The cannonballs fired by the two sailors who did not look strong with just a little adjustment caused more damage than any bow, crossbow, sword, or any martial arts master. Such power made Qiu Yizi frightened. He swallowed his saliva but was speechless.
Li Shengjie was not surprised at all and said with a smile: "Brother, how is it? It's just as you wished. The stone tablet was hit and no one on the dock died. Not bad, right?"
Qiu Yizi seemed to have woken up from a dream, and replied with a somewhat frightened tone: "Not bad, not bad, it's really amazing..."
Qiu Yizhi uttered these meaningless words in a daze, then he remembered that he was the one who proposed to fire the cannon. He quickly calmed down and pretended to be calm and said to Lingnan King Zheng Gui on the dock: "Your Majesty, did you see it? The explosion just now was caused by this ship. Your Majesty, you might as well think about it. Is your body strong? Or is this stone tablet strong? You should surrender quickly!"
Apart from his failure in the fight for the throne in his early years, King Zheng Gui of Lingnan had never suffered any loss in his life. How could he agree to Qiu Yizi's persuasion to surrender? However, he was frightened by the power of the explosion just now, and just stiffened his neck and said nothing.
Qiu Yizhi's eyes turned and he said to Li Shengjie, "It seems that the King of Lingnan is still unwilling to surrender. You have such a large fleet, and I don't know how many artillery you have. Why not fire them all at once, so that the King of Lingnan will be completely desperate. How do you think?"
Li Shengjie replied: "Brother, cannons are very precious. Although I have more than a dozen ships, my flagship is the only one equipped with ten cannons. How about we fire all of them out to give it a try?"
The reason why Qiu Yizhi asked Li Shengjie to fire a volley of artillery was not to shock the King of Lingnan, but mainly to test how many artillery Li Shengjie had and how powerful they were. So he replied, "Fire as many as you have. We are not afraid that the King of Lingnan will not surrender."
Li Shengjie nodded and told the sailors and gunners on the ship to aim and fire, while complaining: "Brother, it's not that I'm stingy, this thing is very expensive, and we can't just fire it randomly."
Qiu Yizi quickly asked, "What do you mean?"
Li Shengjie rubbed his hands and replied: "Brother, you can see that the shells fired are roughly divided into three types. One is a solid iron bullet, one is a piece of iron scattered bullet wrapped in a paper shell, and one is a trigger bomb. The first two are not valuable, but the last one, each shell is worth one hundred taels of silver, and only the English buy it, and they want cash. With this volley, one thousand taels of silver are gone..."
When Qiu Yizhi heard this, he couldn't help but screamed, "It's so expensive! It only takes a blink of an eye for this round of artillery fire to spend all the taxes collected in Shanyin County in a year. Brother, you better save some money!"
But just as he finished speaking, he heard the roar of artillery fire on the deck, and a cloud of dust rose around the half of the stone tablet. The area, height, and concentration of this dust were several times larger than the dust caused by the previous single cannon bombardment. When the smoke dissipated, the remaining half of the stone tablet was also blown into powder, leaving a large pit on the ground.
The Yanziji Wharf is not only busy with freight and passenger transport, but also a place where culture and culture converge. The ground is paved with large stones, which is flat and solid. However, under the bombardment of these artillery pieces, it becomes as vulnerable as freshly boiled tofu.
Seeing this scene, Qiu Yizi was actually somewhat fortunate. He was glad that the cost of using artillery was extremely high and not everyone could afford it. The possibility of it falling into the hands of villains who intended to cause chaos and causing great harm was much smaller.
So Qiu Yizhi sorted out his thoughts and said to the King of Lingnan: "Your Majesty, you have seen the power of the artillery. Even if there are tens of thousands of troops, it is not worth mentioning. Your Majesty should just surrender quickly."
The King of Lingnan was furious when he saw Qiu Yizhi's smug look on his face, but he had no ships under his command. Yin Chengliang and Yin Tai, father and son, who were originally responsible for blocking the river north of Nanjing, were now missing. He had no way to deal with Qiu Yizhi, who was bossing people around on the boat.
But Qiu Yizi said loudly again: "I am a junior, and I advise the prince not to move rashly, otherwise the artillery fire will be merciless. Although it is not my intention, if I hurt the prince's golden branches and jade leaves, it is not what I want to see."
The King of Lingnan has already taken over the entire city of Nanjing, but he is trapped in the tiny area of Yanziji Wharf, which is as small as a butt. He is so angry that his face is twisted.
He considered leading his troops to quickly withdraw from Yanziji Wharf, but he saw a flash of fire on the ship, and the boundary stone tablet dozens of steps away was immediately shattered. No matter how fast his men moved, they could not be faster than the gunpowder explosion.
He also considered hiding in the houses on both sides of the dock and escaping, but Qiu Yizi was now on the side of the ship several feet high, observing the situation from a high position. Every move was under his control, and the houses along the dock were obviously unable to withstand the attack of artillery.
He also considered ordering the capable warriors around him to immediately climb up the side of the ship and capture Qiu Yizi and others. However, the side of the ship was high, steep and smooth, making it difficult to climb. Even if they could barely get on the ship, those who climbed up might not be a match for Qiu Yizi's men.
King Zheng Gui of Lingnan is struggling, but Shanyin County Magistrate Qiu Yizi is unwilling to wait any longer.
He knew that the King of Lingnan was by no means an ordinary person, and now the total military force was outnumbered by the enemy. If he delayed any further, the situation might be reversed at any time. Now the only feasible option was to quickly capture the King of Lingnan alive.
Qiu Yizhi thought about this clearly, and was about to ask Li Shengjie to swing the spiral ladder down from the side of the ship so that his elite soldiers could go down to capture the King of Lingnan. But he looked at the more than a thousand guards around the King of Lingnan, each of them was tall and strong, and they did not panic at all when they saw the earth-shaking power of the artillery. He knew that they were not easy to deal with, and his more than two hundred men might not be able to gain much advantage.
At this moment, Lin Shuhan quietly walked to Qiu Yizi and whispered a few words in her ear.
After hearing what Lin Shuhan said, Qiu Yizi suddenly became enlightened. He hurriedly called the sharpshooter Meng Hong and asked him to lead the other brothers to shoot crossbow arrows downwards to kill the guards around the King of Lingnan one by one. The action must be swift to complete the battle before the Lingnan troops from other parts of Jinling City heard the news and came to reinforce.
Although Meng Hong was not clear about the intention, he did not ask any more questions after hearing Qiu Yi's clear order. He immediately called his companions, set up the crossbow on the side of the ship, took aim and shot at the guards around King Lingnan.
The enemy was less than ten feet away from the crossbowmen, and they were shooting from top to bottom. Meng Hong and his men focused their shooting on the enemy's face, head, neck, heart and other vital parts. A volley killed fifty or sixty people, and another volley increased the enemy's casualties to more than one hundred.
The Lingnan Army at the dock arrived in a hurry and did not carry any weapons such as bows and crossbows. They wanted to run away but could not, so they could only stand there stupidly and accept the ruthless and one-sided massacre.
In just a cup of tea, of the hundreds of elite guards around Lingnan King Zheng Gui, only about a hundred were still standing, and most of these more than a hundred were shot by arrows and could only barely stand.
Seeing that the time had come, Qiu Yizhi ordered Li Shengjie to lower the spiral ladder, and then asked Zhao Chengxiao and Yuchi Jiming to personally lead their troops down the spiral ladder to capture the King of Lingnan.
Unexpectedly, Yuchi Jiming didn't need the spiral ladder at all, but stepped on the edge of the ship and jumped down, landing right next to Lingnan King Zheng Gui. After all, Zheng Gui was a soldier in battle, and he had some skills in his hands. He immediately drew his sword and stabbed Yuchi Jiming with it.
However, Yuchi Jiming's martial arts were superb. When he saw the sword coming at him, he immediately dodged it, stretched out his hand to grab the wrist of King Lingnan, and with a slight twist he took the sword in his hand. With his other hand, he had already pinched Zheng Gui's Adam's apple. With just a little force, he could take the King Lingnan's life.
Qiu Yizhi was afraid that the King of Lingnan would escape from him, and also afraid that he would die in his hands. He was afraid that Yuchi Jiming would not be careful, so he hurriedly warned loudly: "Jiming, be careful, don't hurt the prince's life!"
Yuchi Jiming's men were quite capable. After hearing Qiu Yizi's words, he immediately replied, "Uncle, don't worry, I know what's going on!"
Qiu Yizi was relieved at this. Seeing that Zhao Chengxiao had led his men to kill or capture the remaining hundred guards of King Lingnan, he felt relieved and slowly climbed down the ladder backwards and stepped onto the ground again.
At this time, the life of Zheng Gui, the King of Lingnan who had already taken over half of the Han Dynasty, was in the hands of Yuchi Jiming, a little girl who was less than 20 years old. As long as her men were a little ruthless, Zheng Gui's life of great achievements would come to an abrupt end.
Seeing that Zheng Gui had been strong all his life but had fallen to such a state today, Qiu Yizi felt a little sad in her heart, without any joy at all.
"Your Highness, we have different positions. There is nothing we can do about it. Please don't be offended." There was a hint of guilt and apology in his tone.
Zheng Gui seemed unconcerned: "What's so strange about this? Fighting on the battlefield, life and death, that's all. I made a thousand plans, but I didn't expect that fate was not on my side, and I still failed at the last moment... My dear nephew, why don't you show mercy? Kill me now and report your achievement to my brother!"
Qiu Yi, a victorious person, was frightened by Zheng Gui's momentum and retreated a little: "No, no, no. The prince is a person of such status, how can I be qualified to decide your fate? Only the emperor can decide your life or death. Apart from him, other people's talkativeness is presumptuous..."
"Are you going to send me to see my royal brother?" Zheng Gui interrupted Qiu Yizi.
"Your Highness, this is what the question implies. Your rebellion has failed. Shouldn't the Emperor decide your life or death?" Qiu Yizi replied.
"No! How could I fail? Since I started my army in Lingnan, I have fought more than 70 battles, big and small, including field battles, sieges, surprise attacks, and ambushes. I have never failed, not even a draw. How could I fail? This is impossible!" The King of Lingnan roared hysterically.
Qiu Yizhi sighed: "Your Majesty, you just mentioned the word 'destiny', which I think makes a lot of sense. If destiny is not on your side, even if you have done everything you can, what else can you do?"
After hearing this, Zheng Gui's face was immediately covered with a layer of gloom. "The Mandate of Heaven is something illusory and cannot be counted. My brother was not born an emperor. Why can he have the Mandate of Heaven when he rebels, but I don't?"
Qiu Yizi sighed again, "I have discussed this matter with Mr. Lin before. In fact, the word 'mandate of heaven' can be put into practice as 'the righteous will have many supporters, while the unrighteous will have few supporters'. It is true that Your Majesty is invincible, but in Lingnan Road, apart from you personally, which other princes and generals can you trust? If you do everything yourself, there will always be a day when you will fail. And when the emperor captured the capital Luoyang, it was me, along with Generals Cui Nan and Wei Hu, who led the troops into the city. Even if the three of us die unexpectedly, the emperor will still be outside the city and will not disrupt the overall situation. But what about you, Your Majesty... Alas!" After saying this, Qiu Yizi sighed heavily again.