Large numbers of warships sailed out of the harbor and headed for the mouth of the Anduin River, where they would search for the small decoy fleets that had been sent out before on the vast sea, and then deal a fatal blow to the enemy who followed them.

Ta Dun's face was a little blue, although his physique was strong, but it didn't mean that he wouldn't get seasick, at this time he was leaning tightly against a section of the ship's side, retching out a few times from time to time. As an Assassin, Lynn had a good ability to adapt to her environment, but she wasn't in great shape. And the most suitable of the three to take a boat is Hu Bin, when he was a novice mission, he was a Terran ocean-going warship and drifted on the sea for three days, and this little wind and waves near the sea did not make him change color at all.

Because the subordinates of the three were not suitable for naval warfare, they were left in the White City by Hu Bin and entrusted to Boromir to take care of, and only brought Lorraine to come, and with some of his treatment, Ta Dun and Lin are now not seasick and unable to get out of bed.

"Hey, rookies, do you know how to swim?" General Quentin put down the thick fishing rod in his hand and watched with interest as Hu Bin and the three of them stood on the boat and shook with the waves.

"No, what's wrong?" Ta Dun looked at him with a dead expression.

"Then it is necessary for me to train you again, so that you will not be killed by the enemy in battle, but drowned in the sea." General Quentin rubbed his hands together and said excitedly, and the trio, including Hu Bin, who couldn't swim, felt a smell of conspiracy.

"Help~, Gollum~, help!" The tower shield was tightly tied by several sailors and hung from General Quentin's thick fishing rod like an oversized earthworm. With a flick of the fishing rod from General Quentin, the tower shield crossed a graceful arc and fell into the sea, and half a minute later, the tower shield was salvaged from the water.

"Poof, you guys are murder!" As soon as the tower shield hit the deck, it spat out a mouthful of seawater, and then hissed and stirred it up with all its might.

"I'm here to help you master your swimming skills." General Quentin said shamelessly, flexing the muscles in his chest.

"Then why do you put me like this, don't you need hands and feet to swim? Didn't the two of them just need to tie a rope around their waists? Ta Dun arched his body, and Hu Bin and Lin in the distance were also learning swimming skills, but it was obviously much more reliable than Ta Dun's method.

"That's because your foundation is too poor, and you have to use a quick way to train specially." Quentin said without blushing and heartbeat, and with another wave of his hand, the tower shield let out another scream and fell into the water.

"General, there seem to be sharks around here, doesn't it matter?" The adjutant walked over and asked in a whisper.

"I know, it's just that I haven't eaten shark fin for a long time, and it's not easy to find such a good bait." The general, with his back to the adjutant, took a sip of saliva. Then he shouted: "Boy, fight hard, use your perseverance to conquer the sea." ”

"Help!" I don't know what kind of force drove it, the tower shield actually surfaced with the shaking of his body, and he could still shout for help.

General Quentin's brow furrowed, and he looked at Ta Dun's performance in surprise, and then pulled the rod hard, and Ta Dun was dragged into the water again.

General Quentin's special training was still valid, and both Lin and Hu Bin mastered their primary swimming skills after half a day. Although Hu Bin can use spells that can move in the water, he has many skills and is not pressing, and since he can learn swimming skills, he can't let go of this opportunity.

Under the training (transfer) of General Quentin himself, Ta Dun finally attracted a shark roaming nearby. And the tower shield actually broke out at a critical moment. He broke the ropes in his hands and swam back to the warship as fast as he could. The tower shield, who had been pulled onto the deck by the lieutenant, looked back at the shark and saw that it had a steel fork stuck in it, and General Quentin was pulling it back with a rope tied to the back of the steel fork.

"Tonight we have shark stew. Good job, boy, I'll give you half of that shark's fin. "General Quentin after seeing that shark exhausted. He tied the rope to a stake on one side and waited for the surrounding warships to come forward and capture it. He walked over and patted Ta Dun on the shoulder, who only then noticed that he had won the approval of General Quentin and mastered advanced swimming skills, and he didn't know if the experience was lucky or unlucky.

Hu Bin and the three of them spent the first day after setting sail to the fullest, but at ten o'clock in the morning of the next day, a terrible alarm bell sounded in the fleet.

"What's wrong?" Hu Bin rolled out of his hammock and hurried onto the deck, then saw General Quentin staring into the distance with his eyes shining.

"Rookie, go back to the cabin and tie yourself up stronger, the storm is coming!" Quentin left the three behind him with a side face with the corners of their mouths turned up, and there was dangerous excitement in their eyes.

Without saying a word, Ta Dun and Lin fled back to the cabin, while Hu Bin remained on deck.

"Why are you ......" General Quentin found that Hu Bin did not heed his admonition and went back to the cabin, and was about to open his mouth to scold, but found that Hu Bin's body was covered with a visible blue light, shining under the night sky, and his feet were like nailed to the deck, not affected by the undulations of the hull in the slightest.

"The power of the wind, boy, you have the right to stand here, but remember, obey my commands, remember, absolute obedience."

Hu Bin smiled slightly, neither promised nor refused.

Quentin didn't care, he saw the adjutant running towards here, and shouted his own order: "Order the whole fleet to move closer to the flagship, keep the two levels apart to form a conical formation, raise the full sails, and accelerate in the direction of seven." ”

"General, this direction is heading towards the storm, can we get around it?" The adjutant said with some discoloration.

"Lao Tzu doesn't have time to delay here, the little cubs of the bait fleet are still waiting for us to answer and carry out the order!" Quentin only then showed the courage of an admiral.

The light of the morning star in the distance had dimmed, but the sky was still pitch black, and large dark clouds shrouded the sea, and the originally calm sea surface also rippled.

"Haha, Lao Tzu likes to take a bath in the storm the most, put away the second sail, and we will rush in directly." Admiral Quentin spread his hands and shouted in a slightly frantic voice, while the other sailors, hearing the admiral's order, quickly completed their work, and then were infected by the general's madness, and fearlessly looked at the sea not far away that was tumbling and boiling in lightning and thunder.

……

"There's a whirlpool at eight o'clock ahead!" The lookout on the mast shouted with all his might.

"Left full rudder!" General Quentin shouted in a calm voice.

"Left full rudder!" The order was passed down one after another.

The fleet had only been in this rainstorm area for twenty minutes. But Hu Bin felt that he had already walked back and forth on the line of life and death. He clung to the net at his side and tried to immobilize his body, and although the light-weight technique had given him a lot more control over his body, the weight loss was easily lifted out in the sudden undulation of the hull.

"Ahh One of the sailors fell to the deck with a stroke of his foot, then broke through the guardrail on the side of the ship and fell off the deck in a jolt, in which he was essentially sentenced to death.

Not far away, a warship seemed to have something wrong with its rudder, and its hull suddenly turned sideways, undulating under the influence of the waves.

"Sink it!" General Quentin shouted loudly, only to find the two sailors next to the ballista in a daze.

"Didn't you hear my commands?" Quentin slapped the ballistamen to the deck, then raised the gun mount, took a slight aim, and fired the cannon. Artillery bolts flew past the deck of the ship. Took the life of a sailor.

General Quentin gritted his teeth and glared at the loader menacingly, and the sailor immediately handed over a cannonball. When the other warships saw the flagship's move, they opened fire on the warship, and with a cracking sound, the battered warship broke in half and sank in the blink of an eye.

General Quentin breathed a sigh of relief, the out-of-control warship almost collided with the other ships, and if the other ships dodged in a hurry, the formation of the fleet would probably become more and more chaotic.

"You've been dismissed, and you're not allowed to come out of the confinement room. Get back to land when this operation is over. General Quentin lifted the back of the previous gunner and walked to the adjutant, then beckoned to Hu Bin and said, "From now on, forget about your unreliable position as a military supervisor, this ballista belongs to you." Well done. ”

Hu Bin rushed to the ballista in the bow of the ship in a few strides, firmly grasped the hideous war machine with his hands, and then began to stare at the loader.

"Ding Ding Ding ......" The alarm bell rang urgently, and Hu Bin raised his head to look over the baffle of the ballista. Then I saw a cliff-like wave coming towards the fleet.

"The right rudder is full, and the bow of the ship is facing the direction of the huge waves, quick!" Without General Quentin's orders. The helmsman was already spinning the rudder to the right like crazy, and the speed of the waves was so fast that if the bow was not aligned in time, the warship could be overturned.

The Great Wave finally began to make contact with the fleet, and in the blink of an eye raised the flagship. Hu Bin felt a huge force coming from the deck under his feet, if he hadn't been clinging to the fixation on the ballista, maybe this would have pushed him into the air.

"Damn, the angle of the bow hasn't been fully adjusted yet!" The helmsman cried out in despair, just as one of the warships in front of him was swept across the hull by a huge wave, and then overturned and submerged in the waves.

"Lower the mainsail!" Seeing that the deflection of the bow of the ship tended to gradually increase, General Quentin appeared next to the helmsman at some point, and took the rudder with him and pulled it vigorously to the right.

But this still could not prevent the hull from slowly deflecting, but fortunately, God favored, just when the hull could not be controlled, the warship finally reached the end of the huge wave, and the bow of the ship was raised high above the water for a period of time under the inertia of the huge wave, and then plunged into the water, and then rose up under the action of buoyancy, raising a splash.

Hu Bin spat out the seawater in his mouth, and quickly touched his face with his right hand, and the ecstasy brought by escaping death made him giggle.

"Heheheha!" Perhaps driven by Hu Bin, the loader next to him also laughed, and finally the sailors of the whole ship laughed one after another.

Seeing the glow of the rising sun not far away, General Quentin breathed a sigh of relief, and they finally broke out of the rainstorm area.

……

"We have lost a total of twenty warships, another five are badly damaged, and 1,257 sailors are missing." The adjutant handed over the report of the losses through the rainstorm zone, and the ships in the rear were well prepared due to the opening of the way by the warships in front, but the entire fleet still lost nearly a fifth of its warships and sailors, and it was not a good sign that it had lost so much strength before the start of the battle.

"Isn't it just the loss of some manpower, it is the fate of our navy to die in the sea, there is nothing to be sad about. Don't forget what we're going to do this time. I don't want to see you kill pirates with me with a bitter face, that will be laughed at by the pirates, remember, kill me for the dead brother's military exploits. ”

Hu Bin couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he saw General Quentin yelling at the others, without any pressure on sinking his own warship with his own hands. Although Hu Bin thought that he could be ruthless, he could not be as decisive as General Quentin.

Tadun and Rin ran out of the cabin, still complaining about the bruises they had had in the room. I didn't know that I had already dodged under a series of moves from the god of death, and I have to say that ignorance is also a blessing.

After the two found Hu Bin, they were surprised to find that he was actually fiddling with the ballista on the bow of the ship with the help of a sailor, and before Ta Dun wanted to touch this big guy, he was stopped by the adjutant, but Hu Bin only stayed outside for a while before he could fiddle freely, and both of them knew that something must have happened during the time they were away from the deck.

Hu Bin didn't care what the two of them were thinking, he was familiar with the operation of the ballista under the explanation of the loader, although Hu Bin had played with the rapid-fire city defense crossbow installed on the wall of his city before, but the kind of small crossbow that automatically loaded and this kind of large ballista were not the same thing at all.

Gondor's warships are second to none in the Lord of the Rings world. Compared to the old rival Amba Pirates, who only had small crossbows, the ballistae on the warship can be described as a big killer. This shipborne ballista not only has an amazing range, but also its power should not be underestimated, and it can directly cause damage to the hull of enemy ships. This is a great advantage in the battle against pirates, whose main means of attack is engaged in broadside combat.

But the disadvantages of the ballistas are also quite numerous, and the cost of these well-made war machines is simply outrageous, and the kingdom of Gondor has been accumulating for many years to make up these ballistas, and for various reasons. Every year the scrapped shipborne ballista is a huge loss. In addition, the accuracy of these ballistae was not high due to the shaking of ships at sea. Only a fairly experienced crossbowman could use his familiar ballista to bring out the effect of shooting on land, but due to the scrap rate of ballistas, this problem has not been solved.

In addition, the ship-borne ballista also has a series of defects such as slow loading, susceptibility to seawater corrosion, and insufficient ammunition, but this cannot hide Hu Bin's love for it, after all, a man should like to play artillery.

Ta Dun watched with envy as Hu Bin scrubbed and debugged this ballista, the scale of the flagship is larger than that of other warships, so this ballista is also special, not only equipped with some baffles, but also equipped with a special loader to assist in loading, and thanks to the gunner-turned-bombardier on this other warship, Hu Bin can quickly become familiar with the operation of this ballista.

In the blink of an eye, it was noon, and the fleet had arrived at the designated sea area, but the decoy fleet did not arrive here with the main pirate force as promised, and a bad feeling rose in the hearts of all the navies, and the adjutant repeatedly suggested that General Quentin send some warships to investigate, but they were all blocked back by the general's words of "believe them".

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the decoy fleet still did not appear, and even Hu Bin was a little unable to sit still, and the whole army was wondering if there was a traitor who leaked the plan, but except for a few high-ranking officials on the flagship, the commanders of the other ships only got the plan after setting sail, and it was impossible for anyone to leak it.

"They were just late, and the storm may have affected their itinerary as well, and if they had taken a detour, they would have been about three hours late, that is, around three o'clock." General Quentin's steady voice calmed everyone's anxious emotions, and they only then remembered that the previous storm cloud was drifting from the direction they were going, and their own fleet had directly passed through the storm, but the decoy troops were not necessarily, after all, their task was not to hurry, but to smoothly bring the enemy's main force over.

"It's still early, how about we have a few drinks?" General Quentin said suddenly.

"Please take this battle seriously, General!" The adjutant instantly entered the butler mode.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, as General Quentin expected, the figure of the decoy fleet appeared on the horizon, and as they moved in the direction of the predetermined location, a large number of pirate ships followed their ass and burrowed into the ambush circle of the kingdom's navy.

"It's time to close the net, wait for the signal of the bait troops, and then the whole army rushes up for me, I don't want any fish to slip through the net, the standard-bearer added this sentence to me." Quentin fidgeted and walked around with the hilt of the knife at his waist, while the adjutant kept an eye on the old man after giving the order to the standard-bearer, lest he have an impulse to make the flagship rush to the front.

The decoy in the distance slowed down and fired a rattling arrow when it reached its designated position, and the pirate fleet, sensing that something was wrong, pounced on the decoy force with the help of the ship, and soon their vanguard began to exchange fire with the decoy fleet.

Quentin had to wait patiently for the encirclement to be completely closed, and although he wanted to immediately support the decoy fleet, this sacrifice was necessary for the operation to be successful.

Fortunately, the detachment responsible for cutting off the pirates' retreat moved very quickly, and the signal they sent out meant that the plan of action was mostly successful, and the rest depended on the performance of the admirals.

"Little ones, rush with me." Quentin couldn't wait to draw his cutlass and rush into the crowd of pirates on the other side. (To be continued......)