Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 62 Decisive Battle: Episode ([-])

Pastor Pedro stood tremblingly in front of the only stone building in the town, and shouted with all his strength: "In the name of God, Mr. Xie Hansan, a benevolent gentleman from the East and an upright army captain, agrees to pardon your crimes. He believes that you He faithfully fulfilled his military duties and did not commit any war crimes during the war. As long as you surrender, Mr. Xie promises to give you decent treatment and will not charge you any ransom."

"Father Pedro, stop your meaningless exhortations. If you still have a little shame left, fight these despicable Tartan heretics in the name of God. The Royal Army will not attack the despicable If the Tartans surrender, never!"

Xie Hansan walked back and forth restlessly behind a house. The three army platoons under him had completely controlled this small town two hours ago.The Spanish town officials who surrendered made an agreement with the crossers that their private property would be preserved upon payment of a ransom of one peso.Therefore, in the face of the absolute superior force across the crowd, the local Spanish residents gave up meaningless resistance and chose a decent surrender.

Of course, the surrender process was not so smooth.Part of the Spanish army that refused to surrender had fierce conflicts with town government officials who advocated surrender and represented the interests of local residents. Two Spanish army officers were even injured in this conflict.After the conflict, part of the Spanish army that refused to surrender occupied the warehouses in the town to resist, while Spanish local officials opened the city gates to welcome the conquerors.

After Xie Hansan entered the city, he learned that there was still a group of Spanish soldiers occupying the warehouse and refused to surrender, so he immediately led two platoons of soldiers to the warehouse, preparing to seize it by force.But when he got to the ground, he found that the warehouse was actually made of stone, which was extremely strong.The wall of the warehouse is more than three meters high, and there is no other entrance and exit in the whole warehouse except for a wooden door wrapped in iron sheet. The surprised Xie Hansan immediately grabbed the mayor of Spain and asked in detail, and learned that the warehouse was actually used to store Vardy. The silver bars shipped from Via City!This is amazing news!

It turned out that some mining colonies of the Spaniards in the central and southern inland areas of Chile collected silver ore and transported it to Valdivia City for preliminary processing and smelting.The finished products of smelting and processing are silver bars and silver bars, and the Spaniards transported these silver bars through the Valdivia River to store here.Every month, the Governor of Peru sent a ship from Lima full of cargo to the port town, unloaded the cargo and removed the silver bars and other products in the warehouse.This shipping route has been going on for ten years. A week ago, Valdivia’s silver ship just shipped a batch of silver bullion, which is currently stored in the warehouse. It is conservatively estimated that its value is tens of thousands of pesos.

After hearing the news, Xie Hansan immediately became calm. After sending someone to notify Xiao Bailang and others on Yunsheng No. [-], he immediately led two platoons of soldiers to guard the only exit of the warehouse. While getting people to persuade them to surrender, they organized manpower to carry the cannons, preparing to blast open the gate and forcefully attack when the enemy refused to surrender.

Now it seems that Father Pedro's persuasion to capitulate has obviously failed, and these stubborn Spaniards intend to fight to the end!But the cannon has not yet arrived, which makes Xie Hansan a little annoyed.Father Pedro returned to Xie Hansan's side with a complicated expression, and said eagerly, "Your Excellency, these defenders refused to accept our proposal to persuade them to surrender. As you can see, they decided to continue fighting."

Xie Hansan was about to reply when suddenly there was a rhythmic chant sound from the street behind him. He turned around and saw some navy sailors in sky-blue military uniforms rushing towards this side with horse-drawn men pushing a cannon. Lu Ming, the captain of the "Eagle of the East Coast", was among them.Xie Hansan didn't have any obvious views on land and sea, and when he saw the navy pulling a cannon over, he was overjoyed and immediately sent someone to help.

This is a small 8-pound naval gun. Under the escort of a large number of musketeers, several gunners pulled the gun to a very close distance from the warehouse gate, and then began to load ammunition.The gentle sea breeze blew across the street, and there was no other sound except the sound of gunners reloading, and everyone was waiting in silence.

The warehouse is also very silent, there is no sound at all; the Spanish residents watching from afar on the street are also watching this side in silence, some of them keep crossing their chests, as if they are fighting for the brave and unyielding people in front of them. Soldiers of the current Spanish Army are praying for something.

"Let's fire the cannon?" After the cannon was loaded, Xie Hansan asked Xia Lu Ming for his opinion. After all, the gunners who were operating the cannon were all from his warship.Lu Ming nodded, without speaking, he directly picked up a burning torch and put it on the door of the cannon that had already been aimed.

"Boom!" The 8-pound iron projectile rushed out of the gun barrel and slammed into the iron-clad gate dozens of meters ahead.The powerful shell directly penetrated the entire gate, and then flew into the interior of the warehouse, causing a burst of exclamation from the Spaniards in the warehouse.

"Attention, raise your gun! Watch out for the Spaniard's counterattack!" Xie Hansan ordered loudly.Under his order, the two platoons of army soldiers aimed their guns at the front and the top of the fence respectively, in case the Spaniards jumped over the wall in a hurry.

After firing a shell, the gunners immediately picked up the equipment at hand and began to clean the barrel, charge the gun, and load the shell.Soon, the artillery roared and fired again, and the 8-pound shells roared towards the gate, directly knocking down a large piece of wood and iron, and a large gap was exposed on the gate.Behind the gap, several figures walked back and forth, as if trying to find a way to plug the gap.

"Aim at the gap, get ready... let it go!" Following Xie Hansan's command, nearly thirty muskets fired a volley towards the gap, and there were several screams from behind the door, and then no one appeared again.

Then the artillery fired two more rounds, and the gate was almost completely smashed and dumped on the ground.Xie Hansan no longer hesitated at this time, organized the soldiers to form a sparse formation, and cautiously moved slowly towards the warehouse.They moved very slowly, almost moving forward step by step. As long as the Spaniard appeared in the field of vision, they would fire alternately.The Spaniards with poor firepower suffered heavy losses in this confrontation, and the few arquebus gunners were almost wiped out.Of course, there were no casualties on the Crossing Congregation's side. Four soldiers were shot and killed in this bloody and brutal close-range musket fire. This has already exceeded the number of casualties when they captured the fort last night.

After clearing out the Spanish musketeers, the remaining army soldiers simply swarmed in and shot at the remaining Spanish soldiers holding spears and light swords.This almost one-sided massacre ended quickly within 10 minutes. Xie Hansan and Lu Ming braved the thick gunpowder that filled the entire space and stepped into the warehouse.There are only two rooms in the warehouse, one large and one small.The door of the room has been opened, and there are many Spaniard corpses lying on the door and inside the room. The ground is almost soaked in blood, and the scene is extremely bloody and unpleasant.

"How about casualties?" Xie Hansan asked.

"When we broke into the warehouse just now, one soldier died under the opponent's spear and one was injured. Counting the casualties in the previous battle, we killed five people and slightly injured one in the whole battle. We achieved a total of 29 deaths in killing the Spanish defenders. The result of the people."

"Brother who was injured, find someone to heal quickly. In addition, you all go to the city to suppress the Spaniards. I am worried that some Spaniards will have some bad thoughts in the shootout here just now. By the way, leave some people to start counting Inventory in the warehouse." Xie Hansan opened a wooden box at his feet while ordering.

"Hiss!" Rao Xie Hansan's determination was high, and he couldn't help but feel a little dizzy after seeing the things in the wooden box.It turned out that the box under the feet contained a large number of neatly stacked silver bars, shining intoxicatingly in the sunlight.

"It's posted this time! It's really posted!" Xie Hansan murmured.

At noon, Xiao Bailang entered the city with a group of sailors.At this time, the statistics of the materials in the warehouse are almost out.According to Xie Hansan's report: there are dozens of boxes of silver bars stored in the warehouse, with a total value of more than 35000 pesos; in addition, there are more than 500 pieces of various animal furs and more than 100 knitted woolen blankets.

"It's really the right time this time!" Xiao Bailang grinned from ear to ear looking at the trophies piled up in the warehouse, so much silver was worth the bloody fight in the warehouse just now. "It seems that this place is really rich. I heard that the upstream city of Valdivia is much more prosperous than this one. If I have the opportunity, I really want to see it and give him a big ticket! Sigh, but I probably don't have this opportunity Now, there is so much movement here, how could no one go there to report the news, the Spaniards over there are probably already ready to fight."

At noon, more sailors came ashore.Some Charuyas went door-to-door with sabers to collect ransom, one peso per person, or something of equivalent value if they couldn’t pay.A group of people worked hard for half a day, and it was not completed until evening. The ransom was collected and the warehouses and properties of the resisting Spanish officers and soldiers were collected. A total of more than 36000 pesos in cash and silver, 520 fine furs, 160 blankets, 4 pigs, 4 cows, 12 sheep, 2500 catties of grain, 200 barrels of gunpowder, 10 tons of copper...

Just when everyone was checking the harvest with smiles on their faces, news came from Yunsheng No. [-], which was on guard outside: a Spanish ship was found on the sea!

(End of this chapter)