After a night of silence, at six o'clock in the morning of December 6, half a red sun had just risen on the sea in the east, and the fleet led by the Pride and followed by the Nicole set sail again from the Zixia Bay pier, and the fleet soon sailed out of the narrow Zixia Bay, and then westward into the Banda Sea, where the navigator on duty on the Nicole once again corrected the bow direction by using the position of the land and the sun, and the fleet began to sail north between the numerous islands of Maguru around the clock.

On December 7, the fleet passed through the northern outlet of the Maguru Islands, a narrow sea between the future famous spice port of Delnate and Menado, a relatively busy shipping route in the South Seas, through which the Portuguese and Dutch often passed.

What the people on board the Nicole, however, didn't know was that almost every one of the captains of these passing ships wrote something like this in their logbook:

We saw a magical pillar of light on the surface of the sea......

The lookout told me that the dragon's glasses appeared on the surface of the sea, brighter than the moon......

With trembling hands, I now write the following: Just now I was met with a miracle......

Apparently, it was due to the fact that the Nicole sailed with two high-powered searchlights on all night......

On the morning of 8 December, the fleet entered the relatively open Celebes Sea, and further north was the Sulu Islands, where the dense island chain blocked the northern exit of the Celebes Sea, and the fleet had to pass through a narrow strait formed by these island chains to enter the Sulu Sea.

In this era, crossing the island chain was a dangerous operation for ordinary merchant ships, not only because of the usual reefs in the island chain, but also because of the frequent presence of pirates.

To this end, Gu Jin issued a full-level alert warning to the fleet in a timely manner. This warning immediately made the group of young crew members excited, especially the crew members who happened to be on the Pride in shifts, of course, including the elderly Hou Xianglin, Li Junming and others, and even Sun Lao, who happened to be in charge of the kitchen of the Pride, also looked out of the porthole from time to time.

December 9 at 7 a.m., Pride.

So far, the flotilla has sailed normally, and now the flotilla has safely passed through the western island chain of the Sulu archipelago and entered the relatively open waters of the southern Sulu Sea.

At this time, a red sun rose over the sea level in the east, and the sun shone through the dark clouds in the sky, shining on the blue and white sails of the Pride, smearing the sails of the Pride with a bright golden color.

Sun Lao was cooking porridge for everyone in the kitchen at this time, and today's breakfast was fried dough sticks, vegetable buns, steamed salted fish and green onion and lean pork porridge.

There were already early risers on the deck washing, Li Sanduo rubbed his eyes, yawned fiercely, followed the footsteps and turned back to nod to Zhu Beiguo, who was on duty in the cockpit, as a greeting.

His night shift was up, and Li Sanduo, who had stayed up in the middle of the night, was ready to go back to the cabin to rest.

Zhu Beiguo skillfully picked up the navigation record book and flipped through it, and Hu Xiaolin, who was also tired next to him, was also handing over the steering wheel to Han Qisheng, who was preparing to take over, so far, everything was very routine.

However, what happened in the next second was not an ordinary thing, when a cry suddenly came from the microphone connected to the lookout:

"Black smoke was spotted in the sea in front of you! Two o'clock! ”

Hearing the shouts of the lookout, Zhu Beiguo and Li Sanduo, who had just walked outside the cockpit door and had not yet gone away, turned around almost at the same time, picked up the telescope and looked to starboard.

Sure enough, about a few kilometers away, a column of smoke was bending and drifting in the wind, and a few black shadows appeared in the sparkling waves, and after readjusting the focus of the telescope, everyone found that there seemed to be a sailboat burning on the sea.

"A Venetian Kirk? No, it's not a typical Mediterranean-style merchant ship, well, it's a North Sea Kirk galleon, how did such a ship come to Southeast Asia......"

With a solid professional foundation, long-term training and his own hard work, Li Sanduo now has a high level of navigation knowledge, and he quickly recognized the type of the ship.

So Li Sanduo hurriedly returned to the cockpit, Zhu Beiguo turned his head and saw Li Sanduo coming in, immediately gave up the command position to him, ran to the front deck himself, and beckoned the sailors on duty and off duty to take their places on the deck, and grabbed the nuclear bomb to strengthen the vigilance---- Zhu Beiguo as the first mate, which is his duty in case of emergency.

"Honk your horn to inform Nicole!"

"Engine Ignition!"

"Retract the fore and aft mainsails!"

"The sailors are in their places!"

Soon, various passwords came from the cockpit and the foredeck, and the originally calm deck was suddenly crowded, and all kinds of shouts rose one after another, accompanied by a roar, and a few puffs of smoke suddenly erupted from the chimney on the rear deck, and I saw the slender hull of the Pride suddenly tremble, and then quickly turned a small bend in the waves, and the bow of the ship faced the rising sun, and went straight to the smoke column in the distance.

A few minutes later, the crew on the Pride deck could see smoke billowing from the stern of the merchant ship in the distance.

"Ten degrees to the port side, a small dhow!"

"Eight pulp dischargers!"

"Brother Li! Ten degrees on the port side! There's another small dhowing there! ”

Almost at the same time, the lookout on the lookout and Zhu Beiguo reported loudly at the same time.

"Brother Zhu! Look! They are under siege! ”

Peng Qiang leaned out from the top deck of the cockpit and shouted to the foredeck, where he was second only to the lookout.

"It's a pirate! Bell!

All staff are on alert!

The first and second decks are all in place!

All gun emplacements are disarmed!

All gunners are in position!

Engine room, both engines fully open!

Observatory! Flag message to the rear Nicole! Please ask for technical information! ”

At this moment, the captain Li Sanduo calmly issued a series of orders while observing in the binoculars.

"It's a fast crab boat! There are so many! ”

Hu Xiaolin in the cockpit also blurted out.

"At present, there are eight that are visible to the naked eye!"

Han Qisheng, the helmsman who took over, also shouted beside him.

The fast crab boat, also known as the centipede boat, is a kind of low-side flat-bottomed, slender hull row-row boat, this kind of ship is mostly active in shallow waters, although its low-side flat-bottomed structure is not suitable for deep-sea navigation, but it is very suitable for offshore transportation.

At the same time, because of the role of the oar, the dependence on sails has been reduced, and the ability of the oars to accelerate in short distances is much stronger than that of sailboats, so this kind of ship has become a favorite of pirates.

Normally, it is quite difficult to get rid of the entanglement of a sailboat once it is encountered by a rowboat at close range, unless your boat can maintain a certain speed and keep a considerable distance until the oarsmen of the rowboat have exhausted their strength, so as to ensure that the opponent cannot reach your sideboard by hitching or jumping, otherwise just wait for hand-to-hand combat.

Normally, once the two sides meet, because the oarsmen and crew of the rowboat are generally much more numerous than the sailboat, so in hand-to-hand combat, the rowboat side is basically the winner.

Of course, the oarrow boat also has weaknesses, due to the large number of people and the bottom of the ship, so this kind of boat is not suitable for offshore activities, so it is not seen in the deep sea.

However, this is the South Sea, a sea area with many islands, and pirates fly between islands in fast crab boats, and with the familiarity of the sea conditions, the speed of the ships is extremely explosive, so this kind of ship is simply suitable for ambushing and robbing passing merchant ships.

And today's weather is very good, the sun is shining, the waves are not rising, the breeze is blowing, it is indeed a good day for robbery.

It seems that this small fleet of sailing ships, one large and one small, accidentally entered the ambush circle of the pirates, and now under the siege of eight fast crab boats, the outcome can be imagined......

Just a few minutes earlier, the Susan, a North Sea Kirk brig from the Hanseatic port of the North Sea, built by the Bremen shipyard, was struggling to sail with the only intact foremast sail on board.

Grinds was the captain of the ship, and although he had a lot of sailing experience and was at the helm himself, no amount of skill could compete with the agility of a small rowboat.

Captain Greens knew that today would probably be the day he would return to God.

Because in this era, there is an unwritten unspoken rule on the sea: if you are a captain who refuses the pirates' order to stop and surrender, and still fires a cannon, if the ship is captured, the other sailors on board may become slaves and live, but the captain who gives the order to resist usually ends in death.

At this moment, in despair, Grimes set fire to the stern building, anyway, he was dead, he was not willing to cheapen this group of hateful pirates like this! He will perish with his ship.