Since the fifth division of the Zhu family and Xiang's division arrived in Nanzheng, the Qin army retreated from Baocheng, Qipanling and the entire Nanzheng Basin. Only the Qin army's warships were wandering on the Mian River west of Nanzheng City, monitoring the Chu army's warships docked east of Nanzheng.

The Chu army did not have many warships. The fifth division of the Zhu family was established late, and the warships were all wings. If we built a new warship instead of purchasing the large-wing warships that were sold at a discount, the equipment cost of the wing warships was the lowest. The Xiang army purchased it early, but it was always rich, so we built the wing warships from the beginning. Therefore, eight divisions, one soldier and one boat, and the entire army had only 128 wings.

Fortunately, the Ying army, the warship that the E army did not use for the time being was sent by the Grand Sima Mansion. On that day, the Yue army rescued more than 10,000 soldiers placed in Nanzheng from the Daze. The strong soldiers who could row the boats in Nanzheng City were more than 23,000. These people led 83 pistol-wing warships, and the Chu army warships increased to 211.

In addition to the warships in the twentieth day, the large-winged gunboats built by the downstream Zaofu sailed to Nanzheng one by one. To this day before the war, that is, at the end of October, twelve large-winged gunboats arrived in Nanzheng, and the total number of warships increased to 223.

The large-wing gunboats were all modified from the large-wing warship. These large-wing wings were the first large-wings built ten years ago. When sold at a discount, they were disliked by the divisions because of their destruction, so they stayed in the boat building site. The modification required repair and reinforcement to protect the fragile keels and ribs. At the same time, in order to facilitate the aiming and loading of gunmen on the warship, an artillery shooting platform was added to the bow and stern of the boat.

The most difficult thing to deal with is the buffering. The warship slab boards are thin and the ribs are also thin. You cannot use rope pulleys to buffer like Chaos-class gunboats. Otherwise, if the fire is too many times, the ribs that fix the rope will break or even break. The final solution to the carriage spring is the carriage spring. With the improvement of the heat treatment capacity of Jutifu, the four-wheeled carriage began to use spring shock absorption and no longer used leather suspension.

These low-performance springs were used by craftsmen on large-wing gunboats. The cannons are standard Navy four-wheeled trolley guns, but the car is in a long narrow drawer. After firing the cannon, the cannon car sits back and hits the back wall of the drawer to drive the entire drawer to sit back. The spring is installed in the long grid below the drawer and behind the drawer wall.

The initial velocity of the fifteen-jin cannon is more than 400 meters, the weight of the cannon and the carriage is one ton, and the recoil speed of the cannon is about 1.4 meters per second. The large-wing gunboat is different from the Chaos-class gunboat, and the recoil distance of the cannon is longer (of course, a longer recoil distance will affect the loading speed of the gunmen, because the gunmen have to pull the cannon back to load and fire the cannon).

Craftsmen increase springs by increasing the number of long strips at the bottom of the drawer - each spring is longer than one foot, and the long strips of the spring are also the same size. Corresponding to the position and width of these strips, the bottom plate of the drawer extends vertically out of rows of baffles, which tightly press against the spring, and compress the spring when sitting back. If the boot spring compresses to the bottom, then increase the length of the drawer, that is, increase or decrease the number of rows of the long strip grids, and increase until the spring does not compress to the bottom, leaving room for space.

The recoil device slows down the recoil of the cannon, allocates the recoil force to the keel, and the entire drawer will rebound to its original position. In the subsequent improvements, the drawer becomes unlike the drawer. The drawer is too long, and the drawer can rebound to its original position, but the cannon cannot rebound to its original position, so the drawer has changed from the ‘∟’ type to the ‘⊥’ type, completely canceling the spring on the back wall of the drawer, and relies entirely on the spring at the bottom of the drawer. Adjusting the position of the vertical plate on the drawer can adjust the position where the cannon hits the drawer when it sits back.

After the Zaofu discovered that the huge recoil of the fifteen-jin cannon would damage the gangway and keel, he came up with a solution within a few days and improved the solution during the modification. This not only greatly reduced the number of gunmen, but also greatly increased the loading speed. It was just because of the haste, the gunmen who were testing guns while advancing westward did not deliver the latest shooting speed to the combat steward.

However, when I visited the gunboat school a few days ago, I saw the gunboat test guns after I boarded the ship. I was startled when I saw the gunboat bottom plate rebounding and was shocked. When I saw the loading speed of the gunboats, I was even more stunned. The gunboats in the Lingshi were not as fast as the gunboats and gunboats on the ground.

The Battle of Nanzheng was almost won by artillery soldiers. After seeing the big-winged gunboat, Chen Qing concluded on the way back that our army would win. Chen Qing did this, Cheng Feng, Jing Gui, Zhao Liu, Qu Xuan, Xiang Chao and others seemed particularly cautious, not as optimistic as him. There were only 213 warships on his side, how many of the Qin people were?

Li Qi speculated that the Qin people had thousands of warships before, but now there were at least three hundred. At the same time, it cannot be forgotten that according to Li Qi's speculation, the Qin State built thousands of warships in three months, and could build more than three hundred ships per month. The Battle of Daze has been nearly a month, which means that the Qin people had six or seven hundred warships, and their troops were three times that of their own.

According to the description of Zuokai who arrived in Nanzheng today, the Qin people had 150 warships left. Even if the Qin people could build more than 300 warships a month, the number of warships would not exceed 500. The number of warships was not important. What was important was that the Qin people suddenly became proficient in formations. The soldiers of the Yue army were proficient in water warfare, but they had no idea to attack the Qin people who were arranging the array.

Cheng Feng, Jing Gui, Zhao Liu, Xiang Chao and others were all led by the generals of the Ling Shi, and they did not know much about water war. Then they risked the fall of Zhudi and invited Zuokai over. When he would fight the Qin people, he would be based on when he would arrive. At this time, when Zuokai mentioned the formation of the Qin people's boat master, Xiang Chao asked: "Dare you ask Zuo Ao, what kind of formations are listed by the Qin people?"

"Round formation." Zuo Kai couldn't help feeling a little ashamed. The Qin people listed the round formation to make the Yue army unable to defeat the battle, and then went down the Mian River and passed through the Daze to seize the Mian River. The Yue army, who was blocked in the Daze, could only abandon the boat and land on the shore and retreat to Zhudi.

"What kind of circular formation?" Cheng Feng, Jing Gui and others couldn't think of what the circular formation of Zhou Master looked like.

"This kind of circular array." Zuo Kai did not ask someone to find paper and pen, but his fingers were dipped in tea and directly painted them on the wooden table.

If Xiong Jing is here, you will be surprised that the Qin people's round formation is very similar to the twenty-four-hour navigation clock used in later ships. The ordinary clock is in the twelve-hour system, and it takes one day to turn twice. The navigation clock on the ship, especially on the submarine, is in the twenty-four-hour system, and only turns one round a day. One grid is one hour, and there are twenty-four grids on the clock face.

The Qin people's round boat formation is very similar to this kind of clock face. The difference is that although the round formation is composed of twenty-four warships, the outer ring is only twenty-one grids. These clock grids are warships. All of them are bowed outward and arranged closely at a certain interval. The last three warships are at the center of the entire circular formation. The warships and warships are 120 degrees apart, with the bow pointed outside and the boat stern touched each other, so as to prevent the enemy boat from rushing into the formation.

Including the Yue Division, most of the water battles between the boats were in waterways of large and small. Even when they arrived at the lakes and ponds, such formations would not be listed because the previous warships did not hit the corners. The boats had endless changes like the Ling Division, which was unimaginable, including Xiong Jing.

But the Qin people listed such a formation. Twelve warships mixed with twelve or even more transport boats. When they met the Yue Master, they would shrink and not fight, allowing the Mian River to move south to carry them to Juyi downstream. Once these round formations drifted away and floated out of the big siege and into the Mian River waterway, the Qin people immediately blocked the waterway. The Yue Master could only watch the other boats heading south, and he was sealed in the big siege.

"How about this formation? "Even if there is a circle of people, they can't see the clues of the circular formation, so they asked.

"Please fight with General Xiang." Zuo Kai didn't want to talk too much, so he handed Xiang Chao several boats and asked him to deduce it.

Xiang Chao was not polite. After Zuo Kai listed the circular formation on the fundraising board, his warship began to attack. Only then did he discover the problem. His warships hit any enemy boat in the circular formation and would face the collision of several enemy boats in the formation. Even if he passed through the gap between the warships and the warships and shaved their wooden pulp, the three warships evenly distributed in the center of the circular formation could repel themselves like the twenty-five short spearmen at the center of the spear formation.

"This formation is difficult to break!" Xiang Chao put down the boat in his hand and said helplessly.

"That day, the Qin people's warships were more than 160, and our army had only 63 warships. Even if we die together, we will not defeat the Qin people." Zuo Kai sighed at this time. If we cannot eat hard, we can exchange one boat for another, and the Qin people's round formation will not be broken at all. If we do not eat hard, then no matter how flexible the warships on our side are, no matter how skillful the snatching, and no matter how good the boat officials are in battle, they can only let them drift down when they encounter such a turtle formation.

"Maybe artillery can be broken." Everyone was still recalling the formation of the Qin people's boat master. Shen Qing reiterated the theory of artillery victory. He picked up the boat set that Xiang Chao put down and placed it casually on the side of the round formation. Before speaking, he looked at Bu Liangju, who was leading the battle of the big-wing gunboat, and said: "The cannon can attack the enemy at 200 steps away..."

"Two hundred steps may not hit the enemy's boat, one hundred and fifty steps are the best." Bu Liangju corrected.

"Is the stern of the boat facing the enemy?" Zuokai also boarded the big-wing gunboat in the afternoon. Because he was just under Nanzheng City, he was worried that the Qin people would be alert, so the gunboat did not fire. Bu Liangju introduced him to the performance and combat methods of the gunboat.

"If it is in Mian River, the boat is inconvenient to swirl back, so you can only face the enemy with the bow. What do Zuo Ao thinks?" Bu Liangju asked.

"Well..." Although Zuo Kai did not see the artillery water battle in person, Chu Qi had a brief water battle in Zhifu Port two years ago. He had heard people talk about the power of Chaos-class artillery gunboats. After pondering for a while, he said, "I heard that with artillery, I will use artillery to attack the warship, breaking but not sinking, is that?"

Zuo Kai said that he hit the key point of the water artillery battle. Bu Liangju nodded repeatedly and said, "That's true. The warship strata boards are too thin, and the shells often pass through the walls. They can only break the boats but not sink the boats. I just don't know the Qin people..."
Chapter completed!