In the afternoon of September 18th, the sixth year of Chengshun, in a small coastal village in Jinzhou Wei Zhongzuo, Liaodong Province, Li Dagou was working hard on the ground.
He was originally a serf of a guard master, and now he is a serf of a master of Dongduo!
Not only him, since the Dongji people came here nineteen years ago, everyone in his village has changed from the serfs of Master Weisuo to the serfs of Master Dongji.
The entire remnant of the military households in their village were assigned as slaves to the dozen or so armored soldiers stationed there.
In the first few years when the Dongjiu people came, they treated them, the remnants of military households in Liaodong, very badly. They killed them at every turn and basically didn't treat them as human beings.
At that time, Li Dagou was still young, but he still clearly remembered that his father was beaten to death by the Dongluo people because he glanced at the passing master Dongluo. His mother ran up to beg for mercy, but was beaten to death by several Dongluo soldiers in turn. That night, he returned to his house, which was surrounded by drafts, and hanged himself.
After his parents died, he lived with his uncle at a young age, but his life was still very difficult and even dangerous.
The captive men beat and cursed them at every turn, and even killed them. Young women in the village were taken to serve them or even as playthings.
Some who dared to resist were killed, and many who escaped were caught and beaten to death.
Later, the Donglu people changed their emperor, and life became slightly better, but it was still not much better.
But his uncle said that it would be good to be alive: Military families like them have a low life!
Nowadays, it is hard to be a serf for the Dongduo masters, but life was not much better when I was farming for the masters in the guard house more than 20 years ago.
They are all working as serfs to farm. They work hard for a year and don't have enough to eat. If they are not careful, they will be beaten, scolded and even lose their lives.
In the past few decades, whether it was when the Zhu Ming Dynasty was in charge of this place or when the Donglu people were in charge of it, they lived at the bottom with no hope at all.
When he was ten years old, Li Dagou would sometimes run to the beach and look out. He knew that there was a big place on the other side of the sea and many people.
Sometimes he would think that maybe life would be better on the other side of the sea.
But his uncle always told him that the lives of people on the other side of the sea were similar to theirs, not much better, and some even had worse lives than them.
"Everything is the same in the world. You are not just a slave to the masters. It is good to be alive now. Farm the land and save money so that you can marry a wife and have a baby."
It's a pity, Li Dagou thought, what would he do if he married a wife and gave birth to a child on such a day? Is it just to give birth to a child and make him suffer as much as himself?
As he gets older, Li Dagou, like his uncle, works hard all day long in farming. When he finally gets a break, he goes fishing in a small boat and a fishing net that he spent many years building.
It’s just that his boat is small and his fishing net is also small, so he basically can’t catch many fish.
Moreover, after finally catching some fish, he had to pay tribute to the masters. In the end, only a little bit fell into his hands.
Those were the fish he had worked hard to catch, risking being swallowed by the wind and waves, but he couldn't eat a few of them.
He didn't want his future children to be as tired and angry as he was, so he never did what his uncle said: marry a wife and have children.
Even though he had secretly accumulated a lot of money in the past ten years, it was enough for him to marry a wife.
But he still won’t marry!
Not only him, but many young people in the village also did this.
When you don't see any hope, you won't have the thought of getting married and having children!
Li Dagou thought that he might as well take his little broken boat out to sea that day and go to the other side of the sea. He couldn't really do what his uncle said. All the crows in the world were generally black. Maybe there were white crows?
The days passed day by day. On this day, Li Dagou put down his hoe and looked towards the sea habitually.
The sea was calm today, and he was thinking about taking time to go out to sea tomorrow. Although most of the fish he caught had to be used to honor his master, there was still some left, and he could sell it for money or eat it himself. All good.
Just when he was thinking randomly, he suddenly discovered a few small black spots appeared on the sea in the distance!
As a person who lives by the sea and often goes out to fish, he naturally recognized it as a boat at a glance, and it should be a large ship.
If it were a small boat, it would be impossible to see even a small black dot from such a long distance!
Sure enough, just as he had guessed, it didn't take long for the small black spots on the sea ahead to gradually turn into the outlines of large ships.
I don’t know where the big ship came from, maybe it was on business.
He had seen this kind of sea ship before, so he didn't think there was anything strange about it for a while.
But slowly, he discovered something was wrong. There were more and more ships on the sea...
And it seemed to be coming directly towards them.
what happened?
Just when he was feeling confused, he suddenly heard gongs and drums being played on a hilltop in the distance, where the old Japanese soldiers lived, and fireworks were lit at the same time.
After seeing the fireworks, Li Dagou couldn't help but become nervous. Could it be that pirates were going ashore to rob?
Thinking of this, he quickly put away his hoe and ran towards the village. He also had some money and food hidden in the house. He had to go back first to take the things with him and then hide to avoid being attacked by the pirates. They took it away.
At the same time, I also need to take my uncle’s family with me.
Although he has moved out of his uncle's house and now lives alone, his uncle's kindness in raising him is real, so he will naturally not run away alone.
But as soon as he entered the village, he saw several Dongji soldiers in armor beating gongs and drums and shouting, asking all the young men in the village to pick up iron tools and wait for the pirates to prepare for the pirate attack.
Li Dagou was naturally unwilling. When the pirates came, he could just take his family, money and food and run away. Those pirates would not stay in the village for a long time. They would just rob and leave. Wait a few days for the pirates. If they leave, they will just come back.
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But when the Eastern captive soldiers saw Li Dagou, they stopped him and directly incorporated him into the young and strong team.
Perhaps seeing that Li Dagou was strong and strong, the Japanese soldiers gave him a spear.
Immediately afterwards, he and other young men were taken to a fortress on the seaside, where he saw their master, an old Eastern captive who was still wearing armor.
He spoke words that were incomprehensible, and then commanded a dozen other Eastern soldiers and hundreds of young men to reinforce the city defense.
At this time, more and more pirate ships appeared on the sea...
When hundreds of pirate ships appeared, and there were ships coming from behind, Master Dongluo in front of Li Dagou’s voice was trembling when he spoke, and the other Dongluo soldiers were not doing well either. Where to go.
As for the young men like Li Dagou, they were all trembling with fear and wished they could escape from this place immediately.
When the several ships led by the pirates rushed directly to the beach, and a large number of pirates in gray clothes waded directly into the water and forced a landing, Master Dongduo seemed to be scared and anxious, and he shouted strangely for people to shoot arrows.
Unfortunately, the sporadic arrows had no effect. Only one arrow hit one of the pirates, but it was spread out by the pirate's armor.
Are these pirates?
That armor was more sophisticated than the armor worn by their master Dongduo!
Immediately afterwards, Li Dagou saw a flash of light coming from the pirate ships that washed up on the beach, and then heard a rumble.
This is a cannon!
The gray pirates had cannons on their ships and were firing.
Li Dagou was scared and anxious. He quickly squatted down and hid behind the battlement. Then he suddenly heard a thud and a corpse fell in front of him.
Li Dagou recognized this man as the armored soldier who was in charge of his own group. Last year, he smashed the head of a slave in his family and Li Dagou's childhood friend alive, dug out the brains, and ate him alive in front of a group of people.
Just because Li Dagou's childhood friend, this servant of the armored soldier, stole a piece of tofu and took it home to his little daughter who was only over one year old...
But at this time, the head of this Japanese armored soldier had become pulpy, and his brain was flowing out like tattered tofu, just like the head of the slave he smashed open last year!
Li Dagou squatted on the ground, not daring to move. Then he saw the battlements not far away from him suddenly smashed open. A black iron ball, bigger than a fist, whizzed out among the stone fragments and hit it directly. house at the rear.
Seeing this, Li Dagou's mind was empty. He dared to stay where he was. He threw down the spear assigned to him and ran back.
As he ran back, he turned his head and looked behind him, and saw several small black dots flying in the sky. These small black dots landed in different places, and one of them even landed on the top of the previous city. Immediately afterwards, a cloud of smoke and dust rose up from this small black spot, and a huge explosion sounded.
The Dongji soldiers standing in the distance, wearing good armor, were directly blown away, and when they landed, they were already covered in flesh and blood.
Is this a pirate?
Li Dagou didn't know, he only knew that it was dangerous here!
He kept running back, then ran into the house behind and hid directly.
There were constant rumblings of gunfire and explosions outside, accompanied by screams!
Maybe it was the time for a stick of incense, or maybe it was just the time for a cup of tea. Suddenly, there was another sound of fighting outside. It seemed that the pirates were coming in. The majestic Dongduo master who had been in front of them before , fled in panic with a few Dongfang soldiers.
After the noise outside subsided a little, Li Dagou carefully poked his head out and saw several pirates wearing gray robes and fine armor inside, holding blunderbuss in their hands, walking towards him, and they also spotted him .
Before they could speak, Li Dagou knelt down on the ground and shouted: "Master, please spare my life, Master, please spare my life!"
The leading pirate pirate looked at him and saw that he was wearing tattered clothes and was not carrying a weapon. He immediately said, "You are a Han. Do you know where the leader of the Dongluo people is?"
Li Dagou immediately said: "Yes, I am a Han... The master of the Dongli people is behind. I just saw him running back with a few people."
The leading gray cannon said: "Are you familiar with this place?"
Li Dagou said: "I am from the village behind. I grew up in this area since I was a child."
The leading cannon said: "Lead the way. If we catch someone, you will benefit from it!"
After saying this, he seemed to think for a while and threw out a handful of copper coins!
Li Dagou looked at these cannon pirates, and then at the dozen copper plates on the ground. For a moment, he was a little confused as to whether these were pirates.
From his point of view, these pirates seemed to be better talkers than those Dongduo masters!
Not only did he not kill him, but he also gave him a reward.
