novelSusiti Chapter 83 Pirate Siege
Chapter 83 Pirate Siege
Chapter 83 Pirate Siege
What?
Chen Wang was stunned, and his previously calm face suddenly showed a look of astonishment.
After a long pause, he shook his head with a wry smile: "Brother Sanjin, aren't you overestimating me?"
"Although I, Chen Wang, now have a few warships and hundreds of men under my command, and have some influence in Hong Kong, I am still a third-rate pirate."
"To put it nicely, they're outlaws; to put it bluntly, they're just bandits who rob and plunder."
"If you're talking about Guangzhou, that's no problem. Marshal Chen and Marshal Li, who led the siege of Guangzhou, were both members of the Hongmen, and I have some influence with them."
"But that's Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom! Now it's surrounded by tens of thousands of elite troops from the Qing Dynasty's Jiangnan and Jiangbei camps. Not even a fly can get in, let alone a person."
"By land? That would take you across half of China, with countless checkpoints and strict inspections along the way. By sea? The Yangtze River estuary is teeming with Qing naval forces; they would turn even a fishing boat upside down."
After saying all that, Zhao Sanjin's expression remained unchanged.
After exchanging a few thoughts with Hongwu, he said, "So that means that for Chief Chen, helping to find people in Hong Kong is no problem?"
Chen Wang nodded and said, "Of course. Hong Kong Island may be big, but as long as the people are still here, my brothers can always find a way out."
Zhao Sanjin said, "I have two things I'd like to ask Chief Chen for help with. The first is finding someone in Hong Kong. The second is that I'd like to ask Chief Chen to write a letter so I can pay my respects to Marshal Chen and Marshal Li."
Chen Wang smiled and said, "Don't worry, Brother Sanjin. Just describe the name and physical characteristics of the person you're looking for, and I'll have the brothers in Hong Kong find him."
"As for letters, that's no problem at all. I'll write one in a bit, stamp it with my personal seal, and you can take it to Guangzhou. When Marshal Chen and Marshal Li see it, they'll know you're one of their own."
While they were talking inside the cabin, on the other side of the dock...
The previously spotted pirate ships had arrived not far behind the Wind Chaser, blocking all of its escape routes.
"Damn, what a great ship!"
On the largest pirate ship, the captain, who was also the leader of the pirate gang, Liu Daba, was standing at the bow, observing every detail of the Wind Chaser through binoculars.
"Three masts and sails, judging by the speed, it must have been equipped with the kind of steam engine that the foreigners use. That 12-pounder cannon at the bow is also a good thing —"
He grew increasingly excited as he looked at the ship, shouting to the pirates beside him, "Listen up, you guys! Board the ship and take it back intact! You'll each get ten taels of silver!"
"But be careful, don't let him ruin my future flagship, or I'll skin him alive!"
"Charge!"
The generous reward boosted the morale of the hundreds of pirates on several pirate ships.
Some people put down their paddle boats and started paddling furiously forward. Others climbed onto gun pylons, ready to swing across using ropes later.
But many people opted for the easiest method: swinging the rope with the hook.
Once the boat beneath their feet was a little closer, they would throw the ropes they were holding to the opposite vessel. After the grappling hooks firmly onto the gunwale, they would pull the two boats together with all their might.
Such a commotion naturally attracted the attention of the suicide soldiers who remained on the deck of the Wind Chaser.
"Wow, so arrogant? They just charge in like that without even firing a shot?"
The leader was a young man in his early twenties named Tang He. He looked at the approaching pirates through his monoculars and couldn't help but pause for a moment.
Tang and the assassin beside him rolled their eyes and said, "Those pirates are still eight or nine hundred yards away from us. The guns and bows they have can only shoot three or four hundred yards at most. Even if they open fire, all we'll see are arrows and lead bullets falling into the water."
"Then let's use our Pacific Type 1 guns to show them what a real gun is."
Tang grinned, walked to the side of the ship, lifted a tarpaulin to reveal a box of Pacific Type 1 rifles underneath.
He patted the cold barrel of the gun and said to the assassins around him, "Don't rush to fire. Wait until they get closer, about 500 yards, before you open fire."
Shoot first at those rowing and armed men on their boat, then fire freely.
"Five hundred yards? There's no way we can kill them all." Someone raised an eyebrow. "At that distance, there's bound to be some who slip through the net and successfully board the ship."
The pirate speedboats were getting closer and closer, and the number of people on the deck of the Wind Chaser could be seen with the naked eye.
Seeing that there were only about twenty people, the pirates became even more excited. Seeing the men on the ship raise their spears, they couldn't help but sneer.
"A bunch of gunmen are coming from the other ship, still over a hundred feet away. Even the foreigners' guns can't shoot that far!"
Before they could finish speaking, they heard a loud shout coming from the opposite ship.
"beat!"
boom!
Gunshots rang out, and the pirate rowing the speedboat fell into the water. The speedboat immediately lost control and began spinning in place.
boom! boom! boom!
Gunshots rang out one after another, and the rifles on the ship fired simultaneously, each shot hitting the target accurately.
After a round of gunfire ended, nearly half of the crew on the leading rowboats had been lost.
"How could their guns shoot that far?"
One pirate stared wide-eyed in disbelief, roaring, "Over a hundred zhang! Is that a gun or a cannon?!"
"Never mind what kind of guns they're using!"
Another pirate snatched the oar from the corpse, kicked it into the sea, and sat down in his place. "They've run out of bullets; it'll take a long time to reload. Row fast while they can!"
"Load!"
On the ship, at Tang He's command, the assassins skillfully ejected the spent cartridges and reloaded them.
These movements are innate to them; they can perform them with their eyes closed.
Less than ten seconds later, the second round of shooting began.
The target this time is the leaders of those ships.
When they talked about attacking the leaders, Tang and the others couldn't really tell who the leaders were.
Therefore, anyone dressed slightly better, standing at the bow of the ship, or even holding a knife, was targeted for shooting.
The pirates finally panicked.
They originally thought it was just an ordinary merchant ship, with at most a few guards carrying muskets for courage.
But these twenty-odd people in front of me were incredibly accurate with their guns; every shot they fired took a life.
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
Some frightened pirates chose to jump into the sea and swim to safety.
The remaining pirates, as if waking from a dream, also tried to escape, but it was too late.
Ten seconds later, the second round of shooting ended.
On the ship and on the sea, as far as the eye could see, there were corpses everywhere.
"Damn it! What kind of gun is that?!"
Liu Daba, who was watching the battle from a distance using a monocular telescope, was furious. He didn't recognize Tang He or the gun in his hand, but he understood what it meant to kill people like mowing grass.
In just that short time, he lost at least forty or fifty men. He only had a little over three hundred men under his command, and this loss reduced him by one-sixth of his fighting strength.
What angered him even more was that the ship was still there, perfectly intact, while he hadn't even been able to touch the side of it.
He drew his revolver and roared, "Move closer! Move the boat closer!"
"Men, once we get close and jump onto the boat, their guns will be useless. Then we'll swarm them, and even the King of Heaven himself would be killed by us!"
With a roar, several pirate ships approached the Wind Chaser from all directions.
Although Tang and his men kept firing, the large ship offered far more hiding places than the oarsmen. Furthermore, with the two sides now less than four hundred yards apart, the pirates were also able to open fire and shoot arrows.
After several rounds of firing, more than thirty pirates were sent to the underworld.
Soon, the distance between the two sides was less than forty yards.
Pirates on the stern and sides of the ship threw ropes toward the Wind Chaser, and the hooks successfully caught the ship's side, pulling the pirate ship closer quickly.
Tang looked at them coldly, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Change to a revolver."
More than twenty people simultaneously put down their rifles and drew their improved Colt revolvers from their waists.
Bang bang bang bang!
More than a hundred bullets were unleashed from more than twenty revolvers in a matter of seconds, instantly wiping out more than half of the pirates on the opposite pirate ship.
Seeing this, Liu Daba was overjoyed and shouted, "Don't be afraid, their revolvers have missed, they have no strength to resist."
"Charge them! Kill them all! Twenty taels of silver reward each!"
Faced with a bounty that had doubled, greed overcame their fear, and the pirates strung up planks and roared as they charged forward.
To everyone's surprise, Tang and the others did not show any fear, but instead showed pity.
idiot.
The revolvers they carried were all modified by the military industry group, featuring a transparent cylinder design and using metal fixed cartridges.
They can reload in just five seconds.
Now, five seconds have passed.
Bang bang bang bang!
A barrage of gunfire erupted again, and bullets rained down on the charging pirates like a deluge.
Some pirates had their heads punched through, some were hit in the chest, and some screamed as they fell into the sea.
The seawater was quickly dyed red.
Liu Daba was so angry that he was trembling all over. Just as he was about to shout something else, a cannon shot suddenly came from the depths of the harbor.
boom!
The shell landed on the sea not far from Liu Daba's ship, splashing up a tall column of water.
Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen ships adorned with red banners rushed out from the depths of the harbor, their cannons pointed directly at Liu Daba's ship.
On the dock, Chen Wang, with a dozen or so men, shouted at Liu Daba's boat, "Liu Daba, are you tired of living?!"
A dozen minutes ago, one of Chen Wang's men ran into the cabin and whispered a few words to Chen Wang.
Upon hearing this, Chen Wang's expression changed slightly, but he quickly regained his composure. He looked at Zhao Sanjin with a complex expression in his eyes.
"Three Jin brothers, how many people did you leave on your ship?"
"More than twenty."
Chen Wang was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed.
"Good, good. Twenty-odd men beat Liu Daba's men to a pulp. Brother Sanjin, this is the kind of people you brought back from San Francisco!"
He gave a thumbs up, then stood up and said to his men, "Tell the brothers on the ship to raise the sails. Damn it, the ship is already docked, they're obviously my guests, and they still dare to make a move."
"Fire a warning shot! Even if we hit that bastard Liu Daba's ship, it's fine; we can just destroy him!"
Let's go back to the present.
Liu Daba's face turned extremely ugly. He looked at the Red Turban Gang's boats, then at his own, and gritted his teeth, shouting, "Chen Wang, this has nothing to do with you! Mind your own business!"
"Mind your own business?" Chen Wang sneered. "This ship belongs to my guests, Chen Wang. Tell me, isn't this minding your own business?"
Liu Daba was stunned, then said arrogantly, "I don't care if you're my guest or not, I spotted this ship first, so by the rules it's mine!"
"Don't want to follow the rules? Fine, then let's use cannons!"
Chen Wang chuckled and raised his hand.
On the Red Scarf Gang's ship, the pirates behind the cannons simultaneously raised their torches, preparing to light the fuses.
Liu Daba's expression changed.
He lost at least a hundred men for this ship. If a real fight broke out, he would gain absolutely no advantage and might even die here. "Chen Wang!"
"Stop barking, you bastard!"
Chen Wang said coldly, "I'll give you three breaths. Either get out of here, or die."
Liu Daba gritted his teeth and took a deep breath: "Good! Chen Wang, you can do it!"
"withdraw!"
The pirate ship began to turn around and retreat out of the harbor.
Liu Daba stared at the Chengfeng, his eyes filled with greed and anger.
He would never let go of that ship, or those terrifying guns.
"Just you wait," he muttered. "You all just wait."
A few minutes later, Chen Wang led a few people onto Zhao Sanjin's boat.
Tang He, accompanied by several bodyguards, stood on the deck of the Chengfeng. Upon seeing Zhao Sanjin and his men approach, he cupped his hands and said, "Master Hong, Master Zhao, everything is alright."
Zhao Sanjin nodded, walked to the side of the ship, and glanced at the corpses floating on the sea.
"Have we suffered any casualties?"
"no."
Tang grinned. "They fired a few rounds of rifle fire, a few rounds of revolver fire, and you arrived just as they reached the side of the boat."
Chen Wang walked over to Zhao Sanjin, looked at the corpses, then at Tang and the gun in his hand, his eyes full of curiosity.
"Three brothers, this gun—"
Zhao Sanjin understood, took a Pacific Type 1 rifle from Tang He, and handed it to Chen Wang.
"American-made, effective range 700 yards, extremely accurate. That over there is a modified Colt revolver, a six-shot revolver that doesn't need a percussion cap and can be fired even in the rain."
Chen Wang took the rifle, examined it over and over for a long time, and then weighed it in his hand, marveling at its quality.
"Good stuff, really good stuff. Brother Sanjin, how many of these guns could you sell to me?"
Zhao Sanjin glanced at him and smiled slightly: "Is Chief Chen interested?"
Chen Wang rubbed his hands together and chuckled, "Interested? Of course I'm interested. If I could get a few dozen of these—"
"No problem, it's just a few guns."
Zhao Sanjin said, "But I'd like to ask Chief Chen, what's the background of that Liu Daba?"
Chen Wang was taken aback: "Why should I ask him?"
Zhao Sanjin gazed in the direction where the pirate ships had disappeared, his eyes deep and unfathomable.
"He came to seize my ship and kill my men. Although he didn't succeed, I have to return the favor."
After listening, Chen Wang raised an eyebrow: "Brother Sanjin, although Liu Daba is severely weakened today, he didn't send his full force. You—"
Zhao Sanjin smiled and said, "Don't worry, Chief Chen, I have my own methods."