Now there should be no one on the ship who knows more about pirates than Ma Zheng, because he personally participated in an operation to encircle and suppress pirates a few years ago.

A few years ago, when Zong Ze first arrived in Dengzhou Renzhizhou, Dengzhou Port was a large commercial port, and the maritime trade was very prosperous, and at the same time, it was inevitable that there were many pirates in the waters around Dengzhou Port.

These pirates were divided into many large and small gangs, endangering the merchant ships entering and leaving the port, and some of them were quite moral, only robbing money and not killing people, and letting people go after robbing merchant ships.

But there are also pirates who don't have any morality at all, and they will not only rob them. The robbed merchant ships are ransacked, and the men on the merchant ships will be killed and thrown into the sea, and the women will be plundered and raped. Lewd. Abuse, madness, all evil, and discoloration!

And the reason why these pirates have not been exterminated is that in addition to the fact that they are very cunning and not easy to catch, it is also because of the inaction of the previous local officials in Dengzhou, and even the officials of Dengzhou and the officers in the Dengzhou Navy Division secretly colluded with the pirates to provide a protective umbrella and ventilation for the pirates after collecting the pirate's benefit fee.

After Zong Ze arrived, he took the extermination of pirates as his major task, he first spent half a year to clear the scum in the government and the Dengzhou Naval Division, and then used up to two years to command the Dengzhou Naval Division to carry out a thorough blow to the pirates near Dengzhou Port, and basically swept away the large and small pirates near Dengzhou Port. This is also the main reason why the Heavenly Dao Army did not find a large number of pirates in the sea area after occupying Dengzhou.

And Ma Zheng, as Zong Ze's right-hand man, also personally participated in the whole process of exterminating pirates, and knew the rules of various different types of pirates very well.

Therefore, what he is most worried about now is whether these pirates surrounding his merchant ships are the kind of immoral pirates! If that's the case, it's bad...... Ma Zheng is going to Liaodong in the name of the caravan, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, the scale of the caravan is naturally not too big, so he carefully selected seventy martial arts masters in the army, with the protection of these seventy professional soldiers, compared to the ordinary caravan is already very good. But what is unexpected is that they just left Dengzhou Port when they encountered such a group of pirates of unknown origin. There is only one ordinary merchant ship on their side, and even if you add all the servants on board, there are only a hundred people. But these pirates have one medium-sized warship and six assault warships, and from the capacity of these ships, the other party has four or five hundred people, let alone four or five hundred, and the disparity in strength can be seen!

However, Ma Zheng is worthy of being a soldier who can be extremely valued by Zong Ze, he quickly calmed himself down after a short panic, he first ordered everyone on the ship to take out their weapons and prepare for a bloody battle, which was out of the worst plan. Immediately afterwards, he asked him to return to the cabin and divide the belongings into two parts, one part was hidden, and the other part was intended to be used as a way to buy money for pirates, most of whom were just for money, if they could break the fortune and avoid disaster! In the end, he said to Zhang Wang, "Go and call Xu Laosi up!" ”

Xu Laosi was originally the leader of a pirate gang in Dengzhou Port, with seven or eight search ships and more than 200 subordinates, who were quite moral in the waters of Dengzhou, basically only seeking money and rarely doing anything to kill them all, and it is precisely because of this that Zong Ze first designed to trap him in the operation to exterminate pirates, and then forced him to land, with the help of him in the process of exterminating pirates, he saved a lot of trouble, and later he was accepted by Zong Ze and became a member of Zong Ze's generals. This time, when Ma Zheng was selecting people before departure, Zong Ze deliberately asked Ma Zheng to bring him and use his prestige at sea to prevent accidents. It's just that Ma Zheng was not very happy at the beginning, because his cousin died at the hands of Xu Laosi, who had not surrendered at that time, and Xu Laosi also knew what Ma Zheng thought of him, so he stayed in his room and rarely came out.

Now in this situation, Ma Zheng decided to abandon his previous suspicions and use Xu Laosi, Xu Laosi must be familiar with these pirates, even if the other party has only heard his name, this disaster may be able to avoid the past!

After arranging all this, Ma Zheng came to the deck of the bow of the ship, looked at the "pirate" who was gradually approaching, and his hand involuntarily touched the chest that hid the emperor's handwritten letter, and at the same time secretly made a decision in his heart, no matter what happens next, and no matter what kind of sacrifice will occur, this letter must not be lost in the slightest, even if he wants to die today, then this letter can only sink into the sea with himself, and must not fall into the hands of any outsider!

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Xu Laosi quickly went to the deck, and when he looked at the situation around him, he was also shocked.

"My lord, ...... this?" Xu Laosi respectfully asked Ma Zheng,

"Do you know their flags? Are they pirates? Ma Zheng didn't have time to ask politely directly,

"This ...... The villain had never seen such a flag, it did look like a pirate's flag, but I don't remember that there were pirates of this size in this area, it was really strange. Xu Laosi was also full of doubts,

Ma Zheng couldn't help but be a little disappointed when he heard this, and the solemnity and worry on his face became even stronger.

Xu Laosi also wanted to take this opportunity to ease the relationship with Ma Zheng, after all, he still had to listen to this person's orders along the way, he looked at Ma Zheng's expression and hurriedly said, "My lord, please rest assured, the villain has been on the sea for decades, and even the pirates of Liaodi have heard my name, maybe I will know who the other party is when I get closer." ”

Ma Zheng felt a little relieved when he heard this, but he didn't think that this Xu Laosi was so hateful, "Then it's up to you, if you can be safe and sound today, when I return to Cangzhou, I will report a great contribution to Lord Zong!" ”

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Finally, the ship of the "pirate" narrowed the encirclement to a distance of only ten meters from the merchant ship, and it was so close that it was almost possible to see the every move of the people on the other ship and the expressions on their faces, and the speed of the merchant ship was also forced to slow down, Ma Zheng looked carefully at the ship of the "pirate", and couldn't help but gasp again, only to see that the decks of the seven pirate ships were full of people dressed in all kinds of miscellaneous clothes, not to mention three or four hundred people, and everyone had bows and arrows in their hands, and hundreds of arrows were aimed at their ships from all directions. As long as the opposing side fires a salvo together, no one can survive on the deck, let alone organize an effective counterattack,

Ma Zheng's heart couldn't help but sink a little more, if there was really going to be a battle, there would be no chance ...... his side win!

"Listen, stop the boat!" A shout from a pirate ship suddenly sounded,

Ma Zheng looked up, and saw that on the largest four-car warship, a man with a ghost-headed knife was shouting to this side, he immediately turned his head to look at Xu Laosi, and saw that Xu Laosi was also staring at the person intently,

"How? Acquaintance? Ma Zheng hurriedly asked,

But to his disappointment, Xu Laosi shook his head and whispered to him, "I haven't seen it, but in order to avoid angering the other party, we can stop the boat first, and then the villain will talk to them." ”

Ma Zheng knew that this was the only way to do it now, even if he didn't stop the boat, he couldn't escape from the other party's encirclement, so he immediately ordered the people next to him, "Tell the boat to stop first, but be ready to restart the boat at any time!" ”

Xu Laosi took two steps forward and clasped his fists at the man and said loudly, "May I ask which brother of the sea?" Can you tell me your name? ”

The man glanced at Xu Laosi and replied, "Who do you care who I am, who are you?" ”

Xu Laosi smiled, "Brother, I am Dengzhou Xu Laosi, I brought a few friends to do business this time, I don't want to enter the brothers' place, I didn't report in advance, please atone for my sins!" ”

"Xu Laosi?" The man read it twice, and when he was puzzled, he saw a pirate beside him whispering something to him, and then this person suddenly realized and smiled at Xu Laosi, "Oh...... it turned out to be the famous Dengzhou 'sea wolf' Brother Xu." ”

Ma Zheng was overjoyed, and secretly said that there was a play, and the other party had really heard of Xu Laosi's name!

Xu Laosi was also overjoyed, and smiled at the man, "It's down, I don't know if my brother is ......?" ”

The man hugged his fists and replied, "Brother, I'm Ruan Dawu of the 'Giant Shark Gang' in Chenzhou, and I am nicknamed 'Big Shark'." ”

"The Sharks? Big sharks? Nguyen Da Vu? Xu Laosi was very puzzled when he heard this, because he had never heard of these names, could it be a newly rising pirate gang?

"Oh, it turned out to be Brother Ruan and the brothers of the Giant Shark Gang, looking up for a long time." Xu Laosi's face was as usual, pretending to be like thunder, whether he had heard it or not, now he had to say that he had heard it, and first brought the relationship closer before speaking, "Brother Ruan is really magnificent, these are all good ships!" ”

"Hahaha!" That Ruan Dawu also laughed proudly, "Brother, I just robbed a shipyard in Liao not long ago, these are all warships just built by the Khitans, how about it, not bad!" ”

"Good, good! Brothers even dare to rob the Khitans, what a hero! Xu Laosi and Ma Zheng glanced at each other, and they both understood why these pirates had such good warships.

Ruan Dawu waved his hand, "Brother Xu, what are you going to do?" ”

Xu Laosi said, "Oh, we're going to Liaodong to do some small business." ”

Ruan Dawu nodded, and then said with an embarrassed expression, "Brother Xu, you see that since there is an old-timer at sea like you, brother, I should have made a way not only to let you leave, but also to send someone to escort you out, but you also saw it, eldest brother, there are hundreds of mouths under the younger brother waiting to eat, and the younger brother has no choice but to ......,"

"Oh, oh, brother, can I not understand these rules?" Xu Laosi immediately glanced at Ma Zheng, although the other party still wants to ask for tolls, but it can be regarded as giving himself face, it is better than killing us and snatching everything away.

Ma Zheng also immediately realized that it was already excellent to be able to appear now, and he made a quick gesture to Zhang Wangwang beside him, Zhang Wangwang immediately turned his head and ran into the cabin, and it didn't take long to bring back a bulging cloth bag,

Ma Zheng took the cloth bag and immediately shouted at Ruan Dawu with a smile on his face, "Ruan Zhuangshi, a thousand times are not a respect, just a few of us invite the brothers of the Giant Shark Gang to drink tea." ”

Unexpectedly, as soon as his words fell, Ruan Dawu's face sank, and he sneered without smiling, as if he didn't see Ma Zheng who was holding a cloth bag, and turned his head to look aside, looking like he was admiring the sea view.

Ma Zheng was stunned for a moment, Xu Laosi hurriedly glanced at him again, meaning that he took too little, and there were four or five hundred people who came, and only one thousand yuan was given.