Chapter 128: Surrender
Chapter 128 – Surrender
In a room in the pirate stronghold, the remaining leaders of the Gaden Gang ground gathered here to discuss countermeasures.
The room was filled with sadness, everyone was frowning and silent.
Finally, it was the oldest old Donahue who broke this dead silence, “All of you have any good opinions to say, if you don’t say it, I guess you won’t have the chance to say it in the future.”
Finally someone whispered, “I guess they have already inquired about this stronghold of ours from the mouths of the captured brethren.”
“There’s still no need for you to talk nonsense! Is that boat outside here for a sightseeing tour?”
“So …… why don’t …… we just surrender!”
“Cowards!” A leader slammed the table and loudly retorted, “Is it easy for us to follow Chief Gaden and earn such a big fortune? If you ask me, we still have four or five boats, and there’s still some medicine left, so if the Blue Streak Dogs come, we’ll fight them to the death.”
“Four or five boats? It’s four or five sampans, right?” Immediately, someone poured cold water on him.
“You coward! “
“You’re the reckless one who doesn’t use his brain!”
Seeing that both sides of the quarrel were about to move their knives, suddenly from the distance came a muffled thunderous sound, and when it reached here although the sound was no longer loud, it also startled the pirates who had long been birds of prey.
It was the sound of the Hope’s guns.
……
“Adjust the angle! Give me a good shot on the next salvo!”
Captain Quirk and the gunnery officer were holding up their binoculars to observe the point of impact of the first salvo, which missed its target as it crossed over the pirate ship and landed in the water a short distance away.
As soon as the Hope sailed into the harbor, the pirate ship in charge of guarding the docks spotted them and came over to check on them, and the naval officers and men responded to their host’s hospitality with red-hot cannonballs.
There was a burning stove on the deck, using coal as fuel, and inside were several cannonballs that had burned red.
The loader held one of the red-hot shells in a special large iron poker and came to the gun, while his companion had already put a piece of cork into the runners beforehand, which served to prevent the red-hot shells from igniting the firing powder packets inside.
After the loader loaded the shell into the chamber, the gunners worked together to reset the gun, adjust the angle, and aim it at the pirate ship that was moving away from them.
The pirate ship in charge of guarding was only about ten meters long, and the number of people on board was only about ten, the Hope was already considered a behemoth compared to this ship.
The sudden shelling scared the pirates on the ship, everyone on the ship in that split second actually felt something flying past their scalp at a very fast speed, and then the distant sea splashed with large waves.
It was horrible, at such a high speed, what if it hit their ships or their bodies?
“It’s that terrifying weapon of the Arda’s!” The people on the ship exclaimed, the Arda army possessing a powerful weapon that could be projected remotely had already spread amongst the pirates.
They immediately fought to row their boats towards the docks, it was better to feel on the ground in front of an unknown force from the sea.
Most of the pirates who stayed in the stronghold were old and weak, it was indeed a bit difficult for them to fight against a strong enemy who had intruded to their doorstep with a big grin.
Comparing to the point of impact of the first cannon, the gunners quickly adjusted their guns, and then the four guns on the side were fired in unison, officially opening fire.
This time there are three shells hit the pirate’s guard ship solidly, immediately on this unlucky ship opened three big holes, incidentally killed 2 people, the remaining pirates were horrified, use all their strength to row towards the pier.
Hope on board the crowd laughed, the feeling of playing with the enemy is great.
Instead of continuing the shelling, they turned the ship around and headed towards the inner harbor, finally slowly approaching the pier of the pirate stronghold.
The pirates on the previous guard ship had already run onto the land, anxiously telling their companions who had come over to meet them about the terrible encounter they had just had.
“They still have five small paddle sailing boats ah, let’s just practice target shooting here.”
Quirk was determined to destroy the pirates’ remaining boats so that they wouldn’t have the slightest chance of escape. Next, the Hope fired continuously, constantly shooting at the pirate ships at the dock where they were moored.
The pirates on the shore were trembling, no one dared to sail their ships to resist.
With the current solid rounds, if it didn’t happen to hit near the waterline, it was still quite difficult to sink a wooden ship, the Hope fired several rounds of cannonballs also tightly and completely destroyed two pirate ships, one was sunk by entering the water, and one was a scorching bullet that ignited the canvas on the deck, and the fire eventually spread to the entire ship.
But the remaining three were also riddled with holes and beyond repair.
Eventually the Hope had to stop shelling to wait for the gun barrels to cool down because they were overheating.
……
“Hey! Did you guys hear that?”
Alan, who was braiding cable, asked his companions who were working together.
“I heard it, what the hell was that noise?”
Tom and Pine were also very surprised.
“Thunderbolt! What a thunderous fury of the Arda!”
Alan suddenly got excited and said with his hands in the air, “Have you guys heard about it? The lord of Arda, Count Paul Gleiman, used a powerful weapon to destroy the pirates who invaded the territory, it could make a loud ringing sound, ten times more powerful than a crossbow, and could even break the city gates. Because of the loud noise, people called this weapon the Thunderbolt.”
“Oh, oh! I’ve heard of this one too.”
“So the Arda did come?”
The news that the Arda had struck here quickly spread amongst the slaves, and the crowd reacted with a variety of reactions, from crying to laughing, and it was a chaotic mess.
The pirate who supervised the work at the door immediately rushed in when he heard that the inside was in chaos, and just wanted to exit to scold, but suddenly remembered something, and walked away in dismay.
Seeing that the overseer came in and left without doing anything, Allen got bold, he stood up and said, “I can’t wait, I’m going to go to the pier now to take a look!”
“Hey hey, wait a minute, it’s still not 100% confirmed that it’s the Aldar coming over ah, what if the other side is another stream of pirates? Wouldn’t it be just leaving the wolf’s den and entering the tiger’s mouth?”
But his companion’s persuasion didn’t dissuade Allen, he quickly ran out of the door.
“Wait for me ah, I’ll go with you!”
A large group of people ran out after him.
……
“According to me, let’s just surrender! The other party ran to the doorstep and refused to leave, there must be strong backup behind them, and now they should just be waiting for reinforcements to come over and take us down in one fell swoop.”
The old pirate Donahue voiced his opinion and judgment, the rest of the people did not say a word, this time no one stood out to refute it, it was considered to be the default decision to surrender.
Just a moment ago, a minion hurried over to report what happened on the pier, after learning that the other party was just a single ship that used that legendary and terrifying weapon to lay waste to the only five ships they had left, the faces of the chiefs present were all deathly gray.
Seeing that no one objected, Donahue then ordered the minions who came to report, “Raise a white flag on the pier and tell the other side that we are surrendering.”
“Yes!” The minion seemed relieved to hear the order and turned around and left the house to dart towards the pier.
“Gentlemen!” Donahue said with a bitter smile to the group of leaders present, “Walk with me to the docks.”
(End of chapter)