Chapter 215: Burning Moon Harbor
So these shipowners hurriedly beckoned to the boatmen on board, pulled out the anchor and lifted the sails, went down the river, and under the escort of the sea wolves, sailed to Zhongzuosuo and Kinmen Island outside the mouth of the Kowloon River, and anchored according to the designated Wenzhi.
Of course, among these ships, there are some ships, at this time, because the shipowner, including the boatman on the ship, has abandoned the ship and fled because of fear, and no one operates it, so the sea wolf is naturally not polite, confiscates it immediately, and sends someone to sail the ship out of the moon port.
In addition, there are more than 20 official ships of all sizes moored here, they are mainly government patrol ships, some are war ships, but most of them are ships used by sailors and government officials to patrol the port area to collect taxes.
The officers and soldiers on these ships had already fled into Haicheng County at this time, and even fled directly to Zhangzhou Mansion.
Therefore, these ships were selected, and the available ones were left to send people away, but they were really unsightly and useless ships, so they directly set fire to them.
Next, although the sea wolf besieged the county seat of Haicheng, it did not attack the county seat, but divided a part of the men and began to sweep the area around the dock.
Because Yuegang is the only legal sea port in the Ming Dynasty, all kinds of merchants from Tiannan and Haibei have also come here to build shops to do business, they are not necessarily maritime merchants, but they are all maritime merchants, and maritime merchants can sometimes purchase a large number of maritime trade commodities on the spot, so although Yuegang has been repeatedly invaded and destroyed many times, but because there are enough merchants and funds, after the thieves retreat here, they can often recover quickly.
The small county town of Haicheng must not be able to accommodate so many shops, so around the Yuegang Wharf, a very large business area has been formed, with a variety of shops and shops that do the tertiary industry here, which is very prosperous.
But when the sea wolf arrived, it was already very deserted, and those who could run ran away, and those who were reluctant to escape also hid in the shop, not even daring to take a breath.
After the Seawolf Marines entered the shop pù area, they began to disperse in rank units, and began to enter these shops in pieces, driving out all the people in the shop, ordering them to bring the soft and leave here immediately, otherwise they would be killed.
The people who stayed here were crying and crying for their mothers, but there was nothing they could do, and under the bright bayonets and spears and quick knives of the sea wolf soldiers and sailors, they could only obey, and took all the soft things they could with them, and then they were driven out of their shops.
As for the things they couldn't take away, the sea wolf was naturally not polite, and took them all to himself, and sent people to grab a batch of laborers from the merchant area, as well as some militia villagers who had been prepared to bring from the sea wolf's territory, and transported these goods that were confiscated from the shop pù to the dock to be loaded on the ship, and transported back to Tamsui City.
After the first fleet of the sea wolves arrived at Wai Tau Bay, and captured Kinmen Island and Zhongzuo Station, and cleared the official water forces and various forces in the area of Wai Tou Bay, the second fleet began to sail into Wai Tou Bay.
After they arrived at Weitou Bay, they began to sail into the Jiulong River and sailed towards Yuegang, at this time, the merchant ships docked in Yuegang had gradually sailed out of Yuegang in batches, anchored and sailed near Kinmen Island and Zhongzuosuo, waiting for the next step of the sea wolf.
The wharf gradually emptied, and one by one the cargo ships of the sea wolves docked at the pier and began to receive all kinds of supplies from the commercial area.
The whole operation was carried out in an orderly manner, so Yu Xiaotian had already made arrangements in advance, and a special person was in charge of these things, and there was no lot of chaos.
As for the government, after the sea wolf entered the Jiulong River, it seemed to be dumb, and the Zhangzhou government and all counties closed their doors to protect themselves, and did not send a single soldier to Yuegang to expel the sea wolf.
At this time, the sea wolf had already gathered two battalions of troops on the shore, as well as a large number of militia townsmen, surrounded the entire shop area of Yuegang, and set up temporary positions outside to protect their actions in Yuegang.
This kind of seizure operation lasted for three days, and the sea wolf neither attacked Haicheng County, nor continued to raid the surrounding areas, but was busy packing and moving everything that could be removed from the shop area of Nengyuegang.
After a few days of expulsion from the shops, everyone was driven out of the area, and as for where they went, the sea wolf did not care, nor did he care more, and did not even interfere with the belongings they carried, as long as they could take them, let them take them away, and escort them for a distance, and no one was allowed to rob them, but after they left, they had to resign themselves to their fate.
In the past few days, some strong people in the surrounding area, after learning the news of the sea wolf's arrival, first hid and did not dare to show their heads, but after seeing that the sea wolf only focused on this part of the moon port and did not loot other places, they became bold and began to tentatively move.
Some strongmen and ruffians saw that some people were driven out of the moon port by the sea wolves, some ran to the vicinity to seek refuge with relatives and friends, and some fled to Zhangzhou Mansion, these people all carried a lot of goods, so they moved their minds and began to rob these people on some roads, for a time the chaos around the moon port was even worse than the moon port, and the corpses of people killed by robbery were often seen on the road, but now no one cares about this at all.
The government is determined to defend their city, and they don't come out half a step, and the big families have also gathered the young and strong people in the village to close the door to protect themselves, and no one cares about these things, for a while, the surrounding area of Yuegang was full of bandits and robbers, taking advantage of the chaos to rob passers-by, and even some large groups of strongmen took the opportunity to attack some walled forts, trying to make a big profit.
But these things, Yu Xiaotian is too lazy to care! Now he is determined to emulate Zheng Zhilong's actions in another time and space, in history, to completely destroy Yuegang, and completely control Weitouwan in his hands, so that Yuegang loses its role as a sea trade base.
Therefore, he only focused on completely emptying the Moon Harbor, but all the useful things were pulled away first, even if the temporary transportation capacity was insufficient to transport these things back to Tamsui City, he would temporarily transport them to Kinmen Island for storage, and then consider the issue of transshipment in the next step.
Moon Harbor is simply a mountain of gold, although the sea wolf did not do everything, and allowed the people here to leave as much as possible to bring some of their belongings, but the discarded goods and goods, still piled up, for three whole days, dozens of big ships back and forth, still did not finish the transfer of things here.
It is only a preliminary estimate, after this trip, if the goods they obtained are converted into silver, there will be at least hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, which is enough for the sea wolf to use for a long time, especially some of the metals, which are the things that the sea wolf urgently needs, including both Japanese red copper, as well as iron materials from Fujian and Guangdong, which is of great help to the sea wolf to build weapons and improve their own strength in the next step.
In addition, it is also a distribution center for all kinds of good timber, and a lot of hardwood for shipbuilding is transported from other places, and a lot of hardwood for shipbuilding is also piled up here.
As for other goods used for trade at sea, such as porcelain, tea, lacquerware, raw silk, silk, cloth...... and other messy goods, there are countless of them, and they can only be transported away first, and then they can be counted and classified.
On the fourth day, Zhangzhou Mansion and Quanzhou Mansion finally reacted, and the Fuzhou Political Envoy finally received the news that the sea wolf had invaded Yuegang on a large scale, and mobilized thousands of officers and troops from Tingzhou Mansion and Yanping Mansion, and Zhangzhou Mansion and Quanzhou Mansion also mobilized 3,000 officers and troops and began to move towards Yuegang.
Although the government was defeated and lost on Nanri Island this time, but after all, there are still some officials and troops in Fujian, and now the sea wolves are attacking Yuegang in a big way, if they don't even make a little move, they really can't say it, so how can they pretend to be and send some officials and soldiers to Haicheng, it is best to force the sea wolves out of here, if it really doesn't work, at least keep the cities of Zhangzhou Mansion and Haicheng County.
It doesn't matter if Yuegang is robbed, but if Yu Xiaotian gets mad and takes advantage of the situation to capture Zhangzhou Mansion or several county seats, then the whole of Fujian will probably not be able to eat and walk around.
At this time, the sea wolf's robbery of the entire Moon Harbor area is basically over, and what should be taken away has basically been loaded and pulled away, and the rest are some things and houses that they don't need.
Until this time, Yu Xiaotian issued a new order, set fire!
A large number of sea wolf marines and sailors began to withdraw from the shore to the ship, and when they were evacuating, arson began to be set everywhere in the moon harbor, and all the shops around the moon harbor were set on fire, and after the personnel withdrew to the ship, including the dock, some gunpowder was also put to blow up, but all the wooden trestle and other combustibles were poured with some fire oil and ignited.
When the sea wolf fleet withdrew from the Jiulong River, they could still feel the heat wave behind them rushing towards them, and when the sea wolf withdrew, the entire Moon Harbor was in flames, and even in the night, dozens of miles away, you could see the flames rising from the Moon Harbor, rolling in the thick smoke.
The officials and defenders of Haicheng County were stunned to see the sky-high fire burning on the other side of the dock, feeling the heat wave on the other side of the fire, and they were completely speechless for a while.
They didn't expect the sea wolf to do this, and do it so desperately, although this is not the first time that Yuegang has been broken by pirates, but the last few times the pirates came here and looted a lot, they didn't do it so desperately, after they retreated, Yuegang with sufficient financial support, countless merchants poured back, or quickly restored its prosperity.
But this time, when they saw the sky-high fire on the side of Yuegang, they knew that Yuegang might not be able to recover for a long time this time, and what they didn't expect was that Yuegang would completely decline from now on, and it would never be possible to restore its previous prosperity.