Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 480 Explosion in Wu Factory (Part [-])

Zhu Wenkui took a pistol, put it in a bag and hung it on his waist. He hung another loop of rope around his shoulders and returned to the yard. However, more and more people entered the wall, and to be honest, he had no confidence in his own force, and he hesitated for a while.

There were slightly fewer enemies in the yard, but almost all the crossbowmen were aiming there; although there were many places for cover beside the walls and behind the house, there were more than a dozen enemies gathered, and he probably wouldn't be able to deal with them on his own. Now, I don’t know which way to go is better.

Just as he was hesitating, Nurhachi rushed over against the wall. The road here was not wide to begin with, and the enemy was caught off guard. He couldn't even hide for a while, and the entire row of people was overturned by him. Fortunately, he fell to the side and still had the strength to scream; a thug at the corner was not only pushed a few steps away by it, but also stepped on directly. For a while, he could only breathe out but not in, and he was dead before his eyes.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhu Wenkui rushed over, chopped down someone who tried to get up to stop him, and rushed into the ancestral hall room in one breath.

The "sacrificial vessels", account books and portraits of Zhu Yuanzhang here were all taken away by Princess Ma and others in advance, leaving the shelves somewhat empty. However, there are still many things that cannot be sorted out in time. He turned over a little, dropped the sword, picked up a cowhide bag, put it on the wooden machine next to him, then shook the handle and started to inflate it.

However, the movement here still attracted the attention of others. Two mercenaries followed in. Zhu Wenkui quickly turned around. The two men took a look and started yelling at him. However, Zhu Wenkui didn't understand what they were saying very well, and he couldn't understand them at all when they spoke so fast. At this moment, I really didn’t have time to chat with them.

He was not comfortable with the sword, so he simply picked up a tree-cutting ax from behind the portrait stand and swung it at the mercenary. But those two mercenaries are not that easy to deal with. The person who was closer instead dodged the axe, crossed the short spear, and stabbed him in the leg.

Zhu Wenkui was almost knocked down again and leaned on the shelf to stabilize his body. Another mercenary stabbed him in the face with a sword. Zhu Wenkui subconsciously dodged to the side and waved the ax randomly with one hand to push them back. With the other hand, he grabbed a long iron nail from the shelf next to him and imitated Looking like a heroine, she threw it at the mercenaries.

It's a pity that he still doesn't have the skills of the heroine Rangna. The two mercenaries just protected their eyes and stepped back on both sides without even breaking their skin. However, Zhu Wenkui immediately moved forward and swung a few more times. The two of them stepped back and wanted to surround him, but the space in the room was too small. As soon as they took a step, before they could get around him, Zhu Wenkui instinctively stepped forward, wanting to fight.

His moves with weapons seemed to be completely unorganized, just relying on his strength to hit randomly. But he is very sensitive to the environment, and the armor on his body is strong. When fighting, he is like a stupid young man who doesn't care.

During this period, he showed a big flaw. The mercenary with a spear immediately stabbed him in the abdomen, trying to resist him. The mercenary with a sword also quickly stepped forward, holding a small iron shield in one hand to protect himself, and stabbed him with the other. Under his armpits. However, Zhu Wenkui ignored the more powerful short spear, pushed it forward, and struck the sword-wielding mercenary with an axe.

The opponent obviously didn't have his fighting spirit, and he didn't dare to try to use a shield to hit him, or to kill the opponent before he was hacked to death. He quickly took two steps back, but bumped into his spear-wielding accomplice. The two looked at each other and had no time to complain. They seemed to be worried that Zhu Wenkui would rush forward to save his life again, so they retreated a little more.

Zhu Wenkui also hesitated, reaching out to grab the pistol at his waist, but stopped again. But this action was seen by the two people. At this time, they strengthened their determination and immediately strode out of the house to call other companions. It seemed that they were preparing to use a more sensible method to deal with this troublesome person.

A mercenary holding a crossbow ran over upon hearing the sound, followed by several thugs each holding daggers. The mercenaries pushed the thugs to let them go ahead, but this attitude seemed to make the thugs hesitate. They seemed to have different opinions on who should go first.

The mercenaries still became the war supervisors here. After a while, the thugs were "persuaded" by them and came over. However, at this time, a shot was fired from the car barrier, and the crossbow-wielding mercenary with the most obvious target was killed on the spot. The others immediately hurriedly retreated behind the wall, not daring to block the door.

At this time, several explosions suddenly came from the gap between the door and the wall. The enemy had only been charging hard before, and the light at night was not good, so they didn't pay attention to the abnormalities on the ground. Those who were unlucky enough to stay there were knocked down in a circle. The enemies who were besieging the car base quickly turned around and hesitated when they heard the shaking behind them.

Zhu Wenkui heard the noise and took a careful look at the door. He found that the enemy group had retreated to the foot of the wall without knowing the situation. He ignored what was happening on the other side of the car barrier and immediately turned around, grabbed the leather bag, rushed to the cellar entrance, and kicked open the lid. Before anyone else could react, he took a breath and rushed down.

The cellar was dug quite deep and all kinds of debris were accumulated in it. It was winter, and Zhu Wenkui had stored up large piles of grain and vegetables in sacks and baskets to survive the winter, and stacked them against the wall. These things were piled up all over the wall, layer upon layer, more than a foot high, all the way to the top of the cellar.

The other spaces in the cellar are filled with wooden boxes and barrels of various sizes. Basically, they are parts, tools, and various consumables used for his experiments.

Previously, Guo Kang said that he might go on an expedition in the near future and urged him to conduct tests to see what the differences were between different types and formulas of gunpowder and which weapon was most suitable for use. For this reason, Zhu Wenkui deliberately collected all the existing gunpowders and prepared some himself. When he had nothing to do, he used the Guo family's connections to go to the shooting range of the Ministry of War in the city to test fire. Compared to running to the firearms camp outside the city, this was much more convenient and allowed him to save a lot of time to deal with other things.

Zhu Wenkui was also very familiar with this cellar. He opened the mouth of the cowhide bag, put it on his head, rushed to the bottom of the cellar in one breath, and hid behind the support pillar. Seeing that there were no footsteps coming from behind, he adjusted the mouth of the bag a little, held a small piece of glass cut out of the bag, put it in front of his eyes, and looked out. Then the cat doubled up and hid behind the pile of onions.

After another moment, firelight came in from the cellar entrance. Through the somewhat cloudy glass, he saw someone running past the entrance of the cave, and several people gathered outside the entrance, discussing something while shining torches inside, trying to figure out the situation. After taking a few glances, they seemed to have discovered something dangerous that looked like gunpowder, and pointed a few times over there. After hesitating for a moment, several people extinguished their torches and walked down carefully under the moonlight.

If they had brought torches, they would probably have noticed something was wrong when they entered the cellar. However, those few people did not realize the problem and just rummaged around. But the light in the cellar was not good, and they were afraid of being suddenly attacked, so they seemed to be timid.

"Damn, this place smells so strong." Zhu Wenkui heard someone complaining in Greek.

"It's full of onions." Someone else muttered: "Isn't his family a king? Even if he wanders out, he still has a few treasures, right?"

"Forget it, his family is notoriously poor."

"That's also a relative term. People's poverty is the same concept as ours. But that's right. If there is no treasure in the cellar, it must be hidden in the big house. We should go there instead of hiding in this ghost place. "

"What are you thinking about? Those Franks are still watching from behind. Even if they get something good in the chaos, they will definitely take it away again. Those guys are professional robbers. What we want is obvious to them. It’s all clear.”

"After all, he is a king of the Ming Dynasty. There will definitely be more than just onions in the cellar. I guess these are for cover. By the way, these Italians don't understand us. Let's go look for them first and collect the ones here. Take some things with you."

"Yes. When the Franks also come in, the Ming Dynasty people will definitely give it a last try. We will take Xiruan and take advantage of the chaos to escape, lest they have to steal money and silence them afterwards."

Several people discussed it for a while and finally reached a consensus.

"What about this prince?" someone asked.

"The Frankish woman said it only needs to be alive, but I think dead ones are actually fine. Those Italians didn't look like they were holding back just now."          Nonsense, in a fight, if you don't fight with all your might, you will be the one who dies. "

"That being said, if one of us kills him, that bitch will definitely blame us and take us out to take the blame. These gentlemen know this method every day - when we Romans are as easy to coax as they are. It's there!" Another person pointed out immediately.

"But we'd better find him first..."

"But you have also seen that no one can be found at all? I feel that this person did it on purpose. If he gets desperate, he will use a little gunpowder in the entire cellar. This circle will explode into the sky, and none of us will be able to do it. Wanted to run away."

"Yes. Damn it, there must be something wrong with this person. Who is hoarding so much gunpowder at home..."

After a few curses, their voices became quieter. It seemed that after discussing for a while, someone started shouting: "Your Highness, come out! We are fellow city dwellers, not Italians. We will take you directly to Princess Jeanne, and we will ensure your safety!"

"Oh, we were forced too! We can run with you, too!" Another person added in a pretentious whisper.

However, Zhu Wenkui was not in a hurry at all. He sat behind the onion pile and closed his eyes to relax.

Guo Kang had told him before that the ventilation in this kind of cellar was too poor. Over time, the air inside would be poisonous. If you go in with an oil lamp, the light will be extinguished. But Zhu Wenkui felt that if we think about it the other way around, wouldn't it be safer to use this place where flammable materials and gunpowder can't be brought in?
  Therefore, after purchasing a large amount of food in the autumn, he deliberately did not ventilate the place for a long time. When necessary, just get a cowhide airbag to temporarily isolate the carbon poison from outside, and then just move the onions out. In this way, grains and vegetables seem to last longer.

However, it is true that this place is poisonous. Therefore, he was not worried about these people lingering in the cellar. Instead, he took out the pistol in his bag, poured out the bullets, and then started to modify it in his spare time.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for someone to start gasping for breath subconsciously. He heard a thug complaining that the smell here was too pungent and made him feel uncomfortable, so he had to go up to catch his breath. However, because there was absolutely no movement here, the mercenaries above couldn't hold it any longer and ran down.

Several thugs wanted to go up, but the mercenaries refused to let them go. The two sides made wild gestures to each other and even pushed each other. A mercenary called back, and soon another mercenary speaking broken Greek poked his head in and asked what was going on here.

However, before he could finish his words, a thug fell to the ground with a plop. Others were surprised, some tried to pull him away, and another mercenary tried to kick him. Soon, two more people collapsed on the ground, unable to move. Only then did the others realize the problem, immediately abandoned them, screamed that there was a devil here, turned around and ran away.

Zhu Wenkui waited for them to disperse, then quietly came to the bottom of the stairs, checked that there was no one above, kicked the body a few times, and found that there was no movement. So, he brought several powder barrels over, lined them up in a row, and piled them next to the stairs. Then he opened the lid of a barrel, grabbed a handful of gunpowder particles inside, looked at it, buried the pistol in the gunpowder barrel, tied the trigger with a rope, and covered it with the lid. Then, he pulled the rope and walked up the steps carefully, preparing to take off the air bag and see what was going on outside.

However, as soon as he took a step, there was a loud noise outside, which almost knocked him down. The shouts of killing stopped instantly, and he quickly hid in the shadows and saw several enemies escaping in a hurry.

Zhu Wenkui quickly ran up to take a look again. This time, there were no enemies nearby, so he was able to look around and see the situation clearly.

In the yard, the car barrier exploded to pieces, and the debris flew all over the ground. The remaining wood is burning. By the light of the fire, he saw the thugs and mercenaries over there running in all directions. This time, even the supervising team couldn't stop them.

Over in the main hall, the gate was also on fire. Several people ran out from the corner and fired to drive away the hesitating enemies nearby. Captain Jessica appeared behind the alley. He didn't know when he passed by. Seeing that there were many people on their side, the enemies who were squatting behind the ancestral hall also fled.

Zhu Wenkui realized that the situation had changed, and when he saw that the nearby enemies were not interested in fighting, he quickly waved to indicate that he was here. Over there, the heroine Jeanna just stuck her head out and saw him. She rushed over quickly and jumped into the cellar.

"Don't go down, don't go down." Zhu Wenkui said quickly.

"What on earth are you doing...Oh my god!" She glanced into the cellar and screamed.

"Why did these people escape?" Zhu Wenkui asked quickly.

"Captain Jessica organized the people to retreat and originally planned to leave two people behind. But there were too many enemies and they couldn't leave, so they just lit the gunpowder behind the car." Heroine Jeanne said briefly.

Zhu Wenkui was silent for a moment.

"That's also an opportunity." He didn't express condolences, but immediately ordered: "Let Captain Jashka blow up the wall behind and go from that way. I think the Greeks seemed to be completely defeated. The French probably can only do it on their own." Come in. Those dozens of them cannot surround the entire courtyard, so they must still go through the gate and rush in as a group."

"We, the small number of people, can't resist it now. If we keep running away, they will definitely catch up with us. But these gunpowders are indeed enough to blow up the yard. Even if we can't kill them all, we can still make them afraid to pursue. .”

"You are all really crazy." Heroine Jeanne looked at her and shook her head.

When she saw the rope in Zhu Wenkui's hand, she guessed what it was, so she reached out and patted it to ask him to let go, but Zhu Wenkui not only became angry for some reason, but also refused to leave.

Heroine Jeanne didn't hesitate, reached out and slapped him in the face, then took the rope off.

"You have to organize the things over there. I don't have time to make you crazy." She said sternly: "Are you going by yourself, or should I drag you there?"

Zhu Wenkui took a deep breath and ran back quickly with her.

(End of this chapter)