March in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen.

In fact, since the beginning of the Battle of Chongming, the debate has never stopped. Everyone competed for credit, evaded losses, and even distributed the benefits that had not yet been obtained. Li Mingxun never participated in it. He believed that he would not look back without hitting the wall.

The fact is that the imperial army had already hit the south wall, and the Zhoushan Navy lost most of the losses, while the Tenglong Trading Company's fleet made great contributions. In the battle of the navy, the Tenglong Trading Company took the lead. The Gentleman Su Song was eager to take back the face from the land war, so when the date arrived, he immediately launched an attack.

However, he suffered a series of defeats. The first two attacks of the Susong militia were forced to stop because a large number of ships were stranded, which made the pirates guarding the shore make a joke. The third attack was the right position. The boat carrying the militia approached Nansha, but was beaten back by the pirates.

The pirates did not have heavy artillery, but there were many people like the Folang machine and the tiger squat artillery under their command. These small cannons were light and stood on the shore to kill many militias. The attack stopped again, allowing the pirates to take advantage.

At this time, if you don’t want to try the lives of the militia soldiers, you can only turn to Tenglong Trading Company.

Qi Dazhi, the commander of the militia, would not try it with the militia. The militia was created by Gentleman Su Song. Too much death, so the men would have to spend too much pension and he would be unlucky. Moreover, the credit was not just about fighting. The key was how to write the war report. After winning, you could discuss it with Li Mingxun.

Next, the rhythm of the battle was handed to Li Mingxun. The Zhoushan Navy, whose strength was greatly damaged, lost his voice. Gu Rong himself was a supporting role, and the militia also withdrew from the battle and the quarrel ended.

In two days, Qi Dazhi commanded the militia to capture several sandbanks with the cooperation of Gu Rong, blocked the waterway, compressed the pirates' living space, and completely controlled the battle on the Nansha Island. The next battle was handed over to Tenglong Trading Company.

The surface of the Yangtze River.

Qi Dazhi sat in the official hall of the warship, playing with the gifts given to him by Li Mingxun. Around the warship were twelve large sand ships, with one thousand of the most elite soldiers of the militia. They would only land and siege the pirates' fortress after the soldiers of the Tenglong Trading Company landed and controlled the landing site.

The gift was a grenade gun. This lightweight grenade gun was from the Portuguese Goa Arsenal. It was ordered from the British last year and was improved in the ordnance in the Budai Port.

This mesh gun is equipped with a bayonet so that the mesh gunners will not have no ability to resist when fighting in hand-to-hand combat. The bayonet is sleeve-type. The invention of the ordnance is different from the direct-passing type learned from the Holland from the Malays, which stuffed weapons into the barrel. The sleeve-type mesh gun does not affect firing and loading. Although the replaced iron push rod increases the weight by one pound, it increases the firing speed.

The Portuguese cowhide belt and tin bottle were cancelled and two ammunition boxes were replaced with fifty paper shells inside. The spherical lead bullets tested after the granulated gunpowder greatly accelerated the shooting speed and power.

The Ordnance is still trying to produce flintlock machines and rifle barrels, but it has not been mass-produced, and a small number of flintlock pistols and hunting rifles for officers and senior officials.

"Tsk tsk, Manager Li's military equipment is rich, and ordinary soldiers have such good bird guns." Qi Dazhi couldn't put it down and was amazed.

"I heard that it's fifteen taels per pole." said the personal soldiers beside him.

"I just knew that good goods were not cheap." Qi Dazhi put away the mezzanine, walked out of the official hall, and looked at the water.

The landing site was chosen in the southeast corner of Nansha. Due to the influence of the terrestrial direction force, the Yangtze River waterway was obviously deflecting southward from the Zhenjiang area, so the southern channel was the main channel, and the siltation in the north was getting worse and worse. Nansha was originally close to the seaport, and the water here was the deepest, and the warships could provide fire support near the shore.

In the matter, several small boats were swimming near the landing site, using deep-sighted plumb hammers to detect the landing site, marking several sand beams with flags, while more small boats were dragging warships into the battle position. Two double-brid schooners advanced to less than 200 meters from the coast, while the battle positions of the Tiger Shark and White Shark, which were too deep, were nearly 500 meters away from the Nansha, but it was enough to support the eighteen-pound and twenty-four-pound cannons. What really made Li Mingxun worried was that the port built in Nansha in the future. If you want the large ship to dock, you must clear the channel.

All support ships fell sails and anchored to make the artillery more stable, and their safety will be handled by the sloop schooner fleet and the Zhoushan Navy.

As the offensive order was issued, the two battleships opened fire first. The shells of the 18-pound cannon and 24-pound cannon crossed the heads of the soldiers who were robbing the beach and roared on the beach. The first ones to be attacked were the tiger squat cannons and the Ferlang machine cannon positions on the coast. The shells fell like hail, and the more they shot, the more accurate they were, especially the six-pound cannons on the brig schooner, which had hit one after another with direct shot.

The soldiers who were sailing on the beach in a small boat deliberately slowed down. The pirates waited for their opponents to approach under the baptism of artillery shells. Someone was hit one after another. Whether it was six-pound shells or eighteen-pound shells, it was a pile of mud. The sand and gravel of the shells collapsed caused even greater casualties. Finally, the pirates could not stand the shelling and fired two guns in a row. The wounded threw ammunition in place and ran towards the back line.

This line of defense was set up by the pirates after they discovered the intention of the club's attack and the landing point. Although the landing of the club did not mean any sudden attack, it took only an hour from determining the location to attack. The pirates set up a line of defense. They could only remove door panels and pillars from the house next to them, collect all the materials that can be transported to the coast, insert the logs into the sand, and turn the boat over. They filled the sand and mounds with bags and hoped to form a not-solid chest wall before their lifetime.

This chest wall is about 2200 meters behind the coastline, and is already outside the effective range of most artillery artillery. Only the 24-pound Koufeilin long cannon on the lower artillery deck of the Tiger Shark and White Shark can be hit.

The community's landing troops were divided into two groups. The first group had only three hundred people, most of which were armed sailors and ship-soldiers. They were wearing half-armored armor and spears and only a few were only messile guns. Their biggest task was to land on the shore, establish a stable support point, and transport three 24-pound mortars to the shore.

The second wave was a newly formed mixed brigade of 500 people. They were the first mobile force of the club, composed of elite soldiers selected from the guards and garrisons in various places. Two hundred of them were equipped with improved versions of the melee guns, and the other was equipped with spears, breastplate and chain mail.

In addition, a gun team was organized, with two four-pound field guns, and two guns would also be brought ashore with the infantry brigade.

The landing operation lasted for an hour, and the small boats and long boats carrying soldiers were transported back and forth three times before all the personnel and artillery were transported to the shore.

During this period, the pirates organized two waves of counterattacks. The first wave was fired back by the fleet's artillery on the way to attack the landing site. Although the second wave rushed into the landing site with casualties, it encountered a newly landed infantry brigade and musketeers' salvo, leaving corpses all over the ground and fled back.

Although this group of pirates has a large number and is estimated to have more than 3,000 people, there is no organization at all. When the brave man who rushed to the front was shot and killed, the people behind often ran away with their heads in their arms.

By noon, the landing was completed. Zhao Sandao, the commander, came ashore, raised his flag, arranged troops and began to attack.

The infantry brigade was lined up in two rows, with two hundred men of mechatrons being arranged in the center of the camp, and the spearmen being arranged on both sides to cover it. The first wave of armed sailors and the ship-soldiers formed another square formation, and between the two small square formations was an artillery position composed of two field artillery guns and three twenty-four-pound mortar guns.

The two attacks were frustrated, and the pirates chose to defend the line after the defense. The attack began with the field gun speech, and the two square arrays were about 100 meters from the pirate defense line. The field guns and mortars fired one after another, while the combshots continued to move forward, stopping about 70 meters away from the defense line, and launching a volley of muskets.

The direct four-pound cannon fires the most accurate. The solid bullet can penetrate the defense line temporarily set by the pirates and smash all the body behind it. The power of the twenty-four-pound mortar cannon is even more powerful. This kind of mortar cannon is also cast by the community casting factory. It has a large caliber and can use 24-pound flowering shells, but the tube is very short, only half a meter long. The gun stand made of solid wood weighs only 150 kilograms in total. Four people can carry it and walk, but they can fire the 24-pound flowering shells to about 150 meters.

The fuse used for flowering bullets can adjust the length, and the bold gunner can make the flowering bullet explode in mid-air.

The pirates behind the defense line were at a disadvantage from the beginning. The fortifications blocking them had no effect in front of the four-pound cannons and mortar cannons. The volley of the medron guns suppressed them and they did not dare to look up. Only a few small cannons could damage the soldiers of the society. However, whenever they opened fire, the rising smoke and sparks would attract the gunners of the field cannons, and then solid shells poured out.

The pirates' counterattack seemed weak. Among the various weapons they possessed, only a small number of bird guns and bows could harm the mezzanine, but their number of bird guns was small, and even fewer people used bows and arrows.

In half an hour, the battle between the two sides decided the outcome at the defense line. As more and more flesh and blood were knocked away from the defense line, the broken limbs appeared in front of the pirates. The terrified pirate quickly collapsed, and then as one person escaped, the group of people all followed him. The direction of the pirates' escape was clear, that is, the fortress deep in the Nansha.

Zhao Sandao did not command the soldiers to pursue, but instead gathered the wounded and killed soldiers and sent them back to the tiger shark. The infantry brigade went forward and occupied the defense line established by the pirates. The next step was the landing of a large number of militias. There was no doubt that the landing war was the most complicated battle. The militias' landing operation seemed a little busy, and small boats continued to overturn in the complex channel. Some small boats rushed to the beach too deep and could not return to the water. Many land ducks vomited heavily after they got ashore and could not stand.

Fortunately, the landing site was completely under control. After Qi Dazhi landed, Zhao Sandao gave him two hours to gather the team. Before nightfall, more than a thousand people from the community infantry brigade and militia placed the camp in front of the Pirate Castle.

At night, the pirates carried out a night attack. The barefoot pirates screamed in front of the camp with a wine glass of iron caltrops, and then encountered a counterattack. Spearmen who did not perform during the daytime battle lined up and caught hundreds of prisoners back, causing the night attack to be completely disintegrated.

The next morning, the fleet continued to support the landing troops. Two double-brigged schooners removed four six-pound cannons and sent them to the coast as the main firepower to attack the Pirate Fortress. A batch of ammunition was transported to the shore, especially the flowering ammunition used for the mortar.

The Pirates' Fortress was originally a patrol station in Nansha. On the basis of the original deep trenches and high walls, there were also fences, various shooting buildings and things they could think of to increase their defense.

After all, Chongming was an island formed by alluvial formation. Without stones, most of the defense facilities in the fortress used wood, which gave artillery more room to deploy. As the coal stoves were ignited one by one, the solid shells of the four-pound gun and six-pound guns became red under the burning of coal. When they shot out from the barrel, there was a faint burning smell in the air. However, once these shells landed, they would cause inestimable damage. The grain and cotton stored in the fortress were ignited first, followed by various houses and wooden buildings.

The pirates ran back and forth in the fire, wanting to put out the flames, but the wells in the fortress could not quickly provide the amount of water to extinguish the flames. Before the pirate leader proposed to surrender, the militia commanded by Qi Dazhi had already rushed in from the gap blasted by the artillery and caught a large number of pirates. Most of the pirates chose to surrender, and a few died in the fire of war, including the pirate leader Liao Er.

Neither the gentleman Su Song who was waiting for news in Suzhou or the officers and soldiers who were watching the battle in the near future had thought that only 35 people could be killed or injured and wiped out the Chongming pirates who had been raging in Jiangnan for several years, but the facts were already in front of them.

Both the militia and the Zhoushan Navy realized a problem. If there were no one, the battle might have been more smooth.

Before the Susong Gentleman landed ashore, two main battleships and four sand ships ordered in Jiangnan began to return. Not only were the goods accumulated in Nanjing warehouses during this period, but also 1,500 people selected from prisoners.
Chapter completed!