Chapter 388: Lu Xiangsheng Reforms Jiangnan, the Great Ming Empire Hangs by a Thread

On the twenty-first day of the eighth month in the third year of Zhongxuan, the Governor of Hangzhou hastily scraped together a thousand-man relief force, led by the Ningbo Mobile Corps General, heading south to reinforce Taizhou. The intent was to strike where the enemy was weak, cutting off the Great Xia army's supply lines—but instead they ran into Huang Hetai's garrison troops north of the eunuch faction Mountain.

The battle lasted barely an hour. The garrison troops fired only three or four volleys before the thousand-odd Ming soldiers collapsed in utter rout. The Ningbo Mobile Corps General was shot dead, and the rest fled into the mountains, vanishing without a trace.

This was still the first thousand-man-scale battle between Ming and Xia since the Seventh Division entered Zhejiang.

When word spread to Taizhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Hangzhou and elsewhere, it stirred an immediate uproar.

Officials and gentry at every level in Zhejiang had long been deeply afraid of Great Xia; this disastrous field defeat confirmed their suspicions, and suddenly both officialdom and the common folk were scheming over how to switch allegiance.

Hearing that the Great Xia army's banners were dark red, shops and commoners alike rushed to buy red cloth—so much so that every tailor shop sold out of red fabric, and even the safflower and madder used for dyeing red cloth soared in price.

The Ningbo prefectural office had nearly ground to a halt. The Prefect sat frowning as he wrote a letter of surrender, while his private secretary ground ink beside him, helping polish the wording.

The secretary had been hired by the Prefect from Shaoxing. Well-versed in criminal law and fiscal matters, he was the Prefect's personal brain trust—the sort of man who in the Qing dynasty would be called a shiye.

After writing only a few characters, the Prefect let out a long sigh: "If I defect to Great Xia, I wonder what office they'd give me? I hear Great Xia treats Ming defectors with great harshness—is that true or false?"

The secretary swept the ground ink into the inkstone pool and urged: "Your Honor, at a time like this, preserving your life is what matters most.

Whether Great Xia punishes captives depends on whether they've harmed the common people's lives.

If Your Honor does not offer surrender, once Great Xia breaches the city walls, I fear——"

The Prefect shuddered, picked up his brush, and continued writing, cursing as he did: "When you govern a region, how can every matter be clean?

There are always misjudgments, wrong calls—what does it matter if one or two lives are lost? Setting up rules like that, putting on a sanctimonious show—disgusting!"

The secretary sighed: "Alas! Your Honor, circumstances are stronger than men. Just write."

The Prefect wrote as he spoke: "Those Jiangnan gentry in Wenzhou and Chuzhou—they've surrendered too? Once Great Xia came, didn't their tax exemptions disappear as well?"

The secretary said: "Survival matters most. Survival matters most."

The Prefect let out another long sigh. Just then, a commotion arose in the front hall of the prefectural office, with faint sounds of scuffling. Moments later, the fighting grew louder, advancing all the way toward the rear hall.

The Prefect rose to peer out, his expression panicked: "What's going on? G-G-Great——has the Great Xia army broken in this fast?"

The secretary was about to push open the window to look when someone in the rear courtyard shouted: "By order of Governor Lu! Prefect Zhao Bai, receive the warrant!"

Inside the room, Prefect Zhao's heart seized with panic, his mind going blank. He thought to himself: "The Great Xia army hasn't even arrived—how has the Governor-General come first?

Wasn't Lu Xiangsheng trapped north of the Yangtze? When did he cross the river? Could this be an impostor?"

The secretary cracked open the window a sliver and saw five or six fully armored soldiers standing in the rear courtyard—each broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with fierce bearing. All were unfamiliar faces, speaking with northern accents. His heart jumped, and he hurriedly said: "Your Honor, the letter—the letter——"

A voice came from outside the hall: "There it is!"

The next moment, the study door was slammed open, and several armored soldiers entered.

The Prefect was about to throw the surrender letter into the fire when the leading officer, quick of eye and hand, snatched it away.

The officer glanced at the letter and laughed: "Oh ho, the Prefect here means to defect to the enemy?"

Prefect Zhao trembled all over, blustering with false bravado: "How dare you! Who are you people, barging into the rear hall of the prefectural office? Lawless!"

The lead officer produced the Governor-General's warrant tablet, the vermilion seal of the Governor-General's office clearly visible at the signature.

"I am Dong Yongwen, Mobile Corps officer of the Tianxiong Army. By order of His Excellency the Governor, I invite Prefect Zhao to Hangzhou to jointly discuss matters of resisting the foe. All affairs of the prefectural office shall be temporarily handled by the Vice Prefect. Please."

The so-called "second office" referred to the Ningbo Vice Prefect—the number two man in the prefectural government.

Prefect Zhao said: "With a great enemy at the gates, how can I abandon my post? You—you——

His face flushed red with strain as he struggled like a beast at bay, but the Tianxiong soldiers seized him from left and right.

"Hey! What are you doing? Let go! How dare you!"

Seeing the situation turn bad, the Prefect's secretary was edging toward a corner when Dong Yongwen called him over with a smile, waving the surrender letter: "You come along too. When His Excellency asks about this item, you can bear witness."

Under the astonished gazes of the entire prefectural staff, the Prefect and his secretary were led out of the office, bound onto horses, and galloped out of the city toward the northwest.

A day and a night later, Prefect Zhao arrived in Hangzhou and was escorted to the gates of the Provincial Administration Commission yamen.

The place was ringed with crowds several layers deep—the outermost commoners, then military officers, and in the innermost circle, gentry, clan elders, and high provincial officials.

A grand armchair sat before the gates. A fair-skinned young official sat in it sipping tea. From his official robes, it could only be Lu Xiangsheng himself.

Prefect Zhao was untied and pushed forward. He swept his gaze around and saw that the Prefects of Shaoxing, Yanzhou, Jinhua, Huzhou, Jiaxing and other neighboring prefectures were all present. His heart settled somewhat.

After all, the law cannot punish the many. No matter how young and hot-blooded Lu Xiangsheng was, he couldn't possibly behead this many prefects all at once.

After a long wait, Lu Xiangsheng set down his teacup and said in a slow voice: "Bring them up!"

Moments later, Tianxiong soldiers pushed more than ten men forward. All were bound hand and foot, weeping bitterly and begging for mercy at the top of their lungs.

Prefect Zhao glanced over them—mostly Centurions, Chiliarchs, and Guard Commanders from the guard stations of the two provinces of Zhejiang and Zhili, along with several County Magistrates——

Even the Prefect of Taizhou Prefecture was among them.

Prefect Zhao's gaze sharpened. Rumor had it that Taizhou Prefecture had already defected, though the Great Xia army had yet to move in. For Lu Xiangsheng to have captured this man—he truly had remarkable reach.

"I, this Governor, hold the imperial mandate to command military and civil affairs in Zhejiang and Zhili. Since entering this territory, I have found that you secretly dispatched trusted agents to communicate with the enemy, spread talk of surrender, and disrupt military morale—crimes unforgivable. Today, bearing the Imperial Sword by decree, I shall execute you according to law. Do you have anything to say?"

Among the dozen-odd men, some cried out for justice and mercy, some cursed at the top of their lungs, and some stood pale-faced, silent.

Lu Xiangsheng stared coldly at the crowd for a long while. Gradually, their voices faded until only unbroken sobbing remained.

"Chop them." Lu Xiangsheng waved his hand. The executioners' blades fell, and a dozen heads hit the ground, neck blood spraying, splattering the robes of the high officials nearby.

A streak of blood splashed onto Prefect Zhao's face, making his body jerk with fright.

Prefect Zhao stared blankly at the rolling heads for a long time, feeling a chill at his own neck. He stole a glance up at Lu Xiangsheng.

And saw Lu Xiangsheng's cold gaze shooting back at him.

Prefect Zhao hastily lowered his head, breaking out in a cold sweat of terror, feeling his back soaked through.

After a long silence, Lu Xiangsheng spoke slowly: "Among you as well, there are those who have secretly communicated with the enemy—this Governor has already identified them. Today the chief culprits have been executed; those coerced into following shall not be pursued. Your heads are merely on loan atop your necks. If any of you dare secretly collude again, or fail to fight the enemy with all your might, your families will be wiped out and your clans exterminated before your very eyes. Do not say you were not warned."

Before the Provincial Administration Commission yamen, all was silent as death.

Lu Xiangsheng raised his voice slightly: "Have you all heard clearly?"

"Heard clearly." The assembled officials answered in a scattered chorus.

"Dinghai Regional Commander Wang Zhiren, Jingkou Vice Regional Commander Huang Fei, Nanjing Capital Camps Regional Commander Tang Guozuo——" Lu Xiangsheng called out a dozen-odd names in succession, all mid-to-high-ranking generals of the Zhejiang-Zhili military.

Each time a name was called, a military officer stepped forward, clasped his fists, and said: "Your subordinate is here!"

There were too many people around, and the open ground was covered in fresh blood. When the military officers stepped forward, they could only stand in the pool of blood, their boots splashing bloody water in all directions—a bizarre and horrifying sight.

Lu Xiangsheng said, "This court has investigated and found that your troops have suffered arrears in pay since the first year of Chongzhen. I now order you to first repay three months' worth.

As soon as he finished speaking, soldiers of the Tianxiong Army came forward carrying heavy chests of silver, all confiscated from the homes of local gentry who had intended to surrender to Great Xia.

"This court will send officers and men under my command to accompany the pay distribution. Should anyone embezzle or misappropriate funds, they will be executed without mercy."

Those generals answered in unison, "Your subordinates obey the order."

Lu Xiangsheng then looked left and right and declared in a loud voice, "Of late, many among the local gentry have defected to the enemy. Do you not know that your concealed lands and unpaid taxes can be hidden no longer? Do you not want your tax exemptions and salt certificates anymore?"

At these words, the gathered gentry immediately broke into heated discussion.

Lu Xiangsheng reached out a hand, and a subordinate handed him a small booklet, bearing the title "Tax Law" on its cover—it was the full text of the new tax law just implemented by Great Xia.

It contained provisions and principles such as abolishing tax exemptions, surveying and measuring farmland, bearing burdens according to capacity, and substantive taxation.

Lu Xiangsheng picked out several main clauses and read them aloud, then handed the tax law booklet to his men, who passed it around among the gentry for perusal.

Tax-exempt privilege was the very lifeblood of these Jiangnan literati. Every extra li of tax the court collected felt to them like having their tendons pulled and skin flayed.

Now that Great Xia wanted to abolish exemptions and survey the land—how could that be tolerated?

And what of "bearing burdens according to capacity" and "substantive taxation"? Though phrased obscurely, which literatus could not hear what it really meant—that exemptions were to be completely abolished?

Within Great Xia's current territory, the Jiangxi literati had originally been the most powerful, but after Jiangxi suffered the slave rebellion and the great clans were slaughtered in droves, they no longer had the strength to make trouble and could only resign themselves to their fate.

But making the Zhejiang-Zhili literati accept their fate—that was impossible.

Zhejiang-Zhili was wealthy, and its exploitation of tenant farmers was not as harsh as Jiangxi's, but when it came to resisting taxes, if they claimed second place, no other province would dare claim first.

As long as they could preserve their privileges, these literati cared not what price they paid. During the Southern Ming, they could even collude with the Manchus to fight the peasant armies—the so-called "allying with the barbarians to pacify the rebels."

If they could cast aside the great righteousness of state and family so easily, then jumping back and forth between Ming and Xia was nothing at all.

Thus, after reading Great Xia's tax law, these gentry immediately united in common hatred against the enemy.

Many among them were not unaware of Great Xia's tax policies, but Great Xia's offensive was ferocious and the Ming army had been utterly routed—they had no choice.

Now that the orthodox Zhejiang-Zhili governor of the Great Ming had taken up residence in Hangzhou, the gentry naturally switched their allegiance to support him.

Lu Xiangsheng continued, "The bandit army selects its officials with extreme rigor, governs its clerks with utmost severity, and has even privately opened the civil examinations to promote talent on its own—it lacks no capable ministers or competent officials. Most Ming officials who surrendered have been cast aside unused. If any of you harbor thoughts of changing allegiance and seeking glory by surrendering to the bandits, you had best abandon that notion now."

At these words, Prefect Zhao's inclination to surrender also faded.

Even if he died defending the city, he would gain a reputation for honor. Surrendering to Great Xia would gain him nothing but the preservation of his life.

Seeing that the crowd's will to resist had been roused, Lu Xiangsheng shifted his tone and said, "My ancestral home is in Yixing—I too am a man of Jiangnan. When I crossed the river this time, I had already cast aside all thought of life or death. Either I drive back the enemy, or I am buried in my native soil!

Today I openly establish rewards and punishments with you all: those who faithfully perform their duty in defending their territory shall be reported by this court to the imperial government for promotion in rank and title; those who die for their honor when the city falls shall be granted posthumous office and hereditary privilege for their descendants; those who abandon the city and flee first shall be executed by military law; those who hold troops but refuse to move shall be stripped of office and sent to the army as conscripts.

Now that these words have been spoken, any who violate these orders will receive no leniency whatsoever.

Zhejiang-Zhili is wealthy, our soldiers are elite and our grain sufficient. So long as we unite our strength and stand as one, why worry that the bandits cannot be broken and our homeland cannot be secured?

Xiangsheng will stake his very life and family to advance and retreat together with you all—I entreat you!"

Having said this, Lu Xiangsheng bowed in salute, bending all the way to the ground in a deep formal bow. The people around him all clasped their hands and returned the salute, and there were even faint sobs of emotion.

After rising, Lu Xiangsheng ordered the crowd dispersed and had these words posted as a public notice, while also ordering the provincial and prefectural officials present to enter for detailed discussion of defense matters.

When everyone had gathered in the main hall and the doors were shut, Lu Xiangsheng clasped his hands and bowed to the assembled officials: "Just now outside the prefectural office, before the eyes of the entire city's soldiers and civilians, this court executed men to establish authority and alarmed you gentlemen. This court offers his sincere apologies."

Whether sincere or feigned, the officials felt much better hearing these words and returned the salute one after another. The hall soon resumed the harmonious atmosphere of officialdom.

Lu Xiangsheng assigned tasks to each official one by one, and with unified authority, everyone agreed readily.

The next day, military pay was dispatched from Hangzhou Prefecture according to Lu Xiangsheng's orders, and the Zhejiang troops stationed near Hangzhou received their pay first.

The entire pay distribution process was overseen by the Tianxiong Army to ensure the silver reached the common soldiers.

After receiving their silver, the Zhejiang soldiers knelt and kowtowed in gratitude, thanking the Governor in their words.

In the days that followed, the atmosphere across all of Zhejiang was cleansed, and both civil and military officials actively prepared for war.

Lu Xiangsheng integrated the Zhejiang guard station troops and camp soldiers, and scattered the pacified Chanping Army recruits among them, ultimately assembling an army of thirty thousand.

Counting the Tianxiong Army he had brought across the river, the total came to over thirty-five thousand men.

Lu Xiangsheng deployed these soldiers along the Guanling Pass line in the remaining ridges of the Tiantai Mountains, north of Taizhou Prefecture.

Guanling, also known as Tiger Wolf Pass, was the commanding height of the main road leading north from Taizhou to Shaoxing and Hangzhou. After Great Xia's army occupied Taizhou, if it wanted to advance on northern Zhejiang and then attack the Southern Zhili, this was the only main route—the mountain paths could only accommodate small detachments, and heavy cannon, grain, and baggage trains could not be transported through them.

The mountain slopes on both sides of Guanling were steep and precipitous—a classic pass where "one man can hold the gate against ten thousand"—extremely easy to defend and difficult to attack.

If Great Xia wanted to bypass Guanling, it could only take the western Zhejiang route, which meant going around Dapen Mountain and Xiandu Mountain, adding over three hundred li to the journey, doubling the time required, and leaving them highly vulnerable to a pincer attack on their return.

So in the western Zhejiang direction, Lu Xiangsheng only deployed secondary forces along the Jinhua and Yanzhou line, focused mainly on delaying and early warning.

Lu Xiangsheng himself governed his army with extreme strictness, handling everything personally and sharing hardships with his soldiers. The Tianxiong Army was also bound by clan and native-place ties—equivalent to a top-tier famous general commanding elite death-defying troops holding a natural fortress.

With these three factors stacked together, they actually managed to hold back the Seventh Division's northward offensive. By the end of the eighth month, the two sides were locked in a standoff along the Tiantai Mountains.

But no matter what arrangements were made on land, the Great Ming's southeastern coastal defense remained hollow. Great Xia could land from the sea at any time and cut off the rear of the Guanling defense line.

For the Great Ming, this battle was ultimately doomed. Even Lu Xiangsheng, faced with absolute superiority in strength, was at his wit's end.

He could only use the methods employed decades earlier against the wokou pirates—setting up early warning systems along the coast, while blocking harbors, clearing the countryside, and reinforcing coastal defenses.

At the same time, he continuously submitted memorials, begging the court to send the Denglai naval forces as reinforcements.

Even if the Denglai navy could not defeat Great Xia's fleet, as long as they could transport another ten thousand Tianxiong Army troops from north of the river, this battle would become much easier to fight.

While Lu Xiangsheng's memorial was being delivered to the capital, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's forces were also locked in a standoff with Hong Chengchou at Xi'an.

After Great Xia captured Jiangxi, the north-south grain transport via the Grand Canal became increasingly obstructed. Combined with Luo Dagu's blockade of the Yangtze in the first half of the year, and Great Xia's capture of much of southern Sichuan and southwestern Huguang, the grain of those two provinces had to be prioritized for their own defense against Xia forces.

The grain that could be shipped north along the canal grew less and less, until it nearly reached the point of complete severance.

Adding insult to injury, since the first month of the third year of Zhongxuan, for over half a year now, not a single drop of rain had fallen over northern Shaanxi and the Guanzhong region. The entire area suffered severe drought—a thousand li of scorched earth, wells and springs dried up, winter wheat withered and died, and spring planting was impossible.

Shanxi had no major disaster of its own, but with Shaanxi famine refugees flooding in, it gradually devolved into man-made calamity.

In the sixth month, the Yellow River breached its banks at Mengjin, flooding hundreds of li of Henan, while the Northern Zhili suffered wind damage and frost.

The entire region north of the Yangtze could be said to have reached the extreme of misery—especially northern Shaanxi, where over a dozen prefectures and counties had reached a state of not a single grain of food remaining.

Let alone the common people—even the Qin Army under Hong Chengchou's command frequently ran out of food, and many died of hunger and cold.

The common people who could no longer survive and the border troops all defected to Li and Zhang, causing the two men's forces to swell wildly within a matter of months.

By the end of the sixth month, Li Zicheng had gathered two hundred thousand men under his command, Zhang Xianzhong also had one hundred thousand, and the remaining small rebel bands were too numerous to count.

Hong Chengchou's memorial to the court stating that "the people have all become bandits" was by no means empty words.

Because the army was truly short of grain, in early June Hong Chengchou ordered Cao Wenzhao to lead three thousand cavalry east into Shanxi—nominally to pursue and suppress Li Zicheng, but in reality to requisition food from the princes and gentry of southern Shanxi; to put it bluntly, to forcibly seize grain supplies.

Li Zicheng learned of this news and set up ambushes along his route to lure the enemy in; Cao Wenzhao, relying on his courage and underestimating the enemy, led his light cavalry in pursuit and charged headlong into Li Zicheng's ambush circle.

Cao Wenzhao led his troops in repeated charges to no avail; his men suffered heavy casualties, and he himself was wounded several times. Unwilling to be captured and humiliated, he drew his blade and cut his own throat—the Qin army's only mobile elite force was utterly annihilated.

Hong Chengchou no longer had any means to contain the peasant army.

Li and Zhang's forces then merged and advanced eastward, pressing toward Xi'an. Hong Chengchou, driven by more than a dozen imperial edicts from Chongzhen, was compelled to give battle.

In the end, the two armies faced off across the Luochuan plateau north of Xi'an.

At this time Hong Chengchou's Qin army had fewer than one hundred thousand men, short on grain and pay, while the peasant army totaled nearly three to four hundred thousand—the situation was extremely precarious.

If Hong Chengchou fell, the Great Ming would lose the entire northwest.

If Lu Xiangsheng fell, the Great Ming would lose the entire Jiangnan.

If both battles were lost, then the Great Ming would be utterly and irredeemably doomed.

The Chongzhen Emperor had never imagined that in barely half a year, the situation would deteriorate to such a state.

He had cut his own clothing and food expenditures again and again, to the point of eating only one meal a day and wearing no new clothes—yet still he could not turn the tide.

The only way to break the deadlock he could think of now was to negotiate peace with the Jianzhou barbarians and transfer the Guanning army south.

No one was willing to undertake such a task that would earn eternal infamy; Wen Tiren pushed it back and forth, and in the end it was pushed onto the head of Minister of War Chen Xinjia.

The peace talks were not going smoothly either. According to Chen Xinjia, the Jianzhou barbarians were stockpiling grain and fodder, seemingly planning to raid through the passes again once winter arrived. The negotiations made no progress whatsoever, and instead the Guanning army kept sending urgent requests for reinforcements.

For a time, Liaodong demanded reinforcements, the northwest demanded reinforcements, and Jiangnan demanded reinforcements.

Deep within the palace, Chongzhen felt utterly powerless as he reviewed memorials.

Before him lay a memorial from Lu Xiangsheng, Governor-General of Zhejiang and Zhili, requesting the transfer of the Denglai naval forces south to assist—which was even more impossible.

The Denglai navy was responsible for protecting the Bohai Bay and resisting the rebel Mao Wenlong. If it were easily transferred south, would that not be equivalent to handing the capital region over on a silver platter?

Chongzhen could only reject every request outright, then furiously write, desperately urging his generals to fight.

Xiamen civilian shipyard.

Lin Qian walked along the shore; before him stood ten slipways, with ten seagoing vessels of six to seven hundred tons under construction.

The ships were at different stages of construction—the fastest already had its upper decks being built, while the slowest had only just assembled its keel.

The shipyard manager, Old Fei, followed behind Lin Qian and introduced: "Your Majesty, of these ten ships, five are ordered by the Navy Department, three by the Engineering Construction Directorate, and the remaining two whale ships are private orders—"

Lin Qian grew interested: "Who ordered them?"

"One is the Hu family of Chenghai County, and the other is the Shi family of Palembang."

The Hu family was Hu Zhaoyuan's clan—this man had been Lin Qian's earliest front man, and later became the distributor of deer products from Dongning Island.

He could also be counted as an elder of Great Xia. He hadn't gained any political benefits, but he had made money hand over fist, and was now the richest man in eastern Guangdong.

The Shi family were descendants of the Palembang Pacification Commission; during the Battle of Malacca, they had provided supplies and rendered merit in helping Lin Qian recover Palembang.

After joining Great Xia, they made a fortune through the pepper trade of Sumatra Island.

Now that Java and the Spice Islands had fallen under Great Xia's control, the Shi family placed their orders early, preparing to expand their shipping capacity.

Besides whale ships, the tonnage of Guangdong junks and Fujian junks launched in recent years had also surged dramatically. The Customs Administration was overwhelmed and expanded its workforce massively every year, with tariff revenue skyrocketing.

Within Great Xia's fiscal revenue, the share of profits from direct trade by official merchant convoys was growing smaller and smaller—this was a sign of Great Xia's economic structure improving, and Lin Qian was very satisfied.

His vision from years ago of whale ships sailing across the world had taken another step forward.

Old Fei continued: "Of the eight ships ordered by the government, five are shark ships that can be launched in a few days; the other three are whaling ships, currently laying their keels."

Lin Qian looked at the three whaling ships and instructed: "Whales are great beasts of the sea; the hulls must be sturdy enough to withstand them."

Old Fei said: "The shipyard uses ironwood with the finest grain, grown on the ridgelines of the Hundred Thousand Mountains—absolutely sturdy."

At that moment, a falcon ship docked at a distant pier, and a personal guard came ashore carrying a General Staff document.

Lin Qian opened it and saw that the document described the Seventh Division's standoff posture; the General Staff proposed using the navy to transport soldiers for a landing at Songjiang Prefecture, striking directly behind Lu Xiangsheng, and requested Lin Qian's approval.

"A brush." Geng Wu handed the brush over.

Lin Qian held the brush suspended over the document, yet the single character for "approved" simply would not come down.

Lu Xiangsheng was, after all, a famous general of his generation; he could not possibly be foolish enough to have no defense against a Great Xia landing.

Landing at Songjiang Prefecture and then advancing south to encircle and annihilate the Tianxiong Army—this plan was far too simplistic.

So Lin Qian closed the document and said: "Come, we're returning to Guangzhou."

Xiao Jiu said urgently: "Your Majesty, the design review meeting for the seventy-four-gun ship of the line hasn't been held yet."

Geng Wu said: "Your Majesty, Victor, the representative of the British East India Company, and Diego, the representative of the Governor-General of Manila, are still waiting on Nan'ao Island."

Lin Qian said: "The itinerary has changed. You master and disciple hold the design review, and report the results to me in Guangzhou. As for those two representatives, tell them to come to Guangzhou as well!"

Then Lin Qian added with slight excitement: "Since the falcon ship was introduced, I've never test-sailed one—this is a perfect opportunity to try it."

The others dared not object and could only obey orders.

After boarding the ship, Lin Qian quickly learned the falcon ship's sail-handling techniques and arrived in Guangzhou after a day and a night.

The falcon ship docked, and Lin Qian went straight to the General Staff headquarters. When he entered, all the staff officers stared at him in astonishment.

No one had expected His Majesty to return so quickly.

Lin Qian took out that General Staff document and said: "This plan won't work. Lu Xiangsheng is by no means an ordinary man, and Zhoushan is too close to Songjiang Prefecture—he would certainly guard against it.

Now the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the Yangtze River are all in our hands. With such an advantage, the plan might as well be bolder—"

Lin Qian paused for a moment, his gaze sharp: "We strike directly at Nanjing!"

Yahei

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