Poor Family Chapter 561

Chapter 561 Inspecting combat readiness

Having gone through two major battles and countless small battles, Li Yanqing already has rich combat experience. He knows the truth of "If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your weapon". If you want to wipe out this bandit, not only We must pay attention to the opponent tactically, and make full preparations in terms of combat readiness, including soldier training, material preparations, as well as the morale, morale, and morale of the army, and the hearts of the people.

Li Yanqing has been extremely busy these few days. Zhou Ping has helped him with a lot of things when he came back. He left many civil disputes to Zhou Ping. Zhou Ping is more experienced in handling various disputes, but Yang Ju's bookishness is still a little heavier. Li Yanqing continued to let him handle the internal affairs of the county government, including various reports to the state, as well as urging taxes, managing county schools, setting up charity and other miscellaneous matters, while Li Yanqing himself devoted most of his energy to suppressing bandits On top of preparing for battle.

That afternoon, fifty medium-sized warships arrived in Jiayu County. Warships of all sizes filled the wharf of Jiayu County, blocking the wharf tightly. There were all kinds of warships, such as vehicles and boats. , multi-oared boats, double-oared wooden boats, fish boats, etc., are mottled in color, old and new, but all the boats are not new boats, but some of the old boats were selected by the Song Dynasty navy who was participating in the encirclement and suppression of Fangla's remnant army. country soldiers.

Of course, for the Great Song Marine Corps, the black-hearted dragon king and other small river thieves disdain to take action. That is a matter for the local government. Hundreds of thousands of people fought at every turn, and the rebel forces who captured most of the south of the Yangtze River were the enemies dealt with by the Imperial Army and the Great Song Navy.

Therefore, the warships given to Ezhou by the Song Dynasty Navy are all small warships. There is only one thousand stone warship that is 50% new, and it is an old ship built 20 years ago. The other warships are between 300 stone and 500 stone. The small and medium-sized warships are also very old, at least ten years old.

Although the warship was weak, Li Yanqing still boarded this thousand-stone old ship with great interest. It was a three-story ship. Although it was twenty years old, it was still much stronger than ordinary civilian ships. Not afraid of collisions, the deck is wide and flat, with fine joints, and there are small windows on both sides of the three-story building, which is conducive to shooting with crossbow arrows.

At this time, a shipbuilder came out from the cabin below, and Li Yanqing asked, "How is this ship?"

The shipbuilder smiled and said: "This ship has no traces of battle. It is estimated that it has been soaked in water for 20 years. It has been overhauled twice. The last overhaul should be a year or two ago. The overall quality of the ship is very good. A coat of paint will do."

At this time, the boatman added: "Perhaps the county lord hasn't noticed yet, this is a car and boat!"

Li Yanqing was surprised and delighted at the same time, he also said why there was only one solitary flagpole, but it turned out to be a car and boat, "How can you tell?"

"The county lord can find out by looking at the two sides. Both sides are equipped with rotary paddles."

Li Yanqing walked quickly to the side of the ship. He was blocked by the ship next to him just now. He didn't see it on the shore, but looked down from the side of the ship. There is a row of windmill-like runners at the draft below, with a diameter of 1.5 meters. Left and right, there are twelve in total, and there should be twelve corresponding runners on the other side. The left and right runners form a group, which is called a cart. This is a twelve-car cart and boat, and twenty-four people are needed below. Step on it, and the boat will go fast on the river.

Chariot ships are a large number of new power warships that appeared after the Northern Song Dynasty, ranging from small boats to super large ships. Among the 50 ships sent this time, at least 15 are car ships, mainly medium-sized warships with four cars.

Li Yanqing suddenly remembered an important question, and turned to Liu Fang, "How did these ships come here?"

"It was Wang Zhizhou who sent more than 200 boatmen to Jiangning to pick up the boat!"

"Where are these boatmen?"

"The humble staff arranged for them to have dinner in the county. If the county lord wants them to stay, the humble staff can talk to them."

Boatmen are necessary, Jiayu County can also recruit some, but the number is not enough, he really needs to keep some boatmen.

Li Yanqing nodded, "If they are willing to stay, I can promise you 15 pennies per month for three months first."

"Humble job, go talk to them!"

Li Yanqing quickly told him, "Turn back and ask them to drive the boat to the water barracks. It would be unseemly to stop at the pier."

"I understand the humble job!" Liu Fang hurried to the city with two yamen servants.

Li Yanqing visited the ships for an hour before turning back to the navy barracks. Today he devoted half a day to learn about the combat readiness. Apart from the ships, of course he also needs to know about the training of the navy.

The Water Army Camp is a temporary and simple water army camp. It is located about two miles east of the wharf. It is built using a semicircular small water bay. Water bays are very common along the Yangtze River, usually riverside lakes and lakes. The Yangtze River is formed as a whole, like Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake are two giant inlets.

There are three inlets in Jiayu County. The water army camp is located in the smallest inlet. It used to be Shayang Lake. Due to human beings' continuous cofferdams and land reclamation, Shayang Lake has become smaller and smaller. Now the water surface area is only about 700. Mu, which is connected to the Yangtze River, is still too small for a general navy camp, and hundreds of ships can't be crowded, but it is almost enough for a local navy with only 50 warships.

The mouth of the lake that enters the Yangtze River is about one mile long. Over the past few days, hundreds of civilians have laid two rows of thousands of wooden stakes at the mouth of the lake, and left a gate for boats to enter and exit the bay. A wooden tall post was built on both sides of the gate. The tower is used to monitor the river surface.

The wooden piles were so densely packed that even a small sampan would find it difficult to get in through the gaps, but the water ghosts could sneak in. Li Yanqing specially ordered that two fishing nets be wrapped around the wooden piles. If one is not careful, the water ghosts will Got tangled in a fishing net and died.

Not only that, there are sentinel boats patrolling back and forth in the bay day and night. Even if the enemy water ghosts sneak into the water camp by chance, they will be discovered by the patrol boats in time.

The navy barracks were set up on the shore, with 120 large tents set up, surrounded by barracks to surround the entire semicircular inlet. Although the barracks were small, they were exactly the same as normal barracks, without cutting corners at all. The so-called 'a sparrow is small, but it has all internal organs'.

Of course, the ships have just arrived in Jiayu County, and the navy has not yet been fully activated. Only the newly recruited 500 sailors have settled in. Once the ships enter the water camp, the training on the river will also begin.

Li Yanqing entered the barracks from the gate of the camp on the shore. The barracks on the shore is very large, and there are two open spaces for training. Commander Leopard, Yang Guang is too foolish to be a commander-in-chief of soldiers.

In fact, Zhang Hu is not suitable to be the head of the navy. He can hardly swim, but Zhang Hu is good at training soldiers, very methodical, and can train an army capable of fighting in a short period of time.

In Li Yanqing's mind, the most suitable general to be the leader of the navy is Zhang Shun, but the time is not yet ripe, he can only find a replacement for the time being, unfortunately there is no suitable candidate for the time being, and see if he can be among the five hundred navy Pick out two prestigious and capable soldiers as the left and right governors.

"kill!"

Five hundred soldiers simultaneously let out a neat cry of killing, and stomped a cloud of dust under their feet, the momentum was very spectacular.

Seeing that Zhang Hu and the soldiers were training, Li Yanqing didn't bother him, but came to a large tent at the far end of the barracks.

This is a large tent, twice the size of other tents. When you enter the large tent, you can see that it is full of various utensils, wooden barrels, clay pots and large wooden basins, which are filled with raw materials for making gunpowder, saltpeter, etc. , sulfur and wood powder, here is the temporary gunpowder workshop, where Li Yanqing needs to produce Zhentianlei to suppress bandits.

In the middle is a large table about ten feet long. Hao Da and Hao Er are sitting at both ends of the table and are engrossed in wrapping the fuse. Li Yanqing stepped forward, took out a cast iron casing of a thunderbolt from the wooden basin, and asked with a smile. Said: "Is the iron shell a little thicker?"

(end of this chapter)

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