gnovel Chapter 201 Offense and Defense
Chapter 201 Offense and Defense
After a whole night of transport, the fish and salt purchased yesterday were all transported back to the two large boats and stored.
Before dawn, inside and outside the thatched hut, there was a sound of swords being drawn and sheathed.
The number of bows, now increased to ten, was also strung up, and the tense calibration process began.
Some people even took out whetstones to sharpen their swords in the last moments...
Cheng Ji stood not far from Shao Shuyi, watching quietly.
The reluctance on his face is gone, replaced by numbness.
Yes, it's numb.
Since meeting Shao Shuyi, he first went to the sea to kill people, then to Tongzhou to kill officials, and then to Jiangyin to kill salt smugglers. The blood on his hands could never be washed away. But he had no right to complain to anyone, because he had taken all the benefits.
My father fell ill a while ago, and we spent a lot of money on doctors and medicine. In the past, that would have driven him to his death, but this time we managed to handle it with ease.
His two children ate meat every few days, and would rush to him whenever they saw him come home. He always had some snacks in his arms, which made his children beam with joy. His wife wore more and more jewelry, and when the two were alone, she would often bury her head in his arms, saying that she had never regretted marrying him.
Cheng Ji felt like he was being dragged down by family and relatives, step by step falling into an abyss, or perhaps being reborn?
He didn't know, nor did he want to think about it. He just followed along. There was no turning back, was there?
Wu Heizi was the first to finish getting ready.
He wore leather armor, had a pig-slaughtering knife at his waist, and carried a wooden club with iron nails on his shoulder, looking around with self-assurance.
His gaze would occasionally dart around his teammates, as if urging them to stop dawdling, hurry up and finish packing, and then the whole team could set off.
Gao Daqiang sat on a tree stump, his beloved ebony spear lying across his lap, and leisurely hung his strung bow at his waist.
He only started learning archery a year ago, and his skill level isn't great, but he loves it very much and is already thinking about having a brand new mulberry wood bow made so he won't have to share the old bow with others anymore.
His dozen or so men had all prepared their equipment and were ready to set off.
Bian Yuanheng has already shouldered the banner of "martial arts".
Everyone in the Shao family's salt gang knew that this man, who used the alias Wu Song, was not to be trifled with, and they had a fairly deep understanding of him.
This man is highly skilled in martial arts, proficient in all foot combat weapons except for the bow, and is also ruthless.
Yes, Bian Yuanheng is loyal to his brothers, warm-hearted, and has a simple sense of justice. He likes to "act on behalf of Heaven," but he is by no means a kind-hearted person. When he kills, he doesn't care whether the person is innocent or not. In order to achieve his goal of upholding justice, he dares to kill anyone, even the elderly, weak, women, and children. To put it bluntly, there are no morally perfect people around Shao Shuyi. Even the elementary school student Yu Yuan gradually relaxed his standards for himself, slowly transforming from a pure-hearted boy into a ruthless "musketeer."
As for firearms, the three newly arrived sons of military households from Pizhou each carried one, which they used when the guerrillas charged or blocked the enemy.
Two of the three muskets were newly purchased, along with several bows, all from the Han Army Ten Thousand Household Office of the Interpreter—clearly, Shao Shuyi had opened up new procurement channels, getting weapons from Han De, the deputy commander of Yangshe, which was much more convenient than from Cheng Ji, the head of Dadu.
At the beginning of the hour of Mao (5-7 AM), Shao Shuyi, accompanied by Tie Niu, Liang Tai, and two sons of military households from Pizhou, Fu Jian and Fu Yong, emerged from the thatched hut. After looking around, he waved his hand and said, "Let's go!"
With a whoosh, the Gao and Wu teams, totaling twenty-eight people, lined up and began to march in two columns, with the Gao team in front and the Wu team behind, ten steps apart.
Brothers Fu Jian and Fu Yong, each with a small drum hanging from their waists, caught up with a group of people and walked to one side of the group.
Liang Tai had a drum and a cow horn hanging from his waist, and a gong on his back; he was the "frontline commander" for both teams. Tie Niu, Cheng Ji, and three musketeers surrounded Shao Shuyi, walking at the very back.
The group of thirty-seven walked silently along the route they had scouted beforehand, heading straight for the Lüsi Saltworks—there wasn't really a route, just a straight path along the main road.
A muffled horn sounded from behind.
The leader at the front immediately stopped in place and began to reorganize the formation.
Team Leader Wu quickly finished tidying up using his usual methods.
"Dong dong..." Fu Jian responded first by striking the drum, followed by Fu Yong.
"Dong dong..." Liang Tai put down the ox horn and started beating the small drum at his waist.
Team Gao and Team Wu, a total of 28 people, moved forward again.
This was the umpteenth time they had stopped to regroup along the way. The salt farmers, fishermen, vegetable growers, and merchants near Lüsichang were all stunned, wondering where these government troops came from. Although their clothing was a bit off—whether it was the patrol office or the garrison commandery, their soldiers basically wore blue robes.
Shao Shuyi looked around, feeling both excited and worried.
The excitement stemmed from the fact that the long training had paid off. These men might not be considered elite troops, but in this competitive environment, they were still quite formidable. The worry, however, was that this was the first time they had marched so openly, with a salt field as their destination. There was a sense of unease, a feeling that their group was being too high-profile and might inadvertently face the iron fist of the Yuan Dynasty.
However, there's no other way. Since the establishment of the standardization of military construction, this is their "appearance". They can't really walk around like gangsters and then rush in chaotically when fighting, can they?
At 3:45 AM, dense villages appeared on the southern horizon. The layout was quite distinctive, with about a hundred families clustered together, and then several hundred steps apart, there was another gathering point.
This is the salt field, which is organized into salt-making areas and subordinate villages. Like the seafarers, it is under the dual leadership of the salt field and the local government.
At the end of the road was a fence that only reached chest height.
Whether they had heard something or not, several men in blue robes peeked out from behind the wooden fence, shouting occasionally, their voices filled with a hint of panic. At the head of the team was Zeng Yi, a seafarer, holding a shield in one hand and a knife in the other, his eyes narrowed as he stared intently at the fence.
Gao Daqiang waved his hand, and two strong men came up from the back of his team, each wielding a long-handled axe, and began hacking at the fence with all their might. Almost at the same time, the archers on both sides of Gao's team nocked their arrows and fired three or four arrows in one go.
The man in blue behind the fence shouted and ran away in panic.
"Bang!" The first axe blow struck the fence, sending wood chips flying.
"Whoosh! Whoosh!" Arrows flew out one after another, and the men in blue behind the fence scattered with a crash, leaving behind a corpse and a wounded man. Swordsmen Li Fu and Wu Shangyuan quickly stepped forward and jumped over the fence.
The injured man dragged his bleeding thigh and crawled forward in fear.
Li Fu caught up and said, "You deserve to die for wearing this skin."
Having said that, he slashed the man in blue across the back of the neck, ending his life.
With a series of loud "bangs," the thin wooden fence was soon shattered into pieces.
The tall, gun-wielding team of more than ten men rushed in, quickly reorganized themselves, and continued on their way.
Three musketeers caught up from behind.
They could see clearly from behind that when they encountered a fence blocking their way, two entire teams stopped there, with swordsmen, archers, and spearmen each performing their duties like a buzzing machine, quickly clearing the obstruction. This sight gave them goosebumps; the serious training and strict discipline of the troops were truly captivating.
The procession continued onward.
Several people were standing on the stone bridge ahead, making a lot of noise, seemingly arguing fiercely.
The leader had a very loud voice, shouting and cursing repeatedly, and kept hitting his soldiers with his sword sheath, not allowing them to retreat.
The approaching "men" seemed to have neither seen them nor noticing; in any case, their pace remained unchanged, and they continued moving forward mechanically. The three musketeers quickened their pace, tucking their brass pistols tightly under their arms, and when they were about ten paces away, they thrust their flintlock pistols into the touch holes. A series of "bangs" rang out, followed by screams from the stone bridge.
After firing the guns, the three retreated rapidly.
The swordsmen and spearmen of the tall gun team walked through the smoke, stepped onto the stone bridge, and over the scattered corpses, until they arrived at a building surrounded by a fence.
The horn sounded, and the troops stopped a short distance away.
A moment later, Wu's team of more than ten people stepped forward and stood alongside Gao's team, forming four columns.
The tour group huddled around Shao Shuyi, standing on a slope behind the Gao and Wu teams.
Liang Tai looked at him questioningly.
Shao Shuyi nodded and said, "There's nothing to say, just fight!"
Liang Tai responded with a "yes," then went down the slope, gave some instructions to Gao Daqiang and Wu Heizi, and finally ran back to the slope to look ahead.
"Dong dong..." He struck the waist drum forcefully.
Soon, four swordsmen and shield bearers stepped forward, holding their thick wooden shields high, and slowly advanced.
The musketeers, having finished loading their ammunition, followed closely behind, constantly peering ahead through the gaps in their shields.
The archers scattered and began hurling arrows behind the fence.
From the perspective of the saltworks, this armed salt gang that appeared out of nowhere was extremely strange and frightening.
They had encountered ruthless salt smugglers before, but those desperate criminals only had one tactic: a desperate charge.
Admittedly, the salt field patrolmen might not be able to stop such a desperate charge, but they were not incapable of putting up a fight.
But what kind of fighting style do these people have?
The saltworks manager brought in the few archers he had, who first unleashed a volley of arrows from a distance. However, the enemy spearmen raised their left hands, using the small round shields at their elbows to deflect the arrows, or they shook their spears in an attempt to parry.
It wasn't that no one got hit, but with such long-range projectiles, unless someone was extremely unlucky, it was impossible to kill them, let alone seriously injure them. As a result, a few muffled groans came from the opposing team of twenty or thirty people, and in the end, only one person who had been shot in the thigh withdrew from the battle, sitting on the spot groaning.
The shield bearers were getting closer and closer.
The saltworks manager was sweating profusely and ordered the archers to fire directly. But after a series of whooshing sounds, the enemy was almost unharmed except for a few constantly trembling "white feathers" on their shields.
The shield bearers continued their advance.
"Shoot! Shoot!" Guan Gou shouted hoarsely, brandishing his ring-bladed sword.
No sooner had he finished speaking than a scream rang out beside him. It turned out that an archer had not covered his body properly and was too exposed, so he was shot in the chest by an arrow flying from the opposite side.
Guan Gou's legs went weak, and he almost knelt on the ground.
A second scream rang out, and an archer who was pressed against the fence had just gotten up when he was hit by three arrows.
One shot went way off course, another grazed his shoulder, and yet another, as if by some strange twist of fate, struck him squarely in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. Guan Gou's head was spinning; he didn't know what to do, only seeing the shield getting closer and closer.
Thirty steps, twenty steps, fifteen steps, ten steps...
A gap appeared in the shield opposite, and three musketeers filed out, firing under the horrified gaze of the gunner.
"Bang!" The bullet flew out of the smoke. Before Guan Gou could react, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, and then everything went black. His consciousness was plunged into permanent darkness.
The axemen rushed out from behind the shields, their faces contorted with rage, and began hacking at the fence with all their might.
The saltworks patrolmen couldn't hold out any longer and turned to flee. Only one archer remained, nocking an arrow, seemingly making a final stand.
"Don't run away if you dare!" Zhan Feng Zeng Yi, clutching his bleeding arm, locked his sinister gaze on the last patrol archer who was still resisting, already having thought of seven or eight ways to torture and kill him.
However, four arrows flew out from behind in succession. Two missed, and the other two struck the salt soldier archer in the chest and abdomen, respectively, and he was obviously doomed. With a "rip," the fence was quickly cut to pieces, and the morale of the more than twenty "men" soared. They shouted and charged in.
After taking only seven or eight steps, more than ten salt field patrolmen came to meet them, and the two sides clashed.
In just one encounter, four or five salt field patrolmen were pierced through the body by spears and fell to the ground screaming in agony.
Before the remaining men could react, another volley of bayonets struck, claiming four more lives.
Twenty-six soldiers (two missing) huddled together, advancing in a wall formation, like a sophisticated killing machine; their pace was slow, but unstoppable.
The scattered troops at the saltworks quickly collapsed.
At this point, there was no force left to stop the Shao family's salt gang's armed forces.