"That drawing?" Zhu Lie shook his head in disbelief and said, "Is there any problem?" When he was about to build a paddle ship, the cautious Shangzhu Kingdom would certainly not get on the horse immediately. He first ordered people to refer to the drawing to produce ten sample ships. After repeated tests under various conditions, the trial sail alone lasted more than 50,000 miles. After confirming that its performance was consistent with the Qin army's warships and there were no defects, he began to imitate on a large scale.

If there are still problems with the warships built in this way, it would be a hell of a ghost.

"Of course the drawings are fine." Qin Lei smiled and said, "Who doesn't know that the Southern Chu established a country with a naval army, and its shipbuilding level is far superior to our Great Qin. Marshal Boshang is doing his tricks on this, wouldn't he show off his own awesomeness and humiliation?"

"What do you mean?" Zhu Lie said with a look of grim expression: "Where is Boshang's conspiracy to part with him?"

"It's not a conspiracy, but an open conspiracy." Qin Lei smiled and spread his hands and said, "Master Boshang has no reservations. First show you the advantages of the paddle ship, then show you all the skills, and then the wise general of the Shangzhu Kingdom took the bait without realizing it, and he is still in the dark until today."

"I don't understand what you mean?" Zhu Lie widened his eyes and said, "Don't keep it in hiding!"

"What an impatient guy." Qin Lei was not annoyed, and smiled faintly: "Do you know how big the gap between Qin and Chu in shipbuilding technology before the appearance of the paddle ship?"

"Thirty or fifty years." Zhu Lie said coldly. He was still very confident about this.

"Yes," Qin Lei nodded and said, "Which is mainly reflected in the gap?"

"The Boat Boat..." As soon as he finished speaking, Zhu Lie was stunned. Since his defeat on Dongting Lake, he has reflected on the cause of defeat for countless times, but he has never found the crux of the problem, just like Qin Lei sarcastically. It was not until this moment that he was completely awakened.

The advantage of Chu State lies in its tower ships and giant ships, which Qin State could not keep up with. Even though there were more advanced paddle ships later, the gap in shipbuilding technology made the Qin army still dare not confront the Chu army head-on.

Imagine what would happen if the Chu people did not get the method of making paddle ships? They could not keep up with the speed of Qin warships, so they could only recognize the reality and change the original tactics of taking the initiative, or use iron ropes to cross the river or segmented encirclement tactics to gradually compress the range of the Qin army's activities until they squeezed into a very small space, and their speed advantage would be gone, and annihilated it with an unparalleled cluster of giant ships.

This is a very conventional but basically unsolvable tactic. Without the appearance of that drawing, the Chu people would most likely take this path, and the Qin people would still be unable to defeat the Chu navy and cross the Yangtze River.

However, the top-secret drawing of the paddle-steel ship appeared. The proud Chu people initially disdained to pay attention to this Qin warship. However, after suffering several consecutive losses, they were shocked to find that this ghost thing was not restricted by the water flow, and the speed when they went up against the current was far greater than that of the warship powered by paddles.

This made the Chu people, who believed that they were the best in the world in shipbuilding craftsmanship, and their sensitive self-esteem was deeply hit. They finally began to study, experiment, and imitate the process, and incorporated them into the fleet as quickly as possible to form combat power, and quickly brought back the imbalanced situation.

At the fork in which either improve tactics or imitate new warships, the Chu people made their choice... This is almost inevitable. The long-term advantage in the navy has made the Chu army arrogant and unable to tolerate any light humiliation. How could such an arrogant army accept conservative tactics and endure the depression of not being able to catch up with the other party?

I am stronger than you, so I must be stronger than anything, and I cannot be weaker than you at all! This is a common idea for those who are blind and arrogant.

So they would definitely imitate paddle ships and prove that they were no slower than their opponents, so they completely fell into the trap of Qin.

Let’s take a look at the period from the beginning of the third year of Tianyou to the end of the seventh year of Tianyou, the navy of the two countries fought more than 170 battles in five years. The Chu army lost more than 800 warships and the Qin army lost more than 700. Among these more than 1,500 warships, 90% were paddle ships.

Many historians in later generations would sigh when they read this historical material: 'The era of paddle boats has arrived!'

But there are also those who are more wise, who pointed out incisively, "This is the Qin army's plan!" He studied the tactics adopted by the Zhennan Navy at that time, to distance themselves, fight and run, and never get close to the Chu army, let alone fight with them.

However, in the subsequent decisive water battle in Dongting Lake, the Qin army was abnormal and took the initiative to approach the Chu army and launched the most brutal hand-to-hand combat. Looking at the subsequent fifty years, when fighting against South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and the West, its glorious naval battle history was still mainly based on artillery battles and platoon battles. There was no such thing as "stretching distances and running while fighting".

In this regard, many historians believe that the Qin naval army was stronger and that only others could escape. But Fan Wenzheng believed that judging from the water war level in this era, if you want to severely damage or even destroy enemy ships, you must get closer. The closer you get, the greater the lethality. The tactics adopted by Qin in the initial stage can only be said to be harassment and do not have much lethality.

Then why did Qin adopt this tactic? Fan Wenzheng believes that in addition to exerting the speed of warships, there is also a more important intention hidden - to exclude other warships other than Chu's paddle ships, especially the terrifying tower ships, from the battlefield, and then achieve two goals.

First, the Chu army gave the illusion that the era of paddle ships has arrived, and the rest of the warships will be outdated and eliminated, which made them pay more attention to paddle ships and ignore other warships. In fact, the Chu State only regarded paddle ships as a special warship at the beginning, and did not intend to stop building other warships because of this. However, the reality is that other warships cannot be inserted at all, which forced them to increase the proportion of paddle ships in the navy.

Secondly, since it is a battle between paddles and ships, the one that is lost is naturally paddles. In frequent battles, the Chu State's paddles were greatly damaged, forcing their three major shipyards with average production capacity to produce paddles and ships to supply frontline use; the remaining one-third of the power was concentrated on developing larger and stronger paddles, so that since the fifth year of Tianyou, no more paddle warships were launched in the Chu State, and all of them were changed to paddles and ships using paddles and ships.

As the Chu army completely eliminated the rowing warships, a serious problem arose. They had to rebuild the entire naval army, including those once proud of the tower ships, had to retire from active service, and all the officers and soldiers on the ships were transferred to the paddle ships to serve.

In this regard, Fan Wenzheng had a bitter irony called "self-destruction of martial arts". In his opinion, Chu gave up its original advantage and followed the Qin people's butt, and eventually lowered itself to the same level as the Qin army, and took the initiative to destroy the 50-year advantage.

Even because Qin started early, it was once ahead of Chu. However, the experienced Chu people were not worried. They caught up at an extremely fast speed, completely digested the "padwheel drive" technology, and developed the "Giant Spirit Ship" that combines the advantages of building ships and paddle ships. At most, they can restore their advantages to fifty years in three years.

But just when the old power was gone and the new power was not born, Qin brazenly launched a war to destroy Qi. Chu had no choice but to form an alliance with Qi and declare war on Qin. However, the lieutenant was deeply depressed about the war at this critical moment... His giant spirit ship had just been launched and had not yet formed a system! So in the early stage of the war, the passive delay shown by the Chu army was easy to understand - they were not ready yet...

However, the situation worsened unexpectedly. Just as the Chu people worked hard to slaughter the Hulao Pass and took the initiative. Faced with the precarious situation, Zhu Lie had to stop delaying. While rushing to attack Qin from water, he also sent 200,000 troops to support Qi from land.

The results of the subsequent results are well known and needless to describe them.

After thinking for a while, Zhu Lie finally understood where he was defeated. He smiled bitterly and said with a bitter smile: "Just because the Qin army was fast, he easily gave up the advantages accumulated over the years and turned to imitate him. Handan learned to walk, blindly pursued his opponent in speed, but he forgot to compete in the real decisive moment. From the beginning, he was led by others. It is not unfair to lose..."

Qin Lei nodded and said softly: "You have to admit that my old brother is better than you."

"When the living people are letting the dead make plans, isn't it clear at a glance who is stronger and who is weak?" Zhu Lie said calmly.

"The Shangzhu Kingdom does have the style of a general." Hearing that Zhu Lie finally gave Marshal Bo Shang the due evaluation, Qin Lei seemed to fulfill his wish and said with a relaxing sigh: "Actually, after fighting in the past six months, I admire you very much. You are indeed worthy of the title of a famous general."

"It has become your footnote." Zhu Lie laughed and said, "The new wave of the Yangtze River pushes the old wave, and each generation is stronger than the next. With you, Qin Yutian, my China will restore the heroic spirit of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and it will no longer be a dream."

"This road is not easy to walk." Qin Lei shook his head and said: "Unification is easy to govern the country, and it is even more difficult to change people's deep-rooted concepts."

"There is no one that can hardly hold you Qin Yutian." Zhu Lie shook his head slowly and said in a deep voice: "Now Qi State should be finished, but if you want to complete the great cause of unification, there is a more difficult problem waiting for you."

"What's the problem?" Qin Lei said calmly: "If you want to sow discord with Zhao Wujiu, forget it."

"What I want to say is exactly what Zhao Wujiu told me at the beginning." Zhu Lie said lightly: "Believe it or not, but I still decided to tell you."

Qin Lei nodded and said nothing.

"Do you know where your father is now? Do you know who Yin Wuyi is?" Zhu Lie asked in a dark voice.

"I don't know the first question." Qin Lei shook his head and said, "As for the second question, I know half of it."

"Then I will answer for you." Zhu Lie said in a deep voice.

"Let's wait." Qin Lei waved his hand and said, "Tell me your conditions."

"No conditions." Zhu Lie looked at him with some displeasure, as if saying: "Do you underestimate me too much?"

Qin Lei stopped saying a word and listened to him continue, "Your father is in Yin Wuyi's hands. Yin Wuyi is your grandmother's nephew. He once made contributions to her defeating the Li family, but he has another identity, do you know?"

"Zhao Wujiu's spy," Qin Lei said in a deep voice: "This can be inferred, but now the war is in chaos, and I can't find him."

"According to Zhao Wujiu, he did not leave Zhongdu," Zhu Lie broke the news: "But he hid in your sixth brother's mansion and colluded with him..."

"What?" Qin Leihuo stood up, his face changed rapidly. He didn't know how many thoughts he had turned around in his mind. He clenched his fists tightly and loosened. Finally, he calmed down and asked, "What else do you know?"

"They seem to have a throne-passing edict written by your father, which says that the throne will be passed on to your sixth brother." Zhu Lie said in a deep voice.

"When will it be activated?" Qin Lei asked softly.

"I don't know this." Zhu Lie shook his head and said, "But I guess they will definitely create a fait accompli before you return to the court. As long as you do it perfectly, even if you go back, you will not find a reason to deal with them!"

"Go to dream!" Qin Lei's face turned pale and couldn't help but sarcastic: "Just just want to become the Lord of Nine Five with a piece of broken paper. Isn't it too stupid and naive?"

"But they can restore Emperor Zhaowu first." Zhu Lie said coldly: "The throne was originally your father's. Now he sits back. What can you do as a son? If you use the emperor to command the princes in the future, don't you want to do whatever you want?"

Qin Lei closed his eyes and thought for a long time before nodding slowly and said, "Why do you want to tell me this?"

"Because I want you to be the final winner, so that we guys who lose to you will not be too embarrassed." Zhu Lie laughed and said, "As long as you can treat the people of Nanchu well and carry forward my Chinese naval army, don't think so much."

Qin Lei nodded again, turned around and walked out of the tent, and when he arrived at the door, he turned around and said, "Do you need a pardon?"
Chapter completed!