Chapter 56: Heaven's Wrath

At this moment, the pearl divers and soldiers still had no idea what was happening.

They stared into the distance in confusion.

"Boom! Boom! Boom..."

Then, within the morning sun, thunder rang out without cease, and green smoke spread everywhere.

Before and behind the stockade wall, columns of water splashed up one after another, as if a torrential downpour were falling.

"Boom—!"

Another section of the stockade wall took a hit. The rotten timber that had soaked in water for over a decade simply could not withstand the bombardment of solid iron cannonballs.

A single shot brought it crashing down.

The surrounding stockade wall could not hold up either and collapsed along with it, a stretch of thirty or forty feet tumbling down in succession.

Bai Qing shouted, "Everyone, flee quickly!"

The pearl divers she had already tipped off immediately worked their oars and filed out through the breach.

Seen from afar, the water stockade was like a wounded sea beast, blood gushing endlessly from its wounds.

"Sea bandits! Where are the tiger-crouch cannons? Return fire, now!" On the stockade wall, an officer gave frantic orders.

"There's no fire!" The soldier manning the cannon was already on the verge of tears.

"Damn your mother! Find fire! Who's carrying a fire striker and flint?" the officer bellowed.

On the stockade wall, the soldiers began a comical search, rummaging about everywhere.

At the breach, more and more pearl divers were escaping.

Soldiers on the wall drew their bows, threatening the pearl divers to stop.

No one paid them any heed.

The soldiers loosed their arrows, but the shafts were weak and feeble, all of them thudding into the boat awnings.

The pearl divers were all skilled boat handlers; they dodged and weaved their craft, evading every arrow.

Six or seven soldiers drew and loosed again and again, firing five or six volleys, yet managed to wound only a single person.

Just as the soldiers were frantically drawing their bows and nocking arrows, a small skiff rammed into the stockade wall.

Then a thin, small figure leaped up from the bow, a sharp blade clenched between their teeth, nimbly climbing upward.

Before the soldiers could react, the figure was already atop the stockade wall, and with one thrust, drove the blade into a soldier's belly.

Then they used that soldier's body as a shield against a volley of arrows.

After the arrow volley passed, the figure emerged again, and with a few deft twists and turns, cleanly killed two more men.

By now some pearl divers could no longer hold back—they snatched up weapons and hacked down the remaining archers.

"Bai Qing, why keep running! If you ask me, let's go slaughter that castrated beast!" a pearl diver shouted, blade in hand.

Bai Qing wiped the blood from her face and shouted back, "No! If we go over now, we'll be caught in the cannon fire. We have to withdraw from the stockade first. Don't worry—that castrated beast won't get away!"

With that, Bai Qing leaped from the stockade wall and plunged straight into the water. When she surfaced again, she was already beside her own boat.

With a single pull of the oar, she charged out of the stockade with the rest.

At this moment, the soldiers on the wall finally found torches. The soldier manning the cannon, trembling, loaded the powder and rammed in the shot.

He roughly aimed the tiger-crouch cannon at the boat silhouettes in the morning sun, inserted the fuse, and everyone stepped back.

The soldier holding the torch crept forward cautiously and lit the fuse.

With a sizzle, the fuse burned down at speed, and everyone covered their ears.

They watched the fuse burn to its end, and then... nothing happened.

"You pig-brained idiot! Did you even load the powder?" the officer cursed loudly.

The soldier manning the cannon looked deeply wronged: "I did! The powder must have gotten damp!"

Even as he spoke, another volley of cannon fire sounded from afar, and columns of water erupted all around like a sudden cloudburst.

Several more shots struck the stockade wall. The wall, already on the verge of collapse, was blasted open with three more breaches and crumbled for over a hundred feet.

On the eastern sea.

The gun deck of the Santa Ana.

Lei Sanxiang was directing the gunners to reload.

"Take it slow, follow the steps for loading. Don't treat this like a battle—treat it like your usual drill. That water stockade over there is just a reef target! Land one hit, and you get an extra big slab of fatty meat for dinner! One bite of that will grease you right up!"

Lei Sanxiang soothed the gunners' nerves while making his rounds, and whenever he spotted someone doing a step wrong, he'd stride over and plant a kick on them.

"Are you out of your damn mind? Trying to load the powder before swabbing the barrel—you want to blow us all to hell? Get off this deck! No dinner for you tonight!"

The gunner who'd been kicked hobbled off the gun deck clutching his backside, and Lei Sanxiang found a quick-witted replacement for him.

There was no helping it—with only a little over ten days, teaching these illiterate fools to work the cannons was a stretch.

That they'd drilled this far without a single barrel bursting was thanks to Lei Sanxiang's roughness tempered by care.

Which was why, for this bombardment of the water stockade, Lin Qian's only requirement for the gunners was to treat it like their usual drill.

Loading and firing—speed was not required; above all, stability was.

After all, the water stockade had no ability to fight back at all—it was simply a natural live target. A sharp knife kills, but a dull blade can cut just as well.

Might as well use it to give the gunners some practice.

Half a joss stick later, all the cannons were fully loaded.

After Lei Sanxiang inspected them, he gave the order to fire.

The gunners lit their fuses one after another, and the cannons discharged gun by gun, the gun deck immediately shrouded in thick smoke.

Lei Sanxiang directed the gunners to reload while leaning close to the gun ports, peering through the smoke to observe where the shots landed.

He saw another curtain of spray rise around the water stockade. The stockade wall was already shattered to pieces, with only a few wooden pilings still standing in place.

Just then, from the upper deck came Chen Jiao's shout: "The helmsman commands—turn the cannon fire on the stockade's barracks!"

Lei Sanxiang shouted the order: "Bombard the barracks of the water stockade—raise the cannon muzzles!"

Even as he spoke, he personally adjusted the cannons.

Another half-incense-stick's time passed, and all the cannons were fully prepared.

At Lei Sanxiang's command, a tremendous thunderous roar shook the entire gun deck, leaving the gunners' ears ringing.

Under the force of recoil, the cannons lurched backward, pulling the ropes binding barrels to hull taut as rods.

The wooden hull let out a pained creaking groan.

The whole ship's frame was dragged tilting backward by the recoil.

White smoke from the exploding black powder billowed before the gun ports, shrouding the entire gun deck in gunsmoke like some immortal realm.

The stench of sulfur was sharply acrid, choking men and making them want to cough.

Within the water stockade.

Cannons struck all around the barracks; in an instant sand and stone flew everywhere, as if heaven itself had delivered judgment.

The stricken buildings collapsed at once, sending broken rubble spraying—several unlucky soldiers were struck by the debris and collapsed into pools of blood, wailing in agony.

At the very center of the barracks, inside an imposing building.

Li Qin, the eunuch of the Pearl Ponds, paced back and forth in frantic agitation, like an ant on a hot pan.

Seeing the Pearl Pond Inspector come running, Li Qin asked hurriedly: "Who exactly is attacking? Have you found out? Japanese pirates or the barbarians?"

The Inspector's face showed no less panic than Li Qin's own; hearing this, he said: "Your Grace Li, what time is this to still be worrying about Japanese pirates or barbarians! Fleeing for our lives is the only real business now!"

Li Qin's face was full of terror: "Flee? Can't you fight them off?"

"Fight? Send men swimming over to attack, or stand on the shore as targets?"

"Aren't there still a dozen or so warships in the stockade?"

"My good Lord Li! Those ships are all hollow shells eating up payroll—you know that yourself, Your Grace. They're fine for dealing with sea bandits, but the barbarians have sturdy ships and powerful cannons—how could we possibly be a match?"

"The barbarians…" Li Qin felt as if struck by lightning. He knew well enough what the naval forces, Japanese pirates, and sea bandits were all like.

Cannons of such power—only the barbarians possessed them.

Li Qin thought of that group of Franks he had encountered at the Maritime Trade Supervisorate; he had dismissed them with a few casual words at the time.

He never imagined these barbarians would be so vindictive, willing to dispatch cannon ships to bombard the pearl grounds, ready to make an enemy of the Great Ming itself, just to settle accounts with him.

Why did he have to run into these stiff-necked barbarians?

This truly was eight generations of rotten luck!

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen