The blade gleamed with a biting, autumnal chill. Though she sheathed it immediately afterward, He Lingchuan could tell at a glance that it was a divine weapon.
"All right," he sighed, assigning duties on the spot. "Ah Feng, Lady Lu's safety is in your hands."
Moqi Feng immediately answered, "Understood."
"I..." Lu Feiyan started to say it was unnecessary, but realizing this wasn't her own army, she swallowed her words.
By afternoon, a flotilla assembled at the Yangshan Archipelago and set sail to the east.
Ten ships in all, each carrying a hundred men.
The fleet might have seemed dense, but along the bustling Golden Shipping Route, it hardly stood out. He Lingchuan had specifically ordered the vessels to maintain their distance from one another, making them look no different from ordinary merchant craft.
Aboard the flagship, He Lingchuan, Qiu Hu, Moqi Feng, and the others discussed their strategy. A massive sand table materialized in the briefing cabin, projecting an intricate layout of the Qinglong tribe's base camp, detailed down to each small stream and gully.
Having weathered her fair share of campaigns, Lu Feiyan understood the moment she saw how precise the sand table was: this Island Master He wasn't lashing out in reactive indignation over a fresh slight—he had planned this long in advance!
When He Lingchuan asked Moqi Feng to break down the troop and population distribution of the Qinglong tribe, her suspicions were fully confirmed. Pointer in hand, Moqi Feng explained:
"The Qinglong tribe's territory lies along the coastal region at the southern tip of the Ya Kingdom. It forms an indented, horseshoe shape, consisting primarily of river valley plains.
"Their major settlement areas are called *dong*, falling somewhere between a city and a town in scale, and each is ruled by a *dong master*. There are three dong in Qinglong territory: Wulan Dong, Cha'an Dong, and Tuku Dong.
"Beneath the dong are a number of rural townships.
"The Qinglong tribe totals over thirty-three thousand people, but their dwellings are widely scattered. Even the largest, Wulan Dong, has a population of only six thousand.
"Tribes within the Ya Kingdom rarely form massive cities. The Bailong tribe's settlements were once much the same.
"The tribe maintains six hundred regular warriors. If the Ya Kingdom goes to war, the Qinglong must mobilize four hundred to join the campaign, which leaves roughly a thousand reservists on their territory who can be mobilized to keep order and handle contingencies."
Lu Feiyan clicked her tongue in silent marvel. Out of a population of thirty-three thousand, they could mobilize sixteen hundred troops—an exceptionally high ratio. If Bailie could match a proportion like that, would she ever have had to worry about army manpower shortages?
Moqi Feng then moved on to the coastal landing sites and harbor conditions.
He Lingchuan asked him, "Is it the Wulan dong master who owes us money?"
"It is Duan Baoning, son of the Wulan dong master, Duan Jinghe. And Duan Jinghe is the chieftain's younger brother, which makes the defaulting Duan Baoning the chieftain's own nephew."
"Same difference," He Lingchuan remarked, having seen through it from the start. "Duan Baoning only dared to pocket our grain and insult our people because he has the chieftain backing him."
A lone deadbeat gets his legs broken; but when a whole crowd bands together to welsh on a debt, it's the debt collector who has to run for his life with his head between his hands.
Still, disrespecting the Yangshan Chamber of Commerce was a direct slap in the face to He Lingchuan.
A slight like this could never be brushed off with a laugh. Otherwise, others would follow suit, taking him for a soft persimmon to be squeezed at will—and that would disrupt the harmony entirely.
Moqi Feng said guiltily, "The Qinglong tribe is probably defaulting because the island master took us in."
"Probably?" Lu Feiyan chuckled. "Why 'probably'? If you ask me, the Ya Kingdom simply wants payback against Island Master He."
The Ya Kingdom had declared long ago that anyone harboring the Bailong tribe would pay dearly, a warning that Bailie had received as well.
And then the Yangshan Archipelago went ahead and took them in anyway.
The Ya Kingdom couldn't have remained in the dark, but He Lingchuan's geographical advantage was utterly absurd. Even if the Ya Kingdom wanted to mount an amphibious assault, they would need at least a hundred large ships.
And even if they arrived, finding the Bailong people was another matter entirely. The Yangshan waters were so vast—were they supposed to play hide-and-seek across the open sea?
The Ya Kingdom had once sent an official dispatch to the Yangshan Archipelago, but Dong Rui had used it to wipe his hands, and the matter simply fizzled out.
He Lingchuan was busy from dawn to dusk developing the islands and had never given it a second thought. If he could handle threats from the Beijia Empire, who did the Ya Kingdom think they were?
If brute force wouldn't work, did they decide to play petty tricks instead?
This time, the Qinglong tribe hadn't snatched grain from anyone else, choosing to default solely on the Yangshan Archipelago. Had the Ya Kingdom put them up to it?
It would test both Yangshan's reaction and its strength.
If He Lingchuan couldn't even handle the Qinglong tribe, they likely had more sinister moves waiting in reserve.
Thus, this toxic trend had to be nipped in the bud!
"What does this have to do with you? Stop taking the blame onto yourselves," He Lingchuan said dismissively. "Focus on the facts: it's the Qinglong tribe who took the grain, defaulted on the bill, and insulted our men."
Since he had chosen to shelter the Bailong people, he was prepared to bear the consequences that came with it.
Just as sheltering the spider demon sisters meant confronting Beijia sooner or later.
He had foreseen every bit of this from the very beginning.
He had made the choice, so he bore the responsibility.
"How formidable is the Qinglong tribe's fighting force?"
Moqi Feng answered at once, "Not to boast, but they're noticeably weaker than our people. When the Ya Kingdom held its martial tournaments in the past, the Wulan dong master lost twice to my uncle."
Arms crossed, Qiu Hu chimed in, "Those six hundred warriors can't all be garrisoned in Wulan Dong, can they?"
"Three or four hundred at most. But as long as we press Duan Baoning for payment, the entire Qinglong tribe will react."
Lu Feiyan cut in, "Pardon me, but how much does he actually owe you?"
"The outstanding balance for the grain comes to six thousand one hundred and eighty-five taels."
That was over six million coins. Lu Feiyan blinked, immediately sensing something off. "A tribe of thirty thousand bought that much grain? And you actually sold it to them?"
Broken down on average, that meant every single person in the Qinglong tribe had spent over two hundred coins on grain—and grain prices were especially cheap during harvest season.
Qiu Hu chuckled. "They brought money to buy grain, and we don't pry into what they plan to do with it. When the Yangshan Archipelago sells wholesale goods, countless merchants buy them up to repackage and resell. Maybe the Qinglong tribe fancied trying their hand at reselling too. Didn't Moqi Feng say the southern region of the Ya Kingdom suffered a poor harvest this year?"
Was that so? Yet Lu Feiyan couldn't shake the feeling that these fellows knew precisely what was going on all along, and had sold the grain to the Qinglong tribe anyway.
He Lingchuan suddenly spoke up. "Lady Lu, if you were in command, how would you collect the debt?"
Lu Feiyan was taken aback, pointing a finger at herself. "Me?"
Wasn't she just a bystander?
"Indeed. You've fought on the eastern front of Bailie, and my subordinates here admire you greatly. On such an occasion as today, why not broaden their horizons?"
Flattered by his praise, Lu Feiyan felt a touch bashful, though she didn't decline. "Then I'll just speak off the top of my head, and you can take it for what it's worth."
"Please, go ahead."
"That Qinglong chieftain lives in Wulan Dong as well. If you confront Duan Baoning inside the settlement, it'll be easy to get surrounded by a sea of people. Getting in and out would be a nightmare unless you butcher your way through." She looked at He Lingchuan. "You don't want a bloodbath, do you?"
He Lingchuan beamed pleasantly. "Naturally. We're businessmen; harmony breeds wealth, as they say."
Lu Feiyan rolled her eyes inwardly.
Harmony? This Island Master He was going to collect a debt from the Qinglong tribe with an escort of a thousand elite soldiers. Very "harmonious" indeed.
Chapter 1059