The 2,000 advance troops selected by Sun Ke and Li Jinglong had a hearty meal, then got on the boat and sailed towards the other side. At the same time, the five guardsmen selected by Lan Zhen also boarded the deck and filled the deck with bamboo rafts and leather rafts.
The large boat, which was a means of transportation, came outside close to the place where the Annamites had set the stakes. After all the soldiers who had boarded the army walked into the path and no one returned for a quarter of an hour, they boarded the small boat and these rafts and prepared to land.
The old boatman, who has been sailing on the Taojiang and Furiang rivers all year round, held the oar steadily. Even if it was pitch black ahead, he did not mess up at all, and accurately sent them to the forest trail mentioned by Modi in his letter. First boarding
The soldiers gently abandoned the ship and landed, walking into the path under the bright moonlight.
Looking at the soldiers walking in one by one, Sun Ke seemed to be afraid of alarming the Annan guards, and said in a very soft voice: "Fortunately, the moonlight is bright tonight, otherwise it would not be so easy for them to pass through this path."
"This is God's will," Li Jinglong said with a smile, "God wants me, Ming Dynasty, to capture Duobang City tonight."
After hearing this, Sun Ke nodded and said: "It seems that even God is helping us, and we will win this battle."
While the two of them were talking, the last soldier had already entered the forest path. Li Jinglong immediately ordered the messenger on the ship to light up the lanterns and tell Lan Zhen that Zhang Fu and others who had arrived first had all entered the path.
Lan Zhen took out an hourglass made of translucent glass, which was considered a luxury item at this time, poured all the sand to one side, put it on the table, pointed at it and said to Zhang Fu and others: "This hourglass is finished.
The sanding time is a quarter of an hour. When all the sand has leaked to the bottom, if there is no signal from the lights, we will order the Habayashi Zuowei and other soldiers from several guard posts to board the ship and prepare to land."
Zhang Fu and others looked at the hourglass nervously. In their eyes, the speed of the sand in the hourglass was very slow. Only a few grains of sand leaked out from the small opening each time, which was insignificant compared with the extremely large amount of sand above.
Sang Jing only looked at it for a few times before he couldn't stand it anymore. He turned his head and looked at the dark outside of the cabin. He was afraid that he would break the hourglass in his excitement and pour all the sand into it.
Although the others did not stop looking like him, they also turned their gazes elsewhere from time to time, even Lan Zhen was no exception; only Zhang Fu kept staring.
In their subjective feelings, it seemed that after an hour or even two hours had passed, the hourglass with a time of quarter of an hour finally leaked all its sand grains below.
Zhang Fu turned his head and looked at Li Jinglong. There was no light signal coming from where Sun Ke and the others were, and said to Sang Jing and others: "The time has come, order the soldiers to board the ship immediately!"
"Is it time?" Sang Jing came to his senses and agreed: "Yes, General Zhang." He saluted Lan Zhen again and walked out of the cabin to deliver the order. The other four commanders also greeted Lan Zhen and Zhang Fu.
Bow and leave the cabin.
Zhang Fu and Lan Zhen said a few more words, and Lan Zhen said a few more words: "Be careful, but don't be too cautious. Take action when it's time to take action."
Zhang Fu nodded in agreement, then bowed and left.
It was midnight. Although the moonlight was bright now, it was not easy to let the soldiers board the boat. Zhang Fu and others shouted repeatedly, and the officers of each thousand and hundred households also tried their best to restrain the soldiers, and finally let everyone board the boat.
Zhang Fu also left a few small boats, loaded with some items he thought would be needed for this siege, and accompanied the army through the area densely covered with wooden piles to a place close to the beach.
They began another round of waiting. Zhang Fu ordered all the soldiers to be neatly dressed, holding spears and swords in their hands, ready to land at any time; his guards took turns to look at the city head and shout loudly if they found a fire.
I don’t know how long it took, but when Zhang Fu started to doze off because he hadn’t slept much in the afternoon, he suddenly heard a cry from beside him: “There’s a fire in the west of the city!”
Zhang Fu immediately opened his eyes, pulled out a knife from his waist, and shouted loudly: "The time has come to attack Duobang City! Soldiers, charge!"
For a time, countless people shouted: "Come on!" The boatman rowed a few times quickly to let the boat dock. Then countless soldiers got off the boat and rushed to Duobang City.
Xu Jingchang led his thousands of households to the front. Logically speaking, their troops, which mainly used firearms, should be at a later position; but Xu Jingchang was so eager to achieve success that he ignored the instructor's usual teachings and held the hand
The loaded muskets rushed ahead.
His deputy Qianhu and one of the Hundreds of Households, Sun Bingwen, was sweating profusely as he ran with him. Did he know Xu Jingchang's true identity? In other words, Xu Jingchang had no intention of concealing his identity from the beginning. All the soldiers in the guard knew about him.
At the same time, they also knew that, at least so far, Xu Zengshou only had one son, Xu Jingchang. He was just injured. If he died here, he didn’t think he would be better off. So in addition to a few guards of Xu Jingchang, Sun Bingwen led his own
Hundreds of households also followed Xu Jingchang closely to protect him.
Sang Jing also noticed this and was so frightened that he quickly sent his guards to send an order to Xu Jingchang, asking him to stop and join several other thousand households.
After hearing Sang Jing's order, Xu Jingchang looked at the Dobang City Wall about a mile away with regret, slowed down reluctantly, walked slowly from the middle of the large group of people to the side, and waited for Sang Jing to lead his troops to come over. He
Although he could disobey Sang Jing's military orders, Sang Jing might not do anything to him or dare to do anything to him, but he didn't want to have the label of disobeying military orders on his head. Fortunately, because from the place of landing to the headquarters of Duobang City
It was about two miles away. These soldiers were also very experienced in fighting. They were all walking quickly and no one was running. They waited until they were about one or two hundred meters away from the city before running. It would be easier for him to get out from the middle of the team.
But at this moment, the fire lit at the west end of the city suddenly went out and could no longer be seen; at the same time, the roar of cannons sounded from the top of Duobang City, and cannonballs flew towards them.
