Ou Zhanpeng's words were a death knell, leaving the pirates in a quandary, unsure whether to stay or go.
Who would dare demand gold from such a ruthless character and risk their lives?
But with the Star Ark refusing to let them go, they dared not leave, lest they be destroyed by a cannonball and die in vain.
Ou Zhanpeng directly designated a starship. The pirates, mustering their courage, steered their ship towards the Star Ark. Before Captain Ou could even speak, the pirates voluntarily offered their gold: "Boss, this is all we have. Please accept it and let us go as if we were nothing but a fart..."
Well, in reality, they didn't say it exactly like that, but the meaning was the same.
Ou Zhanpeng was both exasperated and amused. What kind of person did they take him for? Kuaishu Ge
He immediately retorted, "Get lost, get lost, get lost! Who the hell wants your gold!" Even as he spoke, he had already sent over a batch of gold.
The pirates on the other side were overwhelmed with gratitude, finding it hard to believe it was true. It wasn't until they received the gold and checked it repeatedly that they realized it wasn't a dream.
The pirate ship thanked them profusely and departed in joy.
The other pirates remained stunned and bewildered, still harboring extreme doubts about everything.
Such a powerful warship not only refrained from robbing them, which was already incredibly merciful, but also gave them gold?
Could there be such good fortune in the world? What were they waiting for, then? They should hurry and join in!
Seeing a group of pirates flying over, Ou Zhanpeng immediately added, "One by one!"
The pirates instantly turned into obedient children, lining up to come aboard in turns.
Gold was being sent out in batches, and Ling Xiao's heart ached with every ounce, but Ou Zhanpeng thought differently.
Destroying enemy ships to establish authority, and giving gold to build trust – one could not succeed without both!
Keeping that gold was meaningless; it might even cause inflation if brought back. But by distributing it on the spot, he immediately opened up possibilities. Once the news spread, from then on, no matter where they went, pirates would willingly come to their aid!
For humans, any interstellar civilization was extremely, extremely, extremely dangerous. Since that was the case, starting with the pirates who operated in the shadows might be a good beginning.
Wasn't that more important than gold?
Destroying the Black Horn people's warships took less than a few minutes, but rewarding the pirates took over two hours.
It wasn't that distributing gold was slow, but that Ou Zhanpeng took the opportunity to ask many questions and carefully inquired about the pirates' contact information. It turned out that the Black Horn people had indeed spared no expense in deceiving the Star Ark; all the answers to his questions were true.
When all the pirates had left, only the Star Ark remained in this desolate place, along with the wreckage of three other warships.
Two black ships and one Black Horn ship.
Ling Xiao suddenly thought of a problem: "Fatty Ou, the Black Horn people are finished, and that planet is ownerless again, right? Can we sell it again?"
As he spoke, he suddenly put on a pained expression: "We shouldn't have let them go just now!"
Everyone suddenly realized. They wanted to sell the planet to the pirates!
But it was a done deal now, and it was too late to regret it.
"Forget it," Ou Zhanpeng sighed. "We can't stay here forever."
"Then let's mark down the coordinates and come back when there's an opportunity!" Ling Xiao, still indignant, immediately offered a bad idea.
"Then should we erect a monument on the planet, declaring it our territory, and threatening to fight anyone who claims it?" Ou Zhanpeng glanced at Ling Xiao, his contempt undisguised.
Ling Xiao's eyes lit up, shining like two 180-watt light bulbs: "That's a great idea!"
Ou Zhanpeng didn't want to speak anymore: "Do you think aliens care about this sort of thing?"
Ling Xiao argued righteously, "Whether they care or not, as long as we're comfortable, isn't that enough?"
Everyone who heard it thought it made sense.
Ou Zhanpeng was also a little surprised. After a moment of hesitation, he nodded: "Alright, then let's erect a few monuments!"
However, before erecting the monuments, they had to clean up the battlefield.
Ou Zhanpeng said nothing more, directly activating the thermal fusion cannon and using the lowest power to give the Black Horn warships a sauna.
The shear cannon only destroyed the warships, and there were bound to be Black Horn survivors inside. Approaching rashly might lead to a desperate counterattack from the enemy.
Reheating it made a difference, equivalent to high-temperature sterilization. No matter how many Black Horn survivors were hidden in the wreckage, they would surely be thoroughly dead by now.
Next was the harvest. With a command from Ou Zhanpeng, all the small boats and launches on the ship were dispatched. Led by the unreliable Ling Xiao, they charged into the Black Horn warships to collect the spoils of the aliens.
Ou Zhanpeng really wanted to do it himself, but the warship couldn't function without him, the captain. Anyone else could leave the ship, but he couldn't. He was completely tied to the Star Ark.
He now understood the saying: the very thing that helps you can also be your downfall.
Ling Xiao didn't care about anything else; all he thought about was gold. He kept emphasizing over the radio that no one was allowed to touch any gold they found and that he would personally recover it.
If he was willing to go through the trouble, everyone else was happy to be idle. Our army has no habit of hoarding spoils of war; all spoils must be handed over to the public. Since it wouldn't go into their own pockets, who did the recovering didn't matter.
Everyone was more interested in finding some useful technological items in the enemy ships, which were much more valuable than gold.
To maximize profits, Ou Zhanpeng, based on his experience, divided the personnel on the ship into several groups. The first and most important was naturally the search group. The search group was further divided into several different directions, such as collecting various alloy materials, finding various small items, and specifically handling suspicious items and identifying alien weapons.
There was no need to be too detailed upon entering the enemy ships, but with everyone having their own direction, it was naturally more efficient than a chaotic rush.
Ahem, efficiency was only one aspect. More importantly, Ou Zhanpeng was accustomed to this method of making a plan beforehand and then executing it accordingly. While he couldn't guarantee that there would be no problems, the probability of error was definitely much lower than without a plan.
The personnel remaining on the ship were divided into reception, sorting, transport, accommodation, and mobile teams, ensuring that every link had sufficient manpower. Every item from the alien warships would be thoroughly disinfected, carefully classified, registered, and meticulously stored.
The search group marked each piece of alien wreckage with a number and searched them in order.
However, they didn't send people in directly. Instead, they first sent robots to go through them. Any problem that could be solved by robots would not be solved by humans.
The robots from the Star Base proved very useful, moving in and out of the wreckage, using force fields to transport various alien creations outside the wreckage, load them onto ships, and transport them back to the Star Ark.
The soldiers of the search group were like diligent farmers, laboring diligently in the autumn fields to harvest.
The gold alone found in the enemy ships amounted to over two thousand tons, recovering more than half of what had been distributed. Ling Xiao was so happy his mouth was about to split open.
Everything proceeded in an orderly manner, and the search operation concluded after three days.
The Star Ark opened a wormhole and was about to leave the star system.
Ling Xiao was filled with emotion: "This is truly a good place. I will remember it."
While amused, everyone else also felt a sense of emotion.
It was indeed a place to be remembered!