In the middle of November of the lunar calendar, heavy snow began to begin in Liaodong, and the weather in the inland cities of the Liaohe Plain also cooled to about minus ten degrees Celsius.

However, in the Liaodong Prefect's Mansion, the fireplace was burning very warm, and today is the day when Mi Zhu treats guests and has a banquet.

He invited Li Su, Xu Rong and others to put on the best Zhongshan winter brew, as well as the mountain products that had just been traded from the Fuyu people of the Northeast fishing and hunting ethnic group. They were stewed, steamed, roasted and fried.

There are various mountain delicacies, as well as roasted bear meat in Changbai Mountain, stewed bear paws, whole sika deer with secret spices placed in a large copper cauldron to make hot pot, and even tiger legs - tigers are not protected in this era.

Before eating and drinking, Mi Zhu also gave Li Su and Xu Rong a cloak made of fine mink fur selected from the people of Fuyu. Li Su is a civil servant, and it is enough to have mink fur, while Xu Rong can also wear bear skin and tiger skin to demonstrate his strength.

This show makes people like Xu Rong, who are born in a poor and miserable manner, feel embarrassed.

"Come on, Xu Duwei, drink and drink. After staying in Luoyang for five years, I'm afraid I can't adapt to the cold here. This is the most intense Zhongshan winter brew. Drink it hot and remove the cold. Anyway, the border is stable in early winter, so why not take turns to rest for a long time for the generals." As the master, Mi Zhu advised everyone to drink one by one.

Li Su was also supporting the role: "This autumn, the grass is tall, the horses are fat, the fur, and the ginseng are all harvested. The people of Fuyu are probably able to live in peace this year, so there is no need to worry about military affairs. I want me to say that Brother Zizhong is the master of Liaodong, which is really a masterpiece of the court. In previous years, he served as the prefect of Liaodong, and it is best not to plunder the people's wealth, light taxes and pay less taxes to rest.

How could I compare to Brother Zizhong who took the initiative to promote the people and explore and expand the fishing and hunting and mountain goods trade with Fuyu people - the combined scale of the fur, game, dry goods, medicinal materials and pearls between the court and Fuyu in the past three years is not as good as this year."

Xu Rong is not easy to respond to on this topic, so he can only laugh and compliment him. Who made him not eloquent?

Mi Zhu waved his hand and said humbly: "Where are you? The previous prefects must have loved the people. They cannot expand their trade. It's just that Liaodong is also bitter and cold, and they can't bring out enough supplies to Fuyu people. Like me, if there are sea and ships to the East China Sea and Guangling, you can get rich lands in Jianghuai, and you can share with each other.

Xu Duwei, in the future, you should not only focus on guarding against the Xianbei and Fuyu. This sea trade route is the key to ensuring that the people of Liaodong have enough food and clothing. I also need to ask!"

Seeing that after chatting for a long time, Xu Rong finally got to his place useful, he quickly stood up and bowed to his hands and expressed his opinion: "For the sake of the villagers and the people, the prefect has no choice but to be useful and honorable."

"Hey, there is no need to be restrained. This is not just a good drinker. I will mention it casually, and I won't talk about it." Mi Zhu was like those big bosses who were at the table and quickly changed the topic.

Unfortunately, at this moment, a caravan manager from the Mi family was introduced into the hall in a disgraceful manner, and he was about to report the big news to Mi Zhu.

Mi Zhu put on a serious face: "Rareless! When will it be difficult to report business matters? Haven't you seen any distinguished guests here?"

Xu Rong and Li Su hurriedly humbled: "Hey, it's okay. You're sitting and drinking. It's important for the Duke to handle the important business."

Mi Zhu then bowed and apologized, and asked the manager to speak. The manager hurriedly shouted: "Mr. The fleet that transported grain for the Ta family for the winter was robbed by the pirates of Shamen Island! After losing several ships of food, it was soon the twelfth month of winter. We cannot let the people who built the port and city of Da family starve. Please find another way to speed up the raising of grain."

"This... what should I do? Oh, it's really difficult to do something and save the people. It's just a matter of losing more money first and then buying a few ships of food." Mi Zhu looked helpless and complained.

Although Mi Zhu did not complain about others, Xu Rong obviously couldn't sit still - the prefect's food to save the people was robbed by pirates, how can you not express your expression if your military commander is in charge of it?

Xu Rong quickly knelt down on one knee and bowed: "Mr., this matter is because Rong is not prepared enough. Rong will definitely reorganize his army and eliminate the pirates today."

Li Su was next to him, and ran in a fair tone of a third party: "Can Wei Xu know about naval battles?"

Xu Rong was speechless for a moment: "This... no matter what, Rong has no choice."

Li Su calmly persuaded: "We all know that the skills and professional skills are specialized, and the archery and horsemanship of Xu Duwei is skilled in fighting. But the naval battle should be handed over to the locals. Xu Duwei, I remember that there was a military marquis named Taishi Ci under the tent of the Duke of Xu. He was a native of Donglai.

He crossed the sea to Liaodong, and had previously led Duke Xuande to Qingzhou to attack the Yellow Turbans. He was very familiar with the waterway from Liaodong to Donglai. He was also familiar with the water nature and knew how to control the boat. His grandson said that those who could do it but the king did not control it would win."

Xu Rong was not easy to refuse such a situation. He was just a little worried: "Because Taishi Ci was just a marquis of Qu Jun, he probably had never led a large army and had no experience in commanding thousands of troops."

Li Su had already set up a trap and said frankly: "As far as I know, Guan Cheng of Shaman Island has only 3,000 desperadoes. To attack Guan Cheng, you can just ask Ziyi to bring one thousand troops to cooperate with excellent sea ships to fight the enemy. Xu Duwei was worried, so he could lead another two thousand reinforcements to station the Da clan in order to support him at any time."

Xu Rong couldn't help but say a little bit in his tone, and he was solemn: "Then Taishi Ci is so capable of leading troops? One thousand navy soldiers can defeat three thousand deadly pirates with a good ship? But even if they can't be defeated at sea, Guan Cheng's remaining troops will retreat to the island, and they will still land on the landing battle. Taishi Ci may be defeated by then."

Li Su smiled: "Emperor Xu did not understand the difficulties of sailing and island garrisoning on the sea. Although Ziyi was unable to defeat Guan Cheng with few enemies, as long as the ship was good, he would divide his troops to surround the island and cut off his supplies. In less than half a month, he would definitely force Guan Cheng to go into the sea to fight the decisive battle."

Xu Rong asked humbly: "Is it not easy to store grain on the island? Or is it that the bandits have no long-term plans and need to rob supplies frequently?"

Li Su: "Of course, food can be stored for a long time, but fresh water will not be available. There are islanders everywhere in the Shaman Islands to make fishing and live inadequate supply. However, there are no lakes and ponds in the small islands to store fresh water, so only the main island of Shaman is slightly depressed. Therefore, islanders have to go to the nearby main island to simmer in just a few days, or some islands are close to the mainland, so they go to Donglai to find river springs to get water.

As long as Ziyi's army is quick and cut off the connection between the islands of the Salmon Islands, you can die of thirst in half a month from other pirates on other islands except the main island."

After hearing this, Xu Rong was completely relieved.

He lived inland all year round and did not understand navigation. For a moment, he really didn't expect how fatal the water shortage problem on the sea and beaches and deserted islands was.

If you don’t have food, you can still hold on for a while, but if you don’t have water, it would be too fatal.

Moreover, it is autumn and winter now, the typhoon season has passed long ago, and the good days of frequent rainfall have passed long ago. If it were in the August of the lunar calendar, Li Su would not dare to let Taishi Ci use this trick to destroy the thieves.

It is also considered that Guan Cheng's fate is worthy. When the typhoon season rains, Liu Bei went to beat Zhang Rao and Guan Hai. He was so scared that he didn't understand the principle of losing his lips and cold teeth.

It's raining less now, and Li Su still won't let him go.

Then Xu Rong took out the token of the Duwei's military talisman, and authorized Taishi Ci to formally lead a thousand soldiers and horses to attack.

Xu Rong's transfer order will be submitted to the court as evidence in the future, so that the court will regard Taishi Ci as Xu Rong's person rather than "the remnant of Liu Bei", and will be more at ease with Taishi Ci, feeling that "Liu Bei finally completely handed over his influence in Liaodong."

...

In the early morning of November 20th, Bohaikou, Shamen Island.

Guan Cheng was about to get up, and his female slave had just cooked sea fish and kelp porridge for him as breakfast. As a result, a small leader of his subordinate ran in to report the bad news:

"It's a disaster! Coach Qu, with the Youzhou Army's warships, surrounded several islands, and cut off the surrounding waterways. The number of people on each ship seems to be small, what should I do?"

"What?" Guan Cheng grabbed the horseman's collar and picked up the man.

"You make it clear! We don't violate the river water with Youzhou army. How dare Liu Bei suddenly call him? Didn't he hear that he had killed Wusu before and was repelled by the imperial court? That's what he said last time he sent to Zang Ba to find out the news!"

He was actually attacked!

The scout knew nothing and was relieved to breathe.

Guan Cheng was like an angry leopard, slapped the table with hatred: "Liu Bei! I don't offend him, even Guan Hai gave up, he even took the initiative to suppress me! I'm not afraid of ridicule of fellow villagers!"

But he had no choice but to have someone inquire about it slowly.

The best way to inquire is to send some troops to tentatively contact, and scold the other party's army for being unnamed.

However, the people sent by Guan Cheng to the beach were shot and killed by Taishi Ci's crossbow arrows. On the one hand, Taishi Ci was also politely scolding the swearing array, and it seemed that the morale was very high.

Through the Han army's counter-scolding, Guan Cheng realized that the other party was "famous in the army" and the excuse was that the Youzhou army's sea-by-stop grain transport ship was robbed by monk pirates!

"Who robbed? Why don't I know? God killed me. If I found out who was carrying me on my back, I would cut him off and send him to Liu Bei!" Guan Cheng was so depressed that he was crazy when he heard this news.

He knew too much that Liu Bei was not easy to mess with, and Mi Zhu, who transported Liu Bei's logistics, was not easy to mess with, so he has been very restrained recently, and he only picked the persimmons and pinched them with soft ones.

How could he know that in fact, no one robbed Mi Zhu's ship, so Mi Zhu's frame-up and sneak attack could be so sudden. If Guan Cheng was really robbed, Guan Cheng would have been afraid of retaliation and would have taken precautions in advance, such as concentrating all the troops scattered on the surrounding islands on the main island and preparing freshwater reserves for the island in advance.

How can I be as passive as I am now?

As for Li Su's position, he never thought there was anything wrong with this.

The other party is a pirate, so what is there to talk about loyalty to the pirates?

The famous and upright sect made an appointment with the demon sect to fight alone. In fact, there are fewer group fights after cheating the other party out? The soldiers are never tired of cheating.

The official army surrounded the island for less than ten days, and the pirates from the small island next to it could no longer hold it in. Because of the lack of Danshui's fear and fear of being defeated by the officers and soldiers, they wanted to smuggle to the main island of Shamen at night to meet Guan Cheng.

Of course, there were those who successfully escaped, but more were intercepted by large ships on the way.

All the pirates were outlaws, but because of their poverty, they used small boats without cabins. Even some sails with masts and straw mats were similar to those of Viking long ships.

Also because of their poverty, their long-range weapons are mainly bows and arrows, and there are fewer crossbows.

Such goods are confronted with large ships with ships with towers and stools, and the proportion of official troops with crossbows is higher, so there is no need to be beaten at all.

Even if there are three times the number of small boats, as long as they have no speed advantage, they will be in vain. They will be wiped out with a wave of arrows and rain.

After losing several brothers on the island in succession, Guan Cheng finally couldn't sit still. He knew that his only chance was to make a big move, and it would be better to take advantage of the terrain to attack and fight against the terrain.

One day at the end of November, he gathered more than a thousand pirates who could be directly controlled by him and took advantage of the night to take advantage of the small boats to head to the anchorage of the large ships of the government.

The end of the lunar month is a moonless night, and the view on the sea is also poor. He is close to the enemy ship for more than a hundred steps before he is discovered, and then he rushed forward.

Because the official army wanted to surround the island, the fleet was scattered in several directions of Shamen Island, with only three or five ships and two or three hundred soldiers in each direction, so Guan Cheng captured the local military advantage.

Moreover, Guan Cheng had also observed it before the war. He knew the simple truth of capturing the king first, so he chose tonight the team where Taishici's flagship was located, and he wanted to achieve his contributions in one battle.

Unfortunately, once the war started, the official ships immediately raised fires and lit many torches. A large bonfire was lit on a stone torch platform on the top of the ship building (the stone was made to prevent the ship from burning).

The official warships from other directions naturally received news, and they could arrive in a quarter of an hour to half an hour respectively.

"Brothers, kill me! Fight quickly and decide quickly. It will be too late to wait until the main force of the official army arrives!" Guan Cheng knew that time was too late, so he personally encouraged his morale and jumped into the armour and held the blade to jump into the gang.

The pirates could not use the ladders to siege the city at sea, so the pirates threw the hooks tied with hemp ropes onto the big ship, and then climbed up the side of the ship by pulling the hemp ropes and feet.

The soldiers of the government were calm and tried their best to take advantage of the height drop of two meters, either smashing heavy objects downwards, crossing crossbows, or slashing hemp ropes with a ring-headed knife.

The pirates were killed by the knife and arrow, or simply cut off the rope and fell into the sea, screaming and killing.

Guan Cheng himself has a very strong martial arts skills. He didn't need to scratch the hook when the two-meter-high boat side drop, but directly assisted and jumped up with his hands. Then he turned over like a parkour player, then took off the knife in his mouth and slashed and killed it one after another. There were five or six Han army crossbowmen who guarded the side of the boat side. The sword and shield soldiers were killed by Guan Cheng, and a hole was immediately torn open on the starboard side of Taishici's flagship, and more pirates climbed up.

However, Taishici, who was in charge of the ship building, was not panicked. He made a quick decision to use a torch signal to let all the sailors on the flagship deck hide back to the ship building, concentrate on defending the ship building at the stern, and give the main deck to the enemy.

At the same time, use a torch signal to notify nearby friendly warships to shoot arrows to cover the flagship with all their might.

The biggest disadvantage of defending a crossbow in a water battle is that it is easy to create shooting dead spots after being pushed to a very close range. Unlike the real city battle, there are arrow towers that protrude from the city walls that can shoot ants from the side to the enemy soldiers who climb the city.

In order to solve this problem, the Garen-type warships in later Western sea ships all had a clever design, which was to make the width of the stern building wider than the hull, and there was a stretched out on both sides that was scattered in the air.

In that case, the crossbowman located in the stern building of the lingkong widened section can form a side-shooting wall effect similar to the projection of the arrow tower on the city wall, clearing blind spots.

Unfortunately, Mi Zhu's ship obviously does not have such a high-end design now, but it doesn't matter. Taishici knows how to adapt - letting friendly ships cover the flagship's side and deck, which is enough for the pirates to drink a pot.

After Guan Cheng saw that his side had seized the deck, all the officials retreated back to the stern building. He was quite excited at first. However, the officials guarded the stairs of the stern building, and he could not rush up to end the battle.

Without delaying for long, the Han army warships began to "fire at me" and shoot at each other's blind spots of friendly forces!

The pirates who were climbing the side and standing on the exposed deck suddenly increased their casualties.

"No, I've been trapped!" Guan Cheng complained in his heart, but he had no choice but to let everyone rush to the stern of the flagship ship, hoping to kill Taishi Ci and let the Han army be in chaos.
To be continued...