Ding Zuodong shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed out at the setting sun. "Didn't the boss head out to sea to collect a debt from the Qinglong tribe? How did he suddenly receive word that the Bailong were under attack?"
The force of over a thousand men He Lingchuan had led out had not returned to the Yangshan Archipelago. Instead, they had made straight for Storm Bay, dispatching an urgent order to Ding Zuodong to hurry over with two thousand guards and a massive load of supplies.
Muster, resupply, depart, arrive. It was an astonishing speed that outsiders could never fathom—and the fruit of more than half a year of intense training.
"That's a long story." One of Huang Zhao's men set a square, heavy treasure chest onto the deck, and Huang Zhao pointed at it. "Let's start with this. The island master told me to hand it over to you so you can enter it in the ledgers."
"Right away!" When Ding Zuodong popped open the chest, Zhu Daniang and Dong Rui stepped up alongside him to look inside.
Well, now. Dazzling jewels and gold.
"Huh, this looks like more than six thousand one hundred and eighty-five taels." Ding Zuodong dealt with money every single day; a single glance told him the sum was off.
"That's right. The Qinglong chieftain was too polite for his own good. He insisted on rounding it up to a nice whole number, claiming they'd be embarrassed otherwise," Huang Zhao said with a grin. "The island master said the extra silver covers our mental anguish, our travel expenses to and from their tribe, plus the interest accrued on that six-thousand-odd taels... Heh, tallying it up like that, it's not even that much."
Inside the chest were banknotes, gold, silver, and even precious jewelry. Ding Zuodong spotted two gold bangles as thick as a finger that clearly bore marks of wear.
They had scraped together second-hand jewelry just to make up the sum; the Qinglong chieftain had certainly been in a desperate rush to pay.
"What's more, the Qinglong tribe will still buy grain from us down the road. For the next two orders, they have to pay in full before picking up the goods."
For that tribe to suddenly become so obliging, someone must have taught them some manners.
Before departing, He Lingchuan had also left word for Ding Zuodong: "Give some of the silver to Manager Tong. He suffered quite a bit of grievance."
"Understood. That goes without saying."
Manager Tong was the steward who had been humiliated by the Qinglong tribe. He had tried to collect the debt on behalf of the Yangshan Archipelago, so a share of the Qinglong tribe's compensation was rightfully his.
While Ding Zuodong tallied the ledgers, Zhu Daniang inquired about how the battle had gone. Huang Zhao rubbed his nose. "The fighting went smoothly the day before yesterday. At first, those bastards refused to yield and cursed us for launching a sneak attack. But once we knocked them flat twice in a row, they behaved themselves."
It was always the victors who stood tall and proud, while the losers hung their heads in shame.
The Qinglong tribe had no choice but to swallow their shattered teeth and blood. They had only themselves to blame for picking the wrong target to push around.
He Lingchuan was reasonably satisfied with the outcome of this expedition. Just as he had demanded, winning wasn't hard; what was hard was winning cleanly.
The facts proved that nine months of grueling training had paid off. On the battlefield, this force was brimming with morale, howling as they charged into the fray yet never forgetting to follow orders. Compared to their sloppy discipline and appearance back when the Emperor's Flowing Dew descended, they were virtually two different armies.
It had not been in vain to pour so much silver and gold into them; the transformation was striking.
"Where has the island master gotten to by now?" He Lingchuan had sent an egret message back to the archipelago, not just mobilizing troops but also requesting Zhu Daniang and Dong Rui to set out. That proved this was no small affair.
This was the largest military deployment since the Yangshan Guard had been established.
*The time has finally come to ride the wind and break the waves.*
This time, Dong Rui also stood at the bow, looking far into the distance.
A vast expanse of sky and sea, drifting along to patrol the waters.
Whenever He Lingchuan boarded a ship, he loved to stand right here. Did he feel this same boundless sentiment and grand ambition?
"He should have reached Storm Bay by now, shouldn't he?" Huang Zhao turned solemn. "When we were dealing with the Qinglong tribe, we noticed something odd—their warriors seemed to be short one or two hundred men. Later, when we interrogated the prisoners, we learned that the Qinglong tribe had sent men to follow the Ya general Wulu to intercept the Bailong tribe. As soon as the lord heard that, he led his contingent and rushed over ahead of us."
"The main Bailong tribe?" Dong Rui had been startled when he first heard the news back on the island, and only then realized this did not refer to Moqi Feng and the others under the boss, but the main branch of the Bailong clan!
Ever since Moqi Feng pledged allegiance to He Lingchuan, stray Bailong had continuously trickled in over the past six months or more to seek refuge in the Yangshan Archipelago. Some came in groups of a few, others in bands of nearly a hundred—all people who had been separated from the main migration during their flight. Once word spread that the Yangshan Archipelago was sheltering the Bailong, they made their way here.
Life was harsh out there, especially with the Ya Kingdom issuing pursuit orders against the Bailong, leaving none of the neighboring states daring to take them in.
Now, counting both old and young, the Bailong on the archipelago numbered close to nine hundred.
Zhu Daniang was equally puzzled. "Why would the Bailong tribe be at Storm Bay?"
He Lingchuan's avian message had been very brief; any questions could be answered along the way regardless. He had left Huang Zhao behind precisely to clear up everyone's doubts.
"The main branch under Young Chieftain Moqi Tong had originally taken refuge in the lawless zone of Songshiyuan. Likely because their circumstances grew too dire, they finally agreed to the Mou Kingdom's invitation and decided to relocate their entire clan westward."
Before the Ya Kingdom was founded, the Bailong tribe had received backing from the Mou Kingdom and consistently opposed the current Great Chieftain. Now that they were driven from their homeland, the Mou Kingdom could not simply abandon them, repeatedly proposing that Moqi Tong seek asylum in Mou or Bailie.
The Bailong were stubborn, never willing to stray far from their ancestral soil.
Of course, reality had thoroughly taught them what it meant to yield to circumstances beyond their control.
Thus, Moqi Tong had finally seen reason and agreed to move the whole clan to the Mou Kingdom.
"They originally planned to enter Bailie by way of Baishitun," Huang Zhao said with a shrug. "No one knows how the word leaked, but the Ya Kingdom sent men after them to wipe them out. Once the island master heard of it, he ordered the entire force to mobilize and rush to Storm Bay."
Which meant they were going to lend a hand.
If they wanted to save lives, a fight was inevitable.
"Why save Moqi Tong?" Zhu Daniang asked, curious. "The one Moqi Tong wants to seek shelter with is the Mou Kingdom, not the Yangshan Archipelago. What do we gain by helping him?"
"For one thing, as soon as that lad Moqi Feng heard the main Bailong branch was under attack, he was frantic as an ant on a hot pan, begging the lord to let him go fight."
Moqi Feng hadn't asked He Lingchuan to deploy troops, knowing that was not Yangshan's duty.
He had only begged He Lingchuan to let him leave so he could fight shoulder to shoulder with his kin.
"For another, when Miss Lu Feiyan from Bailie heard the news, she mentioned that her elder brother, Lu Qingbang, had earlier received orders to quietly lead troops to rendezvous with Moqi Tong and the Bailong clansmen."
In other words, those orders had come down from the Mou Kingdom to Bailie.
As long as Moqi Tong managed to escape into Bailie territory, it would only take another two or three days to reach the Mou Kingdom. From then on, the Ya Kingdom would truly never get its hands on them.
Naturally, the Ya Kingdom was determined to stop Moqi Tong's westward flight.
Huang Zhao scratched the back of his head. "My guess is the lord wants to do a favor for the Lu siblings or the Mou Kingdom?"
Ding Zuodong shook his head as he calculated the ledgers. "I'm afraid it goes beyond that. The boss always acts with deep intention."
He knew He Lingchuan harbored designs on Bailie, but Huang Zhao—a surrendered pirate—knew nothing of it, so his judgment was naturally off.
Ding Zuodong had no intention of explaining it to him either, but merely pondered for a moment before saying, "Oh, I remember now. A few days ago, Sixth Lu borrowed five large cargo ships and seven medium ones from us. He was in an urgent rush, but right now is the peak farming season when cargo vessels are in high demand; no shipping firm had any to spare. It was only because the island master made a special exception that ships were scraped together and assigned to him."
With bumper harvests of everything from palms to grain, it was the season for buyers to come knocking. Freight transport between Blade Harbor and the archipelago was swamped, a vivid demonstration of the adage that time was money. That was why Ding Zuodong remembered Sixth Lu's request so clearly.
"So that means our big ships are sitting at Storm Bay!" Huang Zhao had an epiphany. "That makes sense then. We have to get our own ships back."
Every large cargo vessel cost a fortune to build, and more importantly, took an immense amount of time to construct.
Ding Zuodong smiled. That was indeed a reason.
Dong Rui looked at one man, then the other, unable to hold back any longer. "Hey, is the enemy actually strong?"
"Very strong!" Huang Zhao turned grave. "Word has it that he is a prominent general of the Ya Kingdom who played a role in founding the state."
"That formidable?" There was a question Dong Rui held back from asking:
*Can we beat them?*
Voicing it would dampen their own morale, so after a thought, he rephrased it: "Since the opponent is a renowned general of Ya, isn't rushing off on a whim to save people a bit too reckless?"
"It came out of nowhere. I could tell the lord was caught off guard too." Who could have guessed that going to teach the Qinglong tribe a lesson would trigger such an unexpected twist? "But he said that sooner or later, we'll have to get used to fighting battles we haven't prepared for."
The Yangshan Archipelago's mission to collect the grain debt from the Qinglong tribe had been planned well in advance. Every detail had been meticulously hashed out, including intelligence gathered beforehand, which was why execution had been as smooth as flowing water—using the debt collection as an excuse to drill the guard.
Yet this world was full of variables. How often did one get to march out at leisure, orchestrate every move from a tent of strategists, and never miscalculate a single step?
Unexpected events could ambush you in a heartbeat, catching you completely flat-footed.
What was true capability?
To be taken completely by surprise, yet still turn the situation to your advantage and reverse a losing game—*that* was true capability.
***
Where was He Lingchuan?
He and his thousand men were lying in wait on an island forty li northeast of Storm Bay.
Night fell. Shielded by the island, the Ya sentries along the coastline could not spot his ships.
The weather had been too clear the night before—not a good time to strike—so He Lingchuan had held his ground.
Right timing, favorable terrain, and harmony among people—he had to secure at least one of them, didn't he?
The avian demons perched at the prow flew out regularly to scout the military movements along the shore and deliver messages to the embattled Bailie elites and Bailong clansmen.
An egret flew in from the direction of Platinum Island, landing beside He Lingchuan and croaking in a coarse voice:
"Relaying verbal message from Huang Er! Relaying verbal message from Huang Er! Reinforcements have crossed Guangming Strait!"
Its accent was bizarre, but its message sent a jolt of excitement through Moqi Feng and Lu Feiyan.
Guangming Strait was barely twelve li away. In other words, the two thousand reinforcements summoned by He Lingchuan would arrive within two shichen at most!
Lu Feiyan let out a long breath. "Finally, we can fight!"
Her own brother was locked in bloody combat on shore, so as a sister, she was naturally sick with worry.
Yet she possessed battlefield experience and knew timing meant everything, especially when facing a formidable foe like the army of the Ya Kingdom. For the past two days, she had forcibly suppressed her anxiety, not daring to urge them forward.
Without the right moment, rash moves were pointless.
Besides, these were not her troops, nor was this her home turf.
He Lingchuan, who was examining the sand table, glanced up at her and nodded inwardly.
This young lady was even more composed than he had given her credit for.
Chapter 1062