Since Xiao Ming and Zhang Shuye exterminated the pirates in the Yellow Sea led by Song Jiang last time, the entire Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea have basically been safe and peaceful, and there have never been pirates again, but why did there be pirates this time? And on what basis everyone said that it was a pirate, it was because the pirate actually released a captured hostage and brought a ransom demand.

It turned out that after Xiao Ming went north, Su Caier suddenly missed him very much, this kind of thinking had broken through her reason and made her take a great risk, she was about to go north to the Weihai base through the Richanglong merchant ship in Hangzhou Port, and encountered pirates, until now, the crew member who was released can't tell what kind of pirates kidnapped Su Caier.

He could only give a general description of what happened, only that the merchant ship had been hit by a huge impact, and it seemed to be some monster in the sea, and then there was water in the cabin, and then chaos, and then a group of ragged pirates appeared, and this group of pirates seemed to come out of the water out of thin air, and there were people everywhere, there were Han Chinese, Koreans, and even many Fuso!

For the appearance of Fusang people attracted Xiao Ming's attention, there were Fusang people in the pirate gang in Song Jiang, and during the interrogation, it was said that they were all fishermen along the coast of Kyushu, and they joined the pirates because of the forced life, and in recent years, the fishermen along the coast of the Great Song Dynasty and the fishermen of Goryeo were often attacked by the Japanese Fuso bandits, but after all, the scale was very small, and it had not yet reached the point of attacking merchant ships, and the Great Song Dynasty sailors did not intervene.

But this time it was a little different, the other party openly attacked the merchant ships in the north direction of the Great Song Dynasty, obviously relying on it, but since this matter involved Su Cai'er, it was not so simple, Xiao Ming's worry and anger were almost never there, even Gu Xiaoliu did not dare to persuade him, and the three regimental tiger guards were urgently transferred to Jinzhou Port, took four warships, and went to sea urgently.

Xiao Ming, who rushed back to Weihai urgently, learned that the place of the accident no longer belonged to the territory of the Yellow Sea, but in the entire East China Sea and close to the Ryukyu Islands, thinking that the place to pay the ransom was Huanggong Island, one hundred and twenty miles away from Mizhou, Shandong! However, Huanggong Island is less than ten miles away from the Ryukyu Islands, so it is very likely that pirates will be entrenched in the Ryukyu Islands.

However, to let Xiao Ming face the search for hundreds of islands in the Ryukyu Islands one by one, it is undoubtedly looking for a needle in a haystack, according to the requirements of the robbers, after the next full moon, send the shipowner to Huanggong Island to pay the ransom, in order to bring people back.

Xiao Ming only felt at this time that the intelligence resources and information in this area for the entire vast maritime territory were really ill-informed, and he lacked the necessary means of intelligence collection, but fortunately, it was not too late to make amends!

Xiao Ming firmly believes that there is nothing in this world that money can't do, and if you scatter a lot of silver, you can quickly get the news you want, but where to start, it is nothing more than the most densely populated place in the port, where all kinds of people are often hidden, such as robbers, thieves, middlemen, brokers, etc., and down-and-out sailors and fishermen will also become mercenaries who sell their lives to others.

If you want to get the necessary information, you must start from this aspect, in addition to Weihai Port, along the southeast coast Haizhou Port, Hangzhou Port, Mingzhou Port and Quanzhou Port, Xiao Ming's news is scattered, and everything is useful information. All the information about pirates! At the same time, a large sum of silver was also scattered.

Money can indeed do a lot of things, the news was quickly refined, there is news that there is indeed a group of pirates in the Ryukyus recently, but the source of this news turned out to be in the Goryeo Castle Island fishing ground, and in several other ports in Goryeo, such as the port of Kaesong in Haeju, as well as the port of Incheon, Jeju Island port and other places, this is Xiao Ming's sphere of influence, and the news quickly passed through the grassroots to Xiao Ming's hands.

Through analysis, Xiao Ming got some accurate information, that is, this group of pirates was indeed from Fusang Japan, and the Song Dynasty had always called Japan Fusang and Dongying, but before that, since the Tang Dynasty, it has been called the Japanese slave country or Dongying, Ryukyu and other titles.

If you want to understand it thoroughly, you must find Ding Jianpeng to check the information, or even Ding Jianpeng may not have this information, plus time is pressing, Xiao Ming decided to redeem the people first, and then find the pirate's lair to completely eliminate them.

In order to ensure Su Cai'er's safety, Xiao Ming immediately sent someone to the designated area of Huanggong Island before the full moon night, Xiao Ming personally took Gu Xiaoliu and Guo Shouxin to participate in the process of handing over the ransom, and after waiting on Huanggong Island for a long time, according to the flag of Richanglong, the other party really found them, and a roe deer rat-eyed person came over to look Xiao Ming up and down at them.

"You're here to pay the ransom, aren't you?" The man asked.

Xiao Ming saw that this person seemed to be a Han man, so he nodded, and the man said: "There are a total of thirteen people, each with five thousand taels of silver, a total of sixty-five thousand taels of silver!"

Xiao Ming said: "The silver is brought in full, as long as the person is safe!" ”

The man suddenly laughed and said, "Thirteen people have six women!" If you want to ensure that these women are safe, then you need to add another five thousand taels of silver, if you don't add it, we can only guarantee the return of you, but we can't guarantee the safety of the woman's whole body, I mean, do you understand? ”

Xiao Ming suppressed his anger and said: "No problem, will I give you the silver to exchange it now or go to the sea to exchange?" ”

"On this Huanggong Island, only some fishermen are safe, but our king still feels the need to exchange at sea!"

After speaking, the man motioned to Xiao Ming and they followed him, the man got on a small fishing boat on the seaside, which was a small boat with a rocking oar, and Xiao Ming and they were also on a small sailboat, the man led the way in front and rowed towards the open sea of Huanggong Island, Xiao Ming ordered the tiger guards to row closely and follow closely, and followed the small fishing boat into the north of the island.

The boat took them to row for about three miles, and then to the north, they would enter the entire area of the Ryukyu Islands, where there were some small islands, and the boat did not mean to stop, until they rowed five miles away, and entered a body of water surrounded by islands on three sides.

These dilapidated fishing boats were moored on the water, and at this time, the small boat in front stopped, signaling Xiao Ming and their boat to come up, and the man stood on the boat and said: "The boat on the far left in front is the hostage, you can give me the ransom now!" ”

Xiao Ming asked, "Can't we first see if the hostages are safe before giving the ransom?" ”

The man squinted at Xiao Ming and said: "You must listen to us now at sea, we are the overlord at sea, since we have received your ransom, we will naturally return the person to you, if you want to deal with you, in this sea area, none of you can escape!" ”

Gu Xiaoliu dragged Xiao Ming from behind, and whispered in his ear: "There is a water ghost ...... under the boat!" ”

Xiao Ming immediately understood that the other party had arranged water ghosts in this sea area, and it was very likely that there were pirates hidden on several other fishing boats, so it seemed that let's talk about the rhythm of people first! So he happily threw the sack with the silver to the man, and said, "Now shall we go and pick them up?" ”

The man checked the amount of money in the silver bag, and seemed to be very satisfied, the number of 70,000 taels was not a decimal, there were two large cloth bags, and seeing Xiao Ming was very happy, the man nodded and said: "Ri Changlong is really the gold master!" Why don't we make a deal, and in the future, as long as you pay enough protection fees every year, we can ensure that Richanglong's merchant ships are unimpeded in this area! ”

Xiao Ming said: "It's easy to say, it's easy to say!" ”

......

There was really no one on the boat on the far left, but when I lifted the deck of the rear cabin, I saw that Su Cai'er and the other hostages who had been taken were really inside, they were just tied and blindfolded, and when they saw Xiao Ming coming to rescue them, Su Cai'er suddenly fainted after this period of nervousness and fear.

Xiao Ming was worried that she was pregnant, and she was frightened again, so she hurriedly checked her pulse, and found that Su Caier just fainted with emotion, her body was fine, and there was no problem with the fetal breath, so she was relieved.

They took all the hostages on the ship, and then began to sail towards the open sea, less than ten miles off Huanggong Island, the Jiaolong was docked there, as soon as Xiao Ming got on the ship, he immediately ordered to move at full speed to the waters just now, preparing to pursue that group of pirates.

But when they arrived at that area, the few fishing boats moored there were all gone, and not a single shadow of a ship was missing in the entire area, which made it very strange, no matter how fast they moved, they couldn't be faster than the steam-powered Jiaolong warship!

Could it be that they have their own base in this area? While Xiao Ming let the Jiaolong go around the three small islands, he asked the hot air balloon to be raised to observe the movement of the surrounding sea within a radius of thirty or forty miles.

However, the observation post on the balloon did not find anything after observing it with a telescope for a long time, except to report that a large fish seemed to have drawn a long line of water about fifteen nautical miles to the northwest, and nothing else was found.

Xiao Ming is depressed! He wanted to board all the nearby islands and check them out, but since the hostages on the ship had just been rescued, he had to go back to the base for their safety.

Su Cai'er's four maid-in-law, plus the crew and Ri Changlong's eight people, a total of thirteen people, this time they were all frightened, Xiao Ming let them rest, and took care of Su Cai'er by himself, Cai'er woke up in pain, Xiao Ming's soft comfort gradually calmed Cai'er's frightened emotions, and told Xiao Ming the details of how he was caught by pirates.

The situation described by Su Cai'er helped Xiao Ming too much, compared to the ambiguous statements of others, Cai'er's narrative was very clear, she told Xiao Ming that the pirate was on a ship buried in the water! And most of those pirates were Fuso Japanese!

Moreover, because Su Cai'er could understand the Korean language because she followed her father to the north and south, she heard the conversation between several Goryeo among the pirates, saying that the leader of this pirate ship was a general called: General Fusang of the fog hidden thunder, what kind of subordinate of the general of Heian!

If it was Japan in the Heian period, Xiao Ming still knew a little about it, it was the Warring States period in Japan, and the whole country was in chaos, but I hadn't heard that they also invented strange ships that could be buried in the water! Xiao Ming couldn't help but arouse a strong interest in this!