Early the next morning, Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong walked out of the tent.

Mu Rongfeng’s reply still hadn’t arrived yet, and all sides were biding their time. The atmosphere was subdued and tense.

The two of them quietly entered Pingtao City. Residents were still unaware of the imminent fighting, so the mood in the downtown area was much more relaxed than it was in the military encampment. In order to prevent innocent civilians from being hurt during the operation the next day, the local yamen had some men put on an act at the port in the afternoon. In the name of an inquiry into a fistfight between two caravans, port guards took all members of all the caravans near the port into custody, and then sealed the port entrance temporarily, allowing only a small number of people to go in and out so as to minimize collateral damage.

At dusk, Mu Rongfeng’s reply finally arrived. Yuwen Tong was the first to read the letter. In it, Mu Rongfeng agreed to Wang Xiangxin’s plan, and he didn’t mention anything about the time of their concerted operation, which spared Yuwen Tong the trouble of tampering the letter.

Ling Zhang studied the terrain of the areas outside Pingtao City for a while and then covertly brought Wang Dashan and some others out of the city to scout out the lay of the land. After returning from the trip, he told Yuwen Tong where he was going to deploy a formation.

“Considering the scale of tomorrow’s operation, we won’t be able to keep Wang Xiangxin in the dark about it. If they stay where they are, there’ll be no problem, but if they move out of the checkpoint, my formation will hold them back and buy you some time.”

Yuwen Tong inclined his head. After giving it some thought, he said, “The formation will have to be large, and those scouts in the city will easily find out about its existence. Do you think it’s doable that we make a plan first and wait until tomorrow to deploy the formation?”

Ling Zhang said, “I think so.”

The main purpose of the deployment of the formation was to stall the rebel army and buy the garrison some time to round up Mu Rongfeng and his men at the port.

Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang consulted with Hai Mu about this matter. The next day, Hai Mu would lead the Haizhou garrison to trap the enemy in a pincer movement, and proper coordination would be needed for the formation to serve its purpose.

The consultation lasted until night. After a plan was finalized, Hai Mu took his leave to make final arrangements. Ling Zhang, Wang Dashan and some others, under the cover of night, went out of the city once again.

The next day, at the crack of dawn, the atmosphere was even more subdued than it was the day before. Everybody was poised to take action.

…

On the sea outside Pingtao City.

There had been some unusual movements on the seemingly quiet sea before daybreak. Some pirate ships, hiding in morning mist, had attempted to get through the waters patrolled regularly by the navy to get ashore.

“Pirates!”

Soldiers on an observation tower on an island spotted the pirate ships. The navy immediately sent a couple of warships to intercept them.

The two sides engaged and the fighting was in a stalemate for an hour.

Afterward, the pirates were defeated and made an attempt to detour around the naval base to flee south. The warships exploited the victory and pursued the enemy hotly, sparing no efforts. Soon the noisy sea fell silent, without a single ship in sight.

“Advance! Full speed!” The fleet of ‘merchant ships’ led by Mu Rongfeng took advantage of this opportunity and sailed through the waters that the navy had originally been keeping close watch on, headed in the direction of the port of Pingtao City. Even if the navy found out about it, their warships wouldn’t be able to catch up with them in time.

These merchant ships in disguise were actually small-sized warships from the navy of the Luohai Kingdom. This time, Mu Rongfeng had led one third of the navy south to Haizhou, investing quite a lot in this operation.

The dozens of ships moved very fast, getting closer and closer to the port outside Pingtao City. Distantly, soldiers on the ships could now see the situation in the port clearly.

Mu Rongfeng didn’t go ashore immediately. Instead, he sent a couple of ships forward to reconnoiter.

The port was fairly quiet, because the day before some members of two caravans made trouble at the port and had a fierce fight, and then local authorities took all caravans staying near the port into custody, leaving some merchant ships anchored on the side. And then there were some port guards on duty. A couple of fishing boats had just gone ashore. Some fishermen and temporary workers were unloading fish from the boats, which were to be transported into Pingtao City as soon as possible.

According to the plan, Wang Xiangxin would send some men to create disturbance and lure away the port guards to allow Mu Rongfeng’s men an opportunity to land on the shore.

Of course, the real date on which Wang Xiangxin wanted Mu Rongfeng to take action was the next day, so on this day, some soldiers of the Haizhou garrison would pose as refugees and create ‘turmoil’ to ‘lure’ the port guards away.

Those on the shore were also observing movements on the sea. The moment Mu Rongfeng’s warships came into sight, people on the shore started making final preparations.

Mu Rongfeng’s scouts came ashore just in time to see the ‘turbulence’ begin and most of the port guards drawn away.

Finding that the port guards had been lured away, one of the scouts sounded his horn.

The horn tooted.

“Get ashore!”

Mu Rongfeng gave the order and with that all his warships quickly moved towards the shore.

Some warships of the navy had turned around to pursue them. Mu Rongfeng repeated ordered his men to pick up speed and go ashore as quick as possible. “Hurry up! All of you!”

Light and fast, his warships in disguise reached the shore very soon. The marines of the Luohai Kingdom, posing as pirates, were poised to disembark. Mu Rongfeng was standing on deck, his eyes sweeping across the port, surprised that the port was unusually quiet. Berthed at random by the shore were only some fishing boats. Not only had all port guards been led away, but none of the businessmen he’d previously seen engaged in loading and unloading goods was in sight. Seeing this, he couldn’t help but furrow his brows.

“What’s going on? Why are all those merchant ships berthed there?!” Mu Rongfeng snapped at the scouts who had been waiting on the shore all this time.

Mu Rongfeng had long since planted these scouts in Pingtao City in order to stake out the city in case the situation changed.

“Your Highness, yesterday afternoon two chambers of commerce came into conflict and had a fight in this place. They destroyed a lot of each other’s goods and caused quite a stink, so the local yamen took all of them into custody for interrogation,” replied one of the scouts.

“Two chambers of commerce came into conflict? All caravans were involved?” Mu Rongfeng had a hunch that something was not right.

“The two chambers of commerce are two of the largest in Pingtao City. More than seventy percent of the merchant ships going in and out of this port regularly belong to the two of them. The situation was too chaotic when the fight broke out yesterday, and too many people got involved, so the local yamen simply arrested all members of caravans and boatmen in the port,” answered the scout.

Before Mu Rongfeng could figure out which part of this matter was wrong, one of his subordinates keeping a lookout for the navy of the Great Wen ran up to report.

“Your Highness! Warships of their navy are approaching! Should we disembark and blow up the port right away?”

Mu Rongfeng glanced over his shoulder into the sea area behind him and saw that there were indeed some enemy warships coming, but he had an intuition that the incident the day before happened in suspicious circumstances, that it was too coincidental to be true. Two chambers of commerce had got into a fight the day before he took action – it was almost like someone had specially cleared the way for him…

Was that part of Wang Xiangxin’s plan as well, by any chance?

Did Wang Xiangxin wield enough power in Pingtao City to arrange for two large chambers of commerce to do something like and have the local yamen cooperate with him?

Mu Rongfeng was still dithering, the warships of the navy of the Great Wen approaching constantly.

“Has Wang Xiangxin made his move? Why am I not hearing any battle cry?” asked Mu Rongfeng, his ears cocked, listening hard.

“Maybe they’re too far away,” said one of his subordinates.

“No. Something’s not right. Don’t get ashore yet. Go and do some recon immediately. If Wang Xiangxin has taken action, some people in the city would definitely have noticed,” averred Mu Rongfeng through gritted teeth. “Everybody else stay put. Get ready to engage the navy of the Great Wen!”

“Your Highness, if we do it this way, we’ll have to fight their navy head on, and there might be unimaginably heavy casualties, which would be totally unnecessary!”

“Do as I say!”

“But… Yes, Your Highness!”

…

It’d been quite some time but Mu Rongfeng still hadn’t got ashore. Instead, he sent some scouts to fan out into nearby areas to do recon, and he seemed to have the intention to launch a frontal attack on the navy of the Great Wen. On a tall building in the distance, Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong saw the whole thing distinctly.

“It seems that Mu Rongfeng is not really that stupid. Unfortunately for him, even if he’d found out something about our plan, he wouldn’t have enough time to take any countermeasures. He has to come ashore, no matter whether he wants to or not,” observed Yuwen Tong.

“Judging from how long it has been since the start, Wu Zhuo and his marines should arrive to surround them soon,” said Ling Zhang.

Predictably, before long, a patch of black spots emerged from the mist on the sea.

The first batch of warships pursuing Mu Rongfeng’s men had approached, and there are a great number of warships in the distance, heading in this direction.

Mu Rongfeng’s men panicked. “Your Highness, we’re surrounded by a large naval fleet of the Great Wen!”

Mu Rongfeng climbed up a mast to look into the distance and then also noticed the fleet, his face falling instantly, realizing that there was indeed something wrong.

“Fuck! That son of a bitch Wang Xiangxin must’ve surrendered himself to the imperial court of the Great Wen. He lured us into a trap! Sound retreat! Everybody go back to the ships! Get prepared to–”

BOOM!

The naval ship at the front of the pursuers suddenly fired a ball with gunpowder inside. All those ships were equipped with catapults. Large balls containing gunpowder with lighted fuses were fired one after another before they landed on the ‘merchant ships’ and exploded, closely followed by a volley of flaming arrows.

“FALL BACK!” bellowed Mu Rongfeng after jumping off the mast, narrowly avoiding being hit by a flaming arrow.

“Your Highness, it–it’s too late! There are enemy naval ships coming from both sides! All those merchant ships have been camouflaged. They’re warships of the Great Wen!” a subordinate of his reported, panic-stricken.

Those ‘merchant ships’, which had been quietly staying near the port all along, suddenly moved, cornering them from both sides, large numbers of marines pouring out of the cabins, flaming arrows raining down on Mu Rongfeng’s warships.

Mu Rongfeng’s men were under attack from two sides. All those ‘merchant ships’ were larger than Mu Rongfeng’s. If Mu Rongfeng was to force his way out of the port by breaking through the surrounding circle, he would have to pay a heavy price and it would take a lot of time too. Also, there was a very high chance that the marines of the Great Wen would get aboard his warships before his men could breach the ring of encirclement.

Mu Rongfeng’s eyes were red with fury. There were so many enemy ships on the sea that even wind could barely get through. The naval forces of the Great Wen had almost turned out in full strength, making it impossible for them to retreat by sea.

“Get ashore and go north!” ordered Mu Rongfeng.

The Jiangzhou rebel army was in the south-west, but Mu Rongfeng was now very suspicious of Wang Xiangxin and no longer had any trust in him, so he naturally wouldn’t retreat in that direction. He intended for his men to land on the shore, blend into local residents and flee north, then find an opportunity to get aboard some ships and travel further north to return home.

Mu Rongfeng believed that this was a shrewd move. However, his opponent had anticipated it and taken precautions in the north some time before. Even if he and his men managed to reach the northern part, they would have to double back eventually.

The moment Mu Rongfeng and his men set foot on the shore, soldiers guarding the gates of Pingtao City received orders to shut all city gates to prevent Mu Rongfeng and his men from fleeing into the city. This was also one of the benefits of the port not being part of Pingtao City. At ordinary times, it was not very convenient for goods to be transported from the port to the downtown area, but when there was a sea battle, a lot of losses could be avoided if the city gates were shut in time.

This time around, Mu Rongfeng and his men were doomed to end up like fish in a barrel.