Chapter 1233 - The Hijacking

The so-called suspicious vessel was a large fishing boat common to the area—roughly eighty or ninety tons displacement by Australian calculation. It wasn't flying a fishing permit flag. Obviously, this was an unlicensed poaching boat that hadn't paid the fishing tax.

The boat was anchored beside a sandbar in the middle of the sea, apparently hauling up some kind of seafood. Zhao Zhulong ordered the patrol boat to approach for inspection and seizure. This was a common occurrence on patrol—they encountered one or two such situations every outing.

Boats that refused to pay the fishing tax were routinely captured and escorted to Hong Kong for processing. Standard procedure called for confiscation of all catch. If caught a second time, even the boat would be confiscated.

Though fishermen had always been an oppressed, exploited, and despised class, that didn't mean they were docile believers or lambs for the slaughter. In the offshore world beyond government reach, knives and fists did the talking. Defiant fishermen naturally wouldn't meekly hand over one-fifth of their hard-won catch, so the Coast Guard's initial enforcement of fishing taxes in the Pearl River estuary had met considerable resistance. Almost every patrol led to small-scale clashes, with deaths and sinkings occurring regularly. There had even been collective armed resistance by fishermen—though all were unsurprisingly suppressed.

After Hong Kong authorities applied both carrot and stick—establishing fish markets with fair buying and selling, providing low-interest microloans, and organizing fishing associations—they gradually won over the local fishermen. Now the fishing tax system was fully established.

Though tax-evading poaching hadn't been eliminated, such incidents were becoming increasingly rare. As for armed resistance, under the Australians' fearsome reputation, it hadn't happened in a long time. So Zhao Zhulong didn't order the ship to full alert status as regulations required.

"Prepare for inspection!" he shouted. The patrol boat began lowering its sails. A loud-voiced soldier picked up a tin megaphone and broadcast in Cantonese, Hakka, and Hokkien in rotation.

Several sailors began preparing grappling hooks. One sailor climbed up to the firing position behind the helm and trained the typewriter on the fishing boat.

On the fishing boat's deck were only a few ragged fishermen. Seeing this display, they all panicked—some running about, some moving to raise the anchor stone. Hearing "...hands on head, squat down!" plus that black, boxy "square cannon" aimed at them, they all squatted down at once, hands on heads.

For Zhao Zhulong and the patrol boat sailors, this was routine. Even without firearms, in one-on-one blade combat, fishermen were no match for systematically trained sailors.

The grappling hooks caught the fishing boat. The two vessels came alongside but didn't press tight together. The boarding party crossed on dedicated boarding planks to the fishing boat's deck. Zhao Zhulong had no interest in watching further—the following scene was routine business. The boat boss would come out pleading; there'd be the usual back-and-forth, probably including righteously refusing bribes. Zhao Zhulong had once envied those red envelopes—a few of those would supplement his savings. But he knew the Chiefs had eyes everywhere; nothing escaped them. Every six months, part of the crew would be rotated out, replaced with new recruits. He as captain might be transferred to another ship—there was never any way to build a core of trusted men, let alone win over the whole crew.

Zhao Zhulong watched the boringly repetitive drama with weary eyes: the boat boss bowing and scraping, the inspection sailors blustering. Then suddenly seven or eight people of all ages and genders came pouring up from below deck, kneeling, crying, grabbing the inspection sailors' legs—some weeping, some wailing, some kowtowing. A chaotic mess.

These boat people just won't pay their taxes honestly. Zhao Zhulong took out a snuff bottle and took a sniff. Though he was also a fisherman, he wasn't boat people by birth, and thus looked down on the boat people as "lowborn." In the Navy, because so many officers and men were from boat people families, discrimination against them was strictly prohibited, with extensive propaganda and education efforts. But such attitudes hadn't been truly eliminated among non-boat-people naval personnel—they just no longer showed it openly.

Just as the sailors' attention was completely drawn to the inspection on the port side, several wooden barrels quietly surfaced from the sea on the starboard side. The starboard lookout stared wide-eyed with curiosity, not knowing what these things were.

In that instant, short crossbow bolts shot from the barrels simultaneously. With several screams, the lookouts were struck and fell into the sea. The sailor leaning on the starboard typewriter to watch was also shot down. Almost simultaneously, the fishermen who'd been prostrate at the sailors' feet begging all moved together—in an instant the boarding party was dragged down and dispatched with rising knives.

Zhao Zhulong reacted fairly quickly. He drew his pistol and had just shouted "Atten—" when the fishing boat's stern-castle side planking crashed down. Instantly, white smoke billowed out, followed by a thunderous cannon blast across sea and sky.

Countless iron nails and shot swept across the patrol boat's deck in an instant. Screams rang out across the deck. Zhao Zhulong's helm was hit first—several shot smashed his head into a ruined watermelon. The sailors around him didn't escape either. The helm ran with blood; even the typewriter had been shot through with seven or eight holes.

"Go!"

With a roar, several dozen pirates surged up from below deck, instantly swarming onto the patrol boat's deck—now bereft of typewriter cover. Men who'd been under the barrels surfaced too, hands and feet working to climb up from the starboard side. The battle was brief and brutal. Most of the deck crew were dead or wounded from the first cannon blast. The patrol boat had completely lost its combat capability.

The patrol boat crew was small, relying entirely on firepower to suppress enemies and "potential enemies." Now this sudden cannon blast had instantly destroyed its firepower advantage. In less than ten minutes, the patrol boat had fallen into pirate hands. The sailors aboard were either killed on the spot or captured and immediately finished off.

Though the pirates were indistinguishable in appearance and dress from Pearl River estuary fishermen, their movements were clean and coordinated—nothing like the disorderly manner of fisher-pirates.

After the fighting completely subsided, a burly man emerged from the fishing boat's below-deck. His dress was identical to the knife-and-gun wielding, still-panting pirates. Yet the pirate crew hurried to clear a path for him. He strode casually across the deck, stepping on corpses and blood, slowly walking to the stern. Then, climbing the blood-drenched ladder to the helm, he glanced at the shot-damaged typewriter, turned it by hand, studied this black iron contraption for a moment, then removed the drum magazine and examined it carefully. A cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

The pirate chief said nothing, commanding everything with hand gestures alone. The pirates quickly weighted the bodies with cannonballs and tossed them into the sea. Some repaired the severed rigging. Others cleaned the deck. Within fifteen minutes, the patrol boat had been restored to normal operational condition.

The fishing boat was scuttled. The pirates boarded the patrol boat. Hong Kong Coast Guard 64 raised full sail and, catching the wind, swiftly headed for the open sea.

Four hours later, news of Hong Kong Coast Guard 64's disappearance reached the Navy Department in Lingao: A single-masted patrol boat had vanished during routine patrol in the Pearl River estuary. There'd been no storms in that sea area at the time of disappearance. Patrol boats dispatched for search had found no trace of the missing vessel, making it impossible to determine whether the ship had sunk due to reef collision. Lelin now suspected the ship had either defected or been hijacked. The search area had been expanded, but so far no results.

The Navy Department immediately went into high gear. Losing a patrol boat wasn't a first—accidents and combat losses had occurred before. But to vanish so completely without a trace was unprecedented. Chen Haiyang ordered all ships in Hong Kong and all vessels bound for Hong Kong to raise their alert levels, while warning all locations and ships: a single-masted patrol boat's current whereabouts were unknown.

"Too bad Hong Kong doesn't have 8154—if we sent it to search, we'd definitely find them." Chen Haiyang felt the ship was unlikely to have sunk—more likely defection or hijacking. As for the motive, that was hard to say. But even if the crew had defected, it couldn't have been spontaneous—it was likely induced by someone.

If it was induced, then this incident was quite unusual. Chen Haiyang couldn't imagine who had the ability to seduce the crew under their tight internal security system. After all, the patrol boat had over twenty people. It was impossible to be airtight.

"Immediately retrieve Hong Kong Coast Guard 64's weekly internal reports!" Chen Haiyang called the General Staff Political Department. The weekly Ten-Man Team surveillance reports from the Political Security Bureau were sent there. He then ordered the personnel roster for all crew members of Hong Kong Coast Guard 64, requesting their files per the roster.

"...Also call the Political Security Bureau. Tell them we're sending a list and ask them to check whether these people have any other records or reports in their files." Chen Haiyang hung up and paced his office, an ominous feeling in his heart. This matter probably wasn't as simple as crew mutiny. But for hijacking, he simply couldn't imagine anyone capable of hijacking a well-trained, sea-experienced, armed-to-the-teeth patrol boat—those three typewriters alone were enough to abort any boarding attempt.

If someone really could do it, then he was the most dangerous enemy they'd ever faced. Thinking of this, Chen Haiyang picked up the phone again and cranked it several times: "This is Chen Haiyang. Don't go to the Political Security Bureau—I'm going personally! Prepare the materials immediately."

(End of Chapter)