You Ciren directed the soldiers to break out. He was sometimes in front and sometimes behind, shouting loudly, waving his command knife and pistol to encourage the soldiers to rush in and kill.
After more than ten minutes of fighting, everyone here was bathed in blood. Pan Tianshun was covered in blood, and he didn't know if it was his own or the bandits'. Although he was old, he was unambiguous in the fight. He was holding a big knife on his left hand. Rushing to the right to kill, he quickly led a group of people to kill a bloody path.
Although the besieging bandits were outnumbered, they were used to fighting against the wind. It was difficult to maintain their will to fight when encountering a tough challenge. The bandits who rushed up began to retreat after suffering continuous casualties, and fired blunderbuss and arrows at them from a distance. .
The bandits retreated temporarily, and a group of people came to the intersection. The streets were full of corpses and debris. Not far after walking out, we met a squad from the Second Squadron, who were controlling the intersection here. They were not attacked after the fire broke out, but the town was full of construction sites, with bamboo, wood, reeds, mats and straw everywhere, so the fire spread quickly. I had to exit from the intersection, and encountered sporadic attacks by bandits on the road. They quickly started fighting because the road was full of people from the town who were fleeing in all directions. They did not recognize good in the chaos and killed many people.
"Although there are construction sites everywhere here, with a lot of bamboo, wood and reed mats, it didn't burn so fast!" The squad leader's face turned black from the smoke, "I smell the smell of burning tung oil! I must have been prepared."
"How many casualties were there?"
"Five were injured, all minor injuries, no problem," the squad leader said.
"You followed us," You Ciren said, "Did you see anyone else?"
"No," the squad leader said, "I only heard from the soldiers that they saw a signal flare that made everyone retreat, but I didn't see it and I didn't dare to go far..."
"You did a good job!" You Ciren cheered up. Thanks to the hesitation of this class, he now has ten more fighting backbones. I just took a look and found out that the Yaomin Squadron suffered a lot of losses, including one-third of the casualties among those who fled.
Taking advantage of this brief calm, You Ciren ordered: "Attention, all classes, check the condition of the wounded. Those who are seriously injured who cannot walk should be put on stretchers immediately! Quick!"
"Captain! The county magistrate is seriously injured!" The health worker grabbed his collar, "It won't work if this continues!"
"What?!" You Ciren was shocked when he heard this, and quickly turned around. He saw two Yao people holding Wang Chuyi, who was completely unable to move. Blood was dripping from his clothes. After a moment's pause, There was already a small pool of blood under his body.
"Why don't you stop his bleeding?"
"It can't be stopped!" the hygienist said urgently, "I just bandaged him. There are two big wounds. One is on the right chest, I don't know the depth, but there is not much blood. The other is on the thigh, and there is blood. It can’t be stopped at all! The chief said that this symptom is likely to be an injury to the femoral artery, but it doesn’t look like it..."
"Stop reciting medical books to me!" You Ciren said impatiently, "Can he still be saved now?"
"The tourniquet was put on and it stopped it temporarily, but it didn't stop completely." The health worker stammered, "Go back quickly, maybe we can still save him! The roving medical team just arrived in the county yesterday."
You Ciren came up to Wang Chuyi and saw that his face was extremely pale and his hands were cold, so he knew that something was more serious than bad. He waved his hand and said: "Come four people and carry him away!"
At that moment, someone found two bamboo poles from a roadside house, took off two coats and put them on to make a simple stretcher.
The brief stay lasted only five minutes, and the entire team began to head out of the town again. Dawangwei is not big. It is only about 200 meters from the intersection to the nearest village gate in the south. By now the streets were deserted and the attacks on the team had stopped. However, fires have spread all over the town. The fires are engulfing the houses that have just been repaired. Many building materials waiting to be used have also caught fire. Black smoke is thick and sparks are flying all over the sky. The high temperature scorched the team, and the soldiers endured the high temperature and thick smoke and marched forward. Finally escaped from the village gate.
The corpses were in a mess outside the village gate. You Ciren saw five or six beheaded corpses wearing National Army uniforms scattered around at a glance, and his heart sank. Obviously the enemy attacked here and successfully drove away the troops here. He looked at the corpses on the ground, and it was obvious that there were many more enemies than he had expected - multiple intelligence sources showed that Sun Dabiao originally had about 200 people, and his core troops suffered considerable losses during the Bapaiyao Rebellion. At present, there are only forty or fifty veteran bandits at most.
I didn't expect there were so many enemies! You Ciren thought bitterly, I was so careless!
"Captain, what should we do next?"
"Retreat toward the county seat!" You Ciren said, "Be careful."
The enemy is very likely to have an ambush on the road. Sun Dabiao will not hesitate to burn his lair, and it is impossible to be satisfied with such results.
The whole team ran wildly along the road without any urging. Everyone knew that the current situation was extremely dangerous. Only by quickly returning to the county seat and joining the large group of people can safety be guaranteed.
After walking a few miles, they encountered a few scattered soldiers at the gate of the village. You Ciren called them over. At first glance, there were only three people, all of them were injured and even had no weapons.
He ignored their embarrassment and asked, "What's going on at the gate of Nanzhai?"
"We don't know either." A soldier said with a mournful face, "We were on guard at the gate of the stronghold. Suddenly, a group of bandits rushed over from outside the stronghold. There were fifty or sixty people. First they shot arrows and then used firecrackers. The squad leader was the first. One of them was killed. We fired a few rows of shots and then started fighting hand-to-hand, and we were immediately dispersed."
After being separated, they neither dared to go back to the town nor returned to the county alone. So he hid in the woods on the roadside to see if he could wait for the large army.
"As soldiers, you actually lost your weapons. Do you still look like soldiers?!" To be honest, You Ciren looked down upon these National Army soldiers who had only been soldiers for a few months. "You all helped to carry them." stretcher!"
Wang Chuyi had already fainted, but was awakened again on the way. The country roads were rugged, and bandits were constantly attacking on them. From time to time, the troops had to stop for small-scale battles.
"Uh..." Wang Chuyi couldn't help groaning, feeling that the pain in the wound seemed to intensify, and he felt cold for some reason, dizzy, and could hardly open his eyelids.
"Are you awake?" the stretcher bearer behind asked after watching his movements.
"Where is this..." Wang Chuyi murmured.
"County magistrate, please hold on tighter. We are almost at the county seat! There is a roving medical team and a chief doctor in the county seat!" The health worker comforted: "Don't be anxious."
"You...tell Chief You that what he said...is all right...I was wrong..." Wang Chuyi realized that his life was passing away. However, he was neither sad nor afraid, but full of regret. , "You tell him... this is a matter of life and death..."
"Stop talking," the hygienist comforted. "I'll bandage you in the city. Speak slowly to Chief You."
Wang Chuyi slowly shook his head. He wanted to say something else, but he felt his dizziness getting worse and worse. He couldn't say a word, so he closed his eyes and said nothing. After a while, he fell into coma again.
The bandits did set up an ambush on the road. Not only did the vanguard encounter continuous encounters, but sometimes the enemy would come up from behind. If it weren't for the fact that he had almost two squadrons of more than 20 guns of the National Army in his hand, they would fire in turn. To force the enemy to not dare to approach, just firing muskets and arrows can drag them to death on the road.
They were beaten away like this until it was getting dark and they were less than two kilometers away from the county seat, and the bandits retreated. Only then did You Ciren feel relieved: If the battle drags on until night and he cannot return to the city, the risk of marching at night will be even greater.
Luo Yiming suppressed the uprising of Zhang Tianbo and his gang in the county town, almost killing all the bandits, but only let Zhang Tianbo run away. But the fire they set took him several hours to put out completely. The fire spread to a small half of the street, making the already devastated Yangshan County even worse.
He knew that most of the enemies had back-ups, so he couldn't help but worry about getting to Wang Chuyi and his party. However, there was only one squadron in the city and they were unable to rescue them, so they sent a few scouts to Dalangwei to report the news and inquire about the news along the way. Several more communication troops were sent to Qinglianwei to report the news to the Li Miao Company heading there.
However, there was no news from several scouts after they went out. It was not until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon that a scout returned to the county with a few National Army soldiers, saying that Sun Dabiao had set fire to Dalangwei, County Magistrate Wang and his party were trapped, and the second squadron had been dispersed and was now retreating separately.
Luo Yiming was so anxious that he was helpless. Next, sporadic personnel and teams of the Yangshan Second Squadron of the National Army returned one after another from the direction of Dawangwei. The information obtained was similar to that of the first group of people, but no one knew the situation of County Magistrate Wang and the Yaomin Squadron. It was not until half an hour ago that they took in several soldiers from the Yao people squadron and learned that Sun Dabiao had completely betrayed him and that Wang Chuyi was attacked by bandits in Dalangwei.
This news was not trivial. Luo Yiming ignored the lack of troops in the city and immediately sent a small team to search and advance in the direction of Dalangwei to try to respond.
Not far from the city, the team met Wang Chuyi and his party. The troops who retreated from Dalangwei suffered very few casualties along the way, but they fought continuously for most of the day. Their nerves were highly tense and their physical strength was almost exhausted. When they saw the troops coming to respond, some people actually fainted and fell to the ground on the spot.
You Ciren felt reassured when he saw that there were troops responding. Because he very much suspected that Sun Dabiao and others had also made changes in the county: Sun Dabiao bought land and built houses in the city, and there were many people coming in and out. If a surprise army was ambushed here, the defense of the county would be in danger.
"Finally, the county town is safe!" You Ciren came into the city and didn't bother to rest. He first asked someone to send Wang Chuyi to the traveling medical team for treatment, and then went straight to the county government office to find Luo Yiming.
-------------------------------------------------- -------
Next update: Volume 7 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter 428
