the same time made him in a dilemma. If he goes to meet the reinforcements, if the army is too small, he will be ambushed by cavalry. If there are too many troops, Shen County may be in danger.

  Currently, the biggest disadvantage of the Liangshan Army is the information asymmetry. The other party knows how many troops they have, but Zhang Cen does not know the details of the other party. How many troops did Li Yanqing lead? He only knew that there were a thousand cavalry, but what about the infantry? How many infantry are there? According to the Song Dynasty army's practice of one-to-five infantry and cavalry, there should be 5,000 infantry.

Zhang Cen never imagined that Li Yanqing originally had only a thousand cavalry and no infantry, but he carried out reforms himself. The heavy cavalry became light cavalry, and the auxiliary soldiers became infantry. This formed a mixed infantry and cavalry battalion. Song Jun's five-to-one cavalry match is completely different.

   "General, do you want to send troops to the dock to meet them?" A general couldn't help asking.

  Zhang Cen sighed, "There is an ambush outside, without my order, don't act rashly!"

There is indeed an army of more than a thousand men ambushing in the woods five miles away from the northwest, but it is not the thousand cavalry as the spies discovered, but only two hundred cavalry and eight hundred infantry. The cavalry is on the periphery and the infantry is in the middle. Each infantryman rides a horse mule. These war horses and mules are all captured by the Liangshan army transport team in Bozhou. The mules are all tall horse mules. They are currently carrying food and grass for the Xuanwu camp. They are temporarily pretending to be war horses. It looked like a thousand murderous horsemen.

   However, the main force of the cavalry of the Xuanwu Battalion was deployed near the pier. Li Yanqing could not allow the reinforcements of the Liangshan Army to enter Hebei anyway.

There is not much wind on the river today, which is very suitable for crossing the river. The first batch of five troop transport ships have sailed across the middle line of the Yellow River, and the black line on the northern bank in the distance has been faintly visible. The flag signaled the ships on the opposite side to pay attention to avoid them. They didn't realize that the coming was not good at this time.

Cannons were installed on the three ships, but the cannons were temporarily covered by tarpaulins. From a distance, they looked like a transport ship full of cargo. When the distance was only more than a hundred steps, the tarpaulin was removed, revealing the black cannon. The cannon had been cocked, and a thunderbolt weighing nearly 50 kilograms was placed in the magazine.

A soldier pretending to be a boatman ignited the fuse on Zhentianlei, and the fuse burst into flames, emitting white smoke, and quickly spread towards the bullet hole of Zhentianlei. At this moment, the soldier shouted, "Let go! "

"Bang!" The artillery fired, ejecting the Thunderbolt, the ship shook violently, and the ship turned around immediately, but unfortunately the Thunderbolt missed the ship, flew over the ship, fell into the water behind the ship, and saw a The water column soared into the sky, and suddenly the white waves surged into the sky, and the ship shook violently, frightening the soldiers on board to shout.

The thunderbolt of the second ship hit the side of the ship and fell into the water, but the thunderbolt exploded violently as soon as it entered the water. The strong shock wave set off a huge wave, and the boat suddenly capsized, and the shrapnel penetrated the bottom of the boat at the same time, causing a lot of water After pouring into the boat, the soldiers fell into the water one after another, crying for help.

At this time, the third ship successfully shot a thunderbolt into the opponent's boat, and the thunderbolt exploded in the boat. There was an earth-shattering explosion sound on the river surface, flames shot out, and thick smoke quickly enveloped the river surface. The ship was blown to pieces, and all eighty soldiers and several boatmen were killed. When the white smoke cleared, the water surface was full of wrecks of ships and soldiers.

  The other three troop carriers were so frightened that they turned around and returned to Yanggu County. The fifteen large ships that set out behind also stopped advancing and had to return to the south bank temporarily.

  On the north bank, Wang Gui smiled at Li Yanqing: "Actually, I don't think we should frighten them, so I simply let them go ashore. More than a thousand people are exactly what we eat."

  Li Yanqing smiled faintly: "You will eat this dish, they were only temporarily frightened, and they will come back soon."

  Wang Guiruo realized something, he understood Li Yanqing's meaning, but Niu Gao was confused, scratched the back of his head and asked in puzzlement: "Why do you come again?"

  Wang Gui turned his head and knocked on him, "You stupid bullhead, this is the same as attacking a city. The soldiers fled back without authorization. Is the lord going to withdraw his troops?"

  Li Yanqing smiled and said: "Ah Gui is right, unless Song Jiang changes his order, the opposite commander will still have to bite the bullet and continue to transport troops!"

  Wang Gui blushed, glanced at both sides, and said to Li Yanqing in a low voice: "I think it's better to call General Wang better, and don't call him Agui. The soldiers will lose their dignity when they hear it."

  Niu Gao curled his lips, "Isn't it inappropriate for you to call me Niutou?"

  At this time, suddenly a soldier pointed at the river and shouted: "They turned around and came back!"

   Everyone looked towards the river, and saw a dozen or so troop carriers that had gone away turning around and heading towards the north bank of the Yellow River.

   "General, do you want to blow up a few more ships?"

  Li Yanqing shook his head, "Since they are not afraid of the warning, let them feel the pain again!"

  (end of this chapter)