Chapter 242: Huarong Road

For human beings, the power of the spirit is utterly vital. Men who were fighting with ferocious courage one moment, the next, once they lose that spiritual pillar, will flee in utter rout, without a shred of will left to resist.

That was precisely the scene unfolding in Zhangzhou Bay right now.

Swarms of pirate ships were fleeing in chaotic, wolf-like panic, while a certain fleet had by now split into two groups, each led by a destroyer, darting through the shoal of ships like catfish. Any that did not raise a white flag to surrender were served a broadside, no exceptions.

And on the two blockade lines, notified by telegraph, large numbers of government troops and ships—whose skill at kicking a man when he's down had already been honed to Grand Master level—were howling as they rushed to the battlefield. No need to fight for their lives; for just 998—no, wrong—for just escorting a surrendered pirate ship back to Jinmen, the Kun People would count heads and pay silver on the spot. So the government troops' eyes were now all bloodshot with greed.

These good days would continue for some time yet. Because there were plenty of pirates who couldn't grasp the situation, and these men would scurry like rats through the enclosed Zhangzhou Bay until every last one of them was caught by the government troops.

At 5 p. m., after large numbers of government troops had arrived at the battlefield, the main fleet was finally able to disengage and turned back toward Zhongzuosuo.

At this moment, Zhongzuosuo was already a scene of utter devastation.

The ships sunk in the previous days still lay half-submerged in the shallows near the pier. The once-imposing ox-hide Central Army Tent was now half-collapsed, with all manner of crude valuables strewn from inside the tent all the way to the pier—a miserable scene of doomsday flight.

Li Kuiqi's trusted men who had been guarding the Grain Office had long since fled completely. The only living people nearby were a few abandoned sick men inside Zhongzuosuo City.

Seeing this situation, the fleet immediately split into two groups again. One group stayed at Zhongzuosuo to await the reinforcements' occupation, while the other continued upstream along the Jiulong River in pursuit.

Why go upstream on the Jiulong River? Because Yuegang lay just 10 kilometers ahead. Why go to Yuegang? Because Li Kuiqi had already been intercepted there.

From the moment his flagship was struck simultaneously by three iron balls, Li Kuiqi's grand ambitions were finally and utterly shattered.

His dreams were destroyed so quickly that even after switching to another ship, his entire mental state remained one of utter disillusionment. It must be known that just a short while ago, he had replaced that junior so bent on Recruitment and Amnesty, just stepped onto the peak of life, and become the Dragon Head of the south's largest Great Gang, commanding thirty thousand troops and a thousand warships.

Yet fate played an enormous joke on him here—the god of death in the black night destroyed all his capital.

The sudden opponent was far too ferocious. Their methods were sinister and secretive, their actions like those of ghosts and gods. Even using all his strength, Li Kuiqi could not keep up with the opponent's rhythm... This was the fundamental reason for his defeat today: he could not adapt to the new rhythm of war.

In theory, after the Night of Burning Camps, Li Kuiqi should have immediately cast aside all ambition, disbanded the Great Gang, broken it into scattered pieces, and switched to Mobile Corps Commander warfare.

Yet that was, after all, only theory. Li Kuiqi did not have a god's-eye view; he was merely a traditional old pirate of the 17th century. So he hesitated, he delayed, and he could not bear to liquidate the assets he had so painstakingly "usurped."

So it was not until this moment, when the government troops launched their grand offensive, that he was forced to fight back passively. During those crucial days in between, he was actually at his wit's end, just waiting to die. He was no Zheng Zhilong; and even if it had been Zheng Zhilong, besides surrender, there was still no second option.

What little remained of Li Kuiqi's dreams was thoroughly shattered as his flagship slowly sank. After being escorted by a few trusted aides onto another ship, in the end, he could only cast one deep look at those streamlined strange ships, and finally say fiercely through gritted teeth: "We go."... That was all.

Taking advantage of the chaotic mass scattering on the sea surface, Li Kuiqi and the sole Light Pole Commander still at his side, Comrade Zhong Bin, led a band of trusted subordinates in turning their ship around. While everyone else was trying to break out to the open sea, they took the road less traveled and returned to Zhongzuosuo.

Naturally, he had a contingency plan here at Zhongzuosuo.

Seven or eight blessing ships, loaded with all the Grain Office's wealth, goods, grain, and weapons, were already prepared and waiting at the pier. The moment Li Kuiqi and his men reached the pier, without a second word, they boarded two of the most inconspicuous blessing ships. Then, with Li Kuiqi's loud shout: "The army is defeated! Brothers, go to Tongshan to take temporary refuge. We shall meet again another day!" the group scattered in all directions.

After the five ships loaded with crude valuables were duped into charging the blockade at the open sea, Li Kuiqi slightly rearranged his remaining trusted men, and the two utterly unremarkable blessing ships, laden with a great quantity of silver, hurriedly sailed upstream along the Jiulong River.

Keeping a contingency plan is a skill any qualified leader must possess, and Li Kuiqi was no exception. Previously, since his intelligence capability far exceeded that of common underlings, he had made plans for an escape route after defeat.

And the path he now chose was the most difficult one in his plan, because he knew the direction of the open sea was a dead end—no one could break through the blockade of those strange ships that could see in the dark.

The destination of this escape route was Zhangzhou Prefecture, upstream on the Jiulong River. After reaching Zhangzhou Prefecture city, he would first contact the local Nest Master, then abandon the boats and go ashore. Taking the silver, he would travel south by land. After rounding the government's blockade line, he would buy another ship and put to sea in the Chaoshan area, to plan for future endeavors.

However, just like Prime Minister Cao fleeing on Huarong Road back in the day, Comrade Li Kuiqi encountered the same situation here: twenty li after the ships set out, right at the entrance to Yuegang, Prime Minister Li was stopped.

There were two groups blocking the way.

Li Kuiqi was very familiar with both groups: the leader of one was called Hu Ba, and the other group consisted of Xu Xinsu's subordinates.

Before today, these two were, without a doubt, Li Kuiqi's good friends, good brothers. During this period, Xu Xinsu had been diligently working to restore Yuegang's vitality, always prepared to help Grand Steward Li fence his stolen goods.

And Hu Ba went without saying—just yesterday, this good brother, with chivalrous loyalty, was loudly proclaiming he would live and die together with Prime Minister Li...

So when Li Kuiqi, from within his cabin, saw his two ships being surrounded by seventeen or eighteen ships charging out of Yuegang, he was not entirely despairing—he still had the confidence to leave half the silver behind and escape.

Then Prime Minister Cao was dumbfounded: when his brothers of boundless loyalty saw him emerge from the cabin, the previously confrontational standoff was instantly broken.

Several turban-wrapped men beside Xu Xinsu immediately fired a volley, killing a few of the men on Li Kuiqi's bow. And Hu Ba's side was even more direct: that good brother of boundless loyalty personally came leaping over, knife in hand, heading straight for the Prime Minister, giving him no further chance to cut his beard and escape.

Thus, the all-powerful Li Kuiqi was captured by his good brother. And when the Transmigrators' detached fleet arrived at Yuegang, they found the plastic brothers already in internal strife again: Hu Ba's and Xu Xinsu's men were each refusing to yield, drawing their blades once more over the chief merit of capturing Li Kuiqi...

The fleet quickly took Li Kuiqi, Zhong Bin, and the other captives aboard and turned back to Jinmen. As for the two meritorious men, Hu Ba and Xu Xinsu, they could only escort the silver ships to Jinmen the next morning... Yuegang was 50 kilometers from Jinmen, and their blessing ships lacked the capability to sail at night.

Li Kuiqi had never expected that he would board the Kun bandits' strange ships so quickly—as a captive.

Standing on the wind-swept, lightning-fast deck of the Youguang, Li Kuiqi gazed at the strange objects on the ship, the gleaming cannons, the neatly dressed crewmen. With his hands bound, he could only heave a sigh at this moment, and then was escorted into a cabin.

Inside the cabin, as he had expected, were several Kun People wearing blue and white front-buttoned short jackets.

Seeing Li Kuiqi and Zhong Bin pushed through the door, one chubby Kun man grinned and spoke: "Grand Steward Li, I've long admired your great name. I trust you've been well since we last met?"

Li Kuiqi could naturally hear the mocking intent in the other's words, so he replied: "Kill me or flay me, do as you please. There is no need to insult me."

"Oh ho, still talking tough." Wang Xiaohui and the others received Li Kuiqi and Zhong Bin purely to satisfy their own bit of amusement at meeting historical figures; they had no intention of communicating with them—what was there to say to two men who were certain to die?

So after Li Kuiqi finished speaking, Wang Xiaohui merely shook his head, then waved for the soldiers to take the captives away.

Historically, Li Kuiqi was sinister and ruthless by nature. After turning hostile with Zheng Zhilong, he killed many who had been close to Zheng. Yet ruthlessness and unyielding courage are two different concepts: he lacked the courage of a Liu Xiang, who, with arrows and provisions exhausted, threw himself into the sea to commit suicide. Historically, he was eventually captured in 1630 by Zheng Zhilong, in alliance with Zhong Bin and the Dutch, and met the fate of being beheaded and his head displayed to the public.

At 9 o'clock in the evening, the Youguang returned to the bay on the south side of Jinmen.

At this moment, Jinmen had become an island that never slept. Although the pier on the island's west side and the pirate ships there had been burned together that night by gasoline bombs, the garrison city and pier on the south side, long abandoned by the government, were still there. Thus, this place became the Allied Forces' main base and temporary transshipment center.

Large numbers of captured pirate ships were moored in disarray within the bay, while their owners had all been herded into the holds. Standing guard on the decks were the government troops, their faces full of excitement, just waiting to "unload the cargo."

At the garrison's sole pier, a Dutch ship was currently docked. And electric cables and searchlights temporarily run from the destroyers ensured working light for the Pier District.

The next moment, a blessing ship was pulled alongside the pier. Soon, under the glare of the blinding light beams, the pirates in the hold were let out one after another. These pirates were all listless and famished; after they emerged from the hold, they were so terrified by the searchlights that they could not speak.

After leaving the hold, these men would soon be shoved along by a human wall formed by the guards, stumbling as they climbed onto the Dutch ship, only to be stuffed into its hold once more. During this process, any who were wounded would be picked out to receive simple disinfection and treatment. And any who attempted to resist or flee would be beaten to death on the spot, without the slightest mercy.

Whenever a docked ship was emptied, the accountant recording the numbers nearby would issue a head-count silver payment to the troops who had captured that ship: 3 taels per healthy man, 1 tael per wounded man.