Chapter 2082 - Fire-Ships on the River

Not only that—the Australians had explicitly warned him the Council of Elders would soon march on Guangzhou. If he valued his office and his life, he should request transfer and depart while he still could.

Xiong Wenchan would not, of course, flee merely on pirates' say-so. He knew the Australians were not given to idle threats. Yet by the glacial pace at which government forces prosecuted warfare, mobilizing the armies of the Two Guangs to subjugate Hainan would demand at least eight months to a year of preparation. And if the pirates hoped to launch an offensive from Hainan with only a few thousand elite troops, that plainly wouldn't suffice—they would first need to "sweep the land for soldiers," conscript peasants, drill them into an army, a process requiring half a year at minimum.

Therefore he had made preparations: commissioned numerous cannons cast at Foshan; manufactured new firearms in quantity—many copied from military treatises and diagrams presented to the throne by various scholars and generals; expanded garrison troop quotas throughout the region; hired an additional five thousand water-fighters from the Tanka boat-dwellers to reinforce naval forces inside and outside the Pearl River estuary.

Nor had he neglected Zhaoqing's own defenses. The first batch of Red-Barbarian cannons mounted on the new millstone-style rotating platforms had been installed at Antelope Gorge's mouth. Not only did a battery command the eastern entrance, but following counsel from a defeated general who had survived the old Humen engagement, a permanent garrison now stood beside the battery.

Antelope Gorge boasted fortifications at both ends. At the western entrance near Zhaoqing's prefectural seat, he had likewise installed batteries with a garrison company. He had originally planned two additional batteries flanking the narrowest mid-gorge section, but surveyors reported the engineering would prove massive. Though the mountains bracketing Antelope Gorge were not sheer cliffs, transporting Red-Barbarian cannons weighing thousands of jin up roadless slopes and constructing battery works would consume years.

To guard against pirates bypassing the waterway via overland routes, he had established a new camp on Beiling Mountain northwest of Zhaoqing, stationing a company to control the mountain pass.

Yet they had come so swiftly! All the silver and grain he'd poured into rebuilding the Pearl River estuary defenses had proven utterly worthless. Garrisons had surrendered in succession—Humen's batteries had failed to fire a single shot, while Guangzhou itself had opened its gates without bloodshed. The thousand-plus soldiers he had painstakingly rebuilt under the Training Guerrilla Commander had simply defected en masse. The Commander himself had escaped with only a dozen bodyguards and household retainers.

Xiong Wenchan privately regretted that his strategy of "orderly deployment, resistance at every stage" had revealed itself as pure fantasy.

Regret served no purpose now. With Guangzhou lost, Zhaoqing had become the position that must be held.

Yet he'd had no time for methodical preparations. Events had proven his estimate of the Fubo Army's marching tempo equally mistaken. After entering Guangzhou, the Fubo Army had made virtually no pause—neither "resting several days" nor "plundering for three." They had swept through the city without stopping, sailing upriver straight for Zhaoqing. From fleeing officials and gentry, he learned the Fubo Army had advanced continuously by river. In merely three days, they had reached Antelope Gorge.

Yet Zhaoqing's available forces were meager. He couldn't rapidly summon the Eastern and Western Mountain garrison commanders from Luoding to provide relief. The only disciplined unit was the Zhaoqing Naval Battalion. Including his own retainers, the bodyguards of officials and officers who had fled Guangzhou, and local Guard garrison troops... everything totaled barely over two thousand men, plus a thousand Tanka water-fighters.

Intelligence reports indicated the pirate forces concentrated at Antelope Gorge numbered merely three thousand, with several hundred naval vessels of various sizes. Several large ships mounted "giant cannons." Plainly, any river engagement would end in defeat. Thus "fire-ships" had again emerged as the Ming commanders' tactical consensus.

Xiong Wenchan watched the fire-ship squadron depart in imposing array and exhaled slowly. Whether Zhaoqing could be held—everything rested on this single cast of the dice.

According to his orders, part of the naval fleet would shadow the fire-ships. Once the fire-ships threw the pirate flotilla into chaos, they would exploit the current and sweep down upon the disorganized enemy. The remaining vessels would establish a defensive line before the prefectural city—a final river barrier should the fire-ships fail to penetrate.

"Your Excellency, those naval vessels waiting on the river serve no purpose," Chang Qingyun murmured at his elbow. "Should the fire-ships fail to break the enemy, those ships will be as clay chickens and pottery dogs—utterly helpless. Why not commit the entire force, ride the momentum of the fire-ships downstream, and stake everything on one desperate gamble? Perhaps some chance of victory might emerge..."

Xiong Wenchan merely stroked his beard with a faint smile, offering no reply. Chang Qingyun, unable to understand, could only retreat to one side, muttering.

Only Xiong Wenchan's central army commander grasped the real purpose. Those ships were meant to purchase time for the Governor's flight. Once the pirates reached the city walls, he would immediately abandon the city, board his boat, and flee upriver to Wuzhou. Though the prepared sampan carried three shifts of powerful oarsmen ready to rotate, rowing upstream remained inevitably slow. Without naval warships to delay pursuit, he might be captured alive before even clearing Dading Gorge.

***

"Enemy vessels sighted! Bearing 265, range 4 cables, heading 75, speed 7 knots!" The lookout's report rang across the deck.

Even without that call, Schneider had already spotted the emerging

masts through his binoculars.

"So they really are coming out to fight!" he breathed. As always before combat, tension sang through his body. Raising his binoculars, he adjusted focus. The first vessel appeared in his eyepiece—a typical small West River rice boat, bamboo bundles lashed to the bow and coated with mud. The waterline rode low under heavy loading.

Then a second materialized beside it, then a third, a fourth... too many to count. Ships flooded toward them; suddenly the river teemed with vessels of all sizes. Sails raised, oars churning, riding the current downstream, they bore straight at the fleet.

Schneider felt his scalp prickle. The river here was narrow; steaming upstream, he possessed little room to maneuver. His sole option: exploit the range advantage and destroy as many enemy vessels as possible at distance.

He ordered crisply: "Formation heading 270. Speed 5 knots. Prepare for combat."

Ruan Xiaowu issued the firing command: "High-explosive shells, load!" Gunners used ramrods to seat shells and silk powder charges into the breech. They cranked handwheels; steam hissed from pipe joints as the massive bottle-shaped barrel elevated.

"Loading complete!"

The rangefinders called distances: "3.5 cables! 3 cables!"

When range closed to 3 cables, Schneider ordered: "Fire!"

Zhujiang's battle pennant shot to the masthead. The main gun lurched, flame erupting from the muzzle. Given Zhujiang's modest displacement, the gun's recoil kicked the gunboat backward, throwing up enormous spray.

The shell shrieked through the air in a high arc. Ruan Xiaowu, stopwatch in hand, tracked the impact through his binoculars.

With the fire-ships packed so densely, aiming was almost superfluous. The high-explosive shell landed squarely among them. A red flash—a yellow-stained water column erupted skyward.

Ruan Xiaowu immediately transmitted corrected impact data.

"Reference on Zhujiang—Suijiang, open fire! Grapeshot!"

From the formation's tail, a 621-class converted armed paddlewheeler's 130mm main gun fired at high elevation in a straddling shot. The shell arced over the fleet. The 130mm canister round screamed through the air, then burst, spraying its twenty-seven one-pound iron balls indiscriminately across the river surface.

Instantly, iron balls raked across hulls. Where they struck, shattered planking, snapped masts, torn sails, and the severed heads and limbs of sailors fountained in all directions. The scorching projectiles ignited straw soaked in tung oil and gunpowder. Ships erupted in flames, then rapidly listed and foundered as river water poured through shattered hulls...

"What in all the hells..." Standing on the rearmost vessel's deck, Cao Bajiao watched clearly, his blood running cold. He involuntarily hunched his neck. But the second cannon blast followed immediately, shells falling even closer, screaming projectiles again sweeping the river surface. Raining down from the sky, they harvested ships anew. Cao Bajiao's courage shattered entirely. He had no more stomach for "directing from the center." Leading his men, he scrambled into the sampan at the stern, slashed the mooring line, and fled toward the riverbank—he dared not make for Zhaoqing. If captured there, he'd lose his head.

"Range 2 cables!" came the observer's voice. Schneider ordered: "All vessels, fire at will!"

At under 400 meters, both the 30mm rapid-fire guns and the 13mm "typewriters" lay well within effective range—and they were engaging area targets. High-angle fire with maximum dispersion presented no difficulties.

Dense lead balls showered upon the fire-ships like monsoon rain, instantly shredding the bamboo-shield screens protecting the bows, igniting the straw mounded in the holds. Fire-ships blazed; sailors died or fled overboard. Unmanned, burning vessels collided with each other, drifting downstream toward the fleet.

(End of Chapter)