Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 343: Pirates? Come on, let’s see the pirates.

The large ships sailed southwards, not only for transportation purposes, but also as a deterrent. The six large ships would stop for a day at every port along the way. Some ports were not even as big as the ships. The impact this brought to local residents and foreign merchants was almost terrifying.

Here I would like to give a verbal praise to the guys from Shiwei and Goguryeo. In order to please the barbarians on the grassland, they cut down all the towering trees that had grown for hundreds or thousands of years in the old forests of Northeast China and sent them to their lands.

If they were kept at their original height, they would have been enough to burn for a while, but now people in the grasslands have long been burning coal, and they felt bad about burning this stuff, so they took great pains to transport one or two thousand huge trees to the south, exchanged them for a lot of things they needed, and returned happily.

This is why we have this God-given good wood to build big ships. Otherwise, even Xia Lin would be like a skilled cook without rice. He can't just board the ironclad ship directly. He wanted to, but he didn't have the technology to do it.

But in fact, this is enough, because the appearance of these six ships represents the official arrival of the era of sea power. It is impossible to cross the ocean, but it is still unimpeded within the first island chain.

Every time the giant ships entered or left the harbor along the way, they would attract a large crowd of onlookers. Xia Lin would sometimes look at these onlookers from the boat, because he knew in his heart that it would be a long time before such a grand spectacle would be seen. In the troubled times to come, these giant ships would be the last majesty and glory of the Central Plains Dynasty.

Their greatest role is not to conquer the east and the west, but to warn those villains around who covet the flesh and blood of the Central Plains, "Look, even if I am in decline, you cannot touch me."

Showing off along the way, they soon arrived at Zhenhai. This place didn't even have a decent dock. It was thanks to Xia Lin's foresight that there were a large number of craftsmen on the boat. They quickly built a temporary dock on the mudflat using materials and deployed the base vehicle as soon as possible.

These are all necessary items for a march. Their anti-bandit team arrived in the afternoon of the previous day, and the camp had been set up early the next morning. Smoke was already rising from the forty large pots inside.

Anyway, it was around the third day when news came to the Duke Dingguo's mansion that the imperial court's bandit-suppressing army had arrived. He had already received the imperial edict and thought that the bandit-suppressing army would come by land. Although he was extremely reluctant, he still had to give the imperial court some face, so they prepared to welcome the bandit-suppressing army in the provincial capital of Yangzhou.

But who knew that the bandit-suppressing army would take the water route. Not only had they arrived, but they had even set up a large camp and started setting up camp and building fortifications.

After receiving this news, Duke Dingguo Dou Wu slapped his thigh and thought to himself that something was wrong. He quickly stood up and said, "Prepare the horses! Prepare the horses quickly! Follow me to Zhenhai."

It would take them at least one day to reach Zhenhai from the provincial capital, but Xia Lin usually camped for three days for training. Today was the third day, and they had already started driving piles around the camp in preparation for building houses and residences.

This is how it is. Once they are asked to build the camp, it will be easier said than done. As long as someone says the enemy is not defeated, they will stay there forever.

However, due to the lack of information, Duke Dingguo was really panicked.

Xia Lin himself was currently exploring the area around Zhenhai County under the protection of several military officers. Judging from the dilapidated villages and almost deserted towns around it, this place had suffered a lot over the years. In some places, the corpses had not even been cleared away, and there were white bones and ferocious-eyed wild dogs everywhere.

"Duke Dingguo." Xia Lin put his hands behind his back and kept repeating, "It's the end for you."

After that, he called the master over and said, "You guys record how many empty houses there are here, and then go to the county government to verify the exact population count. The number reported by Dingguo Gong is wrong."

"Order!"

The lieutenant left after receiving the order, and Xia Lin turned to Deputy General Jiang and said, "From now on, Zhenhai will be under military control. All people entering and leaving Zhenhai must be strictly checked. At the same time, the spies must be released. Even if we have to dig three feet deep within a five hundred li radius, we must expose these bandits for me."

"Order."

"One more thing." Xia Lin raised his hand: "Go and arrange some manpower to gather the scattered people around and have them settle down and cultivate the land around the camp."

People have to live. Although this place is no longer suitable for ordinary people to survive, there are still people scattered around. Whether they are fleeing famine or hiding, there must be many people alive. But if they are left alone, they will not live long. They will either be hacked to death by thieves or die of starvation or disease.

After Deputy General Jiang had finalized the matter, he personally led a large group of soldiers to start searching. They were dressed in standard uniforms, light armor, and shining long swords at their waists. They looked different from ordinary soldiers. Many of them were specially trained as scouts with strong reconnaissance capabilities. In just one hour, they found hundreds of people in the surrounding caves and valleys.

These people were actually very desperate. After seeing the new army of Po Lu, their first reaction was to beg for mercy and cry. Fortunately, there were people from this area among the people who came this time. After communicating with them, the people who were hiding realized that this was a team sent by the imperial court to eliminate the bandits.

With the guidance of the locals, the search speed was significantly accelerated, and more than a thousand people were found in those corners.

These people are extremely miserable. They have been hiding in the mountains these days with little clothes to wear. It is said that most of them were the elderly, women and children when they came, and there were more people, but now less than half of them are left. Xia Lin saw some women holding their dead children in their arms and refusing to let go, and many people were like homeless souls, and he felt helpless.

However, the past cannot be let go in this way. Someone still needs to settle the account, not only those bandits but also Duke Dingguo who did not take care of the matter.

As a hereditary military hero, he should not be like this. In order to preserve his strength, he showed weakness to others and even ignored such a tragedy. This shows that he has lost the blood of a warrior. Originally, Xia Lin said that he just wanted to intimidate him, but now he feels that it is not particularly difficult to get rid of him directly.

"Deputy General Jiang, please ask the doctor in the team to check on them first, and then get some canned food for them. Let everyone have a good night's rest first, and then ask the bandits where they are tomorrow morning."

"Order."

Although many people here have lost their loved ones, at least now they can feel safe. They have food and drink, and a clean place to rest. The most important thing is that there are fully armed sentinels standing at the outermost part of them, patrolling back and forth.

This night was probably the most peaceful sleep they had had in recent days, but some people were still awake.

Because the place where these refugees lived was about a mile away from the main camp, and there were not many soldiers left here, the pirates had discovered this base long ago, which contained a large amount of food and various weapons.

Isn't this what they want? What do they have soldiers? They have plundered barracks and government offices before. They can even take down a county government office with eight people. It's just a few dozen soldiers.

So when the sky was just getting light, a pirate group of nearly two hundred people had quietly gathered. This was the method they most often used. They would take advantage of the lax defense to launch a sudden attack to plunder, and then quickly retreat.

These people were armed with weapons, most of which were looted from the Zhenhai Yamen, and they quietly approached in the faint light of dawn.

But they obviously had not expected that the area around the camp was already filled with secret sentries. With Xia Lin's personality, there was no way he would not think of a sneak attack. If they really let these lowly guys sneak into the camp, and if the news got out, Old Guo would beat him into a charcoal-roasted lamb leg with red-hot steel wire.

The first layer of secret sentries discovered the traces of these people, who were about three miles away from the camp, so they passed the information to the second layer of secret sentries through special codes.

Soon the news was quickly passed on to the garrison. At this moment, Xia Lin had not woken up yet. The one on duty was Lieutenant General Jiang. After hearing the news, he was not panicked and was even eager to try.

He gave instructions quickly and the soldiers in the camp prepared to go out immediately. These people were more anxious than anyone else. After all, they had been stuck in the barracks for too long. They were not satisfied with just training and fiddling around all day long. Thinking about the military merits that were rushing in so anxiously outside, if they didn't take them all down, they would have to sit up suddenly in the middle of the night and slap their thighs, cursing, "Damn it!"

"Armor!"

Following an order, three hundred soldiers began to put on their armor. There was no other sound in the entire camp except the sound of armor being put on and colliding.

Although they had no horses, the heavy infantry were still quite terrifying. Fully armed and wearing face masks, for a bandit holding a kitchen knife, it was like using the kitchen knife to chop down a tank.

Thirty shield soldiers were marching in front of the formation, holding heavy shields like tanks, and the long sword soldiers and archers behind them began to attack in formation. Their steps were in unison, and their heavy footsteps on the ground were like running bulls, and the vibrations could be felt from a long distance away.

There were clearly only 300 people, which was the number of people on two buses during the morning rush hour, but it looked like an army of thousands, which was quite shocking.

At this time, the deputy general raised the flag and waved it forward: "Po Lu army, attack!"

At this moment, the bandits had already reached the edge of the camp, and just as they were preparing to reap the harvest, they were suddenly enveloped by an ominous premonition, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps, and then the first person to be hit was a man who was suddenly pierced through the throat by an arrow. He jumped a few times on the ground and then became motionless.

This time they also started to take it seriously, and without saying a word they immediately took out their weapons to prepare for the fight.

At this moment, the sun broke through the thick fog on the sea, and the weak sunlight shone down. Suddenly, they saw a team of heavy armored soldiers with silver light flashing on their bodies appearing on the opposite side...

(End of this chapter)