Chen looked at the Jiangxia Army soldiers around him, gritted his teeth, and finally cut off the flagpole next to him with his sword, shouting: "Put down your weapons!"
The boatmen followed the order and threw all kinds of weapons in their hands on the ground.
"Send an order to all the ships not to shoot arrows on the other side of the bank; then ask them to hang the big flag upside down and throw all the small flags into the water, quick!"
Gan Ning ordered again.
…
At the port of Shuizhai, Lu Dai commanded the next step and was waiting in full formation.
The crossbowmen occupied a favorable position, and the spearmen were lying in ambush everywhere, ready to attack at any time.
Just when Lu Dai thought he was fully prepared, Lou Chuan appeared!
Most of Yuan's soldiers had seen the warships rammed. After all, when he was stationed in Nanchang, Zheng Bao's navy would send ships to deliver food and grass every month.
In the eyes of ordinary soldiers, those more than ten feet long cockroaches were already considered to be giants.
However, the building ship in front of me is only more than twenty feet wide, and its tail is not even visible!
The appearance of such a behemoth frightened Yuan Jun on the shore. For a moment, everyone retreated involuntarily.
“This, this…how can there be such a big ship?”
One of the crossbowmen opened his mouth.
"No, it's a building ship! It's a building ship belonging to Jiang Xia Army!"
Lu Dai's face turned livid and he made a decisive decision: "Go back quickly, a hundred steps away!"
Water warfare is mainly based on throwing wood and stone with crossbows, so the proportion of crossbowmen in the navy is high.
Although the fence wall of the water village itself is two feet high, Yuan Jun's crossbowmen standing on it can shoot at the enemy soldiers rushing up.
But the building ship in front of him was six to seven feet above the water. The soldiers on it could shoot from a high position. Yuan Jun would be at a disadvantage if he wanted to shoot at it.
As the saying goes, a good man never suffers immediate losses. Upon seeing this, Lu Dai immediately gave up the idea of fighting on the shore and directed his men to retreat to a place more than a hundred steps away from the shore.
No matter how tall and powerful this building ship is, there is no way it can reach the shore.
And if you want to take back Xiakou, you have to go ashore. Then I'll just retreat outside the shooting range of the tower ship and wait for you.
However, when Lu Dai commanded his troops to retreat a hundred and twenty steps away and set up their formation, another change occurred on the water surface.
First, the Jiangxia navy on the building pulled down the flags all over the boat, and then threw them all into the water.
If there was a flag that couldn't be pulled off, it was simply cut off.
Even the large banner on the bow of the ship had its rope cut off, and the entire flag fell directly. Then, the soldiers on the ship took it to the bow of the ship and hung it upside down on the bow of the ship.
Immediately afterwards, many sailors around him imitated Lou Chuan's actions, cutting off the flagpole and hanging the flag upside down.
Many warships did not do this, but chose to turn their rudders and turn around and escape.
Internal conflicts even broke out on some ships. Some wanted to hoist the flag and dock, while others wanted to turn the rudder and retreat. As a result, they fought for control of the ship.
I saw hundreds of ships rushing, fighting, fighting, and running boats on the water. Everyone has some action at the moment. Many boats crashed into each other trying to turn around. Several small boats were directly knocked over by larger ships, and the voices of soldiers falling into the water and asking for help kept coming and going.
There was a mess on the water.
"Are these Jiangxia soldiers crazy? Cut down their own flags and ram their own ships!"
"What's going on with them? Are they having internal strife?"
Sergeant Yuan's soldiers stared with big eyes and small eyes, unable to understand the operations of Jiangxia Navy.
"No need to ask, he must have been scared when he saw our fierce appearance, hahaha!"
Lu Dai didn't understand it at first, but when Jiang Xiabing on the boat hung the big banner upside down on the bow, he understood.
"Ding Gong! How is the battle going?"
Yuan Yao's voice came from behind. Lu Dai looked back and saw Yuan Yao walking over under the protection of a group of soldiers.
"Young Master, look!"
Lu Dai pointed to the building boat, his joy was beyond words.
Yuan Yao took a quick look and saw more than a hundred Jiangxia warships lying on the water, standing upright and upside down.
"You did all this?"
"You can repel the enemy reinforcements so quickly, Mr. Ding!"
Yuan Yao thought that Lu Dai had repelled the reinforcements sent by Huang Zu, but he immediately realized something was wrong.
"How come there are no traces of fighting at this port?"
Yuan Yao said doubtfully.
Lu Dai: "Young Master, have you seen that building boat?"
"I saw it, hey, it's really big enough. It would be even better if it was mine!" Yuan Yao did not conceal his greedy gaze.
"No, young master, look at what's hanging on the bow of that ship."
"It's a big flag. What's the word embroidered on the flag? Why can't I recognize it?"
Lu Dai stamped his feet: "You can recognize that character by looking backwards!"
"oh……"
Yuan Yao actually turned his head 180 degrees, and then he could see the words on the scroll clearly.
"I saw it, Su! It's the word 'Su'!"
"It's really strange. Why don't they hang the flag upright? What's the point of hanging it on the bow of the ship?"
"Old Huang, I'll give you a rocket and light it up for me!"
"promise!"
Lu Dai quickly stopped Huang Zhong who was about to pull out the arrow and said anxiously: "Young Master, this is an inversion of the flag, an inversion of the flag!"
Yuan Yao glanced at Lu Dai suspiciously: "Falling down?"
Lu Dai explained: "Falling the flag means surrender. These Jiangxia naval forces must surrender before the battle!"
Yuan Yao suddenly realized that this really touched his knowledge blind spot.
“Shouldn’t surrender be a white flag?”
Yuan Yao blurted out something, but he soon realized how idiotic his question was.
Who has nothing to do with a few white flags by his side when going to war?
Doesn’t that mean directly and clearly: I’m going to surrender!
As a top student in history, Yuan Yao once read about the origin of surrender with a white flag.
The tradition of raising a white flag to express surrender exists in both China and the West.
The white flag in the West originated from the ancient Roman period. They believed that white represented nothing and complete failure.
The raising of the white flag in China should have originated from the Qin Dynasty.
The theory of the Five Elements was popular in ancient times. The Qin State respected the virtue of water, and the water was black. Qin people regarded black as the "national color".
At the end of the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang advanced into Guanzhong and approached Xianyang. Qin Ziying surrendered, so he took the opposite color of Qin's "national color" - white, and surrendered with plain chariots and white horses. This is the origin of China's "surrender color".
But this is just an origin, not a tradition. Historical records contain few details of the surrender, so it's hard to say exactly when raising the white flag became a tradition.
It was only then that Yuan Yao understood that hanging the flag upside down also meant surrender.
"Are those on the shore the subordinates of General Yuan of Yuzhang County?"
At this time, a shout came from the boat.
"Su Fei, the governor of Jiangxia, has been captured by me. Please ask General Yuan Jun to come out and speak!"
