The officers and men on the building's ship all had pale faces, looking at Wu Zhongxun above, waving his sword like crazy and shouting. "On the battlefield, those who beg the dead live, those who seek the living die! How can these idiots run away because they are willing to be useless?"
Admiral Yang Chengxiao watched helplessly as his warships turned around and fled. He also saw that all the warships coming out of the smoke were government warships. The water wheel was spinning smoothly and the oars were paddling briskly. He knew he could run away even if he wanted to.
He couldn't escape. He couldn't escape himself, and he couldn't escape from the hands of the guards on the ship.
A feeling of despair suddenly enveloped my heart, and the previous anger quickly turned into frustration.
Different from Wu Zhongxun's crazy performance, Yang Chengxiao felt as if his throat was blocked at this time, and he couldn't speak even a single word. In this mood, the coldness spread from head to toes, and every pore in his body was filled with frustration and helplessness.
Help...a kind of extreme disappointment of being abandoned. What could be more uncomfortable than this situation? The soldiers who had called themselves brothers and sisters last night and were full of respect for themselves suddenly abandoned themselves to find their own way out and dispersed.
Reaching the last step, Yang Chengxiao felt that his entire life was a failure. He could only stand there like a dumb chicken, speechless and helpless.
Yang Chengxiao ended his career as a soldier with a very funny posture. He raised his hand and faced a group of large and small ships fleeing back and forth, as if his hand wanted to grab them and beg them not to leave. His whole body was numb, maybe
He didn't even realize he was losing his temper.
…
As night falls, it seems as if nothing has happened in Dehua County, located east of Jiujiang. The curfew in the city is only occasionally interrupted by dogs barking. Maybe tomorrow morning we will see some defeated soldiers who escaped from the water and came ashore, but at least tonight
Nothing happened.
Zhang Ning was sitting in the public seat in the lobby of the county government office, the same chair where the county magistrate sat in court to hear cases. There were not many people in the spacious lobby, and everyone present was silent.
People are the most difficult to control, especially many people. Zhang Ning did not have much hope for the Jiujiang Army and Navy from the beginning, but he did not expect that they could be defeated so cleanly. They simply collapsed at the first touch. The Jiujiang Army and Navy was also
The ships were a little behind. As Xu Zixin said in advance, the army's wheeled boats were very advantageous in fighting in inland waters, but other weapons were more advanced than the army. The navy was also equipped with a large number of guns, guns and blunderbuss.
When these old firearms were brought to China, the Jiujiang Army received batches of matchlock guns, and the artillery on board the ship was also a French cavalry gun with a rate of fire far exceeding that of a bowl-mouth blunderbuss. The famous sayings of later generations are indeed not just words. After all, wars are still fought against people.
At this moment, a guard from the Guards walked in quickly, bent down and said: "Your Majesty, a messenger came from Hukou County. I checked the seal and found it to be true. Zhang Ning said casually: "Bring him in and ask.
talk."
After a while, I saw a junior student who was soaked all over and came in, dripping water all the way. On the night of late August, he was so wet that his lips were blue. When the junior student saw Zhang Ning, he walked a few steps quickly.
, he fell to the ground with a "plop", his back twitched, and he actually started crying.
Zhang Ning bowed and asked in shock: "What's the matter? You tell me first."
The young man said: "Young man... living alone, how can you go back and tell the villagers, brothers..." Then he tremblingly took out a booklet from the cloth bag, held it on his head with both hands, and said nothing. The strange thing was that he
My whole body was covered with water, but this booklet was so dry that there wasn't even a drop of water on it.
After the guard came forward to take the book, the young man choked up and said: "This is the military register entrusted to me by Commander Wu. It contains 758 lives. I must hand it over to the prince with my own hands. Mr. Wu said that everyone's corpses I don’t want to be buried. I hope that the old clothes in my Wuchang home can be covered with the Suzaku flag and buried in splendor..."
Zhang Ning knew that there was no fighting on the other side during the day, so he quickly asked: "What is he going to do?"
The young man's speech was a little unclear and he answered the question incorrectly, "Master Wu said that the King of Han's surrender of troops is unreliable!"
There happened to be a general of the Jiujiang Army among the people present. His face had been disgraced after today's water battle. Now that someone said such words to his face, he was even more embarrassed. But the defeat was just around the corner, and he had no words to refute. .
The young man went on to say: "It was just dark, and more than half of the 5,000 Jiujiang troops stationed inside and outside Hukou County had already fled, and the rest could not rely on help. These people were quite well-behaved before, but after today's water battle, they Rumors spread that Hukou County was a place of death for the isolated city, and then they tried to find a way to escape."
"The Northern Army Navy entered Poyang Lake, and Hukou County is indeed an isolated city." Zhang Ning said bluntly with a cold face, "How could Commander Wu order the disbandment of the soldiers to save their lives? I remember that the official document of the Chinese Army before the war clearly stated that once Poyang If the lake is lost, the defenders of Hukou County can blow up their firearms and disband without making unnecessary sacrifices."
The messenger said: "Both the county town and the camp are blocked by enemy soldiers and there is nowhere to go. Most of the family members of the Jiujiang Army are not in Jiangxi or Huguang. They are barefoot and are not afraid of wearing shoes. They want to surrender to the official army. But Mr. Wu is unwilling to surrender ( Surrendering will not end well), and the brothers are not willing to surrender. They say that instead of washing their necks and being killed like animals, it is better to pull a few backs... Early tomorrow morning, Lord Wu will lead all the sentry soldiers to open the city gate and fight with them. The officers and soldiers fought to the death. Seven hundred and fifty were against tens of thousands of enemies. The old man knew that there was no way to survive, so he tried to find a way to ask the villain to send back the roster... Your lord, all the soldiers on the sentry were considered dead in the battle?"
Zhang Ning stood up from his chair and said solemnly: "Of course I died in battle and for my country!"
After hearing this, the messenger kowtowed three times on the brick floor, suddenly took out a short blade, pressed it against his chest, and let out a muffled cry. Everyone present was shocked. Some of them The two people stood up from their chairs. Yu Qian, on the other hand, sat still and looked as usual, as if he had known that this person would die.
Zhang Ning looked at the blood gradually flowing out from under the young man's body, a large pool of blood, and knew that there was no hope. He stood there, stunned for a while, and then waved his hand: "Carry it down, and we will get a coffin and send it to you tomorrow morning." Go back to Jiujiang City."
The two guards at the door stepped forward, lifted their heads and feet, and went out. The body was still soft and spongy, and the ground was covered in blood.
When this came out, Zhang Ning became even more confused. He even felt that the hundreds of Suzaku officers and soldiers in Hukou County died entirely because of the wrong decision-making above. The people staying in this room heard that hundreds of people Their fate is just a number, and it is nothing compared to the tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield; but with more than seven hundred living people, even counting them one by one, it will take a long time to count to seven hundred and five.
It was expected from the beginning that the Poyang Lake water battle would be difficult to win, so why was it necessary to place a sentry force on the other side?