Minamoto no Tadashi raised his hand to signal, and immediately two samurai stepped forward, grabbed Tachibana Chiyo, and, ignoring her struggles, gagged her and dragged her aside.
Then Yuan Zhongyi's men waved the flag.
The attack begins!
Tens of thousands of flaming arrows shot toward the Xiaohai, blotting out the sky.
With a wave of his hand, Xiao Yanchu ordered the cannons on both sides of the Xiaohai to fire continuously at the Yamato warship.
Flames erupted across the sea, accompanied by explosions and screams.
Previously, the people were driven towards the seaside, and they didn't know what they were going to do, so they were relatively obedient.
Seeing the sudden explosion and fire at sea, everyone panicked and began to flee in all directions.
But the Hatamoto army wouldn't allow these civilians to escape. They all stood in a defensive line along the beach, cutting off the civilians' escape routes.
The crowd grew increasingly chaotic, with screams, cries, and shouts mingling together.
The mother with children was shot dead. The child fell from the mother's arms to the ground, crying loudly. Then, the child was trampled on by the panicked crowd and gradually fell silent.
Some elderly people were too weak to run and were pushed to the ground, unable to get up again.
The young men ran backward, awaiting either an arrow shot by the Hatamoto army or a flurry of blows from the Hatamoto army's retainers.
No one was able to escape.
After this, no one dared to flee again.
Everyone could only walk slowly toward the sea in despair.
Gradually, the people realized that the people of Da Chu did not throw anything that could explode at them, nor did they shoot arrows at them.
In contrast to the constant explosions at sea, there was no movement on their side, making them seem safe.
Even so, the people were still very afraid and tried their best to delay their approach to the great Chu ship.
Tokugi Shingo and Minamoto no Tadayoshi, who were on the shore, also noticed this.
“Why don’t they throw that thing away?” Shingo Tokugi asked.
Yuan Zhongyi couldn't figure it out either, and could only guess: "Perhaps they saw that ordinary people wouldn't hurt them much, so they didn't throw them away in order to save that stuff."
Deji Shingo thought that Minamoto no Tadayoshi's words made sense, but these people were not a small number. If they all boarded the ship of Great Chu, the people of Great Chu would not be able to resist them.
"Let's take another look."
Since the people of Da Chu did not make a move, Yuan Zhongyi, out of caution, did not dare to easily allow the Banner Army to launch an attack.
He wanted to see how long the people of Great Chu could endure.
Takeuchi Gohei, who was directing the attack from the warship, also noticed the problem.
Last time, the people of Da Chu threw those explosive things at sea and on land at the same time. Why are they launching them at the warships this time, but there is no action on the shore?
Could it be that the people of Great Chu don't have much left?
Takeuchi Gohei suddenly thought of another reason, then shook his head and denied it.
Impossible. Yamato has already launched an attack on the ships of Da Chu. They can't possibly be so kind as to spare the Yamato people.
On the Xiaohai, anticipating that Yamato would use rockets, Su Ruojin and Su Muyao had already designed an artificial pressurization and water suction device to suck up seawater through pipes and extinguish the fire directly.
As for the hull, iron plates had been reinforced in key areas during the shipbuilding process, so these arrows could not destroy the Xiaohai.
The Imperial Guards and Secret Service were also doing their best to block the arrows with their shields.
The Yamato attacked using arrows fired by manpower, while the Great Chu fired cannons one after another.
The disparity in strength between the two sides was too great. After avoiding the first wave of Yamato's arrow attack, the Yamato warships were no longer able to launch another arrow attack as before.
Arrows were still being fired, but in much smaller numbers, which reduced the pressure on the Xiaohai.
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