Fishermen in Banten were collecting the bodies of their loved ones, and the mercenaries on board drove to the entrance of the village early the next morning.

For Zhou Lang, the military operation was already a little late, but Colin, a regular officer, thought that this was already the limit, because after the night before, the soldiers were extremely tired, and he was resolutely opposed to continuous combat.

The mercenaries drove into the entrance of the village, not to occupy the fishing village, but to use sandbags to block the road leading to the city of Zuoying, apparently for the purpose of Zuoying.

The military operation had a total of 100 men, and in addition to the forty mercenaries, all the sailors who could be exchanged also participated in the battle.

Ten mercenaries and thirty sailors blocked the road between the fishing village and the left camp with forty men, and the remaining sixty men marched towards the left camp city.

Most of the people were involved in the military operation, and the maintenance work of the Oriental Dawn could only be temporarily stopped.

Four cannons were also removed from the ship, and since there were no cattle, the gun wagons could only be dragged forward by the sailors, so they could not be removed all, because there were not enough men to tow them.

From the beginning of their actions, there was no sense of secrecy, because there were always people watching every move on the beach these days.

So as soon as the operation began, the news came back to the ears of Gao Peng, the general of the left battalion, and his face suddenly turned pale.

"Kui Si, I'm urging Mr. Huang Qian, let him pull his brother no matter what. Tell him that there will be great thanks afterwards! ”

Gao Peng hadn't slept well since the last failed sneak attack on Fanshang, and he was always worried that the other party would call. He thought of a lot of countermeasures, and at first he planned to report to the top with Huang Lao Er, saying that they had been attacked by pirates, and slandered the merchants as pirates, so that everything could be covered up. The death of several battalions of his men was explained again. But Huang Lao Er was unwilling to bear it, and said in turn that all this had nothing to do with him, and he refused to contact Gao Peng after returning to Chishan Xun.

If Huang Lao Er helps cover it up, there will be a much greater chance of covering up this matter. But now Huang Lao Er has made it clear that he has nothing to do with himself, which makes it difficult for Gao Peng to do it. I ran to Fengshan County alone to tell that the Haikou were coming, in case the county magistrate, the garrison and the inspection of those old men really sent soldiers to fight, and as soon as he came into contact with the merchants, he saw that the matter of attacking the merchants without authorization would be exposed.

He thought about pulling Huang Lao Er into the water, but in case the other party insisted that he didn't know, this matter had to be carried by him Gao Peng in the end, after all, the matter was in his flood land.

In short, the trouble is that he has to settle those masters in the county first, so Gao Peng has not been without action in the past two days, and he has already sent people to the county to give gifts to the yamen. He didn't dare to get the whole thing out of it until he opened the joint. As long as he opens the joints and someone is willing to speak for him, then it will be up to him to talk about it. There is no need to worry about Huang Laoer's side, and even he wants to push the matter on Huang Laoer, but this is very difficult to do, after all, the matter did not happen in Chishanxun. So he hates Huang Lao Er and hates it, and the most realistic way is to push everything on the head of Fan Shang.

He also hates the merchants to death now, he doesn't plan to do this anymore, and when he opens up the joints, especially after negotiating with the generals and garrisons in the city, he even wants to borrow troops to destroy those merchants, of course, most of the money of the merchants must be filial to those generals and generals, and it would be good for him to drink some soup, but this tone can be drawn.

But he didn't expect that the person he sent to give the gift hadn't come back yet, and the other party actually called the door.

"Master, no, they're at the head of the village!"

The location of Zuoying is called Xinglongzhuang, the head of the village is the entrance of the official road not far from the city, where there are two big banyan trees, it is said that it was planted in Taiwan at that time, and it is said that it was planted when the surname of the country was planted.

When he arrived at Zhuangtou, it could be said that the soldiers were coming to the city, only a mile away from the city wall, and seeing the panicked appearance of his subordinates, Gao Peng slapped the table angrily.

"These barbarians deceive people too much! When I have no one in the Qing Dynasty. ”

Gao Peng pretended to be calm and immediately ordered people to go to the city to fight.

By the time he took the remaining more than 20 green battalions, plus more than 20 thugs from the city, as well as beggars, porters and other strong men who had been temporarily captured, the capture of strong men had started since he learned of the other party's actions this morning, and now he had more than 100 people under his command.

Gao Peng boarded the west gate of Zuoying City, and outside the city was a moat, one zhang wide and eight feet deep. Between the city wall and the moat, there are three dense thorn bamboos. There was also a fort on the tower of the city gate, and there were two cannons on the fort.

Seeing this, Gao Peng quickly regained his confidence. There is even a faint longing, relying on this city, if he repels the attack of the merchants, not only can the previous things cover up the past, but this is still a great achievement. As long as no one investigates deeply, then this matter is a sea raid, and he Gao Peng repelled the sea robbers and defended the city.

As for whether anyone has delved into it, Gao Peng knows the master above too well, even if someone knows the truth at that time, as long as he can win, no one cares, because it is taboo to put a credit that everyone can share in the profit, and to have infighting with colleagues.

Seeing that the people of the merchants stopped at Zhuangkou, Gao Peng also placed his men and horses at the west gate, and there were not even people on the nearby city wall, first, there were not so many people, and secondly, there were those thorny bamboos blocking it, and the other party could only enter and exit from the city gate.

The situation of the left camp is clearly seen in the telescope, Zhou Lang saw that the dense thorn bamboo also had a headache, the city wall is not troublesome, because this is an earthen city, the way to build the city is born in the north, there are thousands of years of history, the famous Xi'an City, the North City is all like this, but in the Ming Dynasty, all the outer bread was bricked, before, even including the Han and Tang dynasties, in fact, most of China's city walls are earth cities.

This way of building a city is placed in the arid and rainless north, especially in the northwest region, of course, the loess cast Xi'an city can stand for hundreds of years, blocking the attack of countless nomads, but this is Taiwan, is a subtropical region, the durability of the earth city is a big problem. During the occupation of Taiwan by the Dutch, when the castle was built, brown sugar was mixed with sand and stone to build the city wall. And the Qing government was obviously unwilling to invest so much.

Zhou Lang had already inquired with the old man in the village about the situation of the city, after Kangxi pacified Taiwan, he established Fengshan County here, but he never built the city, because he was afraid of being used by the rebel forces, only the government office was built, and it was not until the sixty years of Kangxi that the county seat was built, and it is said that the government office was broken down. During the Yongzheng period, Zhixian planted a triple thorn bamboo outside the city wall to strengthen the defense, and during the Qianlong period, Zhixian built a fort in Simen.

But these measures do not seem to have had any effect, in the 51st year of Qianlong (1786) Lin Shuangwen uprising, Taiwan's Southern Heaven and Earth Society leader Zhuang Datian responded, broke through Zuoying City, and then Fengshan County moved from Zuoying to Pitou Street New Town. Lin Shuangwen's uprising has been in Taiwan for more than two years, that is, five or six years ago. This city was broken five or six years ago, and then it did not rest, but moved away directly, plus it is an earthen city, or an old city built during the Kangxi period, the overall situation is not ideal, and it can be seen from the telescope that there are many collapses.

On the contrary, those thorn bamboos are very troublesome, the thorn bamboo is a kind of position, with spikes, thorns can't hurt people, but this plant can be densely planted, one next to another, it is simply a bamboo wall, only there is no thorn bamboo near the city gate, unless Zhou Lang is willing to work hard to remove these thorn bamboos, otherwise they can only attack from the front near the city gate.

As for how to fight, in terms of military command, Zhou Lang really couldn't speak, he couldn't help but look at Colin on the side.

Colin was holding a newly drawn map and was discussing with his deputy, the Qing troops in the left battalion knew that they were staring at the Oriental Dawn's every move, as the most regular Western army officer in this era, of course, Colin could not do reconnaissance when he was fighting, so he also sent someone to do reconnaissance and drew a simple reconnaissance map.

Colin's other arrangements were also underway, although there were only thirty mercenaries, but their were obviously more formal, some were directing the sailors to place the cannons in place, some were forming other sailors into a queue, as for when to attack and how to attack, these Zhou Lang did not know.

He walked towards Colin, Zhou Lang was anxious, what he was most worried about was that it would be delayed for a long time, and the enemy's reinforcements would arrive at any time, so when he decided to occupy the city, he was eager to occupy it immediately.

"How's it going?"

Zhou Lang asked.

Colin put down the map in his hand and said, "This city is not big, it is not difficult to fight. I plan to send artillery to engage the enemy head-on, covering the infantry from the flank. ”

He said and pointed to the corner of the city, where there was a collapse, but it was not clear whether it had collapsed or not, it was blocked by the thorn bamboo, but judging from the collapse situation, even if there was not a gap in the collapse, it could be climbed.

A quarter of an hour later, a soldier came to report, and Colin said that he was ready, and immediately ordered the shelling, and when the order was issued, Zhou Lang was not consulted in the slightest.

Zhou Lang looked over, the artillery position was placed next to two banyan trees, here was a gentle slope, under the slope was the official road, and the other soldiers lined up on the official road.

The gunners were not Colin's men, and Colin's thirty mercenaries were now lined up down the slope, and the Norwegian sailors in Harald were all good gunners.

Four cannonballs roared and smashed into the left camp city, the same height of the muzzle, but the trajectory of the cannonball deviated greatly, one cannonball flew straight into the city, one cannonball hit the city wall, one shot hit the nearby bamboo forest, and one shot no one knew where it flew.

The gunners, who were well trained, immediately reloaded, calibrated the bearings, and returned the recoiled displaced cannon to its original position.

Zhou Lang stared at the city head tightly, he knew that the left camp also had cannons, but he didn't fire the cannons for a long time, and he didn't know what the other party meant.

Harald used flowering shells, which used wooden strips as delayed fuses, which were already common and reliable in the West, and were generally used to suppress enemy infantry, and siege cities with solid heavy artillery, but these cannons were neither heavy artillery, nor were they used to collapse the city walls, but only to cover Colin's mercenaries fighting for the walls, so they used flowering shells.

After three rounds of firing, the cannon on the left camp finally sounded, but no one saw the shells flying, and no one knew what the situation was.

By this time, a cloud of white smoke had filled the position, and Colin ordered the mercenaries to fight, and they formed three columns and ran to the right to advance quickly.

The cannon still sounded on time, but the speed of firing was not fast, and the cumbersome reloading process could only be fired once in several minutes, but the batteries of the left battalion never counterattacked.

Zhou Lang paid more attention to Colin's actions, and saw that he took people to run close to the corner of the city, this city is not big, the circumference of the city is only eight hundred zhang, and a city wall is only two hundred zhang long, six or seven hundred meters, Colin's thirty mercenaries soon ran to the corner of the city, and then took the saber and began to cut down the thorn bamboo, they cut a thin road, and then put a lot of gunpowder, and then exploded a wide passage.

Watching Colin lead the soldiers into the thorn bamboo forest, and faintly seeing them climbing the city wall, Zhou Lang never noticed that they encountered any obstacles.

After a quarter of an hour, suddenly a flag appeared on the head of the city, the St. George flag of the British, that is, the Red Cross flag! It appeared during the Crusades and was brought back to England by the British, where it became the flag of England. Colin is wearing this flag, of course, not to represent England, now Britain is the United Kingdom, and the flag is the rice flag. Colin deliberately flew this flag for religious reasons.

Zhou Lang didn't decipher the flavor of this, he was just very surprised, from Colin leading people to climb the city wall, to now arriving at the city tower waving the flag, is there no one to stop them in the process? If there is a slight obstacle, it can't be so fast.

Thinking about it this way, he really didn't hear any gunfire, the cannon sound was slow, and it was impossible to completely cover the gunfire, which means that Colin might not really have encountered a battle.

Harald, who commanded the artillery, also stopped the shelling at this time, and he didn't know why, but he saw the St. George's flag rising from the top of the city, and knew that Colin and they had arrived at the head of the city, so he didn't dare to open the cannon, for fear of being injured by mistake. As for what to do next, he didn't know, because Colin didn't tell him.

He immediately came to Zhou Lang to ask for advice.

Zhou Lang just wanted to send two people to take a closer look and contact Colin on the city wall, when suddenly the city gate opened, and he saw several mercenaries walking out, and then the drawbridge was also lowered.

They really took the city, and they didn't fire a single shot.

During the whole battle, the opponent fired a cannon, and then without any fighting, the city gate was lost.

It's not just the city gate, Zhou Lang followed the army into the city gate, only to find that the entire city was lost.

At this time, Zhou Lang knew what was going on, it turned out that after the Qing army on the city wall fired a shot, they quickly fled. No one can say why he escaped, this cannon was also blown up, Colin thought that the other party saw that he had returned to the city wall, so he knew that he couldn't resist, so he wisely chose to retreat. Harald felt that his own cannon had scared the other party away.

Zhou Lang was shocked and didn't know what to think, so he fired a shot and exploded! How fucked up the artillery of the Qing army must be!

In fact, if the Qing army's armament was not so outrageous, there were two cannons on each of the four city gates, which would be enough to scare off the rabble of the Heaven and Earth Society during Lin Shuangwen's uprising. There is an even more outrageous record in history, the pirate Cai Lian directly led people to attack the flood land of the Qing army's water division, captured more than ten cannons and returned, and when the investigation of the other party's cannon was buried in the soil. Because the local soldiers are reluctant to maintain it, and at the same time, they do not appear in the flood land in normal times, but work elsewhere to make a living.

Now Colin has led his men to attack the abandoned county town, and the enemy's artillery is at least still blown.

Standing at the head of the city, Colin took a telescope to look down on the city and observe the nearby terrain.

Putting down the binoculars, he exclaimed, "This is really a good place, I think we should be able to keep it for a long time." ”

Zuoying is of course a good place, there is a lake in the east, called Lianchi Pond, there is a Banping Mountain in the north, Dagu Mountain in the south, and the sea in the east, which is a good location geographically. The specific terrain is more dangerous, and someone has made a poem for Banping Mountain, "Rising from the ground abruptly, half breaking Ling Fangzhou." The emerald sky is sky, and the light is green. The bird road is clear and the peak arches, and the clouds and sails are blue and the sea is harvested. Shadow into the lotus pond water, thousands of years of victories remain", not to mention how much the literati poems have an exaggerated atmosphere, Banping Mountain is not as dangerous as described in the poem, but one thing is very important, there is a sentence in the poem "Shadow into the lotus pond water", but it is very practical to describe a reality, that is, even the waterhole is directly connected to the Banping Mountain in the north.

The southernmost peak of Banping Mountain is called Turtle Mountain, and there is also a mountain peak in the northernmost part of Tagu Mountain in the south of the city, called Snake Mountain. Therefore, the Fengshan County Chronicles call the two mountains of the turtle and snake the two shoulders of the left camp, these two mountains are very advantageous, because from the drum mountain to the north must meander down through the snake mountain, and because of the momentum like a long snake, finally this mountain has the title of the snake mountain, and it is the only place to enter the left camp from the south.

Therefore, Zuoying is such a geographical advantage, there is a lotus pond in the east as a support, the west faces the sea, there is a lagoon sandbar on the sea, the north is Turtle Mountain, the south is Snake Mountain, this place is guarded, it is not easy to enter from the outside.

Of course, Zhou Lang didn't know the military geographical factors, in fact, when he saw these scenery now, he didn't know how to take advantage of them. But it does not prevent Zhou Lang from knowing the value of this place, because Zhou Lang knew that this place was the first place where Zheng Chenggong garrisoned troops, and it was not unreasonable for the Manchu Qing to choose this place as the county seat of Fengshan County, a place with many indigenous people, after the Manchu Qing Dynasty occupied Taiwan.

Zhou Lang really doesn't have much military experience, but Zheng Chenggong has it, and Shi Lang, who conquered Taiwan, has it. Moreover, China's cities, unlike those in the West, are more likely to be built in places that are easy to defend and difficult to attack, unlike the West, where they are more likely to be built in places with convenient and favorable transportation.

That's why Zhou Lang persuaded Colin to occupy Zuoying City. He told Colin that if the left battalion was left alone, it would be possible for the Qing army to use it as a base for attacking the Oriental Dawn, which docked on the beach. If they occupy this place, they will be protecting the safety of their ships, so that they can repair the damage with confidence.

It did take a lot of effort to convince Colin for such a reason, but everything was logical, and Colin finally agreed to take this military action very reluctantly, and complained that Zhou Lang was too nervous.

But that's really the case, is Zhou Lang really too cautious. Colin had always been reluctant to conduct military operations, could it be that the officers of the British pirate nation were really so restrained in taking military action in a foreign land?

Of course, both of them have their own reasons for not being humane.