There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 276 Taking advantage of the situation
With the unexpected death of their commander Tian Xin, the Qing army finally collapsed and could not hold on any longer.

In fact, the Qing army should have collapsed. The barrage of muskets and crossbows had already caused them to suffer casualties as high as 10%.

Following closely behind was a barrage of rockets, with over a hundred rockets bombarding the Qing army's positions. Each rocket could take down at least three or five Qing soldiers.

A single bombardment resulted in over 500 Qing soldiers being killed.

so horrible!

These Qing soldiers finally saw through the Han army's fighting strength, and even felt that the Han army was no longer using powerful firearms, but was using sorcery.

Yes, it's sorcery!

Not only the Qing soldiers below thought so, but even Tian Yongyi, who was still spying on the ship with a telescope, couldn't help but have the same thought.

If the Han army used mortars and grenades, Tian Yongyi, who had been to the capital and met Westerners and was considered well-informed, would have recognized that this thing was a bursting shell, and that the grenade was a weapon capable of taking on ten thousand men!

But what is a rocket?
It flies by spitting fire, and explodes as soon as it hits a crowd; its power is ridiculously great.

Tian Yongyi stood on the deck, his eyes fixed on the telescope. All he could see through the telescope was the Qing army's crushing defeat at the ferry crossing on the north bank.

Wang Yong had no intention of letting go of the more than two thousand remnants of the defeated Qing army.

"kill!"

"Dudududuwuwuwuwu~~~~"

Two thousand Han soldiers charged out of the trenches, their resounding bugle calls accompanied by deafening battle cries, and rushed toward the Qing troops who were trying to escape to the ferry crossing.

When the routed Qing soldiers saw the Han army charging towards them, they were all terrified. Having lost their commander, they had no unified command or coordination.

The Qing soldiers who were ahead were all eager to escape, running desperately towards the ferry crossing to seize the nearest boat. The remaining, slower Qing soldiers, seeing the Han army closing in and unable to outrun their allies, fearing they wouldn't be able to escape, decided to turn back and fight to the death.

Unfortunately, these Qing soldiers who turned back and fought desperately still lacked unified command. In addition, their forces were too small; only about a hundred men could form a battle formation, while the rest were scattered and disorganized.

Wang Yong didn't bother fighting them. These Qing soldiers had already collapsed. Even if he was willing to fight desperately for a while, it would only be temporary. He just needed to avoid fighting them.

The main force of the Han army bypassed the enemy and intercepted the fleeing soldiers who wanted to escape by boat.

When the Qing soldiers, who were eager to fight to the death, saw that the Han army ignored them, their fighting spirit vanished instantly.

If you don't have the courage to fight to the death, then what's the point of forming ranks?

Run away quickly!
The Qing soldiers scattered almost immediately, but they couldn't go far because there were no ferries to help them leave.

If they break up into smaller groups and scatter, it will indeed be difficult for the Han army to catch them. However, they will be aimless and unable to find villages to plunder, so they will starve to death sooner or later. Even if they do find a village, they will not be able to defeat the village militia.

Wang Yong led his troops in pursuit of the fleeing Qing soldiers. Most of the fleeing soldiers were killed or captured, while a small number of them managed to escape on ferries. The Han army could not catch up and dared not pursue them too far.

In this amphibious landing battle, the Qing army suffered a major defeat, with almost the entire army wiped out and more than half of its firearms units lost.

Even Tian Yongyi's nephew, Tian Xin, died in battle at the ferry crossing on the north bank, and his body was never brought back.

The lieutenant was already terrified: "General...General, could it be that this Han traitor really possesses sorcery?"

Before he could finish speaking, Tian Yongyu kicked him and shouted angrily, "Sorcery? What sorcery? It's just some strange firearms used by bandits. Our army was caught off guard and fell into the trap of the Han traitors. If you dare to spread rumors and sow discord among our troops again, this town will surely execute you as a sacrifice to our flag!"

"General, please calm down! General, please calm down!" The deputy general scrambled to his feet, genuinely fearing that Tian Yongyi, having just lost his nephew, would use this opportunity to kill someone in a fit of rage.

Tian Yong ignored the pleading deputy general and turned back to look at the north bank ferry. After Wang Yong led his troops to defeat the landing Qing army, he ran back to the trench positions behind him.

As Tian Yongyi's anger subsided, he realized that for a moment he had indeed wanted to force a landing, to fight the Han traitors with all his might, and at the same time avenge his nephew who had died in battle.

But after the initial anger subsided, he quickly calmed down. He was no longer young; he had once been a martial arts scholar and considered himself unmatched by many in the world, but now he was almost sixty years old.

He couldn't afford to die here. If Tian Xin died, he could just find another nephew to adopt. Besides, he had more than one nephew, so there was no need to fight to the death here, and there was no guarantee of victory. Without rockets, Tian Yongyi thought he might still be able to deal with the Han traitors.

With rockets already in use, the soldiers' morale was low and their manpower was severely depleted. Even if the entire army were to attack, it would be difficult to capture this crossing.

After much deliberation, Tian Yongyi glanced at the mudflats at the ferry crossing littered with corpses, and finally raised his hand to give the order: "Pass on my military order, the entire army is to retreat to the Balijiang camp!"

Upon hearing this, the kneeling deputy general was filled with mixed feelings of joy and worry.

The good news is that they can finally leave. These Han traitors are like demons; they are simply not human enough to fight them.

Worryingly, in this battle, the Su-Song Town, acting as the vanguard, suffered a terrible defeat, losing nearly half of its troops and more than half of its firearms. As for the flanking force at the main crossing, it is unknown what its condition is.
What will the military commander and the governor think when we return with this victory?
The Qing army withdrew, and Wang Yong, who was in the trench, put down his binoculars and sneered, "They ran pretty fast!"

The Qing troops at the north bank ferry fled. Wang Yong left a group of men to clean up the battlefield and remove the corpses, while the main force prepared to run back to the Meijiazhou ferry on the east bank to support Fang Jie's Han troops.

Halfway there, they received a message from Fang Jie on his walkie-talkie that the Qing troops on the east bank had also retreated.

The Qing army detachment that attempted to cross the river on the east bank did not receive a retreat order from Tian Yongyi, but rather simply could not withstand the heavy casualties and retreated on its own, abandoning the attempt to cross.

"That Qing general is such a coward, he ran away after only half the battle!" Wang Yong led more than a thousand men to the east bank ferry to meet up with Fang Jie.

Fang Jie shook his head: "I think this Qing general is quite smart. Seeing that the casualties were too great, he withdrew his troops in time to stop the losses. This kind of courage is not something that ordinary generals have."

Wang Yong nodded in agreement. If he were the Qing army commander, and they had suffered more than half their casualties and still couldn't take the city, how could he be willing to give up and retreat?
They had 4,000 men defending Meijia Island, expecting it to be a fierce battle.

Even if only half the actual number of soldiers is used to fight against 200,000, and even if the number of civilian laborers is also included, the pressure is still immense.

Unexpectedly, after fighting for half a day, it was not that there was little pressure, but rather that there was absolutely no pressure. The Qing army's fighting strength was as fragile as paper, collapsing at the slightest touch.

If there had been a boat, Wang Yong would have chased after the fleeing Tian Yongyi.

The two were still cleaning up the battlefield and chatting idly when a messenger suddenly ran in to report: "Report! The general has sent an urgent letter that the Qing army has dismantled and burned all the wooden rafts that our army set up at the mouth of Poyang Lake!"

"what?"

Wang Yong and Fang Jie were taken aback. The wooden raft at the mouth of Poyang Lake was something they had gathered laborers and spent several days building to block the Qing navy from entering Poyang Lake.

Unexpectedly, while the Qing army was ostensibly attacking Meijia Island, they also took the opportunity to launch a surprise attack and burn down the wooden drainage fences at the mouth of Poyang Lake.

Li Fenghan, the puppet Qing Dynasty's Viceroy of Liangjiang, was indeed not very good at fighting, but he had read a lot of military books and also had the cautious nature of a civil official, knowing that one should have two plans when doing things.

We can force our way across the Meijiazhou ferry crossing, and we must also break through the Poyang Lake estuary.

If they fail to capture Meijiazhou Ferry, or suffer a temporary setback, they can switch to the Poyang Lake waterway and attempt to cross Dagutang.

The advantage of having enough Qing troops came when the Qing army, which had divided its forces to the south, did not engage the Han army in direct combat. Instead, they filled fishing boats with oil and firewood, set them on fire, and sent them rushing toward the wooden drainage barriers set up by the Han army at the mouth of Poyang Lake.

These rafts were all made of wood, and once they caught fire, the Han army couldn't extinguish them; they could only watch helplessly as the rafts were destroyed by the fire.

When Wang Yong and Fang Jie received the news, the fire at the mouth of Poyang Lake had been burning for half a day, and most of the timber rafts had been burned to charcoal and sunk into the lake.

Thick smoke billowed into the sky.

The Han army knew they couldn't stop them, so they stopped trying and quickly notified Yang Fang in Jiujiang City to ask what to do.
What can I do?
Yang Fang received the news, and although she had expected it, she was still disgusted by the Qing army's move.

Yang Fang immediately found Chief of Staff Xia Yongqian, along with several other cultural instructors. After much discussion, they finally devised a remedial measure: "Immediately send a telegram to the Poyang Lake Navy, instructing them to quickly find several large ships and mobilize the local people and laborers to fill the ships with mud and sand and sink them into the river to block the lake's mouth. Doesn't the Qing regime like to burn our rafts? Then we'll just sink the giant ships directly into the river, but we don't need to completely block the lake's mouth. We can leave a gap to lure the Qing army's small boats in."

The Qing navy's large ships were no match for the Han navy's small ships, but they were more than enough for the Han navy.

Moreover, although large ships look huge, their maneuverability is far less than that of small ships. Without the protection of small ships, large ships would become sitting ducks.

Yang Fang was planning to turn the tables and set a trap for the Qing army.

(End of this chapter)