On a small island near Puerto Rico,

The rudimentary wooden houses and fences made a sound in the fire, and smoke rose from more than a dozen places on the island, spreading high in the air for a long time.

After a fierce battle to defend the island, Hou Tae-won and his men left the highlands of the island and arrived at the site where the pirates landed.

More than a dozen ships abandoned by pirates ran aground on the beach along the coast, and more than 200 corpses were scattered around the coast, most of these corpses belonged to the pirates who attacked Feilong Island, and a small part were Chinese pirates who died in battle.

Hou Taiyuan walked towards the coast step by step, and the Chinese pirates around him continued to divide their manpower to collect their fallen comrades and dispose of the pirate corpses.

Walking to the edge of the coast, Hou Taiyuan stopped, looked around at the scene after the battle, and frowned into a straight line.

Last night, the pirate's raid caught the Chinese pirates off guard, and the eighteen Chinese pirates patrolling and guarding the coast were wiped out by the invading pirates at the guard post, losing the vigilance and reminder of the outpost, and the pirates on Feilong Island did not find the abnormality until the invading pirates landed on a large scale, but at that time nearly half of the pirates had already gained a foothold in the coastal area, and Hou Taiyuan led the three hundred Chinese pirates who were urgently gathered to launch a counterattack, but failed to drive the invading pirates into the sea, but lost more than 50 men, There are more and more invading pirates, and in order to preserve his strength, Hou Taiyuan ordered all pirates to move to the base in the center of Wyvern Island, and use the steep terrain of the base to resist the pirates' attack.

The battle lasted for a day and a night, the pirates did not capture the high ground defended by Houtaiyuan, and the ships piloted by the Chinese pirates who had returned from the sea had already returned, and the ships of the two sides clashed on the sea, five or six pirate ships were killed by the Chinese pirates, and seven or eight ships were seriously damaged and stranded on the coast and could not be used.

It was difficult to eliminate the pirates who were sticking to the island in a short period of time, and at the same time, the returning Chinese pirates continued to launch attacks against the invading pirates.

After insisting on attacking for a day and a night, the attacking pirates chose to give up and evacuated all of them this morning, leaving only the Chinese pirates on Feilong Island covered with ruins and corpses abandoned on the ground.

The sneak attack on Feilong Island is a premeditated hostile act, Hou Taiyuan thought about it for a while, and thought of the identity of the pirates who attacked Feilong Island - Babu, the last time Babu and his pirates attacked the fleet of Chinese laborers in vain, and at the same time took a lot of men, and after Babu withdrew, Hou Taiyuan successfully captured a small sail warship and two merchant ships, the news reached the ears of Babu's group of pirates, they thought that the Chinese pirates took advantage of them, and sent people to Feilong Island to ask for half of the captured ships and materials as compensation, As a result, Hou Taiyuan decisively refused, and the two parties formed a contradiction.

As a pirate who begs for a life on the tip of a knife, because of the conflict of interest and the inevitable outbreak of battles with other pirate forces, Hou Taiyuan does not regret his decision, but looking at the destroyed island defenses in the north and the pirates under him who have suffered heavy casualties, Hou Taiyuan can't help but feel pain in his heart.

Due to injuries and illnesses and the lack of materials and medicinal materials on the island, only 500 of the 600 Chinese laborers rescued last time survived, plus the original 300 pirates, and the pirates of more than 800 people are already a large pirate force.

However, after this battle, the newly developed Chinese pirates suffered heavy losses, and there is no exact data on how many pirates can be left.

Worried about the current situation of the pirates under his command, Hou Taiyuan inspected the island, and gathered Wang Yongtian and other pirate leaders to ask about the specific losses caused by the pirate raid to Feilong Island.

Wang Yongtian was in charge of managing the financial and logistical affairs of the Chinese pirates, and at the beginning of the battle, he and some pirates were driving a fleet consisting of captured small sail warships and several merchant ships to Cuba Island to buy supplies.

At the end of the battle, at the urging of Hou Taiyuan, Wang Yongtian spent half a day counting the losses of Feilong Island, and finally came up with an approximate loss data.

Combat losses consisted mainly of three parts: personnel, houses and defenses on the island, and ships.

In terms of personnel, the total number of Chinese pirates before the war was 812, 700 combatants, 170 were killed after the battle, 140 were seriously injured, 140 were lightly injured, and most of the more than 100 people who were lightly injured were able to recover from their injuries and restore their combat effectiveness.

Not counting the minor wounded, the pirates with combat effectiveness who lost nearly half of the losses in World War I, even if Hou Taiyuan was mentally prepared in advance, it was still difficult to accept Wang Yongtian's words when he heard them.

"With the loss of 300 people in World War I, did the Nagata brothers miscalculate?"

"I have personally inspected the bodies of my brothers who died in the war and the situation of my seriously wounded brothers, and there will be no mistakes."

Wang Yongtian's words made Hou Taiyuan's heart cold, "More than half of the number of fighters has been lost, and the external enemy is eyeing each other, if they attack again, will the pirates under their command still be able to resist it?" Even if the pirate attack is defeated, how many people will be left on the Flying Dragon Island, which has suffered heavy losses? ”

"Wandering in a foreign land, hiding on a small island and struggling to survive, even on such a day, the nearby enemy does not give the remnants of the Taiping Army a chance, does God really want to watch all the Taiping soldiers die and disappear? Don't give the old brothers of the Taiping Army a way to live? ”

The heavy casualties aroused Hou Taiyuan's despair of the fate of the Taiping remnants and his brothers, and he gritted his teeth and said, "Babu wants to destroy the Flying Dragon Island, we can't let him live well, notify all the brothers, gather forces, attack Torti Island, we have to make a break with the!" ”

"General, no," Wang Yongtian hurriedly dissuaded, "There are nearly two thousand pirates who have attacked Feilong Island, and Babu and his group of pirates alone do not have such great strength, it must be that all the pirate forces on Torti Island have joined forces to attack Feilong Island, otherwise it is impossible to do it with Babu's strength." ”

"General, there are three groups of pirates on Torti Island, their overall strength is more than 2,000 people, plus Torti Island belongs to their lair, if we attack Torti Island, they can mobilize more forces to deal with us, in this way, even if all the brothers on Feilong Island are sent to attack Torti Island, the result is only the whole army destroyed, please General for the safety of all brothers, don't be rash!"

Hou Taiyuan was angry in his heart and wanted to use the remaining strength to take revenge, but not all pirate leaders were carried away by anger and despair.

"It's not okay to take the initiative to attack, do we have to stay on Feilong Island and wait for death?"

Hou Taiyuan knew that the pirates who attacked Feilong Island were not only Babu's family, and it was because of this that he felt desperate, this attack meant that the Haitian pirate forces represented by Babu were officially enemies of them, and Feilong Island was not attacked, with the strength of 800 people, it could deal with Haitian pirates, but after losing half of the combat strength, the possibility of surviving in the Caribbean with the remaining pirates and wounded was very small.

Hou Taiyuan sighed, and his tone returned to calm, "Attacking Tolti Island is to die with the enemy, but after this battle, there are only two ways left on Feilong Island, one is to stay on Feilong Island and wait for more than ten days or half a month later for pirates to attack again, and the other way is to stop being a pirate and sell yourself to Cuba as a laborer."

It's too embarrassing to hide on the Flying Dragon Island and be blocked alive by, and everyone understands what happens when the laborers are, since we have been forced to a dead end, it is better to take the initiative to attack and kill a few more to avenge the dead brothers, which is better than waiting for death. ”

Hou Taiyuan paused for a while, and continued, "The houses and fortifications on the island were burned down by the pirates before retreating, even if they didn't listen to the data of the Nagata brothers about the loss of materials on the island, everyone has a general understanding in their hearts, the fortifications were destroyed, the weapons and ammunition were exhausted, and the Nagata brothers led the fleet to fight against the pirates of superior forces, and the losses will definitely not be small. ”

Hou Taiyuan's performance today is very different from his previous image, perhaps because of the training since he led the Taiping remnants to establish a foundation on Feilong Island, so that Hou Taiyuan slowly got rid of the habit of thinking of only using force to solve problems, and unconsciously began to consider the possibility of victory in the battle from the overall power balance.

It is sometimes not a good thing to see through the comparison of strength, if it was before, Hou Taiyuan would not have thought about it so much, ignoring the consequences and swarming with the enemy can solve the problem, and after clearly measuring the possibility of victory in the war, it is even more painful to do it knowing that it is almost impossible to succeed in the active attack.

Hou Taiyuan said the current situation of Feilong Island, Wang Yongtian opened his mouth to persuade again, but found that there was nothing to say, and the wooden house fell into silence.