1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Although the quartermaster sternly refused the benefit, the steward of the Dai family reluctantly forced the rolled-up banknotes into his hand and lowered his voice and said: "My lord, This is none of Sir Dai’s business, everyone has their own friendship, so we can’t let your work here be in vain!”

The quartermaster hesitated for a moment, looked around again, and then put the banknotes into his pocket.

Of course, he also understood that the money was not collected in vain, and the other party must have something to ask for, and then asked in a low voice: "I'm ugly to say, this military supplies must not be adulterated at all, don't try to use inferior goods as good ones to skimp on them." Get away with it! If you want to have these thoughts, I advise you to stop as soon as possible!"

The steward of the Dai family responded: "Sir, what you mentioned is a serious crime of beheading. I don't have the courage... Besides, I can't cause trouble for the Dai family or you, right?"

The quartermaster's face softened a little, and he nodded and said, "Tell me, what do you want me to do for you?"

The steward of the Dai family said: "The goods on the ship will be unloaded later. If these two ships stop here for a while, it shouldn't be in the way, right?"

After saying that, he deliberately glanced at the thousands of refugees waiting on the shore. Without saying anything, it was enough to let the quartermaster know what his purpose was.

The quartermaster smiled and said: "You do know how to do business! Then don't wait too long, as it will affect the docking of the following ships!"

The steward bowed and said, "I'm sure, thank you for your care!"

The goods carried by the two black-topped boats were not too much, and dozens of civilians quickly unloaded the goods to the shore.After the quartermaster's count was correct, he wrote a receipt of receipt to the steward of Dai's family who was in charge of the goods.

At this time, when the refugees saw that the cargo had been unloaded, they hurriedly rushed to the place where the awning boat docked again, begging to be taken away from this place.

The steward was not polite and stood on the side of the boat and said loudly: "Dear fellow villagers, my two small boats can't carry many people, so I can only save those who are willing to pay for the boat first. Regardless of men, women, old or young, only two taels of silver each can be loaded. Leave when you’re full!”

Although the price is black enough, apart from the Haihan battleships, there are only a few cargo ships on the Yangtze River that have been licensed by Haihan to transport military supplies and can travel between the two sides of the strait.

If I want to leave Zhenjiang immediately, I have to swim to the north bank by myself, or I can only pay for this expensive ferry.

As soon as he finished speaking, many people crowded to the gangplank and decisively exchanged their money for boarding qualifications.

Among the refugees waiting for a chance to escape on the river bank, there are also many people with a little wealth. Let alone two taels of silver, even if it is 20 taels per person, many people will pay at the moment.

Transporting military supplies from Yangzhou to Zhenjiang is a public business. After unloading the goods and returning to pick up some people to haul some goods, it is a private job.

Although this awning boat is not big, it is not a problem to squeeze in a hundred or so people, and you can easily earn hundreds of taels of silver.

Excluding the benefits given to Quartermaster Haihan and the profits distributed to the crew, the steward who pledged the goods could still earn at least 300 taels of silver. No wonder the Quartermaster previously praised him for his business skills.

In the end, only a few of the refugees on the shore were able to board the boat and leave.

However, before the war ends, there will still be many cargo ships shuttled between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait every day. As long as you have money ready, even if you cannot leave this time, you will still have a chance to escape Zhenjiang later.

In fact, people who don't even have two taels of silver can still choose to work as civilian husbands in the army. Although it is a bit dangerous, in fact, they are also protected by the Haihan Army. At least they have food every day and don't have to worry about being in the war. Became hungry.This can be said to be one of the chaos caused by the war, but the military will not interfere too much with this kind of behavior that takes advantage of the war to make money.

Apart from recruiting civilian husbands, the Haihan Army has no better way to evacuate these refugees for the time being.If there is no way out, a large number of refugees with nowhere to go will soon breed rogues and bandits, and the Haihan Army will have to divide its forces to suppress and clean up the mess.

The hope of escaping across the river will cause a large number of refugees to gather on the riverside to wait for the ferry to Yangzhou. This actually greatly reduces the workload of the Haihan Army in managing refugees.

At midnight, a team of engineers entrusted with important tasks by Yan Chujie set off from the Haihan position.

These engineers all wore special black cloaks and quickly disappeared into the night quietly.

The cloaks on them are all made of a kind of almost non-reflective cloth, which has an excellent concealment effect at night.As long as it is not exposed to bright light, it is basically indistinguishable to the naked eye from three to five feet away.

The cover provided for them was several snipers on the high platform outside the city. Their task was to destroy all moving targets that appeared on the top of the city, and to avoid the whereabouts of the engineers from being discovered by the enemy as much as possible.

The Ming army was not unprepared for a possible night attack. Taking advantage of the truce at dusk and when the Haihan army retreated, they put down soldiers and dry firewood from the top of the city, and deployed several fire piles outside the city. Use a rocket to ignite part of it on the top of the city. If the Haihan Army organizes a large-scale night attack, it will definitely expose its whereabouts under the fire.

After a few hours, when they are about to burn out, a second batch of fires will be lit, so that some important areas outside the city can continue to be illuminated until dawn.

However, the Haihan snipers outside the city caused great trouble to the observers on the city wall. They almost died when they showed up. In the end, the defenders had to extinguish all lighting on the city wall to avoid exposing themselves to the opponent's guns. under.

The Haihan engineers took advantage of the chaos on the city wall to quickly pass near the fire and disappear into the shadows under the city wall.

They walked along the city wall to the Chaoyang Gate, slowly climbed in through the collapsed gap in the Wengcheng, and finally arrived at the city gate cave.

The two city gates in the original article had very little left after the daytime bombardment, revealing the sandbags and masonry filled with sandbags behind the gates. This was also a helpless measure taken by the defenders to prevent the city gates from being breached by the Haihan Army. Lift.

The engineers unloaded their luggage carefully, trying to avoid making a loud noise.

They brought with them various tools for digging holes and explosives weighing hundreds of kilograms.

The process of burying the explosives was quite long. Because we were afraid to make any noise, we had to be very careful during all excavations. We even had to dig the soil slowly with our hands. It took more than two hours to bury the explosives at the city gate. Explosives and detonators.

When the engineers withdrew from the city in the middle of the night, the snipers guarding the high platform had already changed three groups.

They only caught a few unlucky ones at the beginning, but after the lights on the city wall were completely extinguished, the visibility of visible targets was almost zero, and there was basically nothing gained in the next few hours.

Despite this, the pressure caused by the snipers on the defenders was real. Even in the darkness, almost no one dared to lean out of the crenellations of the city wall to look out.