Chapter 621 Cleaning the battlefield
If it were a face-to-face fight with real swords and guns, the pirates would not be intimidated by the Haihan militia. But the problem is that the pirates have no chance to directly confront their opponents. Haihan's endless artillery bombardment will Their courage has been completely drained away. If the pirates still had some illusions about fighting Haihan before the war, then after the war started, they understood why Haihan was so bold that he only sent a few hundred people to the island to attack Nanri Village - the strength gap between the two sides was huge. It's so big that the opponent can simply ignore the number of troops and the disadvantages of fighting away from home.
The pirates had tried their best and rushed out to harass the two hundred brothers in the Haihan camp. In the end, only about half of them retreated back to the stronghold. After paying such a heavy price, they didn't even touch a hair of their opponents. There is no way to fight the war. At this time, the pirates understood why Xu Xinsu relied so heavily on the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island in the South China Sea. They also knew that the defeat of the big boss Liu Xiang at the Pearl River Estuary two years ago was not due to his incompetence in fighting, but to the strength gap between him and his opponents. Too big.
Duan San's relatives died under the Haihan artillery fire. Of course he wanted to fight to the death with the Haihan people to avenge his relatives, but the others had no intention of dying on this desert island for the heads of Shibazhi. The Haihan people have already given an ultimatum, and Duan San still wants to encourage the people in Nanri Village to go out and fight. If he is allowed to go, everyone will die. In this case, it is naturally better to let him die alone and save everyone's lives. The other leaders reached a tacit understanding in an instant, and took advantage of Duan San's unpreparedness to attack him directly.
As for whether doing so will lead to being liquidated by Zheng Zhihu afterwards, these people no longer care about that much, and saving their lives is more important now. Only by getting rid of the unstable factor Duan San can everyone have a chance to continue living.
Before the time limit set by Shi Diwen came, the pirates were finally seen walking up to the wall in groups, lining up and throwing their weapons out of the wall in dejection. The reason why they did not leave the stronghold directly was because the gate of the stronghold had been blocked with stones by pirates the day before, and it was not possible to clear the passage for a while.
"Get ready to accept prisoners!" Shi Diwen breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the pirates in the village had chosen to surrender. Even if Haihan's side has the upper hand, if the opponent resists to the end, it will inevitably cost some casualties in order to capture Nanri Village. For the limited troops visiting Fujian this time, any casualties are situations that the commander must avoid as much as possible.
"Uh, by the way, notify your father and ask him to send someone to take over the defense of Nanri Village." Shi Diwen said to Xu Yuzhuo. Haihan's military strength is limited. Even if Nanri Village is captured now, it is impossible to send troops to garrison here. Therefore, this job can only be left to the Ming army. The purpose of this battle is to show the Ming army the powerful combat effectiveness of Haihan, and this goal has been achieved. As for whether the Ming army can defend Nanri Island, that is not something Shi Diwen has to worry about right now.
Xu Yuzhuo whispered from the side: "My father's troops are all at sea at this time, why not let the militia army enter the stronghold first to clear out the remaining pirates?"
Shi Diwen was stunned at first, thinking to himself that this battle was fought by me, Haihan, so why do we still have to do the dirty work of cleaning the battlefield? He was about to ask a question when he suddenly came to his senses - this was a benefit for himself from the Ming Army Fortress!
Nanri Island is located on the golden waterway in Fujian waters. Most passing ships have to pay a large amount of protection fees to Shibazhi in order to pass safely. Nanrizhai is one of the most important strongholds of Shibazhi on the Fujian coastline. , the gold and silver treasures stored in it are probably not a small amount.
Of course, the Ming army could openly take over the task of cleaning up the battlefield immediately after the war, and swallow up the property in the village. However, Xu Xinsu believed that this time the Haihan people paid for and sent troops and came all the way to capture Nanri Island. If the Fujian side did not show any expression at all, Haihan's heart would be chilled. Therefore, yesterday he specifically told Xu Yuzhuo, who was fighting with the Haihan militia, that Let him not rush to let the Ming army enter the stronghold after the war, but let the Haihan militia advance into the stronghold to gain some practical benefits.
Xu Xinsu was not worried whether this close trick would work. He had heard of the Haihan Militia's "sad record" in Annan. After Hai Han captured the city of Hoi An, almost everything that could be moved out of Hoi An was shipped back to Sanya, even the population was not spared. This practice was repeated after the Hai Han militia captured Hue. I have implemented it once and it is said that it was very fruitful.
Although Xu Xinsu only heard about it and did not witness what the Haihan Militia did on the spot, as the saying goes, "Thieves pass like a comb, soldiers pass like a grate." He can roughly imagine how the Haihan Militia gathered loot in the local area. get. Since the Haihan people love money so much, it would be a good idea to give them some belongings. Besides, everything in Nanri Village was the property of Shibazhi. Xu Xinsu borrowed flowers to offer to the Buddha, so she didn’t have to put in any money herself, and she could sell them to Haihan people, which was a way to kill two birds with one stone.
"Have people clear the doorway quickly and send two platoons into the stronghold to search. Search carefully and don't let the remaining pirates go!" After Shi Diwen came to his senses, he naturally would not reject Xu Yuzhuo's kindness and immediately Then the order was given.
If it weren't for the fact that the Ming army would send troops to garrison Nanri Village in the future, Shi Diwen would probably have ordered someone to blow up the gate of the village that was blocked by stones. Fortunately, there is a small iron gate on both sides of Nanri Village, which was the passage used by pirates to come out of the village to raid. The pirates in the village were ordered to walk out of Nanri Village on their own from these two places. When one came out, the militiamen tied his arms with ropes and put ten people in a bunch and took them to the roadside to squat. Then the militia army entered the village and began to clean the battlefield.
The cleanup of Nanri Village lasted for about three hours, and during this period Xu Yuzhuo tacitly asked all the Ming troops who landed on the island to retreat to the periphery, euphemistically calling it a warning for friendly forces. And just as the Xu family and his son expected, there is indeed a lot of gold and silver hidden in Nanri Village. The soldiers searched three cellars and found more than 7,000 taels of gold and more than 123,000 taels of silver. , some pearls, corals, jade, jade and other jewelry. There are also raw silk, flour, rice, medicinal materials, porcelain and other commodities. It can be seen that Shibazhi uses this place as a cargo transfer station.
There are indeed a lot of good things, but there is a problem before Shi Diwen - the Haihan warship participating in the war does not have enough transportation capacity to transport all the belongings in Nanri Village.
"It seems that only part of it can be left for Xu Xinsu." Shi Diwen said with some regret as he looked at the trophies that had been packed into a small mountain.
Although that is said, in fact, most of the high-value gold and silver jewelry have been loaded onto the flatbed trucks originally used to transport artillery shells. With a military tarpaulin covering the outside, it is impossible to tell what they are. As for the goods that cannot be transported away, most of them are relatively heavy and low-value goods, such as grain, oil, rice and noodles, which are just left as consumables for the Ming army stationed here.
As for the captives, after an inventory, a total of 792 pirates were captured on the island, and a total of 131 pirate corpses were found. In addition, according to the accounts of several small pirate leaders, Zheng Zhihu, the big leader who was originally based in Nanri Island, had escaped from the back door of Nanri Village after the war. As Shi Diwen expected, he took more than 20 people with him. The famous subordinates went to the southern beach and took a boat out to sea to escape. When the Haihan Militia learned the news, Zheng Zhihu had been at sea for about two hours.
If the heading is known, the two-hour voyage gap can actually send a ship to chase him immediately. But the problem is that no one here knows where Zheng Zhihu will go after he goes to sea. Maybe he would return to Penghu immediately, maybe he would go to a nearby mainland fishing village to avoid the limelight, maybe he would find a place on the nearby sea to gather his men and make other plans. In short, there was no definite direction, and the Haihan Militia could not track it even if they had no fast boats. "Zheng Zhihu!" Morgan was greatly disappointed when he heard the news. He also roughly knew the status of this pirate leader in the Eighteen Zhi. To miss such a target was really extremely disappointing for a veteran who calls himself a battlefield hunter. Big loss.
"If you had asked me to lead people around Nanri Village to intercept it in the south, maybe we would have caught this big fish!" Of course Morgan also knew that it was too late now and could only vent his resentment to stop him. On Shi Diwen.
"That is only a theoretical possibility, but in fact I guarantee your personal safety 100%." Shi Diwen was naturally not convinced by Morgan's accusation and immediately refuted him.
Morgan shook his head in disappointment and said: "Dear Steven, I'm afraid it won't be so easy for us to catch him next time."
"Next time we will not only catch him, but also his brother and his partners." Shi Diwen did not agree with Morgan's pessimism: "We still have many opportunities to make military achievements, but the premise is that we must first ensure Our own safety.”
There is no clear winner or loser in such a debate, but Morgan also knows that after reporting this matter to the Military Commission and the Executive Committee, Shi Diwen's prudent approach will still be recognized by the top management. Even though the military is bent on rapid expansion, it has always been conservative when it comes to the personal safety of time traveler officers. Riskier approaches like Morgan's will not get much support from the top.
It wasn't until the Haihan militia brought the gold and silver jewelry found in Nanri Village to the dock for loading that Xu Xinsu's ship docked in the port with tacit agreement. After meeting Shi Diwen, Xu Xinsu didn't even mention a word about cleaning up the battlefield, but first thanked Shi Diwen: "With the help of the Haihan militia for me in this battle, I won it easily! I represent the Fujian soldiers and civilians, thank you Soldiers who have crossed the sea! ”
Xu Xinsu's attitude made Shi Diwen very satisfied. It was obvious that the other party had been able to face the existence of Haihan's military power with a relatively peaceful attitude, and his words also revealed his willingness to continue to cooperate with Haihan. This is exactly why One of the main purposes of the Haihan delegation's visit to Fujian. The battle to conquer Nanri Island should have made the top leaders of the Fujian Ming Army realize the true combat effectiveness of the Haihan Militia. For them, cooperation is definitely a more reasonable choice than confrontation.
When the sky was dark, the ships on guard in the nearby waters sent back the news that the several pirate ships that had been watching from a distance had all evacuated. It seemed that they had roughly guessed the result of the fall of Nanri Island. That night, all the coalition fleets were stationed on Nanri Island, and Xu Xinsu sent 500 Ming troops to live in Nanri Village. Originally, Xu Xinsu wanted to invite the Haihan militia to station in Nanri Village, but Shi Diwen thought that the environment in the village was too bad, and he was uneasy about the fact that the three Haihan warships were parked on the beach without adequate defense, so he insisted on inviting the militia. The station is located near the pier.
The dinner that day was particularly sumptuous. Xu Xinsu ordered people to purchase various livestock from nearby villages on the mainland and transport them to the island for slaughter as a reward to the three armies. Although not many people in the Ming army directly participated in this island attack, fortunately they have Haihan, a partner who only wants money and is not greedy for credit. Most people in the Ming army will get their own rewards in this victory. A military exploit, this is indeed something worth celebrating for them.
However, Shi Diwen thought it was a little early to celebrate at this time. Halfway through the meal, he invited Xu Xinsu and Xu Yuzhuo, father and son, to his tent and informed them that the pirates had sent a ship back to Penghu the day before to move. News of reinforcements.
"It's unlikely that Shiba Zhi will fight back." Xu Yuzhuo first expressed his opinion after hearing this: "Zheng Zhihu also ran away. He had time to intercept the pirate fleet coming to rescue on the way."
"But it's also possible that he can't swallow it in one breath and will try to use reinforcements to take back Nanri Island. After all, if they really send reinforcements, it shouldn't be a small number, right?" Shi Diwen raised another possibility. .
"I estimate that they will send at least more than 80 ships and a team of roughly one or two thousand people." Xu Xinsu continued: "The scale of the armed forces that Zheng Zhilong can mobilize in a short period of time is probably at this level. If more troops are to be mobilized, People, he must convene a meeting with the leaders of Shibazhi to discuss, let each family send people and ships, and send troops together. This will take at least seven or eight days. When everything is ready, at least send troops. It’s also half a month later.”
"But if Shiba Zhi's reinforcements met Zheng Zhihu on the way, would they come over and fight again?" Shi Diwen thought Xu Xinsu's argument was more credible, so he asked him his question again.
Xu Xinsu responded: "Although Zheng Zhihu is a little reckless, he is not stupid. He did not fight to the death in Nanri Village, but chose to escape. This shows that he is still a person who can judge the situation. So I believe that Zheng Zhihu led It is unlikely that we will return to Nanri Island with the reinforcements from Penghu. Even if there is a battle, it will not happen in the next few days.”
(End of chapter)