Chapter 159 The Super Awesome Fan Family, Rare Trophies "It's so late, and the chief shopkeeper and his men haven't returned with their guests yet. Could something have happened?" "How is it possible? On the prairie, our Fan family holds a pass issued by Huang Taiji, the only overlord on the prairie today!" "If any tribe is tired of living, why not attack our Fan family's caravan? It would be strange if they are not killed and exterminated very soon!" "But... the chief shopkeeper clearly said that he would definitely bring the distinguished guests back before dark tonight to complete this big deal." "Alright! Xiaoliu! Don't say anything unlucky! If you don't want to be punished by the boss, shut up right now!"... In the cover of night, the three mid-grade treasure ships docked at the Fan family's private dock were brightly lit, and the hundreds of servants and guards who stayed behind, as well as hundreds of boatmen and sailors, were talking about the matter. Originally, they were not in any hurry before nightfall tonight. After all, their Fan family was one of the three major merchants in the Ming Dynasty who held the grassland pass issued by Huang Taiji himself. On the prairie north of the Ming Dynasty, Huang Taiji's reputation has reached its peak after easily defeating the previous grassland overlord Ligdan Khan last year. After Nurhaci's death, Huang Taiji, who had just come to power, relied on this battle for supremacy in the grassland to completely secure his position as Khan.
Especially after obtaining the imperial seal hidden in the hands of Ligdan Khan, Huang Taiji personally led the army to invade the Ming Dynasty and directly attacked the capital of the Ming Dynasty. He was unanimously recognized by all ethnic groups and tribes on the grassland as the chosen one by heaven, and his prestige skyrocketed! In the past two years, no tribe or force on the vast grasslands in the north of the Ming Dynasty dared to disobey Huang Taiji. He personally issued the grassland pass, so who would dare not give face to the Fan family? However, the head manager, Fan Defu, who never delayed in speaking or doing things, was still nowhere to be seen until almost the hour of Xu today, which made everyone anxious. Although everyone still didn't believe in their hearts that the Fan family, which was able to get along with both the Ming Dynasty and the new overlord of the grassland and even call the wind and rain, would dare to be offended. But nothing is absolute. What if something really goes wrong? If something happens to the head manager Fan Defu, given his high status in the Fan family, every servant and guard here will be killed! Even if they escaped in time, it would be difficult for them to escape the pursuit of the Fan family! Not only will they themselves have no way to survive, but their families as well will inevitably be blamed by the furious Fan family! Just as their worries were growing, they were considering whether they should send someone to check out the Fan Family Trading Company's headquarters three hundred miles to the west. Near the river bank, they saw countless dark shadows quietly and silently gathering around the large pier. These ghostly, silent black shadows were none other than Li Dingguo, who led his soldiers to their destination in time. I have to say, this time it was still very thrilling. Li Dingguo and his group, including Liang Qingduo, were all unaware of this, yet Fan Defu actually told the remaining personnel here about this matter. If Li Dingguo does not bring people to seize the ship tonight, at most he will wait for a while, and the person in charge of the Fan family on the three treasure ships here will definitely send a team of people to the Fan family’s base to investigate. There is no doubt that once this happens, not only will the fact that the Fan family’s base has been destroyed be quickly exposed, but the three treasure ships here will also leave overnight and return to the Fan family inside the pass to report the situation. By then, the Fusion Army will undoubtedly face a greater crisis, and will be in an absolutely weak position, so there will be endless troubles! "Commander-in-chief, I led this intelligence team and successfully found this place in the evening." A quarter of an hour ago, after Wei Jinfan met up with Li Dingguo who led the army, he immediately reported to him, "After our careful surveillance, we did not find any major movement on the three treasure ships." "But the enemies are all staying in the treasure ship, so we can't alert them. The intelligence we have on the treasure ship so far is not as detailed as that provided by Liang Qingduo." "We don't know how many people are there, how many experts there are, how much supplies there are, etc." There was a hint of shame on Wei Jinfan's little face. This was her military intelligence department, and its first operation failed.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't a failure. I just wasn't able to perfectly complete the task assigned by Hongmei. The location of the treasure ship has been successfully found by these intelligence personnel, and the mission has basically been completed. "Wei Jinfan, this is a special case, plus the time is too short, it's not your intelligence department's fault." Li Dingguo understood the work of the Military Intelligence Department and continued, "I have led three battalions of soldiers here. None of the enemies on these three treasure ships can escape." "Okay, without further ado, let's take down these three treasure ships first." He turned to look at Cao Yongxiang, Li Mei, and Liang Hetang, who were already eager to try, and ordered, "The three enemy treasure ships, the soldiers of your three combat battalions, each responsible for capturing one!" "Just like the previous battles, all enemies must be killed without leaving any alive." "In order to keep it secret, the enemy's bodies cannot be thrown into the river. Drag them all to the shore and bury them in a pit at a chosen location!" "Xiao Douya and I will be in charge of the mobile operations. You guys start moving immediately!" Following his order, the three battalions of soldiers, who had been prepared long ago, left fifty people each to guard the spirit beasts and horses. The rest of the soldiers, led by the commanders of each battalion, flew silently towards the big dock! The place where the mounts of spirit beasts and war horses were placed was less than five miles away from the big pier. With the help of their physical skills, the soldiers could reach the destination in just a moment. The three commanders had already assigned their own targets. They each led their soldiers, leaped into the air, and instantly rushed to the decks of the three treasure ships. A surprise attack then began. "Who are you?" "Whose forces are you from? Don't you know that this is our Fan family's exclusive dock? How dare you come here to cause trouble?" "what……" "Kill!"... As expected, the guards of the Fan family caravan, who were always arrogant and looked down on others, panicked when they saw the enemy attacking and shouted loudly. However, what they received was not the other side's response, but the swords and guns of the Renaissance Army soldiers! After nearly half of the men were quickly killed by the soldiers of the Fuxing Army, the people from the Fan family who stayed behind on the treasure ship finally realized: these mysterious enemies were targeting the Fan family! In all likelihood, something has happened to the chief manager, Vanderford and his men! Vanderford's accident meant the end of their last chance of survival. The Fan family guards, boatmen, and sailors who reacted were shocked and angry and began to fight back with all their might! How could a group of amateurs like them, who were scattered like a group of scattered sand, possibly be a match for an elite army of professional killers? Li Dingguo and Xiao Douya sensed that there were no masters at the peak of the third level of martial arts on the three Fan family treasure ships, let alone masters at the Qi Refining Realm, so they did not intervene in the battle. This kind of night-time ship-seizing operations will certainly occur more frequently in the future, so it would be better to let the soldiers conduct a low-intensity combat training tonight. Even though the two masters, Li Dingguo and Xiao Douya, did not intervene in the battle, the soldiers of the Fuxing Army, who had an absolute advantage in combat power and numbers, ended the battle in about a quarter of an hour. Compared with the battle with the Tatar army this morning, this night raid on the ship was like a crushing blow and it is not worth mentioning at all. "Commander-in-chief, we have captured all three treasure ships. Not a single enemy on the ships escaped. They were all killed by our army." The battle had just ended when Cao Yongxiang, Li Mei and Liang Hetang ordered the soldiers to clean up the battlefield, drag the enemy corpses off the treasure ship one by one, and bury them in a pit at a selected location. The three of them returned to the big dock and reported to Li Dingguo, "In the battle that just ended, we first used our superior forces to surround and kill the only three third-level martial arts masters on the other side. The remaining enemies no longer had the strength to resist and were quickly strangled by our three battalions of soldiers." They were just doing their routine work, enforcing post-war military rules and discipline, strictly observing the rules and regulations recently promulgated by Li Dingguo, and allowing the Fuxing Army to quickly move towards regularization.
"Well, go and do your work." Li Dingguo nodded and waved his hand, saying, "You should organize the soldiers as soon as possible, cooperate with the clerk to complete the registration of military merits, count the spoils, and register them." "Xiao Douya and I will go aboard and see what the difference is between these three middle-grade treasure ships and the low-grade treasure ships we have seen before." Li Dingguo was very curious about the three medium-quality treasure ships that he had already obtained. Two months ago, he personally led his team members to help Zhang Xianzhong's rebel army easily capture a low-grade treasure ship. But soon he handed over the captured treasure ship to Ma Yuanli. Afterwards, he never approached any treasure ship again and had no chance to take a closer look. It is completely different now. These three treasure ships that have just been acquired are already ours, and we can look at them however we want. After ordering Cao Yongxiang and others to complete the aftermath work, Li Dingguo and Xiao Douya flew to the treasure ship in front with great interest. "Brother, this is the first time I've seen a treasure ship!" As soon as Xiao Douya got on board, he looked around curiously and immediately exclaimed, "Isn't this a very big ship?" "Just this middle-grade treasure ship under our feet is more than 40 meters long! And it's about 10 meters wide!" After she had a closer look at the treasure ship, she immediately shouted, "This treasure ship is so big, I estimate that three treasure ships combined can transport all of our current warriors and soldiers at once!" In fact, Xiao Douya still underestimated the preciousness of a mid-quality treasure ship. The carrying capacity of this mid-grade treasure ship is more than three times that of a low-grade treasure ship! It is a full ship of supplies, enough for all the logistical needs of a thousand soldiers for a month! This is a truly strategic-level treasure that can greatly reduce the workload of the logistics department. It is a rare treasure for every army. The value of a mid-grade treasure ship alone is at least three million taels of silver! Even the Fan family, which is rich enough to rival a country, only has nine mid-grade treasure ships in total. There are only three high-quality treasure ships, and no top-quality treasure ships. However, the Fan family has thirty low-grade treasure ships. The value of the treasure ships owned by the Fan family alone is close to 100 million taels of silver! In this magical world, within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, the total number of treasure ships of all forces including the military would not exceed three thousand! The number of medium-quality treasure ships among them will not exceed eight hundred. There will be no more than a hundred high-quality treasure ships. The top-grade treasure ships are the rarest, with no more than twenty of them, and can be called a powerful weapon to protect the clan! Even though Li Dingguo has only obtained three medium-quality treasure ships, if the news gets out, it will be enough to make many wealthy families and small and medium-sized businesses envious. The value of these three medium-quality treasure ships is no less than that of three thousand medium- and low-quality dragon-scale horses. Li Dingguo is now in the prairie. He can easily obtain spiritual beasts and war horses, but it is extremely difficult to get three medium-quality treasure ships under normal circumstances. Even if someone offered three thousand middle and lower grade spirit beasts and war horses in exchange for the three treasure ships, Li Dingguo would refuse without hesitation!
This kind of strategic-level treasure will enhance the Renaissance Army's ability to conduct long-distance operations by more than one level, and it cannot be measured by money at all. (End of this chapter)