Chapter 203: Abandoning the City

It was late at night, the soldiers had fallen asleep, and everything was silent on the deck, except for the sound of the waves crashing against the hull of the ship. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Huang Fengwu stood on the side of the boat, her face was hot, and her heart was pounding. It is no longer appropriate to talk to a man in the middle of the night, let alone talk about embarrassing words, although Huang Fengwu has a hearty personality, she also feels very shy at this time.

"Thank you Feng Wu for your relief, my mood is much better now." Ren Siqi didn't want to talk about it anymore, he had already taken advantage of others, and he couldn't hurt people's feelings anymore.

"It's dark at night, and there will be a big battle tomorrow, so you better rest early."

As soon as he mentioned the war tomorrow, Huang Fengwu suddenly became serious, yes, Zhoushan City is still under siege by pirates, and his father is still in danger, how can it be the time to talk about his children's private affairs.

"I'll go back to the cabin to rest, and Brother Siqi should rest early."

Just as Huang Fengwu and Ren Siqi were talking, in Zhoushan City, more than 20 miles away, the general Huang Binqing had already decided to abandon the city at night to break through.

In the two days that Huang Fengwu left, Huang Binqing can be said to have lived like a year.

It only took half a day for the pirates to build dozens of ladders, and Song Liben commanded everyone to immediately start attacking the city.

There was no moat outside the city of Zhoushan, there was no sheep and horse wall, and the officials and soldiers did not dare to go out of the city to meet the enemy, so they were easily attacked by the pirates and set up a ladder.

There were only a few hundred officers and soldiers in Zhoushan City, only about 20 guns, and two artillery pieces, but they were rusty, and they had not been used for several years, and they had never been maintained.

There are 100 pairs of bows and arrows in the warehouse in the city, which are still left over from the rebellion of the Japanese in the Jiajing period, but under the bite of insects and rats, there are few pairs that can be used. But even if it can be used, among the hundreds of Zhoushan officers and soldiers, there are not many who can pull a strong bow!

Although the armor was not in order and the armament was not in order, Huang Binqing still led his men to repel the first wave of pirate attacks. Under the volley of more than two dozen muskets, the pirates left behind a dozen corpses and retreated.

Soon, however, the pirates organized a second wave of the offensive, and more than 100 pirates stood under the city with bows and arrows, and fired covering the city. The officers and gunners were suppressed by bows and arrows, and they did not dare to come forward at all.

Under the cover of the archers, the pirates set up the ladder at the top of the city and climbed up the ladder.

Huang Binqing commanded his subordinates to lift the outcropping ladder with a fork, and pushed the ladder diagonally down, and the pirates standing in a row on the ladder fell down one after another.

The people in the city knew that if the pirates were allowed to attack the city, everyone would not be pleased, so they spontaneously went to the city to defend the city, helping the officials and soldiers to transport bricks, stones and wood to the city, and even the people carried their own cauldrons to the city, set up a fire below, boiled the water, lifted the pot to the city wall, poured down, and could hear the screams from below.

On the morning of the first day, the pirates launched five attacks in succession, but none of them reached the city.

However, Huang Binqing felt that the situation was not good, because in just one afternoon, the officers and soldiers at the head of the city lost forty or fifty people, all of whom died under the bows and arrows of the pirates. More than a dozen of the people who went up to the city to help defend the city also died, and under the threat of death, many people stopped going up the city wall in the afternoon.

The next day, Song Liben commanded the pirates to change the siege method, no longer only attacking the south, but besieging the east, west, and south walls, leaving only the north city with the mountains at its back.

The pirates attacked the city on three sides, and Huang Binqing had no choice but to divide his soldiers into three parts and defend the city wall. However, in this way, the weakness of the defenders immediately became apparent. The soldiers on each wall numbered only a pitiful 200 men, but they had to face several times as many pirates as the city below.

Song Liben knew that there was not much time left for him, urging the pirates to attack the city before life or death. The pirates were fierce men, attracted by the wealth of the city, and they worked hard to siege the city.

In one day, the pirates attacked the city wall several times, and Huang Binqing personally went into battle, wielding a big knife, and slashed more than a dozen pirates in a row, which drove the pirates off the city wall.

As a result of the successive firing, several muskets were blown up and bored, and five or six musketeers were killed and wounded, while the remaining musketeers did not dare to shoot anything, and the situation in the city became more and more severe.

Fortunately, it was already dark, and the pirates retreated like a tide, and the officers and soldiers at the head of the city could catch their breath.

Huang Binqing sat against the pile of dishes on the city wall, tired and didn't want to move anymore, at the end of this day, he blocked and killed, and barely kept the city wall from losing.

On the city walls, wheezing sounded everywhere, and the wounded soldiers let out cries of pain from time to time. More than 30 of the 100 soldiers were killed or wounded, and more than 100 ordinary soldiers were killed or wounded.

In the Zhoushan Army, only these 100 soldiers are really capable soldiers, and those ordinary officers and soldiers have not been trained for many years, and there is not much difference between them and ordinary people. The general defense of the city is okay, but when the pirates attack the city, these ordinary soldiers are far from being the opponents of the fierce pirates, and it is all thanks to the brave fighting of the soldiers to drive the pirates out of the city, but this also makes the soldiers suffer heavy casualties.

If there were 500 elite soldiers under his command, this city could still be defended, but at the moment there were only sixty or seventy personal soldiers, and there were more than 400 ordinary soldiers who had no combat effectiveness at all, how could this be defended? Huang Binqing thought bitterly.

If there was any regret medicine, Huang Binqing would never have done so much in the past by eating empty salaries and drinking the blood of soldiers, how could he have to raise 500 pro-soldiers! But what's the use of regretting it at this point?

In fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the corruption of the Ming army had been deeply rooted in the bone marrow, and it was not the Zhoushan Army alone. The army at the end of the Ming Dynasty was probably the poorest army in the past, and the soldiers were not much better fed and clothed than they were called Huazi. The reason for this is that the imperial court has no money to support soldiers, and second, that the salaries of officers at all levels are very serious. The salary is not much, and the officers are deducted from each other, and it is good that ordinary soldiers can eat enough.

The soldiers are poorly treated, and naturally there is no combat effectiveness to speak of. But since you are a soldier, you have to prepare for war, how to lead a group of people called Hanako to go into battle? The generals took out part of the money from the withheld military salaries and raised a group of pro-soldiers. The treatment of these pro-soldiers is several times that of ordinary soldiers, and they are even more strict in training on weekdays, and they rely on them to charge when they start a battle.

Huang Binqing, as a general in Zhoushan, only raised 100 personal soldiers, and now he has lost more than 30 in one day, which makes him extremely heartbroken.

It's only been a day and the casualties are so heavy, how can this city be defended? At this moment, Huang Binqing's heart rose to abandon the city and leave. At first, he also planned to stick to the city and wait for reinforcements, so he sent his daughter Huang Fengwu to ask for help. But two days passed, the reinforcements were nowhere to be seen, and the city could no longer be defended.

When it was broken, Huang Binqing did not hesitate, took advantage of the night, took the rest of his personal soldiers, protected his family, and went out of the city from the north gate. left behind the remaining more than 400 ordinary soldiers and the people of the city. (To be continued.) )