Although the strong neighbor from the north seems to be still focusing on the Central Plains, no one dares to rest assured about it.

When the other party had only two states, he dared to blaze into the Luhao two states, which made the king's hope of unifying the entire Wu Kingdom shatter. From then on, the entire western part of the Wu Kingdom was in an extremely unstable state, forcing the Wu Kingdom to station a large number of troops in the two states of Chu and Yang to maintain vigilance, which is enough to illustrate its danger.

In Gao Hongchuan's view, the biggest enemy of Wu should not be the ant thief or the Yue Kingdom, but Xuzhou in the north.

Ant thieves are not worth mentioning. Even if they can bring harm for a while, they are not enough to put the entire Wu Kingdom into crisis. Yue Kingdom is indeed a problem with the elbows and armpits, but Xuzhou is truly a problem with the heart.

However, the Wu Kingdom had a natural disadvantage to Xuzhou. The Xuzhou naval army on the Huai River was stronger. After controlling the four prefectures of Luhao and Chu, its infantry and naval army had a huge impulse to the Wu Kingdom in the east. This is why the king wanted to resolve the threat of ant thieves as soon as possible, because if he dragged on this, the Wu Kingdom was distracted. Once Xuzhou's edge turned from the Central Plains, the Chu and Yang states would be in danger.

Realizing this, he could not change it. The only thing Gao Hongchuan could do was hope that the sudden provocation of these thieves from Baima Lake and Fanliang Lake had nothing to do with Xuzhou in the north, but he did not dare to take it lightly because he knew that bad speculations would often become reality and he could not take risks.

"Order the fleet to spread out, form a diamond-shaped combat formation, and the boats go first, pay attention to discovering the enemy situation!"

"Commander, the thief may not dare to confront our fleet head-on, right?" The deputy next to him looked at his boss in surprise and hesitated: "What are you worried about by sir?"

"I have a bad premonition. I'm afraid that it's not that simple to be attacked by water pirates this time. There must be other forces involved." Gao Hongchuan shook his head, stroked his hand on the hilt of the knife, and his eyes were still staring ahead. "Can you believe that the bandits of Fanliang Lake and Baima Lake dare to attack Gaoyou City? Wang Zhen's East Hai Army is not a vegetarian. There is also a battalion of garrisons and private troops of gentry. Not to mention the benefits of the city wall, just about these, why should the pirates dare to provoke?"

"Maybe the thief has an insider in the city?" The deputy hesitated for a moment, "Or it had bribed the garrison army? Could it be that there were big families colluding with them?"

"These are all possible, but can this change the overall situation of Gaoyou City?" Gao Hongchuan said coldly: "The water bandits are not stupid. They will not be unaware that our Third Army is close at hand. If you dare to do this, you must be here with success!"

"Sir, are you saying there is an ambush?" The deputy was shocked and looked around subconsciously, "But who else can set up an ambush on this canal besides the thief? Even if the north has bad intentions, they cannot pass Shanyang quietly! Chuzhou has news with us almost every day, An Yi and our army. No matter how strong the Huaiyou naval army is, it is impossible to destroy our battalion in an instant and make people unaware of it. This is impossible!"

Gao Hongchuan was also a little worried, and he also felt it was impossible. If the Huaiyou Navy Army wanted to enter the canal, it had to cross Shanyang. An Yi also had his own naval camp stationed. How could he fly to Gaoyou all at once?

It would be fine if it was an infantry army, but if it was a navy army, it would be meaningless without a fleet.

Could it be that the Huai Right Army came from the west? Gao Hongchuan felt nervous, but then he thought that if the Huai Right Army came, the scouts and Seizai should have reported it long ago, why didn't he respond?

This question is like a poisonous snake in Gao Hongchuan's heart. He just hopes to arrive at Gaoyou as soon as possible, annihilate these damn water bandits in one fell swoop, and figure out why they did this.

But before arriving at Gaoyou, will this section of waterway be in danger?

The fleet continued to accelerate, from Shao Bo to Gaoyou, it took two or three hours to go water. There were not many ships on the canal. As they walked along, the patrol boats also intercepted several passing ships. However, they all fled in a hurry when they found that Gaoyou was in a wrong state, but they found nothing abnormal along the way.

This did not relieve Gao Hongchuan's suspicion. Fortunately, it was not far from Gaoyou, and the answer would be revealed soon.

You can already see the outline of the city wall of Gaoyou City, and the shouts of killing can be heard vaguely. Black smoke enveloped the city. Gao Hongchuan felt a heavy heart. It seemed that the thief had already attacked the city. The deputy was right. The thief should have an internal response, otherwise it would not be possible to break the city so easily, but even if it was broken, the thief might not be able to succeed.

"Huh? Why are there so many boats in the river outside the city not leaving?" Gao Hongchuan stood at the bow of the ship, looking vigilantly at the river adjacent to the city walls, some ships were still scattered in the river.

These ships do not look like small boats of pirates, nor do they look like merchant ships passing through the canal, but they look like old ships made from somewhere.

Could it be a fire boat? Gao Hongchuan immediately ordered the patrol boat in front to go forward and observe. The fire boat should not be distributed in this way, and the wind is not appropriate. Judging from the degree of draft, it is not similar.

But soon Gao Hongchuan realized the seriousness of the problem and almost received a signal. The ships of different sizes, which were originally scattered and chaotic on both sides of the canal, began to move.

The number of these ships seems to be quite small, with only thirty or forty pieces of ships, and most of them are small and medium-sized old ships, like fishing nets, swarming towards the center of the canal.

"What's going on? Is it a fireboat?!" The deputy shouted in panic. "The forward ship approaches and shoots the enemy's pulpman! Prepare to slap the pole and support pole, prepare for strike!"

The incoming ships seemed a little messy, but Gao Hongchuan keenly realized that this was not all.

Although there are many ships in front, as long as they enter the fleet's attack range, the rockets can quickly lose their combat effectiveness. Moreover, for such small and medium-sized ships, heavy poles are enough to make them fall into the abyss immediately.

The key lies in the big ships behind.

Although those big ships looked old, the rapidly rising sail ropes made Gao Hongchuan suddenly nervous. Why were their sails completely different from ordinary ships? They were not the sails used by pirates or merchant ships here. It was very consistent with the rumored sails of the Huaiyou Navy ships. Could it be that the Huai River navy entered the canal?!

As the boats ahead approached, from all directions, greatly squeezing the entire military fleet's space, Gao Hongchuan realized the problem, but could not make adjustments immediately. While moving, it is not an easy thing to make each ship operate according to the commander's intentions, it takes a process.

But the enemy didn't give her so much time.

Whether it was a small boat or other ships, they began to surround the entire fleet and obstruct the fleet from advancing. The Wu army's military ships immediately launched an attack, but these harassing ships were not fire ships. The rocket attack did not cause these ships to catch fire immediately. On the contrary, the ships that had been fire-proofed were obviously able to maintain their state even if they were attacked by dozens of rockets.

Gao Hongchuan realized that the enemy was conspiring. The enemy was not attacking with a fire ship, so he just needed to hold it up with a pole and use a rocket to solve it quickly. The opponent's advance ships were just to disrupt his formation and make his fleet unable to move forward and turn, but when he realized this, it was too late.

The key is the ships coming from behind.

The catapult frames were exposed on these ships, which was intimidating.

But what surprised Gao Hongchuan and the others was that these catapult frames did not attack their fleet, but instead threw black square objects at the ships approaching their fleet.

Everyone was a little confused for a moment. What was they going to do?

But soon everyone understood that when these objects landed on these ships, they immediately fired some kind of device. When the rocket attack was stimulated by these devices, they immediately let out a shrill scream. The entire tent was exploded. Countless arrows with barbs were sprayed from the nest cart on the ship. Once these arrows hit any ship, they attached themselves to it and burned quickly. Moreover, the fierce combustion momentum was unprecedented in Gao Hongchuan.

Some ships exploded completely, and the splashing liquid spurted out several meters away, and the entire water surface was burned. This was obviously a specially processed oil. It did not explode under the attack of the opponent's rocket, but it could explode and burn under the stimulation of some magic device.

Two more ships quickly circled along the already chaotic fleet. Not only did black liquid flow out of a huge pipe mouth behind it, but the liquid soon burned and quickly spread as the water flowed into the fleet.

Everything became out of control.

"It's over, this kind of battle cannot be fought at all!" This was Gao Hongchuan's last thought when he jumped into the water, and when he floated out of the water, he had become a prisoner under the enemy's dog thorns.

"Perfect." Luo Zhen and Gan Quan stood on the river bank and watched all this, and said with joy. "No, it's not perfect enough. This is just the beginning. We still need to refine many things. Generally speaking, they are still too rough. I always feel that there are too many things that can be improved here. In addition, this time the plan seems too immature, and the other party has no precautions, otherwise we would not have achieved such a result."
Chapter completed!