Chapter 829 This is not Hailing Island, this is Baijiangkou

Author: Middle-aged paper tiger

Chapter 829 This is not Hailing Island, this is Baijiangkou

The navy of the Tang Dynasty actually had quite a lot of tricks. Although it was a navy that could only rely on the coastline to drift in the near sea, it still needed certain tactics and different ships.

Among them, there are warships such as louchuan, which are several feet tall and are equipped with offensive weapons such as catapults, winch crossbows, and rackets, as well as defensive weapons such as parapets. They are the largest among warships.

Although he was afraid of strong winds and waves, his combat power was off the charts, and he was still very fierce when fighting in the Yellow River.

But the building ships were not the main force in naval battles. The main force in naval battles were fighting ships with a displacement of about 300 to 700 tons in later generations.

Fighting ships have a duplex structure, which allows sailors to arrange themselves in a ladder-like formation on the ship, which is very advantageous whether it is to deal with the opponent's jumping gang battles or to use bows and crossbows to shoot at the opponent.

Moreover, the sailors of the fighting ship are hidden in the lower cabin and row through the hole, thus ensuring the safety of the sailors and the maneuverability of the fighting ship.

In addition, there are also stern ships that use fully enclosed cabins and are covered with cowhide armor outside the cabin. They also row through the hole and are equipped with hidden windows to facilitate counterattacks with crossbows or spears.

It is mainly used for raids, reconnaissance, and occasionally used to deliver messages.

As for professional command ships at sea, they are yachts. They have many paddle beds, are extremely fast, and can be maneuvered flexibly.

Generally, about fifty warships are equipped with a yacht, and a naval officer, Yuhou, is responsible for dispatching and commanding, observing the wind direction, and judging the enemy's situation.

Finally, there is a kind of warship called Zouge. This kind of warship is equipped with many sailors to ensure extremely fast speed. As for the navy soldiers, a small number of brave and powerful elites are selected.

It is specially used to raid, impact, and even raid the enemy's flagship, taking advantage of the chaos to carry out beheading operations.

....

Kang Chengxun was not from a wealthy family, but was a domestic slave of the Wang family. His father had grown up with Wang Jian, the great ancestor of Goryeo, and they had a very close relationship with him.

It was also because of this relationship that Kang Chengxun was able to control this navy, which was extremely important to the Wang family in Korea.

However, the shipbuilding industry in Goryeo was actually not very good. Even though they were surrounded by water on three sides and had many mountains and forests, in fact since the Sui Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty had intentionally controlled the flow of shipbuilders to the peninsula.

When the Tang Dynasty abandoned the Xiongjin Dudufu, it directly destroyed the port and shipyard, and took away all the shipwrights and sailors.

Although there are many forests in the mountainous Korean Peninsula, there are few towering trees, so the ships cannot be built large. There is also a lack of good hardwood, so the hulls are not very strong.

As a result, Goryeo's navy had small ships with poor rigidity. It was said that there were hundreds of warships, but each ship could only carry forty or fifty people on average, which was similar to the size of the Japanese navy during the Battle of Baijiangkou in the past.

It sounds scary to hear that the numbers are overwhelming, but when we fight them, they are all bastards.

Kang Chengxun stood on the bow of the ship. This was a Falcon-style warship with a wide deck, capable of carrying hundreds of troops, and a load of two thousand materials.

There are also wooden boards on both sides of the ship's side to help balance and increase buoyancy. When encountering strong winds and waves, you can lower the wooden boards into the sea water to increase buoyancy, thus greatly improving stability.

However, this kind of ship has a slightly slower speed and although it carries many people, it relies heavily on the protection of various small boats. Otherwise, it will be easily destroyed by the enemy's winch crossbows and trebuchets.

Moreover, Goryeo only had one or two large sea falcon ships, which did not play a big role at all. Just like if the later Republic had only one Liaoning ship, it would be difficult to form a deterrent.

But at this time, Kang Chengxun was still confident. He listened to Wang Zhao's order and believed that the Northern invaders did not have many warships.

And even if there were, could it be worth the 200 warships and 8,000 elite naval forces under his command?

Moreover, because Wang Zhao assigned him the main task of supporting land warfare, Kang Chengxun could only sail northward entirely by the coastline in order to maintain contact with the army on land, and was basically unable to carry out reconnaissance.

Here, Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Jie received the order from Murong Nobunaga and immediately loaded more than 10,000 infantrymen under Zhe Deyuan onto the ship, and the army also moved south along the coastline.

....

Southwest of Pyongyang, Haeryong Island is the focus of coastal defense on the entire peninsula.

Wang's Goryeo set up the Navy Hailing Town here, with 600 navy troops and 30 warships stationed there. It was considered an important coastal defense town of Goryeo at this time.

Kang Chengxun led the warships to go north very quickly. At this time, the slightest breeze came from the southeast, which facilitated the movement of the fleet from south to north.

Seeing that Hailing Island was right in front of him, Kang Chengxun immediately ordered someone to raise the flag, ask another large battleship in front to raise the cage, and send the lookout hand to the mast for observation.

The lookout saw the white-backed red bird flag of Hailing Town on Hailing Island flying high in the distance, and there were more than ten small boats in the distance also approaching the fleet with white flags, so they immediately issued a safety signal.

Kang Chengxun ordered people to observe so cautiously, not because he had received any news, but just to confirm safety as a routine.

Therefore, when I saw the fighting ships in the distance flying a white flag symbolizing safety, I immediately ordered all ships, large and small, to lower their sails and prepare to enter the military port of Hailing Town for repairs.

At this time, the trade wind began to blow, and it would be difficult to enter the naval port without lowering the sail.

Especially for large ships, you must lower the sails in advance, otherwise a sudden strong wind may blow the ship to the beach.

Zhao Kuangyin personally stood on the main flagship Danghai, while dozens of stern ships passed messages back and forth between the flagship and other large ships.

As for Hailing Town, it had been raided by the Zhou fleet a long time ago. For the sake of 100% safety, the one who came ashore to control Hailing Town was Zhe De willing to personally lead his troops to attack.

"Pass my military order to disrupt the formation of the bandits with stern ships first, and then use fighting ships to charge forward. The elite soldiers will hide behind the fighting ships. Wait until the enemy is in chaos, stick to their big ships, wait until the ships have circled around, and then attack by force.

Clean out the thieves and fight here!"

Just as Kang Chengxun ordered the ships to lower their sails, he heard the faint sound of golden drums singing in the distance.

He turned around and looked around, but the land of Hailing Island blocked his sight, so he found nothing.

Suddenly, as if a ray of sunlight shone through the dark clouds, in the direction blocked by Hailing Island, large ships with at least a thousand materials appeared in front of Kang Chengxun from behind the distant island.

The sound of the golden drums seemed to suddenly become louder at this moment. These warships that appeared strangely did not use sails, but their speed was surprisingly fast. They all rushed towards Kang Chengxun's fleet.

I've been fooled, the Beikou has a fleet, and there are quite a lot of them!

Kang Chengxun was horrified, and he quickly shouted: "Send a signal to keep those stern ships away."

At this moment, Kang Chengxun suddenly remembered that before he saw the Beikou fleet, there were many stern ships from the "Hailing Town" approaching, and he was afraid that there might be some fraud among them.

But it was too late. These five stern ships were a sharp knife that broke into the Korean fleet. Now that they were in a position where they could fight, it was no longer up to the Koreans to get close.

Rushing into a stern ship at the front, Hai Dayu glanced at his younger brothers Hai Er Crab and Hai San Xia. The three brothers roared at the same time, and the dark muscles on their bodies burst out with huge energy.

They were swiping the wood pulp out of the hole with their hands so hard that it seemed like they were almost leaving an afterimage.

The three brothers of the Hai family were not Han Chinese, but Baishui Lang from eastern Zhejiang and Fujian, that is, the Dan people of later generations.

These ethnic groups formed by a mixture of Baiyue and Han criminals have not yet fully integrated into the Han people in this era, and are the targets of exploitation everywhere.

But they now have a channel that, although not wide, can indeed ascend, that is, they can help Emperor Zhang conquer Goryeo and Japan and even continue to sail eastward in the future.

Therefore, nearly 30% of the sailors belonging to Henghai Town this time were Bai Shuilang. They dreamed of being successful in this battle and gaining the status of normal fishermen, so they worked extra hard.

The loud and clear war song of the Dan family rang out from the stern ship. The three Hai Da Yu brothers and a dozen Bai Shui Lang in the boat rowed the stern ship very fast.

At the same time, soldiers squatting in the closed cabin on the second floor, holding wooden crossbows and naval spears, constantly fired out through the crossbow holes. If the ship was fast, they would use crossbow arrows, and if the ship was slow, they would use spears.

The bows of these stern ships are all equipped with not very sharp but very destructive collision horns, which can be regarded as sharp water warfare weapons.

At one time, one or two hundred Korean warships were crowded into the bay about to enter the harbor. Those who were hit by the warships were overturned. Many sailors were shot or stabbed to death on the ships before they understood what was going on.

These stern ships with dozens of tons are naturally considered small among Zhang and Zhou's naval forces, but in the Korean navy, it is different, because most of the Korean warships are gadgets with dozens of tons.

Compared with them, the stern ship is not small in size, and its speed is even faster. It is a closed ship and is covered with thick cowhide armor mixed with porcelain powder.

This is completely equivalent to a heavily armored soldier crashing into an unarmored militia formation.

The Koreans howled and shot arrows or hit with hammers, but it had no effect at all. They tried to use racket sticks and kerosene to deal with it, but the speed of the stern ship was too fast to dodge these injuries.

In the naval battle in the Central Plains, there are many ways to deal with stern ships, the main one is to have big ships.

Such as large ships and fighting ships, these large ships can completely destroy or burn the stern ship from a high position and use pre-judgment methods. They can also use a winch crossbow to fire a large crossbow to penetrate the hull.

At the same time, the sides of these large ships are very high, and the stern ships cannot harm the people on board at all.

However, the Koreans had few ships and no winches and crossbows, so they were completely helpless against the stern ships!

At the first contact, Kang Chengxun was fooled. He wanted to hedge. Goryeo did not have any warships like stern ships.

The navy was a big money burner in later generations, and it was the same in ancient times.

For example, such a stern ship has a closed cabin and is wrapped in cowhide armor. It cannot be used for other purposes except for combat.

This is not a battleship! This is a gold-swallowing beast running on water. Those who don’t have a big business cannot afford to play with it.

Goryeo's warships were usually used for transportation and other functions. Many of them were even fishing boats that were modified and used as warships. Naturally, there is no such expensive and single-purpose warship.

However, it was not completely impossible to deal with it. After a brief panic, Kang Chengxun ordered all the small boats to approach the big ship, or simply move closer to the shore, and use big ships and small boats to form a formation to deal with these scurrying ships.

But what we were waiting for was his decision.

Seeing that the Goryeo warships had voluntarily given up their maneuverability in order to defend themselves against the attack of the warships, Zhao Kuangyin waved his flag, and the sound of the golden drums turned into a pure and high-spirited sound of war drums.

More than a dozen fighting warships with a displacement ranging from 300 to 700 tons were all dispatched. The sailors rowed the warships with all their strength, and the skilled handlers took advantage of the ups and downs of the waves to steer the big ships forward.

Despite the undulating waves on the sea, the soldiers wearing simple leather armor and forming a triple formation lined up tightly together. Although the hull of the ship was still shaking from side to side, they were almost motionless.

"More than fifteen fighting ships, all of which are made of thousands of materials!" the deputy general next to Kang Chengxun screamed.

At this time, it is expected that this unit has become popular throughout East Asia because it can better reflect the performance of seagoing ships than stone.

According to the conversion at this time, one thousand materials is roughly equivalent to about 330 to 350 tons. Compared with a group of small loaches of thirty or forty tons, a fighting ship of more than three hundred tons is indeed very huge.

Amid Lieutenant General Kang Chengxun's screams, the battleships were getting closer and closer. The soldiers in Henghai Town on the Zhou side let out loud battle cries, while the Koreans made cries.

Chen Hui had already taken over the command at this time. After all, he was a famous navy general and was much more professional than a halfway monk like Zhao Kuangyin.

Seeing that the opponent had lost its mobility and most of the small boats were crowded around the big ship, Chen Hui directly ordered one of the 1,700-material battleships, the main force Hengbo, to rush forward and approach the Goryeo Falcon to attack face-to-face.

The fighting ships attack the remaining ships, large and small.
To be continued...