After the end of a battle, according to the practice of the East Coast, a post-war summary meeting should be held, but at this time Li Yi raised objections.

"We should take advantage of the situation!" Li Yi waved his arms and said, "Keep attacking!" Have you forgotten what we were going to do this morning? Yes, that's right, we were ready to take the initiative this morning to wipe out the barbarian nests in the South, and now we should continue. The battle was just an accident, and in fact the barbarians took the initiative to send it to the door, saving us a lot of trouble. Think about it, they have lost more than 700 strong men in our place, and there must not be much strength in the tribe in their hometown, for such an old, weak, sick and disabled tribe, if we don't conquer them now, when will we conquer them? ”

Hearing Li Yi say this, Shi Qinjie also thought that this idea was good, so he quickly agreed to the proposal to continue attacking the barbarian tribe. After calculating the strength at hand, Shi Qinjie divided 5 platoons of army soldiers (80 people) and 100 slaves, and these people will be led by the deputy commander of the 101st Company, Shou Dao. Of course, the full authority of this operation was given to Lieutenant Li Yi, who unified and controlled the naval and army forces.

Before leaving, Li Yi also had the barbarian captives interrogated. Unfortunately, there was a language barrier between the two sides, and the interrogation was completely deadlocked. It was only at the mention of "Betshimisharaka" that the barbarians reacted somewhat and nodded their heads repeatedly, which confirmed Schingalje's speculation about the identities of these people - these Malay descendants were really Bezimisalakar people who lived on the east coast.

After handing over some of the wounded to the city, a four-ship formation with the frigate "Red Trout" as the main force carried the army soldiers to pull anchor and hoist their sails again and left New China Bay. Drive along the coastline towards the south. The weather at sea can change very quickly. It's still sunny when I go out. Unexpectedly, after only a few hours of sailing, moderate rain began to fall on the sea, and even the wind direction changed to an annoying southwest wind.

The sailors had to adjust their booms and take advantage of the crosswinds to sail slowly southward, and the speed of the entire fleet was a measly low of 4 knots. But the slowness also has the advantage of being slow, as it at least allows the officers and lookouts of the entire East Fleet to get a better and closer look at the shoreline.

The fleet has left New China Bay and sailed south for more than 20 nautical miles, with large areas of lush forests along the way, and there is no sign of human activity on the seaside. At this time, the wind direction changes again. The southeast wind blew that was completely unfavorable to the course, and Li Yi had no choice but to order the boatswain to lower the sails and let the ship drift forward with the current.

"Captain, there are canoes on the coast, right at the mouth of the river that flows to the sea!" The lookout on the mast suddenly shouted excitedly.

"Oh, I'll take a look." Li Yi was overjoyed, and hurriedly stood on the top deck of the third floor of the stern, raised his binoculars, and looked at the shore to observe intently.

It is indeed the mouth of a river. The river is not very large, and its width is only about a few tens of meters. The river is also muddy, and there are large estuarine alluvial plains near the estuary, and the canoes are moored on the shores of the broken estuarine impact plains. There are many houses on the shore that look like they are made of mud and wood. The top of the house should be thatched and look rudimentary.

There were a lot of things like fishing nets drying in front of the houses. It is estimated that these natives themselves used some plant fibers to weave fishing nets, which are used for fishing on weekdays. There is also a lot of farmland cultivated on the shore, and I don't know what kind of crops are planted in Ludao, and the natives are still busy in the fields.

"That's it!" Li Yi put down the binoculars, and then said to the Shou Daoist standing behind him: "It's five o'clock, and there are less than two hours before dark, which is enough for you to go ashore and make a surprise attack." Now I command, destroy all the barbarian villages you see in the area of this estuary impact plain, and punish these thugs! All those who dare to resist are thugs, and I grant you the freedom to dispose of them. Of course, we can spare the lives of the natives who surrender. Alright, Shou Lian Commander, now, let's go! ”

Shou Daoist stood with his legs together, shouted yes, and then went down to the deck to organize the troops to land.

The gunboat "Red Trout" and the transport ship "Galician Exocet" dropped a number of small boats, and then heavily armed army soldiers and 100 Eight Banner slaves armed with 3-meter spears began to board. By this time a small soft sail had been raised on the dinghy, and the sail was immediately swollen by the south-east wind, and the sailors also rowed their oars quickly, and the whole dinghy rushed towards the shore like an arrow from a string.

As early as the appearance of the big ships on the surface of the sea, the natives on the shore seemed to have spotted them. However, they did not seem to be too panicked at first, until they saw a large number of dinghys rushing towards the shore, and the occupants of the dinghy were fully armed.

They ran around and shouted the news of the arrival of "pirates". The peasants who were working on the ground also brought their farming tools and rushed to their homes. After a moment's hesitation, some of the fishermen who were mending their nets on the beach also abandoned their canoes and nets and ran deeper into the land.

"Assemble, assemble!" Shou Daoist wears a bright cuirass and holds a command knife high in his right hand. After seeing him standing there, the soldiers, led by the platoon commander, began to form a formation with him as the leader of the right platoon. The slaves, led by some 101st Company non-commissioned officers, lined up in a crooked formation, spear-wielding, and began to advance into the village before the army soldiers.

It is not clear how old this village is, but the inhabitants are scattered. Because the alluvial plains of the estuary were so fragmented, these farming Bezimisaraka people also lived scattered across the impact plains of various sizes. At this time, one plain was attacked, and several other plains were informed, perhaps they had developed some primitive and effective means of transmitting information in the course of dealing with pirate raids over the years.

At this time, from Li Yi's telescope on the deck of the "Red Trout", it seemed that the army led by Shou Daoshi had basically completed its formation and was marching towards the indigenous villages. In some harbors and rivers hundreds of meters in front of them, a large number of natives rowing canoes, armed with spears and short knives, were shouting for reinforcements, and the number was about two hundred.

After their initial caution, the Eight Banners slaves began to move faster, as they found that there was no resistance in the village. Everywhere there were panicked old and weak women and children, as well as hump cattle scurrying around. The slaves spread out in formation, grabbing cattle and brandishing spears to make the frightened natives crouch.

At this time, the soldiers of the 101st Company began to pass them and advance deeper into the ground. Soon they were confronted by the natives who had come in canoes for reinforcements, and there was a short but fierce battle on the riverbank. There was little suspense about the outcome of the battle, and nearly half of the more than 200 indigenous strong men who came to reinforce were killed in the volley of guns, and the rest either surrendered on the spot or fled by jumping into the river. The battle lasted less than ten minutes, and only two of the 80 musketeers were killed by bows and arrows, and four were slightly wounded, with extremely minor losses.

After defeating the greatest resistance, all that remains is to clean up the battlefield and capture people and livestock. The slaves of the Eight Banners must be no stranger to this, because this is how they were captured from all over the place by the people of the East Coast, but now they have changed their roles again, from the captured to the captive. They surrounded the village, and then they took a lot of ropes, and tied the Bezimisarakar together one by one, and drove them towards the shore. There, many Navy sailors are waiting to receive personnel and supplies.

After clearing the area, Shou Daoist continued his efforts and led his soldiers and slaves to paddle upstream along the river in the canoes abandoned by the Bezimisaraka. There were still a few villages over there, but it seemed that most of the inhabitants had already fled, leaving only a few livestock and a few women and children who had time to escape.

Li Yi silently put down the binoculars, there was nothing to look at, the battle was actually over, and the gains were very huge. These backward and barbaric natives have almost no ability to resist under the attack of a strong enemy, and it is no wonder that the European colonists in later generations can often gallop in many barbarian countries with dozens or hundreds of people, and these barbarians are too weak in terms of organization and technology.

Of course, Li Yi does not deny that over the years, whether in South Africa or in New China, what the people on the east coast have done is outright banditry, no different from those European colonizers, and even more ferocious than those Europeans in the process of conquest. But who cares? This era is like this, through more than ten years, everyone is also being assimilated by time and space, and the lower limit of morality has been refreshed again and again, as long as it is for the development of the country, then all evils can be hidden under this righteousness.

The landers returned before dark, but the transport of the captive population and livestock continued until midnight. Over the next few days, Li Yi's fleet sailed south along the east coast, as far as Tamatave, south of St. Mary's Island. Along the way, more than 10 indigenous villages were destroyed, nearly 1,000 indigenous people were captured, and more than 100 Hump cattle endemic to the Falklands were captured.

On November 6, Li Yi's fleet returned with a large number of people and supplies.

PS: Happy New Year to everyone! (To be continued......)