The Xunyang River was once lively, and the scene of various merchant ships and passenger ships shuttled back and forth were now unseen, especially after dusk, even the last few single-wood fishing boats were gone, and only the surging river flowed eastward quietly.

But when the sky was completely dark, more than 30 small warships suddenly drove out of Jiangzhou Water Gate and quietly entered the Xunyang River, and went silently against the water toward the upstream. On each ship, there were more than 20 official troops holding bows, arrows or swords and guns standing. Everyone's faces looked extremely solemn. When the entire fleet advanced upstream, there was no other sound except for the clattering sound of oars and water on the river.

This fleet was the official army commanded by Lin Henian, the chief supervisor of Jiangzhou, to wipe out the evil dragon. In addition to the seven or eight hundred fang troops under his command, there were also a hundred elite soldiers selected by Sun Tu. These people are now sitting on four warships, staring at the dark and calm surroundings with all their attention, holding the weapons in their hands tightly.

Although the spirit of all of these village soldiers has been very different after two months of hard training, they are Xinting who has never really been on the battlefield to kill the enemy. Moreover, this time they are going to conquer the evil dragons, who are already famous, so they are naturally nervous.

Sun Tu, who was standing at the bow of the small warship in front, also clearly felt the depression of the soldiers behind him, so he turned around and whispered to the people on the same boat: "It's just a group of bandits like a mob, you don't have to worry. When you arrive at the thief's nest, just follow the command to attack and defeat the thief."

His words were still effective. The nervous soldiers finally relaxed a little, and the hands holding the weapons were not so strong.

After moving up against the current for a while, the pioneer in front of him only sounded a light, but it had already arrived near the target and ordered all the ships to scatter and surround the small island of sandbank that could be seen clearly, in order to completely wipe out the evil dragon and trap them in their nests.

Today's strategy and tactics for suppressing bandits were all decided by Lin Henian alone, and Sun Tu did not raise any objections. As soon as he saw the order coming, he immediately asked the soldiers on the ship to light the lights, and ordered his four small boats to scatter and then attack the thieves from the west of the island.

These official troops were selected by Lin Dujian from thousands of people and those who were good at boat racing and water learning. At this time, they naturally dispersed very skillfully, and then surrounded and slowly approached the island under the cover of night.

When Sun Tu and his friends arrived less than a mile away from the island, lights lit up in other directions. They were their feedback, and Sun Tu also made his response quickly.

At this moment, without sneaking close to the island with the small warships, a red light had risen from the slightly larger ship, and then a loud drum sounded from the ship, completely breaking the tranquility of the Xunyang River late at night.

Accompanied by these inspiring drums, the government troops who were ready to go also shouted. Everyone rowed hard together, and the boats rushed towards the small island of sandbank in front like arrows off the strings. The bowmen standing at the bow had already skillfully bent their bows and arrows to aim ahead, just waiting for the enemy to show up to them.

But just as everyone was trying to rush to the island in one breath, the boat that should have flew into quickly suddenly slowed down. Sun Tu obviously felt that the ship beneath him was being pulled and wrapped around by something, and he could not drive forward. At this time, they were still a hundred steps away from the island, and there was still a dark river in front of them.

This incident really caught the official army off guard and exclaimed in surprise. Some people shouted to retreat, while others tried to go into the water to see the situation below. They should have launched a surprise attack, but the unstoppable offensive was completely disrupted. Moreover, the movement was so great that the thieves on the island had already known that an enemy was attacking.

Sure enough, just as the officials who went into the water exclaimed: "It's fishing nets, they are covered with fishing nets under the water, and the bottom of our boats are entangled with fishing nets...", the originally quiet island suddenly became loud and loud, and torches were quickly lit. Dozens of figures were already rushing towards the south where Sun Tu and the others were.

When the wing troops, who had already been in trouble, saw an enemy rushing towards them, they raised their bows and fired arrows at the enemies on the island, but they made Sun Tu frown: "We are still more than a hundred steps away from the enemy now. How could such bows and arrows hurt them?"

Sure enough, everything was as Sun Tu expected. After drawing arcs, the arrows flying out of the air fell into the river due to exhaustion, and were still a long way from the shore of the island.

The dozens of water bandits rushed out of the island without fear, jumped into the river and quickly disappeared from everyone's sight. This behavior immediately made the wing army on the ship trapped in the fishing net and in a dilemma. Everyone raised their swords and guns, shouting something, staring at the dark water below but didn't know what to do.

"With good water quality, hurry up and go into the water to cut the fishing net open. We can't be trapped here anymore!" Sun Tu ordered urgently. While speaking, he had already shaken off the slightly burdened leather armor on his body, held a short knife in his mouth, and jumped into the water without hesitation.

With Sun Tu leading by example, many of the rural soldiers on his boat finally gave up their fear and jumped into the water as if they were like this, helping their own team train together to cut the fishing nets that wrapped around the ships. Then, the rural soldiers on the other three boats also followed the orders. The practices in the past two months have made them accustomed to following Sun Tu's orders. Even if they are now panic, they still follow the orders.

However, Tang Feng and Lu Da, who were divided on the other two ships, did not set an example like Sun Tu. Neither of them was very good at water, especially Lu Da. It was not easy to stand firmly at the bow of the ship and give orders, so it would be a mess to let him get into the water.

However, he was well versed in military affairs and still shouted to the village soldiers on the ship on the ship: "Look up all the torches for me, pay attention to the movements under the water. If any thieves appear in front of me, I will greet me with bows and arrows!" He was obviously guarding against the thieves who had just started to water from the island. I wonder when these guys would suddenly appear to attack the official army who were still trying to get the ship out of the trap.

In fact, Sun Tu, who was cutting the fine fishing nets with a knife in the water, also divided most of his mind around him to prevent an enemy from suddenly attacking his home from some dark place. At this time, the official and military ships here were trapped by the fishing nets and could not move. They were the targets that the thieves were most likely to attack.

But unexpectedly, after a long time of guarding, the water bandits did not launch an attack from the side, as if the scene they saw just now was fake. Just when everyone was full of doubts, a scream came from the east and then a sound of killing came. In amazement, Sun Tu understood that the thief seemed to have landed in the water from the west, but in fact, they came to attack the east and the west, and had already detoured to the east and launched a surprise attack on the unpreventive government army.

At this time, a shout came from the island again. Even in such an environment, Sun Tu and the others still heard a sound of heavy objects falling into the water from the front. Before they could guess what the other party would do, the fire suddenly lit up from the island, and then the screams were even more intense than before: "It's a fire boat, they actually attacked with fire!"

Amid the screams, several small boats that were on fire rushed straight toward the east, which had been raided and chaotic. The warships that had not yet broken free from the fishing nets could not even dodge. They could only watch the small boats that were full of fire-burning objects, and they were already burning from afar, and then hit the bow of their own ships with a bang, leading the fire to their own house at the same time.

This made the already lost control of the Xiang army even more panicked. They screamed and jumped down the boat, but they just fell into the hands of the bandits. The screams suddenly sounded on the river.

Although the other officials on the boats were willing to rescue them, they were still wrapped in the fishing nets, but they were unable to escape for a while. The only thing they could do was to try their best to cut the fishing nets that were tangled like messy under the boat, they were all left to curse at the cunning thieves.

Of course, not everyone could not provide assistance. The flagship ship that had not attacked with the fleet before leaned towards the west under Lin Henian's order. Lin Dujian, who was standing at the bow of the boat and watching all this, had his face twisted because of his anger: "Look over for me, that little fishing net could only entangle the small boat, but could not stop our big boat..."

But after the ship advanced for more than half a mile, it suddenly stopped moving. The official army, who was rowing hard to make the ship move forward, immediately shouted loudly: "Mainland, the water here is shallow, and our ship cannot rely on it at all..."

This was heard in Lin Henian's ears, which made his body tremble, and almost burst into his eyes: "How could this be!"

Before he could come up with a countermeasure, the surrounding officials exclaimed again: "Fire...the fire ship is coming again!" But they saw that several fire ships were put down again on the island. This time, they could not take the wind, even let several thieves drive the ships to rush towards the official army in person, which made everyone even more frightened.

Seeing the fireboat coming towards them, the wing soldiers were completely panicked and could only instinctively shoot arrows at the fireboat. However, because the target was too small, they panicked again, and almost all of the arrows fell into the empty space.

With a muffled bang, the first fire ship finally hit the front ship heavily. The flames had already risen on the ship and spread quickly at this time. The thief who controlled the ship had jumped into the river at the moment the two ships collided and disappeared.

At this time, the small warships crowded in the east had already been surrounded by flames, and the screams of the officials' troops resounded one after another, resounding throughout the night sky!
Chapter completed!