please make me king

Chapter 488: Pontoon Bridge

The moon is dark and the wind is high, it is the day of murder and arson.

Huang Shoucai, Zhao Lizi and all the sailors rested for half the night first, and it was the time when people were most sleepy at Yinshi in the early morning.

They put up the night, simply ate a few mouthfuls of dry food, carried oil and sulfur, and quietly boarded the ship.

The boats used by the rebels are all fishing boats and ferries. The large ones can carry seven or eight people, and the small ones can carry three or four people. The carrying capacity is relatively poor.

In addition to combustibles such as oil and sulfur, there are also weapons such as small artillery, fast guns, three-eyed blunderbuss, harpoons, and swords.

When the preparations were ready, Huang Shoucai took the lead and led the boat to set sail.He knows water well and knows the Yellow River nearby like the palm of his hand, so he didn't light the lanterns on the boats, and just rushed to the officer's pontoon bridge.

Huang Shoucai lit an oil lamp behind the canopy to guide the ships behind.Only because of the blocking of the boat canopy, there was no light of fire from the direction of the bow of the boat.

In fact, if the rebels lived upstream of the pontoon bridge, they wouldn't have to be so troublesome.Just ignite the fire boat and go down the river to burn the pontoon clean.

It is precisely based on this that Cao Wenzhao dared to be so rampant and directly built a pontoon bridge to connect Guojiatan on Hezhou.

Although the night was getting dark, there was still a group of people on the pontoon bridge patrolling back and forth with lanterns.

Their group was replaced from time to time, and due to lack of sleep, everyone kept yawning as they walked.

Someone couldn't take it anymore and said to the captain: "Captain, what's the point of defending a pontoon bridge in the middle of the night? Why don't you choose a place that is leeward and rest for a while."

The captain frowned and reprimanded: "Our general army's military law is strict, and now is the critical time. If something goes wrong, how many heads do you have to chop off? Give me a boost, don't allow it"

"Captain, look!" The captain was reprimanding vigorously, when a soldier suddenly interrupted tremblingly, "Is that a water ghost?"

The captain looked along the hands of the soldiers, and saw patches of black shadows appearing on the black and dark river under the reflection of the water waves, and he was shocked immediately.

There are often stories of water ghosts in places near the water. Legend has it that they hide in the water on weekdays, and wait until late at night to drag pedestrians into the water and drown them, turning the drowned person into one of them.

The captain was shocked immediately, but anyway, he is also a person who licks blood with a knife.He tried to stay calm, quickly pulled out his waist knife, and yelled loudly: "I have killed half my life, and I have evil spirits, and I have no taboos! I don't know who dares to pretend to be a ghost here, isn't he afraid of getting killed?"

It doesn't matter if the captain doesn't shout, this shout immediately called Death Star.Suddenly several harpoons flew, and two of them were directly inserted into the captain's body, and the huge impact brought him into the water.

When the other soldiers saw that it was a harpoon that flew, they were terrified and couldn't help shouting: "Ghost! Water ghost, there are water ghosts in the water!"

Huang Shoucai saw that his whereabouts were exposed, and quickly shouted: "Get close to the pontoon bridge quickly, and burn this pontoon bridge before the enemy reacts!"

So, where is this water ghost?This is clearly the arrival of the ship attacked by the rebel army.Zhao Lizi took the lead and jumped from the boat to the bridge first.

Both ships and pontoons are floating.If it were someone else, they would have lost their footing and fell into the river.

That Zhao Lizi lived on the bank of the Yellow River since he was a child, earning his living on the water all the year round, stepping on boats and pontoon bridges was like walking on flat land to him.

Zhao Lizi stood firmly, raised his spear, and one by one shot the patrolling soldiers on the bridge into the river.

The rebel army succeeded in sneak attack, while Cao Wenzhao heard the uproar, and rolled off the bed in a jerk.When he got out of the tent, he saw that the pontoon bridge in the river had been lit with fire.

Cao Wenzhao was quite dissatisfied with the loss of officers and soldiers since the war with the rebels.As a general who "bullyed" the peasant army, he always underestimated the combat power of the rebel army.

The first two attacks were frustrated, Cao Wenzhao didn't say anything, but he still thought that his nephew Cao Bianjiao was young and the general Zhang Quanchang was mediocre.

So this time after passing the pontoon bridge and occupying the beach in the middle of the river, he didn't care about commanding the army, and led his own soldiers and elites to garrison here.

Although according to the information obtained by the officers and soldiers, the rebel army did not have the ability to cross the river, Cao Wenzhao was still cautious in every possible way.

He ordered the soldiers under his command to be fully clothed and keep their weapons in hand, ready to stand up and kill the enemy at the slightest movement.

When Cao Wenzhao saw that the rebel army was attacking, he quickly raised the spear in his hand and shouted: "All officers and men, don't panic, those who come are just jumping beams and clowns. Personal guards will follow me to kill the enemy, and the rest will follow orders to defend the beach. Prepare the artillery in hand, and follow orders to attack the enemy at any time."

After finishing speaking, Cao Wenzhao led fifty personal guards to fight.At this time, the rebels had killed and dispersed the patrol team, but tied two or three boats to the bridge with ropes, and ignited the oil and sulfur on board.

The fire was like the wind, and suddenly it burned blazingly.Before Cao Wenzhao arrived, the flames engulfed a section of the pontoon bridge.

Surprised and angry, Cao Wenzhao quickly ordered half of the soldiers to fetch water, and led the remaining twenty or thirty people to rush forward.

When they got to the place where the fire was burning, some of the boards had been burned through by the fire, and fell into the river, where they were washed out.

With the blazing flames, Cao Wenzhao on the grilled bridge was a bit hot.At this moment, if you try to extinguish it again, where is there still time?

Cao Wenzhao quickly stabbed the spear in his hand into the gap between the wooden boards on the pontoon bridge, and with all his strength he picked it up, and flew a piece of wood that was not burning.

He shouted loudly: "Pick up these wooden boards quickly, so as not to cause the fire to ignite the entire pontoon bridge." The soldiers behind him heard this, and hurriedly imitated the example, and picked up seven or eight wooden boards to block the flames towards the center of the river. The beach is burning.

Just leaning towards the river bank, the officers and soldiers still hadn't reacted and couldn't stop the burning of the planks.

Cao Wenzhao hurriedly found a few soldiers who could swim, took off their armor, jumped into the water, and prepared to swim to the opposite pontoon bridge to stop the fire from burning.

The officers and soldiers were busy here, while the rebels lay on the boat and watched the show for a long time.After looking at it for a while, Huang Shou couldn't help but asked a little strangely: "It stands to reason that the fire is so big, it should have burned the pontoon bridge long ago. Why did the pontoon bridge still not float when the wooden boards of the army in the pontoon bridge were burnt out long ago?"

Zhao Lizi was taken aback for a moment, then suddenly remembered something, and quickly said: "No, it must be that the pontoon bridges are connected by iron chains, and the top is only paved with wooden boards, so the pontoon bridges are continuous!"

"I vaguely remember that when I jumped on the pontoon bridge, I heard the sound of iron chains."

"What should I do?" The rest of Ding Zhuang asked in shock after hearing the words.

"Fight back again!" Huang Shoucai gritted his teeth and said, "Whatever it takes, whether it's cutting with a knife or burning, this bridge must be cut off, so as to live up to the surprise attack tonight."

(End of this chapter)