Cradle Town was clearly a trap. What was now known was this: the so-called Yongzhou Army soldiers concealed within the ships were all fakes.

Without hesitation, they had dressed large numbers of common people in Yongzhou Army uniforms and posed them as soldiers. Unless something unexpected happened, they would soon be driving these common people to pilot the ships northward toward Lulou Town.

And the Ning Army, in order to stop the Yongzhou Army from crossing the river northward, would be compelled to intercept the fleet.

When that moment came, those killed by the Ning Army would be these very common people. That was why Gui Yuanshu had intended to slip away in the night — to carry the intelligence back to Prince Ning.

Even if the fleet did not rush toward Lulou Town, should the Ning Army come to attack, this place would be well-prepared and waiting.

If this place was a trap, then a large force of enemies must certainly be hidden somewhere, waiting for the Ning Army to come and strike.

Therefore — whether the Ning Army intercepted the fleet on the river, or proactively attacked Cradle Town — either way, they would fall right into the enemy’s snare.

One had to admit: whoever designed this had an exceptionally sharp mind.

Just as Gui Yuanshu was preparing to slip away under cover of darkness, a cavalry unit arrived at the bank. The man at its head was a masked figure.

This man arrived and began issuing a stream of orders, pointing here and there. Before long, the soldiers stirred into motion. They dispatched a significant number of additional men who moved in unbroken circuits around the fleet on patrol.

This made it considerably harder for Gui Yuanshu to get away.

Yet he absolutely had to leave. Without the intelligence reaching Prince Ning’s side, when the battle was joined, they would surely suffer for it.

Gui Yuanshu went back and quietly roused Zheng Shunshun. The two crept to the stern of the ship and crouched down low to survey the situation.

The river surface now had a considerable number of small boats, each manned by soldiers holding torches aloft. The number of men was several times greater than before.

Gui Yuanshu had originally intended to leave first himself — hurry back to Yunlai Village to notify his subordinates and send word to Prince Ning, then find a way to blend back into the camp.

But now that things had taken an unexpected turn, he had no choice but to take Zheng Shunshun with him.

The two conferred briefly and resolved to risk diving into the water. The patrol boats on the river were simply too numerous, making near-continuous sweeps back and forth — too short a swim would be detected at once.

The bank had reed thickets, but getting close to shore was not easy either. Swimming to the bank actually made them more likely to be spotted by the enemy.

While they were still deliberating, the masked man was seen issuing yet another command. Then they watched as the enemies began calling people down off the ships one by one by boat, leading them away somewhere. No one knew where they were being taken.

Before long, those who had been taken away came back in batches, each person carrying what appeared to be a thick rolled-up quilt.

Zheng Shunshun lowered his voice: “Who would have thought — they’re even issuing quilts. A few days from now they plan to drive these poor people to their deaths, and now they hand out a quilt. What hollow compassion.”

Yet this back-and-forth movement of people on the ships actually provided Gui Yuanshu and Zheng Shunshun with an opening.

The two of them followed the queue off the ship, and when they drew close to the reed marshes, they darted into them while no one was watching.

The small patrol boats would not draw close to the bank, so the two of them put hollow reed stalks in their mouths and swam forward in the shallow water along the bank, keeping just enough reeds overhead to conceal their bodies.

In this way they escaped from the enemy’s camp at Cradle Town. Not daring to delay, they pressed on through the night and returned to Yunlai Village.

Back in the village, they located their subordinates at the agreed rendezvous point. Gui Yuanshu felt it would be best to go back in person.

Before dawn broke, they boarded a boat and headed upstream.

More than a hundred li of upstream travel was no easy going. With no large vessel available and everyone rowing, every man was exhausted to the bone.

Back at the Ning Army’s main camp, Gui Yuanshu made a thorough report of everything he had gathered.

Li Chi listened and pondered at the same time, turning over in his mind just what Han Feibao was truly planning.

“Regardless of whether the forces aboard the fleet coming from downstream are real or fake, we must dispatch ships to intercept them.”

Li Chi said: “Han Feibao wants us to send our fleet out. Everything he has arranged serves one purpose — to ensure we are left with no ships at hand either.”

Xiahou Zuo said: “If his ships cannot get through, what does it matter whether we have ships or not?”

The Ning Army’s fleet was there to prevent the Yongzhou Army from crossing the river northward — and without those ships, the Yongzhou Army should by all logic have no way of crossing the Tuotuo River.

Li Chi said: “So they must have another way to cross the river. The fleet is only a smokescreen.”

A sudden clarity lit up in Xiahou Zuo’s mind. He understood.

Drive the common people disguised as Yongzhou soldiers to lure the Ning Army into intercepting them. The Ning Army, seeing so many soldiers aboard — real or fake — could not afford to ignore them.

If they failed to intercept, those ships sailing into Lulou Town would still serve a purpose. If the Yongzhou Army drove those common people forward as cannon fodder first, the Ning Army would be in an even worse position.

But if the Ning Army sent their fleet out, Han Feibao’s Yongzhou Army still had other means to cross the river. The Ning Army, stripped of their fleet, could only engage on the northern bank and would lose the ability to strike the enemy while they were mid-crossing.

Li Chi said: “Han Feibao knows we have no other choice. As soon as the fleet from downstream advances, our own fleet will inevitably be sent out.”

Xiahou Zuo sighed quietly: “Being calculated so precisely by the enemy — it is genuinely rather uncomfortable…”

In every major battle before, it had always been the Ning Army calculating the enemy to perfection. This was the first time, even before the fighting had begun, that the enemy had seized the absolute initiative.

What made it all the more galling was that Li Chi had already surmised the Yongzhou Army possessed some other means of crossing the river — yet he simply could not work out what that means was.

There had been no sign of the Yongzhou Army felling timber to build boats or construct a pontoon bridge, as if they intended to simply fly across when the time came.

Li Chi looked at Gui Yuanshu: “Go rest for the night first. At first light tomorrow, head back to Yunlai Village and tell your men there — the fleet I have arranged will arrive shortly, and in the night, we will make a surprise assault on the Yongzhou Army fleet at Cradle Town.”

Gui Yuanshu said: “If the enemy is already prepared and on guard, it will mean there is an enemy informant among my people at Yunlai Village.”

Li Chi said: “The enemy will not get into a defensive posture to wait for us. They will set out immediately.”

Gui Yuanshu was momentarily confused.

Li Chi explained: “If they set up a defense and wait for us, yet we never come, they will know their position is blown. If they set up a defense and we do come, they will expose themselves as well. The safest course of action is to set out at once. And the moment their fleet moves, we can no longer pretend to be attacking — we will have to intercept for real.”

Gui Yuanshu nodded: “Then I’ll head back tonight. The river is calm without waves or wind — going with the current will be quick.”

Li Chi paused in thought for a moment, then instructed his attendants: “Go prepare a Fengbo warship for Gui Yuanshu.”

Gui Yuanshu was startled: “My lord, we have very few Fengbo warships in our entire fleet.”

Li Chi said: “A larger vessel is safer for the journey back. You can sleep the whole way and recover your strength. And if something goes wrong, a Fengbo warship can outrun any enemy pursuit.”

With the arrangements settled, Gui Yuanshu boarded a Fengbo warship and headed back toward Yunlai Village.

Xiahou Zuo asked Li Chi: “So do we intercept or not?”

Li Chi said: “We intercept.”

Just as expected — not long after Gui Yuanshu returned to Yunlai Village, someone secretly sent word to Cradle Town.

By the time Gui Yuanshu received this news, the Cradle Town fleet had already set out, sailing upstream in a massive procession.

Gui Yuanshu looked at his subordinates: “Who just left a moment ago?”

His subordinates looked at one another. Some had already changed expressions.

Liu Yuan said: “I just ran through it myself — not long after you relayed the lord’s orders, two men left on the pretext of going to relieve themselves.”

He pointed to two of the subordinates: “Dong Huisheng. Wang Xingwang. Where did the two of you just go?”

The two men hastily replied: “In response to the team commander — we truly did go to relieve ourselves.”

Liu Yuan let out a cold snort: “You think we are so easily deceived?”

He looked at Gui Yuanshu: “My lord, how shall we deal with them?”

Gui Yuanshu said: “The enemy’s fleet has left Cradle Town and is heading upstream — it won’t be long before it reaches Yunlai Village. We have no time to spare. Everyone boards the ship back to the main camp. We conduct the interrogation once we arrive.”

Liu Yuan assented, then suddenly struck — one palm for each, dropping Dong Huisheng and Wang Xingwang unconscious simultaneously.

He called out a command, and his men came forward to bind the two men tightly and haul them up onto the Fengbo warship.

Gui Yuanshu had no time even for rest — he was back on the return journey to the main camp.

Halfway there, he met the Ning Army fleet coming the other way — with Prince Ning himself at the head of it.

Though the Ning Army’s fleet was not very large in scale, every vessel was a warship. Compared to the enemy fleet coming from Cradle Town, its combat strength was naturally considerably greater.

The Fengbo warships in particular — even charging directly into collision, they could carve a path straight through the enemy fleet’s midst.

Gui Yuanshu and his party boarded Li Chi’s ship and reported the full sequence of events. Li Chi looked at the two men trussed up and bound, and instructed his attendants: “Zhang Tang is just behind us. Hand those two over to Zhang Tang.”

After saying this, he glanced at the man called Liu Yuan. Liu Yuan showed not the slightest sign of unease. Had he been in league with those two, he would have already shown signs of panic upon hearing they were being handed over to Zhang Tang.

No one could hold out under Zhang Tang’s hands. Anyone who lasted more than an hour was considered a proper tough one.

Gui Yuanshu asked: “My lord, did you bring our entire fleet up?”

Li Chi nodded: “No choice but to.”

He issued a command. The war horns sounded, and the fleet began shifting formation, taking up an offensive battle line.

Because in the distance, the faint outlines of sail after sail had begun to appear.

Li Chi led the fleet to intercept on the river — and this news swiftly reached the Yongzhou Army’s main camp.

Upon learning that the Ning Army’s fleet had departed, Han Feibao broke into a hearty laugh.

“Pass the order — the army crosses the river!”

Before this moment, the Yongzhou Army had already marched to the southern bank of the Tuotuo River, waiting only for this very word to come back.

Then the Yongzhou soldiers could be seen, each carrying something on their backs, surging in a dark mass to the riverbank.

Li Chi had gone to intercept downstream. At the main camp, it was Xiahou Zuo who commanded.

He now stood on the northern bank of the Tuotuo River, peering through a spotting scope at the scene across the water. He had still not figured out how the Yongzhou Army, with no ships and no bridge being built, intended to cross the river.

Through the spotting scope, Xiahou Zuo watched as the Yongzhou soldiers ran to the bank and set down the things they were carrying on their backs. Then, one by one, they crouched down and began blowing vigorously into those objects with great puffing breaths.

And then Xiahou Zuo’s eyes slowly widened.

The Yongzhou soldiers were blowing up round, taut objects — no one could tell what they were made of, but there were enormous numbers of them.

They bound these objects together and connected them in series, forming one after another of the most peculiar-looking rafts.

These things clearly had outstanding buoyancy. Once placed on the water’s surface, a single one of these strange rafts could support ten or so Yongzhou soldiers climbing aboard.

“What… what in the hell are those things?!”

Xiahou Zuo had fought battles for many years, and he had never seen anything like this before.

How could they be inflated by blowing — and yet not leak air or water?

But he had little time to ponder what those things were made of. A considerable number of the Yongzhou Army’s rafts had already been pushed into the river. Densely packed, they began paddling their way toward the northern bank.

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