Chapter 178: The Battle of Bopu (Part 2)

Dugu Qiuhun's farm truck hurtled down the rough road at seventy kilometers per hour, its horn blaring incessantly through the darkness. Everyone aboard clung to the rails in terror, certain they would die in a traffic accident before they ever had the chance to become martyrs in battle. Within minutes, searchlight beams appeared ahead, sweeping wildly across the night. Muzzle flashes strobed through the blackness amid shifting silhouettes, and combined with the shrieking alarms and the thunderous din of gunfire, the scene might have been torn straight from a World War II film.

They reached the camp entrance just as Meng De came into view—dressed in a striped sailor shirt over a stab-resistant vest, waving an SKS frantically overhead.

"Get to the dock! The enemy is landing there!"

Dugu Qiuhun wrenched the wheel and swung the truck around. He had barely started moving when a burly man came sprinting toward them, a pump-action shotgun in his left hand and an entrenching tool in his right. Behind him trailed a dozen disheveled figures—some clutching firearms, others wielding fire extinguishers—all desperate for a ride. Dugu waved them aboard. The small farm truck was now crammed with over twenty bodies. Someone screamed; a fire extinguisher had crushed his foot.

"Minor wounds don't leave the front line! Hold on, brother." Wang Ruixiang pounded the cab roof. "Go! Fast boat dock!"

The Qian brothers recognized the critical moment and quickly fell in behind. Seeing that most of the arrivals carried only machetes, Qian Shuixie grew concerned about their firepower. He ducked below, retrieved three or four Mosin-Nagant M44s from his private stash, and distributed them along with ammunition. Everyone had trained on various rifles—at the very least, they wouldn't resort to using them as spears.

En route, they linked up with Bai Yu, who was leading a gun crew and a dozen men toward the beach to reinforce the defenses and protect the ships.

The yacht lay only a hundred meters from the trawlers' berth, but the beach route was already strewn with bodies and wounded. A sandbag emplacement guarding the dock stood abandoned, its cannon overturned. The sight sent a chill through everyone. Out on the water, sampans had swarmed around the outermost trawler, and shadowy figures moved across its deck. Dugu Qiuhun raised his rifle, but Meng De grabbed his arm.

"What are you doing? None of our people are on that ship!"

"You fire and all the equipment gets destroyed!" Meng De said urgently.

"Cold steel, then." Wang Ruixiang drew his entrenching tool and prepared to charge.

"Enemy incoming!"

The sampan pirates had spotted the reinforcements. Over a dozen vessels beached themselves on the shore, disgorging waves of pirates onto the sand. In the flickering firelight, they appeared dark-skinned and wiry, their slanted eyes gleaming with feral intensity, daggers clenched between their teeth, Malay-style curved swords gripped in their hands.

"Hold fire!" Dugu Qiuhun stopped those about to shoot.

"We want total annihilation. Don't let a single one escape." His voice was ice. He pulled down his helmet's face shield and adjusted his chengguan stab vest.

A whistle pierced the air. Several dozen men fell into formation as they had trained—three small squares advancing from three directions, pressing toward the enemy in a tightening noose.

The pirates seemed utterly unfazed. Clearly trained warriors, they drew their swords with crisp, practiced sounds, their posture radiating contempt: Close combat? We're not afraid.

Dugu Qiuhun allowed himself a thin smile at their confidence. Idiots. Who said anything about close combat? I'm not shooting so you won't go prone and waste my bullets.

Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty. The gap closed relentlessly. Their fierce expressions grew visible in the wavering light.

At twenty meters, a hand signal. The front-rank fighters parted swiftly to either side. Hidden behind the human wall, a 12-pounder mountain howitzer revealed its dark, gaping muzzle.

In that frozen instant, astonishment bloomed across the pirates' faces. Their expressions seemed to scream: Too underhanded!!!

That astonishment lasted less than a second. The 12-pounder roared, and double canister—twenty-four pounds of iron balls—swept through them like a hurricane of metal.

Smoke billowed across the beach. Agonized screams tore the night. When the haze cleared, barely ten of nearly fifty pirates remained standing. Several fled toward the sea, shrieking in an incomprehensible language, hurling themselves into the waves to escape.

Canister from a howitzer loses energy quickly at range—beyond a hundred meters, it becomes ineffective. But at twenty meters, it was absolute annihilation.

"Beautiful!" Dugu Qiuhun nearly danced with joy.

"Double canister!" Bai Yu bellowed. The improvised gun crew fumbled through the drill but completed reloading in five minutes.

This shot targeted the sampans clustered at the waterline. Canister swept across the surface like a scythe. Several vessels began sinking immediately. Others simply drifted lifelessly—no living souls remained aboard.

While the pirates reeled in shock, Wang Ruixiang and Dugu Qiuhun led the charge personally—one wielding a hand axe, the other a machete. The mob behind them, as if seized by battle frenzy, howled and surged forward. The fierce battle to retake the ships had begun.

Four trawlers lay moored in a row at the pier. The pirates had quickly seized the outermost vessel and attached tow cables, but they couldn't operate the mechanically controlled anchor chains. Unable to cut through them either, they were forced to raise the anchor manually—a delay that cost them dearly.

Wang Ruixiang carved his way forward with his entrenching tool, utterly unstoppable, blood spraying with every swing. Those following him felt as if they were watching a cheap horror movie. In truth, he knew no real techniques—he simply relied on being enormous and nearly invulnerable. His chengguan-issue stab-resistant suit, multiple layers of local cotton battle robe, motorcycle helmet, and butcher's protective gloves made him a walking fortress, like a Qing heavy-armored ironhat soldier. The pirates' sheet-metal blades couldn't touch him.

Within moments, the pier was cleared of pirates. Survivors leaped into the sea, pursued by pump-action and shotgun fire. Dugu Qiuhun, watching Wang Ruixiang hog all the glory, felt a competitive fire ignite. He rushed forward, determined to be first onto the trawler for a satisfying kill. But the tow cable had parted, and in the darkness, his judgment of the ship's position was off. His front foot hit the deck, but he lost his balance and pitched headlong into the sea with a tremendous splash.

Meanwhile, the pirates on deck fired arrows wildly and hurled javelins at the transmigrators. Many found their marks, but none fully penetrated their protection. Wang Ruixiang, at the forefront, had his battle robe bristling like a hedgehog with embedded projectiles. He kept firing; at such close range with pirates clustered together, every shot struck at least one target. When his revolver clicked empty and there was no time to reload, a pirate's sword slashed his arm. His arm went numb; the pistol flew from his grip. Wang Ruixiang roared with rage, his axe severing the attacker's wrist in a single brutal stroke. Another pirate thrust a javelin at his chest. He twisted aside. The off-balance attacker stumbled toward him, and Wang Ruixiang kicked him down with savage force, his steel-soled combat boot catching the Malay pirate's temple and snapping his neck vertebrae. Instant death.

Another pirate leaped from behind the wheelhouse, a swim ring slung over his shoulder—perhaps intended as loot. Wang Ruixiang grinned, about to dispatch him, when suddenly the man's head flew from his shoulders. Arterial blood sprayed in a crimson arc, drenching Wang Ruixiang from head to toe. His helmet visor was completely blinded.

"Damn." He cursed, wiping the plexiglass with his battle robe sleeve. There stood Dugu Qiuhun, machete in hand, wearing an expression of invincible loneliness, seawater still dripping from his clothes. After falling into the water, he had climbed aboard from the ship's side, cut down several men along the way, and finally beheaded this last one.

"Good blade. The guy who sold me this gear didn't lie." Dugu Qiuhun's expression remained as lonely as ever.

"Clear!"

Reports echoed from across the deck. Wang Ruixiang, wary of stragglers, personally inspected all four trawlers. Since the cabins had been locked before departure and the response had been swift, no pirates had managed to get inside. Meng De, who had been anxiously worried about the instruments, equipment, and tools, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Bai Yu's team swiftly cleared the deck gun positions—the precious fore and aft 70mm breech-loaders were undamaged, merely blood-spattered. Meng De hurried to unlock the ammunition compartment with the master key, bringing out shells and powder.

"Seven o'clock direction, 750 meters. Armor-piercing, one round!"

(End of Chapter)