In the middle of the eleventh month of the lunar calendar, heavy snow has begun to fall in Liaodong, and the weather in those inland cities in the Liaohe Plain has also cooled down to about minus ten degrees.

However, in the Taishou Mansion in Liaodong, the fireplace is burning very warm, and today is the day when Mi Zhu invites guests to a banquet.

He invited Li Su, Xu Rong and others, and put on the best Zhongshan winter brew, as well as mountain goods that had just been traded from the Northeast fishing and hunting tribe Fuyu, which were stewed, steamed, roasted and fried.

There are all kinds of mountain mushrooms, as well as bear meat roasted in Changbai Mountain, bear's paw stew, whole sika deer with secret spices in the big copper tripod to make hot pot, and even tiger legs - tigers in this era are not protected.

Before eating and drinking, Mi Zhu also gave Li Su and Xu Rong a cloak made of fine mink selected by the Buyeo people. Li Su is a civil official, as long as he has mink skin, while Xu Rong can also wear bear skin and tiger skin to demonstrate martial arts.

In this pomp, people like Xu Rong from a poor background are embarrassed to eat and drink.

"Come on, Xu Duwei, drink and drink, stay in Luoyang for five years and return to Liaodong, I'm afraid I can't get used to the cold here. This is the most intense Zhongshan winter brew, hot drink to dispel the cold, anyway, in the early winter the border is stable, so why not take turns to rest for a long time. "Mi Zhu, as the host, advises everyone to drink one by one.

Li Su also praised on the side: "This autumn, the grass is high and the horses are fat, and the fur and ginseng are all harvested, and the people of Fuyu are afraid that they will be able to live in peace for a winter this year, so they don't have to worry about the military." If you want me to say, Brother Zizhong is really a genius stroke of the imperial court to do this Liaodong Taishou. In previous years, he served as the Taishou of Liaodong, and it was best not to loot the people's wealth, lightly give the people a rest.

How can it be compared to Brother Zizhong taking the initiative to benefit the people, exploring and expanding the trade of fishing, hunting, and mountain goods with the Buyeo people - the scale of the trade in furs, game, dry goods, medicinal materials, and pearls between the imperial court and Buyeo in the past three years combined is less than this year. ”

This kind of topic Xu Rong is not easy to answer, so he can only smile and compliment on the side, who makes him eloquent.

Mi Zhu waved his hand and said humbly: "Where and where, the previous Taishou must also love the people, they can't expand trade, it's just that Liaodong is also bitter cold, and they can't get enough materials and Buyeoyu." How can I be like me, there are sea ships and goods through the East China Sea and Guangling, and I can get the surplus wealth of the rich land of Jianghuai, and communicate with each other.

Captain Xu, in the future, when you are in charge of Liaodong, you must not only guard against Xianbei and Fuyu, this sea trade route is the key to ensuring that the people of Liaodong have enough food and clothing, and please do it! ”

Xu Rong saw that after chatting for a long time, he finally found his place, and hurriedly got up and said: "For the sake of the villagers, it is incumbent on me to be too conservative but have honorable places." ”

"Eh, don't be restrained, it's not a good drink, just mention it casually, don't talk about it." Mi Zhu is like those big bosses who are comfortable at the wine table, and quickly diverts the topic.

It's a pity that at this time, a caravan steward of the Mi family was introduced into the hall in an embarrassed manner, and he stumbled and was about to tell Mi Zhu about the big thing.

Mi Zhu put on a serious face: "Presumptuous! When is it difficult to report business matters, don't you see me have a distinguished customer here! ”

Xu Rong and Li Su hurriedly humbly: "Eh, it's okay, it's okay, I'm just sitting and drinking, and it's important for the prince to deal with business." ”

Mi Zhu apologized and asked the steward to speak, and the steward hurriedly shouted: "Fujun! Our fleet of ships transporting food for the winter for the hungry people of the Clan has been robbed by the Haikou of Salmon Island! A few boats of grain have been lost, and it will be a cold winter soon, but the people who are building the port and building the city will not be starved, so I beg the prince to find another way to raise food urgently. ”

"This ...... How can this be good, alas, it is really difficult to do something to save the people. That's it, let's get some money and buy a few boatloads of grain. Mi Zhu looked helpless and felt sorry for herself.

Although Mi Zhu didn't complain about others, Xu Rong obviously couldn't sit still - the food that was too guarded to save the people was robbed by pirates, can your lieutenant in charge of the military not express it?

Xu Rong hurriedly knelt down on one knee and arched his hand: "Fu Jun, this matter is Rong's lack of defense, Rong will definitely organize the army on the same day and exterminate the Haikou." ”

Li Su was beside him, squeezing in the fair tone of a third party: "Xu Duwei can know naval warfare? ”

Xu Rong was speechless for a while: "This ...... In any case, the honor and responsibility are unshirkable. ”

Li Suzuo calmly persuaded: "There is a specialization in the art industry, Xu Duwei is skilled in bows and horses, and he can fight well, we all know it." But the matter of naval warfare should still be left to the locals. Xu Duwei, I remember that in the old department under the account of the king, there was a military marquis named Tai Shici, who was a person from Donglai.

He crossed the sea to Liaodong, and before that, he led the old department of Xuande Gong to Qingzhou to suppress the Yellow Turban, and was extremely familiar with the waterway from Liaodong to Donglai, and he himself was proficient in water and knew how to operate a boat. Sun Ziyun will be able to win the one who is not the king. ”

In such a situation, Xu Rong was not easy to refuse, he was just a little worried: "Tai Shici is just a Qu military marquis, I am afraid that he has never led a large army, and he has no experience in commanding thousands of troops." ”

Li Su had already set up a set, and said calmly at the moment: "As far as I know, Shamen Island is in charge, and there are only 3,000 outlaws under his command. Defeat Guan Cheng, and let Ziyi bring a thousand soldiers and horses to cooperate with excellent sea ships to engage the enemy in battle. Xu Duwei was not at ease, so he could lead another 2,000 reinforcements to garrison the Clan, in case of support at any time. ”

Xu Rong couldn't help but wonder, and there was a sense of awe in his tone: "Then Tai Shi Ci has such the ability to lead troops?" A thousand sailors with a good ship can defeat three thousand outlaw pirates? But even if it can't be defeated at sea, the rest of Guan Cheng's troops will return to the island, and they will not have to land on land, and Tai Shici will probably be defeated at that time. ”

Li Su smiled: "Captain Xu doesn't know the hardships of sailing on the sea and stationing on the island. In a land battle, it is difficult for Ziyi to defeat Guan Cheng with a large number of enemies, but as long as the ship is good and the troops are divided to surround the island and cut off its supplies, within half a month, Guan Cheng will definitely be forced to go to the sea for a decisive battle. ”

Xu Rong humbly asked, "Could it be that it is not easy to store grain on the island?" Or do the thieves have no foresight and need to plunder supplies frequently? ”

Li Su: "Of course, grain can be stored for a long time, but fresh water will not. In the Salmon Islands, there are scattered islanders everywhere in order to make it easier to fish for a living and make up for the lack of supplies. However, there are no lakes and ponds on the island, and only the main island of Shamen has a slight pond. Therefore, the islanders have to go to the nearby main island to irrigate water every day, or some islands are closer to the mainland, so they go to Donglai to find a river spring to get water.

As long as the Ziyi soldiers are quick and cut off the communication between the islands of the Salmon Islands, Half Moon can die of thirst for the pirates on other small islands except the main island. ”

Xu Rong listened to it, and then he was completely relieved.

He lived inland for many years and did not know how much navigation was, and for a while he really did not think about how deadly the problem of water shortage at sea and on desert islands on the beach was.

If you don't have food, you can still last for a while, and if you don't have water to drink, it's terrible.

And now it's autumn and winter, the typhoon season has long passed, and the good days of frequent rainfall have long passed. If it was that time in the eighth month of the lunar calendar, Li Su would not dare to let Tai Shici use this trick to destroy the thief.

It can be regarded as Guan Cheng's fate, when the typhoon season was wet and rainy, Liu Bei went to fight Zhang Rao and Guan Hai, and he didn't understand the truth that his lips were dead and his teeth were cold.

Now that it is raining less, Li Su still doesn't let him go.

Only then did Xu Rong take out the soldier's talisman token, and authorized Tai Shici to officially lead a thousand soldiers and horses to attack.

Xu Rong's order will also be submitted to the imperial court as evidence in the future, so that the imperial court will regard Tai Shi Ci as Xu Rong's person, rather than "Liu Bei's remnants", and will be more at ease with Tai Shi Ci, feeling that "Liu Bei has finally completely handed over his influence in Liaodong".

……

Early morning of November 20, Bohai Haikou, Shamen Island.

Guan Cheng was about to get up, and his slave girl had just helped him cook sea fish and kelp porridge for breakfast, when a small leader under his command rushed in to report the bad news:

"Woe to you! Qu Shuai, there are warships of the Youzhou Army, scattered and surrounded several of our islands, cutting off the surrounding waterways, and the number of people on each boat does not look large, what should I do? ”

"What?" Guan Cheng grabbed the horse boy by the collar and lifted the man up,

"Be clear! Let's not violate the river water with the Youzhou military well water, how dare Liu Bei suddenly call over? Didn't you hear that he killed Wusu before, and he was reprimanded by the imperial court and retired? Didn't I say that last time I sent Zang Ba to find out the news! ”

It was actually attacked!

The scouts didn't know anything, and they were all out of breath before they were put down.

Guan Cheng was like an angry leopard, patting the table hatefully: "Liu Bei, this guy!" I don't offend him, even Guan Hai gave up, and he even took the initiative to kill me! I am not afraid of the shame of the same people in the rivers and lakes! ”

But he couldn't help it, so he had to let people investigate slowly.

The best way to probe is to send a little force to make tentative contact, and shout and scold the opponent's division before the battle.

But the people sent out by Guan Cheng to the beach to line up and call for battle were killed by Tai Shi Ci very shamelessly shot a lot of crossbow arrows, and Tai Shi Ci scolded the scolding array on the one hand, and it seemed that the morale was very high.

Through the Han army's counter-scolding, Guan Cheng learned that the other party was "famous", under the pretext that the sea grain ship of the Youzhou Army was robbed by the Shamen pirates!

"Who robbed it? How did I not know? , if I find out who provoked Liu Bei behind my back, I will cut off his head and send him to Liu Bei! Hearing this news, Guan Cheng was simply depressed.

He knows too well that Liu Bei is not easy to mess with, and the Mi Zhu who gave Liu Bei Yun logistics is also not easy to mess with, so he has been very restrained recently, and the persimmon only picks the soft pinch.

How would he know that in fact, no one hijacked Mi Zhu's ship at all, so Mi Zhu's framing and sneak attack could come so suddenly-if it was really in charge of the robbery, Guan Cheng would have been afraid of retaliation a long time ago, and would take precautions in advance, such as concentrating all the troops scattered on the surrounding islands on the main island, and making fresh water reserves on the island in advance.

Where is it as passive as it is now.

As for standing in Li Su's position, he never felt that there was anything wrong with it.

The other party is a pirate, what is there to talk about the righteousness of the rivers and lakes with the pirates?

Is there a small number of group fights after a decent family made an appointment with a demon sect demon to fight alone, and actually deceived the other party out? Soldiers don't get tired of cheating.

The officers and soldiers surrounded the island for less than ten days, and one after another, the pirates from the nearby islands could not hold back, because of the fear of lack of fresh water, and the fear of being broken by the officers and soldiers, so they wanted to smuggle to the main island of Shamen at night to meet Guan Cheng.

Of course, there were those who managed to escape, but many more were intercepted by patrolling boats on the way.

The pirates were all outlaws, but because of their poverty, they used small boats without cabins, and even some sails with masts and straw mats were similar to the shape of Viking longships.

Also because of poverty, their long-range weapons are mainly bows and arrows, and even crossbows are relatively rare.

This kind of cargo is against Tai Shici's big ships with shipyards and battlements and perforations, and the proportion of officers and soldiers with crossbows is higher, so they don't have to fight at all.

Even if there are three times the number of small boats, as long as there is no speed advantage to go up to meet the gunwales and rush to kill, it is equivalent to giving it for nothing. Condescendingly, the rain of arrows washed away in waves.

After losing several brothers on the island in a row, Guan Cheng finally couldn't sit still, he knew that his only chance was to be reckless, and it was best to take advantage of the night to make a big move, and take advantage of the terrain to attack and fight a wave.

One day at the end of November, he gathered more than 1,000 pirate outlaws that he could directly control at hand, and took advantage of the cover of night to take a small boat to the anchorage of the official ship.

At the end of the lunar month, it was a moonless night, and his vision on the sea was poor, so he kept close until he was more than a hundred steps away from the enemy ship before he was discovered, and then swarmed up.

Because the officers and troops wanted to encircle the island, the fleet was scattered in several directions of Salmon Island, and there were only three or five ships and two or three hundred soldiers in each direction.

And Guan Cheng had also observed it before the war, and he knew the simple truth of capturing the thief and capturing the king first, so tonight he chose the detachment where Tai Shici's flagship was located, and he wanted to finish the battle.

Unfortunately, as soon as the battle began, the ships of the officers and soldiers raised fires, lit many torches, and lit a large bonfire to warn them in a stone torch at the top of the shipbuilding (made of stone to prevent the ship from being burned).

Naturally, the official and military warships from several other directions also received the news, and they could arrive in a quarter of an hour to most of the hour.

"Brothers, kill! Fight quickly, and it will be too late for the main forces of the official army to arrive! Guan Cheng also knew that time was running out, and personally motivated morale, put on armor and jumped to the gang.

Unable to use siege ladders at sea, the pirates threw hooks tied with hemp rope to the big ship, and then climbed up the side of the ship by pulling the hemp rope by hand.

Officers and soldiers did not hesitate to take advantage of the two-meter height difference as much as possible, or smashed heavy objects down, or fired crossbow arrows, or slashed hemp rope with ring-headed knives.

The pirates were killed by swords and arrows, or simply fell into the sea with their ropes cut off, screaming and screaming.

Guan Cheng's own martial arts are quite strong, and the two-meter-high side of the ship does not need to scratch the hook, but directly runs and jumps, and climbs the side of the big ship with both hands, and then rolls over like a parkour player, and then takes off the knife in his mouth, and slashes again and again, there are five or six Han crossbowmen, sword and shield soldiers who are guarding this side of the ship, and Guan Cheng is killed, and the starboard side of Tai Shici's flagship is immediately torn open, and more pirates climb up.

However, Tai Shici, who was sitting in the shipbuilding, did not panic, and he immediately decided to use a torch signal to let all the sailors on the flagship deck hide back in the shipbuilding, concentrate on the stern ship, and give up the main deck to the enemy.

At the same time, the torch signal was used to notify the nearby friendly warships to fire arrows at the flagship with all their might.

The biggest disadvantage of the defender's bow and crossbow in water warfare is that after being forced to a very close distance, it is easy to produce shooting blind spots, unlike in real city defense battles, where there are arrow towers protruding from the city wall to shoot the enemy soldiers attached to the city from the side.

In order to solve this problem, the warships such as the Galen type ships in the later Western sea ships had an ingenious design, that is, the width of the stern building was wider than the hull, and there was a section of width extending out on both sides that was volleyed.

In that case, the crossbowmen located in the stern of the volley widening section can create a side-shot wall effect similar to the protrusion of the arrow tower on the city wall, and clean up dead corners.

It's a pity that Mi Zhu's ship obviously doesn't have such a tall design now, but it doesn't matter, Tai Shi Ci knows how to be flexible - having friendly ships cover the flagship's side and deck is enough for pirates to drink a pot.

Guan Cheng was quite excited at first when he saw that after his side seized the deck, all the officers and soldiers retreated to the stern building. But the officers and soldiers held the stairs of the tail tower, and he could not rush up for a while to end the battle.

It didn't take long for the Han warships to start "firing at me" and shooting at each other's dead ends!

The pirates who were climbing the side and standing on the bare deck, the rate of casualties suddenly increased.

"Oh no, I've been tricked!" Guan Cheng complained bitterly in his heart, but he had no choice but to let everyone rush to the stern of the flagship, just to kill Tai Shici and let the Han army mess up.

Guan Cheng picked up another ring head knife of a brother who had died in battle, and slashed forward with both knives in both hands, slashing to death one after another the Han soldiers who were guarding the stairs of the stern building.

The Han soldiers guarding the stairs were originally stabbed with spears and barrels in formation, which was convenient to reach far, but the tube bearing force was large, and after he flashed the spears that stabbed at him, he actually gave up the ring head knife in his left hand and held the three spears with his armpit to prevent the Han soldiers from pulling back. Rush in and slash and slash.

However, there was a "buzz" sound, mixed with the tremor of the tail feathers of the arrow, and a feathered arrow shot trickily on the armpit of the spear shaft of Guan Cheng, and Guan Cheng had to let go of the pain and rolled back again and again to avoid the killing move.

When he stood firm again, he noticed a strong wind above his head and in front of him.

There were Han soldiers with spears and condescending down the stairs, and above him, a Han army general jumped down with a spear.

Guan Cheng was already injured, and his attention was attracted by the enemy soldiers in front of him, and he was suddenly stabbed by a spear that fell from a height of two meters and carried the weight inertia of a full-body armored general.

Rao is Guan Cheng subconsciously blocked with the ring head knife at the last moment, but unfortunately the strength was not enough at all, Tai Shici's spear stabbed in his shoulder, poked out of the back waist, and directly nailed Guan Cheng to the deck, and the strength was so great that the spear shaft was broken.

Fortunately, Tai Shi Ci immediately drew his saber and jumped away.

"Drain...... Qu Shuai was killed by the official army! ”

"Run!"

The pirates didn't last long, but they were struck by the double bad news of the death of the commander and the long-term attack on the towers of the ships, and they were unwilling to be sent to death on the deck and side of the ship like headless flies, so they jumped into the sea to find the boats and fled back.

Tai Shici smiled smugly at the corner of his mouth: "Tomorrow will give an order, and those who descend will not be killed." Even if the original crime is extremely heinous, the government can also open the net and organize it into a punishment camp to go to the land of Baekje south of the Han River to reclaim the land and fend for themselves! ”