Chapter 386: The Way of Governance Is Not Far Off—Fortune for the People

In the following days, Xu Xiake also toured the Civilization University, the Humen Fort, the foreign quarter, and Foshan.

Everything he saw was novel, and each day was busy yet fulfilling.

Earlier, back in his hometown, he had heard that after Great Xia conquered Guizhou, it had utterly wiped out An Bangyan, and that the southwestern chieftains who had caused chaos for over a decade had finally been pacified. So when Xu Xiake came to Guangzhou this time, his original intention was to first explore Lingnan, then turn toward the southwest and tour Yunnan and Guizhou.

He never expected to be trapped at the very first stop.

He stayed in Guangzhou for over ten days straight, finally visiting every place he wanted to see, choosing Yuexiu Mountain as his last stop.

Just as he reached the foot of the mountain, he saw row upon row of bamboo-shed flower markets. Bamboo baskets and wooden basins lined the streets in layers, basket after basket of jasmine piled up like snow, flanked by jasmine, banana shrubs, pearl orchids, and daffodils—their fragrance rushing to meet him.

Vendors carrying flower poles wove through the streets, and sightseers jostled shoulder to shoulder—truly, the people outnumbered the blossoms.

Gu Xing remarked with emotion: "Master, there are so many sightseers in Guangzhou—it seems like every day is New Year's."

A nearby vendor overheard this and chimed in with a smile: "It wasn't this crowded before—isn't it because we won another battle these past few days?" "Ah?" Gu Xing looked bewildered. "Where was another battle won?"

"This time it was Zhejiang. Would you like a look, sir?" The vendor said, handing over a copy of the Nan'ao Times.

Only then did Gu Xing realize the man was a newspaper seller—no wonder he'd been so eager to join the conversation.

Gu Xing glanced at his master, and seeing Xu Xiake nod, he paid for a paper and handed it to him.

Xu Xiake took the newspaper and saw that the front-page headline was the news of the Great Xia New Army's Seventh Division marching into Zhejiang.

The Seventh Division numbered over eighteen thousand five hundred men, commanded by Major General Zhang Moye, and marched from Fuzhou toward Wenzhou on the twenty-third day of the seventh month of the third year of Zhongxuan. Before the First Cavalry Brigade, serving as the vanguard, had even crossed the provincial border, Wenzhou Prefecture surrendered on its own.

By the time the First Cavalry Brigade occupied the prefectural seat of Wenzhou, the neighboring Chuzhou and Taizhou also opened their gates and surrendered one after another.

The speed at which Ming officials and gentry surrendered was far faster than the cavalry brigade's marching speed.

By the paper's press date, Quzhou and Jinhua Prefectures had also submitted their letters of surrender.

The Seventh Division's main force had only just arrived at Wenzhou Prefecture, and yet nearly half of Zhejiang had already abandoned Ming for Xia.

After finishing the paper, Xu Xiake found it absurd. When Great Ming fought its enemies, it was always a back-and-forth tug-of-war, city by city, with heavy casualties.

Great Xia attacking Great Ming was as simple as eating and drinking—it had even taken half a province without a single sword being bloodied.

The contrast was simply too stark.

Xu Xiake's hometown was in Jiangyin, under the jurisdiction of South Zhili, on the southern bank of the Yangtze. At this rate of advance, by the time he finished his travels and returned home, he would probably already be a subject of Great Xia.

It seemed that the fall of Great Ming was already a foregone conclusion.

Xu Xiake had no interest in official careers and cared little for whether Ming or Xia ruled the realm.

He flipped to the back of the paper and saw a notice of crimes of the rebel chieftain An Bangyan.

After Qin Liangyu and Fu Zonglong's armies took Guizhou, they advanced in two columns to suppress him. An Bangyan had no power to resist and could only surrender with his hands bound. After trial, he was sentenced to decapitation and executed publicly in Guiyang Prefecture.

Additionally, after Great Xia captured Wugang Prefecture in Huguang, it seized yet another Ming clansman—the Prince of Min.

The founder of this branch was Zhu Gen, the eighteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, first enfeoffed at Minzhou, later moved to Yunnan, and during the Yongle era re-enfeoffed at Wugang Prefecture in Huguang, where the line had been passed down for over two hundred years.

If the Prince of Jingjiang was foolish, the last Prince of Min, Zhu Qiquan, was extremely cruel. Within his fief, he levied exorbitant taxes, undertook massive construction projects, forcibly seized common women, and treated human life like grass—that was merely his baseline behavior.

He also took pleasure in torture and slaughter, often committing such brutal acts as chopping off people's legs and flaying them alive.

Rumor had it that a pond had been dug in his princely mansion's rear garden, stocked with leeches. He would daily throw chickens, ducks, and livestock into the water for amusement, and whenever he was even slightly displeased, he would toss servants and commoners into the leech pond to be bitten to death alive.

After being captured and interrogated, the Prince of Min confessed to every single crime he had committed, one by one, and in the end was beheaded along with the rest.

Perhaps out of consideration for readers' sensibilities, the paper also vaguely revealed that when the Prince of Min was beheaded, his entire body was drenched, his face utterly bloodless, as if his very soul had fled.

Whether it was from fear, or because he too had taken a swim in the leech pond, could not be known.

Of the nearly eight hundred clansmen in his mansion, over a hundred were beheaded along with him, over three hundred died of forced labor, and the rest were all stripped to commoner status.

The news that an entire direct line of a Prince had been uprooted was, in the page layout, placed below the chieftain's execution—which Xu Xiake found somewhat ironic. Xu Xiake flipped the paper back and forth again, and seeing nothing else of interest, said: "Come, let's climb the mountain."

The day was fair and bright, and Yuexiu Mountain was layered with verdant forests—the scenery was splendid.

The mountain path was thick with sightseers, both men and women, with an open atmosphere. Vendors hawked their wares all along the way, and yamen constables patrolled—busy yet orderly. Master and servant both marveled at it.

When they reached the mountainside, Xu Xiake saw the path suddenly narrow, and a bamboo grove abruptly appeared before them. The grove was extremely dense—neither pleasing to the eye nor easy to see through.

And around the bamboo grove, there were many tourists; nearly everyone who passed by paused for a moment.

Master and servant both found this very strange.

Xu Xiake said: "Let's go take a look."

The two drew near and saw that almost every tourist coming up the mountain carried a wooden stick or branch, and upon reaching the bamboo grove, they stuck it into the ground.

Around the bamboo grove, the ground was densely packed with inserted branches, making the already narrow mountain path even harder to walk on.

Gu Xing asked in great surprise: "Master, are they praying for blessings?"

Xu Xiake had traveled far and wide and seen the different folk customs of many regions. He had indeed seen places where people planted branches to pray for blessings—for instance, around the Taihang and Tai Mountains, there were sayings about "propping the mountain" and "waist-supporting sticks."

But those were mostly among cliffs, where branches were pressed against rock faces or propped under boulders.

Sticking branches beside a bamboo grove was something he was seeing for the first time.

Having already squeezed to the front, Xu Xiake had originally wanted to follow local custom and plant a branch before leaving, but unfortunately the mountain path was completely bare—not a single spare branch to be found—so he had to give up.

Just then, an old man came up the mountain and also planted a branch.

Xu Xiake hurriedly stopped him and inquired: "May I ask, elder, what is the significance of sticking branches around this bamboo grove?"

The old man sized up Xu Xiake and said with a smile: "You're from out of town, aren't you?"

"My ancestral home is in South Zhili—I am indeed traveling through here."

The old man said: "This bamboo grove has a name—it's called the Screen Grove. The 'Screen Grove Shading the Sky,' one of the Three Wonders of Yangcheng, refers to this very place. But the common folk still prefer to call it 'Helmsman Grove.'"

Both master and servant had heard of the Eight Sights of Yangcheng, but the Three Wonders of Yangcheng was something they were hearing for the first time.

"What does it mean?" Gu Xing was completely baffled.

Xu Xiake knew the title of helmsman and said with sudden realization: "Does this grove have something to do with the Xia King?"

The old man smiled and said: "Correct. Back when the Xia King moved the capital here, he did not requisition common homes or build palace halls, but lodged himself in a humble dwelling. The people all felt grateful for his virtue.

Later, when someone heard that this spot could look upon the King's residence, people planted this bamboo grove as a screen for the worthy one—hence the name."

"Really? Which one is the Xia King's residence?" Gu Xing peered toward the city of Guangzhou.

Though the bamboo grove was dense, it did not completely block the view—through the gaps between the branches, the full panorama of Guangzhou was still visible, though the houses all looked nearly identical, with no imposing grand structures to catch the eye.

The old man shook his head: "That I wouldn't know. But ever since then, many common folk have gone up the mountain on their own to plant bamboo.

Bamboo grows fast—before long, it had completely blocked off the mountain path.

Later, the authorities cut down most of the bamboo, leaving only this one spot.

The people couldn't plant bamboo anymore, so they'd stick a single branch in the ground to show their feelings."

Xu Xiake was deeply moved upon hearing this. He clasped his hands and said, "So that's how it is. I've been enlightened."

The old man returned the gesture: "You flatter me."

That evening, back at the inn, Xu Xiake's heart could not settle for a long time. He opened his travel journal and wrote with swift, vigorous strokes.

Finally, he added a lengthy reflection: "………The expansion of territory and the sharpness of arms are but the lesser arts of governance; the abundance of the people's livelihood and the winning of their hearts are its very foundation. King Xia rose from the southern shores and founded a maritime kingdom—he does not prize might but virtue, does not seek to extract but to enrich the people. The common folk revere him as heaven and earth, love him as father and mother—and rightly so. Only today have I come to understand that the way of governance is not far off; it lies simply in the ruler's sincere love for his people.

I record this by candlelight, to spread this rare account, and to count myself fortunate on behalf of these people!"

With the final stroke written, Xu Xiake set down his brush and leafed through the journal of these past ten-odd days—it came to seventy or eighty pages, a thick stack in his hand, and his heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment and gain.

Early the next morning, Gu Xing yawned and asked, "Master, where are we headed today?"

Xu Xiake said, "Back to Jiangyin."

"Ah?" Gu Xing's half-finished yawn froze on his face. "Master, weren't you planning to survey the southwest this time? How…"

Xu Xiake shook his head: "We'll go another time. First, we return home—to welcome the Great Xia army."

The two finished their breakfast, checked out of the inn, and went to the docks to hire a boat heading north.

On the Pearl River, Xu Xiake watched the city of Guangzhou gradually shrink into the distance, feeling deep in his heart that one day he would return.

The sun was high in the sky. Inside the Lin residence, Baikou carried a basin and towel and said, "Why aren't the master and mistress up yet?"

Yueyi said, "The master went south to campaign against the red barbarians and was away for the better part of half a year—it's only right that he rests a while longer.

Besides, the two of them haven't seen each other in a long time, so of course they have much to say. It's a good thing for them to spend time together—you mustn't be foolish and go disturb them." Baikou said indignantly, "I'm not a little girl anymore. I understand exactly what you mean."

Yueyi smiled: "Then go on, tell me—what do I mean?"

Baikou's face flushed red: "It's… it's that they want to…"

Just then, Ranqiu walked in from the courtyard: "Baikou, Yueyi, where is the King? The carriage to Foshan is already…"

"Shh!" The two maids turned around and together pressed a finger to their lips.

Ranqiu was slightly surprised: "Still not up?"

The two maids nodded in unison.

Ranqiu remarked, "The King and his consort are deeply devoted to each other—truly enviable."

At that moment, Geng Wu appeared at the courtyard entrance and said, "Who are you envying?"

Ranqiu turned around: "Guard Commander Geng, why are you here?"

"His Majesty said he left a few design drawings in the study and asked me to fetch them. He also told me to come and call Auntie to board the ship."

"Ah?" Ranqiu looked back at the bedchamber, then turned a less-than-friendly gaze upon Yueyi and Baikou.

Yueyi, in turn, looked at Baikou.

Baikou said guiltily, "I just got up a little late this morning—just a little…"

"You, honestly!" Ranqiu shot Baikou a glare, then said to Geng Wu, "I'll take the Guard Commander to the study."

After Ranqiu left, Yueyi mimicked Ranqiu's tone: "You, honestly!"

Baikou lowered her head: "It must be that the master got up early again…"

While they were bickering, the bedchamber door opened, and the two maids hurried in with towels and basin to attend to their master and mistress.

Ye Zhen was sitting before the dressing table, looking drowsy as if she hadn't fully woken, with a faint, barely perceptible smile at the corner of her lips.

Yueyi helped her wash her face and comb her hair, while Baikou went to make the bed. As soon as she reached the bedside, she saw the bed was already made. Looking more carefully, she whispered, "Oh! Why has the bedsheet been changed to a new one as well?"

Ye Zhen's face flushed slightly.

After a moment more, Baikou noticed something wedged in the gap of the bed and pulled it out—it was a torn undergarment.

Ye Zhen saw it in the bronze mirror, and her pupils instantly dilated in shock. She stammered, "………Sun Sanniang's needlework is getting more and more careless." Sun Sanniang was the Lin household's personal seamstress, who sewed clothing for the women of the household—especially undergarments, all of which came from her hands. Hearing this, Baikou tucked the torn undergarment into her bosom: "I'll go have a word with her right away!"

"Hey!" Ye Zhen panicked, rose, snatched the undergarment back, and sat down again before the dressing table, her face bright red. "No need."

Baikou was puzzled, while Yueyi couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

Ye Zhen said in shame and anger, "Stop laughing!"

On the other side, Ranqiu and Geng Wu retrieved Lin Qian's design drawings, left the residence, boarded the carriage, and arrived in Foshan before noon.

Huo Ying, Fan Di, Mute Huang, Xiao Jiu, Colored-Glass Sun, and others—nearly all of Great Xia's most skilled craftsmen—were waiting there.

Because Fan Di had to oversee the Foshan waterway renovation while also firing glass, Lin Qian had simply moved the entire Great Xia glass workshop to Foshan as well. After all, the previous glass workshop in Zhangzhou was more like a laboratory than a workshop—it had only a few furnaces and not many personnel, so the move was no trouble at all.

After getting out of the carriage, Lin Qian greeted each of them in turn, and finally said to Fan Di, "Are you finding life in Great Xia to your liking?"

Fan Di rubbed his hands together: "The people here are friendly, the food is refined, the city is pleasant, and even the climate is good—four seasons in a year. It's wonderful, much closer to Amsterdam than Batavia. Yes, yes.

Of course, I don't mean to say Foshan is inferior to Amsterdam… in fact, Foshan is more…"

Lin Qian smiled and cut him off: "Come on, let's go see your glass workshop first."

Fan Di led the way, with Lin Qian and the others following behind. As they walked, Lin Qian asked Colored-Glass Sun, "Have you learned the art of glassmaking?" Colored-Glass Sun was a craftsman from the Ming imperial glassworks who, after being recruited by Great Xia, had been diligently studying glass technology without ever achieving a breakthrough.

Two years earlier, when Lin Qian had inspected the Zhangzhou glass workshop, he had mentioned bringing in a Dutch glass craftsman to provide guidance on glassmaking.

At the time, Colored-Glass Sun hadn't taken it seriously—who would have thought that His Majesty, in order to recruit glass artisans, would go so far as to wipe out the Dutchmen's stronghold?

Now Colored-Glass Sun was completely convinced. Upon hearing this, he said, "The Zhangzhou glassworks was stuck on two secret ingredients—pyrolusite and white arsenic. Now that I've memorized the amounts of both, reproducing it won't be a problem."

Perhaps afraid that Lin Qian would kill the donkey once it finished milling, Colored-Glass Sun added, "It's just that our plant ash isn't alkaline enough, and the river sand isn't pure either—the glass we fire tends to come out greenish and brittle. As for how to purify them, this old man and Master Fan are still working on it."

"Mm, let's first look at the current finished products."

As Lin Qian spoke, they had already arrived at the glass workshop. Its internal layout was nearly identical to the one in Batavia, except the furnaces were somewhat smaller.

The refractory materials for the Foshan tower furnaces were now sufficient to build glass-firing furnaces, but just drying the kiln would take half a month, and the total construction period would be at least one to two months—this small furnace was a stopgap for the meantime.

Fan Di pointed at a single-tube telescope on the workbench.

"This is the masterpiece of the Foshan Glass Smelting Workshop—a work that fuses the techniques of two nations."

Lin Qian took it, slightly surprised: "A finished product this quickly?"

A telescope is a combination of several convex and concave lenses; the focal lengths of the objective and eyepiece must be strictly matched, and the optical axes of the multiple lenses must be perfectly coaxial to form a clear image—far more difficult than a simple magnifying glass.

He hadn't expected Fan Di to have a finished product just half a month after arriving in Great Xia.

Fan Di rubbed his hands together: "Making the glass itself is not difficult—what's difficult is grinding it. Master Sun is the finest cold-worker I have ever seen. I dare say that even in the Amsterdam glass guild, Master Sun would rank among the top cold-work masters. Yes, yes."

Hearing the interpreter's translation, Glassmaker Sun couldn't help straightening his back. Since coming to Great Xia, his glass research had made no progress for a long time, grinding away the pride of a grand master—only today had he found it again.

Fan Di then launched into an endless stream of praise for Glassmaker Sun's cold-grinding technique.

In Europe, those who fire glass are called blowers, and those who grind glass are called cold-workers—these two trades truly require skill.

By comparison, how much of each ingredient to add is like a window-pane of paper—once you know it, you know it.

Great Xia was exactly the opposite: Glassmaker Sun could rack his brains and still fail to fire a qualified glass blank, so he could only pour his efforts into grinding and polishing.

And China's traditional handicraft industry had over a thousand years of accumulated jade and crystal grinding experience—the technical logic of abrasive sand application, wheel-tool shape control, and soft-material polishing was entirely shared with glass lens grinding.

Long before making glass telescopes himself, Glassmaker Sun had already ground over a hundred glass telescopes, plus more than a dozen crystal ones. Though the glass telescopes had no practical use and the crystal telescopes couldn't be mass-produced, his grinding skill grew ever more refined.

When grinding this self-made glass telescope, Glassmaker Sun's virtuoso techniques—no chipping on the down-grind, hand substituting for calipers in measurement, and verifying form by light and shadow—came out in rapid succession, leaving Fan Di utterly dumbstruck.

This craft was honed from decades of deep research into glass—controlling material, controlling form, controlling force. Even if Fan Di were allowed to watch openly, he still couldn't learn it; all that remained was admiration and awe.

Lin Qian said with a smile: "Then let's give it a try."

Glassmaker Sun presented it with both hands: "Your Majesty, please."

Lin Qian took it. The telescope was exactly the same size and form as a Dutch telescope. Its casing was made of pine, without any ornamentation, carefully polished all over—no splinters, not rough to the touch—and coated with wood oil. The detailing was excellent.

Lin Qian raised the telescope to his eye and looked toward a distant mountain peak. In the center of the field of view, the trees were visible in perfect detail. He then looked at the river surface—even the stitching of a nearby sail was clear. The image sharpness was very high, even clearer than the hawksbill-shell telescope Lin Qian had swiped from Fat An in Macao.

Only the chromatic aberration was severe—the glass was blue-green, making clouds look dark and faces look waxy yellow.

This was the problem of glass firing itself. As Glassmaker Sun had said, the materials around Great Xia—whether plant ash or river sand—were insufficient in purity, so the fired glass naturally bore flaws.

Lin Qian vaguely remembered that Venetian glass achieved high transparency precisely because of its insanely strict, extreme demands on raw materials.

If Great Xia wanted to produce glass of equal transparency, it would still need to research material purification techniques.

But this minor flaw didn't affect mass production. At this telescope's level, it was more than sufficient for military use—and for equipping beacon towers, it was more than ample. So Lin Qian set down the telescope and said: "Ranqiu, make a note. Go back and tell the Engineering Construction Directorate that the beacon towers on the Guangzhou–Nanchang line and the Guilin–Guiyang line can begin construction."

"Understood." Ranqiu pulled out paper and pen and recorded it in her notebook.

Lin Qian set down the telescope and said to Huo Ying: "Master Huo, the minke whale oil the fleet brought back earlier—has it been used? How does it compare to beef tallow and lard?" Huo Ying had been barely containing himself; seeing that his turn had finally come, he hurriedly led the way toward the machine-tool courtyard, saying along the road: "Whale oil clings to the gears and forms little gum. Beef tallow and lard simply can't compare to whale oil.

Also, whale-oil lamps burn very brightly—the craftsmen have been working much faster at night."

As they spoke, the group had already arrived outside the machine-tool courtyard. The piercing sound of boring and cutting came from within, and that nauseating rancid smell of grease had already faded to very faint. Huo Ying invited Lin Qian inside to look, but Lin Qian declined with a wave of his hand.

Huo Ying then said: "It's noisy here. Your Majesty might prefer a stroll by the river. The new workshop of the Foshan Glassworks is sited on the waterway west of the city." Lin Qian said: "Lead the way."

The group walked out of Foshan and headed west. On an open stretch of land beside a branch channel of the Fen River, construction was in full swing—earth and stone half-finished, wooden frames just erected, the layout already basically clear. The smoke of industry had yet to rise, but everywhere there was the din of ramming earth, chiseling stone, and raising timber.

In the river, a half-person-high stone weir split off a branch channel. Both banks were lined with dressed red sandstone blocks forming the canal walls, and the canal mouth was fitted with sluice gates to control the inflow.

The water level drop in the Pearl River Delta rivers was small, so the craftsmen used this water-confinement method to provide power for the waterwheels.

Judging by the form of the sluice gates, they bore considerable resemblance to the sluice dams of Batavia.

Huo Ying said: "These two water gates were built with Master Fan's help."

On the bank, there was also a large gear over two zhang in diameter, laid flat on the ground with all its teeth pointing upward, and beside it a lantern gear. This was a transmission structure modeled on Dutch windmills—laid flat on the ground, meaning it was meant to be driven by oxen or horses.

This new workshop site used a hybrid of water power and animal power.

Huo Ying explained: "Once this workshop complex is finished, it can drive five boring machines, twenty lathes, and twenty milling machines. The rough forging can also be moved here—the city will henceforth handle only smelting, puddling, and fine forging."

Huo Ying led Lin Qian along the river, introducing the various sections of the new workshop.

"Closest to the bank are eight waterwheels and drive shafts, with three-stage transmission—the power can supply the entire workshop.

Right next to that is the rough-forging yard, with twenty-four water-powered forging hammers. The forging furnaces and quenching pools are all clustered together—blanks come out and go straight to the next process…"

After introducing things nonstop for nearly an hour, Huo Ying shifted tack: "Only, all these mechanisms need lubrication—the future consumption of whale oil will likely be considerable…" Lin Qian said: "So that's where this was heading. Very well—I came to Foshan this time precisely to solve the whale-oil problem. Ranqiu, bring out Drawing No. 6."

"Yes." Ranqiu called over an attendant, who was carrying a cowhide drawing tube. She selected No. 6 from it and unrolled it.

Huo Ying said: "It's windy outside—better to look at it indoors."

Lin Qian said: "Fine."

The group entered a work shed. The drawing was spread on the table, and an attendant used paperweights to hold down its four corners. The ink-outlined form of a great vessel immediately revealed itself. The ship was ten zhang long, two zhang five chi in beam, with thirteen watertight bulkheads in the lower hold. The hull was of the sharp-bottomed Guangdong junk form, with three masts, and the rigging was soft sails paired with triangular sails.

A whaling ship had to operate on the open ocean, and to chase whales it also had to be nimble, fast, and sturdy.

The Chinese Guangdong junk structure was solid and not prone to sinking, with high safety; soft sails paired with triangular sails could effectively increase speed while reducing deadweight. A whaling platform extended three chi forward from the stern, and the port side was fitted with three heavy winches capable of hoisting caught whales onto the deck.

The ship's sterncastle occupied little space, and the main deck was flat and straight—the entire aft deck was the oil-rendering area, laid out with eight cast-iron oil-rendering cauldrons, the bottoms of which were fully paved with refractory brick, surrounded by three-chi-high iron-sheet guard walls.

With this arrangement, fresh whale blubber could be cut and rendered immediately, with the oil flowing straight into barrels for sealed storage in the cargo hold.

At the same time, the watertight bulkhead compartment design could separate the pickled-meat hold, the bone-and-offal hold, and the oil-storage hold so they wouldn't contaminate one another.

By endurance design, with a full load of supplies, it could remain at sea for three months without needing to put into port.

Mute Huang and his apprentice bent over the drawing, their eyes tracing from keel to bulkheads all the way down. Only after a long while did they straighten up and exchange hand-sign conversation. Xiao Jiu said: "This ship has extremely high demands on the strength of the stern and deck, and also needs fireproofing, leak-proofing, and rot-proofing. Converting an old ship wouldn't be worth the cost—it truly needs to be newly built.

In recent years, quite a lot of ironwood has been shipped up from Guangxi, so timber isn't a problem. The hull follows the sharp-bottomed Guangdong junk approach, with little change to the overall structure—it won't be hard to build. There shouldn't be any problem."

Lin Qian said: "This ship is mainly for catching large whales like right whales and gray whales, so the design needs to be careful. After you take the drawing back to Nan'ao Island, first make a scaled model, then consult with the former Tanka people who have whaling experience—don't rush things."

Xiao Jiu flattered: "Your Majesty is most wise."

Just as Lin Qian was speaking, a personal guard entered from outside. Seeing that Lin Qian was in the middle of speaking, he didn't want to interrupt, so he called Geng Wu out of the room—it seemed to be something urgent.

A few steps out of the room, Geng Wu asked in a low voice: "What's happened?"

The guard handed over an official document: "Guard Commander, General Staff just received a battle report—five days ago, Lu Xiangsheng led five thousand Heavenly Hero Army troops across the Yangtze River."

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen