Standing tremblingly in front of the only stone building in the town, Reverend Pedro exclaimed with all his might: "By the name of God, Mr. Xie Hansan, a benevolent oriental gentleman and upright captain of the army, agrees to pardon your crimes, and he believes that you have faithfully fulfilled your duties as a soldier and have not committed any war crimes during the war." As long as you surrender, Mr. Xie promises to give you decent treatment and will not charge you any ransom. ”

"Father Pedro, stop your meaningless advice. If you still have any shame left, fight these vile Tatar heretics in the name of God. The Royal Army will not surrender to the despicable Tatars, never! ”

Xie Hansan walked around irritably behind a house where his three army platoons had taken full control of the small town two hours earlier. The capitulating Spanish town officials made an agreement with the Travelers that their private property would be preserved after a ransom of one peso was paid. Therefore, in the face of the overwhelming superiority of force, the local Spanish residents gave up meaningless resistance and chose to surrender with dignity.

Of course, this surrender process was not so smooth sailing. Some of the Spanish Army who refused to surrender clashed fiercely with town government officials who advocated surrender and represented the interests of local residents, and even two Spanish Army officers were injured in the clashes. In the aftermath of the conflict, part of the Spanish army that refused to surrender occupied the town's warehouses and resisted, while Spanish officials opened the gates to welcome the conquerors.

After Xie Hansan entered the city, he learned that there was still such a group of Spanish soldiers occupying the warehouse and refusing to surrender, so he immediately took two platoons of soldiers to the warehouse and prepared to seize it by force. When he got to the ground, he found that the warehouse was actually made of stone and was extremely strong. The warehouse wall is more than three meters high, and there is no other entrance and exit to the entire warehouse except for a wooden door wrapped in iron sheets to enter and exit, and Xie Hansan, who was very surprised, immediately grabbed the Spanish mayor and inquired in detail, and learned that this warehouse was actually used to store silver bars shipped from Valdivia City! This is amazing news!

It turned out that some of the Spanish mining colonies in the interior of south-central Chile collected silver ore and transported it to Valdivia for initial processing and smelting. The finished products were silver bars and rods, which the Spaniards transported there via the Valdivia River for storage. Every month, the Peruvian governor would send a ship from Lima laden with goods to the port town to unload the goods before transporting silver bars and other products from the warehouse. This route has been going on for decades now, and a week ago Valdivia's silver ship had just arrived with a shipment of silver bars, which are now stored in warehouses and are conservatively estimated to be worth tens of thousands of pesos.

After learning the news, Xie Hansan immediately calmed down, and after sending someone to inform Xiao Bailang and others on Yunsheng No. 1, he immediately took two platoons of soldiers to watch the only exit of this warehouse, and then while persuading people to surrender, he organized people to carry artillery, preparing to directly blast open the gate and forcibly attack when the enemy refused to surrender.

Now it seems that Father Pedro's persuasion has obviously failed, and these stubborn Spanish are going to resist to the end! And the cannon has not yet arrived, which makes Xie Hansan a little irritable. Father Pedro returned to Xie Hansan's side with a complicated expression, and said expectantly: "Your Excellency, these defenders refuse to accept our proposal to surrender. As you can see, they decided to continue the fight. ”

Xie Hansan was about to reply, when suddenly there was a rhythmic sound of trumpets from the street behind him, he turned to look, and saw some naval sailors in sky blue uniforms pushing a cannon towards this side, and Lu Ming, the captain of the "East Coast Eagle", was among them. Xie Hansan didn't have too obvious views on land and sea, and when he saw that the navy had pulled over a cannon, he was overjoyed and immediately sent someone over to help.

It was a small 8-pounder naval gun, and several gunners, escorted by a large number of musketeers, pulled the gun to a very close distance from the warehouse gate and set it up, and then began to reload the ammunition. A gentle sea breeze blew through the streets, and there was no sound at the scene except for the sound of the gunners reloading, and everyone waited in silence.

The warehouse was silent, not at all; The Spanish residents watching from afar in the streets also watched in silence, some of them constantly drawing crosses on their chests, as if praying for the heroic and indomitable Spanish Army soldiers who had fought until now.

"Fire it?" After the cannon was loaded, Xie Hansan consulted Xia Lu Ming's opinion, after all, the gunners who were operating the guns were all from his warship. Lu Ming nodded, didn't speak, and directly picked up a burning torch and put it on the cannon fire door that had been aimed at Hao.

"Boom!" The 8-pound iron projectile burst out of the barrel and slammed into the iron-clad gate dozens of meters ahead. The kinetic cannonball directly penetrated the entire gate, and then flew into the interior of the warehouse, causing an exclamation from the Spaniards inside the warehouse.

"Attention, gun raised! Watch out for the Spaniards' counterattack! Xie Han ordered in three voices. Under his orders, two platoons of Army soldiers aimed their guns at the front and at the top of the wall, respectively, in case the Spaniards jumped over the wall.

After firing a shell, the gunners immediately picked up the equipment at hand and began to clean the chamber, charge, and load. Soon, the artillery roared again, and the 8-pounder shells roared towards the gate, knocking down a large board of wood and iron, revealing a large gap in the gate. Several figures walked around behind the gap, seemingly trying to find a way to plug the gap.

"Aim for the gap, prepare... Put! Following Xie Hansan's command, nearly thirty muskets fired a volley of guns into the gap, and there were several screams from behind the door, and then no one appeared again.

Then two more rounds of artillery fire were fired, and the gate was almost completely smashed and dumped on the ground. Xie Hansan no longer hesitated at this time, organized the soldiers to form a sparse formation, and cautiously slowly advanced towards the warehouse. They moved slowly, almost step by step, alternating volleys of guns whenever a Spaniard appeared in their field of vision. The Spaniards, who were poor in firepower, suffered heavy losses in this encounter, and the few arquebusiers were almost completely wiped out. Of course, there were no casualties on the side of the crossers, and four soldiers were shot and killed in this bloody and brutal musket exchange at close range, which was more than the number of casualties they had suffered when they captured the battery last night.

After clearing the Spaniards of musketeers, the remaining army soldiers simply swarmed in and fired at the remaining Spanish soldiers armed with spears and light swords. This almost one-sided slaughter battle ended quickly within ten minutes, and Xie Hansan and Lu Ming braved the thick smoke that filled the entire space and stepped into the warehouse. There are only two rooms in the warehouse, one large and one small. The doors of the room had been opened, and the corpses of many Spaniards lay in the door and inside the room, and the ground was almost soaked with blood, and the scene was extremely bloody and smelly.

"What about the casualties?" Xie Hansan asked.

"When we broke into the warehouse just now, one soldier was killed under the opponent's spear and one person was wounded, counting the casualties of the previous battle, we had five killed and one lightly wounded in the whole battle, and we had a total of 29 Spanish defenders killed."

"Hurry up and heal the wounded brothers, and go into the city to crush the Spaniards. I'm worried that some Spaniards will have some bad thoughts about the shootout just now. By the way, some people were left to start counting the inventory in the warehouse. Xie Hansan casually opened a wooden box at his feet as he commanded.

"Shhh Rao is Xie Hansan has a high concentration, and he couldn't help but feel a little dizzy after seeing the things in the wooden box at this time. It turned out that the chest under his feet contained a large number of neatly stacked silver bars, which shone intoxicatingly in the sunlight.

"This time it's sent! It's really sent! Xie Hansan muttered.

At noon, Xiao Bailang entered the city with a group of sailors. At this time, the statistics of the materials in the warehouse are almost out. According to Xie Hansan's report, dozens of boxes of silver bars were stored in the warehouse, with a total value of more than 35,000 pesos; In addition, there are more than 500 pieces of animal fur and more than 100 wool blankets that are well braided.

"It's the right time!" Xiao Bailang looked at the loot piled up in the warehouse and smiled from ear to ear, so much silver was not in vain for the bloody battle in the warehouse just now. "It seems that this place is really rich, I heard that the city of Valdivia upstream is much more prosperous than this, and I really want to see it if I have the opportunity, and I will do it for him! Alas, but it is estimated that most of them will not have this opportunity, the movement here is so big, how can no one go there to ventilate and report, at this time, I am afraid that the Spaniards over there have long been ready for battle. ”

At noon, more sailors came ashore. Some Charuas with sabers went door-to-door to collect ransoms, one peso each, and those who could not afford to pay for items of equal value. A group of people worked for half a day, and it was not until late evening that the ransom was collected, plus the confiscation of warehouses and the property of the resisting Spanish officers and soldiers, a total of more than 36,000 pesos in cash and silver, 520 fine furs, 160 blankets, 4 pigs, 4 cows, 12 sheep, 2,500 catties of grain, 200 barrels of gunpowder, and 10 tons of copper......

Just when everyone was smiling and checking the harvest, news came from Yunsheng No. 1, which was on guard on the perimeter: the Spaniard's ship had been found on the sea!

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