At the wild wharf, in the cabin of the grain ship, the solitary light was small and the air was turbid.

"Miss, are you really going to do it?" When the time came, the little maid said timidly.

"Of course." Jiang Xueying's dirty little face was tense as she skillfully loaded two exquisitely designed pistols in front of her.

As a girl who has suffered from a serious lack of security since childhood, Jiang Xueying has been practicing shooting repeatedly since she found two muskets in her home that were said to be given to her grandfather by the Portuguese.

As for the marksmanship, it's just like shooting birds casually...

"Wu Ji's reputation cannot be lost, otherwise the business will be greatly affected." Miss Jiang used a cleaning rod to compact the lead bullets, and then loaded gunpowder and lead bullets into another gun.

"So it's because of Wu Ji?" The maid covered her mouth in surprise. She always thought that the young lady was venting her anger.

"Let me vent my anger at the same time." Jiang Xueying put the two pistols into the barrels, hid them under her wide robe, and then stood up.

"I've never gone three days without taking a bath!"

"Uh..." The maid quickly took her gun and followed the lady out.

~~

Outside the island.

As soon as the five gunboats left the port, they were seen by Zhao Hao and Jin Ke.

"You really can't wait." Young Master Zhao couldn't help but laugh, "But why are there only a few boats going, and not many people?"

In Zhao Hao's opinion, at least ten gunboats would have to be dispatched to transport the silver so as not to affect the speed of the ship.

Speed ​​is the biggest reliance of gunboats in roaming Taihu Lake.

"I don't want too many people to see the 100,000 taels of silver." Jin Ke said calmly, "The bandit leader is probably on these five ships, and his subordinates are still in the dark."

"Young Master, this move is too ruthless." Jin Ke sighed and said, "Silver makes people greedy, and huge amounts of silver make people stupid. In the Battle of Huajie, the gold and silver treasures thrown by the Japanese pirates almost disrupted the morale of the army. Fortunately, Zhu Jue acted decisively and kicked them all into the water... Only a few thousand taels made it impossible for the soldiers to be restrained by military discipline. Young Master threw out 100,000 taels at once. Not to mention these pirates, even the Marshal's army will be in chaos."

"It's not the silver that makes people greedy, but the pirates are all greedy." Zhao Hao chuckled and asked, "What should we do?"

"My subordinates speculate that the bandits on the island are most likely leaderless. After the bandit leader takes the silver, he will most likely never come back." Jin Ke replied in a deep voice.

"That won't do." Zhao Hao said anxiously, "We must catch him. This young master will be of great use to me!"

"Yes." Jin Ke nodded and said in a deep voice: "Then let's do this. I will take my brothers to Xiaozhu Island to capture people. The rest of the people will be led by the young master to monitor the movements of Dalei Island. If there are gunboats that escape back, or any other ships that come, they must all be stopped and not allowed to go to the island!"

"Okay." Zhao Hao nodded. "Don't let any ship get to the island. Capture them all."

"Well. Logically speaking, if the bandit leader is not here, there won't be any movement on the island. But we can't just rely on guesswork. I'll arrange for two old brothers who used to be scouts to sneak onto the island to find out the situation and see where Wu Ji's people are being held, so as to avoid being caught off guard if something happens." Jin Ke instructed again:

"But there are always unexpected things. If something unexpected happens, you have to make your own decision."

"Yes." Zhao Hao nodded again, thinking that there must not be any unexpected situation...

After Jin Ke finished speaking, he pursed his lips and made a few lifelike calls of water birds towards the deep mist behind him.

Soon, several speed boats came out of the mist and rain and came close to the sampan.

"I'm going." Jin Ke bowed to Zhao Hao, then nimbly jumped onto the nearest boat and ordered several old subordinates to sneak into the enemy's nest to find out the situation. Then he directed the rest of the speedboats to head towards Xiaozhu Island.

With Gao Wu's help, Zhao Hao returned to the big ship and stared through a telescope at the sampan that was quietly sailing into the reed bay.

On the sampan, two former scouts of the Qi family army had taken off their clothes and were only wearing calf-length pants.

They tied a Japanese sword to their backs with a rope, each holding a wakizashi in their hands, and jumped into the water silently.

The Qi family soldiers preferred Japanese weapons because they were their spoils of war...

When the two surfaced, their bodies were covered in mud and they had fish mint on their heads, blending in perfectly with the surrounding environment.

They then slowly swam out of the reeds and disappeared from Zhao Hao's sight.

~~

Xiaozhu Island is twenty miles away from the bandit’s nest, and it’s also upstream.

Yu Liuye and his four Vajras each took a gunboat and chased each other. It only took them half an hour to reach the island.

It took half the time than usual.

It was already the second watch of the night, the rain was pouring down, and it was pitch black.

The pirates lit torches one after another and took great pains to find the small sandbar.

Everyone cheered and jumped off the boat, splashing in the waist-deep water and running towards the island.

When they reached the sandbar, they saw the messy pile of earth at a glance. They squatted down and dug up the loose soil with their hands. Large wooden boxes covered with mud and sand appeared in front of the bandits.

The wooden boxes were opened one by one, and the white silver shone with an extremely charming luster under the firelight.

The sound of swallowing saliva was heard constantly, and the eyes of the pirates all had green light.

"Hurry up and load the boat and leave here!" Master Yu Liu looked at the dark lake around him, his heart pounding.

The intuition honed from years of living on the edge of a knife made him feel something was not good.

But this is 100,000 taels, enough to make one lose their rationality...

That trace of vigilance disappeared in the blink of an eye.

However, the men dropped their weapons, rushed forward with howls, gathered piles of silver ingots into their arms and threw them into the air, ignoring the orders of the boss.

The pirates who stayed on the boat also ran down and joined the revelry crowd, and the small sandbar became a sea of ​​joy.

~~

At this time, the speedboat chasing them was still several miles away.

Jin Ke stood at the bow, staring at the direction of Xiaozhu Island through a telescope and found some flickering lights.

There was actually a flame flying into the air.

"They have already landed on the island." Jin Ke handed the telescope to his old subordinate Tong Zigong beside him.

Tong Zigong couldn't help but laugh when he saw it, "Oh, you're quite happy."

Then he said with infinite regret: "If we surround them now, we can kill them in one pot."

"It's a pity that their gunboat is too fast." Jin Ke smiled bitterly.

"Yes, the brothers tried their best but couldn't catch up." Tong Zigong couldn't help but frown and shouted to the brothers rowing, "Try harder, don't let them get away!"

"Don't worry, they can't run away." Jin Ke took the telescope calmly, looked at the little lights that were gradually returning to calm, and said, "One hundred thousand taels of silver is enough to hold them back. From the moment you took out the money, the outcome was already determined."

After saying that, Jin Ke issued a stealth order, and the ten speedboats became silent, without even a trace of fire, and quietly approached Xiaozhu Island like swimming fish.

ps. The second of three consecutive updates, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes~~~