Chapter 353: Straight to the Heart, Splitting East from West

Fu Zonglong was briefly stunned, then said, "Isn't that going too far?"

Zhu Yixun probed, "Uncle doesn't know yet?"

Fu Zonglong looked utterly bewildered.

Zhu Yixun took a copy of the official document from Tianjin station from his sleeve and handed it to Fu Zonglong.

"Chongzhen recently held an audience with the Grand Secretaries and berated you as reckless and insubordinate, utterly incompetent, the number one criminal minister of the Great Ming. He has already ordered you recalled to the capital — the decree should arrive soon.

The last one recalled to the capital like this was Yang He, Governor-General of the Three Borders; before him, Yuan Chonghuan.

Uncle surely knows what became of those two."

Fu Zonglong took the document, first staring blankly in speechlessness, then his eyes bulged wide, his hair bristling with rage, his face flushed crimson.

There was no doubt as to the document's authenticity — that the Forbidden City's decisions reached Great Xia before the regional governors was common knowledge here in Jiangnan.

Fu Zonglong knew well that the Chongzhen Emperor was cold and harsh; the words on the document were indeed in the Emperor's style.

Clenching his teeth, his voice trembling, he said, "Reckless? Incompetent? Number one criminal minister?"

When he had taken over the Southwest, what had the Southwest been like?

Nominally Governor-General of five provinces, he actually had only four — Guangxi had already been taken by Great Xia.

Zhu Xieyuan had left office to observe mourning, and the Southwest had long gone unattended. Each army raised its own provisions, generals colluded with local officials, ignored orders, and warlord tendencies were beginning to emerge. The chieftains harbored seditious ambitions in secret, colluding with Shapu and She'an, plotting rebellion.

The court was short on funds and grain, going months — even half a year or more — without allocating him any provisions or pay.

As the saying goes, without rice in hand, you can't call the chickens. He held the title of Governor-General but not the power of one, able only to open military farms on one hand while begging the court for grain and pay on the other.

Not only did the court ignore his provisions, it issued decree after decree — attack Great Xia today, suppress She'an tomorrow, campaign against Shapu the day after.

The Grand Secretariat and the Ministry of War even repeatedly bypassed Fu Zonglong, sending documents directly to Regional Commanders and Garrison Commanders urging battle.

Caught in the middle, Fu Zonglong could barely maintain stability in the Southwest.

And now he had become the "number one criminal minister"?

Li Chengliang, whose slaves ran rampant; Wei Zhongxian, whose power swayed the court; Yuan Yingtai, who lost Liaodong; Yuan Chonghuan, who sent the Jiangnan navy to its doom in a single battle — were their crimes all lesser than his?

Fu Zonglong stared at the document for a long time, his expression profoundly complicated, gradually shifting from anger to grievance, and finally to a deep sorrow.

He had served the court half his life, and to think he would end up with such a fate.

He set down the document and laughed bitterly at himself: "A lifetime's achievements, all come to nothing..."

These were lines Yuan Chonghuan had murmured before his death; now Fu Zonglong could truly appreciate his state of mind.

Zhu Yixun offered up Zhu Xieyuan's letter with both hands, saying, "Uncle, this was written in my grandfather's own hand."

Fu Zonglong hesitated a moment, then reached out — his fingertips trembling slightly — and finally took the letter.

At the letter's opening, Zhu Xieyuan first inquired after Fu Zonglong's recent circumstances in the capacity of mentor and comrade-in-arms, and said that Fu Zonglong's family were all well in Kunming, with the Xia King having personally ordered protection for his family.

In truth, Lin Qian had no idea Fu Zonglong was from Kunming at all — protecting Fu Zonglong's family had been Qin Liangyu's arrangement.

Since this was an attempt to win him over, Zhu Xieyuan unceremoniously credited Lin Qian with that merit.

In the latter part, Zhu Xieyuan wrote of the hardships of governing the Southwest as Governor-General — every single item struck a chord with Fu Zonglong. When he had served as Zhu Xieyuan's assistant before, he hadn't felt it; only now, bearing the burden alone, did he know the hardship — truly suffering beyond words.

In contrast, the Emperor called him reckless, a mediocre minister, a criminal.

Zhu Xieyuan's understanding brought Fu Zonglong to the brink of tears.

In the letter, Zhu Xieyuan summarized the court's administrative failings in the Southwest, pointing out that the court had abandoned the Southwest, abandoned the people, abandoned the ministers who did their duty.

The Shapu Rebellion had been pacified by Great Xia — not Fu Zonglong's fault, but rather the righteous triumphing over the unrighteous, the new dynasty surpassing the old.

Faced with such a hopeless situation, Zhu Xieyuan asked himself: had he and Fu Zonglong traded places, he too would have found it irredeemable.

The letter ended: "Now the sovereign is benighted, petty men devour all around, and the great hall is about to collapse. If Zhonglun would turn eastward and serve Great Xia, it is not betraying an old master, but abandoning a benighted ruler to protect the common people. These are not flattering empty words — think on them, and you will know the pain with which I write..."

After reading the letter, Fu Zonglong's voice was already slightly choked as he murmured, "Lord Zhu understands me..."

As things stood, if he stayed he would die. He did not fear death, but he could not die lighter than a feather, could not be executed as the Great Ming's number one criminal minister! And if he died, the Regional Commanders — already showing clear warlord tendencies — would have no one to restrain them at all, and the Sichuan and Guizhou chieftains would lose all caution; chaos would erupt immediately, and war would follow in the blink of an eye.

If he went to Great Xia, not only could he keep his life and reunite with his family, but perhaps he could even spread his ambitions like Governor Zhu and General Qin, washing away the stain the Emperor had pinned on him.

Which way to go — Fu Zonglong had already thought it through. His expression suddenly turned resolute as he tucked away the secret letter and said to Zhu Yixun, "Nephew, how many men did you bring on this journey?"

Zhu Yixun said, "Fifty men."

Fu Zonglong said, "That's enough. Allow me three days to prepare — in three days I'll return to Nanning with you and meet the Xia King face to face!"

Zhu Yixun was overjoyed and said, "The Embroidered Uniform Guard sent to summon you is probably already on the road — why not leave right now, Uncle?"

Fu Zonglong laughed and said, "A dignified Governor-General can't simply up and leave. I must make arrangements so that no one discovers anything amiss, and so my old subordinates aren't implicated.

Besides, since I'm to meet the Xia King, how could I go empty-handed? I should bring some 'local specialties' as a gift of introduction."

Over the following three days, under the pretext of suppressing She'an, Fu Zonglong summoned his military and civil subordinates, redeployed defenses, and transferred Guizhou's main forces to the vicinity of Shuixi, while also copying out a large quantity of treasury and government records.

A few days later, the Embroidered Uniform Guard arrived in Guizhou, led by Chiliarch Wu Mengming, who haughtily delivered the summons for Fu Zonglong to enter the capital.

But he was told at the provincial office that the Governor had gone to Guangshun Prefecture to inspect military affairs. Wu Mengming, putting on airs, had the local offices send word, and waited at the Governor-General's residence. Unexpectedly, he waited for days on end. The longer Wu Mengming waited, the more unsettled he grew. He sent men to inquire and learned that Guangshun Prefecture said the Governor had gone to Dingfan Prefecture, Dingfan Prefecture said the Governor had gone to Dushan Prefecture, and Dushan Prefecture said the Governor had returned to Guiyang Prefecture.

And Wu Mengming had remained seated in Guiyang the whole time, without even catching a glimpse of Fu Zonglong.

After all that running around in circles, Fu Zonglong had vanished without a trace.

At first, Wu Mengming wasn't too alarmed — Fu Zonglong was a dignified Governor-General of five provinces, a grand frontier minister; he couldn't just disappear.

He sent men to search carefully, but they found no trace of the man — instead, what they uncovered was more alarming with each discovery.

"Chiliarch, the correspondence and official documents from Fu Zonglong's quarters are gone as well."

"The Regional Military Commissioner's office has lost the Guizhou garrison and outpost maps, and the fortress and pass defense maps."

"Chiliarch, the Provincial Administration Commissioner's office's chieftain tribute registers and the Guizhou-Guangxi post road maps have vanished without a..."

"The Governor's office... the Governor's office's guard station military registers are missing..."

Had one or two items gone missing, Wu Mengming could still sit tight — but with all of these gone, even as a member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, he felt a chill run down his neck.

He barked, "What about the Provincial Administration Commissioner? Summon him!"

The Guizhou Governorship was concurrently held by Fu Zonglong, so the moment Fu Zonglong disappeared, the highest-ranking official in the entire province was the Provincial Administration Commissioner.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard officers under his command exchanged bewildered glances, and after a moment, one whispered, "To report to the Chiliarch, Yuan Fan accompanied the Governor-General on his inspection of military affairs, and now his whereabouts are also unknown..." "What?" Wu Mengming felt the world spinning around him, his speech faltering, "Then what about the Judicial Commissioner, the Regional Military Commissioner, and the Circuit Intendants?"

His subordinates explained one by one—among these men, those who were Fu Zonglong's confidants had vanished without a trace, while those who weren't as close, or were rigid and loyal, had been transferred elsewhere on official business.

As a result, with the Governor-General missing, not a single responsible person could be found across the entire province.

One of the Embroidered Uniform Guard officers said in a trembling voice, "Fu Zonglong—he couldn't have defected to the enemy, could he?"

This conclusion was too horrifying. Throughout the Ming Dynasty's two hundred-plus years since its founding, there had almost never been a Governor-General who voluntarily surrendered.

The only Governor-General who had surrendered was Hu Ying, Governor-General of the Two Guangs.

And strictly speaking, Hu Ying's surrender had been a feigned one.

When attacking Guangzhou, Lin Qian had published Hu Ying's letter of feigned surrender in the newspapers to calm the people, turning falsehood into reality—the Embroidered Uniform Guard officers simply didn't know the inside story. And now, Fu Zonglong's surrender had directly broken the record.

This matter would surely cause an earth-shattering uproar in the Ming Dynasty. Wu Mengming broke out in a cold sweat in an instant.

If this matter wasn't handled properly, he, Wu Mengming, would be finished along with it.

He pondered for a moment, then suddenly threatened in a cold, sinister tone, "What defection? Did you see it?"

His subordinate understood the implication and immediately knelt, saying, "This subordinate deserves death!"

"Slap yourself!" Wu Mengming said coldly. Amid the crisp sounds of slapping, Wu Mengming threatened his subordinates, "As for today's matter, no one heard anything, and no one is allowed to speak of it. If even half a word leaks out, it won't be as simple as a few slaps."

His subordinates lowered their heads and accepted the order.

Wu Mengming had his deputy remain on site to control the situation, while he himself took two attendants and immediately rode out of the city to the post station to change horses, then galloped straight for the capital. A Governor-General defecting to the enemy—this was the greatest case since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Once a great inquisition was launched, the entire southwestern officialdom would be engulfed in a storm of blood. He had to be extremely cautious.

At the same time Wu Mengming was racing toward the capital on horseback.

Fu Zonglong followed Zhu Yixun all the way from Dushan in Guizhou into Guangxi territory, changing to a boat at Sicheng Prefecture, sailing downstream along the You River, passing through Tianzhou along the way.

These two prefectures' native chieftains held the greatest power in Guangxi and were notoriously arrogant and overbearing—Fu Zonglong had heard of this as well. Yet when passing through their prefectural cities, he saw only common folk living and working in peace, no native chieftain soldiers running rampant through the streets, no native chieftain troops arrayed in formation outside the city walls, and no sight of chieftains fighting and slaughtering each other.

This made Fu Zonglong click his tongue in wonder.

Moreover, all of Zhu Yixun's fleet flew the Great Xia shield-and-halberd banner, and the native chieftains actually sent people to escort them the entire way.

Upon learning that Zhu Yixun was an envoy of Great Xia, the two native chieftains Cen Yunhan and Cen Maoren even personally came out of the city to escort them, bringing gifts of fruit and pastries, bowing and scraping all the way with extraordinary obsequiousness.

Among native chieftains, strength commanded respect. Previously, Great Xia's poisoning of Pu Mingsheng had already frightened the chieftains considerably, and after a round of admonishment from Lin Qian, they naturally kept their tails between their legs upon returning.

Later came the great victory at Lujiang, where Qin Liangyu annihilated the forty-thousand-strong combined Sha-Pu army, and afterward conquered city after city, recovering Kunming in three months and pacifying Yunnan.

Such terrifying military strength—not to mention compared to the current Ming Dynasty, even compared to Mu Ying's army that conquered Yunnan in the early Ming, it was more than a match.

Especially the two Cen-surnamed chieftains—recalling that at the start of the war with Great Xia, they had specially sent five thousand troops to watch over them, now thinking about it, why would guarding against them require five thousand men?

They clearly intended to wipe the two of them out as well!

Fortunately, the two had read the times wisely; had they shown the slightest sign of movement, they would already be reuniting with Sha Dingzhou in the underworld.

Every time they thought of this, the two chieftains' legs went weak with lingering fear. How could they dare not do their utmost to curry favor now? Even if it meant putting on an act, they had to perform absolute loyalty. Fu Zonglong, dressed in plain clothes, watched from the sidelines the entire time, his face betraying nothing, but a storm was raging in his heart—the native chieftains of Guizhou wouldn't fawn over even him, the Governor-General, like this, let alone an envoy of the Ming.

After leaving the chieftains' territory, the fleet passed Long'an County and soon reached Hejiang Town, where the Zuo River and You River converged, merging into the Yu River.

A great number of flat-bottomed sand boats were plying back and forth on the river, looking extremely prosperous. Around Hejiang Town, common folk were rowing small boats doing business, selling melons, fruits, and vegetables to the ships—one could hardly tell this place was near the front lines.

Continuing onward, near Nanning, large numbers of water wheels appeared. The creaking rotation of the water wheels could be heard from afar, and Fu Zonglong was as stunned as the native chieftains had been months before.

Looking from a distance, one could see each water wheel had its own function—rice husking, flour milling, and timber sawing, with all varieties present.

And most of the sand boats coming and going on the river were carrying either raw materials for these water wheels or their products.

Fu Zonglong was curious in his heart, but since paying respects to the Xia King was of utmost importance, he didn't ask any questions.

The fleet continued until it stopped at the Nanning Prefecture docks. Zhu Yixun sent someone into the city to inquire, and learned that Lin Qian had gone to inspect the mint today.

Zhu Yixun then ordered the fleet to sail downstream along the Yu River. After passing several large bends, the fleet arrived about eight li east of the prefectural seat.

Here, a small stream flowed into the Yu River—the locals called it San'an Creek—and the mint was built at the confluence. Two massive water wheels were highly conspicuous, and the sound of clanging hammering came from within the factory grounds.

Around San'an Creek, many sand boats had already gathered, unloading cargo at the riverside docks—all charcoal and copper ore.

Fu Zonglong followed Zhu Yixun off the boat, watching as Zhu Yixun walked toward the dock, then suddenly clasped his hands in salute to a man and said, "Your Majesty, your servant has fulfilled his mission and brought Governor-General Fu back."

Only then did Fu Zonglong realize that the man inspecting the copper ore before him was the Xia King. He hurriedly clasped his hands and bowed in salute.

Lin Qian brushed the dust from his hands and sized up the man before him.

He saw that Fu Zonglong was past forty, tall and straight of stature, with a swarthy complexion—not at all like a frail scholar, but appearing quite capable and seasoned.

Lin Qian said politely, "Governor-General Fu, you have traveled a long way. You must be weary."

Fu Zonglong repeatedly disclaimed the courtesy, and took the opportunity to praise Lin Qian's achievements in pacifying Yunnan. Then, without waiting for Lin Qian's response, he immediately clasped his hands and said, "Your servant has brought with him on this journey the Guizhou Province garrison charts, mountain pass and strategic point maps, and numerous other classified military documents. Before departing, I also redeployed troops from the border prefectures—Guizhou is now at its most vulnerable. The Garrison Commanders and Prefects of the various prefectures are also all disciples and old associates of mine and Governor-General Zhu's. If we raise our forces into Guizhou now, conquering the entire province would take no more than a month. I beg Your Majesty to order the army to march immediately."

This wasn't Fu Zonglong being eager to prove himself in exchange for a future.

The truth was that his defection to Great Xia would surely shake the Ming court. Once a great inquisition was launched, the officials implicated through him would number in the hundreds or thousands.

Great Xia conquering Guizhou immediately would also be protection for his old subordinates—and even more so, protection for the people of Guizhou.

Having resolved to defect to Great Xia, Fu Zonglong had already committed himself to walking this path to the very end. Naturally, he laid out his entire plan without reservation, and wouldn't engage in the foolishness of first ascertaining whether Lin Qian was a worthy lord before deciding whether to offer his counsel.

For Great Xia, Yunnan had only just been pacified and still needed time to digest and consolidate—most of Qin Liangyu's troops would be difficult to redeploy.

But as the saying goes, "Heaven offers and one does not take—one will suffer the consequences." To miss such a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity to strike would make conquering Guizhou far more difficult in the future, and Fu Zonglong would also become estranged and disaffected.

Even before deciding to accept Fu Zonglong's surrender, the General Staff had already drafted a contingency plan for operations against Guizhou.

Unlike Yunnan, Guizhou had been ravaged by years of the She-An rebel armies and was extremely weakened, requiring correspondingly fewer troops.

The five thousand troops supervising the two Cen chieftains were a ready-made vanguard, and the logistics supply line established in Guangxi for the Yunnan campaign could immediately be rerouted to support the advance into Guizhou.

But before making a decision, Lin Qian still decided to hear Fu Zonglong's views, and so asked, "In your judgment, Governor-General, how many men would be needed to take the entirety of Guizhou?"

Fu Zonglong had pondered this question countless times on the journey here, and now answered without hesitation: "The Guizhou Regional Military Commission administers eighteen guards and twelve battalions, with registered soldiers totaling over thirty-two thousand.

Of these, the majority are garrison farmers, engaged in land reclamation and grain transport—they cannot fight.

The remaining eleven thousand-plus combat troops garrison the prefectural seats, mountain passes, and guard fortresses. Among them, Assistant Regional Commander Leng Tianlu at Loushan Pass and Garrison Commander Wang Chengzu at Sizhou command the largest forces and are the most foolishly loyal..."

As he spoke, Fu Zonglong simply called for Fu Xi to bring a map. It was a Ming military map—compared to those drawn by Great Xia's Military Intelligence Department, the scale was somewhat off and the cartography slightly crude, but the defensive troop numbers and officer names at every camp were marked with great precision.

Fu Zonglong enumerated them like counting family treasures, commenting on every prefecture, county, and mountain pass in Guizhou, and finally concluded: "If Great Xia were to attack Guizhou immediately, your servant is confident he can persuade thirty to forty percent of these men to surrender, and can keep the native chieftains from daring to make any rash moves.

If this can be achieved, Great Xia's campaign against Guizhou would face only about eight thousand actual combat troops, and most of those are stationed in the northeastern part of the province."

Because southern Guizhou bordered Guangxi and held an important position, Fu Zonglong had placed his own men along this defensive line instead.

Fu Zonglong drew a line on the map, running from Dushan Prefecture through Duyun Prefecture and on to Guiyang Prefecture.

"Your Majesty, this entire route is official highway. Your servant came out by this very road. Simply send several thousand elite troops to advance along it, seize Guiyang Prefecture with the speed of thunder, and you can split all of Guizhou into eastern and western halves — the overall situation will be settled!"

Lin Qian smiled faintly. This strategic conception of striking straight at the heart and splitting east from west was extremely clever — even more ingenious than the Army General Staff's method of advancing steadily from west to east.

The drawback was that it carried some risk, but if Dushan, Duyun, and Guiyang could all turn their coats at the front and open their gates to surrender as Fu Zonglong guaranteed, then it would be foolproof.

Lin Qian looked at Fu Zonglong with a smile. A man like this — and yet the Chongzhen Emperor's verdict on him had been "a mediocre minister who ruined the state, deserving death beyond redemption." The Great Ming court truly governed its servants with harsh severity.

Lin Qian ordered his men to saddle horses and return to Nanning. This battle plan would have to be deliberated by the General Staff before it could be executed.

They were only ten li from Nanning. Compared to sailing upstream against the current, riding was still faster.

While Geng Wu was saddling the horses, another sand boat pulled into port. As soon as the gangplank was laid down, boatmen began carrying heavy burlap sacks ashore.

When opened, inside were dark-red metal blocks wrapped in coarse hemp cloth. The blocks were uniform in length and width, about the size of a man's forearm and two fingers thick, shaped like thickened floor tiles.

This substance was copper ingots — that is, roughly smelted copper ore. The surface was still rough, merely crudely melted into this shape for ease of transport.

At the dock, the old steward in charge of receiving goods took out a copper ingot and held it up to the sunlight, grinning from ear to ear as he repeated: "Good, good!" Then he weighed it in his hand and praised: "Mm, the weight is ample too. Truly Qujing ore."

Lin Qian overheard this and could not help asking: "Is there something special about this Qujing ore?"

The steward smiled and said: "Of Yunnan copper, Dongchuan ore is the finest grade, and Qujing ore is mid-grade. Please look, Your Majesty — this copper is dark red and lustrous, with very few blowholes, and it feels heavy in the hand. After smelting, this sort of ore leaves less than twenty percent slag — it's the most suitable for casting coinage!

Now that Yunnan is pacified, we can finally use good ore. If we kept using Guangxi ore, the furnaces would clog up completely."

At this moment, He Kai walked out of the mint carrying a pouch. Hearing this, he laughed and said: "Master Zhang, you can't say that. Weren't we just in trial production before? We did give you top-grade Japanese copper to use, didn't we?"

Master Zhang laughed heartily: "Japanese copper is good, all right — it's just too expensive."

He Kai walked up to Lin Qian, cupped his hands, and said: "Your Majesty, the first batch of coins has been cast."

With that, he opened the pouch, took out several copper coins, and laid them flat on his palm.

Fu Zonglong, Zhu Yixun, and the others also crowded over curiously. In the sunlight, the three copper coins in He Kai's hand gleamed with a warm red glow — round with square holes in the center, stamped on the face with four small regular-script characters: "Zhongxuan Tongbao."

They were perfectly standard plain-backed small cash coins.

Great Xia already had silver coins as legal tender, but for small transactions among the common folk, silver denominations were still too large — copper coinage had to be issued.

The reason it had been delayed until now was, first, to wait for the Yuan coin's value to stabilize, and second, to secure a stable copper source from Yunnan.

China was a copper-poor country. The previous territory of Great Xia produced almost no copper at all — all copper ore had to be imported from Hirado, and the shogunate, having seen this clearly, kept reducing exports.

The small amount of copper that could be imported was barely enough for casting cannons, let alone for minting money.

Now that Yunnan had been taken and a stable copper supply secured, promoting the Zhongxuan Tongbao was simply going with the flow.

Even setting aside the vague slogans of political propaganda, ease of circulation, and economic stimulation, the pure fiscal revenue alone would earn another tidy profit. He Kai said excitedly: "When Great Xia previously issued Yuan coins, it collected seigniorage. But copper coins are made from government-run copper mines — the raw material cost is low, and the labor cost at the hydropowered factories is also low. If run well, the profit margin on a single copper coin could even be higher than issuing silver coins."

Lin Qian picked up a copper coin and toyed with it between his fingertips: "If we want to monopolize the minting profit, we'll also have to crack down on private coinage."

He Kai nodded repeatedly: "Private coinage runs rampant in the Great Ming because the official coins are crude and poor in fineness, easy to counterfeit. Great Xia's coinage uses solid materials and fine workmanship — much harder to imitate."

Lin Qian said: "Compared to silver, copper prices fluctuate greatly and aren't as easy to control as the Yuan coin. Against private minters, we'll have to resort to some administrative measures."

He Kai slapped his thigh, nearly knocking the bag of coins off — after fumbling to catch it, he said: "Now I see why people privately cast copper coins even in the early Ming!"

Listening to Lin Qian and He Kai discoursing at length about bad money driving out good, risk-free arbitrage space, market liquidity gaps, and the like, Fu Zonglong was utterly bewildered. The two were talking about copper coins, speaking Chinese — he understood every single word — so why, when strung together, did he have no idea what they meant? Just as he was in a daze, Geng Wu arrived leading a dozen or so personal guards with saddled horses in tow.

The horses were all quite small, but with sturdy limbs and short downy fur over their bodies — precisely the Yunnan horses transported from Yunnan not long ago, all quality war horses from the Mashìwo Horse Ranch.

The Yunnan horses were the most important spoils of the conquest of Yunnan.

Behind Geng Wu, another person came galloping in on a Yunnan horse — it was Kong Youde. His massive frame on horseback looked somewhat disproportionate, but the Yunnan horse had strong carrying capacity and still moved swiftly under his weight.

Lin Qian called out to Kong Youde: "How are these horses? Serviceable?"

Kong Youde leaped off the horse and shouted back in reply: "Serviceable!"

For a military officer to ride his horse right up close was already a breach of etiquette in the Great Ming, yet Lin Qian paid it no mind at all — which left Fu Zonglong briefly stunned once again.

Lin Qian led a horse over and said to Fu Zonglong with deep meaning: "This is the key to sweeping through Sichuan and Guizhou in the days to come."

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen