Chapter 172: Covered the Heavens

The ship name "Debon" — you didn't even need to ask to know it was the work of the Transmigrators.

As a hidden agent the Crossing Faction had stationed in the Zhejiang coastal region, the Dragon's mission was simple: recruit and screen sailors, while also following the Transmigrators' orders to roam about under the identity of a pirate ship, striking at vessels belonging to hostile forces.

The Dragon's coded designation within the system's telegraph traffic was "Wild Hunt" — a term thick with transmigrator style.

This pirate ship, the Dragon, flew a banner in the underworld that read "Covered." Fine, that brainless name was actually casually slapped on by some Transmigrator from the Intelligence Bureau, the same model as some two-bit rebel king from the late Ming.

The Great Boss and Second-in-Command of the "Covered" gang had, in the midst of their squabbling, polished off the iron-plate grilled fish. After it was done, Chen Erye shook the bottle, saw the scant amount of chili powder left inside, and heartachingly grumbled a few more words, then hurriedly stuffed the two worn-out plastic bottles into his shirt.

Ma Liu, whom Erye guarded against like a thief, was also an old hand from the Pingfeng Stronghold days. As a youth, this man had fished along the Yueqing coast; after reaching adulthood, he'd drifted to Pingfeng Stronghold. Much like Chen Huoding's experience, both had followed that rare upgrade path of sea folk turning mountain bandit.

Back when they were dividing the personnel, the Transmigrators considered that Chen Huoding and Ma Liu were among the few at Pingfeng Stronghold who had invested skill points in seamanship, so they kept the two men to run Wild Hunt operations along the Zhejiang coast, conveniently leveraging their familiarity with the terrain to recruit workers and drum up numbers in the various guard posts and fishing villages.

And so the Dragon roamed wildly around the Zhoushan area like this, pulling the occasional heist. Every so often, a Sand Ship fleet would pass by to make contact — here they'd send some people aboard, there they'd leave supplies for them.

The supplies were usually salt. With fine, pure salt in hand, no matter what remote corner the Dragon anchored in, nearby fishermen and farming households from the guard posts would always bring rice, vegetables, and seafood.

So, the days for Chen and Ma, the two bosses, were actually pretty good.

The grilled fish finished, it was time to get down to real business.

First, of course, was checking the latest intelligence, so the two men entered the stern cabin.

Inside the stern cabin was a man, refined in appearance and not yet thirty, seated before a key-based telegraph machine, tapping away as he sent and received messages.

This man's surname was Han; he was called Han Zude.

Han Zude was one of the earliest batch of top students at Moyun Temple, a classmate of Jiang Shang, who had already gone to Dayuan. But unlike a well-rounded Three-Stripe student like Jiang Shang, Han Zude, already thirty and previously just a down-on-his-luck paper mill hand, was a bit lopsided in his studies: his essay writing was terrible, but he picked up mathematics very quickly — simply put, he had the brain of a science-track student.

Considering his age was no longer young and his studies were lopsided, his future growth potential wasn't great, so as soon as Lu Cheng received his appointment as Station Chief of Hangzhou, he transferred Han Zude under his command.

After this, Han Zude began simultaneously studying foundational knowledge and undergoing an intelligence agent training curriculum that included sending and receiving telegrams. His current posting on the Dragon was already the third position Han Zude had rotated through.

Chen Huoding waited patiently for a while, and only after seeing Han Zude finish sending a telegram did he lean over and ask, "Bookworm, any word?"

Bookworm turned his face at this and gently shook his head. "No news." Saying this, he rose and walked to the worktable in the center of the stern cabin. Laid out on the tabletop were sea charts and various rulers and tools; the most precious item was a rechargeable desk lamp.

Chen Erye and Ma Liu also followed him to the table. The two men began quietly watching Bookworm measure and calculate on the work surface.

"We'll know the outcome today."

After Han Zude finished his measurements and calculations, he straightened up, picked up a plastic ruler, and began gesturing on the sea chart: "The Hokkien's ship anchored last night in the Sipingtou Island area. Hmm, base reports the Hokkien's ship set sail on schedule this morning. Barring any surprises, the Hokkien should be in this area right now."

At this, Bookworm used the ruler to draw a circle near what later generations would call Ningbo's Jintang Island: "Right here, within a hundred li radius."

"Then why hasn't the message board reported in yet?" Ma Liu opened his mouth to ask at this point.

"Heh heh, our message board is too small." Scholar Han smiled sunnily at this, then used his fingertips to make a "tiny bit" gesture. "The Ear Reporting God on the Hokkien's ship speaks too softly. The base's big ear can hear it, but our ship's ear can only hear the Hokkien once they get close. Hmm, soon — by my calculations, we should have word within a few hours."

In later ages, on a certain online marketplace, a legal wife need only spend eighty or a hundred yuan to easily buy a magnetic tracker the size of a cracker with global GPS positioning. Hmm, just stick it under the car and you can track your deadbeat husband catching a mistress.

However, right now it's the 17th century. In the skies of the Great Ming dynasty, there is only the Big Dipper, no Beidou satellites — all instruments with GPS functionality are utterly useless.

So, to play at tracking, positioning, and information communication in the 17th century, humanity can only rely on the most primitive, and also most reliable, things: the telegraph, Morse code, FM bands — these already obsolete doodads.

Don't look down on these old communication methods. In fact, humanity's current mainstream communication methods are very fragile: in 2017, Hurricane Harvey swept through Texas, and the coastal areas lost power, network, and signal overnight. The only thing unaffected at that time was, surprisingly, the FM signal radios in old folks' hands... The rescue teams later relied on FM radio broadcasts to communicate with each other.

Installed on the bottom of that black wooden box Wangcai handed to Xie Chushui was a cracker-sized FM signal module. This system consisted of a lithium battery and an FM chip, and it emitted a specific signal to the outside world every 10 minutes. After the antenna installed in the rear garden of Tangzhuang successively received the signals, Master Xiong's concubine could then sketch out the target's general movement route, and then telegraph the information to the Dragon.

As the Fuchuan sailed farther and farther from Hangzhou, the signal Tangzhuang received grew weaker, and the positioning range became increasingly vague. But this didn't matter — soon the Fuchuan would enter the Dragon's signal reception range. What the Dragon was equipped with was a simple handheld locator. This device's principle was similar to a radio's, except because its antenna was too short, it could only potentially receive a signal once the signal source entered within a 50-kilometer range.

This was the advantage of being stuck in this maritime choke point less than 10 kilometers wide: the Dragon had ample time to arrange the next step of the plan — as long as it received the signal.

Perhaps due to unfavorable wind direction, it was already three in the afternoon when the "beep beep" electronic alarm sounded from the locator.

Han Zude, looking at the image transmitted on the palm-sized locator, hurriedly ran to the sea chart and began calculating. Poor Chen Erye couldn't understand the constantly changing kilometer numbers, black dots, and ripple circles on that LCD screen, so he could only fret anxiously at the side.

"Chuanbi Island." A few minutes later, Han Zude tossed down his pencil and stated these three words with certainty.

"Ship speed?" Erye opened his mouth and asked the critical question.

"4 knots at most."

Upon hearing this, the Dragon's two bosses simultaneously sprawled over the sea chart and began clumsily measuring the distance with their fingers. "They're taking the Luotou Channel?"

"Yes. Before dark, they'll reach Peach Blossom Island at the furthest..."

"Hoist the sails! Head for Peach Blossom Island!"

Ten minutes later, Chen Huoding formally issued the order. The sailors on the Dragon promptly raised the sails and weighed anchor, charging straight toward the southwest.

The Xie Family's Fuchuan, at this time of 3 PM, was navigating near Chuanbi Island in the Ningbo coastal waters. And the Dragon, now knowing the Fuchuan's general position and speed, could easily calculate the Fuchuan's maximum sailing range over the next four hours: roughly 4 knots per hour — before dark, the Fuchuan could at most sail southward to the Peach Blossom Island area.

This made things simple. The Dragon, positioned between the Fuchuan and Peach Blossom Island, could now easily rush to Peach Blossom Island and sleep soundly — no matter where around the perimeter the Fuchuan anchored for the night, the Dragon could set out the next morning, lie in wait, intercept it, and hunt it down!

In the 17th century, all Chinese-style ships sailing south or north along the continental coastline had to find a place to shelter from the wind and spend the night after dark. The so-called "needle routes" also contained data on bays along the route suitable for overnight stays.

The Dragon only had one telegraph transmitter that required regular battery changes and was not equipped with navigation radar. Therefore, in the reef-strewn Zhoushan Archipelago, the Dragon likewise dared not sail at night. This meant the battle had to happen during daylight hours.

... As events proved, Chen Huoding and the others' choice was correct: that very night, the rabbit and the hunter rested separately on Peach Blossom Island. Only, the hunter was on the island's south side, and the rabbit on the north — the hunter had ample time to travel and thus had gotten ahead.

Xie Chushui's feeling was very bad.

After the fleet set sail in the early morning, it initially proceeded steadily southward along the channel between Peach Blossom Island and Xiazhi Island, with nothing amiss along the way.

However, after the fleet exited the Xiazhi Channel, the situation began to feel subtly ominous: on the suddenly wide-open sea ahead, a Sand Ship abruptly appeared.

Theoretically, a Sand Ship appearing near the Zhoushan Archipelago was perfectly logical.

Yet when the crewman in the lookout basket loudly told Xie Chushui that the Sand Ship ahead was only flying its sails at half-mast, Xie Chushui, who had been risking his life at sea since the age of fifteen and had weathered many storms, knew trouble had arrived.

Just as expected, after Xie Chushui probingly ordered his fleet to lower its sails to half-mast, the Sand Ship ahead simply lowered its mainsail as well, leaving only two auxiliary sails to half-heartedly drag the vessel forward.

The wind direction was the same for both sides' ships at this moment. As a result, it was like a slow-moving cart puttering along in first gear up ahead — though the two heavy trucks behind it carried more cargo and were slower, the distance between them was still gradually closing.

Xie Chushui had by now steadied himself: since he couldn't dodge it, he could only meet it head-on. He rather wanted to see how the other side, with a single Sand Ship no larger than 500 liao, planned to swallow his two 800-liao Great Fortune Ships.

The next moment, the two Fuchuan raised full sail, turned their rudders, and attempted to round the Sand Ship from the side. Simultaneously, over a hundred sailors aboard the two ships had now mustered on the decks, armed with all manner of blades, axes, and grappling hooks, their killing intent seething.

On the lead Fuchuan, a stubby little Crouching Tiger Cannon was also mounted at the bow. The Xie Family retainer who had fought in the Penghu War years ago was now loading black powder and gravel into the Crouching Tiger Cannon.

When all preparations were complete, the distance between the two sides was now less than 500 meters. The Fuchuan fleet was slowly approaching from the Sand Ship's rear flank. Yet a strange scene unfolded: the pirates on the Sand Ship did not close in for a bloody boarding fight. Instead, they raised their sails to half-mast and maintained a course that gradually ran parallel to the Fuchuan fleet, sailing straight ahead. The parallel distance between the two sides at this moment had slowly closed to the figure of three hundred meters.

As for how the people on the Fuchuan confirmed the other side were pirates — simple. The Sand Ship had already hoisted its recognition flag, white background with black characters: Covered.