Chapter 58 Captain, we've captured a ship!

  （0058）

  The warriors of the guard, in their spare time from usual training, liked to soak in seawater. On the one hand, it was to eliminate fatigue, and on the other hand, they would also practice swimming skills by the way. Unconsciously, their swimming skills were not bad either. Of course, compared with pirates who had been living on the sea for many years, there was no comparison, but occasionally taking a risk or two should still be manageable.

  Yang Zhiyuan and Hao Linyong quickly selected the candidates, most of whom were squad leaders or team leaders, with the lowest skill level being second-class soldiers. Zhang Yatie, Li Jiaxi, Wu Xinshui and others were among them, and it can be said that they concentrated all the elites of the guard team.

  Zhang Zhun had also thought of a battle plan at this time. He would lead the way by swimming over, climbing onto the pirate ship, and attracting the pirates' attention. Then Yang Zhiyuan and Hao Linyong and others would use wooden boards or other floating objects to slowly approach the pirate ship. Because they were going to swim, they couldn't carry firearms, so everyone still carried tridents.

  "Does everyone understand?" Zhang Zhun asked cautiously after he finished speaking.

  "Understood." Yang Zhiyuan, Hao Linyong and others replied loudly.

  Zhang Zhun instructed, "After I sneak over, I will lure the enemy into the cabin. You quickly control all the big guns on the deck, if the big guns are on the deck. If the big guns are not on the deck, then you quickly come down to the cabin."

  Yang Zhiyuan and Hao Linyong both agreed.

  Zhang Zhun checked his equipment again, then checked the warriors' equipment, and only when he was sure there were no problems did he jump into the water with a splash and swim towards the pirate ship.

  Within a hundred meters, the difficulty wasn't very great for Zhang Zhun. The only thing that needed attention was to avoid making too much noise. In fact, this wasn't a big problem, as the pirates who had just fallen into the water and escaped were still struggling on the surface of the sea. At this time, the pirates were busy recovering their own people and didn't notice Zhang Zhun following behind them. Even if they occasionally saw someone swimming over, they thought it was one of their own people.

  As a result, Zhang Zhun easily approached the pirate ship. The people on the pirate ship seemed to be in a state of panic, some were busy helping their companions board the ship, while others were rushing to plug the leaks at the bottom of the cabin. When Zhang Zhun climbed onto the pirate ship, no pirates noticed that an enemy had already infiltrated.

  Zhang walked stealthily to the cabin, roughly checking around. Good guy, there were indeed many weapons and equipment, just a few barrels of gunpowder, which should be filled with gunpowder, totaling probably several hundred kilograms. Smelling the gunpowder smell floating in the air, Zhang couldn't help but laugh, this is good stuff! With these few barrels of gunpowder, Wang Shixin of Fushan City, isn't it easy to capture him?

  Suppressing the joy in his heart, Zhang Zu quietly went up to the deck and saw that there was a falconet cannon at both the bow and stern of the ship. The warships of the Ming dynasty had few cannons installed inside the cabin, basically all were placed at the bow and stern, which was a fatal weakness compared to Western warships. Around the two falconet cannons, there were gunners on guard. It seemed that the pirates were still quite vigilant and hadn't left their posts.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here? Go help plug the leak!" Just as Zhang Zheng was about to find an opportunity to get close to the two cannons and take out the four gunners first, a pirate suddenly shouted impatiently from behind him.

  "I am..." Zhang Zhun slowly turned his head back.

  The pirates behind immediately discovered that Zhang was a new face, were shocked, and immediately shouted: "The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming! The enemy is on the deck!"

  Zhang Zhun let him shout, not stopping until the other party shouted twice in a row. He then stretched out his hand and ended the other party's life with three stabs. Then he pushed the other party's corpse directly from the deck into the sea. All that was heard was a splash, and blood-red water splashed up.

  At this time, the sailors who were rushing to repair and block the leaks below had already heard the call. The sailors next to the two cannons also heard the call, and both groups rushed towards Zhang Zhun. Possibly because all the firearms had been taken ashore, they only had steel knives and crossbow arrows in their hands. In the chaos, the pirates did not know how many enemies had arrived, and upon realizing something was amiss, immediately fired their crossbow arrows. For a time, crossbow arrows flew wildly, with no clear target in sight.

  Until more than a dozen sailors carrying crossbows appeared on the deck and gathered together with four gunners, only to find that Zhang Zhun had disappeared. It turned out that Zhang Zhun had already slid down the side of the ship into the cabin, where he encountered a sailor who was knocked down by a punch from Zhang Zhun before he could even speak, and then was grabbed by Zhang Zhun and thrown directly out of the porthole into the sea.

  "Boom!"

  Water splashes everywhere, loud noise.

  The pirates on deck heard the commotion below and rushed down to the cabin.

  However, inside the cabin, they did not find Zhang Zhun and did not know where Zhang Zhun had gone. Just as they were in doubt, another sound of someone falling into the sea came from the stern, and the pirates rushed over. As a result, when they rushed to the stern, they found that there was no one there.

  "Bastard!"

  The pirates were outraged.

  Grass! I've seen people being bullied, but never like this. Are you playing hide and seek?

  Bang!

  The bow of the ship again transmitted the sound of someone being knocked down.

  The pirates rushed to the bow of the ship and suddenly found that there was a gunner, one foot hanging on the rope, his body hanging upside down outside the ship's side, with fresh blood gushing out from his lower abdomen, it was unknown where he was stabbed, nor what weapon had stabbed him, anyway, the blood seemed to be spraying out like a fountain, definitely no way to survive.

  "Come out!"

  "If you have it, bring it out!"

  Some of the pirates went mad and yelled uncontrollably.

  Some of the pirates, however, were secretly shocked and felt that something was off. This guy who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, what kind of person was he? How could his movements be so agile? His activities on the ship were even more agile than those of the pirates themselves! No wonder Rubinck would die at his hands, what a formidable opponent.

  "Boom!"

  Suddenly, two consecutive sounds of a person falling to the ground came from the deck.

  "Go up!"

  "Hurry! Go up!"

  The pirates yelled wildly and rushed up to the deck quickly.

  As a result, they were all stunned as soon as they went down the stairs.

  On the deck, a circle of enemies stood, just surrounding them in the middle.

  The pirates had just come up when they were immediately subdued and didn't even have a chance to resist.

  Originally, when Zhang Zhun lured the pirates away, Yang Zhiyuan and Hao Linyong had already successfully climbed onto the deck. After they took care of the two pirates on the deck, they set up an ambush here. Zhang Zhun lured the pirates over, naturally one came up and was disarmed, clean and efficient. Soon, seven pirates were disarmed.

  At this time, the pirates below were still busy plugging the leaks. What happened above was not clear to the pirates below. Zhang Zhun led the guards down, dense crossbow arrows and three-edged thorns pointed at the busy pirates. The pirates were stunned, completely unresponsive for a while.

  "Good morning!"

  Zhang said with an expressionless face.

  At this time, dawn just appeared on the horizon, a new day began.

  The remaining nine pirates raised their hands obediently.

  If they moved a bit slower, they wouldn't have seen the sun rising.

  "Captain, we've captured a ship!"

  After all the prisoners were escorted up to the deck, Yang Zhiyuan exclaimed excitedly.

  "Captain, it's a ship!"

  Hao Linyong stepped heavily on the deck and said with emotion.

  Who would have thought that they could actually capture a ship? Thinking of the two falconet cannons on the ship, the guards were overjoyed. These are cannons! There aren't even any big guns in the entire Floating Mountain Fortress! When the time comes, we'll set up the cannons and blast Floating Mountain City to smithereens, and Wang Shixin will definitely surrender immediately.

  However, the warriors soon regretfully discovered that the two Paixhans guns were fixed and difficult to disassemble. If they damaged the ship's structure due to disassembling the cannons, it would be a pity. It seems that these two guns cannot be used until the last moment.

  Zhang nodded without saying a word, then pointed to the top of the mast and said coldly: "Send someone up to take down the pirate flag and replace it with our military flag."

  Yang Hongwen immediately volunteered, climbed to the top of the mast, pulled down the black pirate flag and threw it into the sea. Then he hung the guard team's military flag on the top of the mast. The red six-starred flag fluttered in the wind. Thus, this ship became the property of the guard team.

  "Good!"

  The crowd on the shore cheered loudly as they saw the military flag of the guard replace the pirate flag. Yang Kai and others were so excited that they trembled all over, and they couldn't believe that Zhang Zhun and his men had actually captured a pirate ship! The pirates' action this time was truly a case of "stealing a chicken without losing the rice".

  Instead, Zhang Zhun himself was not particularly excited about capturing a ship, mainly because this ship seemed to be of no use for the time being and could not be put into action immediately. Of course, it would not hurt to leave the ship alone for the time being. He walked around among the pirate captives and said in a low voice, "Who is the captain? Hmm, Rubink doesn't count."

  The pirates looked at each other, and then pushed out a monkey-like guy. The monkey claimed to be Yang Guohua, the helmsman of the pirate ship, and after Rubink's death, he became the temporary commander. Finding himself being pushed out, the monkey was so scared that his whole body trembled with fear, afraid that the guards' trident would pierce a bloody hole in him.

  Zhang's expressionless face said: "Listen to my command, sail the ship to the west side of Heilong Bay."

  The monkey hastily agreed and went to steer the boat, giving orders to other pirates to help set sail, not daring to show any disobedience. No way, Hao Lin's trident in his hand was less than three feet away from his back heart, and could give him a cool shot at any time.

  Other pirates didn't dare to make any moves either. Behind each pirate, there was a trident staring at them! In fact, even if there were no tridents staring at them, the remaining pirates wouldn't have dared to make any moves. The people in front of them could even kill Rubenke, so how could they be their opponents? Pirates are the most ruthless and worship power the most, but they are also the most realistic. In the face of strong military force, they naturally know how to choose.