The pirates burst into raucous laughter the instant they saw the object arcing toward them.
"They're throwing rocks at us!"
"Hahahaha!"
"Can't hit us with their flintlock rifles anymore, so now they're hurling stones?"
"And they didn't even pick a big one!"
Mockery rolled across the river in waves, the sound growing more brazen by the breath. In their eyes, the militia had clearly run out of tricks, reduced to desperate, laughable gestures.
Yet at that very mont, another militia soldier calmly stepped forward and produced another hand grenade.
This one was different.
He was the bronze dalist of the Gao Family Village First Militia Gas throwing competition.
In those gas, Gao Chuwu had taken gold, Zheng Daniu silver, and this man had co in third.
Ordinarily, a bronze dal might sound unremarkable. But in Gao Family Village, earning bronze was equivalent to an ordinary person winning gold, because the two n above him were not human by any reasonable standard. They were monsters.
The bronze dalist lit the fuse with practiced ease, weighed the grenade lightly in his palm, and laughed loudly at the brother who had thrown the previous one off target.
"Watch carefully," he shouted. "I'll show you how to throw a hand grenade properly."
His right arm swung forward in a smooth, unhurried motion.
The grenade, fuse spitting bright sparks, soared through the air in a perfect arc. It was not rely thrown far, but thrown with calculation, its trajectory subtly adjusted for the forward montum of the pirate ship itself.
Precise. Flawless.
It landed squarely inside the lead pirate vessel.
The five pirates aboard were still roaring with laughter.
"Hahaha, they threw a little rock and still missed!"
"Brother, why is this rock on fire?"
"Is that… a fuse?"
The grenade answered their foolish yet strangely innocent questions with a thunderous explosion.
"Boom!"
All five pirates were blasted clean off the boat, their bodies flung outward like broken dolls before splashing heavily into the dark river.
The sudden reversal stunned every pirate nearby.
Soone scread, voice cracking with terror, "The rocks they're throwing explode!"
"Bloody hell, what kind of devilry is that?!"
"It's gunpowder, gunpowder charges!"
"How can sothing like this even exist?!"
"Another one is coming!"
Yet another militia soldier hurled a hand grenade with its fuse already burning.
Splash.
It landed directly on another pirate boat.
The six pirates aboard shrieked in panic.
One man lunged forward, grabbing the grenade with the desperate hope of flinging it into the river before the fuse burned down. His fingers had barely closed around it when the fuse reached its end.
"Boom!"
His palm vanished in a spray of blood and fragnts. Shrapnel tore into his chest, and the five pirates beside him were struck at the sa ti. In the space of a heartbeat, the entire boat fell silent, its occupants sent straight to the Yellow Springs.
"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!"
The pirates scread in complete disorder. "What kind of demonic weapons are they using?!"
Even Boat Flipper Dragon, their leader, was shaken. Faced with weapons utterly beyond his understanding, his mind went blank for several dozen breaths. Only then did he roar, forcing himself to think.
"Get closer! Close in and board them! They can't blow up their own ships!"
At this point, it was the only tactic left to them.
The pirate boats paddled frantically, n rowing as if their lives depended on it, desperate to shorten the distance.
Only then did they realize sothing even more horrifying.
The massive flat-bottod cargo boats were charging toward them at full speed.
"A head-on collision? What's there to be afraid of?!"
Small boats normally feared crashing head-on into large vessels. In such encounters, they relied on agility, first pulling away sideways, then circling around to attack from the flanks.
The pirates instinctively tried to veer off laterally.
But sothing was terribly wrong.
The dium-sized flat-bottod boat before them was astonishingly fast, faster even than their small sampans paddling with all their strength.
So fast that the pirate boats did not even have the chance to pull away.
"It's going to ram us!"
"Watch out!"
The pirates scread in terror.
A deafening crunch rang out as one small boat was smashed aside and capsized.
Five of the six pirates aboard were hurled straight into the river. Only one, the most agile among them, standing at the bow, leapt forward with all his might and actually managed to land on the flat-bottod boat.
His bravery achieved nothing.
Before his feet could properly touch the deck, five bayonets plunged into him at the sa ti. They were withdrawn just as cleanly, and his lifeless body was kicked back into the river without a second glance.
This fate was not unique.
Several pirate boats that attempted head-on engagents were struck down in much the sa way, capsized or sent spinning helplessly across the water. The militia soldiers aboard the cargo boats seized each opening with ruthless efficiency, erasing the pirates in the blink of an eye.
"From the sides!"
"Approach from the flanks!"
"Throw grappling hooks!"
The pirate boats tried to swarm from both sides, grappling hooks flying through the air. But the flanks of the flat-bottod boats were killing grounds for flintlock riflen.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
A volley rang out, and pirates fell in clusters. Those throwing grappling hooks had exposed half their bodies, and they caught the worst of it, riddled with lead like fishing nets full of holes.
A militia soldier stepped forward and slashed downward, severing the rope of a grappling hook. The pirate boat attached to it drifted away helplessly, its boarding attempt cut short.
"Fire arrows! Torches!" Boat Flipper Dragon bellowed. "Burn their strange boats!"
The pirates had prepared such weapons in advance. Arrows wrapped with oil-soaked rags, ant to cling to a ship's hull and ignite it, along with burning torches ant to be thrown aboard.
They unleashed everything at once.
Yet almost imdiately, they sensed that sothing was wrong.
On the flat-bottod boats, a group of n was not fighting at all.
They were firefighting.
Wherever a fire arrow struck and flas sprang up, these n appeared at once, stamping it out or dousing it within monts. Once the fire was extinguished, they retreated calmly, eyes already scanning for the next spark.
Such discipline was unheard of.
The pirates collectively sucked in a sharp breath. "Who in the heavens are these people?"
They had fought ard rchant ships and governnt troops for years, yet they had never encountered an enemy so composed, so thodical, and so utterly unstoppable. Against this force, they were completely helpless.
The few flat-bottod boats cut through hundreds of pirate sampans like a blade through reeds, charging in and out again and again, just like Zhao Zilong at Changban, until the pirates were beaten so badly that their screams filled the river.
On the bank of Hengshui Town, Bai Yuan watched the battle unfold, his expression complicated.
"Oh dear," he muttered. "I haven't even given a single order, and they've already fought like this. Could it be that our fleet no longer needs a naval commander at all?"
From the golden image of Dao Xuan Tianzun hanging on his chest ca a soft chuckle. "The better the training in peaceti, the clearer soldiers are about what to do in battle, and the less they rely on commanders. In the end, the role of captain becos more like a mascot."
Bai Yuan blinked. "Huh?"
Dao Xuan Tianzun continued calmly, "So from now on, when choosing admirals and captains, simply pick the prettiest handso n and the most beautiful won."
Bai Yuan's eyes lit up instantly. "Then there's no problem at all," he said happily. "I fit the criteria perfectly!"
Dao Xuan Tianzun fell silent.
Standing beside them, Jiang Cheng quietly wiped a bead of cold sweat from his forehead and thought to himself, Mister Bai actually managed to leave even Dao Xuan Tianzun speechless.
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