Xie Ming

Chapter 23 Defection

At the entrance of the village, two servants, one fat and one thin, one tall and one short, were secretly arguing with each other.

"escape?"

"Dog, are you crazy?"

"I heard from them that deserters caught in the army will be beheaded!"

The tall and thin student said this in shock, and immediately shrank his neck in panic.

"Bah! Come on!"

"We are still in the army. Can we, with just a few hundred people, be called an army?"

"I have five brothers in my family, and my second oldest brother has served in the military."

"When have the Ming soldiers ever surrendered their captured property to the public?"

"I finally managed to dig out a few pieces of silver from the corpse of a bandit soldier. I thought that after the storm had passed, I would go home and buy a few acres of land and marry a wife. That would be enough!"

"Damn it, that kid surnamed Xiao just knocked his teeth and the money was taken away by him!"

"So I worked so hard for nothing!"

"What? The army! I quit! I'm running away now!"

Obviously, that dog has been brooding over Xiao Jingchuan's action of confiscating supplies after the battle of Yixiantian!

"Well, Gouzi, even if you run away, the situation is chaotic right now, and men are being conscripted everywhere."

"Even if the two of us escape in the dark, if we are caught by the bandits on the way, won't we still die?"

Although Gaosheng is tall, he is very timid and cowardly.

"Coward! What are you afraid of? Just catch me!"

Gouzi was a bit more reckless, and while cursing, he also stretched out his arm and punched Gaosheng.

"Alas, your home is in Shandong, and the journey is too far. If you want to obey me, just follow me and go back to my hometown in Luanzhou."

"Let's head east from now on. We can get there in four or five days if we walk faster. What do you think?"

Hearing this, Gao Sheng became even more hesitant.

"Even if we are caught by the Dashun peasant army on the way, we don't have to be afraid!"

"Why?" Gao Sheng asked interjected.

"You were born as a servant in the mansion, you haven't met many people, and you don't have much experience."

"I am the gatekeeper of the Xinle Marquis (Liu Wenbing)'s mansion. I meet many important people every day!"

"Let me tell you, the Dashun Army is not some supernatural monster. In terms of military discipline, some of them are even better than the regular army of the Ming Dynasty!"

"Even if we really didn't manage to escape and were caught, we should tell you the whereabouts of the prince and that kid named Xiao!"

"Going into the mountains to become a bandit requires a letter of surrender!"

"We have such important confidential information in our hands. Let alone getting a job there, we can definitely get some money from the military chief with this information!"

As Gao Sheng listened to the dog's increasingly bizarre words, he became so nervous that his calves began to tremble.

"You look so cowardly, are you going to leave or not?!"

"I'm telling you, you and I are on the same team. If I run away and they can't catch me, Lord Liu will definitely take his anger out on you!"

"You'll be dead by then!" Seeing Gao Sheng was so slow, Gouzi had no choice but to say a few more harsh words to scare him and urge him to make a quick decision. "Oh, you good Gouzi! Stop talking, I'll go with you!"

"You are deliberately trying to scare me to death!"

Gao Sheng was so panicked that he almost started crying, and he quickly agreed.

In this way, the two servants who were originally guarding the village entrance quietly slipped away under the cover of night.

In the dim moonlight, what the two of them didn't know was that in a forest not far from the fishing village at the foot of the mountain, Gu Changting and his team saw this scene clearly.

"Deputy General Gu, are we going to take care of these two people or not?!"

"If we don't catch them now, they will escape and attract the enemy troops. That will be troublesome!"

Beside Gu Changting, a soldier from the Shenji Camp spoke out a reminder.

"Don't move. What are you arresting? The general told us before we came here that we have only one purpose for this trip, and that is to protect Master Qiu!"

"I don't care about anything else!"

"Everyone, stay calm. If anyone gets itchy and exposes his whereabouts, he will report to the general and will not be forgiven. Do you understand?!"

Gu Changting suppressed his voice and shouted to the soldiers, and this group of people lay dormant on the spot again, waiting for orders quietly.

Half a quarter of an hour later, the dog and Gao Sheng ran for their lives, but they had only escaped less than a mile.

It wasn't that they were bad runners, but it was dark and they were afraid of being seen, so they took a lot of detours.

Even so, it wasn't long before the two of them were discovered by a patrol team of enemy soldiers approaching the east bank of the Hun River!

The bandits suddenly raised torches and saw two deserters, so they caught them and interrogated them.

They threatened and frightened them again and again, and it didn't take much effort for Gou Zi and Gao Sheng to confess everything.

In addition to the locations of the Crown Prince and Xiao Jingchuan's headquarters, Gao Sheng also gave a clear and detailed account of the small team of servants in the fishing village.

That bandit group had a limited number of people, no more than twenty or so. When they heard the news, they were afraid that they would miss the opportunity if they returned to the camp to report, so they quickly marched towards a place with few people in the direction of the fishing village.

There were not many of them, and they looked like a reserve logistics team, but they actually had two falconets with them.

This type of cannon is not very powerful and has a limited range, but it is very practical in field battles, has a fast rate of fire, and is flexible and maneuverable.

As expected, not long after, when this group of bandits approached the small fishing village, they did not move forward, but set up cannons and began to blatantly bombard the small fishing village!
After all, once the cannon sounded, there was no need to run to the camp several miles away to report the news. The nearby troops would surely come to support after hearing the sound of the cannon.

And if they do this, they will be able to take the initiative. If no one comes, they can fire a few shots. What if they can really kill a few Ming soldiers? Then they will have made a contribution!
It’s a business that is sure to make money, so why not do it?

boom!
boom! boom!
boom!
"Deputy General Gu, the cannons, damn it, the bandits are coming, and we have the field tiger squat cannons!"

Gu Changting's team, who had been lurking not far from the outskirts of the fishing village, suddenly heard the sound of cannon shells exploding in the fishing village. They hurriedly looked in the direction of the firing point, but it was dark and they could not see anything.

"No, it's not a tiger squat cannon. Judging from the power and firing rate of the shells, it should be a Portuguese cannon, and there are at least two of them!" Gu Changting calmly identified.

"Then we..." The soldiers in the Shenji camp wanted to say more, but Gu Changting suddenly waved his hand to stop them from talking.

"Everyone, listen to my orders. Act immediately. Rescue Mr. Qiu before the bandits surround the fishing village!"

"Listen carefully, the general has issued a death order. If Master Qiu is hurt in the slightest, we will go back and wait for military punishment!"

After saying this, Gu Changting no longer hesitated and led his men towards the big thatched house in the small fishing village!
boom!
boom! boom!
"What's going on? Are the enemy soldiers attacking us?!" Hearing the explosions in the village, Liu Wenbing rushed out of the hut and looked around.

Just a dozen meters away from this big thatched house, several adobe houses had been blown up. The shells carried gunpowder, and the impact of the explosion also ignited the thatched grass!

Immediately, flames shot up into the sky from all over the village. If the fire continued like this, this small village would be completely destroyed and burned in less than a quarter of an hour!

(End of this chapter)