usatvline Chapter 393 Hell at Sea
Chapter 393 Hell at Sea
A large group of rebel soldiers swarmed to the side closest to the Qiongzhou camp's warships, took out their bows and arrows, and shot them. For a moment, the arrows flying through the air were like leeches, and the sunlight was blocked out.
However, a distance of two hundred meters is beyond the reach of most bows and arrows; unless a crossbow is used, it's simply out of reach. Adding to this, the undulating waves and the rocking of the ship reduce the force of the arrows to less than on flat ground, causing many to fall into the sea halfway through their flight, rendering even a symbolic threat impossible.
The dark muzzle seemed to be grinning, mocking the enemy's incompetence, before spewing out orange-red flames and spraying out torrents of metallic rain, which flew towards the rebels with a whistling sound.
The rebels, crowding the ship's railing to shoot arrows, stood so densely packed that they became easy targets for the volleyballs. Many were still in their shooting stances when they were riddled with bullets, turning into bloody, mangled sieves. Limbs and bits of flesh mixed with blood flew through the air, and screams echoed everywhere. The deck instantly became a scene of carnage.
Kong Youde happened to be standing behind the thick mast, barely managing to save his life. However, a bullet struck his right arm, which was exposed outside the mast and where he was wielding his Japanese sword. The bullet pierced his forearm, and the sword clattered to the ground. Blood gushed from the wound like a spring, and the flesh tore open, revealing the bare white bone.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, a piercing pain shot through the wound. Kong Youde clutched his injured arm with his left hand and howled, "It hurts like hell... Someone, quick, bandage me up and stop the bleeding!"
The surviving soldiers were terrified and fled in all directions, some even jumping into the sea, where no one paid them any attention.
The excruciating pain from his wound contorted Kong Youde's face. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he was both in pain and angry. He took a few steps, stepped on the blood on the deck, slipped, and fell to the ground. When he landed, he instinctively used his right elbow to brace himself. His injured arm hit the deck, and for a moment, the pain was so intense that he couldn't even cry out. His mind went completely blank.
After an unknown amount of time, Kong Youde slowly regained consciousness. He lay on the deck, biting his left sleeve with his teeth, tore off strips of cloth, and haphazardly bandaged the wound on his right hand with both his hands and mouth. Then he struggled to stand up.
Feeling dizzy from blood loss, he slowly walked to the ship's railing, staring at the still-moving Qiongzhou warships opposite him, his teeth itching with hatred. Turning his head, he spotted a rebel soldier huddled in a corner, trembling. He sat down, kicked him, and yelled, "You son of a bitch, get up! There's a breech-loading cannon on the bow, go, light it and fire! Blow them up!"
Although Kong Youde's cursing was weak and feeble due to severe injuries and blood loss, his authority remained. The rebel dared not disobey orders and trembled as he went to the bow of the ship. He took out a flint and steel and tried to light the fire, but due to nervousness, he failed to ignite it after several attempts.
"Damn it, you're really useless..." Kong Youde cursed, but before he could finish the sentence, the sound of cannons boomed again. The other side opened fire again, still with deadly shot.
Kong Youde was instantly terrified. Seeing the dense barrage of projectiles hurtling towards him, before he could even curse, he scrambled onto the deck, taking cover beneath the ship's railing. The dense barrage of projectiles pounded the hull with a resounding crack. Rebel soldiers nearby, who were setting off cannons, were swept past by the high-speed projectiles; their heads, chests, and abdomens were smashed to pieces by five or six iron balls the size of quail eggs. The powerful kinetic energy from the impact sent them flying through the air before crashing heavily to the ground.
The Qiongzhou camp did not know whether Kong Youde was dead or alive; they simply followed the established procedure, calling out names one by one and conducting close-range artillery fire on each ship.
Considering the immense difficulty of sinking so many ships in a short time, Gao Jie opted to use shotgun shells to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy soldiers. With no one left standing on the deck, the ships would be doomed, especially since he had tampered with their sails beforehand.
After bombarding more than ten ships in one go, the clumsy rebel ships finally dispersed and turned to flee north, putting distance between themselves and the Qiongzhou camp.
Gao Jie stared at the ships with slight tension, praying that yesterday's preparations hadn't been in vain. If he couldn't destroy the vast majority of the rebel ships, this painstakingly planned scheme wouldn't be considered perfect.
The Fujian-style ships, sailing at full sail, had not gone far when the damaged spars on one of the sails gradually became unable to withstand the expanding force of the strong sea wind, and finally broke one by one. Then the entire sail collapsed like a person whose bones had been removed, and the ship lost the wind's propulsion, hovering in place, unable to move forward any further.
Then came the second, then the third, and the fourth. Like a contagious disease, most of the fleeing ships lost their sails and remained stationary, bobbing and spinning with the waves.
The rebels were bewildered, exchanging bewildered glances. Some quick-thinking individuals attempted to raise the fallen sails again, only to discover that the spurs were broken, and even the most skilled shipwright could not repair them hastily.
As the dozen or so large ships approached, bombarding each other with ease as if slaughtering pigs and sheep, the rebels let out desperate howls. Some jumped into the sea, while others struggled in their death throes, retaliating with the ship's breech-loading cannons, but before they could even fire, they were turned into mincemeat by shrapnel.
The large ships became floating targets, while the smaller ships slowly sailed away. This was because Lin Chuanzong and his men didn't have time to destroy all the ships, so they focused on the large ones and let the small ones slip by.
When they set off, the rebels all wanted to squeeze onto the large ships. From Dengzhou to Dongjiang Town, they had to cross the vast Liaohai Sea, and the large ships were undoubtedly much more stable than the small ones. Now, the large ships were all inexplicably breaking down, and the rebels, who were originally smug about being on the large ships, watched with great envy as the small ships slowly disappeared from sight.
On board the "Guangdong," Gao Jie ordered: "Ignore the small boats, concentrate fire on the large ship! After clearing out the combat personnel on deck, switch to solid shot and sink the ship!"
The Qiongzhou fleet swiftly swept the decks of twenty or thirty large ships, then circled back and began to concentrate its firepower, sinking each ship one by one with solid shot.
Blood flowed like a river on the rebel decks, and heads floated everywhere on the sea. They had ravaged Shandong for so long, never dreaming that they would meet such an end. Seeing the ships in the distance slowly sinking, the surviving rebels panicked and shouted for mercy to the warships of the Qiongzhou Camp.
To their disappointment, the enemy warships responded with relentless firepower. One after another, the Fujian ships were riddled with bullets, slowly listing until they sank. Thick smoke billowed from the sea, rising into the sky, while the sea teemed with rebel soldiers, resembling a swarm of ants churning in the water.
This naval battle was a one-sided massacre. After the battle, it was found that, apart from the two thousand people who stayed in Dengzhou, there were more than six thousand rebels who went out to sea. About three thousand died under the guns or were buried at sea, and about a thousand escaped in small boats.
Some who were seriously wounded but not dead were all thrown into the sea to feed the fish. The remaining rebels numbered less than a thousand.