Iron Power And Sorcerer

Iron Power And Sorcerer Chapter 28

2021-12-23

Chapter 28 Boat Song
The sun is setting, and the Skua has set sail again.

The sailors who escaped sang happily as they scrubbed the deck and tended the ropes, as if the bloody landing battle a few hours earlier was just an illusion.

But the revolving guns just installed on the top floor of the poop haven't been removed.

Beside the revolving gun, Winters, Bud and Andre were sitting on the deck, leaning against the fence in a daze.

The excitement of taking part in the battle for the first time has passed, and the mind that was previously swept away by the blood has returned to its senses.

Recalling the battle just now, in addition to some pride, the three warrant officers had only fear and confusion in their hearts, as well as the nausea caused by recalling the tragic scene of hand-to-hand combat with tattered skin and visceral organs. feel.

"Hey, I always feel that this is not a good thing to do." Bud sighed, he did not directly name what it was, but Winters and Andre would not misunderstand .

The pirates who finally surrendered failed to save their lives. Major General Layton fulfilled his promise and did not kill.

So he arranged for the cadet warrant officers to do the work for him, and he deliberately selected those warrant officers who had no blood on their knives to be the executioners, that is, the cadets who could not actually participate in hand-to-hand combat during the battle.

In the narrow environment of the ship, the battle did not turn into a melee, so only the warrant officers at the front were really fighting against the pirates, and most of the rest could only be Shouting and cheering from behind.

"Even if the pirates can come ashore alive, they will be hanged in the end. In fact, the outcome is not very different." Winters also felt that killing prisoners was not good, but he could not deny that this was indeed a simple and effective method. Solution: "I think on the one hand the Rear Admiral is really bloodthirsty, and on the other hand the pirates are really hard to deal with. The Skua can't hold so many people. Stay on the Good Luck, they How to find a chance to seize the ship?
"If you kill it, you will kill it, what if you don't kill it? "Andre yawned and stretched his waist again. Now he seems to be very tired.

Compared to Major General Layton before the war when he directly decided to fight a pirate, after the war Much more time was spent discussing what to do with the captives and finishing.

The postwar interrogation of the pirates unearthed an unexpected piece of information: The Lucky wasn't caught by accident The Skua, but now all the pirates in the Inner Sea are looking for a three-masted light Veneta
because the pirates got word that the ship was full of "Captain cum Plantation of the Taniria Islands" The Federation of Planters" used gold and silver to bribe the ruling council of the Lagoon Republic.

The Federation of Captains and Planters of the Tanilla Islands practiced a rowdy guild-style democracy with a loose structure, The power is weak. But it is undeniable that the captains and planters are the actual owners of the Tanilla Islands.

On the inland sea, pirates are rampant. And Taneria has been used as a pirate land and a supply point all the year round. , the relationship with the Seablue Republic has always been extremely tense.

The pirates do not know why the Federation is bribing the Seablue Governing Council, but they are sure that at this moment there is a ship full of gold coins and silver coins. The three-masted clipper is heading for the sea blue city.

As for the reason why the federation bribed the sea blue ruling committee, the pirates are saying myriad, which is contradictory. There is no accurate statement at all, but they firmly believe that There is such a treasure ship.

Because it is difficult to deduce the result from the reason, but to find the reason from the result...isn't it easy to find a reason that can convince yourself?

Even before being executed, the pirates aboard the Fortune still believed that the Skua was the treasure ship and that the warrant officers were the soldiers who escorted it.

The escort? Or the bribe? Winters , Bud and Andre have never heard that they have to escort a shipment of gold and silver on the way home.

is it possible that this is a secret mission? Only Major General Layton and Moritz The major knows what's going on?

Winters at first thinks so. But as soon as he sees the faces of the major and the major, Winters knows that they are also confused.

But the pirates were so eloquent that they didn't look like they were lying, making the major generals, majors, and warrant officers suspicious.

So the pressure was on the fat captain. The fat captain was brow beaded with sweat , swearing and swearing that he never knew anything about the treasure ship, and that there was absolutely no bribe from any federation on the Skua.

Nothing can be said, and no swearing can dispel any doubts. Anyway, the Skua is all about In such a place, what the pirates say is true or false can be fully understood by checking it.

So the Major General directly ordered the cargo to be checked into the cabin, and the warrant officers carefully searched the Skua, opened every box and bag of cargo in the cabin, and knocked on every wooden board to ensure that there was no darkness. grid.

Finally, what the fat captain said was true, the only cargo in the ship was sugar and tobacco.

Then the situation facing the Skua is now clear: the pirates firmly believe that a treasure ship is sailing from Taniria to the sea blue city, and all the pirates in the inner sea have red-eyed thinking. To intercept this ship;
There may be such a ship, but it is definitely not the Skua, there is not a single gold coin without an owner on the Skua, and the ship is only loaded with ordinary sugar and tobacco;
But unfortunately, the appearance of the Skua is very similar to the treasure ship that the pirates think, or the treasure ship that the pirates think is a light three-masted ship like the Skua;
Skua I can't prove to the pirates that I'm not a treasure ship, so I can't stop the ship for the pirates to check, right?

That's the case. The Skua in the Inland Sea is a high-risk ship. Usually, a flag can be used to keep the pirates safe, but now a flag is absolutely impossible to scare off pirates.

Because the two senior army officers didn't seem to think that they could immediately dock and let the officers disembark. The fat captain also hoped that the army officers could stay on board to protect the Skua, and deliberately did not propose this plan.

Therefore, Major Admiral Layton, Major Moritz and Captain Fatty agreed that the Skua must not sail directly to the sea blue city now, and need to leave the main route as soon as possible, and take the Sea Territory where the ship is inaccessible. Detour back to Hailan City.

Apart from this, you can only quickly pray for a strong wind at sea.

Perhaps the devout prayers of the sailors played a role, and as dusk approached, the originally weak sea breeze began to gradually strengthen again.

The Skua got enough wind to break through the waves again at eight knots.

"I think the Major General's idea is right. In this situation, pirates are like dogs that smell the smell. Even if we are iron-clad, we can't bear to take over two more battles. Returning to Hailan City quickly is the first priority." Andre said casually. He was simply lying on the deck now, as if he wanted to take a nap.

"Those oarsmen are innocent, can't they kill them indiscriminately?" Bud obviously disagreed with Major General Layton's solution.

No one disagreed with the order to change course, and what really sparked debate was the handling of the Good Luck.

Major General Layton's solution was to slaughter all the pirates alive, push the pirate's body into the sea, scuttle the pirate ship directly, and the Skua returned to Hailan City as quickly as possible.

The problem is that in the eyes of Major General Layton, there is no distinction between coerced paddlers and pirates. As long as the living people on the pirate ship are all identified as pirates, they all have to die.

But for the first time, Major Moritz raised objections to the big leaders. In his view, paddlers were in a coercive position, essentially innocent sailors caught on pirate ships as slaves. To kill all these sailors who were not pirates would be too sensational and would damage the reputation of the Army.

"humph." Andre sneered, apparently disapproving of the innocent's statement: "Which innocent? Didn't they help the skua to get caught up? Besides, you don't eat those too. The rower's loss?"

Bard was at a loss for words, and Bard didn't know what "Stockholm Syndrome" was. Three oarsmen had indeed attacked him, and he could think of no plausible reason to defend those who had been instigated by the pirates against him.

Winters listened to the conversation between the two, and remembered the smell of rotting in the cabin, the scrawny bodies and desperate eyes of the rowers, and couldn't help sighed: "I think the rowers are actually It's not that they want to help the pirates."

"Then what do they want to do?" Andre was very disapproving of this kind of pity for the enemy.

"They just want to die happily."

This answer left Andre speechless for a while, he scratched his head, opened his lips several times without making a sound, and finally He regained his indifferent attitude: "Don't think about it so much, they dare to fight with us, and they deserve to die. We are just a few low-level officers - not even officers, just apprentice officers. We don't have any power. , hehe, but also no responsibility. We do what we are asked to do, and that's it. The sky is falling and the rank is high."

Winters thought that maybe it was this kind of mentality to be able to do it every night. They all slept well, he said with a bitter smile: "Yeah, just use yourself as a tool."

Major General Layton's solution was only half executed in the end, and all the pirates who surrendered were slaughtered. Now, the pirates who didn't surrender all made up their knives, and all the corpses were pushed into the sea to feed the fish and shrimp. Only half the life of the pirate captain was left, because the major general wanted to bring him back to Hailan for further interrogation.

The rower was not executed as a pirate, a result that Major Moritz fought for.

The Good Luck was also not scuttled, which was the result of the fat captain's best efforts.

We still don't know the name of the fat captain on the Skua, but he is already not on the Skua. The current acting captain of the Skua is the original first mate, and the fat captain has taken over Good Luck Gold's class and led a few sailors to the Good Luck to be captains.

As the fat captain said, the most valuable thing on the seas—at least in the inner seas is not the cargo, but the ship.

Major Admiral Layton was going to scuttle the Fortune, and Major Moritz didn't really care. Both of them are army officers, they don't know the market and they don't care about such a broken ship.

But when he heard that Rear Admiral Layton was going to scuttle the Fortune, the fat captain firmly disagreed, and for the first time showed an amazing imposing manner, slapping the table in front of Rear Admiral Layton and staring.

The fat captain counted the two land ducks with his fingers again:

First of all, although the Good Luck is a few years old, it is also a sturdy and fully functional ship. , A sturdy and durable boat.

Secondly, although the Good Luck is an old-fashioned galley, most of the ships in the inland sea are of this type. Although it is unfortunate from a thief, it is a good merchant to bring it back to the port for repairs. ship.

All in all, the lucky number can be sold for a lot of money! It's a waste of time to scuttle. This ship is now a serious spills of war, and the ownership belongs to the army officers. Isn't it good for everyone to share the money?

Here, the fat captain cunningly did not mention the specific price that can be sold, and only used imaginary attributives such as "a lot" to describe.

Captain Fat also persuaded Major Admiral Layton and Major Moritz from another angle:

There are more than 30 paddlers on the Good Luck. The hull is scuttled, what about the oarsmen? Where to put it?

The Skua is now overwhelmed with fifty or so men. There's really no room for more than thirty paddlers.

"To scuttle the Good Luck, you must kill the rowers; if you don't kill the rowers, you cannot scuttle the Good Luck." Through this logic chain, Fatty The captain successfully tied Major Moritz to his war chariot.

The boat cannot be chiseled. To chisel the boat, the fat captain must be chiseled first.

But how to bring the Good Luck back to port has become a new problem.

The pirates are dead, and there is no crew to steer the Good Luck.

How many pirates are left as crew? Major General Layton refused to do it, and neither did the fat captain.

Let the paddlers be crewed? The fat captain refused to agree. These oarsmen are familiar with pirate ships. If they are malicious and rob the ship and sell it themselves, aren't everyone on the Skua all in vain?

This is the crisis of trust caused by the special living environment at sea. Above the sea, there is no communication, no law, and no supervision. between Heaven and Earth is just such a ship, and what happened on the ship is unknown to outsiders, let alone.

The fat captain didn't even dare to ask his first mate to take a few sailors to the Luck to get the ship back to port. Because people are separated from each other, who knows if this seemingly simple and honest chief mate has any bad thoughts in his heart? If the first officer had evil thoughts, there would be another pirate ship named "Doom" in the inner sea tomorrow.

Finally, Captain Fatty came up with a genius solution:
He would bring half of the sailors on the Skua to the Lucky, so that he could barely get this one. The boat is manoeuvred;
The oarsmen aboard the Luck will not be freed yet, but will be tethered to the cabin as before. To prevent them from taking the boat with evil intentions, it also requires them to continue to paddle. When you arrive at the port, find the sheriff, and let the oarsmen disembark on their own;
The first mate on the Skua temporarily takes the position of captain, and selects a few from the oars on the Good Luck that have not been damaged. Sailors complement the crew on the Skua so that the Skua can function normally. There are more than thirty army officers on the Skua, and anyone who dares to make trouble can be easily suppressed.

In the opinion of Major General Layton and Major Moritz, this is a very good solution. The only disadvantage is that there are too few crew on the Good Luck. If Captain Fatty encounters pirates on his way back to port It might be... for nothing.

However, the fat captain, who is obsessed with money, has decided to take this risk, and considering the current attraction of the Skua to inland pirates, it is hard to say which ship is more dangerous.

The Fat Captain took half the sailors of the Skua, and a letter describing the whole sequence of events on the Good Luck, signed and sealed by Major Admiral Layton and Major Moritz, on the ground After the Good Luck, the two ships parted ways.

The boat song that Winters, Bud and Andre hear now is the chorus of new and old sailors.

Andrei didn't speak for a long time, apparently already sleeping.

Budd seemed to have a lot of things on his mind. He frowned and said to Winters: "I always feel a little...weird, everything is wicked. Ordinarily, Jade City has several events every year. There have been several fires, but this time it was the arsenal that caught fire, and it burned so big; every year, people go overseas, but this year, there is not a single overseas dispatch; and this so-called treasure ship, treasure ship? Do you believe it? Something must be going on in this world that we don't know about."

"Hey, what are you thinking about? I'm so screwed that I can't use magic." Winters understood Bud's anxiety, but He believes that when the boat gets to the pier-head, it will go straight with the current: "Even if there is a big change in Heaven and Earth turning upside down, we can only be carried away by the tide. Andre said Yes, we are the three little warrant officers, rest assured to be the tool man, the sky is falling, and the high rank is on it."

First Officer of the Skua—oh, no, now the captain— Climbing up the poop, he was here to deliver wine to the three army warrant officers. Obviously, even if it was only temporarily acting as captain, he was very excited.

"Drink it, your Excellency officers, drink it. I saw you jumping in today. You are all first-class warriors, and even if you are at sea, you can't find a few. Heroes like you. I'll treat you to these wines."

Winters took the bottle with a smile, and asked casually, "What song did the sailors sing? It's nice, but the accent is too heavy for me to understand. "

The acting captain smiled sadly: "Some people call these songs boat songs, but they are actually rateless sailor's tunes, and most of them are about women and wine." "

"I think these songs are natural and simple, what's wrong with women and wine? Isn't a song supposed to express emotion? Too bad I don't understand what they're singing..."

"Then I'll sing it to you in a Veneta accent? "

"That's very good!" ”

The first mate cleared his throat and sang along with the sailors. His voice was rough and wild, but the lyrics contained inseparable sadness:
"Farewell!" Islands girl.

Farewell now! Beauty of the Islands.

Because we're heading towards Old Veneta.

We will never see people as beautiful as you again.

We roared and laughed like real Veneta sailors.

We roared and laughed, accompanied by the salty waves.

Until we measure the bay of Cenas,

From the archipelago to the sea blue, it is a full two hundred leagues.

…

Fill the glass and drink it up.

Fill the glass and drink it all.

We drown the blues with alcohol.

May every lover be healthy, let's drink this cup to the fullest.

..."

Amid the singing of the sailors, Winters was getting closer and closer to Hai Lan, and he was about to get his military rank and officially become a trainee officer.

He's not a complete novice, but that's just the most basic education. There are many, many things that he will need to learn in practice.

The prototype of the boat song in this article is Spanish Ladies, they are not on the shelves anyway. I can't count the number of words in the lyrics. Whether in the East or the West, the boat song has a long history. The tracker can also be regarded as a kind of boat song. The charm lies in the true feelings of the working people. The so-called true feelings are people's real desires, not necessarily noble. The songs of the Xialiba people may not be as good as the snow in the spring, and the true feelings of the working people are often more contagious. In the original work of "Blood Romance" When describing the sour songs in northern Shaanxi, there are many songs that sing about men and women. In fact, it was because the poor people in northern Shaanxi in the old society were in sexual repression all the year round, and they came to relieve their emotions. However, this sour song is today's "I'm not afraid of you"没东西冲，只怕你冲到死”的社会环境可能就没什么太强的感染力了，这说明歌曲也是要跟着时代走。