Chapter 978 Aid for the Junks
The fleet left the Shengsi Archipelago and turned southwest.
More local pilots now accompanied them than when they first arrived, making the journey much smoother.
Jiang Cheng, Shi Lang, and many Gao Family Village sailors seized this hard-won opportunity, eagerly absorbing every lesson in navigation: how to read the sun, the ocean currents, and the monsoons.
The voyage, spanning dozens of kilometers, transformed into invaluable learning time.
Before long, a large island materialized ahead, crowned by a prominent mountain.
A reformed pirate, now a guide, explained, "This is one of the more renowned islands in the Zhoushan Archipelago. The mountain you see is Guanyin Mountain. Once we round Guanyin Mountain, we'll hit Daishan Island, and then it's straight on to Zhoushan Island."
Hearing that their destination was imminent, the sailors eagerly braced themselves for battle.
Just then, the lookout sailor's shout pierced the air: "Battle ahead! Everyone, look! A battle is underway!"
A ripple of surprise went through the crew, and the commanding officers quickly raised their telescopes.
Two modest fleets were locked in a fierce struggle on the churning sea. One consisted of merely three or four vessels, while the other boasted around ten.
The smaller fleet clearly belonged to pirates from the Ming coast, while the other fleet's vessels, with their slightly unfamiliar design, carried a distinct foreign air.
With a single glance, the reformed pirate cried out, "Ah, those are Japanese Red Seal ships!"
"Japanese ships!"
"The ones fighting the Japanese ships are Liu Xiang's fleet."
"Those are Liu Xiang's junks."
The cannons on both sides thundered, creating a chaotic, deafening clamor.
It was clear to everyone at a glance: Liu Xiang's junks were losing ground, surrounded and fiercely battered by the Japanese Red Seal ships, a truly dire sight.
After all, the power disparity was immense. Liu Xiang's fleet numbered only four junks, while the Japanese Red Seal ships were ten strong. Ten against four—how could the larger force possibly lose?
The four junks, cannons blazing, were in full retreat, heading south.
But the ten Red Seal ships clung relentlessly to their heels, pursuing with desperate fervor.
Both fleets had hoisted every sail, pushing their vessels to their absolute limit.
The reformed pirate, once a subordinate of Meiying Bianfu, a minor chieftain under Liu Xiang, felt a pang of shared indignation seeing Liu Xiang's fleet taking such a beating.
The pirates recently captured by Gao Family Village on Shengsi Island, now acting as guides, also nominally belonged to Liu Xiang's command—much like Zhang Xianzhong was nominally a subordinate of Chuǎng Wang Gao Yingxiang.
The sight immediately enraged them. "Those damn Japanese pirates," they roared, "are bullying our ships again!"
The reformed pirate, flustered, turned to Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng, utterly lacking the gravitas of a seasoned commander, froze. "Ah?" he stammered. "What...what are we supposed to do now?"
Just then, Li Daoxuan spoke: "Aid the junks, attack the Red Seal ships."
The reformed pirate beamed with relief.
Jiang Cheng, jolted into action, immediately relayed the command: "Signal: prepare for battle! Aid our domestic junks, attack the Japanese Red Seal ships!"
No sooner had his order been issued than the signalman on the flagship climbed to a high point and began to wave the signal flag. Since their previous encounter with pirates had highlighted the difficulty of unintelligible signals, the Gao Family Village forces had recognized the challenge of transmitting commands during naval combat. Consequently, their navy had developed its own comprehensive system of flag signals.
A full explanation of this complex signaling system would fill volumes, so for now, we shall leave its intricacies unexamined.
The signalman swiftly unfurled and waved a series of flags, and instantly, the other forty warships received the coded command.
"Prepare for battle!"
"Aid our domestic junks, attack the Japanese Red Seal ships!"
"Switch to combat speed!"
The forty-one electric vessels, which had been placidly trailing behind the small wooden boats of their guides, now engaged their combat engines. With a surge, their speed instantly rocketed to 20 knots.
The massive ships cleaved through the water, cresting waves as they surged past their guides in a breathtaking flash.
The guides, who had only surrendered to Gao Family Village under the threat of cannons pointed at their wives and children, had yet to truly grasp the might of these new warships. Now, they watched in stunned disbelief as colossal vessels continuously surged past their own small, battered boats on either flank.
Each ship faster than the last, each more formidable in its charge.
The guides' small wooden boats were relentlessly buffeted by the wakes of the surging warships, rocking violently back and forth. The pirates aboard were stark white with fear, their minds racing: *How utterly terrifying! These ships are monstrous! No sails, no oars, yet they can achieve such incredible speed in an instant. How is this even possible?*
"Thank heavens we surrendered. Facing such vessels in open combat would have been certain death."
In the blink of an eye, the guides were relegated to mere trailing shadows, left to wallow in the wake of Gao Family Village's electric vessels. A moment later, they were entirely out of sight. Even frantic, desperate rowing couldn't bridge the ever-widening gap.
One of the two warring parties was Bai Yang, a minor chieftain under Liu Xiang. He was leading four junks, traversing Zhoushan Island today with the intention of raiding merchants near Hangzhou, only to unexpectedly stumble upon Japanese pirates.
The sea, after all, was a world where pirates preyed on other pirates, and big fish devoured small. Thus, this battle had erupted out of nowhere, without apparent reason.
The Japanese pirates on the other side were called the "Laidao Pirates."
The name "Laidao" traced its origins to "Murakami," the famed Murakami Suigun of Japan's Sengoku period. This formidable naval force was historically split into three distinct branches: Nojima, Kushima, and Innoshima.
The head of one such branch was Kushima Michifusa, a Daimyo who commanded a 14,000 koku domain in Iyo Province.
During the Imjin War, Kushima Michifusa suffered defeat at the hands of the Joseon naval admiral Yi Sun-sin and perished in battle. This upheaval led to a dramatic decline for the Kushima family. Some of its fallen descendants, joined by disgraced samurai and a motley crew of miscellaneous riff-raff, eventually reformed as the notorious Laidao Pirates.
These pirates had roamed the East China Sea for decades, if not a century, establishing themselves as a formidable power.
Lai Dao Suo Jing, the primary antagonist in "Uncharted Waters IV," was conceptualized with their notorious reputation as inspiration.
At this moment, the Laidao Pirates held the decisive upper hand, having already battered Bai Yang's four junks into a desperate, scrambling retreat. Yet, they showed no intention of letting up.
They also saw this as an opportunity to establish their dominance around Zhoushan Island, assert their influence, and sweep Liu Xiang's forces clean from the area. With him gone, they could then seize Zhoushan Island's natural deep-water port and transform it into their own impregnable stronghold.
The pirate chieftain leading the assault was Laijima Yokuhisa, a relatively minor figure within the Kushima clan. He brandished a Japanese katana, pointing it towards the fleeing junks. "After them!" he roared. "Quickly, after them! We'll beat these Great Ming pirates into submission, fill them with dread, and then this vast sea will be ours for the taking!"
Feeling cocky in their overwhelming advantage, Laijima Yokuhisa was still bellowing happily when a soldier's sudden scream cut through the din: "Behind us! Look, behind us!"
Lajima Yokuhisa whirled around, glanced behind, and was instantly dumbfounded.
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