"Yes, sir!" Goto Goro instinctively lowered his head, and there was a burst of excitement in his heart, it seemed that his prisoner career was coming to an end. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

"You go to the big man at once, tell the guys, hand over the prisoners and the ship, and that's it, otherwise, we'll see you at sea in the future!"

"Yes!" Goto Goro didn't expect Zheng Zhilong to be so easy to speak, he raised his head a little stunned, wanting to see Zheng Zhilong's face, but found that the other party had already turned around and left, so he had to lower his head and say loudly: "Yes, Lord Yiguan!" ”

Large, sandbank, Utrecht Fort.

The sky was gray and foggy, and the sea breeze blew from the sea like a moist kiss. Through the wisps of morning mist, the enemy artillery fort on the opposite side of the waterway could be faintly seen. Wallace shrunk his neck so that he could expose as little as possible to the female wall, the shooter of the attackers on the outskirts of the city was not a man of rice, and he didn't want to have an extra hole in his head.

A familiar sound of music followed the wind, and Wallace carefully identified it as the music of Mass, as a Scottish mercenary working for the East India Company (Scotland was Catholic, Holland was Protestant, Mass was a Catholic ceremony), this ceremony was already somewhat unfamiliar to him, the sacred music, the towering dome, the solemn priest, the red wine and biscuits representing the blood and flesh of the Son, and the family and neighbors who were already somewhat strange, all of which were very amiable to Wallace in the besieged city, He subconsciously rubbed the corners of his eyes and wiped away his tears.

"What the hell are those guys doing?"

The music was interrupted by rough shouting, and Wallace turned back with some annoyance to find that it was Second Lieutenant Teller, a veteran who came here every day to patrol the place, for it was here that the commanding heights of the sandbar were located. The batteries here could not only block the entrance to the waterway of Dayuan Harbor, but also bombard the city of Geranza - as long as Utrecht Fort was still in the hands of the Dutch, the enemy could not do anything to take the city, because if the city of Gerancha were to be besieged, the flanks would be exposed to the guns of Fort Utrecht; And if this place is over, the end of the city of Geranza will be just around the corner.

"It's Mass, Mr. Ensign!" Wallace replied cautiously: "You know, among the besieging enemies are some Cheshitan mercenaries, who are probably doing Mass!" ”

"Mass!" Wallace sneered: "Heretics, papal dogs, God will throw them into Hell and make them wail for their sins!" ”

Wallace's face twitched, but he replied in a low voice, "Yes, Second Lieutenant Teller!" ”

The second lieutenant walked over to the women's wall and began to carefully observe the enemy in the distance, but the fog obscured his vision, and finally he shook his head in disappointment and prepared to go back. Before parting, he patted Wallace on the shoulder and whispered encouragement: "Old Wallace, keep an eye on it and don't get distracted, when the reinforcements from Batavia arrive, we will throw these bastards into the oil pot and use their livers with beer!" ”

"Yes, Second Lieutenant Teller!" Wallace answered, and Teller nodded in satisfaction and walked down the stairs. With the departure of his boss, Wallace's face turned gloomy, there were no vegetables, no fruit, no firewood, no clean water, instead of half a pint of beer, the only fresh food was weevils in the bread, and the occasional catch of rats was a rare delicacy. It made his teeth loose, his skin cracked, and he smelled like a dog rolling in a dung pit, and he had been living this life for almost two months, and he was going to keep going until the damn reinforcements arrived? And all this for the sake of the two Dutch florins that these damn heretics send to themselves every month? Old Teller, you're going to use those Chechitan livers with beer, but I'd rather use your liver with beer, no, I can eat your liver raw even without beer.

Wallace's curse only stayed in his heart, but he did not dare to act on it. As a veteran, he was well aware of the difference between siege and field warfare, in which the victor could also show kindness to the captives and the enemy's surrenderers, but siege warfare was another matter, and protracted attrition was a cruel torture for both the besieged and the besieged, in which compassion and conscience disappeared as quickly as rain falling into the desert. Wallace knew very well that he was not comfortable in the city, and even more so the besiegers who crouched in the trenches and endured the stinking water, mud, and bullets, and that once the resentment accumulated by the city was vented, it would not be strange to slaughter the city.

Wallace leaned against the female wall, reclining on the ground, and the sound of rice buckets hitting the planks of the stairs could be heard below, it was time for lunch, but he didn't have the slightest appetite, and in fact normal people couldn't have an appetite for that thing, bean and bacon soup, black bread mixed with a lot of sawdust, and sometimes a little salted fish, that's all. There was no way, Governor Thomson had twice ordered the rations to be lowered, and at first the soldiers could get a pound and a half of a pound of brown bread a day, then a pound, now only three-quarters of a pound, and a large amount of wood chips mixed in for wheat bran and flour, the bread was as hard as a stone, and Wallace believed that this thing could replace a three-pound cannonball, and that it would definitely kill a man when fired.

The soldiers scrambled to their feet, gathered around the rice buckets, and received their share of food. Wallace took his share, and sat down by the wall, where he drew the dagger from his waist, and with great difficulty cut the bread and salted fish into small pieces, and threw them into the bean soup, so that he could soak them for a while. Wallace waited for a while, estimated that the bread was already soaked, picked up the wooden bowl and took a sip, feeling that the taste was a little strange, but he didn't take it seriously, and took a piece of bacon from the soup with a wooden spoon and stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it a few times, but couldn't chew anything. Wallace spit it out, looked at it and was furious: "Damn, is this bacon and bean soup?" ”

"Not bad!" The natives who delivered the food replied, "What else could it be?" ”

"Is this bacon?" Wallace angrily stretched out his hand in front of the man, it was a black patch, and there were a few traces of his teeth on it, but he didn't know what it was.

"The bacon has been eaten!" Teller's voice rang out: "Yesterday I found six or seven belts and chopped them up and threw them in the soup, they used to be meat anyway!" Old Wallace don't waste it, there are not many belts,"

Under Teller's authority, the soldiers fell silent, and Wallace looked at his companions, sat down indignantly, and looked at the half bowl of residual soup in front of him, although he was hungry, he did not have the slightest appetite. The salted fish is gone, the bacon is gone, the beer is gone, the sawdust and wheat bran in the bread are increasing, and the flour is getting less and less. The besieging enemy dug trenches, built forts, and attacked the castle by all means possible during the night. When they found that they could not take the castle directly, they began to torture the people inside: beating gongs and drums at night, throwing smoke packets filled with sulfur, croton, and arsenic into the fortress to injure their respiratory tract and eyes, and attacking every Dutch who tried to get near the sea to prevent them from getting fresh food from the sea. As time went on, less food and fresh water (there was a lack of fresh water on the sandbar) in the castle, more and more people fell, and the legendary reinforcements from Batavia were far away, and Wallace began to wonder if he would ever see reinforcements alive.

A terrible thud interrupted Wallace's thoughts, and he subconsciously fell to the ground, and almost at the same time, a flash of fire flashed more than twenty paces away from him, and a rocket hit a corner tower, splashing a ball of fire. Wallace lay on his stomach and didn't move, and after a while he made sure it was just a cold shot before he carefully got up.

"Old Wallace, don't be nervous!" Another soldier shouted: "This is nothing more than a toy for the yellow-skinned monkey to celebrate the New Year, there is no threat, and I bet that even if I stood on the wall, he would not be able to hit me!" ”

"Fool, there's no whiskey left in the castle to disinfect you, and if you get hurt, you'll be dead!" Wallace snorted coldly and did not speak. After this period of siege, he was already familiar with the strange rockets used by the enemy, this weapon has a range of about two to three kilometers, but the range that can be aimed is no more than one kilometer, even within the effective range, this weapon can only be aimed at large and slow-moving or fixed targets of large brigades, castles, docks, and cannot fire large-caliber explosive shells like mortars. The advantage of this weapon is that it is very easy to use, requires only a lightweight mount to fire, and has a high-pitched sound when fired. After the defenders made the necessary fire prevention measures for the warehouses and houses, the threat to them from such weapons was greatly reduced. However, the besieging side still fired a few shells into the city from time to time to disrupt the rest of the defenders. Wallace knew that this was just a way for the besiegers to harass the defenders to rest, but he reacted instinctively, because he didn't want to die, especially in the midst of a group of heretics, there was not even a priest here who could make him a dying penance, and his soul would fall into purgatory because he had not done a penance.

"Damn it!" Wallace suddenly found that his bowl had fallen to the ground, presumably accidentally knocked over by himself, and most of the soup and food in it had been spilled, and he looked at the remaining mess in it in frustration, and his mood became more and more irritated. He looked left and right, and the natives who delivered the food had already begun to pack up their belongings, and it was obvious that there would be no extra food for him. In desperation, Wallace had to pick up the soft bread and the boiled belt that had been mixed with the dirt on the ground into a bowl and stuff them into his mouth piece by piece. It took him a lot of effort to fill his stomach with these disgusting things, and suddenly a thought flashed through his mind: "Why don't you run to the other side?" At least I don't have to eat this disgusting thing anymore. At worst, I will be put to death, at least the Certhitans will find me a priest for the sake of fellow believers, and I will have a deathbed confession and my soul will be saved. ”

At dusk, the air in the besieged trenches outside Utrecht Fort was damp and heavy, and shallow pools were everywhere. This sandbar has not been formed for a long time, only one or two hundred years at most, except for the Dutch city of Geranza and Utrecht Fort, where the water seeps out if it is dug a little deeper. Silva carefully chose his foothold, and in order to facilitate his walk in the trenches, the soldiers laid planks in many places. After more than a month, the planks in many places were already covered with moss, and it was wet and slippery to step on.

Silva looked cautiously at Fort Utrecht in the distance, the damned castle was like a cork in a bottle, blocking access to the waterways of Grande Bay and blocking the only way to the peninsula where the city of Geranza was located. At this time, in the depths of his heart, he could not help but feel admiration for the Dutch engineer who presided over the construction of this port, this clever engineer will control the throat of the entire Dayuan Bay, even if he won such a great victory through the surprise attack, as long as he did not take the two castles before the Dutch fleet arrived, the game was in danger of being overturned.

Someone was spying on him, and with his instincts, which he had honed over the years, he felt that he had been discovered. He cautiously approached the wall of the moat, peering through the gap in the bags of dirt and straw, and caught a glimpse of several pale faces peeking out between the battlements of the female wall. The other person is also doing the same thing as himself.

Victory or defeat depends on the castle in front of them, which the Dutch call Utrecht Fort - a city in their native land of canals and locks that the Dutch used to hold back the invincible Imperial legions, and even opened the sluices in times of crisis, sending floodwaters to flood their enemies and their homes. The castle was strategically arranged in such a way that enemies attacking the city of Geranza, both by sea and land, had to pass underneath them. Sticky moss hangs from the damp stone walls, making it difficult to climb just by the eye, and the fort is surrounded by traps, quicksand, and grassy wetlands. If any reckless creature uses it as a solid and reliable base of reluctance, he will immediately find himself in the mud and sand, unable to move, and a living target for the enemy's shooters. There was no point in attacking from the front, the roads were narrow and the forces that could be put in were limited, and the defenders could easily wipe out the attackers with arquebuses and shotguns.

"Major!" A voice interrupted Silva's thoughts, and he turned to see Dugu's face, the foreign ally's face also full of worry: "Is there any way?" ”

"Nope!" Silva shook his head: "At least not yet, unless someone has a way to turn the front into dry ground, so that we can dig a trench to get close to the castle, and use mortar cannons or oak barrels filled with gunpowder to open the gap for the infantry to rush into." Speaking of this, he asked rhetorically: "General Du, do you have any good ideas?" (To be continued.) )