Yang Fan and others quickly grabbed the various handles around them to prevent them from falling. The other hand supported Zhang Wudian. But the old man reacted very quickly and grabbed the armrest immediately.
"Let's see what's going on." Yang Fan said.
This is the first time a ship has stopped sailing since it started sailing. Huang Hao immediately led people to the bow of the ship to check the situation.
"Master, the bow of the boat ran aground. The river bottom here is both deep and shallow. When I turned just now, the rudder was pushed too hard and it hit the shoal." Huang Hao ran back and said after a while.
This is quite normal. The depth of the bottom of such rivers varies greatly. Some are less than one meter deep, and some are dozens of meters deep. Very outrageous.
The main channel of the Yellow River is not much better. It is more than ten meters deep here in Linhe City. There is a section near Yinchuan that is 180 meters deep. It’s not too deep near Lanzhou. It's back to about ten meters. There is also a situation in the Chuanjiang River in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. In the lower reaches of Chongqing, there is a dry period where the water depth is only 3.5 meters, while another section is more than 100 meters to more than 200 meters deep.
Zhang Fengyi suddenly became a little nervous. She grabbed Yang Fan's arm with a pair of small hands and asked, "Brother Yang, we won't be trapped here. There are more than 50,000 Mongolians here."
Yang Fan smiled and said: "It's okay, don't worry. At least half of the 30,000 people in the city were burned to death. The remaining camps were scattered, with only three or four thousand people each. They were frightened by heavy artillery and machine guns. Don’t dare to come closer.”
Huo glared at her daughter and warned her not to hold on to Yang Fan's arm.
Zhang Fengyi's face turned red and she let go of her hand.
"Uncle Dingyuan, if it is stranded, I remember that it seems that the boat needs to be pulled into the water again." Zhang Wudian asked.
"No need, we are a powered ship, we don't need to draw fibers." Yang Fan's face was calm. "Reverse the car and pull out the bow."
When entering an area with tributary rivers and forks, stranding should be a common problem.
This was taken into consideration when designing the shallow water heavy gunship. One is that the draft does not exceed one meter deep when lightly loaded, and does not exceed 1.5 meters deep when fully loaded. Another is that the transmission system is designed with a reversing function, that is, the propeller rotates in the opposite direction, and the ship will reverse out when the bow of the ship is grounded.
"Is it a reef or a beach?" Yang Fan continued to ask.
"It's a shoal with some pebbles. The bottom of the boat should be fine," Huang Hao said.
Yang Fan felt relieved. Cement ships are also afraid of colliding with rocks. After all, cement is much heavier than wood, and the hulls are very thin. If the hull is too thick, it will take up too much carrying capacity. Not a good deal.
Therefore, in the design of the cement ship, the thickness on the four sides is different. The front part of the hull should be thicker to prevent collision. The sides of the ship's sides are thinner to reduce weight. The stern thickness is somewhere in between.
Woohoo! The whistle sounded again.
As Captain Du Xiaoyun issued the order to reverse the vehicle through the microphone in front of the bridge. The chief engineer in the engine room, after hearing the command twice, immediately moved the handle and let the gearbox transmit power in reverse. The propeller at the stern stopped for a moment, then quickly spun in the opposite direction.
The reason why the command needs to be repeated once is because in a fierce battle, if the command is given only once, it is easy to mishear it. Repeating the release will greatly reduce the probability of errors.
Similarly, after receiving an order, you must repeat the receipt twice and repeat the content of the order.
In this way, both parties will know that the other party has received the order accurately. The responsibilities of both parties are clarified.
As the propeller reversed, the water at the stern of the ship was muddied, and a huge force pulled the gunboat back.
The sound of caracara came from the bottom of the boat. Then he retreated little by little. Back on the main channel. The captain immediately turned the rudder, pointed the bow of the ship towards the main channel and sailed forward.
After re-entering the main river channel, face the camp ahead and continue moving forward.
And on the high ground of this camp, it was where Gushi Khan, Hala Huci and others stood on horseback to observe.
"No, that boat is coming towards us." Dalai Tush exclaimed.
"What the hell is this? On the grassland, the eagle on our grassland was actually chased by a bastard in a river and fled in a hurry." Hala Huci said depressedly.
They have been stimulated too much today.
From the morning, he was driven out of the blazing city by fire. Watching helplessly, the fire burned all the food and grass. Then the infantry and cavalry were beaten to pieces by a boat.
Now it was actually a boat galloping in the river, chasing the discovered cavalry and camps.
They didn't know what to say about how such a big and tall ship could move freely in these tributaries.
Gushi Khan's face turned livid, and he said: "We are not marmots on the grassland. We only know how to crawl into holes when we are in danger. If you want to leave, you can leave, but I won't leave."
He was very angry today. More than 50,000 people were actually chased and beaten by a boat.
"We don't want to escape, but we have no way to restrain their firearms. The cavalry can't enter the water. They are in the water, and we can only be beaten passively." Hala Huqi said helplessly.
When it comes to being fierce, the Junggar people are much more fierce than the people from the Heshuote tribe. But the Junggar people are not stupid. They can beat you at will, but you can't fight a battle where you have no way of hurting them.
"You can try using a shield car." Dalaitus suddenly said, "It's the kind where multiple layers of wooden boards are erected on the front of the Lele vehicle for the soldiers to push forward. Use the wooden boards to block bullets. Use them to cover the soldiers hiding behind. Fire muskets, the river here is narrow, let the soldiers carry the raft and throw it into the water when the time comes, so that you can climb onto the boat."
This method has been used by all ministries.
When they attacked the castles of other peoples in Central Asia, they often used such large shields and shield carts to block bullets fired from above. Sometimes it is a raft made of more than a dozen wooden sticks. Sometimes it was a large shield made of multiple layers of cowhide. It happened when I was using a shield car.
If the shield is too heavy to be moved manually, put it on a cart and push it.
The gunboat continued to move forward. Yang Fan saw the Mongolians arranging their troops on the high ground at the bend of the river.
This is a bit strange. Since the Oirat cavalry was defeated today, I haven't seen anyone who dared to fight hard. More amazing things are yet to come. Yang Fan saw the shield carts lined up on the hillside, and some were still working on them and installing wooden boards on the lele carts.
He hadn't seen this thing in a long time. The last time I saw him was in Haraqin.
Yang Fan smiled, what use could this thing have?
When the Haraqin people used this thing, it was much better than what the Oirats used to modify the Lele cars today. After all, that is a specially customized shield car. They are comparable to those who built slaves. Three inches of hardwood plus a layer of sand and gravel, plus three layers of quilts, then another layer of sand and gravel, plus three inches of hardwood.
But in front of his own copper-haired cannon, it was just like paper. Apart from providing flying wooden thorns to increase the killing range, what was its use?
In the face of heavy artillery, all shield defense methods are useless. It's all rubbish.
It’s even more funny to see the several layers of wooden boards put up in front of these Lele vehicles to block the artillery. It's not a problem to learn to block a matchlock gun. But in the face of the single-head bullet of the Gatling cannon, it's better to just sleep.
At a distance of two hundred meters, the kinetic energy was enough to smash their broken shield car into a pair of wooden scum.
