1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 19 Failed Ambush

Luo Shengdong was breathing heavily, feeling as if his lungs were about to burn, but he didn't dare to stop and rest, because the strange group of pirates in colorful short jackets were chasing not far behind. Like a death god.

After living for 33 years, Luo Shengdong felt that today was probably the most unlucky day in his life, and it might even be the last day.It is obviously a good opportunity to be rewarded for meritorious service, why did things turn out like this?This is different from the agreed upon script, hey!Luo Shengdong angrily recalled what happened all day, while desperately moving his heavy legs to continue running for his life.

As the only officer in Yazhou Shuizhai who was promoted from a military family background, Luo Shengdong has always been very active in pursuing military merit.Of course, he had to thank him for having a good father. If it wasn't for his accumulated military exploits in catching pirates during the Wanli period, he would probably still be digging mud in the military camp for a living.You must know that these Hundred Heads are not the Hundred Household Officials of the guard system. Although they are only eighth-rank, they are real frontier military positions. The people under their command are also regular frontier soldiers. The peasant soldiers with their backs to the sky are comparable.Now that the old man is very old, he finally passed the position of General Manager to Luo Shengdong. He has no plans to stop there and pass this position to his next generation when he gets old.Luo Shengdong felt that he would work hard while he was strong, and there was always hope for a future promotion.

This time, Luo Shengdong led a team from Yacheng Water Village along the coastline to Yulin. One is to inspect the training situation of various outposts in the sea, and the other is that the soldiers in some outposts have been stationed for three months and need to change the guard. , and the third is to supply material reserves to various garrison outposts by the way.As for the small group of pirates from the South China Sea who landed in the Yulin area while taking advantage of the monsoon, Luo Shengdong was not worried, and even had a little expectation of encountering pirates - what could be faster than killing the enemy and making contributions way?

Most of the South China Sea pirates who appeared in the waters of Yazhou in the past were natives from Luzon, Java, Johor, and Temasek. These pirate ships were small and poorly equipped, and those stupid native pirates had no tactics at all. At sea, they may not be able to fight hordes of armed merchant ships. Generally, they can only attack some coastal fishing villages with the monsoon. If they are lucky, they can grab some food and grab a few women.From Luo Shengdong's point of view, the combat effectiveness of these pirates in the South China Sea is even worse than that of the guard soldiers. At least the guard soldiers can be equipped with standard weapons according to the head, while these pirates can't even have a knife and gun in their hands. Some people come out to rob with wooden spears, and their strength is not comparable to that of the pirate forces along the coast of Guangdong and Fujian.Although Luo Shengdong's team had only one Haicang boat on patrol, and the entire crew was no more than 50 people, but he was full of confidence in the possible battle.

If you really want to come here, the boat arrives at Fenghuang Town, which is still [-] to [-] miles away from Yulin, and just happens to encounter a small flag that has been withdrawn from the Yulin post.Different from Luo Shengdong's single-minded pursuit of war, the ten people from this small flag did not plan to return to Yacheng to report the news. They just wanted to avoid the Phoenix Town area for a few days, and wait for the large group of pirates in the harbor to evacuate in a few days. After leaving, I went back to the post, but I didn't expect to be caught by Luo Shengdong, who was patrolling here.

The idea of ​​a few small soldiers is very simple. They are outnumbered. Then they must have run away. Could it be that they would not be able to fight with hundreds of pirates for the fishermen?Abandoning the position and escaping, this was a proper way to lose his head, but after listening to their report, Luo Shengdong decided to give these deserters a chance to atone for their crimes.

This is also impossible. According to what they said, the number of pirates who attacked this time turned out to be hundreds of people, and "there is a huge ship with a height of several meters and more than ten ships of various strange shapes." In Luo Shengdong's opinion, this kind of argument has a lot of moisture. Where did those native pirates in the South China Sea come from the large ships several zhang high?The two water villages in the south and north of Weiyi in Hainan could not find a big boat of this size. If the pirates really had such a boat, they would come to snatch this broken fishing village in Yulin?Not long ago, they pulled up a team to attack Yazhou City.No need to think about these remarks, Luo Shengdong knew that it must be an excuse made up by these little soldiers to survive.

But there is one thing Luo Shengdong is sure of, the opponent at least has an obvious advantage in numbers, otherwise these soldiers would not have been scared and fled directly before they fought.Although Luo Shengdong is convinced that his side is stronger in combat, he always takes a certain degree of risk if he wants to fight more with less, and it would be a waste of time to go back to Yacheng to call for reinforcements, and it might delay the fighters. Luo Shengdong weighs the importance of it. In the end, it was decided that it was more appropriate to bring all the living forces.Even if these men and horses can't beat the pirate's large army, it will definitely be no problem to ambush and kill some pirate teams that go out to loot supplies. If you chop off ten or eight heads and go back, you will be the number one in Yazhou Water Village in the seventh year of the Apocalypse. Great work.

Although Luo Shengdong is eager to make contributions, his actions are still relatively cautious.Considering that the pirates may have a large number of small boats, they are alone, and there is a danger of being besieged directly from the sea. Luo Shengdong did not rashly let the boat bypass the Luhuitou Peninsula and sail directly into the bay. After arriving at the east bank of the Linchun River in the urban area of ​​Sanya in later generations, from here landing and ashore, marching through the jungle to the Yazhou post, the distance is only five or six miles away.And near the outpost is a fishing village. Pirates will definitely go to this village if they want to go ashore to loot materials, and then they can wait for the opportunity to ambush.

Considering that the group of people who fled back to Phoenix Town had a smear of the current situation in the harbor, Luo Shengdong had to send a few people to search for the escaped fishermen in the nearby mountains - it is not the first time for pirates to land on land and loot. Once it happened, the fishermen must hide in the mountains for ten days and a half months before they dare to go back.In addition, if you can find fishermen who avoid disasters, you can also verify from the side that what the deserters said is true.

What made Luo Shengdong a little uneasy was that the fishermen found in the mountains not only agreed with what the deserters had said, but reported that the boat that this group of pirates was on was incomparably huge, with several meters on the side of the boat. The sails and masts can actually break the waves from the sea.In addition, this group of pirates did not kill or imprison the fishermen they caught, but kindly released the captives and gave them some food and refined salt, so there were several young offspring early this morning. Bravely ran into the bay to make deals with those pirates.There are various signs that these people are different from the South China Sea pirates who came here before, and their behavior is obviously beyond Luo Shengdong's understanding.

"To lure good people into the sea as pirates!" Unable to explain these doubts, Luo Shengdong, who could only choose a sense of justice as a cover, finally came to a conclusion, and decided that these new pirates "must be vicious. "Cunning people", if you can't chop off a few heads and go back this trip, then it's simply sorry for the emperor, sorry for the Ministry of War, sorry for the position of the Hundred Commander handed down by the father.Of course, the father and son of the Yu family and others have been ruthlessly classified by Luo Shengdong into the category of "colluding with pirates". Afterwards, these people must be decapitated as an example.

Luo Shengdong left the boat and a few sailors on the east bank of the Linchun River, and the others all brought their fellows and set off, first lurking near the fishing village.The only thing that Luo Shengdong regretted was that he didn't bring some more bows and arrows and archers when he set off. There were only two full-time archers.There are quite a few firearms, including 4 Folang machines, 3 bowl guns, 6 Lumi guns, as well as spray cans, fire bricks, smoke cans, rockets, etc., but most of these equipment are caused by the size and weight. Inconvenient to carry, only six Lumi guns can really be brought ashore for use.

Although this Lumi gun is a good thing, but these Lumi guns on the ship are old things in the Wanli period. It has been almost 30 years since the Ministry of War issued equipment to the frontier army. It's so rusty that even if it can still be fired, it might explode with a few extra gunpowder.Such a weapon is not so much used to kill the enemy, it is more suitable to be used to decorate the front and fill the courage.In fact, there is no way to do this. The defenders of Yacheng and the more than 1000 frontier troops in Shuizhai are basically supported by military households who live near Yacheng. Life is extremely difficult.As for the salary issued by the imperial court, it is not enough to maintain daily drills and patrols, let alone update ordnance.

Of course, Luo Shengdong, as a grass-roots military officer, is actually very clear about why military spending is seriously insufficient.It is common in the army to eat empty wages and drink soldiers' blood. When the officers divided the money, Luo Shengdong also took his share.Luo Shengdong hesitated for a long time, and still asked people to bring all the Lumi guns - even if they can't be used in actual combat, it's better to use them to scare people when escorting the prisoners.

After hiding in the woods and feeding the mosquitoes for several hours, everyone up and down including Luo Shengdong gradually lost patience. Just when Luo Shengdong was considering whether to go home or go directly to the harbor, Zhang Scar, his subordinate who was sent to the beach to investigate the situation, brought back the good news that a pirate sailboat was heading towards the fishing village.

"Good job!" Luo Shengdong shouted loudly: "The brothers will listen to my orders and rush out together to chop off the heads of this gang of thieves. After returning to the city, I will ask the Sergeant General for the brothers' credit!" Everyone All of them responded with a bang, and the morale was high for a while, and it seemed that the group of pirates that were about to appear had already been decided.

But after a stick of incense, the situation changed unexpectedly.First, the two archers attacked the pirate who climbed up the tree according to Luo Shengdong's order. Seeing that one arrow was missed and the other hit the target, Luo Shengdong's confidence greatly increased, and he drew his waist knife and gave a loud command: " Brothers, rush out! Kill the enemy and make meritorious deeds at this time!"

Obediently, the soldiers poured out of the ambush woods, screaming and charging at the enemy, but soon heard a shrill whistle on the opposite side, and then what seemed to be some kind of crackling explosion when the gun fired. sounded, and then saw that the people who rushed in front of him were knocked to the ground in an instant.Luo Shengdong even saw with his own eyes that Zhang Scar, who had always been the fastest runner, was hit in the head while running. He didn't even have time to let out a scream. A big hole was directly blown out in the back of his head, and the blood mixed with his brain flew out. And the body fell straight into the mud of the rice field, seeing that it was impossible to live.The most terrible thing is that the fire guns used by these pirates do not seem to need to be reloaded at all, and they can shoot one after another. How can this be done?

"These pirates have such sharp guns!" Before Luo Shengdong could feel regret, his attack was repelled by the opponent's powerful firepower in an instant, and the soldiers fleeing for their lives blew like a whirlwind Passing Luo Shengdong's side, when he regained his senses, there was no other way than to escape with the defeated soldiers.

This group of people escaped from Lixu, and then slowly stopped due to lack of physical strength. Luo Shengdong had the opportunity to gather the team, counted the number of people, and found that there were 11 people missing, and I don't know if they all died. In the wave of offensive just now, some people lost their way while escaping.Moreover, the deserters lost most of their ordnance along the way, including the only two bows and six Lumi guns used to decorate the facade.

The furious Luo Shengdong had not had time to make a post-war summary, but the short-haired pirates had already chased into the woods, chasing the buttocks with those strange guns and shooting again, and the frightened frontier soldiers quickly pulled out their legs. keep running.

After repeating this two or three times, except for a few more unlucky ghosts who were knocked down by the chasing fire gun bullets, the other soldiers were also on the verge of physical collapse.It was only at this time that Luo Shengdong really began to resent the influence of the greed of the army's salaries on the soldiers' drills - if they could usually do five days of exercise... No, even if it was ten days, it wouldn't be like running like now. In just two or three miles, even the strength to escape was almost gone!

The chasing pirates were shouting in a strange northern accent, with the occasional Hainanese dialect in between.Luo Shengdong's ancestors belonged to Zhili Prefecture, and it was not until his grandfather's generation that he was driven to the end of the world to be a major soldier, so he could roughly understand what the pirates shouted: "Abandon the weapon and kneel and not kill", as for the dialect The content is also similar.Now that there is a chance to survive, some of the exhausted soldiers seriously stopped running, and stopped on their knees and surrendered as the pirates said.

As a result, the fleeing team became fewer and fewer, but Luo Shengdong didn't dare to stop. He was an officer, not a soldier. If he was captured, even if he survived, his career in this life would definitely be over.

"As long as you can escape and get on the boat!" Luo Shengdong didn't dare to think about meritorious service anymore, and being able to get out of his body was his greatest wish at the moment.As long as he can escape back to Yazhou, he will naturally have a chance to make a comeback.It should be less than two miles away from the place where the anchor is dropped, and if you persist, you will be able to escape!

At this moment, Luo Shengdong didn't know if he kicked the root of a tree or something else, lost his balance, flew into the air, and then fell heavily to the ground.This fall was really hard, Luo Shengdong almost let out his breath, but at this time everyone was so busy running for their lives that no one would stop to help him.

Before Luo Shengdong could prop up his body with his hands, he felt that a foot was stomping on his back, and his body was firmly on the ground, unable to move. Then someone twisted his arms behind him, And some kind of tough branch quickly tied the two wrists together.Luo Shengdong was angry and anxious. Under his anger, his eyes darkened and he passed out.

(End of this chapter)