Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

Outside Shule City in the Western Regions, Meng Zhi feigned a shortage of food and retreated, luring the Turkic-Tibetan coalition into a ravine. A modified version of the "earth-splitting cannon" had been buried in the ravine. The explosives, coated in gunpowder and poisonous caltrops, detonated, capturing the enemy commander alive. The remnants fled to the old Qiuci Road, only to discover a golden millet path paved across the quicksand—Zhao Huaijin's grain transport team, approaching from the far end, met them with crossbows.

The fire in Guangzhou Bay burned for three days and three nights. Lin Polu's ship, the "Zhan Jing" (Slaying Whale), rammed the Japanese pirate flagship, and thunderbolt rockets lit up the bay. As the surviving Japanese pirates begged for mercy, a sudden Mandarin voice echoed from the shore: "Want to live? Go build the highway from Minzhou to Guangzhou!"

The most exciting event took place in Liaodong. The new Khitan Khan, raising his ox-horn cup at the alliance ceremony, suddenly saw a black dragon flag fluttering from the south. Wang Zhongsi's 300 cavalrymen, led by Mohe hunters, appeared like divine troops three miles from the alliance altar! The Khan's wine cup dropped in shock, and the eight chieftains submitted letters of submission that very night.

Qin Ming held a banquet in front of the Taiji Hall. The Khitan Khan's hands trembled as he held the ceramic wine cup, and the Japanese envoy stared blankly at the pepper in the hot pot.

"Next year," Qin Ming said, cutting into a roasted leg of lamb, "I will build three roads: the Tianshan Road, the Liaoze Canal, and the Nanyang Trade Route." He raised his glass, the wine reflecting the starry sky. "Would you all like to join me?"

Amidst the chants of "Long Live the Emperor" from the steps below, the Crown Prince whispered, "Father, are these three options too hasty?"

Qin Ming wiped the grease off his knife. "Without roads, how can we rule the world?" He pointed southward. "Do you know why the lychees we send as tribute from Lingnan aren't sweet? It's because the journey is too long."

The sound of ice cracking could be heard from Taiye Lake—the icebreakers were clearing the river. Qin Ming smiled, the three maps overlapping in his vision.

Further west, the Roman eagle flag was flying across the Mediterranean Sea; on the Indian Ocean, Arab merchant ships loaded with spices were sailing eastward.

The chessboard grew larger and larger, and the hand holding the chess piece had just picked up a black piece.

On the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, Crown Prince Qin Heng, wading ankle-deep in snow, entered the eastern warm room of the Taiji Hall. He discovered that what lay spread out on the imperial desk was not a memorial but a newly painted painting, "Tribute from Foreign Countries." Qin Ming was circling a South China Sea island nation with a red brush, the tip of the pen hovering.

"Heng'er, look here." The emperor said without looking up. "The Srivijaya envoy delivered a letter yesterday, offering a thousand pounds of camphor incense in exchange for a copy of 'Qimin Yaoshu' (Essential Techniques for the People of Qi). What will your response be?"

The crown prince was stunned. He had just finished a six-month border patrol in Hexi, and his mind was still preoccupied with beacon towers and military systems. Suddenly drawn back to the details of tribute trade, he was speechless. The crackling of silver-frost charcoal in the warm room illuminated the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"I think..." he said cautiously, "'Essential Techniques for the People of Qi' is fundamental to farming and shouldn't be passed on lightly. You can give them a hundred rolls of silk and have them reduce their annual tribute by half."

The red pen finally fell, but it drew a slash outside the circle. "Wrong." Qin Ming stood up and pulled a hollowed-out peppercorn from the sandalwood box. "This is a low-quality tribute intercepted by the Maritime Customs. Srivijaya's pepper production has declined in recent years, so they've offered camphor instead." He flicked the rotten peppercorn into the charcoal basin, sparking a tiny burst of flame. "If you give me silk, it'll just be a fancy dress. If you give me agricultural books, next year, rice and millet will be grown all over Southeast Asia, and merchant ships will carry grain instead of spices—that's what will ultimately cut off the Arabs' trade routes."

The prince's ears burned. He remembered the old lieutenant in the Hexi military camp saying, "Victory or defeat on the battlefield depends on the supply chain." This was exactly what his father was saying.

"Starting tomorrow, you will come to observe government affairs at noon every day." Qin Ming suddenly handed him the red brush. "Before you approve it, answer three questions from me: What are the advantages and disadvantages of this matter? What will happen in ten years?"

The first time he took on a major role was in the early spring canal corruption case. The Crown Prince worked through the night to investigate the accounts, intending to execute the officials implicated. When the memorial was submitted, Qin Ming decreed, "The Crown Prince shall personally oversee the execution." On the day of execution, an official in the prison cart suddenly shouted, "The Crown Prince is cruel!" The Crown Prince's hand gripping the imperial edict trembled slightly, but he finally dropped it. As blood splattered, he caught a glimpse of several merchants with Jiangnan accents quietly taking notes in the crowd—later realizing they were spies from the Maritime Customs Office, sent by his father.

"Heng'er," Qin Ming pointed at a box of evidence that night, "Do you know why you didn't kill those imperial merchants who secretly encouraged corruption?" The box was filled with rare treasures from overseas, but mixed in with a few secret letters exchanged with Japanese pirates. "The roots are unbroken, and they will grow again in the spring breeze. If you want to cut, cut the deepest roots."

In March, a rebellion broke out in Liaodong, and the Crown Prince advocated for mobilizing troops to suppress it. Qin Ming, however, ordered him to bring the Imperial Medical Bureau with him. They arrived just as an epidemic was spreading. The Black Armored Army surrounded the rebellious village, but instead sent in herbs and grains. Half a month later, a Khitan spy incited a mob to raid a government warehouse at night, but was instead tied up by villagers and taken to the government office—because the Imperial Physician had saved a child infected with the disease.

"Now you understand?" Qin Ming pointed at the people kneeling outside the carriage as he returned to the capital. "People's hearts are like fields. Water them with benevolence, and they will grow loyalty. Sow tyranny, and all you will reap is hatred."

The most thrilling event was the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet. A drunken Turkic envoy challenged the prince, and he drew his sword, but Qin Ming, smiling, presented him with a golden cup. The next day, the envoy died suddenly at the inn, and a secret letter was found in his arms, insinuating a conspiracy with the prince. The prince then realized with astonishment that the banquet had been a six-month plot by his father.

"Heng'er," Qin Ming took him up to the Lingyan Pavilion and pointed out the lights of Chang'an's countless homes. "A ruler should be like these lights all over the city. Some illuminate the streets, while others hold hidden secrets. What you need to learn is when to light which lamp."

Before the Lunar New Year, Qin Ming suddenly caught a cold. On his first day as acting Crown Prince, he encountered a Tibetan invasion. Recalling his father's strategy of "cutting off the food supply," he risked splitting his forces to launch a surprise attack behind enemy lines around the snowy mountains. When the news of victory arrived, Qin Ming, who was draping his clothes over the sand table, burst into laughter: "This kid actually used my pepper plan on the battlefield!"

On the day the snow stopped, the Crown Prince wrote his first truly independent crimson comment on a memorial: "Open the Lingnan salt market, and allow foreign merchants to trade sea salt for war horses." Qin Ming read it without saying a word, simply placing an ivory abacus in his palm.

"Remember, Heng'er. The emperor's mind is not about deceit, but about settling a century of accounts." He pushed open the window, and the dawn light was dyeing the ice surface of Taiye Lake red. "Look at this ice, it looks solid, but it will eventually melt in spring. What I, your majesty, must do is calculate the time for the ice to melt and divert the water into the canal—"

The early summer martial arts arena was filled with the pungent aroma of gunpowder and green grass. Qin Ming stood with his hands behind his back on the newly constructed viewing platform of the Ministry of Works, watching Crown Prince Qin Heng adjust a foot-long bronze "Fire Dragon Box." Shaped like a crouching tiger, its belly concealing a mechanical spring, it was a palm-shaped thunderbolt crafted by Eastern Palace artisans based on a fragment of the "Commentary on the Fire Classic."

"Father, if we wrap gunpowder around iron balls, while our range might not match the Divine Machine Crossbow, we can still carry it on a single soldier." Sweat dripped from the Crown Prince's forehead, his fingertips stained with black gunpowder dust. Behind him, ten Eastern Palace guards carried modified versions of the Fire Dragon Box, their armor gleaming coldly in the blazing sun.

Qin Ming remained silent, pulling out a Western Region gold coin from his sleeve. "Meng Zhi's army reports that the Arab cavalry are now tying cowhide shields to their saddles to protect them from fire dragons emerging from the water." The gold coin landed on the bull's-eye of the target. "Can your fire dragon box break the shield?"

A horn blasted! Ten fire dragon boxes unleashed a volley, their iron sand slamming into the cowhide-wrapped wooden shield a hundred paces away like water. After a dull thud, only pockmarks remained on the shield—as expected, they hadn't penetrated.