usatvline Chapter 133 The Destruction of Hawaii
Chapter 133 The Destruction of Hawaii
Chapter 133 The Destruction of Hawaii
"So, the British, the French, and the locals teamed up?"
Inside the Honolulu estate, Yongle chuckled as he read the intelligence report presented by his assassins: "It seems our actions have frightened that native king."
Zhang Qi said calmly, "We've almost wiped out all the Americans on the island, and they're only now starting to unite. How arrogant those Europeans are."
Yongle put down his teacup and sneered, "After all, we are an old country that has colonized the world and completed the Industrial Revolution. With strong ships and powerful cannons, it is normal for us to be a little arrogant."
"Unfortunately, these white people ran into us."
Zhang Qi picked up the conversation and asked, "Boss, did the intelligence say when they plan to make their move?"
Yongle said, "Two days later, they plan to invite us to the dock two hours in advance under the guise of a festival. Then, the armed British and French merchant ships will immediately sail into the harbor and open fire. After several rounds of bombardment, the locals will rush out to arrest people."
"Oh my, a trap followed by taking advantage of someone's misfortune, a multi-layered scheme." Zhang Qi raised an eyebrow and said, "So, what's our plan?"
"We'll deal with whatever comes our way."
Yongle sneered, "Before they move, let's seize their ship tonight and wipe out the white scum on board!"
Zhang Qi nodded in agreement: "Okay, I'll go and make the arrangements right away."
Honolulu, midnight.
A dark and windy night is the perfect time for murder and arson.
Tonight, the moon is obscured by thick clouds, with only the lighthouse occasionally illuminating a patch of land.
Zhang Qi crouched behind a pile of wooden crates at the dock, with fifty assassins behind him. They were all dressed in dark short jackets, with revolvers at their waists and short knives slung across their backs.
Two boats were moored not far in front of the group.
One was a thousand-ton armed merchant ship with three masts, a black hull, and two rows of gun ports on its sides. The other was smaller, a four-hundred-ton steam gunboat with a large-caliber naval gun mounted on its bow.
"HMS Saint George, and HMS Warrior. The sailors were said to be retired Royal Navy and French Navy soldiers."
Zhang Qi said in a low voice, pointing to the large ship and then to the steam gunboat: "We'll split into two groups. I'll take thirty men to the St. George, and Lao Zhao will take twenty men to the Warrior."
First, deal with the night watch on deck, then head straight to the helm and captain's cabin at the stern, and finally take care of the cabins.
"Set off!"
On the USS St. George, Captain Samuel Channing was still awake.
According to his usual routine, he should have been asleep by now. But tonight, whether it was because the ship was rocking too much or for some other reason, he couldn't fall asleep no matter how much he tossed and turned.
Qian Ning simply put on his coat, picked up an oil lamp, and walked out of the captain's cabin.
The deck was dark, with only a lantern hanging beside the helm at the stern. Qian Ning carried the oil lamp forward, and just as he reached the foremast, he heard a loud snoring sound.
A sailor on night watch was fast asleep, leaning against the mast, his mouth open and drool dripping down his chin, soaking a patch of his clothes.
"stand up!"
Qian Ning kicked a sailor in the leg, cursing, "Is this how you handle night duty?"
The sailor woke up with a start, about to curse, but upon seeing Qian Ning, he quickly rubbed his eyes, stood up, and smiled, "Captain."
"Where's the other person? Weren't there supposed to be two people on night duty tonight?"
The sailor silently pointed to the mast ahead.
Qian Ning carried the oil lamp forward and soon saw a sailor standing beside the mast ahead, staring into the darkness.
"Fortunately, there's still one who's dedicated to his duty."
He breathed a sigh of relief, but upon closer inspection, his face, which had just improved somewhat, darkened again.
The one over here is asleep too, with most of its body leaning against the mast, its head nodding slightly.
"My God."
Qian Ning gritted his teeth and delivered another powerful kick, knocking the second sailor to the ground: "Get up, you lazy, stupid pig!"
He took a deep breath and burst out cursing, "You two brainless idiots, you morons from Ireland, you dare to fall asleep during night watch! What if someone sneaks onto the ship?"
"Exactly, that's incredibly irresponsible."
Beside Qian Ning, a voice agreed, "Sir, I suggest you punish them severely!"
"Sir? You don't even know how to call someone captain anymore?" Qian Ning frowned and turned to look in the direction the voice came from.
The light from the oil lamp illuminated a face.
Yellow skin, black eyes, and a half-smile playing on his lips.
Qian Ning was stunned.
It was a Chinese man holding a revolver, the muzzle pointed directly at his forehead.
"Hello." The Chinese man grinned, revealing a set of white teeth. "Goodbye."
boom! boom! boom!
Gunshots rang out, and brain matter splattered everywhere.
Zhang Qi fired three shots, sending the three men on deck to their deaths. The assassins behind him no longer concealed their movements and charged towards other parts of the ship.
Soon, the sailors elsewhere on deck followed in their captain's footsteps.
The fighting at the ship's entrance was particularly fierce.
Awakened by the gunfire, the sailors jumped out of their hammocks, grabbed their revolvers and daggers, and rushed onto the deck.
The boatswain of the St. George was the first to stick his head out of the hatch, holding a Colt pistol. Before he could see what was happening on the deck, a bullet went into his left eye.
Zhang Qi gestured to the assassins behind him, and several men pulled grenades from their waists, pulled the pins, and threw them into the cabin.
boom!
A cacophony of screams erupted from the ship's hold, and the assassins seized the opportunity to rush in, their revolvers and daggers beginning to reap the lives of the remaining sailors.
Half an hour later, neither ship made any further movement.
"Quickly, quickly, throw the corpses into the sea to feed the fish, start the ship, our mission still has a second part!"
"What do you mean, the second half?"
"Go to the other islands in the archipelago, wipe out their governors, and completely end the Kingdom of Hawaii!"
Meanwhile, at the royal palace.
The royal palace sits on a small hill north of the harbor, overlooking the entire bay.
That's why you can clearly see the harbor during the day and hear the sounds coming from there at night.
King Kamehameha IV was still awake and thus faintly heard gunshots and explosions coming from the port.
"What happened at the port? Could it be that the white people have started fighting with the Chinese?"
He summoned the head guard and was about to give him some instructions when he suddenly heard an angry shout, followed by a gunshot.
"kill!"
Kamehameha IV's face immediately turned pale.
It's important to know that although there were soldiers guarding the palace gates, there were only eight of them. Furthermore, there were no moats, no drawbridges, and no artillery emplacements.
The designer of this palace never imagined that someone would break into the palace in the middle of the night.
"His Majesty!"
A captain of the guards stumbled in, his face ashen: "Chinese! It's those Chinese who broke in!"
Kamehameha IV's mind went blank for a moment. Without hesitation, he turned to grab the sword hanging on the wall. Just as his hand touched the hilt, the study door was kicked open from the outside.
Yongle walked in, carrying a still-smoking revolver. Behind him were four assassins, each carrying a rifle with bayonets fixed.
"Your Majesty, good evening."
The assassins killed the chief guard and the guards with two shots, and Yongle walked up to Kamehameha IV and drew the sword from its sheath.
"Not bad."
"You're a madman!"
King Kamehameha IV glared at Yongle before him and roared, "You've led men into the palace in the dead of night! Do you intend to make an enemy of the entire Kingdom of Hawaii?"
"To be an enemy?"
Yongle blinked and smiled slightly: "No, I don't need to be enemies with the Kingdom of Hawaii. Because from tonight onwards, the Kingdom of Hawaii will cease to exist."
He tilted his head and said to the assassins behind him, "Please escort His Majesty the King away gently, so as not to injure him."
Two assassins stepped forward, grabbing Kamehameha IV's arms on either side and dragging him out of the bedroom. The king struggled, but the assassins' hands were like iron clamps, and he couldn't break free at all.
While the royals in the palace were being captured and taken away one by one by the assassins, other teams of assassins began arresting people in the city.
The Hawaiian royal palace has few government institutions: the legislative body consists of the House of Lords and the House of Representatives, the central government is assisted by the cabinet, and the island is managed by the governor.
Most of them were spending the night at their homes in Honolulu, completely unaware of what was happening at the port and the palace.
One by one, cabinet members and members of parliament were escorted from their homes, carried by bodyguards through dark streets, and pushed through the gates of the palace.
It wasn't until they were taken to the palace drawing room and saw that Kamehameha IV was also tied to a chair that everyone realized that tonight's events were far more serious than they had imagined.
By daybreak, the palace drawing room was already packed with people.
The King, the Royal Family, members of parliament, cabinet ministers, the Governor of Oahu—everyone had their hands tied behind their backs, their faces displaying a range of expressions from anger to fear, from bewilderment to collapse.
Yongle stood in the center of the living room, looked around at everyone in the room, and lit a cigarette.
"Good morning, everyone. My name is Yongle. From today onwards, Honolulu is under my control."
One oblivious member of parliament angrily retorted, "What gives you the right?"
boom!
Yongle pulled the trigger, shooting the councilor in the forehead. The body fell to the ground, and a terrified scream echoed through the palace.
"On what grounds? On the grounds that you are sitting here right now, and my gun is pointed at your heads."
Kamehameha IV raised his head, staring intently at Yongle, his voice hoarse: "What do you want? Land? Gold? Release me and my family, and I'll give you anything you want."
"Wasn't I clear enough? I want the whole of Hawaii!"
Yongle looked at Kamehameha IV and said slowly, "Your Majesty, please sign and seal the abdication edict to save face for yourself and your family."
The living room was deathly silent.
Santiago.
The afternoon sun hung scorching in the sky, turning everything in the desert white.
On the north side of the border, in a fort on the California side, Indian assassin Rain sat idly on a wooden crate, whittling a stick with his bayonet.
After Southern California was captured, he and dozens of his men were transferred to this fortress for defense. For two months, they had been staring at the Mexicans across the way, constantly on guard.
"Brother, what's the point of us staying here? There are hardly any people left in this desert."
A young assassin squatted on the ground nearby and sighed, "Why don't you mention it to Chief Chongyue? Let's go and wipe out the Mexican army on the other side?"
"Enough with the nonsense."
Without looking up, Luo Yu said, "If you're really bored, go run a few hundred laps around the fortress, or go hunting."
Suddenly, a shout came from the lookout tower outside the outpost: "Something's up!"
Luo Yu tucked his bayonet into his waistband and rushed up to the fortress's watchtower.
Looking down from the vantage point, one could see a group of people stumbling and running northwards, about two or three miles south of the border.
There were only about twenty or thirty people, men and women, dressed in Mexican civilian clothes, covered in mud from head to toe.
"Mexicans?" the young assassin frowned. "Are they trying to cross the border?"
"Stop them first!" Luo Yu jumped off the watchtower and shouted into the outpost, "Everyone mount up and stop them!"
More than twenty assassins filed out of the outpost and rode their horses toward the border a few miles away.
Soon, the two met in the desert.
Luo Yu fired a shot into the air, the sound echoing across the open field. The Mexican group was startled and their steps faltered.
He shouted in Spanish, "Stop!"
The Mexicans obediently stopped not far south of the border.
The one leading the group was a middle-aged man with a thin, long face, covered in sweat. He raised his hands and shouted a few words in Spanish, his tone very urgent.
Luo Yu's Spanish was newly learned, and he couldn't understand the rapid-fire language at all. He turned to his companion not far away and said, "A Gui, I remember your Spanish level is Lv.3. Can you translate for me?"
A henchman named Agui ran over, listened for a few moments, and began to translate: "He said they were refugees. There's a war in Mexico, someone staged a coup, and overthrew President Santa Ana."
Luo Yu blinked. He had heard the name Santa Ana mentioned by the leader of Chongyue. Santa Ana was the dictator president of Mexico, and California was the state that he ceded to the Americans.
Just as he was about to ask more questions, another commotion suddenly came from afar.
A group of Mexican cavalrymen, numbering about forty or fifty, came up from the south, kicking up dust. They were dressed in Mexican government army uniforms, carrying sabers and pistols, and shouting something.
The civilians immediately became agitated, ignoring Luo Yu and the others ahead, and began to flee for their lives towards California.
"They're going to arrest people!"
Ah Gui quickly translated the Mexican government forces' words: "They said: Santa Ana was among that group of refugees!"
Rainy's breathing quickened suddenly: "What did you say? Santa Ana was in that group of refugees?"
"That's what the government forces said!"
"Thank God, finally we have something to do!"
Luo Yu laughed heartily and ordered, "Squad One, take your men and arrest that entire group of refugees. Don't let a single one escape!"
"Second Platoon, follow me and slaughter the Mexican government troops across the way!"
>