The captured pirates were interrogated by the security team, and it didn't take long for them to confess everything. Surprisingly, they are not subordinates of the famous Liu Xiang, but belong to the old people. The area of activity of Zhu Zhu Lao was in the Guangdong Ocean, and this group was not as famous as the Zheng family, Liu Xiang, Li Kuiqi, and Zhong Lingxiu among the maritime heroes at that time, but it started much earlier than Zheng Zhilong. In the forty-eighth year of Wanli, when Zheng Zhilong was still under Yan Siqi, Zhu Zhilao already had two fleets in the north and south, and attacked Jieyang three times in February, April and July of this year, and attacked Chenghai in September. In the first year of the Apocalypse, it attacked Jieyang again, and it was a very active maritime group during the Apocalypse.

From the captives, the traversers learned about the organization of these maritime groups on the southeast coast, which were also merchants and thieves. Although they have a unified organization and leader, in actual activities are basically carried out by "shares", as the upper level and the middle level between each individual ship, the leader of the "shares" "treasurer" plays an important role in the command link, and the captain of each ship is appointed by him, conveys the instructions of the gang leader to the ship boss and is responsible for the behavior of his subordinates. The number of ships in each unit is different, ranging from as few as 2~3 ships to as many as 40 ships in a large group. According to their intimate relationship with the gang leader, the responsibilities and obligations of the units and the gang leader are not consistent, and the units that are not the direct descendants of the gang leader are free to move freely, but must obey the rules of the group and pay a certain percentage of the profits to the gang leader, whether from plunder or trade activities. Once the gang leader summons all units to gather for action, all units must participate unconditionally. (Note: Due to limited conditions, it is not possible to find out the organizational form of the various maritime groups in the Ming Dynasty, which was organized by the Guangdong pirates in the early 19th century.) ）

These three ships belong to a "shopkeeper" under Zhu Lao, and this shopkeeper is the core member of Zhu Lao's group. The purpose of their being sent to Lingao has a great relationship with the Gou family.

The Gou family, who was killed by the traversers, was the owner of the old group, and many of the stolen goods of the old group were transported to Lingao for temporary storage, and then sold in batches to the border of Guangdong through the Gou family's line in Qiongshan.

The demise of the Gou family took about half a month before it reached the ears of Zhu Lao, and Gou Er of Lingao County disappeared from the county town the day after Gou Jiazhuang was destroyed, and he didn't even report to Zhu Zhu Lao -- Gou Er's mind was clear: How could this kind of big sea coward be a person who was willing to suffer. If you report it yourself, you will definitely not be able to pass the test if you don't pay a big amount of bloodletting, and if you don't do it, you will go bankrupt. This is still the second time, Zhu Lao will retaliate against Shorthair if he loses something, as a native of Lingao, doesn't he have to be a pioneer? He can't afford to provoke any of these two, so he simply hides them and doesn't mix them for the time being. As for avenging the eldest brother, when the old man gets the news, he will naturally go to the trouble of the short hair, and it is always more certain to pretend to be a big pirate than a bully like himself who has lost his power.

In this way, the old man was completely kept in the dark, until the people who were sent to contact him not long ago found that Gou Jiazhuang had become a ruin, and a new fortress had been built on the ruins, only to know that the Gou family was finished, and sent people to the county seat to find Gou Er, but there was no trace. In the subsequent inquiry, they also learned roughly what happened.

The Wojia was destroyed and the stolen goods were finished, this news was a blow to the elders. He got the news that Zheng Zhilong, who had just been appeased by the imperial court, was about to attack him, and it was just when he needed to build a ship and recruit troops to prepare for war, but he was hit so hard that his years of accumulation were ruined, not only losing money, but also seriously shaking the confidence of his subordinates - the pirate group is a community of interests, and when the resources of the big boss are destroyed and the interests of everyone cannot be guaranteed, the members of all walks of life will naturally become active. People from all walks of life who were originally eyeing him also took the opportunity to win over the "shopkeepers" under him. For a time, his subordinates did not say goodbye, and there were dozens of ships that could not be recruited, and there were hundreds of ships.

The traverser himself did not expect that it was purely to "improve food" and kill the Gou family, but it set off a chain reaction on the southeast coast. And the biggest beneficiary is actually the Zheng Family Group, which they have always regarded as the biggest enemy in the future. Anxious and furious, the elders immediately sent a number of ships to Gao to inquire about the news - who was so bold to break ground on Tai Sui's head.

Soon, the condition of Shorthair reached his ears one after another. He'd heard about the gang for a long time -- the strange big iron boat was an anecdote that had been often mentioned by the fishermen of Guangdong in recent months. In his letter, Gou Da mentioned these strange short-haired men - claiming to be Australian maritime merchants. He also knew that the firearms of the shorthairs were very powerful, and the Xiangyong of Lingao was all defeated by them.

The elders had been concerned about the presence of these "Australian pirates" - in this era when maritime merchants and pirates were one thing - in his Shili range, but this group had been hiding there since they landed in Lingao, that is, they had no intention of carrying out trade, and they did not send people to loot and plunder. In Lingao, it is also an ambiguous existence with the attitude of "don't offend me, I don't offend others". He has the Zheng family to deal with, so he has always had a tacit attitude towards the existence of shorthair.

Zhu Lao now has two choices, one is to immediately mobilize his men and horses to crusade against Shorthair, regain the lost money and materials, and regain his prestige. If it had been in the past, he would have done it without hesitation. But now Zheng Zhilong is eyeing him, and short hair is not a good type, in case of a lose-lose situation, it will let Zheng Zhilong take advantage. The second is to ignore it, first concentrate on preparing for the battle and deal with Zheng Zhilong. The problem was that he had lost a large amount of materials accumulated in the Gou family, and he could not raise so many goods for a while.

While hesitating, the scouts reported back that Shorthair had some flying clippers. This type of ship is comparable in size to the large Canton ship. It was faster than any ship they had ever seen, including the various Western sailing ships that were floating in the nearby oceans. The clipper ship has no sails and does not need to worry about being burned by the enemy in naval battles. With such a ship, his fleet has a great upper hand at sea.

In this way, Zhu Lao made up his mind to attack the shorthair. To this end, he sent a number of spies to Lingao to investigate, and learned from the fishermen in Lingao that the other party had seized the fishing grounds, and those clippers circled the bay every day to check for illegal fishing. The elders learned the following from the spies:

1. The short-haired birds are the sharpest, with a long range, great lethality, and can fire in bursts.

2. Compared to their sharp birds, the shorthairs have no cannons. Even those clippers were equipped with big, strangely shaped crossbows.

3. There are four clippers in total, and only one of them patrols the fishing grounds in normal times, and the other boats are hiding in the bay, and it seems that they are also precious to these boats. The gigantic iron ship remained moored all along.

4. There are not many short-haired people, and the spies estimate that there are about a thousand people. There are two types, real and fake, but they can't tell exactly how many they are. They are divided into two parts, one part in Bairentan and one part in Bopu Port. There were fortifications in both places, and there were fewer people in Bopu, and the defenses were weaker. In addition, the former Goujiazhuang and a place called Yanchang Village are also within their shili range.

Zhu Lao had never read a book of war, nor did he understand anything like strategy and tactics, but he was wise enough to judge which way to get the most bang for his buck - he was essentially a businessman, and he knew the truth that he would get the best value for money.

After all the judgments, the elders made a wise decision: not to launch an all-out war against the Shorthair, the scale of the battle was limited to capturing the Shorthair's "clippers" to increase the combat effectiveness of their fleet, and if possible, to capture some of their birds.

Although the shorthairs are very powerful, they do not have enough manpower and lack cannons. These two points happen to be very sufficient. After consulting with his main leaders, he sent his right-hand men on a mission to capture the ship.

The strategy was clever enough, and under the long-term observation of the fishermen who acted as spies, they discovered the pattern of activities and actions of the traversers, and took targeted measures: using private fishing to lure the "clippers" to take the initiative to check them, and then using artillery and white-knuckle combat to clean up the "short hairs" on the ship, for which all the cannons were loaded with shotguns, so as not to cause damage to the "clippers" because the projectiles were too large. There were even two kinds of ropes on board, one thick one for towing the "clipper" and the other thin one for tying the captured shorthairs - the bosses had an order: the captured shorthairs should be treated preferentially, after all, only they knew how to use the clippers and the birds.

All this Jihua is in good order, and if it is replaced by any of the ships, the old Jihua will succeed. Fortunately, the technological level of the fishing boat that was too far beyond this era and the sense of combat organization formed by the traverser over the past few months destroyed this perfect jihua, and the head of the stock in charge also died in the battle.

Although the victory is worth celebrating, the hidden danger still exists - no one knows whether there will be a follow-up to Zhu Zhu Lao. If so, how much of a battle he is ready to wag. No matter how much the security team tortured these people, they couldn't say why. The leader who was captured alive swore and cursed and said that he knew Jihua who seized the ship, and he didn't know anything else.

"In this way, everyone has to be busy again." He Ming thoughtfully took out his cigarette, and was about to point it, but paused again, "I'm sorry, this is an arsenal, I'm so confused." He patted his head.

"It's okay, you've smoked it, we're not a zha pharmaceutical factory, those cannons are just iron lumps, and nothing can happen."

"Don't break the rules." He Ming said, "Tomorrow the Executive Committee will hold a response meeting, and the leaders of all professional groups will participate. Let's go to your artillery group with a few more people. Recently, the focus has been on the fortification of Bopu and the arming of naval vessels. ”

"It's not a big problem, it's just that the supply of raw materials is relatively scarce," Mr. Zhan said, "and there is a shortage of coal." ”