The Donghai bandits who entered the Taihu Lake area in late July continued to burn, kill and loot along the coast until mid-August. By this time, most of the pirate ships were filled with looted gold, silver, jewels and women, and they withdrew from the Taihu Lake area one after another.

  In the reeds on the southwest beach of Xisha Island, Lin stood with his back to the knife, his eyes fixed on the river surface at the southern end of the island. Two more sea otter boats were approaching from a distance, and even farther away, the blue water was horizontal across the sky, with a few faint shadows that looked like ships, but they were far apart from the two sea otter boats.

  "Release the bait boat!" Lin Xuan ordered with a wave of his hand.

  The bodyguard pulled over the reins and mounted his horse, galloping north along a newly trampled muddy road to deliver Lin Xie's orders.

  Before long, a large black-awninged boat sailed out from the river mouth on the west side of Xishan Tan and headed towards the south bank.

  No pirate would let go of a big fish swimming in front of him, and the black sail ship was worth looting whether it was a cargo ship or a passenger ship. After the two shark boats found the black sail boat, they immediately adjusted their sails and changed direction in the middle of the river, heading straight for the black sail boat.

  The big sailboat saw the pirate ship coming with ill intentions, and naturally turned its head to flee. The pirate ship was not willing to let the fat sheep slip away from under its eyelids, and chased after it tightly, seeing the river fork without stopping, and rushing straight in.

  Generally speaking, the draft of a sea bream boat is shallower than that of a large awning boat. A large awning boat loaded with goods can pass through a river course, and a sea bream boat will naturally rush forward without hesitation. However, after advancing four or five miles into the river, when paddling and rowing become more laborious, it is discovered that the ship's bottom has touched the shallow riverbed. This group of pirates wants to turn the bow around and leave, only to find that five or six tall masts have appeared at the entrance of the river bay they came in from earlier. Even a fool among the Donghai bandits would know that they had fallen into a trap.

  The rivers on Xisha Island are all natural, the river channels are shallow, and the empty Dongyang ship moves very slowly in the shallow waterway. More than 100 strong men with bare arms pull the rope on both banks to tow the big ship forward.

  Lin Xie, who had moved to the ship, was not anxious either. He stood on the deck with his sword in hand, watching as the sea otter boat got closer and closer. Fu Qinghe's face was pale as he stood beside Lin Xie, wearing a light armor shirt, his left arm long sleeve empty from the elbow down.

  Fu Qinghe's arm was severed, and he had multiple injuries all over his body. He was in critical condition due to excessive blood loss. Just when Wu Yanqing thought there was no hope for him, Lin Xuan could only take the risk of giving him a blood transfusion.

  Blood transfusions were not entirely absent in ancient times, but they were quite primitive and even had a large legendary color to them.

  Donghu has records of opening the belly skin and meat of a horse to wrap severely injured and bleeding leaders, which Lin Xun speculates is the effect of compressing horse blood into the human body through wounds for blood transfusion treatment, which is considered the most primitive form of blood transfusion.

  Of course, if this can save lives, it is a miracle of the ancestors' tombs emitting green smoke.

  Lin tied up Fu Qinghe to perform a blood transfusion surgery, which is not far from the future. The difficulty is not great, and the simplest blood transfusion surgery can be done by connecting the donor's artery with the injured person's vein using a clean goose feather tube.

  The most crucial thing is that the blood type cannot be identified, and under current conditions, it is also very difficult to accurately observe whether two blood types can fuse. In this situation, performing a blood transfusion, especially with Fu Qinghe's severe injuries, once a rejection reaction occurs, will only accelerate death, which is not much different from gambling with one's life. However, Lin Lian had no other choice, and it was better than cutting open the horse's belly to wrap him inside. Fortunately, Fu Qinghe was lucky and managed to pull through.

  Lin Xie was afraid that in the event of an inaccurate blood type determination, the news of the blood transfusion would spread and be misused by the doctors of the time. He only allowed Wu Yanqing to witness the process of him saving Fu Qinghe.

  The medical science of the time was not thorough in human anatomy, and the understanding of blood was even more rudimentary. Lin Xuan's display of this skill naturally made Wu Yanqing sigh in admiration.

  It is hard to imagine that a seriously injured person on the verge of death could be saved with such treatment, even considering Dr. Wu's years of medical experience.

  The medical theory of the time attaches great importance to the concept of "jing" and "xue". Lin Xie explains to Wu Yanqing the importance of blood, many serious illnesses can be alleviated or even cured through blood transfusion. Wu Yanqing finds this easy to understand, but the circulatory system in the human body is not compatible with the medical theory of the time. Lin Xie secretly brings a newly deceased pirate corpse for dissection to show Wu Yanqing, forcing the medical theory of the time to learn an anatomy lesson.

  Dissecting a corpse is against the norms of this world, and even dissecting an enemy's corpse would be considered a punishment more severe than execution. If word gets out, Lin Ke will not be able to escape accusations of cruelty.

  Afterwards, Lin still had someone secretly dispose of the corpse; changing customs and popularizing new ideas requires a long-term plan.

  Fu Qinghe had been awake for over a decade, and after recovering some of his strength, he couldn't bear to lie in the tent and rest. Although he was still unable to move far, Lin Xie's enticement of the pirates made him come out to get some fresh air. At this time, he stood with Lin Xie on the top deck of the Dongyang ship, calmly watching the approaching Haichuanzi ship.

  Ao Canghai loudly commanded, directing the armed guards on deck to prepare for battle.

  Qin Zitan led the lake thieves to raid the island, causing more than 50 casualties among the Jiyun Wuwei who were stationed on Xisha Island at that time. After the incident, Lin Fu selected 50 strong and brave men from the refugees of Xisha Island to join the Jiyun Wuwei. A considerable number of Wuwei on this ship were new recruits who had not experienced several battles. Although they were brave, they could not help but be a bit flustered in the face of battle. Ao Canghai naturally had to spend more effort training them.

  Zhao Hu led the Wu soldiers, Ning Ze Min led the civilian militia, and they had already formed a battle line on both banks, blocking the escape route of the Donghai pirates who abandoned their ships and fled. They were waiting for the Dongyang to approach before launching a joint attack.

  The pirates had been roaming the Taihu Lake area for more than half a month, and under their strong attack, the scattered defensive forces in the local area were either defeated or completely destroyed, with almost no decisive resistance encountered. At this time, they were not very panicked when they were surrounded, first using bamboo poles to push out of the shallow water area. In their view, as long as they could rush past the Dongyang and "Ji Yun Yi" two ships' blockade, they would be able to break through smoothly. Many pirates held knives, but a few held hook guns, shields, and bows and arrows, standing fiercely on the deck, waiting for boarding combat. However, what greeted them was a dense hail of arrows from three sides, and the close-range bed crossbow volleys were even more disastrous.

  More than 100 pirates on the decks of two pirate ships were covered and battered by bows and crossbows, before being boarded by Wu Wei's troops, who eliminated this band of pirates.

  Ao Canghai also wanted to board the ship, but Lin Xie stretched out his hand to stop him and said: "You can just command on the ship for me..."

  In the face of arduous battles, Lin Xie even had to lead by example and boost morale, creating a new situation, but in everyday battles, he couldn't let Ao Canghai and others continue to fight on the front lines.

  Lin Bing was afraid that Fu Qinghe's body couldn't take it, so he took him back to the cabin to rest first. This battle wouldn't turn the tide anyway, there was no need to watch closely.

  After about half an hour, the fighting outside completely stopped. Ao Canghai walked in and said: "We've caught over 20 people alive, who are being interrogated; apart from the cargo, there are also over 20 young women on the two ships, what should we do with them?"

  "After interrogating the survivors, send them to Chongzhou County government office. Don't mention anything about the massacre, just say that they were attacked by pirates on their way. As for those young women, still use the old method, first settle them down, ask their addresses clearly, and then secretly send someone to inform their families..." Lin said.

  Ao Canghai nodded and walked out to handle these matters.

  These young women, once captured by the pirates, cannot preserve their chastity. In this world, such matters are considered particularly serious; if they were to be made public, it would be equivalent to pushing these women towards death.

  However, even if someone is sent to deliver a message to their family members, it is often the case that they do not recognize them. In the past six or seven days, the Xisha Islands have lured and sunk eight pirate ships passing through, with almost every ship having young women on board who were captured. The first batch of young women rescued totaled twelve people, but only four were taken away by their families, while the others were not recognized by their family members.

  Lin tied up some handy young women to send to Wu Yanqing as assistants to take care of the seriously injured soldiers, and other young women also stayed in the camp to do some light chores.

  Fu Qinghe shook his head and sighed, sympathizing with the fate of these young girls. "Poor devils who can't even afford a full meal or find a wife, what do they care about these things? Most of the guards are bachelors, why not set some rules for them? For example, after serving for several years or achieving certain merits, they can be allowed to leave the Cloud Shield Guard and settle down. We can help them get married and start a family, giving them something to look forward to."

  Brothers share a wife, and even the practice of wife-swapping occurs from time to time among the impoverished masses of this generation. The poor indeed do not particularly care about this; besides, these young women are truly pitiful.

  "It should be so," Lin Tie nodded and said, "At the mouth of the Jiangning River, we can't find a place to take root, but on Xi Sha Island we can. In the future, I will select more people from Xi Sha Island for the Ji Yun Wu Wei, and even try to replace the original Lin family's brave warriors as much as possible. The replaced people will also be settled on Xi Sha Island as much as possible. Only in this way can our roots be deeply rooted on Xi Sha Island, and if conditions are suitable, we will naturally let them settle down here..."

  Fu Qinghe nodded, he knew that Lin Xiansi's thinking was very clear. The area of the Xi Sha Islands is about 20-30 times larger than that of Changshan Island. To cultivate one's own power, the Xi Sha Islands are more suitable than Changshan Island.

  The people on the Xisha Islands are all new settlers, even if there were originally large-scale forces, they were thoroughly dispersed in several major difficulties. The more they were excluded by the local authorities of Chongzhou, the more closely they gathered around Lin Zhen.

  In times of peace, the powerful regard commoners as cheap as dogs; in times of turmoil, is there still something more reliable to rely on?

  What Lin wants to do next is to deeply root himself on the Xi Sha Island, making his blood veins closely connected with the island.

  Battles like Guanyintan, who knows how many more times they will go through in the future? Lin Xie wants to build Jiyun Wuwei into a true elite, and the casualty rate has been difficult to reduce for a long time.

  The Battle of Guanyintan, twenty-seven men from Ji Yunwuwei died, plus the seriously wounded, exceeded fifty people.

  The deceased, Lin Xie can only compensate their families.

  Due to the limited medical conditions of the time, it was difficult for the severely disabled to survive. Those who could survive, like Fu Qinghe's severed arm, were extremely lucky. Most wounded survivors who recovered from their injuries could return to the Ji Yun Wu Wei and take up arms again.

  However, Lin Xie did not mind temporarily reducing the combat effectiveness of Ji Yun Wu Li, and decided to leave all the seriously injured Wu Wei in Xi Sha Island after arriving in Chongzhou. After they recovered from their injuries, they would be incorporated into the Xi Sha Island militia, and other strong and brave men would be recruited from Xi Sha Island to supplement the insufficient Ji Yun Wu Wei.

  Doing so can quickly improve the training level and combat effectiveness of Xisha Island Township, on the other hand, it is also an important way to quickly take root in Xisha Island, but relying solely on Hu's family, the work is too thin.

  At this time, Ao Canghai, Zhao Hu, and Ning Zechen were dealing with the pirate affair, and they all boarded the ship to see Lin Xie.

  "These people are all from the Mingzhou government. Seeing that the Donghai bandits were making a big fuss in Taihu Lake, and the officials had no power to clean them up, they mixed in to muddy the waters," Ao Canghai said, "These bastards are even more hateful than the real pirates, and there must be many of them..."

  Lin furrowed his brow, tapping his fingers on the table as he considered the problem. He turned to Fu Qinghe and said, "Initially, there were over a thousand pirates from Donghai who attacked Anji County, with twelve ships. That should be the Donghai pirate force directly controlled by the Xie family, but they didn't raise their flag, so I don't know if the son of the Marquis of Jin'an was among them."

  "For the past decade in Dongming, Xie Feixiong has always been at the forefront of every battle, deserving of the title 'wise and brave'," Fu Qinghe said. "If they want to stir up such a big commotion on Taihu Lake, it's unlikely that Xie Feixiong will be hiding on some island, remotely controlling the situation..."

  "Now it's clear that among the thirteen pirate forces in the Donghai Islands, there are thirteen families," Lin Xuan thought and said, "The leader of the thirteen families, Donghai Jian Yuan Tingdong, is naturally a member of the Xiao family, even if Yuan Tingdong is Xiao Feixiong himself, it wouldn't be unexpected..."

  Zhao Hu smiled slightly, who else would know that Donghai Fox Legend was actually Lin Xuan sitting here?

  "Except for the Donghai Jiao, this eastern pirate lord, I'm afraid there are still other eastern pirates who are directly controlled by the Xue family," Fu Qinghe said. "However, it won't be too many. Abandoning land and going to sea is a new strategy adopted by the Xue family. Previously, when the war on land was intense, the Xue family's financial resources were also precarious. I think there are only two or three eastern pirate forces directly controlled by the Xue family. To identify these families, we must first strike at these forces to weaken the Xue family's influence over the eastern pirates and at least delay the Xue family's integration of the eastern pirates as much as possible."

  "To achieve this, the current stage relies on the power of Xisha Island, which is not enough," Lin said helplessly. "Even if there is sufficient combat force to mobilize, it is difficult to capture large warplanes when withdrawing from the sea like a retreating tide..."

  In the late period of Donghai bandit invasion into Taihu, more than 20,000 Donghai bandits and hundreds of ships poured into Xianyang Prefecture. If these Donghai bandits were all directly controlled by Shi Jia, Shi Jia would have opened a second front against Li Zhuo in addition to confronting him.

  In fact, Lin Zexu set up an ambush on the Xisha Islands to lure and kill a small group of pirates passing by, and also further clarified some internal situations of the Donghai bandits. The number of people from the 13 Donghai bandit forces who gathered for the alliance in Shengsi Islands was limited, with only over 4,000 people in total.

  However, those who can lure Xisha Island are also unaware of the situation on Xisha Island. The peripheral Donghai bandits or simply this group of muddy fishers have limited information from their mouths; Lin Lian currently only makes a preliminary judgment that the first batch of thousands of elite troops who raided Anji County in the early stage may be truly controlled by the Xiao family.

  Even with over a thousand people, Lin Xie did not have the ability to fight them head-on.

  Moreover, the Donghai bandits have been rampaging around Taihu Lake, causing chaos everywhere. In this process, the thirteen Donghai bandit forces that formed an alliance have become even more closely connected, and the Xue family's control over the Donghai bandits has been further strengthened. If there is no effective restraint, even the peripheral Donghai bandit forces will be controlled by the Xue family, and the situation will only become more unfavorable for Jiangdong County.

  "For the past two days, I've been to Jiangning and met with Gu Wu Chen to see how he's handling things," Lin Fu said. "Now that this matter is settled, let's head back to Guanyintan first."

  Apart from rescuing more than 20 young women, more than 20 lives were handed over to Chongzhou County for disposal. However, the two sea otter ships and the stolen goods from the Taifu coast counties were naturally taken by Lin Xie without hesitation, used for the construction of Xiasha Island.

  In these days, Lin Zexu used this kind of baiting tactics to capture eight pirate ships that were fully loaded and on their way back.

  The thirteen families of the Huì Méng pirates were mainly engaged in naval battles with Ninghai Town, and their main purpose was to attack the coastal garrison troops. The extent of their plundering and destruction of local areas was actually less than that of other peripheral pirate forces and opportunistic elements.

  Lin tied down the eight pirate ships they intercepted, all of which were loaded with plundered goods, mostly gold, silver and copper utensils. There was even a bronze Buddha weighing over 20,000 catties. It's unknown how these scattered bandits managed to load the bronze Buddha onto the ship. If it were melted down into copper coins or exchanged for silver, it would be worth over 4,000 taels.

  The eight pirate ships carried goods worth almost 800,000 to 900,000 taels of silver, and the wealth of the four prefectures around Lake Tai can be seen from this.

  The various prefectures and counties along Lake Tai suffered greatly in this disaster, with countless casualties and property losses valued at no less than tens of millions of taels of silver.

  Apart from the direct control of Donghai pirates, Xue's family can also strengthen their power by providing various supports to other pirates behind the scenes. The plundered goods will naturally flow into Xue's hands through various channels such as extravagant consumption, purchasing ships, weapons and equipment, or selling stolen goods.

  One rises, the other falls. The Xie family secretly accumulates strength, while the southeastern provinces are severely weakened. The Xie family's plan to abandon land and take to the sea is indeed ruthless, but it is easy for the Xie family to be a local hero, yet difficult to contend for the world.

  If there is a choice, how many local forces in Jiangdong and Zhejiang will be willing to surrender to the Xiao family?

  Lin Tie returned to Guanyintan, and Jiang Ning sent a message saying that Gu Wu Chen would arrive in Chongzhou for inspection within the next two days, and might also cross the river to Pingjiang Prefecture to inspect the bandit situation.