Magical Water Margin: They all call me brother

Among these two hundred guards from the Daming Prefecture, there are four captains and deputy captains, and eight officers of the rank of section chief. None of the twelve low-ranking officers were recruited through connections or by taking shortcuts; they were all prominent figures in the Daming Prefecture who had earned their reputations through hard work and fighting, and all of them were at least level 4.

One team was stationed on the large ship to protect the birthday gifts, while the other team was divided into five squads, patrolling on five small boats, with twenty people on each boat.

Liang Zhongshu wasn't stupid. Sometimes he could put his own people in there to make a living, but other times he had to use some truly capable experts.

However, the route of the escort fleet was quite easy to guess—starting from Daming Prefecture, it would first enter a tributary of the Yellow River along the Zhang River, then enter the main channel of the Yellow River, and finally enter Kaifeng along the Grand Canal, all by water.

"The Yellow River is too wide, and they are in big boats. My brothers and sisters only have small boats. It will be difficult to stop a behemoth like the Thousand Stone King. The waves that the Thousand Stone King stirs up might even sink us."

"Therefore, we must intercept them before they enter the Yellow River. It would be best to choose a narrower section of the river to make our move, leaving their large ships nowhere to escape."

Zhu Gui, who was familiar with the waterways, offered his opinion.

“I agree, and we must find a place far from Daming Prefecture, a relatively remote and desolate place to take action, so that when the other side calls for help, the reinforcements from Daming Prefecture or other prefectures and counties in Hebei will arrive later.”

Song Wan nodded in agreement, and the group set off by boat to scout ahead. They eventually chose a waterway that connected the Zhang River with a tributary of the Yellow River, perfectly meeting all the above conditions.

Then comes the question of how to seize the boats. At that time, the Song army will definitely drive away all the boats in the river. Once they get close, they will be attacked, and small boats will not be able to get close.

"I have a great idea."

As Liu Hong recalled Zhu Gui's abilities and looked at Du Qian's incredibly strong cannibals, a sudden inspiration struck him.

“Cunxiao and I can fly, so the Song army’s inspection is useless against us. When the time comes, the two of us will fly over and land on the lead Song army ship to attack it.”

"And Sister Zhu Gui can turn the last boat in the column into your giant crocodile and capsize it, thus cutting off the head and tail! Leaving the Song army in the middle helpless and bewildered."

"Before that, Sister Du Qian, have your incredibly strong ogres pull small boats across the dry land on the riverbanks, hiding them inside the forests on both sides of the river. Your troops and Sister Song Wan's troops should also be hidden on both banks, so that they won't be discovered."

"Once Zhu Gui and I attack and paralyze the bow and stern ships, the cannibals will immediately push the ships hidden on the shore into the river. You and Song Wan's soldiers will then use these ships to launch a fierce attack on the left and right flanks of the Song army's fleet!"

"In this way, we have encircled the Song army from all sides within the narrow river channel, catching them completely off guard!!!"

"Cut off the head and tail, surround from all sides, this plan is brilliant."

After Liu Hong shared his thoughts, not only did Du Qian and the other illiterate village women nod in agreement, but even Wang Lun nodded repeatedly, looking at Liu Hong with a mixture of admiration and envy—who exactly was this Liu Hong, that he had managed to steal the spotlight from us underworld figures?

"However, we need to prepare a large number of rolling logs. With these logs as axles, the boats can roll on flat ground. The Song army has many crossbows, so we also need a large number of shields for targeted deployment."

"I'll handle the log!"

Du Qian volunteered himself.

"I'll take care of the shield!"

Song Wan was also eager to try.

"Okay, then let's do as you say, brother."

Zhu Gui excitedly licked his lips, his dark green dress trembling slightly, seemingly nervous about the immense wealth he was about to acquire. The group then dispersed to prepare supplies.

Three days later, the group mustered their troops and prepared ample provisions. One hundred and sixty bandits, in sixteen small boats, departed from Daming Prefecture in a grand procession and arrived at the designated river channel, ready to launch an ambush.

Chapter 49: Liu Hong Robs the Treasury by Boat on Dry Land

Soon, these sixteen fast boats, before the morning mist had dissipated, reached the waterway that the birthday tribute fleet would inevitably pass through. The natural barrier of dense reeds had long been discovered by the Song army. A few days earlier, the five hundred laborers conscripted had cut the reeds on both banks clean, exposing the ochre mudflats to the summer sun, and the water surface was so wide that one could see fish swimming.

Liu Hong chuckled, having anticipated this. With a command, the sixteen fast boats split into two teams of eight, approaching the left and right banks. The cannibals, averaging three and a half meters tall, first laid out perfectly round logs on the shore, pressing down on the clumps of freshly cut reeds that oozed sap.

Then, the cannibals' arms, thick as beams and with veins bulging, pulled the sixteen flat-bottomed speedboats ashore, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and placed them on logs, with an average of six logs on each boat to serve as wheels.

"Calculate the time! See how long it will take you to pull the boat from the woods to the river! Don't make it late!"

At Liu Hong's command, the bandits silently counted the time, pulled on the boat ropes, stepped on the reeds, and used the smooth logs to drag the boat into the old willow grove and thorn bushes deep in the shore. When the withered vines and wild kudzu covered the hull, not even a gray sparrow foraging for food could be startled.

Liu Hong carefully inspected the ambush positions on both banks of the river, confirming that they were extremely well concealed, before he felt relieved.

According to the plan, Liu Hong and Li Cunxiao were in charge of the bow, and Zhu Gui was in charge of the stern.

The ambush fleet on the left was lined up in a row, commanded by Wang Lun, Du Qian, and Guo Sheng.

The ambush fleet on the right flank, commanded by Wu Song, Song Wan, and Lü Fang, is poised to strike.

The two groups each consisted of ten ogres, fifty ratmen, and fifteen caravan members, totaling seventy-five people.

Each ratman carries a short knife, and their ranged weapons are a diverse array, including bows and arrows, crossbows, spears, catapults, and even fire lances.

The ogres carried bags of stones and each carried a giant log over three meters long—the most powerful weapons they could obtain.

Meanwhile, the caravan members of Lü Fang and Guo Sheng, who traveled all over the country, carried thirty sharp broadswords, each over two meters long—usually disassembled.

As for Pan Jinlian, her fighting ability is hard to assess. She is powerful in her four-tailed fox form, but she lacks practical experience. Liu Hong did not dare to let his wife take such a big risk, so he and Wu Dalang were responsible for logistics.

After making all the arrangements, Song Wan dispatched a swarm of rats to scout along both banks of the river to determine the whereabouts of the birthday gifts. Everything was ready, and they were just waiting for this ill-gotten wealth to fall into their trap!

On the other hand, the Song army was naturally extremely careful when escorting such a large amount of birthday tribute, setting off at dawn every day and immediately anchoring at a safe port at dusk.

Sometimes, if the next port is too far and we can't make it by dusk, we'll simply stay at a nearby port in the afternoon and wait until daylight the next day before setting off again, never venturing into the dangers of the night.

Therefore, when the fleet approached the canal, it was high noon.

The bandits hid in the woods on both banks, holding their breath and watching a 40-meter-long, Thousand Stone King's ship float on the river like a palace. Protected by five 15-meter-long boats, it came from the north in a grand procession. The giant white sails blended into the clouds, making the giant ship appear like a dream on the river where the water and sky met.

One small boat led the way, two small boats protected the left and right flanks, and two small boats brought up the rear, keeping the large ship firmly in the middle.

Even more outrageous was that this large ship was flying the flag of the Song Dynasty, and also had two smaller flags flying on either side.

On the left is inscribed, "A strong wind reveals the strength of the grass, and turbulent times reveal the loyalty of the minister." On the right is written, "A brave man may not understand righteousness, but a wise man will always possess benevolence."

"This is a poem that Emperor Taizong of Tang wrote to Chancellor Xiao Yu! He was such a good man, how could that old scoundrel Cai Jing have the nerve to employ him?!"

Wang Lun spoke indignantly, and the other bandits, who were completely bewildered and couldn't understand the poem, were also filled with righteous indignation after hearing Wang Lun's explanation.

"Damn it! Liang Zhongshu seized the savings of countless merchants and drove countless innocent people to ruin in order to send out this gift. Who gave her the audacity to write such a poem?"

Seeing the crowd's indignation, Liu Hong gave the final order.

"Listen up, everyone! Li Cunxiao and I will launch the first attack on the leader of the group! After seeing the dragon's breath, Zhu Gui will launch the second attack from the rear of the group! As soon as the rest of you see Zhu Gui's crocodile appear, immediately rush out from both sides of the riverbank! No mistakes allowed!"

This robbery of the birthday gifts is of paramount importance. If we succeed, brothers and sisters, we'll have done the work for generations to come!

At Liu Hong's command, the bandits cheered! They hid in the woods and undergrowth, instinctively holding their breath, their eyes fixed on the approaching fleet, not daring to utter a sound.

"Now's the time, Cunxiao, let's go!"

As the Song army's transport convoy arrived, Liu Hong gave an order, and the brother and sister took flight together, like two dazzling shooting stars, one blue and one gold, soaring into the high sky!

The five-meter-long dragon cub excitedly flapped its wings, tearing through the clouds as it swooped down. Its cobalt blue scales shimmered with cold electric light in the clouds, and its underdeveloped thorns meandered along its spine. Its tail fins rippled out a semi-transparent net of lightning in the gale.

She took a deep breath, and dazzling arcs of electricity gathered into blinding white spots deep in her dragon throat. Her jaw scales exploded due to energy overload. When her throat sac, filled with plasma, swelled to its limit, a lightning breath carrying the smell of burning ozone burst forth!

In an instant, hundreds of forked lightning bolts burst forth in mid-air with blue-purple ionic halos, resembling from afar an inverted tree of lightning bursting forth in the air, or like a giant dragon in the sky casting a lightning fishing net to capture human lives onto the river.

"boom!!!"

Amidst the deafening roar of thunder, the masts of the wooden sailboat were the first to crumble into burning embers in the ionizing storm, and the sails were ignited by the intense electric current. The three river guards of the daimyo prefecture were pierced through the heart by devastating bolts of lightning.

In a fraction of a second, their chests became ghostly transparent, blue-violet lightning shooting out from between their ribs. The network of blood vessels, gleaming in the intense light, resembled countless tiny crimson snakes struggling in lava. A burnt smell mingled with ozone permeated the air. A fist-sized, blazing red cavity appeared in the heart area, its surrounding flesh vitrified in the intense heat, refracting a strange, prism-like light. Unevaporated blood formed a boiling mist in the chest cavity, spreading throughout the entire ship.

Moreover, the aftershocks of the lightning still coursed through the muscle fibers, causing the corpse to twitch unnaturally every few seconds. The pale face froze at the cusp of shock and pain, the pupils dilating into two dark vortexes, reflecting the terrifying appearance of the Shatuo dragon.

Not only that, streaks of lightning raged through the damp hull. Although not as powerful as the main lightning pulse, they were still quite terrifying, causing the remaining seventeen Daimyo Prefecture River Guardians to dance wildly and stand on end.

A panicked river guard leaped into the waves, but the instant he touched the surface, he was struck by a current, his convulsing body rising in eerie wisps of blue smoke from the crest of a wave. The nearby river surface was transformed into a boiling electromagnetic cage by this dragon's breath!

Seeing Li Cunxiao launch such a conspicuous attack, killing four and injuring sixteen with a single dragon breath, Zhu Gui immediately took action as well!

In the past year and a half, her strength has also increased. With a sharp flick of her slender finger, the small Song army warship at the end of the column, about fifteen meters long, suddenly came to life and transformed into a giant crocodile fifteen meters long. With twenty Song soldiers on its back, it plunged into the riverbed to attack the second ship at the rear!

The crocodile was so huge that its mere impact on the underwater surface caused the entire small boat to rock violently. The soldiers on board swayed unsteadily as if drunk, unable to stand up and unable to attack.

"Now! Brothers and sisters! Seize the birthday gifts!!!"

On both banks of the river, Wu Song and Wang Lun roared, as sixteen small boats chugged across the land, crushing the rolling logs and propelling themselves forward with a thunderous roar. Wu Song's powerful roar and Wang Lun's shrill shriek resonated amidst the waves, one hundred and sixty pairs of muscular arms rising and falling in unison, the sharp sound of oars cleaving through the air even drowning out the turbulent current!

The moment the bows of the sixteen small boats suddenly tilted downwards, the entire fleet, like a thunderbolt hurled by a god, plunged headlong into the water with the crackling sound of exploding logs.

In an instant, the waves surged three zhang into the air, but the twenty pirates on each boat seemed to have taken root. The moment their soaked feet touched the deck, forty oars struck the water in unison, propelling them forward at breakneck speed toward the central convoy carrying the birthday gifts belonging to Prince Qian Shi! They formed an encirclement around the Song army fleet!

Chapter 50: The Ruthless and Vicious Lawyer Who Seized Wealth and Power (Bonus Chapter for 1100 Monthly Tickets!)

"Captain! A blue dragon is attacking our vanguard ship! Help! Help!"

The first scout looked up at the sky and roared in fear at Li Cunxiao.

"Captain! The last ship at the rear has turned into a crocodile and is attacking the second small boat at the back! The entire rear guard is in danger of being wiped out!"

The second scout looked down at the riverbed and saw Zhu Gui's crocodile scream in terror.

"Look to both sides! So many small boats are emerging from the woods! Good heavens! Their boats are sailing on land!!!"

"Oh no! They've launched! These boats have been launched! We're surrounded by bandits on both sides!!!"

For a time, the officers and captains who were drinking tea and chatting on the Qian Shi King's ship were stunned by a series of bad news, leaving them dizzy and astonished.

What the heck? Everything was so peaceful just now, and I had just brewed a pot of tea when I was suddenly surrounded?

The captain in charge of protecting the large ship picked up a precious bow and rushed onto the deck, where a blue dragon circling and raging in the sky came into view.

Looking to the left, one could see eight small boats tearing open the blue waterway, and a dozen or so rat-men drawing their bows and shooting arrows that pierced the gunwale with a buzzing sound.

Looking to the right, eight fast boats roared in, and two ogres swung their arms, hurling stones that hit the deck with a loud boom.

The two ships tasked with flanking protection immediately went on high alert, and ten river guards from the daimyo prefecture raised their shields, forming an impenetrable shield wall on the flanks to defend against the ratmen's various ranged projectile weapons.

A rat-man poured gunpowder and stones into a hollow bamboo tube, then lit it. Using the force of the gunpowder explosion, several fragments of stone flew out of the hollow bamboo tube and directly opened a hole in the shield of the Song army, thus creating the earliest model of a musket.

But the Song army was not to be underestimated. The ten river guards from Daming Prefecture hid behind the shield wall of their allies, nocked their arrows, and fired a barrage of arrows every two seconds to suppress the eight ships charging towards them. However, they were blocked by the wooden shields carried by the ratman defense force.

To defend against the Song army's firepower, Song Wan went to great lengths, dismantling many wooden doors and covering them with leather to serve as makeshift shields. He then had several rat-men carry the shields and stand at the very front of the ship to shield the entire crew from the Song army's fierce rain of arrows.

Once the long-range attacks failed to suppress the bandits, the Song army was in deep trouble. The river was already narrow, and Du Qian and Song Wan's fleet rushed in from the flank, almost instantly appearing in front of these small warships!

Two fifteen-meter-long wooden fishing boats, like out-of-control arrows, slammed into the side of the Song army's warship! The pointed bows of the two boats wedged directly into the hull of the other ship, and flying splinters rained down on the Song army's shields. The rotten cedar planks cracked in a spiderweb pattern after the two impacts, and the keel of the ship's hull emitted a series of teeth-grinding cracking sounds.

The next second, the Song army's small warship was smashed into three pieces by the bandits' attack, and it capsized instantly, throwing all twenty Song soldiers on board into the Zhang River. The eight bandit ships didn't even glance at the Song soldiers who had fallen into the water, and rowed frantically, approaching the central warship!

The captains and officers on the large ship were now ashen-faced. Only the small boats on the front and rear sides had been destroyed, and the situation could still be salvaged.

But now, the small boats on both sides were also smashed to pieces in an instant! The sixteen fishing boats, like a pack of wolves hunting a giant beast, surrounded them!

At this moment, an even more troublesome thing happened: in fact, of the five small boats and more than one hundred river guards from Daming Prefecture, less than ten were killed. The remaining ninety or so were just struggling in the water after their boats were damaged by crocodiles or small boats.

These men, who carried the title of River Guards, were all excellent swimmers. They could continue fighting even after climbing onto the boats, and could even board the boats in reverse, causing great trouble for the bandits.

But what am I fighting for?

Each of the river guards began to think immediately after falling into the water.

From a survival standpoint—the enemy is too strong. If I fight back, I might win, or I might die. But if I run away, I'm guaranteed to survive. They're not even bothering to finish me off; their attention is entirely focused on the birthday gifts.

From a moral standpoint—we are escorting 100,000 taels of birthday tribute that Liang Zhongshu obtained by plundering the people's wealth; this is aiding and abetting evil! One portion of this birthday tribute was even deducted from my army's pay! It was squeezed from the rations of my relatives and friends! All the people of Daming Prefecture hate this money to the core.

Why should I be an accomplice to a scoundrel? I should just run! It's not worth risking my life to escort such a worthless piece of trash!

They weren't robbers, they were heroes!

Thinking of this, the Damingfu River Guards, whose boats had broken and fallen into the water, finally found an excuse not to fight. They swung their arms and used all sorts of swimming styles, such as dog swimming, frog swimming, and butterfly swimming, running around in all directions like scattering flowers in the east, west, and north, but none of them gathered in the middle!

In an instant, half of the two hundred river guards had disappeared.

"Teams one, two, and three, guard the port side! Teams four, five, and six, guard the starboard side! The enemy ship is too low to climb up! Teams seven through ten, all of you! Shoot that little dragon in the sky down!"

"All sailors, full speed ahead!!!"

Faced with such a critical moment, the captain, who was skilled in naval warfare, quickly arranged for the other half to defend the area and made the best decision regarding the bandits' actions: ignore them.

The enemy appeared to be coming on strong, but they were all small boats. Even if they were equipped with rams, they could destroy a small boat of the same class, but they couldn't do anything to me, the King of a Thousand Stones!

A small boat colliding with a large ship is no different from a goat colliding with an elephant; it's just courting death.

As long as I can leave this narrow waterway and quickly move towards the nearby prefectures and counties, these bandits will have no choice but to retreat!

Just then, Liu Hong and Zhu Gui made their move.

A pair of molten gold wings burst open with dazzling light under the blazing sun, each flap of the wings stirring up scorching waves of golden fire.

As Liu Hong began his dive, the sky seemed to be torn open by flames, revealing a wound flowing with molten gold—the dazzling trails of flame trailing behind his wings across the heavens, and orange-red sparks bursting forth the moment the blades grazed the mast rigging.

Before the Song army could react to what was happening, the ropes used to secure the first mast and the large sail on the giant ship suddenly snapped like bowstrings! One by one, the ropes, which were taut and suddenly cut, lashed the watchtower like venomous snakes, and countless flying splinters fell like raindrops.

Without the restraint of the mooring lines, the massive white sail, carrying with it broken ropes and trusses, crashed onto the deck with a deafening roar. The terrifying blast wave instantly sent dozens of Song soldiers flying! Many more were caught in the falling giant sail, writhing and struggling, calling for help.

Immediately afterwards, the mooring lines securing the sails on the second and third masts were also cut by Liu Hong in succession amidst a series of violent crashes. The three giant white sails fell one after another in the golden firelight, causing the entire ship to tremble slightly.