Old Mario looked at the angry crowd below with horror and fear. In the sixty years he had been on Corsica, he had never seen such an excited and angry crowd.
Although he is still a proper victim in the hearts of the people at this moment, kneeling on this high platform, listening to the waves of shouting coming from his ears, and watching the people roaring, already made old Mario tremble and confused.
Measured.
Lawrence clenched his right fist and raised it straight above his head, making contact with every angry Corsican with his eyes. From their eyes, Lawrence could see the bloody nature of an aggressive nation.
"Let me speak, fellow citizens!"
Lawrence shouted three times before the enthusiastic crowd quieted down. Even if they stopped shouting, the heavy breathing of the men and the unstoppable sobbing of the women could still be heard.
"Ciro Russell, he is blatantly trampling on the justice of Corsica. Just as I promised, I will fight against this evil to the end and bring justice back to the land of Corsica!
"
Lawrence shouted, waving his arms excitedly, and said:
"However, Ciro Russell has not yet realized the crime he has committed, and has gathered his minions to prepare for resistance. To this end, I need to rely on the power of you, the fearless Corsicans."
After that, Lawrence raised the arrest warrant above his head so that everyone could see it, and said:
"Now, I invoke the Corsican Constitution to clarify the power of the Corsican people to fight against evil, and I hereby delegate the authorization given to me by Governor Paoli to all righteous Corsican citizens."
Under the gaze of all the people, Lawrence slowly folded the arrest warrant in his hand and tore it into countless pieces of paper.
Later, Lawrence held the confetti in his palms and threw it directly at the people in the audience.
The air in the Mediterranean Sea was still slightly cold in February, but the people present felt their blood boiling all over. Even the poor people wearing only a single coat felt hot all over.
They are poor people struggling at the bottom, and no one in power like Lawrence has ever admitted that he needs to rely on their strength.
Never before has one's power to uphold justice been clearly defined and granted to him like now.
Before that, they thought the only power they had was to stay alive.
People rushed to raise their arms to catch the fragments of the arrest warrant from the air. Such a symbol also made them unconsciously believe that they were on the side of law and justice.
"My fellow citizens, I can hear your cry."
Lawrence clenched his fist hard and punched his chest, bowed slightly and shouted to the crowd:
"People of Corsica, it's time to take up the power in your hands and make the sinners pay the price with blood. Don't ask who will impose sanctions. The sword and power are in your own hands!"
...
Boom!
The moment Lawrence finished speaking, there was a deafening sound of cannons from the seaside.
Dozens of jet-black projectiles streaked across the clear sky, flying straight towards a small church on the beach, instantly submerging the church in flying sand and smoke.
Although most of the projectiles hit the sand and sunk a full meter deep, the few projectiles that hit the church instantly opened several large holes in the weather-beaten building.
Even the most iconic spire of this Gothic church was flattened by a round of shelling.
"Damn! Is it an earthquake?"
Cilla coughed violently and threw the cigar on the ground to stamp it out. He felt the whole building shaking, and the dust and sand in the gaps in the walls kept falling. Soon the whole room was in a mess.
"Mr. Ciro!"
A member of the gang rushed into Silla's room crawling and running, coughed heavily in the dust and said hurriedly:
"It's shelling! We're under shelling!"
"Artillery bombardment? Is it Laurence Bonaparte...where did he get the artillery!"
Silla held the wall with one hand and patted his head with the other, gritting his teeth and thinking.
However, before he could calm down his thoughts, there was another explosion in his ears, followed by a violent vibration in the church, which almost made Silla fall to the ground.
One of the shells even hit the upper edge of the window in Siro's room, immediately cutting off half of the ceiling. Glass and gravel were scattered all over the floor. The splashed glass shards hit Siro's body, instantly scratching several pieces.
Daokouzi.
"Mr. Silla!" The gang members quickly stepped forward to support Silla and said:
"It's too dangerous here, you'd better go to the catacombs!"
Silla nodded slightly, but her teeth couldn't stop trembling with anger.
In all his years in Ajaccio, he had never experienced such a humiliation as his headquarters being bombarded.
Silla walked out of the priest's room and came to the altar to take a look at the situation.
I saw that two large holes had been opened in the originally broad and towering dome, and two cannonballs and fallen stones were piled haphazardly in the front hall and the middle hall.
The gang members who were injured in the shelling were wailing in pain. This was the place with the highest concentration of people. After the two shells penetrated the dome, they were accompanied by falling gravel, injuring many gang members.
Even in Silla's eyes, there was a person who was smashed in half by a huge fallen stone slab, his body was broken into two parts, and he was still wailing in agony.
Not daring to stay here for too long, Silla just showed up and walked quickly to the catacombs, ordering to a subordinate next to him:
"Send a few people out to find out what happened, and ask everyone to take shelter in the tomb."
"This...Mr. Siro, the tomb is full of things. I'm afraid it can only accommodate dozens of people."
"Then let our people come in first, and the other gangs stay on top!"
After Ciro gritted his teeth and gave the order, he subconsciously wanted to smoke a cigar. After groping for a while, he remembered that the cigar box had been crushed by shelling in the room.
After kicking the wall even more angrily, Siro had to wait for his men to come back amidst the rumbling sounds and the shaking of the church.
About ten minutes later, the underground tomb was already overcrowded, and people outside were still squeezing in as hard as they could. Especially after each round of shelling, hearing the terrifying roar made the crowd outside squeeze even harder.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The people who were sent by Siro to inquire about the situation also came back disheveled. It took them a while to find Silla in the crowded underground tombs. They did not care that there were still people around, and panicked.
Kneel on the ground and say:
"Mr. Ciro! There is a merchant ship outside shelling us!"
"Merchant ship?! How dare he! What about the Navy? Did the Navy just let that ship open fire there?"
Silla exclaimed in disbelief, and even the surrounding gangsters looked at each other in panic.
"The navy doesn't know why, but the two line ships have not dispatched and are still anchored in the port."
"What?!"
Silla frowned, vaguely aware that something was wrong.
It took nearly half an hour before Ciro received a report that the navy's warships were finally dispatched, and the merchant ship also stopped shelling and began to evacuate.
After receiving this news, the gang members in the catacombs breathed a long sigh of relief and returned to the surface.
After more than half an hour of indiscriminate bombing, the roof of the church had been completely cut off, leaving only a few thick walls. Among the ruins, incomplete corpses and corpses on the ground could be seen everywhere.
Blood.
The surviving gang members were completely numb, sitting among the rubble and corpses with their eyes blank.
The rounds of artillery fire just now had destroyed their minds, and some people even ignored Siro's orders and fled from the church.
Before Silla could count the number of casualties, a member of the gang rolled up to him, looked at Silla with wide eyes, and reported in panic:
"Mr. Siro! Outside, there is a large group of people approaching here with weapons."
"Humph." Silla snorted coldly and said disdainfully:
"Lawrence's patrol is indeed here. Distribute the muskets and swords. We will occupy this place and fight back..."
However, before Silla finished speaking, the gang members were already kneeling on the ground helplessly, grabbing Silla's pants and crying:
"Lord Siro! It's not the patrol! It's the group of untouchables! They came here holding pitchforks and torches!"
