Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

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Chapter 3334 Kill!

The seaside village where Dai Chengsi lived was likely to face forty or fifty pirates.

People from nearby villages gradually came to join them, and there were already more than a hundred adult men and women.

Everyone, including the women, was dressed in leather armor and carried knives and spears.

Seeing that the civilians, clad in armor, were still tense and terrified, Dai Chengsi, holding a bow and arrow, shouted, "I have fought alongside the Crown Prince before, so there is nothing to fear from pirates."

"I stand in front and do not retreat, so you are not allowed to retreat. Anyone who deserts in the face of battle shall die!"

He served as an official in Fuzhou for more than two years, but his dialect was not very good, and he needed a local to translate for him.

Dai Chengsi then assigned a few more men: "You stand at the back of the line. Anyone who dares to run away will be killed on sight!"

Those villagers were obedient, perhaps too afraid to actually kill their own people, but they still shouted fiercely, "Anyone who dares to take a step back, I'll stab them to death with one shot!"

The pirates of Vaishya are slowly approaching.

Their formation may appear chaotic, but it is actually methodical and is used for hunting wild animals.

There are roughly two types of military units.

One type is a handheld spear that can also be thrown. The spearheads are mostly made of polished stone, but some are made of iron.

One type is hand-held bows and arrows, all of which are earthen bows used for hunting, with arrowheads made of various materials such as stone, bone, bronze, and iron.

They also carry short swords or daggers at their waists, used to switch to melee attacks.

"Crossbowmen come forward!"

Dai Chengsi shouted.

These are crossbows that Yang Yao applied for from the imperial court; six were to be distributed to each village.

Seeing that the Han Chinese were prepared, the pirates of Vaishya did not rush forward in a swarm, but instead threw spears forward.

More than twenty pirates took advantage of the momentum of running and threw stone spears at the Han people, and quickly retreated to pick up spare spears.

Immediately afterwards, the archers rushed forward and shot their arrows.

Their arrows had a shorter range than their spears.

One of the Han Chinese crossbowmen was unable to dodge in time and was stabbed in the thigh by a thrown spear.

Despite the pain and the tension, he still drew his crossbow and shot the arrow.

The villagers chosen to serve as crossbowmen were all people who had escaped by sea on their own. They might not be the most ferocious, but they were certainly full of courage.

On the contrary, some Han Chinese born on the island lacked the adventurous and daring spirit of their ancestors.

The crossbow had a longer range, but unfortunately, there were very few of them, and due to a lack of training, their accuracy was insufficient.

The pirates stopped throwing spears and instead took out spare spears, circled around to the sides and shouted, trying to scare away the Han people. This was their usual tactic for hunting wild animals.

The pirate archers, however, continued to fire arrows. Their range was shorter, but their accuracy was much better, and they fired in greater numbers.

Dai Chengsi held a seven-bucket bow and fired three arrows in succession, two of which hit the enemy.

"Reinforcements are here! Reinforcements are here!"

One of the villagers who was leading the charge shouted, and immediately all the villagers cheered.

Yang Yao's only three small ships were scattered to fight the pirates in three different places, one of which was heading towards Dai Chengsi.

The pirates in front of them were terrified and began to retreat with strange cries, even taking turns to cover their retreat.

Dai Chengsi's men were a motley crew and dared not pursue him with full force, only following from a distance.

Upon seeing this, the pirates retreated at full speed, quickly fleeing back to the bamboo raft and rowing together in an attempt to escape.

"boom!"

The ship fired only once from its bow gun and did not switch to using its broadside guns as the small naval vessel accelerated toward it.

The cannonballs splashed water on the beach, and although they missed their target, they terrified the pirates of Vaishya even more.

"Crash it over!"

The captain drew his sword and shouted.

The ship had come from the southwest and was now fully sailing, blocking the pirates' path.

The pirates' bamboo raft was fleeing against the wind, unable to raise its sails, and could only paddle.

"Bang!"

The ship collided with a bamboo raft, smashing it to pieces.

The Ming soldiers on the deck shot arrows at the pirates swimming in the water.

But the ships continued to rampage recklessly!

These Vishayya pirates, who couldn't smelt iron, were actually quite weak in direct combat.

What's truly troublesome is that they appear and disappear unpredictably, specifically targeting unarmed civilians.

For example, when the Southern Song Dynasty established a naval base in the Penghu Islands, the Vaishya people suffered losses and stopped plundering the Penghu Islands, instead secretly heading to the Fujian coast.

With such a long coastline, how could Fujian possibly be fortified everywhere?

Those guys would grab and run, leaving the Southern Song army constantly on the run.

In the blink of an eye, three small ships of the Penghu Navy have rammed and sunk dozens of bamboo rafts on various coastlines.

The soldiers on the ship were too lazy to shoot arrows anymore. Anyway, they couldn't escape the vast ocean, and the pirates could only swim ashore.

Meanwhile, villagers were scattered along the shore, and they would gang up on the pirates who swam over.

Dai Chengsi shouted, "Stop the indiscriminate killing! Capture more prisoners alive!"

The villagers had a deep-seated hatred for the pirates, and most of them refused to obey orders, beating the pirates to death whenever they encountered them.

Dai Chengsi rushed over personally and rescued several pirates in succession. He angrily told the villagers, "Commander Yang said to capture them alive and interrogate them about the pirates' lair."

"Stop killing! Tie them all up and interrogate them!"

Chapter 3335 Great Victory

There were still bamboo rafts fleeing at sea. Yang Yao's three ships were too busy to chase after the pirates who eventually escaped.

A total of more than eighty people were captured, and many others were beaten to death or drowned.

Yang Yao gathered all the prisoners together, intending to interrogate them, but found that they couldn't understand each other's languages.

He grabbed a pirate and pointed to the southern sea: "Where is your lair? Would you like to take me there?"

The pirate didn't seem to understand; he just stared fiercely at Yang Yao.

Yang Yao sneered: "Tie him to a wooden frame, cut him open. I refuse to believe we can't force him to reveal the truth!"

In front of the other prisoners, he stabbed the pirate in the stomach.

Then it was suddenly cut open horizontally, and the intestines gushed out instantly.

The many prisoners, now bound, began to struggle in terror.

The pirate wasn't dead yet, so Yang Yao had his heart removed while he was still alive, and then finally chopped off his head.

"Next!"

Every time Yang Yao interrogated a prisoner, he would point to the southern sea, then to the ships and bamboo rafts.

After killing more than ten people, one of the pirates finally yelled and pointed south with his mobile right hand.

The territory of the Vishayas was not far, roughly in the area between Tainan and Kaohsiung.

There are still people in Tainan who talk about Ma Yan.

The Vishayya and Tanmayan were two major tribes located by the sea.

They further subdivided into many smaller tribes, who did not know how to cultivate crops and relied on hunting and fishing for their livelihood.

When the harvest season came, they would go to the Penghu Islands to plunder Han Chinese, or go to Taipei to plunder Ryukyu people.

These two coastal tribes would compete with each other for deer herds.

They can also unite to become pirates and engage in feuds and conflicts with mountain tribes.

Led by a pirate traitor, Yang Yao led three small warships and sailed against the wind toward Tainan.

The lookout lowered his binoculars, raised the flag, and began to wave it.

As the fleet continued to approach, Yang Yao could also see some houses along the coast through his binoculars.

Yang Yao ordered: "Kill all the men, snatch back the young women, and burn the houses down!"

"If you encounter someone who speaks Mandarin, you must not treat them rudely."

The pirates of Vaishya not only killed and robbed, but also abducted Han Chinese women; there might even be Han Chinese women on the shore.

Although Yang Yao's order was cruel, it was purely an eye for an eye.

"Woooooo~~~"

On the shore, someone blew a horn made of conch shells, and many people from Vaishya gathered with weapons.

They had seen larger merchant ships before and were not afraid of these three small warships.

Aside from crew members and sailors, Yang Yao did not have many soldiers under his command.

The infantry, numbering just over two hundred, were organized into twenty small squads.

There were also thirty cavalrymen, all riding ponies from Guangxi.

The Mandarin Duck Formation, which has been phased out in the north, is perfectly suited for attacking primitive tribes in Tainan.

The people of Vessaya retreated with the elderly and children, intending to gather more people in other tribes.

"kill!"

Twenty small teams of mandarin ducks jogged in pursuit, while thirty cavalrymen disembarked one after another, waiting for their horses to catch their breath before charging forward.

"woo woo woo woo!"

These people from Vaishya ran southeast, blowing their conch shells.

The cavalrymen began to mount their ponies, quickly overtaking the infantry and splitting into two groups to charge towards the enemy.

They ran back and forth, shooting arrows that could travel further than the enemy's earthen bows.

The spears thrown by the Vaishya people were easily dodged by galloping horses.

Moreover, the people of Vaishya did not wear armor; animal skins or linen only covered the vital parts, leaving most of their bodies exposed.

Although the Ming cavalry's horsebows were not very powerful, they could achieve results as long as they hit the target against these naked enemies.

People from Vaishya kept falling down; they had never encountered anything like this before, and they were terrified beyond measure.

Some abandoned women and children and fled, while others charged towards the cavalry without regard for their own safety.

The Ming cavalry simply flew kites and shot arrows, and the infantry quickly followed.

In direct combat, the Vaishyas only lasted two minutes before being routed by the infantry who had formed a double-horse formation.

The islanders who had accompanied the army shouted to the women and children in the Fujian dialect:

"Is Third Sister here? It's me, your brother!"

"Don't be afraid, Ah Zhen, the soldiers are here to rescue you. If you hear them, just respond!"

"..."

As the islanders followed the soldiers to approach the women and children, several women suddenly burst into tears; they had all been kidnapped by the pirates of Vaishya.

The cavalry were reaping the fleeing enemy, while the infantry were methodically cleaning up the battlefield.

All surviving men in Vaishya were to be executed; Yang Yao had already given the order to leave no survivors.

The elderly people of Vesaya, both men and women, were all driven away.

But those who can speak Mandarin can stay; they are all pitiful Han women.

Young women and children were taken away; the children could be educated and naturalized, and the women could be assigned to the islanders as wives.

The Han Chinese population on the Penghu Islands is predominantly male, with many still single in their thirties or forties.