Once the Xunyang River was lively, all kinds of large and small merchant ships, passenger ships shuttled back and forth the scene is now not seen at all, especially after dusk, even the last few canoes are gone, only the surging river is flowing to the east horizontally.

But when it was completely dark, more than 30 small warships suddenly drove out of the Jiangzhou Water Gate, quietly entered the Xunyang River, and went silently upstream against the current. On each boat, there were more than twenty officers and soldiers armed with bows and arrows, swords and guns, all of them with extremely solemn faces, and the whole fleet made no sound when it marched upstream, except for the rattling of oars on the surface of the river.

In addition to the seven or eight hundred soldiers under his command, there were also a hundred elites selected by Sun Tu, who were now sitting on four warships, staring at the dark and calm surroundings with full attention, and holding the weapons in their hands tightly.

Although the spirit of these township soldiers has been very different after two months of hard training, after all, they are Xinding who have never really gone to the battlefield to kill the enemy, and this time they are going to conquer the fierce Jiao gang who have long been known for their murder, so they are naturally nervous.

Sun Tu, who was standing on the bow of the small warship at the front, also clearly felt the oppression of the soldiers and horses behind him, so he turned around and whispered to those on the same boat: "It's just a group of thieves like a rabble, you don't have to worry." When you reach the thief's lair, as long as you do the same as you did in the previous drill, you can defeat the thief by listening to the order to attack. ”

His words still had some effect, and the villagers who were originally nervous finally relaxed a little, and the hands holding the weapons were not so hard.

After traveling upriver for half the night, the ships in front of them as pioneers sounded their lights, but they had already come to the vicinity of the target, and ordered all the ships to scatter and surround the small sandbar island that could be seen faintly, in order to completely exterminate the fierce Jiao and trap them in their lair.

Today's strategy and tactics to suppress the bandits were all determined by Lin Henian alone, and Sun Tu did not raise any objections, as soon as he saw the order coming, he immediately asked the soldiers on the ship to light the lamps, and ordered his four small boats to disperse and launch an attack on the thieves from the west of the island.

These officers and soldiers were all selected by Lin Dujian from thousands of men and horses who were good at maneuvering boats and water, and at this time they naturally dispersed very skillfully, and then surrounded and slowly approached the island under the cover of night.

When Sun Tu and his few small boats came to a place less than a mile away from the island, there were lights in several other directions, which was the feedback that they had taken their places, and Sun Tu also let his side respond quickly.

At this moment, a red light had been raised on the slightly larger handsome ship, which had not sneaked close to the island with the small warships, and then a loud drum and trumpet sounded from the boat, completely breaking the silence of the Xunyang River in the middle of the night.

With the sound of the drum and trumpet, the officers and soldiers who had already been ready to go also let out a shout, and everyone rowed hard, and the small boats flew towards the sandbar island in front of them like arrows from the string, and the archers standing in the bow of the ships had already skillfully bent their bows and arrows to aim ahead, and they would give them a head-on blow as soon as the enemy appeared.

But just when everyone was full of energy and wanted to rush to the island in one go, the small boat that should have been flying in quickly suddenly slowed down. Sun Tu clearly felt that the boat under him was pulled and entangled by something at this time, and he couldn't move forward anymore, and at this time, they were still a hundred steps away from the island, and there was still a dark river in front of them.

This change really caught the officers and soldiers off guard, and they suddenly exclaimed again and again, some people shouted to retreat, and some people tried to go into the water to see the situation below, they should have launched a surprise attack, but the offensive like a broken bamboo was completely messed up, and this movement was so big that the thieves on the island had already known that the enemy was coming.

Sure enough, when the officers and soldiers who went into the water exclaimed again and again: "It's fishing nets, they are covered with fishing nets under the water, and the bottom of our boat is entangled in fishing nets", the originally quiet island was suddenly full ......of people, torches were quickly lit, and dozens of figures had already rushed towards the south where Sun Tu and them were.

When the soldiers who had already messed up saw the enemy rushing in, they didn't need anyone to give an order, they had already raised their bows and released arrows towards the enemy on the island, but Sun Tu frowned: "We are still more than a hundred steps away from the enemy, how can such bows and arrows hurt them?" ”

Sure enough, everything was just as Sun Tu expected, and after those arrows that broke through the air and crossed the arc of the road, they all fell into the river due to exhaustion, and they were still a long distance away from the shore of the island.

The dozens of water bandits rushed out of the island without fear, jumped into the river with a leap, and quickly disappeared from everyone's sight. This immediately made the trapped trap in the fishing nets nervous, and everyone raised their swords and guns, shouting something, staring at the dark water below but not knowing what to do.

"If there is good water, go into the water and cut the nets, we can't be trapped here anymore!" Sun Tu ordered in a hurry. As he spoke, he had already shaken off the slightly cumbersome leather armor on his body, held a short knife in his mouth, and jumped into the water without hesitation.

With Sun Tu leading by example, many of the villagers on his boat finally left behind the fear in their hearts, and jumped into the water one after another, helping their own regiment to cut the fishing nets that entwined the boat underneath. Subsequently, the township soldiers on the other three ships also acted in accordance with the order, and the drills of the past two months had already made them accustomed to obeying Sun Tu's orders, even if they were now flustered, they still acted according to the orders.

However, Tang Feng and Luda, who were on the other two boats, did not lead by example like Sun Tu, neither of them was very good at water, especially Luda, it was not easy to stand firmly on the boat at this time and give orders, and letting him go into the water would only add to the chaos.

However, he still commanded the villagers on several ships on the ship: "Light all the torches for me, pay attention to the movement under the water, and if there is a thief in front of me, greet me with bows and arrows!" He was clearly on the lookout for thieves who had just been launched from the island, and he didn't know when they would suddenly come out of nowhere to attack the officers and soldiers who were still trying to get the ship out of trouble.

In fact, Sun Tu, who was cutting those fine fishing nets with a knife in the water, also divided most of his mind around, in case an enemy suddenly attacked his house from some dark place. At this time, the official and military ships here were trapped in the fishing nets and could not move, which was the easiest target for those thieves.

Surprisingly, they had been on guard for a long time, and none of the bandits had attacked from the side, as if the scene they had just seen was fake. Just when everyone was suspicious, there was a burst of exclamations from the east, and then the sound of killing started, only for a moment, Sun Tu understood, the thief seemed to be entering the water from the west, but in fact, he came to make a move, and he had already made a detour to the east to launch a surprise attack on the unsuspecting officers and soldiers.

At this time, there was a shout on the island again, and even in such an environment, Sun Tu and they still heard the sound of a heavy object falling into the water in front of them. Before they could guess what the other party was going to do, the fire suddenly lit up from the other side of the island, and then the exclamation was even stronger than before: "It's a fireboat, they actually attacked with fire!" ”

In the midst of a scream, several small boats that were on fire took advantage of the wind to crash into several warships in the east, which had been attacked and chaotic, and the warships that had not yet broken free from the fishing nets could not even dodge, but could only watch as the small boats that were full of fire-starters, and the small boats that were already burning were far and near, and then slammed into the bow of their own ship, leading the fire to their own body at the same time.

This made the already disproportionate Xiang army even more panicked, they screamed and jumped under the boat, but it happened to fall into the hands of those water bandits, and the screams suddenly resounded on the river.

Although the other official ships had the intention to rescue at this time, they were still wrapped in fishing nets, but they couldn't get out for a while, and the only thing they could do was to desperately try their best to cut the fishing nets that were wrapped like a mess under the boat, and the only thing left was to scold at those cunning thieves.

Of course, not everyone was unable to help, and the flagship ship, which had not attacked with the fleet before, approached to the west under Lin Henian's orders. Lin Dujian, who was standing at the bow of the boat and watching all this, his face was already distorted by anger at this time: "Lean over for me, that little fishing net can only entangle the small boat, but it can't stop our big boat......"

But just after the ship had advanced more than half a mile, it suddenly stopped moving, and the officers and soldiers who were paddling hard to make the ship move forward immediately shouted loudly: "Governor, the water here is shallow, and our ship can't get close at all......

When these words reached Lin Henian's ears, his body trembled violently, and his eyes almost erupted with fire: "How can this be!" ”

Before he could come up with a countermeasure, the surrounding officers and soldiers exclaimed again: "Fire ...... The fireship is here again! But they saw that several fireboats had been put down on the island again at this time, and this time they couldn't go with the wind, and they even let a few thieves personally drive the boats to rush towards the officers and soldiers, and everyone was even more frightened.

Seeing the fireship coming, those van soldiers were completely panicked, and they could only instinctively shoot arrows at the fireboat, but because the target was too small, they panicked again, and almost all of these arrows fell into the air.

With a muffled bang, the first fireboat finally hit the farthest warship, which had already risen in flames, and quickly spread at this time, but the thief who controlled the boat had jumped into the river at the moment when the two ships collided, and disappeared.

At this time, the small warships crowded together in the east had already been surrounded by flames, and the screams of the officers and soldiers resounded one after another, resounding in the night sky!

The Jiangzhou officers and soldiers, who thought they could succeed in the first battle, had already suffered as soon as they came into contact with the enemy, and they were knocked on the head!