A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

Shang Wanqing did not enter the port after arriving in Quanzhou.

She led three people into a fishing village by the sea that didn't even have a name.

The village was pitifully small, with a dozen or so households crammed behind the rocks, making a living by fishing and salt production.

When the village chief saw the token hanging from her waist, he was so frightened that he almost dropped his cane.

"Don't be afraid."

Shang Wanqing took back the token: "I'll just borrow a place to stay for a few days. It won't be free."

On her first day, she did nothing but walk south along the coastline.

I didn't get back until dark; my shoes were covered in mud and sand, and my trouser legs were soaked.

The next day, we continued our journey, but this time in a different direction, heading north.

On the third day, she finally stopped in front of a shallow beach.

Two half-sunken ships were lying there.

The boat was tilted, half of it buried in the sand, the mast was broken, and the canvas was blackened by the tide.

From a distance, they look like two wrecked, dead ships.

But Shang Wanqing squatted down and watched for half an hour, her eyes growing brighter and brighter as she looked.

She had the silt shoveled away from the side of the ship and ordered the craftsmen who came with her to pry off a piece of the side plank.

The wood is wrong.

It's not the pine or cedar commonly used in shipbuilding in the Central Plains; it has a finer grain and a lighter density, resembling hardwoods from Southeast Asia.

She pinched the broken surface with her fingernail and then brought it closer to smell it.

"This wood is durable for soaking," she muttered to herself.

The craftsman squatted to the side, hesitant to speak.

Shang Wanqing had already climbed halfway into the cabin.

The spacing between the rivets was one-third narrower than that of the new warship, and the keel was thin and long, not to withstand impacts, but to reduce weight.

The rudder blade has an even stranger shape, short and wide, like a kitchen knife.

She touched it while going through it in her mind.

It has a shallow draft, turns quickly, and has a narrow hull. It is not resistant to wind and waves but can run close to the shore.

These ships aren't for fighting; they're for escaping.

They hit and ran away, and you couldn't catch them.

No wonder Shin-Wu's large ships couldn't do anything to them.

Shang Wanqing crawled out of the cabin, her trouser legs covered in rust and rotten wood chips.

She sat on the rocks, writing down every detail she had just seen in her notebook.

The spacing between rivets, the curvature of the keel, the width of the rudder blade, the thickness of the hull plates, the position of the mast, and even the weaving method of the canvas were all taken into account.

After inspecting the two ships in three days, she had a pretty good idea of ​​what was going on.

After returning to the village, she slept during the day and drew pictures at night.

One pot of lamp oil after another was burned, and the pile of straw paper on the table was almost falling to the ground.

She drew very slowly, repeatedly checking each line against the information in her notebook.

It's not a depiction of pirate ships.

It depicts a ship capable of catching up with pirates.

It needs to draw shallower water and move faster than them, but it can't scatter like they do at the slightest touch.

What she wants is something that she can both chase and crash into.

These two things together are almost contradictory.

But Shang Wanqing's greatest strength is in bringing contradictory things together.

On the seventh night, she finally finished drawing the first draft of the ship design.

I had just put down my pen when there was a knock on the door—three long knocks followed by two short ones.

Shang Wanqing kept her hand on the table without moving.

Three long and two short – the secret code of the Embroidered Uniform Pavilion.

She got up and opened the door.

A man dressed in black stood outside the door, his face pale and his lips white.

"Mrs. Shang"

He lowered his voice and said, "I'm from the Quanzhou branch."

Shang Wanqing let him in.

The spy saw the blueprints spread out on the table as soon as he entered the room, hesitated for a moment, and didn't look at them for long.

"What happened?"

"The pirates have leaked the news."

The spy spoke quickly: "They know a weapons manufacturer has come to the capital and are looking for you along the coast."

Shang Wanqing did not respond immediately.

She went through it in her mind first.

No more than ten people know that I came to Quanzhou.

The information leaked either because someone was watching them on the road, or because there were indeed pirates' spies on the shore.

Liu Jingshuang's urgent report was correct. These people have connections on the shore.

"How many people?" she asked.

"At least fifty. They'll be there tonight."

Shang Wanqing glanced at the blueprints on the table, then looked out the window.

The night was deep, and the sea breeze, carrying a salty smell, blew in through the cracks in the window.

She didn't panic.

Panicking wouldn't help. Fifty men rushed in; she, a mere crossbow maker, couldn't defeat them. But she didn't necessarily have to fight.

How many people are in the village?

The spy paused for a moment: "Including the elderly and children, there are more than sixty people."

"Wake everyone up and retreat to the back mountain."

As Shang Wanqing spoke, she rolled up all the drawings and notebooks on the table and stuffed them into an oilcloth bag: "Don't leave a single one."

The spy grew anxious: "And what about you?"

"I stayed."

"You're going to take on fifty pirates all by yourself?"

Shang Wanqing fastened the rope of the oilcloth bag and looked up at him.

"Who said I'm alone?"

She pointed out the window: "How many archers do you have under your command?"

The spy gritted his teeth: "There are still twelve brothers in the branch, including six archers."

That's enough.

The scout didn't understand. "Pile up wooden planks?"

"Did the pirates sneak into the village on foot or on horseback?"

"Mostly on horseback. The sand is hard over there in the shallows, so you can run."

"That's right."

Shang Wanqing walked outside: "They spread rotten wooden planks all over the ground, then sprinkled a layer of sand on top to cover them. When a horse steps on them, the planks break, and the nails face up. Guess whether they save the horse first or pull out the nails first?"

The spy was stunned for a moment, then gritted his teeth.

"I'll get on it right away!"

In the next hour, the entire village came to a standstill.

After being woken up, the fishermen didn't ask any questions and ran up the mountain with their children in their arms.

The spies led their men to the shallows and pried off the side planks of the two wrecked boats piece by piece.

The board was covered in rusty rivets, with sharp points pointing outwards, and they were very sharp to the touch.

Shang Wanqing personally supervised the laying of the wooden planks at the village entrance.

It was paved with three layers, and the top layer was covered with fine sand, so under the moonlight it looked like an ordinary dirt road.

Six archers were assigned to the rooftops on both sides of the village entrance, squatting behind the tiles, with their bowstrings already drawn.

Shang Wanqing climbed to the ridge of the highest house and found a spot where she could see the entire road leading into the village to sit down.

The sea breeze made her hair a mess, but she didn't care.

She held the oilcloth bag in her arms, inside which were the ship sketches she had drawn over seven days.

just wait.

Just after midnight, the sound of horses' hooves could be heard in the distance.

Not just one or two, but a whole flock.

The hoofbeats were kept low, as if the speed had been deliberately slowed down.

No matter how slowly fifty horses were driven, their sounds could not be concealed.

Shang Wanqing looked down from the roof ridge.

The moonlight was faint; only a dark shadow could be seen surging from the road by the sea.

The first few people were holding knives, and the people behind them followed closely. The formation was not too messy, but it was not very orderly either.

She quickly counted in her mind. There were more than forty riders, and a few more on foot behind them, making it about fifty people in total.

coming.

When the first row of horses' hooves stepped onto the section of road at the village entrance, nothing happened.

The sand was so thick that it felt just like walking on solid ground when a horse stepped on it.

The second row followed.

The third row also came up.

Then the plank broke.

"puff--"

A horse's forelegs sank into the ground with a sudden, muffled sound as the plank snapped, but the horse's neighing immediately erupted.

The rivet pierced the horse's hoof, causing it to lurch forward. The rider was thrown from the horse's back and fell to the ground. Before he could get up, the horses behind him trampled on him.

Seven or eight horses tripped in succession, some overturned, some broke their front legs, and the riders rolled all over the ground.

Those behind tried to rein in their horses, but the line was too tightly packed and they couldn't stop.

The village entrance was instantly thrown into chaos.

Shang Wanqing raised her right hand.

On both sides of the roof, six bows were simultaneously unstrung.

Not many arrows, but accurate.

The first volley of twelve arrows struck, pinning three pirates who hadn't even gotten up to the ground.

The horse was kicking wildly beside them, tripping up even more people.

The second volley of arrows followed immediately.

The pirates finally reacted, and someone shouted towards the roof. Several riders who hadn't fallen turned their horses around and tried to charge to either side.

But the village was too narrow, and the alley was only wide enough for one horse to pass through. As soon as he squeezed in, he was slashed down from behind the wall by a spy.

Shang Wanqing sat on the roof ridge, looking down at the chaos below.

She didn't have a knife, nor did she go down.

She sat there, holding an oilcloth bag in her arms, the ink on the sketch inside already dried.

The diagram clearly shows: a narrow hull, shallow draft, short rudder, and two masts positioned forward.

It was labeled in small print next to it: "Shallow draft, can keep up with speed."