Chapter 863: Chasing the remaining bandits
On the morning of April 23, Liuheng Island in the East China Sea.
Although both the coalition command and the Sanlin Gang issued a truce order after nightfall yesterday, the two gangs who had already killed each other on the island still had several small-scale battles in the night, during which both sides suffered casualties. These two groups have had several armed conflicts in the past because of the competition for territory. However, because they were afraid that other forces would take advantage of the situation, the troops invested by both sides were very limited, and the casualties were not serious. But yesterday, the two gangs were in a situation with no way out. They fought without leaving any room. By the time the statistics were counted at dawn, the casualties of both sides were in three figures. Even if you look at the entire East China Sea, it is unprecedentedly fierce in recent years. Conflicted.
The coalition fleet sent a few military doctors to the ship early in the morning to bring medicine, and Lin Si took them to the Sanlin Gang's land in the west to help treat the injured. Several people from the staff also went to learn from the Sanlin Gang about last night's battle and the current situation of the Haisha Gang. Takahashi Minami led two companies of the army, and then went to the local area in two expedition-class warships, preparing to respond to the Sanlin Gang, who was said to have suffered heavy casualties.
Linde, who was commanding the battle here, did not show any joy after the victory when he saw his second brother - yesterday was a great victory for the coalition fleet, but for the Sanlin Gang, it was an extremely brutal battle. Even Linde himself lost the battle yesterday.
"I was hit by the Haisha Gang Fangui's fire gun, but fortunately he was not seriously injured!" Lin De pointed to the area on his arm wrapped in gauze and said: "The Fangui's fire gun soldier is really powerful. , I asked my brothers to charge three times, but they failed to break through their line. On the contrary, I was injured a lot of people. Now I can only hold on to this pass to prevent them from fleeing further to the west. "
The pass Linde was talking about is located at the eastern end of Liuheng Island. In this area, Liuheng Island is cut off by a hill called Shuangtang Ridge. There is only a flat pass about a hundred feet wide on the northern coastline. In the past, the area east of the pass was completely controlled by the Haisha Gang. Now it is being squeezed bit by bit by the coalition forces. The escape route at sea has been completely blocked by the coalition fleet, so the remaining Haisha Gang members can only Trying to escape westward into Sanlin Gang territory.
Although Shuangtan Ridge is not high and it is not difficult for scattered people to climb over it, it is not easy to transport heavy baggage there. When the Haisha Gang withdrew from the port area, they also took away a large amount of gold, silver, money and valuable goods. They were reluctant to abandon them all and gain an advantage over their opponents, so they still confronted the Sanlin Gang here, hoping to capture this pass and then The baggage was quickly transported to the west - the only escape route left for them now was to rush to the Sanlin Gang's land to seize the boat and leave. Before that, they had to defeat the Sanlin Gang's defense line.
Lin Si sighed: "That ghost's fire cannon team is one of the most powerful in the entire East China Sea. It is not easy to hold on this night. The Haihan Army will arrive soon, and the Haisha Gang will end here today." ”
Linde did not witness the scene where the coalition fleet broke through the Haisha gang port yesterday. After hearing this, he asked with doubt: "Are the Haihan people really so powerful?"
Lin Si nodded heavily and replied: "Yesterday, I saw with my own eyes the Haihan fleet entering the port of the Haisha Gang. It was as simple as chopping melons and vegetables. The Haihan army was almost entirely composed of firecrackers, which was much worse than the Haisha Gang's. I don’t know how much more powerful it is. Once you see it, you will know why my eldest brother insists on joining them.”
At the same time, the atmosphere in the Haisha Gang camp east of the pass was even more desolate. More than one-third of the members of the Haisha Gang were lost in yesterday's first round of naval battle. By the time the three leaders decided to abandon their territory and evacuate to the inland area of the island, the Haisha Gang had already consumed almost half of its members. force. The only good thing is that Gomez's Musketeers have retained most of their strength. Otherwise, when they were intercepted by the Sanlin Gang during their retreat, they might not even have a chance to stabilize their position and organize a counterattack.
The Sanlin Gang did not have many long-range attack weapons, but even so, Gomez's musketeers were still unable to break through the opponent's defense line at the pass ahead, which made him very dissatisfied. The other party relied on the geographical advantage to trap the Haisha Gang here. Apparently, they were waiting for the Haihan people to form an encirclement after finishing taking care of the south. There was not much time left for the Haisha Gang to escape.
At present, the Haisha Gang still has about five to six hundred combatable soldiers, about one-third of whom are Gomez's musketeers. If Gomez cannot break through the Sanlin Gang's defense line this morning, then Gomez really We should consider giving up useless resistance and surrendering to the Haihan people.
However, Li Luotou and Motegi Shinobu had deeper resentment towards the Sanlin Gang. They were too far apart in strength from the Haihan people to defeat them. The Sanlin Gang had secretly colluded with the Haihan people at some point to take advantage of the situation. Shinobu Motegi had already summoned a group of desperadoes from Japan, preparing to kill the Lin brothers' home base directly after breaking through the blockade, so as to catch him by surprise. Although Gomez felt that the feasibility of this plan was extremely low, he had no intention of discouraging the two from taking risks - if they could attract the enemy's attention with this action, they would have more chances of escaping.
Before taking action, Li Luotou ordered people to open several silver boxes and distributed 10 taels of silver to each of the personnel who were about to go into battle to boost morale. As expected, this move was customary, and many people became as excited as if they had been given a shot of blood, completely forgetting the brutal battle with the Sanlin Gang yesterday. But the three leaders knew that at this time, these people under their command were already in a state of being strong on the outside and incapable of doing anything in the inside. They fled in a hurry yesterday and carried extremely limited supplies. Some of them had not eaten a few mouthfuls of food since yesterday and stayed overnight without bedding. Being in the wild has greatly affected their physical condition. If they can't break through this line of defense today, even if their opponents don't step up the encirclement, this group of people won't be able to hold on any longer.
The two companies led by Takahashi Minami arrived at the coast behind the Sanlin Gang's defense line at 9 a.m. Since the beach here was too shallow to dock directly, the participating troops had to transfer to shallow-draft boats to land. However, the local gangsters of the Sanlin Gang did have many methods. Under the orders of the Lin brothers, they quickly mobilized more than a dozen small fishing boats to the shore, and then built a simple trestle with springboards.
Linde finally met the legendary Haihan Army. Most of these soldiers from the southern region were generally dark-skinned and short in stature, but their bodies were quite strong. They wore uniform gray cotton combat uniforms with lace-ups on their feet. Mid-cut canvas combat boots and a gray sun hat. Each person was carrying a musket about four feet long and a bulging canvas backpack on his back. Some officers who looked like officers also had a short musket nearly a foot long stuck in the belt around their waists. After landing, these Haihan soldiers lined up in an extremely orderly manner. No one spoke a word except the officers. The silent atmosphere contained a murderous aura that sent chills down the back.
Lin Si stepped forward and introduced his brother Lin De to Gao Qiaonan, and Gao Qiaonan got to the point with a few words of greeting: "I heard that the brothers of the Sanlin Gang had suffered a lot of casualties before, so we took over the position here first. Please ask Master Lin San to lead his men to the back to rest and provide support.”
"Thank you!" Linde had long been looking forward to evacuating his family, and quickly ordered them to make way for the people from Gaoqiao South to enter.
In order to resist the Western-style musketeers of the Haisha Gang, the Sanlin Gang built a parapet here yesterday as a temporary bunker. In addition to Juma and Luzhai made of bamboo and wood, the bunkers also include gravel, door panels, large branches, and even a few tattered small sampans sandwiched in between. Although the shape is not very neat, it did successfully protect the Sanlin Gang from yesterday's attack, and the effect is quite good. Takahashi Minami ordered his people to clear out several artillery positions in the middle and deploy the several artillery pieces he brought with him, while others rested on the spot and waited for their opponents to appear. Linde was very curious about the battle of the Haihan people, and he deliberately got closer to watch how Gao Qiaonan arranged his troops.
Takahashi Minami and his men did not wait long. The sentry discovered in the telescope that groups of armed men were approaching in the distance. As the short and powerful copper whistle sounded, the Haihan soldiers who were originally sitting on the ground in squad units behind the defense line immediately grabbed their weapons and stood up, and entered the combat position under the command of the officers. This process is still busy but not chaotic, which reflects the extremely high military quality and combat experience of the Haihan Army.
In order to achieve better results after the war, the Haihan Militia was not in a hurry to fly their own flag on the battlefield today. They just arranged their positions and quietly waited for their opponents to take the bait.
Sure enough, the Sea Sand Gang did not expect that their opponents had changed after the fortifications. It was still the same as yesterday, with Gomez's Musketeers in the middle, the Ming pirates under Li Luotou and the Japanese Japanese pirates who obeyed Shinobu Motegi. Both sides were pressing towards the defense line bit by bit.
"There are about twenty musketeers in a row, about 200 people, and there are more than a hundred scattered armed personnel on the left and right. The weapons are mainly cold weapons, and no heavy weapons have been found."
Before the opponent entered the range of the infantry muskets, Takahashi Nan had already finished listening to the military intelligence reconnaissance report. For the Haihan militia, which was loaded with live ammunition and equipped with several artillery pieces, there was actually no essential difference between the opponent's level of armament and their bare hands. Even before the war started, it was destined to be a one-sided massacre.
Gomez walked in front of the team at the beginning, but the further he walked, the more he felt guilty because he did not see the flag appearing behind the Sanlin Gang's defense line in front of him. He clearly remembered that when he attacked this place yesterday, there were at least three or four flags with the word "Lin" on the defensive line - that was one of the few Chinese characters he knew. In a battlefield like this that requires desperate efforts, flags play a very important role in boosting morale and stabilizing the morale of the military. If they cannot see their own flags, the soldiers are likely to feel psychologically loose and fearful of war. Since their opponents all displayed their flags yesterday, It is impossible not to understand this truth if you have a banner.
Li Luotou happened to pass by Gomez at this time, and Gomez quickly stopped him and told him what he felt was wrong. Li Luo blinked his head and responded: "Could it be that Lin knew he was outmatched and withdrew overnight?"
"But there are still figures moving behind the defense line." Gomez reminded.
"Withdraw the main force, leave a few skirmishers to scare us, and take the opportunity to delay, but this guy named Lin is really good at planning!" Li Luo, however, just kept thinking in the direction he guessed, not understanding Ge at all. What Max wanted to express.
But Gomez himself was not sure whether his opponent was real or not. Seeing that Li Luotou insisted on attacking, he did not dare to object any more. Besides, if he was still afraid of fighting at this time, these people under his command would finally use money to stimulate their desire to fight. It completely collapsed. Thinking that there was baggage worth millions worth of goods that needed to be transported out through this pass, Gomez no longer insisted and just quietly changed his position to the back of the musketeers.
After reaching a distance of a hundred steps, Gomez saw that there was still no movement on the opponent's position, so he felt relieved and ordered the musketeers to stop and start lining up to load ammunition. The skirmishers next to them wanted to wait for the musketeers to disrupt the opponent's position before launching a charge together.
However, just as the musketeers finished lining up, they heard a sharp whistle from the opposite position, and a row of people stood up behind the parapet. The weapons displayed were no longer the knives, guns and harpoons of the Sanlin Gang. , but a flurry of muskets. Then the opponent removed several places on the defense line that were blocked by branches, and what appeared behind them were desperate artillery pieces.
"The Haisha Gang is about to end!" As soon as Gomez had this thought in his mind, the cannon on the opposite side fired.
Cannonballs as big as an adult's fist came out of the barrel, roared through the air, and smashed into the dense crowd of the Haisha Gang's musketeers. The flesh and blood body could not stop the huge kinetic energy of the shells, and the musketeers screamed in agony. Before the pirates could figure out what was going on, they ate another row of lead pieces flying over them. At this distance, the bullets fired by the Han rifle were enough to penetrate ordinary iron armor. Therefore, although the people at the front of the team had certain protective measures, the iron armor and vine shields did not have any effect, and they were all shot down. land.
"It's an ambush! It's an ambush set by the Haihan people!" Seeing this formation, Gomez finally understood what happened and shouted loudly. However, his own camp was already in chaos at this time, and the survivors of the Musketeers began to change their ranks. The front team turned around and ran away, while the teams of Li Luotou and Motegi Shinobi were even more chaotic. Some wanted to charge desperately, while others wanted to run back. Gomez saw Li Luotou and Motegi Shinobu shouting in the chaos, but it was difficult to achieve the command effect.
The firing of the Haihan infantry was not slowed down by the chaos of the Haisha Gang. The order they received was to fire ten rounds of rapid fire first. Each soldier completed reloading with steady movements under the command of the officer's whistle. A series of tactical actions such as raising the gun, aiming, shooting, and giving way formed a highly efficient killing machine.
(End of chapter)