"Mr. Major, are you kidding?" The boatswain's tattooed face had a strange expression: "I am a Creole, and I grew up in my mother's tribe until I was twelve, and at the age of seven I was able to shoot parrots from trees with a blowpipe." ”

"Paul, don't you think it's a hunt?" Silva asked, "The nobles rode on their horses and communicated with each other with whistles, so that the deer were in a state of terror, and ran around, until they were exhausted, and then they fired arrows!" ”

"Mr. Major, you are our prey, and the Ming people are hunters?" The boatswain replied in surprise.

"Yes, haven't you noticed? The Ming people's actions this time are completely different from the last two times, except for the sentinels who killed us at the beginning, the Ming people have not fought us even once, they are just intimidating us, making us panic, and then they use up their own strength, and finally he easily cut our throats! Silva spoke faster and faster, with a sickly blush on his cheeks: "I bet they've got a new general, and this cunning guy wants us to scare ourselves to death!" ”

"Mr. Major, what should we do then?" The boatswain had been persuaded by Silva that they were still fourteen or fifteen miles away from the camp, and that no one could run ten miles of mountain roads in armor and still have the strength to fight people.

"It's easy, just wait here!"

"Waiting here? When will that be? “

"Wait until it gets dark, as long as it's dark, their cavalry will be useless!"

"This gang of red-haired people is clever enough to discover my trap so quickly!" Wang Xingguo was annoyed and stuffed the monocular in his hand into his belt, this was originally a plaything of Ke Congwen, but this time it was asked by Wang Xingguo, but it came in handy.

"What's going on?" Ke Congwen asked in surprise. He has put his net worth and life into this adventure, if he doesn't become Wang Xingguo, they will only have a rotten life at most, he Ke Congwen Ke still has seven or eight concubines, twenty or thirty children, and forty or fifty properties, how can he give it up?

"Those red-haired people won't run away!" Wang Xingguo scolded: "They hid in the mountains and didn't move, it seems that they saw my plan." ”

"Still?" Ke Congwen was confused by Wang Xingguo's answer, looking like he was in a fog. Wang Xingguo looked at the number one military general in Zhejiang Province with a mixture of contempt and pity. He explained in a low voice: "There are a few brothers who are accustomed to not collecting at night, and they fall down the mountain, and every moment they whistle sound, and I can hear the general movement of the enemy. “

"So, what will happen to them next?"

"You may stay in the mountains until it gets dark and then return to the camp, or you may send a signal for the thieves who stay in the camp to come out and respond."

"Answer?" Ke Congwen couldn't help but think of the fiasco not long ago at this time, and couldn't help but shudder: "Is that to withdraw troops?" ”

"Withdraw troops, why withdraw troops?" Wang Xingguo was stunned. Then he smiled and said: "I wish the thieves came out, they are hiding in the camp, and there are cannons on the ship, we have no way to deal with him, if he comes out, we can beat him well!" ”

Time passed slowly, Silva almost felt the sun be nailed into the air, and the sailors and soldiers sat on the ground in groups of three or five, munching on dry food. He had no appetite for the enemy who lurked in the shadows. He prefers to kill you face to face on the battlefield.

"Mr. Major, won't you eat some?" The boatswain handed over a piece of bacon, and Silva shook his head and reached out to push it aside. The boatswain sighed and took a bite.

"What is the morale of the soldiers?" Like the vast majority of armies of the time, the members of this miniature army were mainly from the lowest strata of society - criminals, destitutes, vagrants. Even a mixture of Spanish and natives, the aristocratic Silva instinctively kept his men at arm's length, accustomed to learning about the army through non-commissioned officers like Boatswain Paul.

"Not so good!" The boatswain shook his head: "Mr. Major, the brethren are not afraid of fighting, nor are they afraid of death. Our Lady is above, and it is predestined when a person is born and when he dies. But they don't like to sit here passively and do nothing, and it's frustrating to watch the enemy in action! ”

"You're right, Paul!" Silva sighed: "The soldiers can't be idle, idleness is a source of trouble, we have to do something." He stood up, took a few steps back and forth, and suddenly stopped: "So let's divide into two teams, one for the soldiers and one for the sailors, the sailors in the front and the soldiers in the back, how about it?" ”

The boatswain immediately understood what Silva meant, a tactic commonly used by the Spaniards in the Philippines against the natives, with the sailors in front acting as bait and luring the enemy's traps while the soldiers in the back struck them. There was no doubt that the team in front of him had to take a lot of risks, but he still nodded: "Very good, so be it, I'll command the sailors!" “

Silva looked at the boatswain's ugly and loyal face, and tried to say something, but the words became: "Our Lady is with you, Paul!" ”

"With you, too, Mr. Major!" The boatswain made a cross on his chest, and turned and strode away, when a quarrel was heard in the distance, and the sailors were complaining about the dangerous task, but Paul soon overwhelmed the opposition. "Luckily, it's him who came with us this time!" A smile appeared on Silva's face, he tightened his belt, walked over to the soldiers, and raised his voice and shouted: "Soldiers, get up, it's our turn!" ”

Wang Xingguo sat on a stone, gnawing on a piece of jerky with relish, beside him, Ke Congwen cried and looked at his lunch in front of him, which looked no different from the stump under his buttocks, black and hard. Wang Xingguo finally solved the piece in his hand, looked at Ke Congwen's appearance, and said with a smile: "My lord, if you are not hungry, give me this piece, right?" ”

"Good, good!" Ke Congwen threw the jerky in his hand to the other party as if he had been amnestied, and saw Wang Xingguo skillfully cut it into small pieces with a dagger, stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it vigorously, he asked with some surprise: "Wang Qianhu, how can you eat this thing?" ”

"How do you eat it?" Wang Xingguo swallowed the jerky and said with a smile: "My lord." In fact, this thing is already a high-quality product in dry food, but it is still meaty. Soaking in water will be easier to eat, if you can cook soup it would be better, but unfortunately you can't raise the fire now, it's good for us to be able to eat a full belly, where is so particular! The words just fell. There were a few sharp whistles in the distance, and Wang Xingguo threw the dried meat in his hand to the ground and jumped up: "The thief has moved!" “

Silva stood beside a tree and watched the sailors at the foot of the hill, who formed a thin line along the mountain road, and the constant whistles in the air were signals from the hidden enemy, and through these rapid whistles, he could even paint in his mind images of galloping knights, spears like a forest, and the pungent smell of the fire rope when it was lit. All this is stimulating the sensitive nerves of the veteran.

"Everyone, stand up!" Silva uttered a high-pitched command, and he turned to the soldiers who had risen from the ground and ordered: "Turn left, go!" “

"Mr. Major!" Drummer Gonzalez pointed to the sailors down the hill in surprise and asked, "We don't seem to be on the same road as the boatswain!" “

"Gonzalez, it's your duty to obey orders!" Silva raised his chin arrogantly: "I think I can still tell the difference!" ”

"Yes, Mr. Major!" The drummer swallowed with difficulty, the habit of the soldiers made him bow his head, and the soldiers set off tamely as ordered. Silva looked back and took one last look at the sailors. He said to himself, "I'm sorry, Paul, the Dutch have formed an alliance with the Moro, so we must bring the merchant of the sea, called Yiguan, to our side, and the order of the Governor must not be missed, and I must return to the Queen Mary as soon as possible!" ”

"Let's go. Hurry up! Boatswain Paul cried out loudly, looking back in the direction he was coming from. The absence of soldiers worries him, but he soon tells himself that this is a ploy by Mr. Major, and that if the two sides get too close, it will lose the point of luring the enemy. However, he still felt a little uncomfortable in his heart.

"Head, where is Mr. Major?" A sailor asked.

"It's none of your business, idiot!" Paul scolded in a rough voice, and gave the guy a whip on his ass: "Take a bigger step, I swear even those girls in tight long skirts can walk faster than you!" ”

The sailor let out a scream, covered his buttocks, and replied with a breath: "Head, I bet the major has taken the soldiers on a different path, and the nobles are like that, he wants the largest piece of the spoils, but he runs the fastest in case of danger!" ”

"That's you, coward!" The boatswain gave the daring sailor another ass: "Clamp your fat ass and run quickly, and when I get back to camp I will give you twenty more lashes with the Nine-Tails Whip to punish you for insulting a valiant gentleman!" ”

This time no one dared to speak again, and all of them lowered their heads and quickened their pace, and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of leather boots trampling the sandy ground, and the air was almost frozen.

The silence was broken by the sound of horses' hooves, and the boatswain turned his head, only to see a dark shadow behind him, which looked like the enemy who had attacked the sentries not long ago, but the number had risen to more than seventy, more than twice the number of the sailors. The sailors let out a desperate scream: "Moors! ”

"Panic what! Line up in a hollow circle, and as long as you hold on for twenty minutes, Major Silva will come to us! The boatswain shouted at his men to courage and shoved them violently so that they formed a circle against the cavalry. The common weapon used by sailors was the scimitar, an Indian and Arabic weapon common among sailors and pirates in Southeast Asia, and could be used to kill people and cut cables in an emergency; There are also round shields and short javelins; A few also have short guns. Unlike the soldiers, however, all sailors don't have helmets or cuirasses, for the simple reason that if you fall overboard, these heavy things will quickly pull you into the arms of death.

With the efforts of the boatswain, the sailors finally formed a rough hollow phalanx, with the shielded men on the outermost layer and the short guns and spear-throwers on the inside, and Paul cried out in his loud voice: "Light the rope, load the medicine, and fire without my orders, Our Lady bless, Amen!" ”

"Amen!" Whether it is a Spaniard, an indigenous or a mestizo, a cross is drawn on the chest. The knights at the front were only about forty or fifty paces away from them, and they were astonished to see most of the enemy jumping off their horses, and only about twenty horsemen continued to rush towards them, and they divided into two groups, as if they were two huge arms, and surrounded the small phalanx. But at this time there was no more to worry about, and Paul cried out, "Everyone, listen to my commands, and prepare—"

Everyone held their breath as the leader dragged out, both with short guns and spears in hand, waiting for the boatswain's orders, when suddenly, a strange phenomenon happened, the damned cavalrymen suddenly disappeared - the horses were empty, only the saddles.

This momentary hesitation decided Paul's fate, an arrow pierced his throat, blood immediately blocked his trachea, and the screams were choked in his throat, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see an enemy turning over and getting on the horse's back, it turned out that these sturdy knights had just made a saddle and hid on the other side of the horse, the horse's wide torso blocked the view, and from the Spaniard's side, the horse's back was empty.

These knights are selected from Liu Cheng's side guards, the least can also hold six or seven forces (the strength unit of the ancient Chinese bow, nine catties and four taels for a force) of the riding bow, and most of them are chisel arrows, shovel arrows and other arrows, at this time the cavalry is only about twenty steps away from the outermost sailors, at this distance is pointing to the left eye will not deviate to the right eye, this burst of arrow rain down, suddenly a scream, horizontal and vertical fell to the ground. The few who threw their spears and fired their guns didn't know where to hit in a panic, and they didn't even drop a single horsehair.

"It's amazing, it's amazing!" Ke Congwen couldn't keep his mouth shut, and about fifty paces away, the cavalry had already rushed through the small phalanx of the Spaniards, leaving corpses all over the ground. Wang Xingguo, who was on the side, glanced at him disdainfully, and shouted in a long voice: "Charge - fill - tamp - point rope - aim - shoot!" Under his rhythmic command, the shooters lined up in a horizontal line and fired a volley, and immediately a scream was heard from the opposite side. (To be continued.) )