After the war between the Xia State and the Rom Turks, the goods of the Song merchants were seized by the Great Food Princes, and they could not return to China, and under the command of the Xia court, they started a business at sea with no capital, and constantly harassed the coastal areas of the Rom Turks and the princes. Because of the withering of trade, the business of the major ports of the Romani Turks and the Great Food Princes plummeted, and many sailors and merchants lost their jobs, and many of these people joined the pirates. However, with the support of Xia Guo, the pirates became more and more troublesome.

The warships of the Xia Kingdom sometimes attacked alone, and sometimes they acted together with other pirates, causing a lot of trouble along the coast of Dashi. With the port of Hercy as their home port, they can also use the ports of allies such as Lu Mei to swoop down like vultures when they encounter a weak fleet of Great Eclipse ships at sea, and when they encounter a more powerful Great Eclipse navy, they scatter like chickadees, which gives both the Roma Turks and the Great Eclipse princes a headache.

The Roma Turks could not stop the Xia State from supporting pirate harassment, so they wanted to report it in retaliation, but the hinterland of the Xia Kingdom was all inland, and there was only Haixi Port on the west coast, and Zhenxi Fort was also a famous fortified city, which made people unable to speak. Suppressed by the Xia army on land, and the superior navy could not fight back, the Sultan of Rôm was furious, so he adopted Puadan's suggestion.

The wealth of Guangzhou and Quanzhou is piled up, and the legend of the big food merchant is like a myth. Puadan said that the Xia and Song people were both pagans who originated from the Tang people. Although Haixi Port is a hard bone, the coastline of Song is very large, and there are many ports, it is impossible for every defense to be as tight as Haixi Port of Xia State, and Song State is full of wealth, sending a navy to rob Song State, not only can retaliate against the Tang people, but also make up for the loss of trade cutoff. So the Sultan sent the Commander of the Loving General Famaitu to lead a powerful navy to retaliate.

The expeditionary navy set out from Baghdad and joined the warships of the major food princes along the way, a total of more than seventy, in addition to the warships of the Great Food itself, there were also warships remodeled with the detained merchant ships of the Song State. The merchant ships of the Song Kingdom were large and inflexible, but they were very suitable for ocean voyages, and the merchants of the Great Food Kingdom often liked to go to sea on the merchant ships of the Song Kingdom.

On the sea route from the Song Kingdom to the Great Food, there was already a series of strongholds established by the Great Food Merchant. Most of the big food merchants were attached to the protection of the local king or city lord, and built one or several separate blocks, because of the high taxes paid by the sea trade, the big food merchants often had a lot of status in the local area, and some big nobles and even kings converted to Allah. In these strongholds, the expeditionary navy was well supplied. It's just because of the wind direction that it has been delayed until now to arrive in Guangzhou.

The navy sent a small boat ashore to liaise with the Great Food Merchants of Guangzhou, and after waiting for a day in the open sea, the leader of the Great Food Merchants of Guangzhou, Pu Abin's own brother Pu Abin, came by boat. Pu Abin was tall, except for the turban, he was no different from the Song people, and when he heard that the Great Food Navy was going to attack Guangzhou, Pu Abin's face turned white all of a sudden, and he waved his arms exaggeratedly, and blurted out words of opposition.

"Attack the city of Guangzhou? Is there anything crazier than that? ”

"Less than 10,000 people, attack the city of Guangzhou, O Allah!"

"You're a coward." Fatumah looked at him with disdain, shook his head, and said, "The same coward as your brother! He couldn't help but think of the pot-bellied Puabin who was prostrate at the Sultan's feet, begging for mercy in agony. I felt a little disgusted in my heart, why was this man who betrayed the monarch and had no honor so rich, and he was able to use his money to bribe the Sultan's close ministers to speak well of him, and save his life after the attack on the port of Baghdad.

"Coward?" Poabin was obviously more daring than Puadan, and he ignored Fatuma's contempt and shouted: "You have less than 10,000 people, but you are going to attack a city with a million people and strong walls, this is not bravery, it is death!" Their walls were high and thick, and huge artillery was placed. The defenders of Guangzhou in the Song Kingdom are several times more than yours. ”

Pu Abin's fierce opposition made Fatuma hesitate, he stared at Pu Abin, and said coldly: "You know, the people I look down on the most are those who are determined to serve the infidels. This sentence made Pu Abin's eyes sharpen suddenly, and Fatumai said proudly: "Since you are against attacking Guangzhou, tell me, what suggestions do you have?" ”

"Guangzhou can't be fought," Pu Abin pressed his chest to calm his anger, he frowned and thought for a moment, and suggested, "However, there are many rich towns along the coast of the Song Kingdom, and in the vicinity of Guangzhou, there are eight major towns of Fuxu, Liede, Dashui, Ruishi, Pingshi, Baitian, Datong, and Shimen, but these eight towns are not easy to fight, brothers come from afar, it is best to find some coastal towns and villages first, and leave by boat before the Song army arrives." In a heavily defended place like Guangzhou or Bada Town, you must find a good opportunity to enter. ”

"Small towns, villages?" Fatumai shook his head dissatisfiedly, and the surrounding generals also shouted dissatisfiedly, "How can that be done? ”

"Hmph, why not?" Pu Abin looked at these people with disdain, shook his head, and said, "You don't know, even these small towns gather a large number of ships, especially those traders who evade the taxes of the city, and most like to pile up their goods in villages where there are no Song Dynasty officials and soldiers. For us, this is a lamb without a sheepdog. ”

In addition to normal trading, Pu Abin himself is in the business of smuggling and is very familiar with this kind of place. The habits of the Song people are also different from those of the Great Food, there are almost no tribes among the people, and the force possessed by the villages is far inferior to that of the Great Food Tribe, which is simply undefended. In addition, in the hinterland of the Great Song Dynasty deep in Guangzhou, there were almost no large-scale pirate invasions in the past, and the guards of various towns and villages were very lax. Although the imperial court issued an official document to establish state and county regimental training, the area of Guangzhou was still the same, unlike the extensive self-protection of the Henan, Southeast and Jinghu areas ravaged by the Liao army.

In the following ten days, the Dashi warship sailed north along the coast, plundering and harassing Jindou, Dongguan, Xiangshan, Tamsui, Yang'an, Haifeng, Shiqiao, Huanggang and other places, killing hundreds of officers and soldiers in battle, and thousands of people were captured and wounded. Since the war broke out in the north, all the soldiers and horses that could fight on the Guangnan East Road were transferred to the north, and most of the naval warships were sent out along with the South China Sea Reclamation, and most of the soldiers who remained on the Guangnan East Road were broken sentry ships and the old, weak, sick and disabled. Unable to go to sea to cope with the battle, the Guangzhou Ship Division had to hire merchant ships to patrol and defend the city at a high price, and also made preparations to scuttle ships to block the shipping lanes of important ports if necessary. The prefectures and counties also had no ability to drive out the enemy troops, and the city gates were closed in broad daylight. The city of Guangzhou suddenly became deserted, and there were rumors in various places, and urgent documents flew to Ezhou like snowflakes.

Ezhou, where the center of the Great Song Dynasty is located, has been churning like boiling oil in a hot pot.

In the past two or three months, not only has the number of death row prisoners escorted to Ezhou in various localities increased dramatically, but the criminal department does not want to kill more people and intends to delay the trial until the autumn trial. Inns, temples, Taoist temples, and schools are all full of people, and the accents of Tiannan and Haibei are either indignant arguments, or chest-beating and crying, looking like the world is uncertain, and there are grievances everywhere. Even ordinary people in Ezhou, seeing this scene, have a feeling that the Great Song Dynasty is in turmoil.

The urgent report of the raid of the Great Food Pirates arrived in Ezhou, and its effects burst like a drop of water dripping into an oil pot. I was bullied enough by the Khitans before, and the official army won two big victories in Henan and Jingdong, and seized the Daimyo's Mansion in Hebei, which has greatly stimulated the morale of the Great Song Shimin.

In less than a month, the news of the Great Food Pirates plundering Guangnan Road spread all over the world, the entire Great Song Dynasty was boiling, the merchants and scholars of Guangnan knocked on the book violently, and the coastal states and counties of Jiangnan Road, Lianghuai Road, Liangzhejiang Road, and Fujian Road also panicked. The next day, Zhao Qi and Chen Dong summoned the envoys of the Han army, accepted the attached table of the Han army, and ordered the naval division of the Han army to send troops to cooperate with Han Shizhong's troops to go south to protect the coastal states and counties from the harassment of the big food pirates.

On the same day, Yue Fei asked for another large-scale northern expedition in the autumn, and cooperated with Han Shizhong's navy on land and water to seize Hejian Mansion and move the Hebei battlefield north. The Prime Minister's Office drafted an edict, ordering the reclamation land in the South China Sea to cut off trade with the Great Food Merchants and not to provide supplies to all the Great Food Merchant Ships, and ordered the Guangzhou City Ship Division to quickly concentrate the sailors and warships scattered in the South China Sea Reclamation Land, and recruit the merchant ships and sailors who can fight, and be sure to cut off the sea routes for the Great Eaters to continue to harass the Great Song Dynasty, and at the same time, allow the coastal prefectures and counties to raise their own food and salaries, recruit regimental training, hire merchant ships to establish a patrol division, and the military department will also recruit sailors to form a new naval division battalion.

These days, there has been a lot of commotion in the market outside the Hou Mansion in Wuchang, and there are often people running loudly, and the sound is coming in through the courtyard wall, and the faces of the servants in the Hou Mansion are also uneasy. Although he could only learn some outside news from Zhao Huan, Zhao Xingde felt more and more strongly that both the Great Song Dynasty and Ezhou were falling into a bigger and bigger whirlpool.