Chapter 133: The Sino-Western Joint Pirate Fleet
“What’s so strange about it?” Wu De was puzzled.
“To transport people here specifically to die is indeed strange,” a voice came from the front.
Wu De was gnawing on a crab when he found a pair of feet in front of him. He looked up and saw a pale, fat man standing there, holding an empty lunch box in his left hand and an extra-large stainless steel spoon in his right, his eyes fixed on the crabs on the grill.
“It smells so good!!!!!” Seeing him look up, the fat man blurted out.
“What? Want some?” Although he didn’t know who the visitor was, as a fellow transmigrator, he was a brother.
“Yes, yes!!!” The fat man was not polite either. He sat down with a plop and held out his lunch box.
He gave the fat man half a crab. The fat man took the lunch box and, without saying a word, buried his head in it and worked hard.
“You’re here to join the fun too?” Ma Qianzhu seemed to know the visitor. “Zhu Cailao is really ungrateful.”
The fat man chuckled and licked his lips, “Dugong, you already said it’s strange, and you’re still using this to cover for me. That’s too formal.”
“But this time we did capture a lot of Zhu Cailao’s things, so it’s a bit strange.”
“The same old trick. Fang Yi and the little princess took Wu Sangui’s swords to break into the palace.”
“I thought so too,” Ma Qianzhu took out an interrogation record from his bag. “Most of these prisoners were temporarily recruited and are not seasoned bandits. Zhu Cailao has suffered a loss and knows our strength to some extent. If he really wanted to attack, he would definitely not use these rookie cannon fodder.”
“Pirates are not the official army. They don’t have the habit of carving their names on their weapons,” the fat man said.
“Someone is trying to sow discord,” Wu De said.
“That’s right,” the fat man continued to gnaw on the crab. “Who wants to sow discord between the Transmigrator Group and Zhu Cailao? Both Liu Xiang and Zheng Yiguan are possible. If Zhu Cailao and the Transmigrator Group fight a major battle, they will be the beneficiaries.”
“Then who could it be?” Ma Qianzhu seemed to have great faith in this fat man.
“How would I know?” The fat man spread his hands. “If you ask me, it’s Liu Xiang.”
“Why?”
“I’m guessing.”
Ma Qianzhu almost fainted. The fat man chuckled a few more times, swallowed an oyster, and after a few smacks of his lips, he continued:
“Actually, it doesn’t matter which one it is. I guess the real attack will come soon.”
Ma Qianzhu was startled. The enemy would not simply send 400 men to their deaths just to send such a false message to them. There must be a follow-up. Thinking of the fleet on the radar just now, he immediately reached for his mobile phone.
Before he could reach his phone, a crisp gunshot rang out in the night sky.
Ma Qianzhu and Wu De stood up abruptly, nervously watching the direction of the gunshot.
“Hey, what’s your name?” Wu De turned his head and asked. He was very curious about the visitor.
“Si… Si Lou Moningbai’er,” the fat man said, gnawing on a small half of a crab, his words slurred.
“Si Lou Moningbai’er? I don’t think I’ve seen this person before?” He was confused for a moment.
Then he thought again and suddenly realized, “Oh, so you’re the famous… I’ve long admired you…”
“Don’t admire me for long, it’s just a reputation,” the fat man sighed hypocritically. He quickly grabbed another oyster, rolled it up with his giant tongue, and swallowed it. Only then did he slowly stand up, pat his stomach, and say, “Thank you for your hospitality. You’re busy, I won’t disturb you.”
“Then… I won’t see you out.” Wu De was indeed not in the mood to be polite right now. He hurried to his room to get his Type 56 semi-automatic.
The fat man tapped his lunch box, humming a distorted song, “Old bear is lucky today, old wolf is treating him to chicken…” and walked away.
SHIT, Xue Ziliang couldn’t help but curse in English. In the strange white night of the infrared binoculars, six ships were clearly visible. One of them was obviously not a Chinese ship type.
A few hours ago, he had received a call from Bei Wei, asking him to lead a reconnaissance team on a foot patrol along the coast of Bopu Port. According to intelligence, there might be an enemy conducting a night sea infiltration.
Xue Ziliang did not dare to be negligent, especially with a direct order from Bei Wei—he knew very well that if he hadn’t gained Bei Wei’s favor, he would still be a “person without an establishment,” a “black person.” After being in this group for a long time, he had a deep understanding of the difference between “official workers” and “temporary workers.” Since he was now an official worker, he had to work hard. Xue Ziliang now also understood what was meant by “origin problem.”
The headquarters of the long-range reconnaissance team—now every department was trying to raise its level, just as the health group had recently changed its wooden sign to the Ministry of Health, the reconnaissance team was no exception—was located in Bairen City, but Bei Wei had stationed a four-man team in Bopu, Damei Village, and Yanchang Village, conducting daily patrols and training on the one hand, while he and Xue Ziliang took turns to guide each team.
In this four-man team, besides Xue Ziliang, no one had military experience—in fact, Bei Wei believed that veterans were too old, and if they were not in the reconnaissance profession, their plasticity was very poor. He preferred to select volunteers from among the young men in their twenties. After a few months of training, although these young men were not yet up to the standard of reconnaissance soldiers, they were much better than the rookies from the new recruit company in another time and space.
They brought a total of three SKS rifles. Xue Ziliang carried a Remington 870 shotgun. He felt that the SKS was a bit too long and was a bit of a stretch for a reconnaissance soldier. As a former US Marine, what he felt most pained about now was the lack of weapons and equipment. There were a lot of them, but almost all of them were unfamiliar equipment. Besides the Glock pistol and the Remington shotgun, the most common infantry weapons owned by the transmigrators, the SKS and the Type 56 semi-automatic, were all unfamiliar to him—even an AK-47 would have been fine, he was quite used to that.
Take this night vision equipment, for example. When he was in the US Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance, this was a very small thing. Even the night vision equipment in his garage at home was much better than here. Now, the whole team only had one pair of low-light night vision goggles and a Russian-made infrared telescope—he was not used to Russian goods. But this was already considered a very good configuration. Although they had brought a lot of night vision equipment, there was no way to replenish it, and it couldn’t be repaired if it broke. The Planning Committee controlled it very strictly.
Searching along the coast was a tiring method, but it was also the most effective. The sky was covered with dark clouds, with no moonlight or starlight. The dividing line between the water and the sky was almost invisible. Although the radar had given a rough coordinate of the ships, he had to stop every kilometer to search the sea surface with his binoculars.
After trekking along the coast for two hours, the search team had reached the end of Longhao Bay. If the coordinates were correct, the fleet should be nearby. When he searched again with his binoculars, he indeed found the shadow of the ships on the other side of the strait.
They were really good at hiding, he thought, unconsciously chewing, only to realize he had no chewing gum. These 6 ships were hiding in the shadow of the coastal reefs. On such a starless and moonless night, if it weren’t for the radar on the Fengcheng Maru, it would be impossible for the observation post to see them with the naked eye, let alone locate them.
The ships were moving extremely slowly. Xue Ziliang looked at his watch and began to calculate their speed—less than 2 knots. The sails of the foreign ship were obviously not fully hoisted, which was suspicious.
“Brother Xue, is there anything fishy here?” a team member asked in a low voice. Xue Ziliang was straightforward and capable, and was well-liked by the young men in the team. Although he had repeatedly said that it was fine to call him “Winnie,” everyone still liked to use the Chinese-style “Brother X” to address him.
“It would be strange if there wasn’t,” Xue Ziliang muttered. He called the Bopu radio station and began to report:
“Six unidentified ships have been found. Preliminary judgment from the ship types is that five smaller ones are Chinese ships, and one is a Western warship, three-masted, with a displacement of 400 tons. The Chinese warships have no broadside gun ports, and have 4-6 cannons on the bow and deck. The Western warship has 12-16 gun positions on the open deck.”
“There’s a sampan!” Xue Ziliang’s binoculars spotted a small boat.
There were eight people in the small sampan. Through the binoculars, it could be seen that they were carrying swords and matchlock guns. One person was steering, four were rowing, and two had set up the fork rests for their matchlock guns at the bow—that was really primitive, Xue Ziliang thought.
The last person was holding a roll of something. The small boat moved forward cautiously, rowing only once every long while. Now he could see clearly that the sailor holding a roll of something was actually carrying a lead line, and he was constantly measuring the water depth near the shore. This meant that the enemy planned to bring the fleet close enough to support the landing with artillery fire. If they were only using sampans to transport troops, there would be no need to measure the water depth.
From the track of the small boat, the pirates obviously intended to land from the side of Lingao Cape. This was not the entrance to Bopu’s channel, so the defense would not be too tight. As for that obstructive beacon tower, the pirates obviously did not take it seriously, let alone know that there was a 12-pounder cannon on it.
On a night with a gentle breeze, it was extremely quiet all around. Only the waves lapped against the shore, making a “hua hua” sound.
A ghostly sailing ship slowly approached on the sea—it was a Spanish galleon named the “Countess of Scarborough.” Behind it followed five smaller Chinese junk-rigged ships.
The moon emerged from the clouds, and the moonlight was faint.
“This damn moon!” complained the Spanish captain, Aragones, standing on the sterncastle. He had been slowly cruising on the other side of the strait for half the night, and only approached the centerline of the strait near midnight. The moonlight would expose the ship’s shadow. According to rumors, those strange Orientals had many strange muskets that could shoot very far, and Sidonia did not want to take the risk.
“Are those Orientals all asleep?” Aragones muttered to himself. The port in his binoculars was still very calm, with no abnormalities other than a few lights.
“Captain, Captain Liu from the rear is signaling to our ship, asking if we should start the attack?”
“Understood,” Aragones said with a faint, contemptuous smile. These stupid Orientals only knew how to fight on land. They didn’t deserve to be called sailors. At sea, he was confident that he could take care of all of Liu Xiang’s warships with just the “Countess of Scarborough” alone. If it weren’t for the decline of Spanish power on the coast of China after the arrival of the Dutch, why would he cooperate with a second-rate pirate like Liu Xiang?
He watched the small boat with his binoculars. So far, it had not given any signal that the water was not deep enough. In a while, he could sail the ship close to the shore with confidence and support the landing pirates with dense artillery fire. No matter how powerful the legendary strange muskets were, they would be no match for a salvo from 16 cannons. The “Countess of Scarborough” had a total of 32 cannons. Even in European waters, this was a considerable armament.