by Tony Tran
Atop one of the carriers, Zhang and the beauties were seated atop the golden throne that Zhang had looted from the Sai Empire, waiting for the battle to begin. Zhang did not object to what Sima Yi and Gan Ning were doing because he had somewhat figured out what Zhuge Liang was going to do already.
“Fire at will! Sink those bastards!” Gan Ning commanded once the ballistae were all brought above deck.
Once the spear sized bolts were loaded and the mechanisms on the ballistae were released, hundreds of bolts pierced through the air and embedded themselves in the boats of the Southern fleet. There were also a few unlucky people who were pinned to the deck when a bolt shot through them.
Within the massive platform that the Southern Fleet constructed, dozens of generals who the various provinces sent to aid Zhuge Liang were cursing as they watch their men being impaled by the bolts.
Although ballistae have been around some time and were not a new creation, no one had ever thought of placing them onto ships and using them for battle at sea.
The power behind these bolts was terrifying as they ripped through the wooden hulls of dozens of ships. However, the holes that they created, were a tad too small so even though some ships were run through by dozens of bolts they did not sink.
“Have the ships positioned on the wings of our formation move forward and fall into the crane wing formation.” Sima Yi said to Gan Ning. This formation would allow their ships to surround the enemy from three sides and allowing them to dispense more damage.
Like Zhang, Zhuge Liang was also watching the battle unfold, with his men stationed at the back row of the platform of linked ships.
“To think that they had those up their sleeves.” He said to Huang Xiao as they both witnessed the battle from the crow's nest of their ship.
“Had we not bounded the ships together, could they have used those to sink a considerable number of our ships.” Huang Xiao pointed out.
“Are the preparations complete?” Zhuge Liang asked.
“Yes, my lord, a few of our ships were arranged into the other parts of the formation.” Huang Xiao replied.
“Good, all we have to do now is wait.”
While Zhuge Liang was waiting, and watching the battle unfold, the two fleets finally engaged in direct combat. The massive platform rammed into two of Zhang’s ships and smashed their hull, causing them to capsize and sink. Although the ships that smashed into Zhang’s ships were equally damaged, they were able to keep afloat thanks to being chained to the other ships.
“Tie the pots of oil to the bolts and fire!” Gan Ning ordered his men. Although they did not have a large amount of oil lying around, he figured that all they needed to do was light a few ships on fire and it would spread to the other ships.
Soon dozens of bolts were shot into the air with pots of oil tied to them and when they impaled the ships, the pots of oil smashed apart and coated parts the hulls of the enemy ships with oil.
“Fire arrows!”
At blinding speeds and before the enemy could react, hundreds of fire arrows were shot from the ship's closest to the enemy, the moment these fire lit arrows touched the oil covered wooden ships a dozen flames were ignited. Of course, since the wood was damped by water before hand, the flames were fairly small and did not burn fast enough to cause significant damage to the enemy.
However, as quickly as the fires started, they were just as quickly put out. The sailors aboard the ships of the Southern Fleet, tossed hundreds of buckets down into the waters and quickly extinguished the flames.
“Dammit…” Gan Ning cursed as he saw the efforts of his men wasted.
It was then doing a sudden breeze start to pick up. Fairly fast winds blew from the south and was blowing toward the north. That was when Zhuge Liang’s eyes glinted and he looked toward Huang Xiao and nodded.
“Begin our plan.” He said.
Moments later Huang Xiao pulled out a flare from beneath his arm and shot it into the air, signaling to his men. Once the flare was let an unbelievable chain of events occurred. Thousands of Zhuge Liang’s men who were clad in blue armor marched to the upper decks with bows and arrows, while hundreds of them appeared with axes.
The men with axes charged toward the ship's wooden railings that were used to chain all of the ships together and began hacking away. As their task was completed the chains that bound Zhuge Liang’s ships to the rest of the platform sank beneath the waves.
With the chains no longer bounding their ships to the rest of the platform, Zhuge Liang’s oarsmen began rowing and creating distance between themselves and the rest of the Southern Fleet. While all of this was happening, the people on the platform watched in confusion.
“Fire!!!” Huang Xiao commanded his soldiers from above the ship's crow’s nest where he and Zhuge Liang were. Soon the sky was bloated by flaming arrows that would soon shower down onto the Southern Fleet’s platform.
“Take cover!” Some of the men on the platform screamed.
Strangely enough, the arrows only descended upon a few ships that had no people on them. These ships of course, were ships that belonged to Zhuge Liang.
If anyone was on the upper decks of these ships they would notice a slick coating on the wooden beams and the planks that made up the floors. If they were to go down to the lower decks, they would see hundreds of barrels filled to the brim with black powder.
The second the fire arrows landed onto the these ships that were left behind by Zhuge Liang, a raging flame ignited and in an instant the ships were engulfed in fire.
Fire then made its way into the lower decks and sparked the hundreds of barrels of black powder, setting of a massive explosion causing the surrounding ships to blow into bits. But that was not the end of it, the exploding ships would send fire and debris flying everywhere, causing even more of the ships that Zhuge Liang had left also to ignite on fire.
A terrifying chain reaction occurred as one ship after the other exploded. Things happened so fast that there was nothing anyone could possibly do to stop them. While many dozens of ships exploded, and sank beneath the waves, many more caught fire.
With the winds blowing toward the north, serving as a fan, the flames burned ever more fiercely. In mere minutes Zhuge Liang had sank nearly three hundred ships, sending them to the bottom of the sea.
Once the final ships burned to a char and fell beneath the water’s surface, the Southern Fleet was no more. What remained of it were fifty warships that were under Zhuge Liang’ command.
Zhang could not help but be surprised as he witnessed what Zhuge Liang had done. Although he had a vague sense of what might occur, when it did happen, it happened in a much more explosive manner then he would expect.
The beauties also watched in amazement beside Zhang atop their golden throne. Lingqi was still obviously very seasick as anyone would be able to tell from looking at her composure, however she wanted to watch the battle unfold so she had crawled out of bed and joined Zhang and the other beauties.
“To be able to kill thousands without losing a single soldier, this man is a true genius.” Yuying said as she looked at the floating corpses and scattered debris that was all that was left of nearly three hundred ships.
“Brother, don’t let him on our ship anymore.” Ai said half-jokingly.
“With this the southern seas are as good as ours, they probably scraped together every available warship that was at hand to stop us.” Ling said.
As the beauties and Zhang watched the aftermath of Zhuge Liang’s plan, fifty white flags soon fluttered in the wind symbolizing that Zhuge Liang wished to surrender.
Zhang’s men were filled with disbelief and joy as they watched the Southern Fleet disappear right before their eyes and once Zhuge Liang surrendered they could not help but break out in cheers. This was because once Zhuge Liang surrendered, there was no one else to stop them, meaning that they would not have to fight any battles for a while, meaning that many of their brothers in arms would be spared from a trip to the Underwor
ld.
The happiest bunch were the bandits that Zhang had forced to become oarsmen for his ships, of course, their happiness would not last long because there were many more battles to come where they could serve as human shields for Zhang’s soldiers.
Thus, marked the end of the first and perhaps last battle that the Red Mist Naval Fleet had to fight. A battle that will forever be remembered in the history books, the battle that showed how one genius was able to wipe out an army without losing a single soldier. A battle that would allow Zhang to control the southern seas.
It also marked the day when the Underworld received an increase in residents.
In the depths of the Underworld, the Yama could be seen with a scowl on his face as he was forced to work more due to the massive increase in souls that have been arriving.
“That little bastard… I let him marry my daughter and what does he do to repay me? He causes me to have to work more…” The Yama cursed as he found out that Zhang had a hand to play in many of these deaths.
From the soldiers who were commanded by the Jin Clan of Red Mist City, to the members of the Yu Sect, to the soldiers of the Heavenly Sword Army, countless other encounters and also the sailors and soldiers of the Southern Fleet whose deaths were somewhat related to Zhang.
“If I don’t get grandkids soon, I’m going to have to pay you a visit… You damn rascal, too busy out causing deaths than to spend time with my precious daughter.” The Yama said with furrowed eyebrows.
Chapter 39: False News
Although the Southern Fleet was wiped out and Zhuge Liang had joined Zhang, no one knew of this. This was because there were no survivors other to report the news back and because Zhuge Liang had sent messengers back to Dark Sea City and reported a total victory.
His men had reported that all of Zhang’s ships had sunk beneath the waves and thanks to the numerical advantage that the Southern Fleet possessed only a few of their own ships were lost.
This of course, caused the various southern provinces to all break out in celebration because they thought if Zhang’s fleet was destroyed then Aurora’s invasion would suffer massive delays.
Without ships to quickly transport supplies from the Aurora Kingdom to the front lines in the southern provinces, a proper supply line would be hard to establish, causing the forces of Aurora to lack essential supplies for the invasion.
Zhang’s defeat would also represent the loss of hundreds of thousands of soldiers that could have been used for the invasion. Such a crippling blow before the invasion even began would surely allow the southern alliance to gain an upper hand if Aurora decided to even continue with their plans for the invasion.
But of course, since the opposite of what was reported had occurred, Zhang’s fleet would now be unopposed on the western seas the ran along the Warring States Region. Although there was a chance that the Southern Alliance could catch wind of what really happened and throw together another fleet, this new fleet would not even be able to be compared to the previous one.
To top things off, with Zhuge Liang’s defection, Zhang’s fleet was now even larger and stronger. Even without the ships, Zhuge Liang’s defection would have a massive effect on the invasion, who knows how many spies, and loyal subordinates he had left within the Dark Sea Province.
With these contacts under their wing, Zhang’s forces would be able to swiftly take over the Dark Sea Province and from there move further down south.
“My lord, I suggest we move immediately to Blue Wind City, from there we can follow this path and reach Dark Sea City.” Zhuge Liang said as he pointed and traced a path on a map that was laid out on a large table.
Standing around the table were Zhang’s generals, the beauties, Huang Xiao, and Zhang. After some probing from Yuying, Zhuge Liang was given a fairly high position within Zhang’s army, standing as equals with Sima Yi.
Yuying had found the reason that Zhuge Liang defected was because his previous lord, although a good lord was rather unambitious. Liu Biao, the lord of the Dark Sea province, was a man in his later sixties who was content with the size of his province, so his solely focused on defending his lands instead of expanding them.
But due to his sole focus on defending and massive spending on the economy, the Dark Sea province had massed an enormous amount of wealth. To top things off the lands of the Dark Sea Province was also comprised entirely of fertile lands, making it a natural granary.
When all of these factors were combined together it made the Dark Sea Province turn into a juicy piece of meat that everyone was secretly hoping to own. Even if it specialized in defense, if a few other provinces decided to band together and carve up the Dark Sea Province, the task would be easily done.
Besides the possibility of being attacked by the other southern provinces, an issue regarding Liu Biao’s heir was another key factor in Zhuge Liang’s defection.
Liu Biao had who sons who sadly were both incompetent and spent all of their time drowning in women and luxury, which prompted Liu Biao to not clearly pick a successor. So, the chance of either of them becoming his successor was fairly even.
This of course, caused a fracture within the Dark Sea Province, since only one of the two sons could become the next provincial lord, every government official and person of influence had to pick between one or the other.
Thanks to this fracture, the Dark Sea Province slowly became internally weaken. So, when the external dangers and internal strife combined, the fate of the Dark Sea Province was practically sealed, leaving its people under peril, prompting Zhuge Liang to seek a new lord to serve under, in the hopes of protecting the province’s people. Since in times of war the one who suffer the most are the common folk.
He could have caused a coup and taken power for himself, however the civil war that would spark from it would only give other powers the opportunity to invade. So, what he needed was an external power that could deter the other provinces from attacking, while ensuring the welfare of the people of the Dark Sea Province.
He had known about and kept track of Zhang’s exploits for some time and found Zhang to be an ideal candidate to serve under. Zhuge Liang knew for certain that Zhang treated his people with care, and even personally treated the sick in the New Moon Province. Although he knew Zhang to be a kind ruler he had to test Zhang’s wits and that all of Zhang’s accomplishments were not flukes and he would not be serving under an idiot.
Of course, Zhang passed this test with flying colors and thus Zhuge Liang choose Zhang as his new lord. Prompting him to imitate his plan to annihilate the Southern Fleet.
Had Zhang failed his test then he would have used all the power he had to stop Zhang, then find another candidate to serve under.
With all of that being said, after Zhuge Liang and his ships joined Zhang’s army a strategy meeting was called for. They had initially planned to move directly to Dark Sea City if they managed to defeat the Southern Fleet however with the addition of Zhuge Liang under his command, Zhang felt that a better and safer plan could be devise once Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi both voiced their opinions.
“If we move to Blue Wind City, we can quickly occupy the area and move east where the Dark Sea Province’s granaries are built.” Huang Xiao said as Zhuge Liang suggest the advance toward Blue Wind City.
“Couldn’t we go with the original plan and directly attack Dark Sea City with our fleet? We can pretend to be your subordinates and sneak into the city.” Gan Ning said.
“That won’t work, by the time we arrive there, they would have already realized the news that we had spread was false. If the people within the Dark Sea Province does not realize it, the other provinces will once their forces fail to report back to them. If we happen to attack Dark Sea City when they are prepared, then our ships won’t even make it past the sea gates. The only way to capture Dark Sea City is to seclude it and siege it.” Zhuge Liang pointed out.
“Capturing the granaries alone won’t do us any good, as you’ve said before the entire Dark Sea Province
could be considered a granary, so finding food won’t be an issue. So instead of moving there, we should focus on what Mr. Zhuge Liang said and capture as many cities as we can to seclude Dark Sea City.” Sima Yi said.
“Good then it’s settled, we advance to Blue Wind City and then split our forces into three and occupy the northern half of the Dark Sea Province.” Zhang said.
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While Zhang’s forces were believed to have perished, a massive festival had broken out within Dark Sea City.
The celebration began the instant news arrived that the Red Mist Naval fleet had been defeated by Zhuge Liang and have been going on for days.
