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Section 52 Arson

Before leaving the Pingxi Prince's Mansion, Deng Ming saw Wu Sangui calling his personal guards and gave him an arrow. He had an idea and coaxed him back to the military station where he stayed. When Deng Ming went into the house to call his companions, he summarized the situation in front of him in a few words. The first one to jump up was Li Xinghan, who strongly advocated setting fires in the arsenal. However, Deng Ming told everyone to be calm and act according to the opportunity. If the warehouse is very cautious, then take the cotton armor and go to bed, and find another opportunity to leave the city tomorrow. If there is an opportunity, set the fire. Of course, you are not allowed to act without authorization, but listen to Deng Ming's orders.

On the way to the arsenal, there were sentries standing guard outside the arsenal, and other patrol soldiers walked around. After passing the arsenal, they soon arrived at the arsenal, and the two were not far away. At that time, the Ming army realized that they had to take action quietly to avoid disturbing the military camp not far away.

The warehouse is very large, and it seems to be divided into several large storage areas. In order to prevent fire, several wells were drilled, and there were equipment for water lifting, and many large tanks for storage of water were placed. A warehouse guard led the way, with Deng Ming and Wu Sangui's guards following him, and Li Xinghan and others followed closely behind. The passing warehouse areas each had an entrance, two or three soldiers guarded each, and they all sat at the door and dozed off. Several people heard the movement and raised their eyelids with sleepy eyes to look at the pedestrians. When they saw them walking past their defense zone, they lowered their heads and closed their eyes.

The gate of the warehouse is very heavy, and it is undoubtedly difficult to break through from outside. If it is a strong attack, it will definitely alarm the nearby barracks. Now the public security in Kunming is good. Only Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou's direct troops in the city. Those who can enter this warehouse are Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou's confidants. After sunset, the gate of the warehouse is locked, and it is impossible to enter unless you hold Wu Sangui's command arrows. There has never been an accident in three months, so the guards of the warehouse relaxed their vigilance. During the day, they had to patrol and stand guard and did not dare to slack off. However, after dark, some of the guards returned home, and the warehouse was silent. The soldiers on night shift guarded at the entrances of various warehouse areas to doze off.

There was a precedent for people to pick up things at night, but the soldiers who were watching knew that they would not usually come to pick up a large number of equipment at night, usually a few pieces of armor, weapons, or tents and military uniforms. The guards reminded the people who came in that warehouse that they should not raise fires. The guards lit a few lanterns and repeatedly told them to carry the lantern in their hands and not put them down. Although these lanterns are specially made, they will not throw out the fire even if they are put down, but being cautious is always necessary.

Stopped at the entrance of a warehouse area, two soldiers on duty were woken up and checked the arrows again. Then they took out the key, opened the door of the warehouse, and then took a step back to let the people in.

Although I don’t know the name of Li Xinghan, Wu Sangui’s personal guard felt that this guy was really annoying. He went all the way and went, just one or two flattering words, “You are so young that you are deeply trusted by the prince, it’s amazing.” The personal guard felt that his ears were almost grinding out of calluses.

"He won't do it later." Li Xinghan's mechanical repetition is no longer a compliment but a torture for people. The personal guard said fiercely in his heart.

At this moment, Wu San and Wu San suddenly took action at the same time, grabbing the left and right arms of the guards. Li Xinghan, who was following behind, covered his mouth with one hand and twisted his neck neatly. At the same time, the Ming army also cleaned up the other three or two people.

He carried several bodies into the warehouse and placed them flat on the ground. Wu San took out the silver he had just given to him from Wu Sangui's personal soldiers' arms. Last time after the Jianchang ambushed the Qing army, Wu San sighed that he was not calm enough at that time and forgot to take the silver back after the murder. Of course, he would not make the same mistake this time.

More important than silver, the waist card of this personal soldier and Wu Sangui's command arrow. Deng Ming put these two things into his arms and began to observe the storage in this warehouse. It turned out that this was an armor library, ranging from ordinary cotton armor to exquisite iron armor.

Li Xinghan and Zhou Kaihuang each brought a few people, without saying a word, and took them out lightly. After a while, they returned with several strings of warehouse keys. The soldiers guarding the gate and the soldiers guarding the warehouse were all cleaned up by them. Some were killed in their sleep, while others realized that something was wrong, but they swallowed before they could shout.

When Deng Ming opened one warehouse after another, he saw that not only stored firearms, ammunition, armor, military uniforms, bedding, tents, as well as a large number of cloth, cotton, and leather. More importantly, Deng Ming found the gunpowder warehouse. When he opened the door and smelled the rich scent of sulfur and saltpeter, everyone took two steps back nervously, fearing that the lanterns in his hand would cause disaster. This place not only contained the Yongli court, but also the tens of thousands of kilograms of gunpowder transported by Wu Sangui later, and the newly produced new gunpowder. There were also warehouses for storing saltpeter and sulfur on the corner of this warehouse.

"That's it." Deng Ming found the arson material he needed the most. They put the lanterns on the clearing ground in the distance, went in to the dark and dragged out several bags of gunpowder.

After a wall that blocks the wind, they stir the gunpowder evenly, pour the gunpowder out of the bag, forming a black strap, and reaching it into the warehouse where the gunpowder is stored. After laying it, Deng Ming looked at it, worried that the ignition would be turned off halfway, so he moved out two bags of gunpowder and spread a thicker layer on the ignition.

A few bags of gunpowder were transported to several other warehouses, and a few small fire leads were made in the warehouse, and the rest were all poured at the end of the fire lead to ensure that the initial fire was large enough. After the cotton cloth and cotton were mixed with gunpowder, Deng Ming was not worried about their fire. Instead, he felt that there was not enough combustible material in the weapons and armor warehouses. They dragged a few bags of cotton from the cotton warehouse and put them in the weapon store. The cotton was mixed with gunpowder and placed it at the end of the fire lead.

After these tasks were completed, Deng Ming and the two of them conducted the final inspection again, and the rest immediately selected iron armor and weapons separately - this was an easy task. The relatively rare and expensive weapons were placed in obvious positions in each warehouse, and the equipment of different levels would not be mixed together. The Ming army did not have to look at the piles of goods behind, and specifically selected among the best equipment.

Just now, Zhou Kaihuang was careful when he looked at the stored saddle. After finishing his business, he immediately took five people and ran away. He hurriedly picked out a batch of high-quality saddles with good leather and well-made workmanship. He ran between the storage area and the gate with two or three. They moved the things out and needed to quickly replace all the mounts with new saddles.

Li Xinghan also took out a batch of good boots from this leather goods warehouse, and his companions each had one pair. Li Xinghan weighed the two pairs for a while and changed into one of them, but he still couldn't bear to throw away the other pair, so he ran to the military uniform warehouse under his armpit. When he opened the door just now, Li Xinghan took a fancy to the silk cotton cloak. Now that he has obtained the cowhide boots, he quickly went to bring big arms to himself and his companions. The exquisite silk cotton cloak is light and warm, which is difficult to find in normal times.

"Hurry up, hurry up!" Deng Ming had completed the last inspection, smashed all the water storage tanks, destroying the water lifting equipment of each well. At this time, seeing that most of his subordinates were still busy looking for good things in the warehouse, Deng Ming couldn't help but urge him. Now the excited expressions of these guards gave him the feeling of "a mouse fell into the rice jar."

"It's still early, Mr. Deng." Wu San replied as he ran over in front of Deng Ming. He threw away the old cotton blankets tied behind the horse and the old saddles. Now Wu San was holding a new stack of wool blankets in his arms, and was busy tying them to tie them to their brand new saddles.

Deng Ming pointed to the flags rushing on the flagpole and said to everyone anxiously: "The wind is not small today. If the wind suddenly changes direction, then our gunpowder will be in vain. Go quickly! Go quickly! Get less stuff."

At Deng Ming's urging, everyone changed into iron armor, took the weapons, and prepared to leave the arsenal immediately. Before leaving, the Ming army took out some incense candles, used gunpowder to make a hill at the beginning of each fuse, and then lit a few incense candles and inserted them on it. On the fuse leading to the gunpowder warehouse, Deng Ming was worried that the incense candles would be extinguished, so he inserted three more in one breath.

Although the fire-fighting equipment was destroyed, Deng Ming still locked all the doors firmly before leaving, causing trouble for the firefighters as much as possible. In Kunming City late at night, the Qing soldiers should not react very quickly, and it is difficult to arrive before the fire became bigger. However, Deng Ming was still worried that there would be accidents or that a passing patrol team would find the fire. After coming out of the side door, Deng Ming also locked it, so that even if people outside wanted to enter the warehouse, they would have to spend some effort.

Li Xinghan was still unsatisfied and advocated going to the city to light a few more fires.

"There's no time," Deng Ming said. They only have about a stick of incense. If they don't leave Kunming City within this time, they will fall into danger: "If we fail to run out of the city in time, then you can set fires casually. Maybe we can escape the danger in the chaos. But now we'll talk about it first."

Riding on the war horse, Deng Ming and his guards ran straight to the nearest city gate...

The guards on the city tower saw a string of fire and quickly approaching from a distance. The guards guards in front of the city gate also heard the dense sound of horse hooves coming from the night. Soon they saw a group of knights holding torches high, appearing from the dark night, and coming to their front.

"At night, the door must not be opened unless the order is urgent." Generally speaking, anyone who comes to the city gate at night will bring military orders, but for the sake of his duties, the officer guarding the city gate still repeated this military order.

"The Chief of General Wu Ming." The leader took out a waist sign from his waist and handed it to the officer in front of the city gate.

The officer carefully checked, held the hand in his hands and asked, "Is there a military order?"

"I was ordered to go out of the city to do business." The knight replied, taking back the waist card and carefully putting it in his arms, then calmly took out another command arrow and handed it over.

After verification, the guard officer at the city gate held in both hands and returned the arrow from King Pingxi to his guards.

"Open the door and release the suspension bridge!" The officer took a few steps back and made way for the team of knights.

With the officer's loud shouts, the heavy Kunming city gate was slowly opened, showing a heavy black outside the city. After opening the city gate, the two soldiers quickly walked out of the door and raised the torch so that Deng Ming and the others could barely see the suspension bridge passage that had just been put down.

The guards at the gate of the city and their officers looked at the people who came. They did not know all the personal guards of King Pingxi, but they guessed that the people in front of him must be of great origin. Even if the leader was not the captain of the guards and the deputy team, they were also the best-selling men in front of King Pingxi. Because with the firelight in front of the city gate, the sharp-eyed guards had already seen Wu Ming's body full of first-class equipment, and the flames reflected the bright colors emitted from his saddle and horse boots; the sword hanging around his waist was filled with a green shark skin sheath, and it was known that it was a sword without looking at it; the silk cotton covered with his body showed a cold light of metal armor.

It would be fine if there was only one person like this, but the group of knights following him were all in uniform. The guards at the gate of the city had seen many of the personal guards of the King of Pingxi, and I have never encountered many of them in such luxurious clothes.

Deng Ming rushed out from under the city gate first, and the knights behind him did not hesitate. They passed through the door hole one after another, stepped onto the suspension bridge in the fire and ran away from Kunming.

When everyone saw the knights walking out of the night, everyone was wearing this outfit, the officer in front of the city gate was shocked. In the middle of the night, King Pingxi obviously had to make some big moves. However, the guards at the city gate knew that this was definitely not something they could ask about.

Every time a knight passed, the city gate officer would silence in his heart. When the last knight left the suspension bridge and disappeared into the vast night outside the city, the city gate officer felt relieved.

"Eighteen, where did the prince send so many personal guards?" The officer murmured to himself, then shouted to the soldiers: "Put the suspension bridge and close the city gate."

When the two heavy city gates closed again and completely isolated the team of knights outside the city from themselves, the guards of the city tower started to discuss.

"Did you see the bird guns carrying a few people just now?" The speaker was a musket soldier. He just saw a few refined bird guns hanging on the horses of Wu Sangui's personal guards and swallowed his saliva. He probably might not have the chance to have the same one in his life. Due to workmanship issues, the firearms of this era were not very safe. If the charge was sufficient, they would easily explode. If the charge was not enough, they would lack power. As for the relatively safe three-eyed guns, they were very powerful. Deng Ming had also seen the three-eyed guns of Li Xinghan when he fought against Tan Hong. At that time, there was no gunpowder and they had to be used as hammers. However, even if there was gunpowder, they should still be used as hammers, or they should not use these irons to make three-eyed guns at the beginning, but should directly make iron hammers. But this time, five exquisite long-bottle bird guns were seen in the firearm warehouse, which were installed in several exquisite gun boxes and were taken away by Deng Ming.

"And their bows and their arrows!" Another Qing soldier shouted. He just noticed the white feathered arrows in the quiver pots of several Ming army knights: "It's all the iron bone wolf-tooth arrows with triple barbs!" This soldier knew that the cost of each wolf-tooth arrow was at least ten times that of the ordinary feather arrow in his hand.

It is not surprising that Wu Sangui sent people out of the city at night, but it is very bizarre to send a team of well-equipped personal guards out of the city in one go. This is not rare but unprecedented. This team of cavalry operated near Kunming City, and even brought bows, muskets and various other weapons for infantry combat.

Wu Sangui's personal guards near Kunming City did not need to charge, so the equipment they carried had long gone from focusing on the battlefield to focusing on the bodyguard's needs. However, this team of knights was completely different. They carried weapons that were of great significance only on the battlefield and would only feel cumbersome. Just like the leader, his weapons were not just swords. This kind of beautiful and generous equipment could also meet the work of bodyguards, which was almost the standard equipment of Wu Sangui's personal guards. The officer saw a horse sword hanging on one side of the horse. Although the latter was very powerful in horse battles, it was obviously inconvenient to carry when dismounting and walking. The officer at the city gate looked very good. He also noticed that there seemed to be a sabre hanging on the horse's back on the other side, and a long dagger for hand-to-hand combat was placed on the horse boots.

"Where are they going to this night?" Finally someone asked curiously. This team of cavalry was carrying a large number of field weapons. Obviously, some people were in trouble, but what kind of enemy needed the King of Pingxi to dispatch their personal guards to attack? Of course, no one knew who the King of Pingxi was going to deal with. However, after seeing their equipment, the officers and soldiers at the city gate felt a little sympathetic to their enemies.

After leaving Kunming City, Deng Ming did not rush to leave, but stopped on the avenue in the night, turned his head and looked towards Kunming. They were anxiously waiting for the final result.

It seemed that the time for a stick of incense had passed. Deng Ming felt the uneasiness of the people around him. He was also very nervous, worried about the fuse or the accident that burned the incense: "We will wait for another stick of incense. Maybe it has already started to burn, but we can't see it."

If it doesn't get burned, of course, you have to escape as soon as possible. Wu Sangui, who is furious tomorrow, will definitely inform the whole of Yunnan to intercept and arrest people. But if it can get burned, Deng Ming feels that he has one more thing to do.

...

At this time, in Hong Chengchou's official residence, his confidant general took the arrow thrown by his boss, hesitated for a moment, and did not immediately execute the order to get the person. He still had a few words but had something to report to the superior.

"You're not going there yet?" Hong Chengchou scolded dissatisfied.

"Master Qibing." The general finally made up his mind. At this time, his drunkenness also dissipated a lot. He hurriedly reported to Hong Chengchou: "The Li Ming was taken over by General Zhao as his subordinate..."

"Then go get it for me too." Hong Chengchou was a little impatient.

"The last general knows." The general stuttered and defended: "But then, Li Ming begged him a piece of iron armor, and begged King Pingxi and General Zhao to agree that he would go to the arsenal to collect it immediately."

"Arsenal?" Hong Chengchou raised his head from the map again, frowned even more: "What did he do in the arsenal at night?"

Hong Chengchou called another general, handed him a command arrow, and ordered: "You can quickly hold my command arrow to the arsenal..."

Before he finished speaking, there was a loud bang on the ground, as if a ball of thunder exploded in Kunming City, shaking Hong Chengchou's body, and at the same time, the dust on the roof also fell...

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