Even if the San Francisco mounted police would help them, it would take at least the morning of the day after tomorrow for them to arrive in Sacramento from the time they received the message.
Continue to resist until the morning of the next day or even longer?
Liang Yao quickly put away this unrealistic idea. Now the only thing he could count on was Sartre's private armed forces.
"The San Francisco Mounted Police, who are more than a hundred miles away, are of little help, but if we hold on a little longer, Sutter, a nearby farmer, will come to help us.
He is less than fifteen miles away from us. This generous and righteous farmer is a good friend of mine. He has a private army of more than one hundred people. "
The most urgent task at the moment was to calm people's hearts. Liang Yao exaggerated Sartre's armed forces. In fact, even if Sartre's Indian guards were included, Sartre's guards were only more than 60 people. Moreover, Liang Yao had no idea about the combat effectiveness of Sartre's private armed forces.
Liang Yao's words were like a shot of adrenaline, giving these desperate people a glimmer of hope, and they were no longer so pessimistic.
Liang Yao called several senior executives of the Boston company and Sven aside: "We must now find a way to delay those thugs and buy more time."
"This is an unrealistic idea. We can only withstand one more round of their attack at best." Weber, who has been a professional military officer for more than ten years, made a cruel judgment based on his experience.
"We can delay them in other ways."
Liang Yao calculated in his mind the time it would take Deng Wenyao to go to Sutter Castle to report the news and the time it would take for Sutter to gather his troops and go to Sacramento.
"We can pretend to negotiate with them, but we need someone with good eloquence to negotiate with them and buy us at least two hours."
"That's a good idea, but who's going to deal with the gangsters?"
Both the people from Boston Company and Sven felt that Liang Yao's proposal was feasible and worth a try.
The most suitable candidate is undoubtedly Liang Yao. Liang Yao has good eloquence and is the most prestigious person in Sacramento, making him the most qualified to represent them.
"This person must not be Mr. Liang. We can't do without Mr. Liang here. If anything happens to Mr. Liang, we'll all be doomed!" Seeing that many people were looking at Liang Yao, Sven had to persuade them to give up the idea.
Sven knew clearly that the bandits were coming for Liang Yao, and letting Liang Yao go to talk to them would only make the situation worse.
"I"
Weber was about to step forward, but when he thought of his wife and children, he hesitated. He didn't know how to take back what he had just said, and seemed a little embarrassed.
"Gentlemen, let me go." Robinson saw Weber's predicament and stepped forward to help him out. "Mr. Weber, you have a wife and daughter. You need to be responsible for them. I don't have such concerns. Let me go."
Robinson picked up his medicine box and said, "I'm a doctor. Maybe I can buy more time for them. They won't make things difficult for a doctor."
Everyone was in awe of Dr. Robinson who stood up in times of crisis. Liang Yao stepped forward and shook Robinson's hand: "Dr. Robinson, we will all pray for you. It is a great honor to have a friend like you."
"I am also very honored to have a friend like you, Liang. Without you, there would be no Sacramento today, and there would be no Boston Company today."
Robinson and Liang Yao said goodbye to each other reluctantly. He took off his white shirt and hung it on a wooden stick. Then he held a white flag made of the shirt in one hand and a medicine box in the other and walked towards the brutal bandits without hesitation.
"Stop! Don't move! Who are you?! What are you doing here?!"
The vigilant gangster ordered Robinson to stop and pointed his gun at him.
"Gentlemen, I am a doctor and I think you need help." Robinson put down the white flag and medicine box in his hand and pointed to the bandits lying on the ground with injuries.
"He's a doctor, I can prove it."
The speaker was William Walker, who was originally a gunner for the Boston Company, whose early gold rush was a complete failure.
Walker, who was extremely eager for gold, could not endure this torment, so he and several like-minded people in the company stole the company's few gold and ran away, and found another way to make gold, which was robbery.
Walker recognized Robinson immediately.
Brandon, with a gloomy face, used his army knife to pick open Robinson's medicine box. After confirming that the box was indeed full of medicines, his face began to look better.
"So you are a doctor. Welcome. Our team happens to be in need of a doctor."
"Their injuries are very serious. If they are not treated in time, they will die soon."
Robinson pointed at Brandon's injured men and said that although they had the advantage, Brandon did not have an easy fight. Eleven of his men died on the spot and eighteen were injured during the attack on the house, and their morale was extremely low.
Brandon doesn't care about the lives of those gang members and ordinary bandits who are dependent on Brandon. What he cares about is the lives of those deserters, who are his backbone.
There was no shortage of gold diggers in California who were willing to take risks for gold. As long as his backbone forces were there, no one could shake his position as the overlord of the underworld in California. Robinson treated the wounds of the injured gangsters, and he subconsciously slowed down the speed of treating the wounds.
"Don't point guns at me. You point guns at me and I can't do my job properly."
Robinson felt very uncomfortable while undergoing surgery with a bunch of black gun muzzles pointed at him, and even his hands couldn't help shaking.
"Put it down! Put it down!"
Brandon signaled to his men to put down their guns; a doctor posed no threat to them.
"Doctor, I am your enemy. I don't think you are here to save lives. I want to know why you are here."
Brandon held the saber and looked at Robinson who was undergoing surgery with some amusement.
"In the eyes of doctors, there are no enemies, only patients." Robinson's hands suddenly trembled. He controlled his breathing and nervous heartbeat and said, "If you want my operation to be successful, you'd better not disturb me while I'm doing it."
For the sake of his men's lives, Brandon chose to keep silent, but after an hour and a half, Brandon finally couldn't bear it anymore, stopped Robinson, and questioned Robinson's purpose.
"If you come to us to surrender, we welcome you. If you come to negotiate as a surrender representative, as long as you are willing to hand over the gold and the Chinese guy named Liang Yao, we also welcome you."
Seeing that there was no way to delay any further, Robinson had to sit down and negotiate with Brandon.
"This is a good proposal. As long as you can guarantee our safety, we are willing to surrender. After all, we all came to Sacramento for gold."
"You seem to be a very sensible man, doctor."
At this time, Robinson realized that these gangsters had a clear goal. Out of the instinct of survival, he also thought of betraying Liang Yao to save the Boston Company.
But he quickly rejected this dangerous idea. First, betraying his friends was against his life creed. Second, he did not think these gangsters had any integrity.
Looking at the burned camp of the Boston Company, Robinson clenched his fists and mustered up the courage to bargain with Brandon: "We need some time to reach a consensus. Liang Yao has many loyal guards, and it will take time to solve this difficult problem. We need three hours."
Robinson didn't know what Brandon's bottom line was, so he quoted a time that left room for negotiation.
"I don't have the patience. Three hours is too long." Brandon flatly rejected the request. "I'll give you one hour. In one hour, either surrender! Or I'll bring people to raze this house to the ground, and I can still get the gold I want!"
"One hour is too short. It will take at least two hours." Robinson wanted to try again.
"Just one hour. You have no right to bargain with me." Brandon's attitude was very tough. His patience had reached its limit.
Robinson returned to the compound with a satisfactory answer and Brandon's ultimatum. He successfully bought the Gold Diggers two and a half hours! He did a great job. Robinson was their hero.
Only an hour passed, and the reinforcements Liang Yao mentioned did not appear.
Two and a half hours had passed, including the one and a half hours that Robinson had spent with the gangsters. Sutter might not come.
Looking at the bandits gathering and preparing to launch an attack, people's hearts began to waver again.
The guards loyal to Liang Yao and the gold diggers who were determined to fight the bandits to the death were ready for their last stand.
Of course, there are also those who are afraid of death and are ready to surrender, pinning their hopes of survival on the fact that these bandits will show leniency to them because they are fellow believers in God.
Boom~
The sudden sound of artillery broke the silence before the battle.
The sound of the cannon came from the west, that is, from the direction of San Francisco. How could the reinforcements from San Francisco come so quickly?
Everyone felt very incredible. There was no railway from San Francisco to Sacramento, only muddy and difficult dirt roads. Could these divine soldiers who fell from the sky have grown wings and flew here?
Brandon also felt incredible. As a former officer of a California military fortress, he was familiar with the local troop deployment. This was why he was able to rob easily in several gold mining areas during the months he was on the run.
"Impossible, there are no U.S. Army troops stationed nearby."
Brandon, who was stunned by the gunfire, was unwilling to accept this reality, and the second gunfire that followed quickly woke him up.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
Although he was very unwilling to see the gold he had obtained fly away, Brandon quickly made a wise choice and fled back into the mountains with his men.