Chapter 131: A Strange Victory (Part 2)

Battle statistics:

Outcome: 102 killed on the spot, 70 died of their wounds, 213 captured, of which 35 were lightly wounded. Over 400 cold weapons were seized, along with 7 three-eyed guns and 7 warhorses. The 8th horse, which had an injured leg, was eaten tonight.

Our side: 11 lightly wounded, 10 of whom sprained or fell during the pursuit—running in a recently harvested paddy field is indeed a dangerous action. 1 person injured his foot while carrying ammunition.

By the afternoon, the prisoners had been basically rounded up. Following Ma Qianzhu’s instructions, food was arranged for the prisoners. The food given to the prisoners by the canteen was always the same: congee. The prisoners were obviously still in shock and were fearful of the transmigrators’ food. Finally, a brave one, unable to bear the hunger, began to drink the congee in large gulps. With a leader, the rest swarmed around the rice bucket. They pushed and shoved, and only stopped short of fighting under the shouts of the guards. Now they could finally get a close look at the legendary Ming dynasty pirates. A messy group of peasants squatted in a pile. They didn’t even have decent clothes. Some were bare-chested, some wore single-layered jackets. Their clothes and pants were dirty and smelly, tattered and torn, as if they were about to fall apart at any moment. Through the gaps in their clothes, one could see ribs like bamboo joints and swollen bellies. Xiong Buyou, along with a few translators and members of the security group, was working hard on them.

There were also a dozen or so people who looked much more alert. They didn’t fight for food. These people had no expression on their faces, appearing dull and depressed, but occasionally, a few darting eyes revealed that they were up to no good.

“These people should be the core members,” Ran Yao said after watching for a while. “Let’s start with them.”

According to the preliminary interrogation, the pirates confessed that they were Zhu Cailao’s men. Among those who came, 50 were old pirates, and the rest had been recruited in the last half a month. They had no combat experience and were purely there to make up the numbers.

The most absurd thing was that dozens of them were military households from the Hou Suo garrison in Lingao. It turned out that the chiliarch of the Hou Suo garrison, Liu, in order to earn a few extra coins, often leased the weapons, ships, and military households of his own garrison to pirates for fighting. It was not uncommon for Chiliarch Liu to collude with pirates. In this area, the coastal official army and the various heroes on the sea all had some relationship.

However, there was not a single person of a leader’s rank among the prisoners. Last time, they had at least captured a captain-level figure like Shi Shisi. This time, there was not even a decent leader. They had been transported by five large ships to Shipai and landed at dawn today. After landing, they had advanced here under the command of a “manager.” As for that manager, it was unknown whether he was dead or had run away. In any case, he was not in the prisoner ranks, and could not be found among the mangled corpses hit by the cannonballs.

Most of them only knew that they were here to fight some “Kun bandits.” The person who recruited them said that the “Kun bandits” had robbed many of Master Zhu’s treasures, and that Bairen Beach was full of goods. Master Zhu was attacking them to vent his anger, and he also said that if they won, all the things would belong to them.

Among the captured items, many weapons had Zhu Cailao’s mark and name. Some bodies were also found with documents, command flags, and other things from Zhu Cailao’s gang. Looking at the prisoners’ confessions and the many pieces of evidence, Ran Yao frowned.

As dusk gradually fell, laughter and cheers filled the various camps of the Transmigrator Group. Zhu Cailao was nothing special. Zhang Bolin’s mouth was almost smiling from ear to ear. In today’s battle, a total of 80 cannonballs were fired, and more than 400 pirates were routed. It was a great credit to the artillery.

The canteen butchered the killed horses and prepared a full meal of horse meat and offal for the training battalion. Although it was horse meat, the canteen had fish sauce, spices, and plenty of salt. It was a world of difference from the usual boiled dead horse meat in plain water. Wu Nan Hai also rendered some horse fat. This stuff smelled disgusting, but it was fragrant when used for frying. The famous Beijing snack, fried starch sausage, was made with this. Wu Nan Hai didn’t have starch sausage, so he directly fried the most common dried pumpkin slices here and then poured chopped garlic on top. It was warmly welcomed by the majority of the soldiers. Compared to the small portion of horse meat and offal per person, this kind of open supply with oil was more able to meet the needs of the masses.

Huang Xiong received his small bowl of horse meat and offal. He poked it with his chopsticks. A few pieces of meat, a few pieces of intestines, lungs, and the like. It smelled of a strong mixture of spices and meat. Although the meat was old, it was extremely fresh and fragrant. As a former Ming army officer, he had eaten dead mule and horse meat, but this was the first time he had tasted this stuff so deliciously prepared. He looked around. The soldiers of the entire company were all eating and drinking on their own, making satisfied sounds from time to time. After winning two battles, these chiefs were really stingy, only giving them a meal of horse meat! Huang Xiong had thought they would give out some silver rewards or something. But on second thought, in these two battles, besides holding a rifle and standing in formation, he had indeed done nothing. They were all won with cannons.

Looking around, Company Commander You Laohu and the platoon leaders were also eating horse meat and fried pumpkin slices there, with brown rice in their bowls. On this point, Huang Xiong really admired the equality of officers and soldiers of these chiefs: the officers, besides having a little more equipment, had no special treatment. They ate the same as them, wore the same clothes, and although they had a single room, it was just a barracks. Besides going to Bairen City for a “weekend” every week, there was really no enjoyment to speak of—they didn’t even have anyone to make their beds and fold their quilts.

As he was eating, he heard the soldiers of his company talking about the two battles.

“…If all battles are fought like this, being a soldier would be easy…”

“The chiefs’ cannons are so powerful, who in the world can stop them?”

“Do you guys think the chiefs are going to… you know?”

“You little rascal, stop pretending. Isn’t it just rebellion? I think it’s possible.”

“Rebellion will get your whole family executed—”

“Executed for what? With the official army being so useless, we’re not afraid of rebellion.” This person was happily dreaming, “If we really succeed in rebellion, we’ll all be founding heroes, and each of us will have several thousand mu of land.”

“I want to get a wife. I’m over twenty and I’ve never even touched a woman’s hand.”

“What’s one wife? I want to get a dozen, just like the big rich merchants in the city!”

“You’re already so skinny, aren’t you afraid a dozen wives will wear you out to a pulp!”

…

Huang Xiong listened, and his heart was moved. He had come to join the army as a soldier just to find a place of refuge as a criminal. Now it seemed that this group of “Kun bandits” had great ambitions. Even if they were not going to rebel, they most likely had the idea of carving out a territory for themselves. As he was thinking, he suddenly heard a soldier ask:

“Squad Leader Huang, do you think the chiefs have this intention?”

Huang Xiong put down his bowl, “How would I know that? But the opponents in these two battles were too weak. If it were the official army, it probably wouldn’t have been so easy.”

“Our cannons—”

“The official army has them too, aren’t they just Hongyi cannons?” Huang Xiong had seen the gunners of his own garrison drilling. The operation of this cannon was similar to that of the Hongyi cannon, but it seemed to be lighter and much more convenient to transport.

“Besides, so what if the Liaodong garrison has Hongyi cannons? They were still beaten to a pulp by the Eastern barbarians outside the pass. Can you fire the cannon continuously? The Eastern barbarians rely on fast horses and sharp arrows. One cannon shot can kill at most a dozen people, and a few hundred cavalry can charge over a few dozen zhang in an instant. You can’t fire many shots before the cavalry rushes into the formation, and you still have to rely on infantry for hand-to-hand combat.”

These words made the soldiers a little scared, and the originally lively atmosphere diminished a lot. Huang Xiong suddenly became alert. What was wrong with him? In the garrison army, this could be charged with the crime of “shaking the morale of the army,” and he would be dragged out and beheaded directly. What was he doing, saying these things for no reason!

He quickly changed the subject, “This is Qiongzhou. Jianzhou is still a hundred and eight thousand li away. What are you all panicking about? The brothers don’t have to go to Liaodong to fight.”

As he spoke, he quickly looked around to see if there were any outsiders present. He then casually talked about some other miscellaneous things he had seen and heard, diverting the soldiers’ attention.

The setting sun slowly descended on Bopu’s Lingao Cape. The newly renovated Lingao beacon tower stood tall, its gun emplacement just completed. The muzzle of a 12-pounder cannon pointed out to sea. On the gun platform was a searchlight, manned by Li Di, who was equipped with a walkie-talkie and night vision equipment, and two naval sentries. Looking out at Bairen City, the hustle and bustle of a busy day gradually quieted down. The people on duty outside the city lit bonfires. A few lights still twinkled in some departments in the city, where work was still going on. In Bopu, the charcoal stove fires blazed, and the fishy smell of fish came with the wind. This was the smell of the aquatic product processing plant. At the river mouth, there were some faint lights on the Fengcheng Maru, which almost merged with the starry sky.

Every few minutes, he would use his night vision binoculars to observe the surroundings of the camp. Bopu was not like when they first landed, where a circular camp could guard it. The workplace had expanded a lot outwards. Although important places were all fortified in a circular manner, it was difficult to achieve the brightened defense that illuminated all four sides like in the past. Besides placing lighting equipment at key intersections and main roads, they relied more on night vision equipment and hidden sentries. At present, they could not completely trust the native soldiers, so the night watch duty was all undertaken by the transmigrators or at least led by them.

In his binoculars, he saw a few figures slowly approaching the seaside camp. From their outlines, they should be their own people, but according to the rules, he had to immediately notify the hidden sentries.

“Tan Ming, Tan Ming, someone is approaching your post.”

“Understood.” Tan Ming, who was on duty at the river mouth, belonged to the construction engineering team. Because his physical condition was particularly good and he was the hardworking type, he was drafted into the core militia. Besides working during the day, he also had to be on duty at night. The advantage was that he could enjoy some of the things that were particularly in short supply now: cigarettes, canned food, and Coke. In addition, the core militia often organized movie screenings: the first was a military training film, the second was various commercial films, and the third was a late-night show, showing films that were not suitable for good children.

“Password!” Tan Ming shouted.

“Refrigerator! Countersign?”

“Haier! Which unit are you from?” Tan Ming gripped the SKS rifle in his hand.

“I am Wu De from the Bairen Commune!” The visitor had a dark face and was followed by several big men in training clothes.

It was Wu De, my goodness, a high official. Tan Ming immediately stood at attention, and his speech became a little unclear:

“Chief Wu, no, Commune Head Wu—”

“You can just call me Ah De. You’re not a native,” Wu De had never seen a transmigrator so respectful to him before.

“I am Tan Ming from the construction engineering team—” Tan Ming was a little embarrassed. There was nothing he could do. After mixing at the bottom of society for a long time, one often becomes like this. He felt a little sad in his heart.

Wu De had some impression of this person because he had dealt with the construction engineering team a lot during the early construction period.

“You are—’Fei Ming’ (Fat Ming), right?” He matched the person’s nickname and face in the depths of his memory. To be honest, this nickname was now a misnomer. Long-term labor and a high-protein, low-fat diet had made him not “fat” at all, but rather quite sturdy.

“Yes, yes, I am ‘Fei Ming.’ You still remember me.”

“Weren’t we always meeting on the construction site back then?” Wu De saw that he was a little excited and wanted to reminisce. He thought that this was a hidden sentry post, and it was not the place to talk like this. Besides, he had things to do, so he quickly continued, “I need to get on the Fengcheng Maru. Where do I board?”

“You can go to the naval port affairs office under the Lingao Cape fort. They are in charge of everything here.”

Wu De shook his head. The navy was so ambitious, it was not a good sign. Although he himself was from the navy, because he had worked in the Executive Committee for a long time, he saw things more comprehensively and was not optimistic about the current trend of the army and navy. He also wanted to take this opportunity to talk to old soldiers like He Ming and Ming Qiu.