Finally, he folded the map. "You may be wrong." Luo He smiled faintly. "I hope I am, but if I'm right and we do nothing, we lose everything."
That single sentence settled the matter.
Orders spread throughout the harbor before sunset. Warships were prepared for immediate departure.
Nearly twenty thousand veteran pirates assembled beneath Jin Sang's banner, joining the Jin family's naval fleet in a formation that stretched across the harbors of the Pirate Island.
Rather than waiting for the enemy to appear, they sailed into open waters to hunt them first. Luo He did not remain with the fleet.
Instead, he took the Black Cloud Shuttle and flew high above the sea, acting as the fleet's eyes. The first day passed without incident.
Nothing appeared except endless blue water.
Day Two: The Fleet Beyond the Horizon
Some commanders quietly wondered whether Luo He had overestimated the enemy. Perhaps the Wu Kingdom truly lacked the ability to wage war at sea.
By the following morning, even more doubts began to emerge. Then, shortly after the sun climbed high into the eastern sky, Luo He's expression changed.
Far below, dozens of tiny white sails appeared along the horizon. As he descended for a closer look, those scattered dots became hundreds of ships. Merchant vessels.
Reinforced transport ships. Improvised warships carrying thousands of soldiers.
Exactly as he had predicted.
Without wasting a moment, Luo He turned the Black Cloud Shuttle around and raced back toward Jin Sang's fleet.
Landing upon the flagship, he spoke only two words.
"Found them." Jin Sang rose quickly.
Every doubt vanished. The admiral drew his sword and pointed it toward the eastern horizon with utmost confidence in their victory.
"Full sail." Jin Sang shouted. "This battle ends at sea."
The waters surrounding the Pirate Island erupted into chaos. Jin Sang's fleet intercepted the Wu Kingdom's naval force with devastating precision.
What had begun as a carefully planned assault on an unsuspecting target turned into a nightmare of fire, splintering timber, and drowning men.
Luo He stood aboard a command vessel positioned safely behind the main battle line. It was not the flagship leading the assault under Jin Sang.
It was a smaller support ship from which he could observe the engagement without participating. Ning Jia remained beside him.
Occasionally reaching for his hand as distant explosions lit the sea. He had never intended to fight. Doing so would expose him.
Revealing abilities completely at odds with the image he had spent years cultivating. A worthless live-in son-in-law whose only value was his extraordinary beauty.
And the fact he won the affection of his powerful wife. Such a man could not possibly be a capable warrior or strategist. The illusion had to remain intact. So he simply watched.
When Ning Jia initially tried to leave his side and join the battle, Luo He gently stopped her. He asked her to remain with him aboard the ship, and after a brief hesitation, she quietly agreed.
After searching the sea until nightfall without finding the Wu Kingdom's fleet, Luo He returned to his command ship on the first day.
Ning Jia, who had accompanied him throughout this campaign, was already waiting. She had insisted on staying by her husband's side rather than remaining behind.
Luo He had no intention of refusing. He spent the night sleeping beside her, leaving again before dawn to continue the search.
Now that the enemy fleet had finally been found and there was nothing more for him to do until the battle concluded, he stopped Ning Jia from joining the fight.
Instead, the two quietly remained together in their cabin, enjoying a few peaceful hours while the war raged beyond the ship.
The flagship opened the battle. Its massive ballistas and heavy catapults unleashed their first volley, hurling iron bolts and enormous stones across the distant ships in calm waters.
Built for war rather than commerce, the Jin family's warships carried siege weapons far beyond the reach of ordinary merchant vessels.
The first barrage smashed into the enemy formation. Merchant ships burst apart beneath the impacts, their hulls splintering into clouds of shattered timber. Masts collapsed. Decks caved in.
Men screamed as cargo, supplies, and soldiers disappeared beneath the waves. Before the Wu fleet had even entered boarding range, dozens of vessels were already burning or sinking.
Jin Sang's flagship was unlike anything the enemy possessed. Once the personal flagship of the Pirate King, it was nearly three times the size of an ordinary warship.
Built for intimidation as much as combat, its reinforced hull and immense weight made it a floating fortress.
Yet despite its enormous size, pirate craftsmanship allowed it to move with remarkable speed. It surged straight into the enemy formation.
The reinforced ram struck the side of a merchant transport with catastrophic force. The ship simply folded apart.
Its hull split open as though struck by a giant's hammer.
Seawater rushing through the breach while sailors and soldiers alike were thrown into the ocean. Smaller vessels nearby rocked violently from the impact, several capsizing outright.
Then came the boarding. Jin Sang personally led the assault, crossing onto enemy decks with his finest sailors. Wherever the pirates landed, resistance quickly collapsed.
Wu Kingdom's soldiers were among the finest infantry on land, disciplined veterans accustomed to fighting in rigid formations. But none of that mattered upon the sea.
Shield walls dissolved on rolling decks.
Cavalry officers became ordinary swordsmen. Formations broke apart the moment ships collided.
The battle became individual combat fought upon constantly shifting timber.
That was where the pirates excelled.
Years spent surviving storms, boarding actions, and brutal life at sea had forged them into lethal close-quarters fighters.
They moved across ropes, masts, and railings with effortless balance, fighting as naturally upon a pitching deck as soldiers did upon solid ground.
The invasion fleet had begun the battle with nearly sixty thousand soldiers carried aboard roughly seventy large transports and escort vessels, supported by thousands of sailors, merchants, engineers, and laborers.
In total, nearly eighty thousand people had crossed the sea. The Jin family answered with only thirty-four true warships which, entered the battle.
The remainder of the fleet stayed behind as reserve and logistical support. As non of them were actual battle ships.
Jin Sang's objective was never simple slaughter. He targeted the enemy's supplies first. Grain ships. Freshwater carriers. Medical vessels. Weapon transports.
Without supplies, an army stranded at sea was already defeated. His admirals executed the plan flawlessly. Before the Wu commanders fully understood what was happening.
Nearly four-fifths of their supply fleet had already been seized intact. Aboard the Wu flagship, Elder Zhong watched the disaster unfold.
At sixty-one years of age, the Duke of Wu remained one of the kingdom's greatest military minds. The invasion itself had been his idea.
Confident that the Jin family would never anticipate a naval assault from a landlocked kingdom, he had believed surprise alone would guarantee victory.
Instead, he found himself walking directly into an ambush. His expression darkened. Someone within the Jin family had predicted the attack with frightening accuracy. Not merely guessed.
Predicted. For the first time, Elder Zhong realized his opponent possessed a strategist equal to, or perhaps greater than himself. He immediately ordered the fleet to retreat.
Their transports had never been designed to fight a genuine navy. Against purpose-built warships, remaining in battle would only invite annihilation, but retreat came too late.
Jin Sang's faster vessels overtook the withdrawing fleet, striking isolated ships one after another. The pursuit became a massacre.
By the time the fighting ended, nearly one-third of the invasion fleet had been destroyed. Approximately eighteen thousand Wu soldiers lay dead.
Whether slain in combat or swallowed by the sea alongside their sinking ships. Countless supply vessels had been captured intact.
Their cargo now strengthening the very enemy they had intended to defeat. The Jin family paid a price as well.
Of the twenty thousand well trained sailors committed to the battle, roughly three thousand were killed during the opening volleys and the brutal boarding actions.
Yet compared to the devastation inflicted upon the Wu fleet, the victory was highly overwhelming.
An invasion force that had begun the day with nearly sixty thousand fighting men had been reduced to roughly forty-two thousand.
Throughout the battle, reports arrived one after another aboard Luo He's command ship. He listened calmly, occasionally marking positions upon a sea chart while Ning Jia stayed with him.
Every report merely confirmed previous calculations he had made long before the first arrow had been fired. He never drew a weapon. He never stepped onto an enemy deck.
To every observer, he remained exactly what the world believed him to be. A beautiful, idle live-in son-in-law who watched others fight while he stood safely behind the lines.
No one aboard the fleet realized that the battle unfolding before them had already been won days earlier, on a map spread across Luo He's desk.
And that perfect separation between the man the world believed him to be and the man he truly was remained his greatest weapon.