Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 356: Battle of Chongming (Part )

On the 20th, Bai Guangtai sent Yu Tonghai's 40th Army across the river, and then immediately led a naval regiment eastward to Liujiagang. In fact, they had been waiting in Liujiagang for seven days and finally waited for Fang Guozhen to arrive.

As early as the end of October, Lu Jin, Yang Jing, Bai Guangtai and others had made a plan for the navy to deal with Fang Guozhen. As the saying goes, one should make plans before taking action. Lu Jin was the commander-in-chief of the entire army, and Yang Jing was the main general of this eastern expedition. How could they not see that Fang Guozhen was such a large local force?

It would be fine if this person didn't come to cause trouble, but if he really came, he would have to have a response plan, otherwise he would be caught off guard if the situation really occurred, so he was well prepared.

It is hard to say who will win or lose this battle, but Bai Guangtai already has a bottom line. As long as he acts according to Lu Jin's plan, even if he cannot win, he can at least draw and remain invincible.

If you want to deal with Fang Guozhen, you must first admit that the Shengwu Army Navy alone is not Fang Guozhen's opponent for the time being.

The Shengwu Army is not afraid of land battles, but in naval battles, they may have a chance of winning on the river, but Fang Guozhen will definitely win in the sea. If you can't win, you can't win. How can you fight a naval battle when you don't even have ships?

The ships are not as big as Fang Guozhen's, and their number is not as many as Fang Guozhen's. This is an objective fact. Only by clarifying this premise can we formulate corresponding strategies and tactics for this situation.

In terms of strategy, given the huge gap in technical equipment between the enemy and us, the navy must not go to sea to fight. As long as we can firmly guard the Yangtze River waterway and prevent Fang Guozhen's fleet from entering the Yangtze River, we will win.

Lu Jin's requirements were even lower. As long as Fang Guozhen's fleet did not pass Jiangyin, that was his bottom line. As for the lower reaches of Jiangyin, he could accept any situation. It didn't matter if the navy lost, as long as the whole army was not wiped out and as many fleets as possible came back, it would be fine as long as Jiangyin was defended.

This is not because he is pessimistic, but mainly because he cannot pretend not to see the objective gap, and he also does not want to put too much pressure on Bai Guangtai.

The Longwan Shipyard in Jiankang is still under construction, and Wang Dayuan is digging a dock there with the prisoners of war. It will take a while for seagoing ships to be built, so they can only take a defensive stance for now.

With the overall strategy determined, the next tactics became easy to deal with. It was nothing more than trying every possible way to deal with Fang Guozhen's large ship, making the best use of their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses, and taking advantage of the river ships. As long as they could hold him at the mouth of the Yangtze River and prevent him from getting out, they would win.

Upon learning that Fang Guozhen was indeed leading a fleet to attack, Bai Guangtai immediately ordered the navy in Liujia Port, "All ships of the regiment, board the ships, weigh anchor, raise the sails, and follow me out of the harbor to fight!"

There was a captain named Zhang Chao in the First Regiment of the Navy. He was a veteran officer who had joined the Liao brothers in the uprising in Chaohu. Now he had also been promoted to a captain. Upon hearing this, he immediately asked, "Commander, why don't we leave a few boats in Liujiagang? What if Fang Guozhen's navy attacks and occupies Liujiagang?"

Bai Guangtai glanced at him and said, "Then give Liujiagang to them."

"Ah?" Zhang Chao looked like he didn't understand.

Bai Guangtai immediately explained, "From Jiangzhou onwards, both sides of the Yangtze River are our territory. Fang Guozhen only has the navy. If he dares to land on both sides of the river, he will just burn, kill and plunder. Then we have the army to deal with him and will definitely not let him gain a foothold on the shore. We only need to focus on dealing with his navy, and we don't need to worry about what happens on the shore."

"But this"

"What's the point? Fang Guozhen burned Liujiagang to ashes a long time ago. There's nothing to be nostalgic about. It's better if he doesn't come. If he dares to enter Liujiagang, I will block him outside the harbor and kill him. It's just a deadly place. Why not give it to him? Don't dawdle. Let the soldiers board the ship quickly."

"Yes!"

After the navy officers and soldiers boarded their respective ships, Bai Guangtai stood on a large ship with a regimental flag and shouted to the soldiers, "Brothers of the navy, before the expedition, the commander-in-chief called me and repeatedly told me not to go to the sea to fight Fang Guozhen. Why? Because we don't have sea vessels, we can't beat them at sea. It will take at least two or three years to build our own sea vessels. But I have to stay at home and eat idle meals. I feel depressed!
"When we have a drink together, the army brothers will ask us what the navy is doing. We have conquered so many territories, but your navy can't even defend the river bank. Do you want to be criticized like this?"

"We don't want to!" The naval officers and soldiers on the warships in the harbor shouted in unison.

Bai Guangtai raised his arms and shouted, "I don't want to be treated as a freeloader! So how can we get the ship now and rush into the sea from the Yangtze River? I tell you, that is to take the ship from the enemy!
"Although we don't have seagoing ships, the enemy does! Did Fang Guozhen build all his seagoing ships himself? I tell you, no! That guy burned down Liujiagang three years ago, and the ships he had were also snatched from the Yuan court. Since he could snatch them away, why can't we snatch them away too?!

"The Marshal told me that our naval regiment will be expanded into a navy in the future. It will have at least three divisions, nine regiment commanders, and 45 thousand-household battalion officers. Do you want to be promoted? Do you want to stand out and bring honor to your family?"

"I want to!" The eyes of the navy officers and soldiers turned red when they heard this. What they envied the most about the army was probably the rapid expansion of its organization. If the army was not expanded, there would be only one position for each person, and if others didn't go down, you couldn't get up, unless you kept expanding the organization to create more positions.

The navy is a branch of the military that is not easy to expand. To expand the army, to put it bluntly, all you need is a spear, but for the navy you need ships, and ships are not so easy to build.

"Think? You wish! Can a navy without ships be called a navy?"

“Hahahaha——” The soldiers present laughed when they heard this, while others said unwillingly, “Commander, didn’t you just tell us to go and grab it ourselves?”

"Yes, you are right." Bai Guangtai nodded and shouted again, "Everyone in the First Regiment of the Navy, listen to me, those who want to get merit and promotion, listen carefully, if you capture one enemy ship in this battle, I will recommend him to the Marshal as a platoon leader, if you capture two enemy ships, I will recommend him to be a company commander, if you capture three enemy ships, I will recommend him to be a thousand-household battalion commander, if you kill or capture an enemy general, I will recommend him to be a commander, do you understand?!"

"understand!"

"Set sail and set off!"

Woo————

The long sound of horns resounded over Liujiagang. The naval officers and soldiers shouted and raised the sails. The huge oars at the stern of the ship rowed. Soon, one warship after another sailed out of the port and lined up on the river. There were more than a hundred of them. Then, under the command of Bai Guangtai, they sailed towards the center of the river in the north.

It is now the 30th day of the winter month, and tomorrow is the first day of the twelfth lunar month. It is winter, and northwest winds prevail in the Yangtze River estuary. The Shengwu Army navy occupies both the upper reaches and the upwind side. From a terrain perspective, it can be said that it has all the advantages. Bai Guangtai led all the warships of the navy, with gunboats in the front and close combat ships in the back, and formed two rows to search towards the downstream river.

At the same time, the huge fleet led by Fang Guozhen was also taking a strange zigzag route on the river, twisting and turning as it moved upstream. In fact, this is a unique way of traveling under headwind conditions. By following the zigzag route, they can always use the power provided by the front and side winds to sail against the wind. This was an era at the end of the Yuan Dynasty when China was ahead of the West in navigation technology.

The two sides searched forward together, and finally met on the river surface near Chongming at around 1:00 p.m.

At that time, Chongming Prefecture was far smaller than it is in later generations. The surface of the Yangtze River estuary was very wide. The distance from Chongming Island in the south to Taicang on the south bank of the Yangtze River alone was an outrageous 30 miles wide, and you couldn't see the other side at a glance. The location of Chongming Island in later generations was just a string of sandbars named Sansha, Chongming Prefecture, Yaoliusha and Biantansha at that time.

As the patrol boats in front of the Shengwu Army's navy returned one by one, Bai Guangtai gradually grasped the direction of Fang Guozhen's fleet and caught up with it. Fang Guozhen also soon saw the Shengwu Army's navy.

The fourth brother, Fang Guoying, stood at the bow and looked far ahead. He quickly counted the approximate number of ships on the opposite side. "Third brother, the enemy navy has less than 200 ships, and they are all low river ships. Let's just charge over. Our sea ships have high sides, so we won't be at a disadvantage if we just charge over and engage in close combat."

Old Five Fang Guomin said, "Yes, the enemy navy doesn't seem to be very good at naval warfare. How can they line up in two rows and charge forward straight ahead? Moreover, there are such wide gaps between the ships. If we surround them with three ships together, they can't even support each other. It seems that the enemy navy's generals are just like this."

Fang Guozhen shook his head and frowned, "Don't treat the thief as a fool. Can a fool conquer so much territory in a year?"

He looked around and saw the sandbar of Chongming Prefecture in the north. He immediately warned, "Be careful, the enemy army may have hidden ambushes. They have the upper hand and the advantage of upstream. If they get into a fight with our army and an ambush emerges from behind the sandbar to attack us, it will be difficult to defeat them."

The fourth brother Fang Guoying said, "It's not difficult. We can just send two boats to the back of the sandbar and find out."

Fang Guozhen nodded when he heard this, and called to his son Fang Mingshan behind him, "Mingshan, quickly send a small boat over to scout."

"Yes, father, I will go to scout personally." Fang Mingshan clasped his fists and immediately jumped onto another transport boat nearby by pulling the rope, heading north towards Chongming Prefecture.

Fang Guomin asked again, "Third brother, how do we fight here?"

Fang Guozhen thought for a moment before saying, "We have many ships, but we are downstream and downwind. The enemy ships are few and they are spread out in such a wide row, so there are many gaps in the middle. So, fifth brother, you lead a hundred large ships to form a group and ram the enemy's fleet from the middle, cutting the enemy formation in half. The fourth brother and I will lead the fleet to attack the pirate ships in the south. We will siege them with three against one. No ship is allowed to be left alone. I want to see what the enemy navy is capable of."

"okay!"

Fang Guozhen's navy immediately began to change its formation, separating out a fleet of about a hundred ships, arranging them into a dense formation, and charging straight towards Bai Guangtai's battle line on the opposite side. In addition, more than two hundred large and small ships also formed a formation of three ships in a group, and took the initiative to engage in battle with the Shengwu Army's naval ships.

Bai Guangtai's side was full of river boats, so they dared not collide with Fang Guozhen's large ship head-on. He also saw that the ships to the south of Fang Guozhen's fleet were arranged in groups of three, with some gaps between them in front, behind, left and right. His eyes suddenly lit up, and he immediately gave the order.

"Zhang Chao, you lead all the gunboats to charge at full speed at full sail towards the enemy's southern wing. Do not stop the ships or lower the sails. Fire one shot and then leave. Go straight through the enemy formation, go around to the north behind the enemy formation, and meet me!"

"Yes!" Zhang Chao shouted immediately, asked the messenger to blow the horn, beat the war drum, raise the charge flag, and asked the sailors to raise all three sails to the top. The speed of the ship increased a lot immediately, and the ship took the lead with full sails and full speed, rushing out of the formation. Seeing this, the other gunboats immediately followed, all raised full sails and rushed up with Zhang Chao.

The Shengwu Army's naval fleet was immediately divided into two. Zhang Chao's more than 30 gunboats rushed towards Fang Guozhen, while Bai Guangtai, with the remaining more than 100 melee ships, immediately turned into a column and circled from the north near Chongming Prefecture.

Seeing Bai Guangtai's change of formation, Fang Guoying frowned and asked, "Third brother, the pirate ship has run so far and has gone around to the north. Should we let Lao Wu retreat?"

Fang Guozhen immediately took out his bow and arrows, "Why retreat? The enemy army took the initiative to split up. Don't worry about them for now. Those more than 30 boats are coming towards us. Let's get our weapons ready to fight!"

"Okay, brothers, grab your weapons!"

There were clanging sounds, and the sailors on Fang Guozhen's side took out their weapons. Some used bows and arrows, some used spears, some used harpoons and halberds, and even weapons like throwing axes, javelins and darts were not uncommon. They all picked them up in their hands and stared at the more than 30 "small boats" rushing towards them.

Although it is called a small boat, it is not too small. The main warships of the Shengwu Army Navy are all modified from large merchant ships, and are at least 14 meters long. The main gunboats are equipped with seven guns, three of which are -jin short-barreled howitzers. The direct shooting distance of solid bullets is only meters, and the range of shotguns is only about meters. One of these three guns is arranged at the bow, and the other two are arranged in the middle of the ship, facing the two sides respectively. There is only one main gun on the front, left and right sides. The other four are all breech-loading Franki small-caliber swivel guns. This thing is just a large spray gun. It can't shoot far at all. It is specially used to attack the enemy ship's boarding personnel at close range. It uses shotguns to wash the deck. The disadvantage is that it can't shoot far, but the advantage is the fast firing rate!

Zhang Chao saw that there were soldiers holding weapons on Fang Guozhen's side standing by the side of the ship, ready to board the ship at any time. Some of them were holding bows and arrows, aiming at his side.

He also ordered the crew, "Everyone check the fuse, the first gun listen to my order and prepare to fire, the other guns do not fire yet."

"Yes!" the gunner at the bow responded immediately.

Zhang Chao asked the helmsman to keep an eye on the direction. After all, they now had the advantage of being upstream and with the wind, so there was no need to move forward in a twisting serpentine manner like Fang Guozhen. This was their chance to fight!

He stretched out his thumb to measure the distance between himself and the enemy ship, while adjusting the direction and pointing the bow to the east. When the distance between the two sides reached 200 meters, Fang Guozhen turned the rudder again and turned the ship sideways to face the bow of Zhang Chao.

At this time, Fang Guozhen was in a 'T-advantage' position, but unfortunately there was no artillery on his ship. Zhang Chao was in a 'T-disadvantage' position, but the ship in front of him without any broadside artillery was just a large target.

Right now, "Fire!"

With a bang, a cannon shot with more than 500 grapeshot shells was fired at the side of a ship on Fang Guozhen's side within 200 meters. The soldiers on the side of the ship, who were holding their weapons and preparing to board the ship, were immediately beaten into pieces. The wooden hull was hit by the dense sawdust, and wood chips flew everywhere, like flowers scattered by a fairy, shooting to the other side. Even several sailors who were manning the sail were killed.

"Ah, my eye!" A sailor fell on the deck in agony. A splinter of wood that flew out after the side of the ship was smashed pierced his left eye. The pain was so severe that he rolled back and forth on the boat, covering his eyes.

But as he was rolling, he was blocked by someone next to him. The person next to him was even more miserable. His chest was hit by two bullets with a diameter of 16 mm, which directly caused hemothorax. His two alveoli were filled with blood, and he had difficulty breathing. Blood kept spurting out of his mouth and nose. He was lying there twitching from suffocation, his face was purple, and he was making a gasping sound from his mouth, but he could not breathe in a breath. He looked extremely painful and finally suffocated to death.

Some people even held their right legs like crazy and shouted, "My leg, my leg!"

When others looked at the man's legs, they found that his right leg was missing even at the knee, and other parts were even more missing. In fact, even his lower abdomen was shattered by the shells, and his intestines were flowing out, but he himself hadn't noticed it yet and was only busy looking for his leg.

The man yelled and grabbed a stump from the deck, but found that it was someone's arm and not his right leg, so he threw it away and felt around in the crowd, always finding some yellow, white, red, green and other things, but he couldn't tell whose body parts they were.
There were only more than eighty people on that ship, and this shot killed more than thirty of them, and more than twenty were seriously injured. The surviving Yuan army soldiers on the ship seemed to have lost their souls. Before they could figure out what was going on, they were suddenly hit hard. More than half of the soldiers on the ship were killed or injured in an instant. The whole ship seemed to be hit by a huge hammer, until a continuous burst of cannon fire came to their ears.

"Turn! Charge forward! Prepare the starboard guns! Fire freely with the swivel guns!"

After firing the bow gun, Zhang Chao did not even wait for the gunner to reload, and ordered the helmsman to start turning the rudder, changing the course to parallel and facing the enemy ship, sailing through the gap between the enemy's groups of three-three, and aiming his starboard gun again at the ship that had just been hit. However, the starboard gunner took a long time to get the order to fire.

The warships on Fang Guozhen's side were divided into groups of three, with two in front and one in the back, moving in an inverted "品" shape. Originally, he wanted to use the three ships to surround and attack the one ship on the Shengwu Army side, but Zhang Chao sneaked in diagonally through the gap between the "品品" and waited for the previously attacked ship to pass, revealing the ship that was blocking it from behind. At this time, the muzzle of the starboard gun was facing the starboard side of the Yuan army warship.

"Starboard fire! Port ready!"

Boom! Another cannon blast sounded, and another boat on Fang Guozhen's side suffered heavy casualties. It was hit by a shotgun shell at close range within a hundred meters, killing and injuring more than fifty people on the boat. At this time, two of the three-boat team had been crippled and were drifting around on the river without control.

At this moment, the boat in front of the left side of the "pin" group on the left also came to Zhang Chao's port side. He immediately shouted again, "Fire on the port side!"

With a loud bang, one of the ships in the "品" group on the left was destroyed. The tail ship of the "品" group on the left had sailed close enough to see the configuration of Zhang Chao's ship. Three black iron cannons were mounted on the ship in the open air. All three cannons had been fired at this time, and there was no time to reload in a short time. Zhang Chao's ship was in the middle of their six ships, so they immediately turned their ship to meet them, trying to block Zhang Chao's ship and surround it.

Zhang Chao immediately shouted, "Turn right! Charge out with full sail, aim the swivel gun at the left wing and fire!"

Before the stern boat on the port side that was preparing to seal the gate came over, the two revolving cannons on the port side of Zhang Chao's side opened fire. The two breech-loading Franky cannons fired twice, each spraying out more than 300 iron bullets with a diameter of 8 mm. In an instant, nearly 700 bullets were sprayed out, like iron rain, immediately making the soldiers on the Yuan army warships splatter with blood mist.

This was not the end. After firing the first shot, the gunner took out a hammer and knocked the iron bolt (gun breech) out with one hammer. He shouted "change bullets", and immediately a loader took out a pre-loaded sub-gun and stuffed it into the breech. The gunner stuffed the iron bolt back, knocked it with a hammer, locked the sub-gun, turned the breech handle and aimed at the approaching Yuan army ship again. At this time, the ignition man also approached with a pyre.

"Fire!"

Boom, boom, two more shotgun shells were fired. On the enemy ship that came to block the route, no one could stand anymore.

In just less than ten seconds, at a distance of less than a hundred meters, the two revolving cannons fired two shots each, a total of more than 1,400 bullets, almost slaughtering all the Yuan army on the ship.

Coincidentally, at this time Zhang Chao's boat had already turned the rudder, and passed smoothly through the gap between the two Chinese characters "品", successfully breaking through the formation!

He fought one against six and destroyed four ships on Fang Guozhen's side!

Only three crew members on their side were hit by arrows, and they were slightly injured. This was because the soldiers on the Shengwu Army Navy side all wore armor, but not the kind with skirt armor and iron arm guards. It was equivalent to a large vest that could only protect the entire torso from the upper body to the crotch. The limbs were not armored to facilitate movement on the ship.

Just as Zhang Chao broke through the formation and escaped the encirclement, the gunboats that followed him into the formation also broke out from Fang Guozhen's fleet one after another, causing more or less losses to Fang Guozhen's side.

First of all, the first shot must have hit the target. The first shot was fired directly from the bow gun when the ship rushed into 200 meters. If it missed the target, the gunner should have committed suicide to apologize. Even a random shot with a shotgun could hit the target.

Later, when turning to penetrate the formation, the artillery on the left and right sides could basically hit the enemy ships on both sides at close range. Therefore, Zhang Chao's gunboats generally hit more than three ships, and then relied on the revolving cannon to suppress the enemy's boarding melee soldiers, and finally broke through successfully.

However, Zhang Chao had a total of 36 ships, and two of them were blocked by the Yuan army ships that were infuriated by Fang Guozhen's side. He was attacked from both sides by the two ships and engaged in a boarding battle at close range. The Shengwu Army soldiers on the ships had no time to reload their artillery, and now they began to fight desperately with cold weapons, constantly throwing grenades at the Yuan army ships, and some of them who were close to them used hook-and-sickle spears to stab the enemy.

When Fang Guozhen saw that two ships of the Shengwu Army were surrounded, he also directed the other ships to approach the two ships with red eyes.

In the last wave of confrontation, Zhang Chao's 36 ships destroyed more than ships of Fang Guozhen's side. Hundreds of ships were now floating on the river out of control. The casualties among soldiers and sailors exceeded . He and Fang Guoying had only more than ships in total. More than one-third of them were damaged in the battle. How could he not feel the pain?

When Zhang Chao saw that two of his ships had failed to break through, he quickly gathered the ships that had been reloaded with ammunition, turned around and rushed over again, trying to rescue his comrades.

However, this time the positions of both sides were reversed, and Zhang Chao had already reached the downstream. Now it was his turn to sail in a zigzag pattern against the current and against the wind. The boat could not go faster even if he wanted to. Seeing the two boats being besieged by the enemy, he became extremely anxious.

Fang Guozhen had already reached the upstream, and when he turned back, everything went smoothly. His boat was sailing very fast, and he was about to surround Zhang Chao before he could. The two Shengwu Army gunboats that were under siege would definitely not be able to escape.

Captain Zhao Yu of one of the besieged Shengwu Army ships became anxious. He saw Zhang Chao rushing to rescue him, and also saw Fang Guozhen's fleet rushing towards him at high speed. Half of the more than 50 soldiers on his ship had been killed or injured, leaving only more than 20 people, and almost everyone was injured. Seeing that there was no hope of breaking through, Zhao Yu gave the last order with red eyes.

"We must not let the enemy seize our artillery. Seal the artillery, detonate the gunpowder, sink the warship, and everyone jump overboard and abandon the ship!"

Upon hearing this, the gunner Liu Gang cried out, "Platoon leader, hold on a little longer, Captain Zhang is here to rescue us. What a great gun, it would be a shame to sink it!"

"Bullshit, quickly close the cannons, the enemy troops upstream are coming faster, it's too late, abandon the ship quickly, I'll be the last one to go!"

As Zhao Yu spoke, he pulled out a steel nail from his waist, ran a few steps to the back of the port side gun stern, inserted the steel nail into the vent, and then smashed it with a hammer. The steel nail broke directly in the vent, completely sealing it. The cannon was completely useless, and it would be of no use even if Fang Guozhen took it away, and of course he would not let him take it away.

Seeing that the platoon leader was furious, Liu Gang had no choice but to obey the order and carry out the abandon ship procedure. Several soldiers risked their lives to rush to the artillery and sealed the fire door with steel nails. Zhao Yu also took out an iron chain from the rudder, pulled it upwards with force, and pulled open the sea valve at the stern. The river water immediately began to pour into the cabin. He then climbed onto the deck and shouted to the twenty or so remaining people.

"Take off your armor, abandon your ship, and swim downstream."

"Platoon leader!" Liu Gang was still calling Zhao Yu.

"You go first! Get out of here!"

As Zhao Yu began to drive people away, the soldiers on the boat took off their armor and started jumping into the river one by one. One of them was shot through the body by an arrow from an archer on Fang Guozhen's boat before he even entered the water. He then fell into the river with a splash, and bright red blood oozed out of the river.

Zhao Yu stayed behind, wearing iron armor and holding a shield in one hand. He took out a tinderbox with his other hand, opened the lid with his teeth, blew hard, kicked open the lid of the gunpowder box, and threw the tinderbox directly in.

The next moment, with a loud bang, the gunboat suddenly exploded. The hull, which had already opened the sea valve, accelerated its sinking speed. The three cannons gradually sank into the water. Zhao Yu also turned over and jumped into the Yangtze River at the moment of the explosion. Relying on his good swimming ability, he dived underwater to get rid of the armor on his body, and swam downstream for a long time before revealing his head from underwater.

The two Yuan army ships that were besieging Zhao Yu and Fang Guozhen who was coming from behind were stunned for a moment. A group of Yuan army soldiers could not help but tremble with anger.

What a strong-willed person he must be, he would rather sink the ship and jump into the water to escape than surrender and be captured by them.
Just when Fang Guozhen was stunned with anger, a huge explosion happened on the surrounded ship on the other side. The bow of the ship plunged into the water, the stern was raised high, and the whole ship was stuck diagonally on the river surface, sinking at a very fast speed.

And downstream of them, a group of dark heads were rising and falling in the river, swimming hard towards downstream.

Zhang Chao, who was sailing zigzag against the wind and current, stood at the bow and gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists. He shouted with red eyes, "Go up and save them!"

(End of this chapter)