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

On the beach of Crescent Bay, the first teeth-grinding scraping sound rang out.

It was the sound of a ship's keel being forcefully pushed onto the sand, sharp and piercing, carrying far across the quiet beach before dawn.

Then came the second and the third.

With the help of the last surging wave before dawn, the pirates' fast ships, with their narrow hulls and shallow drafts, were forcibly pushed onto the hard sand in a half-slipping, half-rushing manner.

"Splash!"

Almost simultaneously, countless dark figures leaped down from both sides of the ship, the sound of tin boots stomping on the wet sand dull and rapid.

They carried no shields, wore no heavy armor, and each carried a narrow-bladed longsword that gleamed with a cold light. Like a horde of hungry ghosts released from hell, they charged straight into the dark inland without stopping or even forming ranks.

Three or four hundred people, moving as fast as the wind.

Their goal was clear: to cross this open mudflat and establish a solid beachhead before dawn.

Ke Zhenchuan's beach landing was faster and more decisive than she had anticipated.

"Pass down the order!"

Her voice, carried by the howling sea wind, showed no sign of panic, but rather a cold decisiveness:

"All boats, move forward immediately! Right in the shallow water, turn sideways!"

The order was transmitted instantly throughout the entire Clipper fleet via flag signals.

Fifteen black speedboats, like a school of fish that had been trained countless times, turned their sails and rushed toward the mudflats in unison.

Instead of rushing onto the beach rashly, they suddenly turned in the critical waters where their ships were about to run aground, aiming their sides, equipped with light crossbows, at the pirate ships that were trying to catch up with the first wave of attacks and continue to approach the shore.

"put!"

Shang Wan-qing suddenly waved her hand.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

A dense, sharp sound, like the flapping of wasps' wings, instantly tore through the night sky.

Hundreds of specially made short arrows, carrying enough force to pierce two layers of cowhide, rained down on the pirate fleet that was huddled together, frantically preparing to land.

"Pfft pfft pfft!"

The sound of arrows piercing wooden planks and canvas was dull and deadly.

On the lead pirate ship, seven or eight pirates who were preparing to jump ship were shot into a pincushion by crossbow bolts before they could even scream. Their bodies were riddled with arrows, and they fell into the cold sea like tattered sacks.

The other boat had more than a dozen holes in its canvas, lost its wind power, spun around in place, and crashed directly into a friendly boat next to it.

"An ambush! It's Xinwu's crossbow ships!"

"Spread out! Don't crowd together!"

The pirate fleet was thrown into chaos.

They clearly did not expect that Shinbu's navy would launch such a concentrated attack from this distance.

The troop transport rhythm was instantly torn open with a huge gap.

The first group of three or four hundred people who had already landed suddenly became an isolated force without any support.

Shang Wanqing looked at the chaos on the sea, her face still expressionless.

She knew in her heart that her mission was not to annihilate them, but to pin them down here and create opportunities for the people on the shore.

"Keep shooting!"

She said coldly, "Don't let another person get ashore!"

At the other end of the mudflats, atop the rolling sand dunes to the west, Liu Jingshuang sat quietly on horseback.

She stood motionless, like a statue blending into the night, silently watching the pirate force below rapidly advancing inland.

The sea breeze rustled the hem of her plain-colored dress.

The five thousand cavalrymen behind her stood motionless, like a silent steel forest.

The horses' hooves were wrapped in thick cloth, and the warhorses had wooden muzzles in their mouths. Apart from the occasional suppressed snort, the entire sand dune was so quiet that you could hear the wind.

"General, they're within a hundred paces!" A lieutenant lowered his voice, his tone carrying a barely suppressed fighting spirit.

Liu Jingshuang did not answer; her gaze, like that of an eagle, was fixed on the tail of the pirate group.

She is waiting.

Once they all set foot on this land of death, once they were far enough from the beach behind them that they could no longer retreat immediately.

Finally, as the last pirate crossed the invisible line, Liu Jingshuang slowly raised her right hand.

Her movements were slow, but in the eyes of all the generals behind her, they were like sparks igniting a fuse.

She looked down at the group of pirates charging forward recklessly, completely unaware that death was imminent, and gently waved her hand downwards.

There were no bugles, no war drums.

There was only a low, rumbling sound, like muffled thunder rolling across the earth.

"boom--"

On either side of the dunes, two streams of black water surged down the slopes of the dunes without warning!

The five thousand cavalrymen split into two groups, like two huge black scythes. Instead of charging directly at the front of the pirates, they attacked from the left and right flanks at a tricky angle, fiercely flanking the empty mudflats behind them!

The horses' hooves pounded on the soft sand, kicking up clouds of dust. Their unstoppable momentum seemed to want to crush the entire beach!

What was that sound?

In the advancing pirate column, the one-eyed leader suddenly stopped and looked back with surprise and uncertainty.

The next second, all the color drained from his face.

Behind them, on the beach that had originally been their retreat route, two black iron streams had appeared at some point.

The two streams of iron rapidly closed from the left and right flanks, like a tightening iron clamp, firmly blocking their connection with the sea.

"It's cavalry! It's the cavalry of Xinwu!"

"We're surrounded!"

"Back off! Back off now!"

Panic spread like a plague among the three or four hundred people in an instant.

They wanted to back out, but it was too late.

Xinwu's cavalry gave them no chance to regroup.

After cutting off their retreat, the cavalry on both flanks did not charge directly into the crowd for a bloody slaughter. Instead, they acted like two moving walls, creating an impenetrable defensive line that gradually compressed their space inward.

Forced to retreat by this silent pressure, the pirates were eventually trapped in a narrow crevice formed by sand dunes and cavalry.

The one-eyed leader still wanted to organize his men to break out, but he despairingly discovered that they had nowhere to go.

Ahead lay steep, scalable sand dunes.

Behind them was a dense, dark cavalry defense line, a forest of swords and spears.

The left and right sides were completely blocked.

They were like a group of rats driven into a dead end, forced to watch helplessly as the encirclement tightened little by little.

The sky gradually brightened without us even realizing it.

As the first rays of sunlight fell on the beach, the morning light illuminated the cold iron armor of the cavalrymen and the desperate expressions on the faces of the pirates.

They finally saw it clearly.

They were surrounded not by hundreds, not by a thousand people.

It was an endless forest made of steel and warhorses!

High on the sand dune, Liu Jingshuang slowly rode forward, looking down at the group of pirates below who had completely lost their will to fight.

Her cool voice carried clearly to everyone's ears on the sea breeze.

"Put down the knife and squat down."

"I won't kill them."

There was a deathly silence on the sand.

All the pirates gripped their knives, exchanging bewildered glances, their eyes filled with struggle and fear.

Liu Jingshuang didn't say anything more, she just quietly watched them.

Time seemed to stand still.

After an unknown amount of time, a slight metallic thud broke the suffocating silence.

Clang.

A narrow-bladed longsword slipped from the trembling hand of a pirate and fell onto the sand.