Chapter 149: Zhu Cailao

Under interrogation by the Security Group, the captured pirates spilled everything with surprising speed. The transmigrators had expected to find themselves at war with the infamous Liu Xiang, but the truth proved stranger—these men served Zhu Cailao.

Zhu Cailao's operations centered on the waters off Guangdong. His organization lacked the notoriety of the Zheng family, Liu Xiang, Li Kuiqi, or Zhong Lingxiu, yet his career predated Zheng Zhilong's by years. Back in the 48th year of the Wanli reign, when Zheng Zhilong was still a subordinate of Yan Siqi, Zhu Cailao already commanded both northern and southern fleets. That year alone, he launched three separate attacks on Jieyang—in February, April, and July—followed by an assault on Chenghai in September. When the Tianqi reign began, he struck Jieyang once more. Throughout the Tianqi era, his maritime group had been a persistent scourge along the coast.

From their prisoners, the transmigrators pieced together how these merchant-pirate organizations actually functioned. Though each group maintained unified leadership, operations ran on a system of "shares." These share bosses occupied the crucial middle tier between the chieftain and individual vessels—they appointed ship captains, relayed the chieftain's commands, and bore responsibility for their subordinates' conduct. The sizes of these shares varied wildly: a small one might control just two or three ships, while a large one could command forty. The relationship between each share boss and the chieftain depended entirely on loyalty and proximity. Non-core shares enjoyed considerable autonomy, operating freely within the organization's internal rules and paying a percentage of their plunder and trade earnings as tribute. But when the chieftain summoned his forces, every share was obligated to answer—no exceptions.

The three vessels the transmigrators had captured belonged to one of Zhu Cailao's share bosses, a man firmly embedded in the fleet's inner circle. Their mission to Lingao was intimately connected to the Gou family.

The Gous—that local power the transmigrators had so thoroughly "butchered"—had served as Zhu Cailao's primary fence. Much of his plunder was stored at Lingao and funneled through the Gou family's connections in Qiongshan into the broader Guangdong market.

Word of the Gou family's destruction took half a month to reach Zhu Cailao. Gou Second, the family's liaison in Lingao, had vanished from the county seat the very day after the manor fell—without so much as a message to Zhu Cailao. The man had done his calculations and arrived at a cold conclusion: this great sea pirate would never accept such losses quietly. Reporting the incident meant paying massive compensation, possibly enough to bankrupt him entirely. Worse still, Zhu Cailao would almost certainly retaliate against the short-hairs, and as a Lingao native, Gou Second would find himself conscripted as the vanguard. Neither side was the sort one trifled with, so his best option was simply to disappear. As for avenging his brother—well, Zhu Cailao would handle the short-hairs soon enough. Far safer to let the sea pirate do the dirty work than to risk his already weakened position.

The result was that Zhu Cailao remained utterly blindsided until his liaisons arrived to find the Gou Manor in ruins, a new fortress rising from its bones. Only then did he learn the family was finished. His men searched for Gou Second in the county seat, but the man had vanished without a trace. Subsequent investigation finally revealed the full picture.

The destruction of his fence and the loss of his stored loot struck Zhu Cailao like a blow to the chest. His timing could not have been worse—the newly ascendant Zheng Zhilong was preparing to move against him, and just when he desperately needed ships and men for defense, this catastrophe robbed him of years of accumulated resources. The financial losses alone would have been devastating, but the incident also shook his subordinates' confidence to the core. Pirate alliances ran on profit, nothing more. When a chieftain's resources were destroyed and he could no longer guarantee his members' interests, restlessness naturally spread through the ranks. Rivals circled like sharks, poaching his share bosses. Before long, dozens of shares controlling over a hundred ships had either departed without notice or simply refused his summons.

The transmigrators had never anticipated that their plan to "improve their meals" by destroying the Gou family would trigger a chain reaction along the entire southeastern coast—or that the greatest beneficiary would prove to be their most dangerous anticipated enemy: the Zheng family group.

A furious Zhu Cailao dispatched multiple shares to Lingao immediately. He needed intelligence. Who had dared disturb the tiger?

Information about the short-hairs reached him soon enough. He had heard of them before—that strange giant iron ship had been the subject of fishing gossip for months. The Gou family's eldest son had mentioned these peculiar short-hairs who called themselves "Australian merchants." He knew their firearms were formidable, that they had completely crushed the local militia.

Zhu Cailao had worried about these "Australian pirates"—for in this era, sea merchants and pirates were one and the same—appearing in his territory. Yet after landing, they had simply stayed put, neither trading nor raiding. At Lingao, they maintained an ambiguous coexistence with the locals: don't provoke me, and I won't provoke you. With the Zheng family threat looming ever larger, he had tacitly tolerated the short-hairs' presence.

Now, however, Zhu Cailao faced a choice between two paths. The first: immediately muster his forces to punish the short-hairs, recover his wealth, and restore his battered reputation. A month ago, he would have done so without hesitation. But with Zheng Zhilong threatening him from one direction and the short-hairs proving themselves formidable from another, a mutual destruction scenario would only hand victory to Zheng. The second path: ignore the incident entirely and concentrate everything on his anti-Zheng preparations. The problem there was painfully obvious—without the resources the Gou family had stored for him, he couldn't quickly acquire the supplies he needed.

While he deliberated, his scouts returned with intriguing news. The short-hairs possessed incredibly fast ships—vessels that matched large Guangzhou ships in size yet moved with unparalleled speed, faster than anything they had ever seen, including the European sailing ships. Since these craft lacked sails, they couldn't be attacked with fire. Such ships would provide a tremendous advantage to any fleet that possessed them.

That settled it. Zhu Cailao resolved to attack the short-hairs—but on his terms. He dispatched numerous scouts to investigate Lingao further, also gleaning from fishermen that the transmigrators had established hegemony over the local fishing grounds, with their "fast ships" patrolling daily to catch poachers. His scouts assembled several key facts:

First, the short-hairs' muskets were extraordinarily accurate, with impressive range, devastating lethality, and a rapid rate of fire.

Second, despite these formidable firearms, the short-hairs appeared to lack cannons entirely. Even their fast ships mounted only strange, oversized crossbows.

Third, only four fast ships existed in total. Typically, a single vessel patrolled the fishing grounds while the others remained in harbor—apparently, they were considered precious. The enormous iron ship stayed permanently anchored, motionless.

Fourth, the short-hairs numbered roughly a thousand souls. Both genuine and fake "baldies" walked among them, indistinguishable in quantity. Their forces were split between Bairren Beach and Bopu Harbor, with both locations fortified—though Bopu's defenses were weaker and manned by fewer personnel. The former Gou Manor and a "salt village" also lay within their territory.

Zhu Cailao had never read military texts or studied formal strategy, but he possessed sufficient cunning to judge which approaches would yield maximum benefit. He was fundamentally a merchant, and he understood cost-benefit analysis as well as any man alive.

After a comprehensive assessment, he made a shrewd decision. He would not wage full-scale war against the short-hairs. Combat would be limited to capturing the "fast ships" for his fleet. If the opportunity arose, he would also seize some of their muskets.

The short-hairs wielded formidable firearms but lacked both manpower and cannons—two things Zhu Cailao possessed in abundance. After consulting his key subordinates, he dispatched his most capable lieutenants to execute the ship capture.

The strategy was clever indeed. Long-term observation by fisherman spies had revealed the transmigrators' patterns and methods, allowing countermeasures to be devised. They would use illegal fishing as bait, luring the fast ships close for inspection. Then cannons and boarding tactics would clear the short-hairs from their decks. To avoid damaging the valuable vessels, all cannons were loaded with grapeshot. The pirates even prepared two types of rope: thick ones for towing the captured fast ships, and thin ones for binding prisoners. Per Zhu Cailao's explicit orders, captives were to be treated well—the fast ships and muskets would only function if the short-hairs could be made to teach their use.

Everything had been planned meticulously. Against any ordinary ship, this operation would have succeeded brilliantly. But the fishing boats' era-transcending technology and the transmigrators' months of honed combat awareness defeated this perfect plan. The responsible share boss died in the battle.

Victory deserved celebration, but the danger had not passed. Nobody knew whether Zhu Cailao had follow-up plans waiting in the wings. If so, what scale of attack was coming next? However ruthlessly the Security Group tortured the prisoners, the men knew nothing more. The captured leaders swore and vowed with complete conviction that they knew only the ship-capture plans—nothing else.

"Now everyone's busy again." He Ming produced a pack of cigarettes with a thoughtful expression, raising one to his lips before catching himself. "Sorry—this is an ordnance factory. I'm getting confused." He tapped his forehead in apology.

"No problem—smoke if you want. We're not an explosives plant. Those cannons are just iron lumps. Nothing's going to happen."

"Better not break the rules," He Ming said. "Tomorrow the Committee holds a response meeting. All department heads must attend. Bring several people from the Artillery Group. The current priority is Bopu's fortification and naval armament."

"Cannons are no problem—but the raw material supply is tight," Zhan Wuya said. "Coal is scarce."

(End of Chapter)