Early the next morning, Liang En, who had been hunting all night, led a team of mountain ghosts and escorted more than 30 prisoners back to the River Temple. When they approached the temple gate, they found that the other teams had also returned.
, and at the same time each escorted the prisoners.
Different from what Liang En had guessed before, these pirates did not fight until the last moment. During the pursuit, they only killed more than 700 pirates, but captured nearly a thousand pirates. In the end, less than a hundred of them managed to escape.
For those pirates, if they completely failed in such an unfamiliar place and had nowhere to run, it would be better to surrender directly than to starve to death, die of thirst, be eaten by wild beasts, or be caught and lynched by villagers.
Although you may be chopped with a knife after surrendering, you may be hanged, or you may be captured and sent to hard labor, it is still better than suffering all the pain and then dying.
As the victors, Liang En and the others not only killed and captured a large number of enemies, but also captured a large amount of loot. There were even so many trophies that Liang En and the others needed to mobilize manpower from other places to clean up.
After simple statistics, they found that a total of 36 ships capable of sea transportation, more than 700 pieces of armor, and a large amount of food, weapons, and other items were captured in this battle.
What's interesting is that the ship does not have all the gold, silver and jewelry that a pirate ship should have as expected. Instead, it has a far greater than normal number of spare weapons and a massive amount of baggage supplies.
"This feels a bit strange." The items on the ship made Liang En and the others frown, because this pile of items looked more like they were found on a warship than on a pirate ship.
"There's nothing surprising. I can only say that this group of pirates must have been well organized in advance and prepared for a real war." As a regular soldier, Tian Zongqi quickly understood what this meant.
What.
After leaving some people to sort out the loot and continue to be alert, Liang En and two teams of mountain ghosts headed for Yuanhe County with 80% of their boats.
According to the mountain ghosts who were in charge of investigating the surroundings, only a small group of pirates with more than 500 people tried to make a sneak attack before, but were easily defeated by the city's defenders. Only a dozen people escaped.
However, unlike the group of pirates who attacked the River Temple, this group of pirates is just a group of small local pirates who use offshore islands as their base of operations. They are also divided into seven or eight groups. Therefore, after their bluff was seen through, they were naturally organized by the city.
The regular army was completely defeated with a single charge.
In this battle, the civil servants headed by the county magistrate also played a big role. They jointly released several fireballs and killed half of the pirates' elite front row and several leaders. They cooperated with the attacking army and completely disrupted the pirates' attack.
position.
After entering the city along the pillow basket, Liang En and the others immediately entered the county government office and reported the results of the previous battle to the county magistrate. After listening to the report, Magistrate Zhang breathed a long sigh of relief.
"You did a much better job than I thought. Not only did you defend Wangyu River, you also eliminated the top three pirate gangs in this invasion." After listening to Liang En's report, Magistrate Zhang said happily.
He said with a beard.
"Actually, I was worried when I heard that more than 3,000 people were gathering at your place. I even asked for reinforcements before, hoping to organize enough troops to support you. But I didn't expect that you not only defended that place, but also completely destroyed it.
Destroy the invading pirates."
"We are just lucky and well prepared. Of course, the reinforcements and supplies you provided in time before the war are also the key to our victory——"
Liang En smiled and praised the county magistrate, and then asked about the current war situation: "Excuse me, how is the fighting in other places besides ours? Have the enemies been eliminated or driven out?"
"Most of them have been eliminated. At the same time, because of the knowledge you taught us before, we have saved more people who might have died." Magistrate Zhang smiled and nodded at Liang En.
"Most of them have been eliminated?" Liang En frowned after noticing a certain word. "Does that mean there are still some enemies that have not been eliminated? I thought the court could eliminate them quickly if they were prepared.
What about this rabble?"
"Yes, I thought so too, but the actual situation is not like this." Magistrate Zhang sighed softly. "We have almost wiped out all the scattered pirates, and we have only suffered very few losses.
, but the opponent’s core of about 6,000 elites captured Wanghaiwei.”
Wanghaiwei is a guardhouse built on the south bank dozens of kilometers upstream of the Yangtze River estuary. It is also the location of an important lighthouse, so a hundred households have been stationed there before.
Although this hundred households are well-equipped and well-trained, it is naturally impossible for them to hold this position when more than 6,000 elite pirates swarm in.
Because they had a plan beforehand, they realized that the main force of the pirate attack was on their side. After the island's defenders destroyed the materials previously hidden in the fortress, set fire to it, and then quickly evacuated.
The elite group of pirates did not pursue them, but immediately occupied the fortress they had abandoned before and have been holding it until now. They did not leave even when troops began to gather outside.
"This is not normal." Liang En frowned after hearing the county magistrate explain the current situation. Because the other party's behavior seemed inexplicable and completely confusing.
Because launching a military operation, especially a military operation like this that mobilizes tens of thousands of people and consumes a lot of resources, there must be a target, but the target of the other party's attack now makes Liang En a little confused.
A small seaside fortress like Wanghaiwei Fort has almost zero strategic and tactical value - although it is on the edge of the Yangtze River, its location cannot block the Yangtze River at all. At the same time, although the entire building is built on a high platform,
But the space inside is extremely small.
Therefore, he really couldn't understand why this large-scale attack, which took more than a year to plan and mobilized tens of thousands of people, only ended up capturing such a small guard post on the seaside.
Due to the small size of the garrison, only about two hundred of the attackers were able to enter the fort, while the others could only set up temporary camps around the fort and confront the imperial troops gradually gathering outside.
As for the imperial army, they did not launch an attack, because it would take time for the troops previously deployed in various places to assemble. The 5,000 people who had already arrived could only contain them at most, and it was impossible to attack.
Since the local fighting was basically over, Liang En stayed in the county in the next few days to guide the operation of the first aid clinic. Although he was not a professional, as a modern person he could still provide some valuable guidance with the help of his own knowledge.
.
It must be said that the experience accumulated over countless lives is very valuable. With large-scale disinfection combined with alcohol and allicin, they successfully reduced the infection rate to 1/30 of the past and the mortality rate to 1/3 of the past.
/7.
At the same time, this efficient treatment method also greatly reduces the work intensity of those skilled healers, because they only need to rescue the most critical patients, and do not have to scratch their eyebrows and beards like before.
A week later, all the wounded in the first aid center were stabilized, and at this time, a transfer order was sent to the first aid center.
The transfer order came from the supreme commander of the pirate encirclement and suppression operation, General Ping An, and the content was to mobilize personnel and medicines from rescue centers from various places to the military camp near Wanghaiwei to prepare for the upcoming battle.
"It's finally over."
After taking a look at the transfer order, Liang En immediately understood that the final attack on this group of pirates was about to begin, which also meant that this large-scale pirate invasion would soon be over.