Chapter 27: The Port Under Attack (1)

Baron Stewart's port of Salzao usually had seven or eight ships, so it was normal to see a caravan of four ships entering the port.

The tax collector boarded the ship with two soldiers and found nothing suspicious. Each ship had half a ship's load of cargo, and the sailors, though wild, looked like the kind you would expect to find at sea. A dozen of them even carried swords and looked like bodyguards.

It's normal for sailors to carry weapons for protection against pirates at sea, so it would be unusual if they didn't. So the tax collector collected the anchorage tax and warned the sailors not to bring swords ashore before they left.

There were several inns in Saltsjo harbour that catered to sailors. They were usually two-storey buildings, with the bar and kitchen on the ground floor and the guest rooms on the first floor, so there was no shortage of places for the hundred or so people to stay.

When the agreed time came at night, the pirates who remained on board the ship took the hidden weapons from the cargo and sent them ashore. The pirates, under the leadership of several leaders, had long since taken control of the inn, and as soon as they had the weapons, they screamed and ran for the barracks.

Back at sea, Red Beard Hel led the combined pirate fleet of four three-masted sailing ships and six two-masted sailing ships to the coast at the right time before dark, and when it was dark he let the pirates land.

Apart from the 100 or so who remained on board, most of the remaining 700-plus pirates swam ashore with their weapons, as there were not many small boats.

But this was not a problem for them. According to Red Beard's plan, the pirates who had swum ashore first looted the copper bars from the construction site of the Wizard's Tower, and then joined forces with the people of Salzao Harbour to start looting the harbour village. Finally, they took advantage of the darkness to load all the looted goods onto the ships docked in the harbour, and set sail to escape at dawn.

It can be said that Red Beard's plan was a success, but he overlooked one problem: the 300 or so prisoners of war.

It wasn't really Red Beard's fault. The prisoners were scattered around the various construction sites, including the Mage Tower site, and unless you went round the whole village you couldn't count them all. The pirate scouts couldn't do that, so they just watched from a distance. And even if they saw them, they thought they were villagers going to work. Who would think they were prisoners?

These 300 or so people are prisoners of war, but because they once fought alongside Baron Lorient, they must be punished. Christine has promised that after a year's work they will become permanent soldiers of the territory.

The official soldiers of Baron Stewart's domain all have extra fields, which is a good thing, something they could never have dreamed of before, so the prisoners of war all have something to look forward to. As long as they are not afraid of fighting on the battlefield, they are just working on the fields, so what is the big deal?

Besides, even though they were doing construction work, they were being fed to the standards of regular soldiers, and training was not neglected. After all, Christian wanted soldiers, not labourers, so morale was extremely high.

Several ships arrived at Porto Salvo with nearly 100 sailors on board. It was impossible for the harbour master to be completely unprepared. As well as deploying more guards, he told the soldiers to get ready and even stayed in the barracks.

When the pirates took control of the few hotels in the port, a clever waiter escaped through the back door and, relying on his familiarity with the area, made his way to the barracks in the dark to report the news.

Unexpectedly, the nearly 100 people in the three caravans were all pirates in disguise, and the 50 soldiers in the barracks were suddenly vulnerable. The militiamen all went home to stay when they were not training.

The security officer immediately rang the alarm bell. The residents who heard the bell all hid with their doors and windows closed, as they had been trained to do. The militia, on the other hand, gathered in the barracks. After all, they were there to protect their homes, so no one flinched.

But water from afar does not quench thirst, so the security officer immediately went to the head of the POW camp next door and armed the prisoners.

The militia's leather armour could not be taken home from the barracks, so there were 30 sets and 10 spare sets of leather armour and 50 spears in the barracks. Together with the original 50 soldiers, a total of 130 people were armed, 80 of them with armour. The remaining prisoners were not empty-handed either, and they had all sorts of long and short tools that were also offensive.

There were no street lamps in the harbour, so if you wanted to walk in the dark you had to light a lantern or a torch. So these nearly 100 pirates would come to the barracks with torches lit.

The job of the pirates was to keep an eye on the soldiers in the barracks to make sure they didn't get out. The situation would be stable by the time Red Beard Hel arrived with a large army.

The pirates certainly don't have any discipline. If you set them loose to plunder, they'll disappear without a trace and won't come back, no matter what you call them. Now that they are all together, no one dares to leave the group. After all, more than a hundred people know each other, and if you dare to sneak off to loot, I will definitely report you.

The pirate scouts have done a rough check, and there are only about 40-50 soldiers in the harbour, so the leader feels that his nearly 100 men cannot lose, and even if they do, they cannot lose so quickly.

But they never expected that as soon as they arrived at the barracks gate, they would be met by 350 soldiers rushing out.

One hundred and thirty soldiers armed with long spears formed a spear formation, eighty of them wearing iron helmets and leather armour in the first two rows, unarmoured in the third, and the rest holding tools scattered along the sides.

They had expected to find an enemy ambush, but they had not expected to find so many soldiers. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but it seemed that the enemy had more soldiers in armour than they did. They thought they had been ambushed and their morale plummeted.

The pirate leader in charge was also at a loss as to what to do. The soldiers had attacked before he could think of what to do. Some pirates tried to resist, others tried to escape, and chaos ensued.

There were more people fighting fewer people, morale was high and morale was lost, there was organisation and there was no organisation, and there were regular soldiers in armour fighting pirates without armour. What followed was a massacre.

And even if these pirates wanted to run, they couldn't. Running with a torch was a target, and how could they outrun soldiers familiar with the terrain in the dark when they threw away their torches? Soon most of the pirates were dead or surrendered, and only a few escaped.

All the security officer had to do was interrogate the surrendered pirates to find out about Red Beard Hel's plan, and then count the pirates' bodies to find out how many had escaped.

At that moment, the militia, who had come to the barracks to assemble, also arrived. The security officer immediately arranged for the militia captain to lead the men in clearing out the escaped pirates, as they were more familiar with the terrain. A few dozen men were left to guard the barracks and the prisoners, while a priest was asked to come to the temple to treat the wounded soldiers. The security officer himself led 300 soldiers to assist with the construction of the Mage Tower.

Originally, only 130 of them had weapons, but after defeating the pirates, they were given more than 80. Although the styles are different and the quality is questionable, they are better than nothing.