open sea

Chapter 329 Defection
In the early morning, the fog in the mountains along the coast was still thick, and the smoke of the wolf rose for no reason, making Deng Zilong on the sea boat frown.

He didn't know what happened on land. He only knew that Chen Mu, who was supposed to light the beacon last night, was separated overnight. It seemed that the war should be won, but he was only allowed to travel thirty miles, which was unreasonable.

They were a surprise attack, and they already had a great advantage. It was nothing more than fighting against the San Pablo fleet, so that the Ming army had a little understanding of the combat power of Xiyi at sea, so they were more cautious in deployment.

But at this time, the land battle has ceased, and it is right to enter Manila immediately.

No matter what, at the moment they can only rely on the beacon fire in the mountains to convey information, and Deng Zilong can only lead the fleet to advance thirty miles according to the order.

Manghu Mountain in the early morning was extremely humid. Sleeping outdoors made Chen Mu worried about the next raid. The hot and humid climate was not unbearable for the Banner Army from Guangdong. What was really unbearable was the mosquito bites when sleeping outside .

Fortunately, the bannermen carried tents painted with tung oil. Even so, they still had a hard time last night.

He needed a supply team. Wei Balang brought hundreds of recruits, escorted buckets and lime, and prepared liquid according to the method of repelling insects in Fujian and Guangxi, so that they could expel insects when they were stationed with the army.On the other hand, the seized ordnance and robes corpses must be dug and buried on the spot, and more enemy corpses must be disposed of.

In this kind of weather, a huge number of corpses are piled up beside the road, and it won't be long before this area becomes a hotbed of plague.

Last night was a big victory. The coherent attacks from all directions threw this huge but complex army into chaos. Many enemies were not even killed by the flag army, but were killed by the friendly army who lost their torches.

They were all disrupted, including Chen Mu's banner army, which also lost its position at the end of the battle and transformed into small teams led by general banners or small banners, but the reasons for the dispersion were different.The enemy army is broken, they are out of the purpose of chasing and killing.

The real head-to-head battle only lasted more than half an hour after the artillery was fired, and then scattered into local fights until late at night. There were still small groups of non-stop encounters in the dense forest. The flag army returned in the dark at night, and more than 200 people did not start until the early morning rejoin the team.

They have very little to lose.

"Let the wounded soldiers command the captives to dig a pit and bury the enemy's corpse, and stay away from our grave."

Chen Mu only slept for two hours, and several servants laboriously lifted the simple coffin dug out of logs and pushed it into the grave, and took a shovel from the Banner Army to fill the soil.

Last night, a hundred households of his subordinates were killed by musket bullets. In addition, dozens of people were killed in battle, and more bannermen were injured.Dozens of casualties could have been avoided. The enemy army was in disarray from the very beginning, and there were even a large number of surrenders and even defections later on. It's just that their formation was also chaotic during the pursuit. It is easy to be attacked by people after chasing into the dense forest. .

They captured thousands of people, almost catching up with the number of banner troops under his command who were still fighting.

The battle last night was too chaotic, no matter how Chen Mu thought about it, he could not think that he would run into a defection on the battlefield. Seeing that he was at a disadvantage, hundreds of rogues, led by a few people shouting Chinese, drew their swords and slashed at the friendly army. Yi's captains were all hacked to death by their sudden defection. When the Ming army approached, they dropped their weapons and sat down on the battlefield, very obedient and calm.

The Banner Army was stunned, leaving some people to watch over the rest and then went into battle. When the battle was over, they were busy collecting the captives’ weapons, so they put them together and took care of them. They didn’t remember them until early in the morning. Chen Mu let them Long Junxiong went to ask.

"Those rogues, what's going on?"

The main reason is that these guys who wear military uniforms and hold Japanese knives and hang out with Japanese pirates are yelling in Chinese, which makes people feel too strange.

"It's a Japanese who has lived in Luzon for several years. The leader is called Lian Dou. He was the first guard on a Japanese merchant ship. He was rescued by a merchant in Quanzhou when he was shipwrecked. He was raised as a swordsman. He could speak Chinese for several years. There are some Japanese people who follow him to make a living."

"Manila was captured by Xiyi, and they became soldiers of Xiyi. As for defecting." Long Junxiong shook his head and smiled with emotion,
"The Xiyi soldiers beat him when he was drunk, and they killed him when he saw that the situation was not going well."

As he said that, Long Junxiong raised his hand to offer a small piece of broken gold and a few coins, and said: "The savings he hid on his body, I asked the handsome man if he could let them go, and he didn't want any weapons, money, clothes, etc. , I just want to save my life."

Sitting by the cannon, Chen Mu was seriously fiddling with the gun, turned his head, glanced at the twenty or so Japanese kneeling upright in the distance, and looked at the broken gold in Long Junxiong's hand, raised his eyes and asked, "Do you want to keep him?" ?”

"If you can get half a tael of gold by hanging around for a few years, you are also capable. If you don't want to keep it, put the money in the booty; if you want to keep it, give him the money, and they will go to Manila first. If you are still alive , check Chachadier in Manila, and if there is no problem, you can be trusted."

Long Junxiong was overjoyed, grinning and said: "Thank you handsome!"

After saluting, he ran over to throw gold and silver to Liandou, distributed four knives to more than 20 Japanese people, and assigned them to prison the prisoners and dig pits.

When the sun came out, this side seemed to be a little closer to the sun, and the sun shone through the shade of the trees, making the neck very hot. Following Wei Balang and leading the recruits, Chen Mu's army divided into three groups and advanced one after another after completing the escort and handover of the prisoners.

There were too many captives, mostly aboriginals, and he planned to take most of them to Panshiran City to see how many Suleiman could recruit, and the remaining part who were willing to go to Manila with him, separated them with Lian Dou Distribute a small amount of weapons after mixing.

Each of the three troops led a hundred soldiers, with Shao Tingda as the vanguard, Shi Qi leading the artillery team, and Chen Mu waiting for the follow-up prisoners and the loot to be transported before starting their journey.

During the break, Pinto, a Portuguese who traveled across the ocean from Haojing to find Chen Mu, was writing notes beside him. Chen Mu really believed that Pinto was an adventurer when he was young. Although Pinto did not participate in the battle last night, he He was also very calm by Chen Mu's side, and even mentioned some emergency responses that the Spaniards would make to Chen Mu.

He has made meritorious service.

Chen Mu felt very curious. Although the old Pinto was Portuguese, his country seemed unwilling to be an enemy of Spain, but he worked extraordinarily hard under Chen Mu's command, as if... as if he had enmity with Spain.

"General, I accept your employment, and you also promised to pay me a monthly salary. As an employee, I should contribute to you. Besides, we have signed a treaty with Spain. Under the Pope's arbitration, the city 370 miles east of Azores Everything belongs to Portugal, Luzon should have been our trade route, and Philip reneged on the treaty."

"Although the general's joining will not make Luzon ours, I hope Luzon is in the hands of our friends more than the Spaniards. If the general gets Manila, the Portuguese can come and do business, right?"

Chen Mu smiled, waved his hand and said, "Don't write, go on the road. Today's march of [-] miles is to let the soldiers rest. Instead of thinking about these things, it's better to worry about how to make yourself travel hundreds of miles a day."

(End of this chapter)