Chapter 8: The First Drop of Blood

Chapter 8: First Blood

When the pirate ship drifted to within just over ninety meters of the beach, its momentum had already come to a complete halt.

This was because Li Hongshen had previously raised the seabed sand along the southern shore of the island, precisely to prevent vessels like this from making direct landfall.

From within the forest, Li Hongshen could hear scattered cheers coming from the pirate ship. Soon after, several thick ropes were thrown down from the deck, and the pirates slid down one after another, appearing completely unwary.

Li Hongshen was in no rush. He planned to let the pirates swim for a while, using the seawater to further sap their strength, and only after most of them had reached shore would he deal with them.

Nearly sixty pirates disembarked from the sailboat, the first of whom were already close to the shore, none of them suspecting what awaited them upon arrival.

The clansmen waiting in the trees were all ready, bows drawn, silently watching the pirates approach.

At last, the foremost pirates stood up in the shallows, wading forward with heavy steps. Upon reaching the beach, they collapsed right onto the sand, their heaving chests betraying how utterly exhausted they were.

Once more than half the pirates had made landfall, Li Hongshen raised his hand. At his signal, the clansmen took aim at the pirates with their bows and arrows. With the sweeping motion of his arm, a flurry of arrows whistled from the treeline, raining down upon the pirates on the sand.

Before the pirates could react, a third of them had fallen to the first volley. The survivors stood frozen, and it was only after the second and third waves of arrows that the pirates began to comprehend their fate.

They shouted frantically in a tongue Li Hongshen could not understand, chaos erupting among their ranks. Some drew their weapons and charged toward the forest, others retreated, attempting to swim back to the ship, while a few dropped to their knees and raised their hands in surrender.

Amid the confusion, Li Hongshen produced a homemade grenade, lit it with a tinderbox, waited a few seconds, and hurled it at the charging pirates.

With a burst of smoke and a muffled explosion, the grenade detonated among them, shards of iron packed with gunpowder blasting outward, and the pirates screamed in pain.

Li Hongshen was relentless, tossing five more grenades in succession, tearing the pirates apart before finally drawing his long spear from his back.

"Follow me—kill them all!"

"Kill!"

With his shout, Li Hongshen led the charge from the woods, his clansmen armed with spears and pikes at his heels—the warriors of the tribe at the fore, the other clansmen following behind.

Li Hongshen ran a spear through a pirate still on his feet, then finished off another who lay groaning on the ground, before moving on to others scattered across the beach.

The pirates on the sand were quickly dealt with, and those still swimming were picked off with arrows, their bodies bristling like porcupines.

White sand and blue sea were stained red with blood. The warriors busied themselves clearing away the pirates’ corpses, dispatching any who still clung to life.

Some of the younger clansmen were vomiting. Even Li Hongshen’s face had turned pale—this was, in both lives, the first time he had killed another human. It mattered little whether this was a trial, or whether those in the trial were truly his kind.

In the heat of combat, he had not thought much of it, but now, as the stench of blood hung heavy over the beach, his nerves were jarred. He managed not to vomit only out of a sense of a lord’s dignity.

When the clean-up was done, Li Hongshen had finally steadied himself. As he gazed at the distant large sailboat, he hesitated—certain there would be valuable items aboard, but also wary of any pirates that might remain.

In the end, he took a few warriors armed with steel blades and swam out to the pirate ship, leaving the others to guard the shore. They did not climb up the hanging ropes, but entered instead through a gaping hole in the vessel’s side.

Lighting their torches with a tinderbox, they examined the lower deck. The hammocks suspended in the air suggested this was where the pirates had slept.

After being washed by seawater, the place was now quite clean, the floor still covered by a thin layer of water.

"Li Li, take a few men and check the floor for a hatch to the next level. I’ll lead the rest upstairs," Li Hongshen ordered.

"Yes, Chief," Li Li replied. He was now one of the foremost warriors of the tribe. With ample food, the hunting team had become a patrol, and Li Hongshen had entrusted its command to Li Li, while he himself focused on internal development and administration.

Li Hongshen led his group up the stairs to the next deck—where the ammunition and cannons had been. It was empty now, save for the battered remains of cannons. The walls bore the scars of many repairs, the whole compartment looking utterly worn.

After a thorough search, Li Hongshen brought his men to the deck, collected the remains of the dead, and lowered all the sails to prevent the ship from drifting away with the next tide.

The captain's cabin at the stern had a gaping hole, offering a sweeping view of sea and sky, but no sign of a logbook or hidden treasure.

While Li Hongshen rummaged through the debris on deck with his blade, a shout came from below—Li Li calling for him.

"Chief! We’ve found something—there’s someone below!"

At the sound, Li Hongshen and his men rushed down to the lower deck. The water had mostly drained from the floor.

Li Li and a few others stood around an open hatch, from which crawled a gaunt figure, seawater streaming from his frame.

"What’s the situation?"

"Chief, we heard noises below, and traced them to this trapdoor. When we opened it, we found someone inside."

"Drag him out and question him—his name, who he is, where he’s from."

Li Hongshen instructed the warriors to bring the man out and interrogate him, while he and Li Li descended with torches to investigate.

This was the ship’s lowest level. Water reached up to their shins, and some cargo floated atop it.

Besides the cargo, there were numerous double-decker cages, most now empty. One had its door smashed open, likely by the man just rescued. In the upper cages, a few emaciated men and women remained captive, each body wrapped in cloth. From their bone structure, they had once been strong, but now looked half-dead. This surprised Li Hongshen—was this a slave ship?

He and his men broke open the cages and carried the survivors out, bringing the tribe’s healers to tend to them. Whether they would survive, however, would depend on their own strength.

Afterwards, Li Hongshen led his people to drag the sailboat ashore for dismantling. The scrap iron cannons could be melted down, the ship’s superstructure repurposed as a fishing vessel—these were the rewards for driving off the enemy, including the newly liberated captives.

(End of chapter)