Chapter 9 You chase me and escape
Liu Chuandong hopes that the wind and waves on the sea can be increased, so that the two pirate ships behind can retreat and give up chasing them. The good wish failed to be realized. For a period of time after they turned around and fled, the wind and waves on the sea did not increase. On the contrary, as Liu Laoliu expected, it was a little reduced. A little weaker.
Although the waves on the sea are still relatively large, making the ships bumpy when sailing, but they pose no threat to the two pirate ships, so the two pirate ships still hang behind them like tarbias and continue to sail to chase them.
This situation made Liu shipowner and the boatmen full of boat worried. They couldn't wait to find an oar to lay on the surface of the water to pick up water, improve the speed of the ship, and quickly shake off these two tails.
However, this kind of ship relies on sails to provide power. There will be no oars on the ship. Even if there is, it can't reach the surface and let them paddle. Therefore, after speeding up, the ship is stable at a certain speed and can no longer speed up. Everyone can only watch two pirate ships admiring them. Behind them, and gradually narrowing the distance between them, but there is nothing they can do.
While the pirate ship had not caught up with him, Liu Shipowner shouted to the boatmen on the ship, "Listen, everyone! Yu has been waiting for you for a long time. Today we met pirates, and it's time to need you! You also know what pirates are. If the ship falls into their hands, no one will get any benefits!
If you can help Yu get rid of the pirates and repel the pirates, Liu will never treat you badly! After going back, everyone will be rewarded with one taels of silver!"
After Liu Shipowner shouted, the spirit of the boatmen seemed to have been mobilized a little. They agreed and clenched the guys in their hands one by one.
Xiaotian doubts the role of a taels of silver. He doesn't know much about the current price level and salary level of Daming, but a taels of silver is not much! Liu Shipowner is really stingy. Since he offered a reward, he still refused to hang a high point. At least there is a brave man under the reward. I really doubt what this man thinks.
In addition, he also thought that once he fought with the pirates, there would be no guarantee that there would be casualties, but Liu Shipowner did not mention what kind of pension he would be given if he suffered casualties. Isn't it a little too natural to want the boatmen to fight for him?
However, on the other hand, pirates are basically outlaws. This is at sea, and there is no shop in front of the village. The boatmen have no place to escape except to jump into the sea. Once the pirates board the ship, it is likely to threaten the safety of the boatmen, so the boatmen estimate that they don't want the pirates to board the ship, so they fight together. It's still possible.
Just as Xiaotian hid by the mast and thought about it, he heard Liu Chuandong roaring at him: "Mute! Don't be stunned! Go and help move the sandbags on the ship everywhere and open them. In addition, find all the buckets and fill them with seawater and put them away! There are also a few barrels in the stern of the ship to fill up with water. In case the pirates catch up with them, they will release rockets. Just stare at the rockets that fell on the ship!"
When Yu Xiaotian heard it, he got it! This guy really uses me like a donkey! No wonder there are sandbags piled up on the ship. It turned out to be used for this! So he had to start busy according to Liu's order. After all, he is also a member of the ship now. If the pirates come up, he will not get any good.
A bag of sandbags was placed on the side of the ship by Yu Xiaotian, and a bucket of seawater was hit on the surface of the boat with a rope by Yu Xiaotian and placed in his hand. Several bamboo barrels were also found by Yu Xiaotian. He leaned into the sea and sucked the sea water and placed on the surface of the boat.
At this time, the bucket fought on the mast and shouted, "The pirate ship is getting closer and closer!"
The crowd quickly turned their eyes to the sea at the stern of the ship. At this time, the two pirate ships were indeed closer, and the shape of the pirate ship could be seen more clearly.
The two pirate ships are also two-maushes. It seems that the shape is indeed close to that of the lucky ship, but the size is relatively small, and the speed of the ship is not very fast, but it is slightly faster than the ship they are on, but this speed advantage is not enough to make the pirate ship catch up with them before dark. .
The people on the ship were also more nervous at this time. They began to concentrate on the stern of the ship. They all found the guys who took advantage of it and held it in their hands, and Yu Xiaotian's heart was also a little hung.
Although the pirate ship is still approaching, the pirates chasing a merchant ship on the sea is not as simple as Yu Xiaotian thought before. Both sides are sailboats. Even if the pirate ship has a certain advantage in light load and speed, it will not take a while to catch up with Yu Xiaotian's ship quickly. Things that can be done.
Another period of chasing and fleeing, and more than an hour passed in the blink of an eye. It was past noon, but the pirate ship could not catch up with the ship where Yu Xiaotian was.
The owners and boatmen on the ship obviously have some experience in dealing with such things. In order to improve the speed, they constantly change the navigation angle at sea and adjust the sails on the ship so that the sails are full of wind to increase the speed as much as possible. Therefore, although the pirate ship keeps getting closer, it has never Some can catch up with them.
This situation made Yu Xiaotian understand why the Liu family could work at sea for so long and were not bankrupt by pirates. It turned out that they still had a way to meet pirates at sea. In fact, they could only wait to be slaughtered as lambs and let pirates plunder.
And things are not as simple as he thought. As long as the merchant ship meets pirates, they will definitely be hijacked. If pirates want to successfully intercept a ship, it will take considerable energy and time, and the success rate is not too high.
If they can really delay until night, the pirate's hijacking can only declare bankruptcy. It is estimated that many times those who do business at sea use this method to escape the interception of pirates and resolve this crisis.
Seeing that the pirate ship was getting closer and closer, Liu Chuandong thought of Yu Xiaotian again and stretched out his hand to greet Yu Xiaotian and said, "Come here!"
Yu Xiaotian quickly nodded and pretended to be stupid and ran to him to wait for his order. Liu pointed to the two long poles on the side of the ship, a rusty broken knife and a rattan card and told him, "Dumb! You are tall and strong enough! Once the pirates catch up with us and want to get close to our ship, you can use this long pole to reach out against the pirate ship and push the thief ship hard to prevent the pirates from leaning on the boat and jumping on our ship!
If they jump over, you can cut them with this. As long as you work hard, after today, I will not treat you badly! I will definitely give you good wine and meat! Do you understand?
Otherwise, if we are finished, you won't be good! I will pity you in this world and take you in. If you fall into the hands of pirates, it will definitely make you worse than death! Do you want to repay your kindness?"
Yu Xiaotian secretly despised this surnamed Liu. Now this guy regards himself as his benefactor. In fact, Yu Xiaotian now knows exactly what this guy is thinking. To put it bluntly, this guy still takes a fancy to his body and wants to pick up such a free labor like him as a cow and horse for free! Now that the situation is dangerous, he began to use these words to trap him and let himself work for him as cannon fodder. Bah!
But now he is a "mute", which naturally can't be said. Even if he is not a mute, he doesn't dare to say such a thing now, so he can only nod repeatedly to show his understanding with a belly full of slander.
In this chase, time seems to have frozen. In addition, there is a layer of dark clouds covering the sun at this time, so that gradually Yu Xiaotian can no longer continue to judge the time, but roughly knows that it must have passed noon, because his stomach has already grumbled up and the bowl of rice he ate in the morning. It has already been digested and made him feel hungry.
However, today they are destined not to eat on time, because at this time, Liu Shipowner has put all his thoughts on the pirate ship behind him. How can he care about whether the people on the ship are hungry or not?
The pursuit of pirates continued. Nearly an hour later, although the distance was getting closer and tighter, the ship where Yu Xiaotian was was very slippery and never let them approach successfully. One of the pirate ships seemed to gradually lose patience and finally chose to give up. First, it fell half Sail, the speed of the ship slowed down significantly, and then began to gradually adjust its direction, stopped chasing, and gradually disappeared on the sea. For everyone on the Liu family's ship, this was undoubtedly like a shot of heart-strengthening, which made everyone excited again, and some people even began to start cheer.
Liu Shipowner's face has also slowed down a little. If two pirate ships catch up with them at the same time today and cooperate with each other to attack them, with their current manpower and strength on the ship, as long as they are caught up, they will basically have no power to fight back, because once they fight back, the other party will definitely not follow them again. They are polite and will definitely kill all the people on their ship after seizing the ship.
So if they are caught up by two pirate ships at the same time, the only thing they can do is not to resist, but to stop the ship and honestly let the pirates board the ship and rob them. If the pirates follow the rules, they generally do not want their lives and will not easily kill the people on the ship, but the goods on the ship are also Naturally, you don't have to think about it.
So although the owner of Liu doesn't want to die, he also doesn't want to lose the cargo, because once the value of this cargo is lost, even if his surname Liu will not go bankrupt, at least it will be unable to turn over for a long time.
And at this time, when seeing a pirate ship give up the pursuit, the situation at sea has changed. The power of pirates is equivalent to halving, so the number of pirates on the remaining pirate ship is not very large. Even if the pirate ship catches up, they can have a struggle. If they are lucky enough By the way, they are very likely to repel the pirate ship, so that they will no longer be as afraid as they were just now.
So after seeing this scene, confidence began to recover and morale seemed to cheer up a little.
But then the people on the ship saw that the pirates on the remaining pirate ship seemed to be much more patient. Although the Liu family's ship kept changing to avoid the sea, they were always persistent behind. What was more frustrating was that at this time, the wind on the sea began to weaken. The waves are also gradually starting to get smaller, which is not a good omen.
And after all, the pirate ship should come out faster, and the distance between the two sides was gradually narrowed in the next period of pursuit. More importantly, the pirates on this pirate ship seemed to be very determined this time, and they began to pull the distance between the two sides closer. There is no momentum to give up.
"Mother, boss! This ship is going to eat us today! It won't take long for them to catch up! At the current speed, it must be too late to get rid of them before dark. If they are caught up like this, once they do something wrong, I'm afraid it will be bad! Otherwise, let's lean towards the shore!" Ma Biao rolled his sleeves and looked at the two pirate ships approaching behind him. He said to the owner surnamed Liu with a pale face. As an escort invited by the Liu family, Ma Biao was responsible for the safety of the ship.
According to the rules of sailing at sea, if the forces of the two sides meet pirates when the ship goes to sea, their guards can give up resistance according to the owner's opinion, which not only saves their lives, but also saves the lives of other people on the ship. Therefore, even if the ship's goods are robbed, they He will not be held accountable after the East family.
But in today's situation, after a pirate ship gave up chasing them, only one pirate ship still refused to give up, so this situation is obviously not a huge power gap, so once they are caught up by pirates, then hired escorts like Ma Biao must shoulder the responsibility of preventing pirates from boarding the ship. Responsibility, otherwise, even if they give up resistance and finally save their lives, but the goods are robbed. After returning, their reputation will not only stink, but also be recovered by their owners. In that case, even if they go bankrupt, they can't afford to pay for the shipowner's goods and ships, and the matter spreads out, they will not want to continue in the future. Eat this bowl of rice.
But on the other hand, if they are killed or injured in the fight with pirates, the owner must also take out a sum of money for their pension.
So after considering it, Ma Biao put forward his opinion on the owner of Liu. In fact, he said it to be more secure. Once he is caught up by the pirates for a while, it is best to repel the pirates, but once they can't defeat the pirates, there is no way out. When the pirates seize the ship, they will rely on Near the sea, they can abandon the boat and escape. Although they have lost the goods, they can at least save their lives. This is not only for themselves, but also for the owners and the boatmen on the ship.
Liu's face is also very bad at this time. He also saw that he was afraid that he could not hide today. The remaining pirate ship was determined to eat them. If he escaped like this, he would definitely be caught up before dark.
After listening to Ma Biao's words, Liu thought for a moment, and Tieqing nodded and sighed, "What you said makes sense. It seems that you can't get rid of them if it goes on like this! They are faster than us. It's still early before dark now. It's unlikely to drag on until dark. It's okay if they follow the rules, but if they don't follow the rules, we're all done!
It doesn't matter! As you said, lean towards the shore! If it really doesn't work, it's better to abandon the ship on the shore than being killed by them all!"
As soon as Liu's words fell, the people on the ship immediately became busy again. The ship turned around again and began to drive towards the shore, but did their decision at this time still work? Yu Xiaotian lay on the side of the ship and thought about it while looking at the pirate ship at the stern.
(No power, no power! It seems that many old friends don't know that my new book is uploaded, and there are really few clicks! Brothers, please help publicize it! This achievement really makes me feel like hitting the wall and committed suicide! Please kill me with red tickets! Hey hey!)