The Sang fleet indeed drew close to Yunlai Island before long. They too came ashore in small boats, and those who neared the shoreline numbered some seven or eight hundred.

That number was not what Master Wu had hoped for. He had taken such enormous risks to lure the Sang inside — if only seven or eight hundred came in and they killed them all, it would change nothing.

After watching the men approach, something new took shape in his mind within moments.

“Li Ren — can you still fight?”

He turned and asked.

Li Ren replied at once: “I can. I could fight for three more days!”

Master Wu laughed out loud. He clapped Li Ren on the shoulder: “Then take your men down first. Once those Sang get to the gate, block them — tell them they can’t bring that many men inside.”

Li Ren’s eyes flickered: “Can’t bring that many men inside?”

Master Wu said: “Hold them. As long as you can. Force them to go back and call for more.”

Li Ren acknowledged and led a group of men down off the wall.

Master Wu called after him: “Remember — if it comes to blows, don’t win. Let them in.”

Li Ren acknowledged again and waved his men toward the gate.

It was not long before the Sang arrived by small boat and came ashore, swaggering straight for the fortress gate.

These Sang men’s clothes looked strange and peculiar — open-chested, daggers at their belts, and most walked with a pronounced bow-legged gait that was simply unpleasant to look at.

“Hold it.”

Li Ren thrust out a hand and stopped them.

“What are so many of you doing coming into our camp?”

He asked coldly.

One of the Sang men who knew the Central Plains tongue stepped forward: “Your commander-in-chief sent for us to come move cargo — who do you think you are to block us?”

Li Ren let out a scoff: “You’re here to move cargo. Send ten men in at a time. The rest wait outside.”

The Sang man erupted: “Who gave you the authority to stop us? Even your commander-in-chief doesn’t dare do this.”

Li Ren said: “Those are our commander-in-chief’s orders. Our commander-in-chief says the Sang are nothing but beggars. He’s kind enough to toss you a scrap, so send a few lowlifes in to haul away our leftovers, and the rest of you can stay put. Coming in with this many men — are you planning to rob us?”

That sent genuine fury surging through the Sang — one man wrapped his hand around his sword hilt: “How dare you insult us!”

Li Ren said: “You’ve insulted yourselves. If you come begging, at least act like beggars. Stop putting on airs. If you want this meal, then do as I say — ten men go in to move the cargo, and the rest of you can get lost!”

The situation nearly boiled over. The Sang man with Central Plains speech translated every word, and all seven or eight hundred Sang erupted. Men were shouting and hollering, and some had already drawn their Sang sabers.

When Li Ren saw them draw steel, he drew his own long saber with a ring, and the sound of blades clearing scabbards immediately cascaded through both sides.

Up on the deck of the lead ship, the pirate chieftain Hattori Shinno raised his spyglass and looked on. When he saw his men and Yuanzhen’s people facing each other with drawn weapons, his own anger surged.

“Central Plains men have no honor,” Hattori Shinno said. “They beg for my help, and now they block my men from going in. They’re looking for death.”

Just then, a Sang pirate in a small boat returned and clambered aboard the great ship to report to Hattori Shinno.

When Hattori Shinno heard the report, his face went nearly white with fury.

“They’re trying to force us to kill our way in.”

Hattori Shinno swept his hand: “Go in and slaughter everyone. Take all their valuables.”

The fleet of several hundred pirate ships had not come from a single pirate band — it was the combined force of at least several dozen groups. Among them, Hattori Shinno had the greatest name and the most men: seven or eight thousand fighters, over a hundred ships.

Within the Sang nation, where self-proclaimed kings were still bickering and scrambling, every one of them looked down his nose at everyone else — yet all gave Hattori Shinno some measure of face.

This, in one respect, spoke to Hattori Shinno’s power.

In another respect, perhaps those Sang men looked down on everyone else simply because their own ceiling was not very high.

Speaking of low ceilings, one couldn’t help but mention their bow-legged gait — they were already so short, and bow-legged on top of it, which couldn’t have been from riding horses.

That particular matter, one suspects, placed a certain animal in a position of undeniable responsibility.

When you considered that a pirate chieftain commanding seven or eight thousand men could hold his own in the Sang nation, that same force placed anywhere in Chu’s later period would have been utterly unremarkable — there were such ragtag rebel bands everywhere.

And yet one couldn’t deny that at sea, the Sang held a tremendous advantage.

Furthermore, these people were pirates who killed without remorse — they had never valued human life.

Pirates took pleasure in killing; their temperament was one of exceptional savagery.

Hattori Shinno gave the order. Horns sounded, signal flags waved between ships, and the pirates were all roused and eager.

“The commander-in-chief has ordered us to attack!”

One of the smaller pirate captains’ eyes lit up with excitement. He drew his Sang saber and pointed it forward: “Kill your way in — don’t let the other crews grab all the good stuff!”

This cobbled-together pirate force knew full well there might be tens of thousands of troops on Yunlai Island, and still they dared to attack outright.

The reason for this went back to the Chu court.

For many years, the pirates of the Sang and other nations along the eastern and southern coasts had run rampant, and the Chu court had no effective response. Chu’s regional armies — aside from the truly battle-ready prefectural troops — had rotted to the core.

They couldn’t fight. Some of them trembled at the sight of blood.

The local garrison troops were, in large part, men who had bought their way in through connections, hoping to exploit their position for a bit of easy money. How could men like that ever dare to actually fight?

So the Sang pirates had long since formed the view that Central Plains armies couldn’t fight — that they were nothing but cowards.

There was one engagement from years past that the Chu court found especially shameful: an imperial court appointee, a General of the Fourth Rank, had gone to the eastern frontier and consolidated the garrison forces of various prefectures into a force of over twenty thousand men, ambitious to rid the eastern seas of piracy once and for all.

This general had set an ambush with his twenty thousand men against a combined pirate force of only three or four thousand.

When the fighting began, the twenty thousand garrison troops were routed and sent wailing for their mothers by three to four thousand pirates — more than half ran away before they’d even properly engaged.

The general died in the chaos. His head was taken by the Sang, and in a gesture of provocation, they hung it above the gate of a city they had sacked.

When word reached the Chu court, the shock rippled from top to bottom. The emperor at the time — Yang Jing’s father — rarely held court, but even he was furious enough to take action.

He ordered Liu Chongxin to investigate the matter thoroughly. Liu Chongxin personally went to Qing Province, which terrified everyone in the local administration.

They pooled together several million taels of silver and presented it to Liu Chongxin, begging him to be lenient.

Liu Chongxin’s view was that someone had to be held responsible — so he placed all the blame on the general who had been killed.

He reported to the Chu Emperor that this general was a man who could only talk about war on paper — a useless drunkard who knew nothing of actual combat. His poor command had caused the defeat; the local officials had little to do with it and had fought with all their might.

Furthermore, Liu Chongxin inflated the Sang pirates’ fighting strength until they seemed an invincible force, so that for a long period afterward, the entire Chu court believed the Sang pirates were some species of flesh-eating savages.

He said they leapt about like monkeys, ate raw human flesh, drank raw human blood, and were as ferocious as wild beasts.

This gave the court’s officials a fig leaf to hide behind. They all said: of course — we understand now — they’re wild beasts. Our armies can defeat any civilized force in the world, but against beasts, losing is only natural.

In the end, the matter was dropped. Not a single official at the local level faced any punishment. A year later, those who had paid Liu Chongxin their bribes were all promoted.

The only real setback the Sang pirates had ever suffered was the battle in Yan Province — but that had been the Ning Army. The force on Yunlai Island right now was not the Ning Army. The Sang pirates had made sure to find out: the tens of thousands of men here were all former Chu soldiers.

Were they supposed to fear Chu troops?

So Hattori Shinno did not hesitate for a single moment. Even with only just over ten thousand men, he had no doubt he could defeat those Chu soldiers.

After all these years of dominating the seas and countless raids on the Central Plains, Hattori Shinno knew far too well what Chu Army fighting strength was worth.

And so the pirates’ full assault began.

They surged forward. Endless small boats poured in one after another, and Sang pirates kept coming ashore.

Up on the walls, Master Wu ordered the Ning soldiers to put up a token volley of arrows, then immediately fall back.

Li Ren and the others received the order and began to withdraw, simply giving up the fortress gate.

Li Ren led his men to find Master Wu and asked what to do next. Master Wu pointed at his own clothing: “Let them tear each other apart.”

Li Ren’s eyes lit up at once.

Master Wu said: “Go have your men hide. Don’t engage without my order. Wait for me to draw these bastards to the rear of the hill.”

Li Ren said: “Sir, that’s too dangerous. Let me go.”

Master Wu smiled: “You’ll be a Ning Army captain from now on — remember this: when there’s danger, the higher-ranking officer goes first. Ning Wang’s rule.”

Li Ren felt something stir in his chest.

Master Wu waved his hand, leading his elite vanguard fighters back toward the hill — all of them still wearing Yong Province Army uniforms. They fought as they retreated, the very picture of men genuinely frightened and in flight.

The rest of the Ning forces concealed themselves to either side. No one could move without the order.

Master Wu led his men at increasing speed toward the back of the hill, gradually drawing the Sang away. When they reached the rear of the hill, Master Wu ordered his men to shout battle cries at the top of their voices — the sound of it carrying across the island and up into the sky.

Once the shouting was done, Master Wu ordered the vanguard to hide. The soldiers quickly shed their outer garments and found concealment.

The main body of Sang who had been pursuing them came charging all the way to the rear of the hill — and the Yong Province troops holding the rear, with no way to know who was coming, immediately loosed a storm of arrows.

A swath of Sang pirates were cut down mid-charge. They dove to the ground and didn’t dare stand up easily.

At this moment, Master Wu looked to his personal guard and lowered his voice: “Go send word to Li Ren — have him find a way to signal the men we’ve hidden on the other side of that island. The Sang warships should be nearly empty now. Have them take the Sang ships!”

The guard acknowledged and slipped away, crouching low.

The Sang were suppressed for a while, but once the arrows let up, they rose again and tried advancing.

The Yong Province troops in the forest loosed arrows at anything that moved, keeping both sides from direct contact — but several hundred Sang had already been killed by arrows.

At this moment, Master Wu suddenly stood, stepped into the space between both forces, and called out toward the Yong Province Army line in the Sang tongue:

“We are your allies! We are Sang men, here to meet you as agreed! Stop shooting!”

The Yong Province troops went still. The Sang were equally bewildered.

But a moment later, another volley of arrows came flying from the Yong Province side.

“You’re Wu Naiyu!” someone from the Yong Province line shouted. “Stop pretending — I know you!”

Master Wu dodged several arrows, the corner of his mouth curling upward, and made a show of fleeing in panic.

He had been operating in the Fulou County area for some time, acting in Yuanzhen’s name. It would have been impossible for Yuanzhen not to have sent people to quietly keep watch on him.

So Master Wu had been certain — someone among the Yong Province troops would know his face.

Of course, even if his judgment had been wrong, it wouldn’t have mattered much.

With Yong Province loosing arrows, the Sang on the other side were even more furious, screaming as they surged forward.

The Yong Province troops were shouting back.

“Still putting on an act, are you!”

“Shoot them dead!”

“Pretending to be Sang pirates — have you no shame at all!”

“Loose arrows!”

—