Chapter 165: How can China have no martyrs?
The dark clouds were heavy, the night sky was deserted, the strong wind was howling by, and it also crackled on the frosty ground with cold and hard raindrops.
Yes, winter has come. Although Jiangnan is not as cold as the north, and even the leaves on the trees have not fallen off, the gusts of wind and cold rain have also frozen people's bone marrow. Especially when the cotton jackets are wet, people on the road hope to have a small house that can shelter from the wind and rain, a fire that can keep warm. It would be even better if there was another bottle of soju.
So when Chen Si and his guards traveled hard for half a night in Ye Yu and finally saw a black building in the distance, they could imagine the excitement.
Tiezhu waved his hand and two scouts rode over and reported it back soon: "It's an abandoned inn."
Tiezhu looked at Chen Si and saw the adult nodding, then he ordered in a deep voice: "Go in and camp!"
When the team got closer, they found that this was a very grand yard. In addition to a three-story building, there were all horse sheds and kitchens, and you could still vaguely see the prosperous scene of the past.
Seeing this situation, Chen Si couldn't help but sigh and said to He Xinyin, who was wearing a hat and carrying a sword beside him: "What a pity." They are now in Ningbo Prefecture, which has been repeatedly looted by Japanese pirates. The north and south caravans that had originally traveled were already extinct, so this inn located in the suburbs could not be opened anymore.
He Daxia also sighed, but when sighing had become a habit, it would no longer affect his emotions. He only heard him say quietly: "What we saw along the way is ruined, if this continues, the Ming Dynasty will be over."
Chen Jing was used to hearing that he had always kept his words about "destroying the country" and "destroying the clan" all day long, and he no longer cared about it. The two stood in the yard for a while, waiting for their followers to simply clean up the house.
The followers were used to doing this kind of thing. After a while, they were silent and saw a fire lit up in the building. The book boy Chen An came out and said, "Young master, go in and rest." Several months of hardship and frost have made this naughty little book boy grow a lot.
He nodded silently and walked in side by side with He Xinyin. He saw the guards lit two fires in the lobby, splitting the tables, chairs, and benches as firewood to fill in.
Chen An led the young master to the side of the small fire. When he saw the fire was standing on the fire, rice and bacon were boiled in the pot, and even bedding was on the ground. He asked happily: "Where did you get it?"
Chen An helped him take off his wet cotton jacket and smiled, "The inn is the inn. You can find these things after searching."
Silently rubbed his hands and sat down beside the fire, his cold body finally felt a little heat, and he snorted comfortably and laughed: "I thought I was going to camp again today."
He Xinyin finally took off his hat and sword, loosened his muscles and bones, slowly sat opposite him, and said expressionlessly: "I've come out for 87 days and stayed in the open for 68 days. I thought you've been used to it."
"Habit is used to it." Silently smiled: "But it is still more comfortable in cold and tide nights."
When we were talking, the bacon rice in the pot was ready. For a moment, the room was filled with the unique aroma of bacon, which made Chen Si stop talking and look at the pot of rice that was shining with greasy. Even He Daxia, who had always been unique, couldn't help but sniff, obviously he was very greedy.
No wonder, the last time I ate hot soup and hot rice, I was in Taizhou City. At that time, Governor Li invited me to the guests. Everyone ate salted water boiled horse meat, and that thing was really stuffy.
If you eat a bowl of bacon with attractive color, fat but not greasy, salty and sweet, rice with fragrant aroma, and elastic bacon, you will definitely get a supreme satisfaction.
Chen Si took the bowl of rice handed over by Chen An, but resisted the urge to eat and walked to the guards.
When the guards saw the adults coming, they quickly got up, but were stopped by him and said, "I'll see what you eat." When they opened the lid of the pot, they saw that it was porridge. They couldn't help but stare at Tiezhu and said, "Why are you doing this again?"
Tiezhu said embarrassedly: "The rice I found was too little, and there were only two sausages... Instead of eating sparse foods for everyone, it would be better to let the adults have a meal."
The personal soldiers also said, "Yes, sir, we still have dry food."
Silently said with a stern face: "I have said it many times. Since we live and die together, we have to share the joys and sorrows. We can't eat them all, so we can eat them together!" As he said that, he poured a bowl of bacon rice into the pot...
Sitting with the soldiers, eating a meal of bacon and porridge soaked in dry food, he patted the pp and stood up and said, "Besides keeping watch, go to bed quickly and stop playing cards."
The soldiers were obedient and put away the horse tags and watched the adults leave. Only then did they stand guard and sleep when they should sleep.
Siren returned to He Xinyin and Shen An. Their reactions were completely different. Chen An was regretting the pot of bacon rice, which made the young master so much that he couldn't eat it. He Xinyin threw a strange smile at him and said in an inauspicious voice: "The story of Liu Bei throwing his child is well known."
He said silently: "It's not difficult to fall a child, but the hardest thing is to keep falling down." Then he stopped talking to him and said to Chen An: "I think there are still many intact tables and chairs, so you can bring one of them."
Chen An brought a square table and a bench in a short while, wiped it clean with his sleeves, then took out the iron oil lamp from his backpack, picked out the core and lit it on the table, and asked in a low voice: "Young Master, don't you rest?"
Chen Shu shook his head and said, "I finally got an opportunity. I have to sort out the fragmentary records so that I won't be able to miss it in a few days." As he said that, he opened a large bamboo tube he carried with him and poured out a table of paper from it.
All these papers were worn with a thin thread. Chen An found the thread and lifted it up neatly. After looking at the number of the last one, it was actually three hundred and fifty-eight. He couldn't help but say, "There are so many?"
Silently nodded and said softly: "Grind ink."
Chen An put the thick stack of paper in front of the young master, turned around and went to find the pen, ink, paper and ink.
Silence gently stroked the stack of paper, as if he was stroking the baby's face. After a long time of breath, he looked at the first piece of paper, and saw that it said, "On the eighth day of the eighth month, I went to Shaoxing and headed northeast. The weather was sunny and there was nothing to do." Then look at the second one, which reads, "On the ninth day of the eighth month, I arrived in Ping Hunan, and it was light rain and slept in the wilderness." Yes, this is his march diary, which records what he saw, heard, felt and thoughts in the past three months. Looking back, it was like walking on this thrilling journey that was once again difficult and full of danger, but also made him gain a lot, feel a lot, and never regret it...
After turning a few pages of diary describing the situation of the march, finally, on the fourth page, several slightly messy lines of large words appeared: "On August 11th, arrive at Zhapu, nine-foot Japanese ships are moored to Beixintang, all of which are true Japanese, with swords, guns, bows, arrows, and firearms...'
Seeing this, the scene at that time appeared before him. He remembered clearly that the guards there were named Wang Yinglin. When he saw the Japanese and pirates appear, he immediately led all the eight hundred soldiers of his guard out, making the Japanese and pirates dare not act rashly.
At dusk, Commander Wang was worried that the Japanese and pirates would do evil in the night, so he ordered his subordinates to drive them away in a small boat. The Japanese and pirates shot at the Ming army with their swallowtails. The arrows were shot without any slightest, and the ones who were hit immediately died. The Ming army's attack was frustrated, so that the night fell and did not drive the Japanese and pirates away.
At the fifth o'clock in the evening, a soldier named Hu Shicheng, carrying several buckets of gunpowder on his back, touched the Japanese ship and ignited it. The Japanese ships were in full fire, but Hu Shicheng was also killed by the Japanese.
Wang Yinglin took advantage of the situation to lead his army to launch an attack and climbed the enemy ship from all sides. At that time, there was a lot of fire everywhere. The Japanese pirates were unable to resist under the chaos and were finally completely captured. However, a Japanese chief in red and yellow, called the Eight Kings, jumped out of the fire with two swords, killing more than a dozen Ming troops in succession, and was shot into the back of the heart by an arrow.
In this battle, twelve Japanese and pirates were killed, five injured people were captured, and eighteen burned corpses were found, and 120 casualties were killed and killed by the government army.
However, after interrogation, there were only half of the Japanese and pirates on the ship at that time, and the other half had already landed north in the dark. Wang Yinglin hurriedly led the official army to pursue him. Along the way, people led the way to feed the villages and towns. The Ming army vanguard finally caught up with the Japanese and pirates the next day, and the two sides started a fierce battle.
It was raining heavily at that time, the road was muddy, and the vision was extremely blurry. There were more than 20 Japanese pirates and the Ming army had 50 soldiers. Although the Ming army's combat power was inferior to that of Japanese pirates, the soldiers were brave and fought hard for a long time. Among them, the Warriors Maotang, Shu Hui and Ao Zhen were the most brave, and they all killed several Japanese pirates.
But the Japanese and pirates were obviously much more skillful. In fact, they only sent half of their troops to entangle the Ming army. The remaining twenty people were ambushed among the grasslands beside the road. When the two sides fought hard, they suddenly came out. The Ming army was caught off guard and killed 38 people in battle. The rest fled. Maotang, Shu Hui and Ao Zhen, the three warriors, were all among the dead. They were cut off by the Japanese and pirates and dismissed them from the side of the road.
After defeating the Ming army's vanguard, the Japanese and pirates fled north. When they passed through Pinghu County from Zhulin Temple, Pinghu Dianshi Qiao and his son led their troops to attack, and were immediately defeated. Qiao Dianshi and the village heroes were killed.
But their blocking worked. Wang Yinglin's army finally caught up and surrounded the Japanese pirates in the Tianhou Palace and set fire to the fire. The Japanese pirates wanted to surrender, but the Ming army refused, so they were all burned to death in the Tianhou Palace.
In this service, the Ming army eliminated it at the cost of 80 Japanese soldiers with nearly 80 pirates and nearly 200 officers and soldiers. Dozens of township warriors died. It was not worth mentioning at all, but silent still found joyfully that the people of the Ming Dynasty had never lost their blood, but the past two hundred years of peace had made this blood deeply dormant. He firmly believed that in the near future, more Hu Shicheng, Maotang and Qiao Dianshi would emerge and reappear in Hongwu's heroic spirit!
Chapter completed!