The battle temporarily stopped for a moment after Shi Zhiqi was hit by an arrow, but the attack soon resumed. According to the order of command, the commander of the 2nd Marine Company took over the command of the entire detachment. He observed the surrounding area. The watchtowers were not on all sides and were surrounded by
It is completely impossible to approach the large open space covertly. It seems that the defenders have plenty of missile weapons. Moreover, when the watchtower was originally built, in order to prevent others from using digging tactics, the base of the watchtower was about one person high and thick.
It is made of stones and strips and is very strong, and a 12-pound mountain howitzer may not be able to make a hole in it. The only weakness is the door of the watchtower - it is very heavy, covered with iron and inlaid with thick door nails. This door
The door is the biggest weak point at the bottom of the watchtower - no matter how thick the target is, it cannot withstand a solid shell fired by a 12-pound mountain grenade.
The two howitzers were towed to the south of the watchtower. The sailors used bayonets to clear out the few village warriors and servants who were stubbornly resisting on the streets in this area, and dragged the cannons across the street. A gunner seconded from the army climbed onto the roof.
After observing for a while, I decided to use the backyard of a house on the street as an artillery position.
The owner of this house was called Liu Deshan. According to the standards of the time, he was a tall and strong man with a beard. His appearance had the temperament of a northern man, but at this moment he was hiding deep in his inner house, listening to the artillery fire outside.
He kept reciting the Buddha's name and shouting "kill". He hoped that no matter whether he was a thief or a brave countryman, he would not patronize his small but comfortable little house. This small house protected not only his
His life, as well as the various Shandong local specialties he piled in the side room. He had gone through great hardships and transported thousands of miles to transport these from Shandong, and planned to sell them here in Sanliang. The money earned from the sales would be used to sell various products locally.
Straw products and local products of Guangdong were sent to Shandong - this place is an important commodity distribution center in Dongguan County. He has been doing business here for many years. It is roughly half the year in Shandong and half the year in Guangdong, and the business is going well. He hates bandits and thieves the most in his life - because he
Several times in his business career, goods were lost to these people, which almost made him hang himself.
The thief Kun was coming to attack Sanliang City. Liu Deshan originally wanted to take the goods and run away. But the thief came very quickly. All kinds of rumors spread everywhere. One moment they said where the thief was, and the next they said that the thief had taken possession of it.
Which villages and towns? Liu Deshan did not dare to make mistakes and had to stay in the towns.
"My mother." Liu Deshan hid in the back hall, with a few servants huddled around him, shivering together, "This plagued thief, he just sold your Australian goods - and started to become bandits.
Already..."
A waiter asked, "Is Kun Thief an Australian?"
"That's right. They are Australians who make Australian goods," Liu Deshan murmured to himself, "I don't know what evil got him and he became a bandit..."
"I heard it's ***...some big bosses in the provincial capital have taken a fancy to their property."
"This group of officials are really evil-hearted and only want to make money. In the end, we ordinary people are unlucky..." Before Liu Deshan finished speaking, there was a sudden boom of a cannon outside, and the cannon probably fell on the roof.
There was a crackling sound. Liu Deshan shuddered again. Hearing the shouts of killing outside, the sound of gunfire and running sounds getting closer and closer, he knew that most of the battlefield was moving to this area, and thought that if the thieves rushed in, not only would he be rich
If the goods were not secured, I might even lose my life, and my whole body felt like chaff.
Several servants around him were also trembling. One of his waiters hid under the table, holding his head and motionless, looking at his head instead of his buttocks. Liu Deshan cursed: "You are all like bears..."
As soon as he said these words, there were chaotic voices and footsteps in the front yard, and then with a "bang", the door to the yard outside was also opened. Liu Deshan was suddenly frightened out of his wits. In addition to saying again, "
I’m a mother-in-law.” I couldn’t say anything else.
The footsteps in the yard became denser, and then someone shouted to cut off the threshold of the yard. Liu Deshan wanted to rob him and wanted to cut off the threshold. Before he could think about it, the door was violently opened.
, three or four figures wearing double-breasted blue cloth jackets jumped in.
These were probably the Kun thieves. Although Liu Deshan was scared to death, he couldn't help but secretly look at this group of Kun thieves who only heard their names but never saw them. It looked like they were holding a brazier on their heads.
They were wearing iron hats and holding Australian blunderbuss in their hands. They all had dark faces and were panting, but they looked very energetic.
The sailors didn't care to talk nonsense with them. After checking the surrounding environment for a while, someone suddenly shouted: "Everything is normal!"
"Okay, everyone, hurry up and go to the backyard!" The thief who led the team was not big, but his voice was very loud. He held a blunderbuss in his left hand and a strange saber in his right hand, and ordered loudly. After speaking,
At this point, he said to the group of people who were trembling like chaff on the ground: "Don't be afraid, we are going to use a place to set off cannons. You stay in the house and don't go out to avoid accidental injury!"
After saying this, he hurriedly went out with the knife. Liu Deshan felt a little relieved. When he saw that the door was open after someone went out, he quickly climbed over and closed the door again. He lay down on the window that could see the backyard and peeped.
I saw that twenty or thirty thieves had gathered in the backyard and were busy, and they even knocked down a section of the wall. The gap in the wall was filled with rubble and broken wood, and several thieves were lying on their backs facing the watchtower outside the wall.
The cannon was fired, and the sound was loud and crisp. Then someone shouted a trumpet and pushed a two-wheeled artillery in until it reached the gap.
"Dear mother, this is about to bombard the watchtowers..." Just after Liu Deshan said this, he felt himself being pushed, and realized that the servants and servants who were shaking with him just now were looking at the peep show one by one.
All of them were leaning against the windows and poking their heads.
"You bunch of trash!" Liu Deshan couldn't help but scolded, "I feed you for nothing..."
Suddenly his face became stiff. He saw a few thieves carrying bundles of straw mats and straw bags filled with local products into the yard. It didn't look like they were going to rob.
Instead, they were piled up to form a fort.
Liu Deshan screamed: "My mother. My tangerine peel! My donkey skin glue! My straw mat..."
Before he could finish listing his goods that were about to be tortured, the young thief leader who had just rushed into the house with a knife stopped his men from moving. It seemed that he had reprimanded a few more words, and the thiefs said this
The things were moved back. Liu Deshan breathed a sigh of relief, but when he thought about it, the leader of the bandits must be afraid that his men would spoil the things, so he did not allow them to use them as pads for the fort. They would probably move them out as trophies...
Liu Deshan's heart sank again. He thought that he had five hundred taels of silver hidden under the square bricks under the bed in his bedroom. What if the thieves forced him to give out the silver? Liu Deshan had heard of many cases of extortion and kidnapping by soldiers and bandits.
: Some lit candles in the toilet to force people to sit on the toilet, some hung them on a tree and roasted their feet over a fire... all kinds of torture. With so many goods stored, he must have money. If the thief had thought of it,
You have to ask him about this...
Thinking of all these terrifying methods, Liu Deshan almost urinated. Just as he was thinking about finding a place to hide, the cannon in the yard opened fire.
12 pounds of mountain pomegranates ejected a cloud of thick smoke, the ground shook, the walls, windows and even the ground were shaking. Liu Deshan even felt that he couldn't breathe for a moment. In the red firelight, he vaguely saw a black iron ball flying.
When I got out, the seemingly heavy two-wheeled cannon jumped back more than two feet.
The shell did not hit the gate, but hit the protruding cantilevered building above the gate. Bricks and stones were splashed, and the thick brick wall collapsed in pieces. Two unrecognizable and mutilated corpses fell from inside, about half inside the cantilevered building.
There was a stove itself, and the body was on fire.
In addition to the pungency of gunpowder smoke, there was also a strong stench in the air - it turned out that a large jar of excrement was being boiled in the hanging building. As long as people rushed to the gate, the people above would pull the jar, boiling excrement, boiling water or
The hot oil will pour down the brick path, scalding the attacker below until his skin is torn apart and his flesh is rotten.
A hole was revealed above the gate. Immediately some villagers tried to fill the gap with barrels and earth bags. Some villagers leaned out of the gap and fired arrows and blunderbuss regardless of life and death. People kept falling from above after being hit by bullets.
The little officer rolled up his sleeves and waved his knife: "One more shot! Hit it accurately!"
The next shot hit the door, and the solid door was immediately shattered into pieces. Then there was another solid bullet, which shot straight through the door, flying and rolling all the way, killing the enemies gathered in the door ready to fight to the death.
Xiangyong defeated a large number of them.
The charge horn sounded, and the marines took advantage of the momentum and swooped over, capturing the first floor of the tower in an instant. Xiang Yong and his servants refused to surrender and continued to throw thousands of enemies and bricks down from the stairs. The marine company commander ordered
A fire was set on the ground floor. There were originally many firearms stored in the tower: sulfur, gunpowder packets and tens of thousands of enemies. The sailors piled some flammable materials from various places and set another fire on the ground floor. The smoke and fire quickly
The ground floor of the watchtower was filled with gunpowder continuously exploding, white and black smoke rising straight upwards, and soon every window and passage in the entire watchtower was smoking outside.
The people in the watchtower lost their ability to resist and jumped from the second floor one after another. Some broke their legs, some fell to death, but most of them escaped with their lives and became prisoners.
After the watchtower was captured, the bandits dragged the cannon out of the yard. A young bandit went to their house to talk:
"I'm sorry, sir, I demolished a section of your wall."
"Hey, it's okay, it's okay, I could just tear it apart..." Liu Deshan said incoherently.
"There are also many tiles on your house over there. Our comrades stepped on them and broke them. I'm afraid they might leak."
"It's okay, the tiles...are broken if they are broken...leaking is better."
"And the threshold——"
"I've wanted to saw it off for a long time."
"Master, what you said is really interesting. Don't worry, I will help you fix it in a few days." The young man smiled and walked away with the gun on his back. After coming over for a while, there was no movement in the yard. Liu Deshan and others
Still not daring to go out, Liu Deshan was worried about the safety of the goods, so he kicked the clerk's butt hard:
"Quick! Go and see if Kun...has the Australian left..."
The boy left with a sad face. After a while, he came back and reported that all the Australians had left. Even the door was closed for them.
Liu Deshan hurried out to take a look, and sure enough, everyone was empty. The door lock of one of the two rooms where goods were stacked was intact, but the lock of the other door was broken open, and a temporary seal was affixed - the paste was not dry yet, Liu Deshan
He was startled and thought his goods had been seized. Then he saw the words "Private property belongs to the original owner and may not be opened without authorization" written on it, and he quickly asked someone to open the seal.
Because a lot of the goods inside had just been moved out by the navy to build artillery forts, and were later brought back under the orders of the leader, they were a little messy, but at a quick glance, there were basically no defects. Liu Deshan breathed a sigh of relief, and his whole body was actually
He collapsed as if he had lost all strength. He almost cried with joy.
Unexpectedly, he suffered no losses from the fire. This made Liu Deshan feel like he had escaped from death. The fear and fear of the thieves suddenly turned into tears of gratitude. As for the demolished walls and trampled tiles, then
It's simply not worth mentioning.
"The Australian army can be regarded as a benevolent and righteous army, and its reputation will not be bad when doing business." Businessman Liu Deshan's mind immediately started spinning.
Liu Deshan quickly informed the guys, first temporarily blocking the gap in the backyard wall with bricks, and then fixing the sawed-off threshold with wooden strips and nails - otherwise the door would not close tightly. Then he had people boil water, and the next year
All the old tea leaves were poured in.
"Sir, are you sending it to the Australians now?" a waiter asked.
"Not yet." Liu Deshan rolled his eyes, thinking that he shouldn't be the first to take the lead in this matter. It would be better to wait until the battle in Sanliang City is over and the situation is completely clear before going to "condolence".
After the watchtowers were captured, most of Sanliang Town's defenses had collapsed. The young men temporarily recruited had lost their fighting spirit. Many abandoned their weapons and fled home, leaving only the Tuanlian Office. The other two watchtowers and the Luo Family Courtyard were still there.
During the resistance, these places are guarded by local warriors and servants of each family. Their fighting spirit is relatively strong, and the heads of each family are not willing to promise large rewards at this moment, so the defense is very tenacious.
The detachment organized and cleaned the battlefield and collected gunpowder. After the fierce battle, the detachment had very little gunpowder left, and the mountain howitzer shells were almost used up. The acting detachment leader asked people to escort the wounded back to Shigang to transport ammunition, while collecting villagers.
The gunpowder firearms discarded by the brave men are ready to clear out the stubborn enemies everywhere one by one.
Jiang Suo and Qingxia on the watchtower were not caught. Qingxia almost didn't have a chance to show off her shooting skills during the battle. The Kun thief was well hidden. When walking around, he would trot with a low profile, and would hide suddenly from time to time.
She suddenly lost her aim. And the dense rain of bullets made her dare not show her head to aim, and she didn't even dare to hide in the shooting hole behind the crenel for a long time to check - a country hero was opened on the spot by the bullet that passed through the shooting hole.
She had no choice but to look at the target in the shooting hole and shoot an arrow roughly. It was not until Shi Zhiqi climbed up on the roof and waved the command knife that she seized the opportunity and shot the person down with one arrow.
I originally thought that the Kun thief would suspend the attack after losing one of the generals, or even stop there. Unexpectedly, the Kun thief continued to attack in an orderly manner. It seemed that it didn't matter whether he was present or not. Qingxia shot more than a dozen arrows randomly.
, I don’t know if it was shot or not.
When the gate was smashed open by a cannon, Qingxia knew that the watchtower could no longer defend it. She and Jiang Suo ran to the northeast corner. Jiang Suo was prepared and hid a roll of rope. Now he went up and down the rope from the watchtower, along the
He slipped down on the rope and escaped by taking advantage of the lax security of the navy.
At this time, every house in Sanliang Town was closed, and not a single person could be seen on the streets. Instead, various weapons were scattered here and there, and there were occasionally a few corpses lying on the road.
"Senior sister! Where are we going now?"
"I'll go to the Luo family ancestral hall and take dad out!" Qingxia said, "Go to the north quickly and find the children and Uncle Zhou! Let's meet at the inn."
"Okay!" Jiang Suo nodded, thrust the knife behind him, and ran away quickly.
Qingxia ran all the way and was about to reach the Luo family ancestral hall. The street in front was already densely packed with many thieves and soldiers. Her heart suddenly sank - the Luo family ancestral hall was next to Luo's house. Now Luo family's ancestral hall was
The house is the main target of the thief's attack.
Qingxia was extremely anxious when she thought that her father was trapped inside, and her life or death was unknown. She saw the constant sound of gunfire in front of her, and the roar of killings. She knew that she would die if she forced her way in - Kun was so powerful with his blunderbuss.
Saw it.
She quickly retreated, took a detour, and passed through the street on the other side.
But all the intersections were occupied by thieves. Qingxia did not dare to stay on the street anymore, for fear that the thieves would find her and she could not explain. She hurried back to the inn.
In the inn, the boss had disappeared. Jiang Suo's face was covered with dust, and he said in a panic that only Jiang Niang was back - injured. According to her, when the Kun thieves came in, they took Xiang Yong into a melee, and she
It took a lot of effort to emerge, but Uncle Zhou's whereabouts are unknown. As for the other three and a half-year-old children, they were trapped in the Tuan Lian Office. I just heard that the Tuan Lian Office had been captured. There were many casualties among the people inside, and the rest were captured.
, being escorted to the threshing floor.
"I didn't dare to go up and take a look. The thieves had already issued an order: kill anyone they see on the street without mercy. They will shoot at anyone they see. I almost got shot..." Jiang Suo was shaking as he spoke.
, obviously very frightened just now, seeing Qingxia arriving at the inn alone, she asked, "What, where is the master?"
"Dad is also trapped in Luo's house!" Qingxia said, shedding tears - Uncle Zhou was missing, the whereabouts of the three young apprentices were unknown, and Jiang Niang was also injured. For a moment, the sky seemed to have collapsed. She