1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3892

Although there were signs that troops and equipment had been assembled in the four directions of Nanchang, indicating preparations for an attack, the military officers of the defending army, led by Ding Baoguo, still did not believe that the Haihan Army could launch a simultaneous land and sea attack from all four directions with limited forces.

If the Haihan army really does this, it seems to be a good thing for the defending forces. This means that the Haihan army will have to disperse its forces, and the offensive strength in each direction will naturally be diluted and weakened due to the division of forces. Perhaps the defending forces will even have a chance to pick on the weakest point and inflict heavy losses on the Haihan army that launched the attack under the city walls.

Therefore, Ding Baoguo was not flustered. He simply emphasized again that the lookouts on each city tower should keep a close eye on the movements of the Haihan army outside the city and report any unusual enemy movements immediately.

However, the measures that Haihan Army was about to take were completely unexpected by the defending troops.

On the north bank of the Gan River outside Nanchang, hundreds of Haihan soldiers are working together to assemble an ultra-large piece of equipment, and Shi Chengwu is personally present to supervise the entire process.

The main body of this equipment is made of several pieces of silk cloth tightly sewn together, resembling a giant bag, which is several feet in diameter when laid flat on the ground.

At this point, the bag opening was propped open with several bamboo poles, and two manual blowers were continuously pumping air into the bag, causing it to gradually inflate.

The other end of the silk bag was connected by several ropes to a huge rattan hanging basket. In the middle of the basket was a special device that, when lit, spewed out flames more than a foot high and began to pump hot air into the bag.

The buoyancy generated by the large amount of hot air caused the silk balloon to gradually detach from the ground, and the basket floated into the air. At this point, it was secured to the ground by several ropes and a large number of ballast sandbags.

The principle behind hot air balloons is very simple; the ancient Chinese Kongming lantern is a simplified version of it. However, in their original timeline, manned hot air balloons wouldn't have appeared in Europe for over a hundred years. The time travelers brought this technology to the 17th century, where the manufacturing process was more advanced and mature, and it began to be put into practical use.

The area where it will have the most direct impact is naturally military use. Once this thing is manufactured, it will completely replace the drones that were brought with it during the time travel and have long since reached the end of their service life, becoming a new aerial observation tool.

However, because the manufacturing and maintenance costs of hot air balloons are still relatively high, and they require specially trained personnel to operate, there are very few occasions for them to be used. Only a few military units are equipped with this "new weapon," and the East China Sea Region is one of them.

The siege of Nanchang by the Haihan army was a rare opportunity to put hot air balloons into actual combat.

The two hot air balloons transported to the front lines in Jiangxi were arranged by Shi Diwen from the rear, so the command was naturally in Shi Chengwu's hands. This is one of the reasons why he dared to take on the mission of attacking the city from the west and north.

Seeing that the hot air balloon had entered the takeoff state, Shi Chengwu, who had been observing from the side, quickly walked up to the operators, raised his hand to salute them, and said in a deep voice: "This mission is your first appearance in Jiangxi. I hope you can remain calm and composed and achieve the established goals!"

The operators returned the salute and replied in unison, "We guarantee to complete the mission!"

After a brief farewell, several operators donned goggles and filed into the gondola. They then directed ground soldiers to untie the mooring ropes and some of the sandbags hanging outside the gondola. As the burners beneath the hot air balloon continuously injected hot air, the gondola slowly lifted off the ground, rising higher and higher until it quickly reached a height of 100 zhang (approximately 50 meters).

Most of the people present, including Shi Chengwu, were seeing this thing take off for the first time. They were amazed and couldn't help but admire the courage of the operators in the basket.

However, the movement of hot air balloons in the air is greatly affected by airflow. The flight speed itself is not fast. In order to hover in the air or adjust the direction of travel, it is necessary to find a suitable high-altitude airflow during the continuous ascent and descent. This relies heavily on the operator's experience, and of course, a little bit of luck is also required.

After taking off, the hot air balloon lingered over the north shore for a long time before slowly flying towards the south shore.

The Ganjiang River was about two miles wide at this point. Although the hot air balloon didn't look very big once it rose to a high altitude, it still quickly came into the sight of the Ming army.

The first Ming soldier to spot the hot air balloon thought he was seeing things and quickly retrieved the monocular telescopes that were standard issue at each lookout post. These civilian telescopes, manufactured by Haihan, were generally used for navigation. Although their performance was far inferior to the military models used by the Haihan army, they were still extremely useful tools for the Ming army, far superior to the naked eye.

However, even in Haihan, this thing was quite expensive, and its price increased several times over after being smuggled into the Ming Dynasty. There were only seven or eight telescopes available in the entire city of Nanchang, almost all of which were deployed to front-line lookout posts, and now they were coming in handy.

Through the telescope's view, it was easy to confirm that the mysterious flying object in the sky was carrying several people, and the basket it was in was painted in red and blue, representing the sea.

This flying object was beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. It took the soldier who witnessed this scene some time to calm down before he ordered the messenger waiting below the city wall to quickly ride to the military headquarters to report the news.

However, Ding Baoguo, who received the warning, could not understand what it meant that "the Haihan people are flying across the Gan River from the sky and are about to reach the top of Nanchang City."

Although the Haihan Army was formidable in battle, they were ultimately mortals, not some immortal being, and could not possibly possess any supernatural powers. How could something like "flying across the Gan River" have happened?

Ding Baoguo's first reaction was that there was a problem with the lookout post at Deshengmen in the north of the city; otherwise, there was no way to explain why such crazy talk would occur.

Before he could make any adjustments, a second warning arrived, stating that the flying object was hovering about 100 feet above Deshengmen and had caused panic among the local garrison. The warning requested that the military command immediately devise a countermeasure.

According to this, then from a high vantage point within the Military Commandery, one should be able to observe the situation above Deshengmen using binoculars. Whether or not there is an unidentified flying object as claimed by the lookout post would be immediately apparent.

Ding Baoguo immediately ordered someone to fetch a long ladder and a telescope, and then personally climbed onto the roof to look north towards Deshengmen.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for him to spot the hot air balloon floating in the air through his binoculars. It was wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, and he could vaguely see the figures moving inside the basket below. He realized that the lookout hadn't gone mad; this thing really had flown in from the sky.