Late Ming Dynasty: The Counterattack Begins with Sea Pirates

Chi Honghai immediately understood what the Dutch meant: they were just using the pretense of Eastern pirates to target their adversaries.

Even if it's discovered, they can say it was done by Eastern pirates. As for why there are Western faces, they can say that the Eastern pirates hijacked their prisoner transport ship and recruited these people into their gang.

After the Dutch left, Liu Qingjiang and Pang San returned to the south bank and went to Master Chi's side: "Master, what are these foreigners trying to do? Why did they drive right up to our place?"

"These red-haired barbarians are rushing to bring us business, but this time, even though it's a big deal, we'll have to fight for it ourselves."

"Robbery? We're experts at that!"

"I'm good at it, but the person who got robbed isn't unfamiliar with this business either," Chi Honghai said, glancing at Liu Qingjiang.

"What's wrong, sir? Do they want us to rob pirates?"

Upon hearing the word "pirate," Chi Honghai chuckled: "Pretty much, pretty much. Those who started as pirates are still pirates, we're in the same boat."

Liu Qingjiang didn't understand the meaning behind Master Chi's words, but simply replied, "Master, we have to do it! We can't let any more troublemakers around here ruin our plans!"

"These next few days we'll be training and preparing for war. When the time comes, all three gun-carrying ships will have to be out to sea!"

"Yes, sir!"

Ten days later, the Dutch sent new information, informing Chi Honghai that he could lead his ship out to sea and head towards the Luzon Islands.

The Luzon Islands are considered to be in the open sea. Even someone like Chi Honghai, who spends most of his time at sea, has never traveled such a long distance. On the vast ocean, experience alone is not enough to navigate the open sea. Knowing how to accurately locate and mingle with the Dutch ships is a true test of skill.

Normally, a compass is carried when sailing, but Chi Honghai does not completely rely on the function of a single compass. As a smuggler who deals with the sea, a single compass cannot completely build his trust in direction.

Although he used a compass, he still habitually used stargazing as an auxiliary navigation method whenever he went out to sea at a slightly longer distance.

The so-called star-gazing technique is performed using a special star-gazing board. The largest star-gazing board is twelve fingers wide, and the smallest is one finger wide. When using it, hold the center of one end of the star-gazing board with your left hand, extend your arm, look at the starry sky, and keep the surface of the board perpendicular to the sea level to observe the height of celestial bodies above the sea. Different heights can be adjusted by replacing the twelve wooden boards or four-slotted ivory blocks.

After determining the altitude of Polaris, the geographical latitude of the location can be calculated.

Chi Honghai led three boats away from the port. One of them, a Caravel sailboat, was led by Instructor Lang, while the other was captained by Liu Qingjiang.

With the aid of compass navigation and stargazing, Chi Honghai even reached the designated location before the Dutch.

Just as he was complaining about how slow the Dutch were to arrive, ships appeared on the horizon from two directions.

I picked up my monoculars and headed over. There were two to the north and three to the south, and they all looked like armed cargo ships.

Without a doubt, the ships coming from the south must be English merchant ships. There are exactly three of them, and surely the Dutch can't possibly mobilize their southern fleet to sail north.

The Dutch to the north also saw the ships from Guangzhou Prefecture sandwiched in the middle through their monoculars.

The commander on deck, seeing that there were only three ships, couldn't help but complain that the Guangzhou government was really inefficient.

We've given them so many benefits, and they only sent these three ships, and they're all just cargo merchant ships? Doesn't Guangzhou Prefecture have any warships? I really need to have a serious talk with the Governor-General about today's situation later.

However, before that, this battle can only rely on ourselves; relying on those Easterners won't work.

Standing on the deck, Chi Honghai glanced at the two ships to the north and couldn't help but complain.

"What kind of crappy ship did they bring? I thought it would be some big operation, but it turns out there are only two. No wonder they made me lead the main attack. I think the relationship between these two countries is fake; they just can't win."

"Master, master!" Pang San called out from the side, "Those three ships from the south are here. Are they the ones we've been waiting for?"

"They're practically begging to pay us tribute," Chi Honghai said with a smile, holding up his binoculars. "Pang San, tell them to follow us!"

"Huh? Master, shouldn't we wait for those red-haired barbarians to come along?"

"What are you waiting for? If we wait any longer, these tribute bearers will run away with the tribute! If you expect them to help, you might as well hope that the other side sees us and just leaves the goods behind for us."

As the distance closed, Chi Honghai could see the flag of the ship approaching from the south—the Union Jack.

However, this Union Jack is not the modern Union Jack. At this time, St. Patrick (Ireland) had not yet been united, so the flag only combined the elements of England and Scotland, which meant it lacked the red cross.

Chi Honghai looked up at the movement of the small flag beside him, waved his hand and laughed.

"Raise the sails! We have the wind at our backs! Push through!"

Pang San didn't know where his master got such confidence from. He felt that ever since his master beat up those two Guangzhou government sailing ships, he seemed to have become a different person when it came to robbery.

But he couldn't ignore the master's words, so he immediately ran to the middle of the deck, led everyone to raise the sails again, and had someone raise a flag to signal Liu Qingjiang and Instructor Lang to follow him.

The three sailboats rearranged themselves and headed south.

"Captain! They've all headed towards the English!"

"I saw it, damn it, do these people not consider us human, or do they not consider the people on the other side human, and they just drove right past us."

"Captain, should we wait for them to fight first, and then go over when they've fought enough?"

The captain on deck glanced back at the sails behind him: "Fool, do you know what you're talking about? Relying on them? I'd be thanking God if they weren't blown to pieces by two cannon shots."

"Set sail! We can't let those damned Englishmen get away! Set sail!" the captain roared.

"Yes, yes! Charge forward! Give it your all!"

The Englishmen, seeing the three merchant ships rapidly approaching them, also sensed something was wrong.

However, upon closer inspection, no flags or markings were visible on any of the three ships.

The commander on deck was puzzled by what he saw. Even pirates wouldn't sail to the open sea like this. Pirates usually operate along nearby waters, but the situation in the open sea is unstable, and the ships coming and going are not necessarily merchant ships.

"Tell everyone to get ready, it looks like trouble is coming."

The Englishmen beat their war drums to the beat, turned their sails to slow their speed, and most of them were already in combat mode.

"Master, the sails on the other side are not right!" Pang San shouted.

"Look closely, they're waiting for us. They're quite filial. Tell everyone to get into battle positions!" Chi Honghai said.