Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

During the fight, the prince deliberately showed off his wealth, and a gilded waist badge fell to the ground - it was a token of the royal family of Khotan that he had deliberately imitated.

The bandit leader, frightened by the sight of the card, blurted out, "It's from Khotan..." Before he could finish his words, he was silenced by his accomplices. During the melee, the prince's personal guards captured a wounded bandit and peeled the leather off his arm, revealing a dark blue wolf-head tattoo—the symbol of the Khitan warriors!

"What a chain reaction!" the prince sneered, sending a letter by carrier pigeon overnight. Ten days later, the King of Khotan discovered to his horror that his gold mine had suddenly been "protected" by the Black Armor Army; and the Khitan Khan received an anonymous gift box, only to find the blood-stained Khotanese waist badge when he opened it.

The real killer move took place at sea. Lin Polu's ship, the "Zhanjing," raided a Khitan private port. The seized cargo manifest revealed saltpeter being disguised as Korean ginseng and shipped to Japan. Almost simultaneously, the Tibetan imperial advisor died suddenly, and a secret letter with the Khitans was discovered in a secret compartment of his bedroom—a letter bearing the personal seal of the King of Khotan!

Qin Ming was in Chang'an testing a new type of "Sky-shaking Bomb" with the Ministry of Works when he received the urgent report from the three locations. Amidst the flames, he chuckled, "Heng'er, you've truly inherited my skill of diverting disaster."

In the Taiji Hall in late spring, father and son sat together to review their plans. The Crown Prince tossed a Khitan wolf-head bronze talisman onto the table. "I've investigated thoroughly: Khitan, Tubo, and Khotan are colluding, with Japan providing the sea route. But..." He hesitated for a moment, "I have a feeling there's a hidden hand."

"Oh?" Qin Ming pushed a piece of cheese over and said, "Tell me about it."

"The horse thieves who looted the saltpeter were well-trained, unlike ordinary bandits. I examined the corpse, and the soles of his boots were stained with the red soil unique to Lingnan—" The prince unfolded a map of the coastal territory, his fingertips tracing towards Yazhou, "and that is the battlefield where General Lin wiped out the Japanese pirates last month."

Thunder rolled through the palace, and raindrops fell rapidly. Qin Ming stared at the intersecting arrows of the four countries on the map and suddenly broke his red brush in two.

"Issue an imperial decree: Next year's imperial examination will include a new subject in mathematics. Candidates will be required to understand the distribution of mineral veins." He stood up and opened the window. The outline of a naval ship was faintly visible in the rain and mist. "As for the person behind the scenes... Heng'er, do you know how a cheetah catches an antelope?"

The prince looked into his father's deep eyes.

"First, scare the rest of the group, and wait for the lone wolf to leave the group—" Qin Ming slipped an ivory chess piece from his sleeve and tapped it on the Japanese position, "Then strike and kill him."

As the morning mist over Minzhou Harbor was pierced by the blast of conch shells, fifty modern tower ships lowered their red sails. The dark dragon patterns on the prows shone coldly in the morning sun, and even brighter than the dragon's eyes were the eyes of Crown Prince Qin Heng—he stood at the Dingyuan's wheelhouse, watching Lin Polu chop his flag southeastward.

"Full sail! Reduce ballast by three hundred stones!"

The massive ship's waterline rose sharply, and waves crashed onto the deck. This warship, modified by the Ministry of Works according to the Crown Prince's calculations for the "sail area to speed ratio," was thirty percent faster than the old one, but its high center of gravity caused it to stagger like a drunk in the wind and waves. Three months prior, during sea trials, two new ships had disintegrated in a typhoon, sparking widespread controversy in the court.

"Your Highness," the old shipwright begged on his knees, "Please add the ballast back..."

Qin Heng clutched the nautical chart tightly. "The foreign merchants' plywood ships can brave storms thanks to their soft sails, which absorb the wind. Order: Install Lingnan rubber shock-absorbing wood on all rudders!" He pointed at the triangular sail atop the mast. "Raise that 'bird sail' to the top—General Lin said it can fly with the wind!"

At this moment, during hurricane season, the East China Sea witnessed a miracle. As the Dingyuan zigzagged through the huge waves, leaving the Japanese pirate ships far behind, the Maritime Customs officials on the observation ship frantically recorded: the headwind speed was two knots faster than the tailwind speed!

Before the victory news reached the capital, the real storm had already begun in the Taiji Hall. The Censorate jointly impeached the Crown Prince for "arbitrarily changing the ancestral system and squandering the national treasury," and memorials piled up on the imperial desk. Qin Ming, however, ordered a wooden box to be brought in, from which he dumped out hundreds of rusted ship's nails.

"This is a relic from a naval shipwreck during the Jiajing reign." He picked up a rotten nail. "If anyone had dared to change the 'ancestral system' back then, how could the Japanese pirates have been rampant for a hundred years?" His red pen drew a sharp arc on the memorial. "Tell those old ministers that the ancestral system of the Daqian era is eternal!"

Undercurrents continued to surge. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a fire broke out at the Minzhou Shipyard, destroying five new ships. The crossbow mechanism left behind by the arsonist matched a blueprint archived by the Ministry of Works' Military Equipment Supervisory Office. Qin Heng personally visited the charred ruins and dug out from the ashes half a gilded waist plaque—a gift bestowed by the emperor on a Persian craftsman three years earlier.

"What a trick!" the young man sneered, suddenly opening the shipyard to public inspections. As the foreign merchants gathered to admire the impenetrable watertight compartment, he publicly disassembled his crossbow: "This spring was invented by Japanese craftsmen. Do you know why it ended up in China?" Amid the crowd's commotion, he suddenly pointed the crossbow southeast: "Because there are pirates at sea, they want to cut off our shipping routes for eternity!"

On the day of the twelfth lunar month, during the Sea God Temple Festival, fifty new warships returned to port in formation. Among the spoils presented by Lin Polu was a golden maki-e scabbard, used exclusively by the Fusang nobles—the very same one that had been lost by the arsonist! The sea breeze blew up the prince's cloak, and he gazed out into the vast expanse of smoke and waves: "Father, it's time to cast the nets."

The candles in the Purple Palace burned brightly throughout the night. Qin Ming's fingertips slid from Japan to Luzon, Srivijaya, and finally to Malacca. "Send an envoy to inform the nations of Southeast Asia: Daqian is willing to open up maritime trade and establish a customs office for mutual benefit. But—" He crushed a piece of coral, "Anyone who secretly colluded with the Japanese pirates will be punished by the cannons."

The next day, three thousand naval forces swore an oath to march eastward. Qin Heng stood at the bow of the Dingyuan, watching his father personally raise the Black Dragon Flag atop the mainmast. The emperor's whisper carried on the wind: "Remember, maritime territory isn't conquered by blood and fire, but by the shadows of sails."

Waves crashed onto the deck, soaking the "Map of the Four Seas' Mineral Resources" hidden in his sleeve. Next to the markings for the Japanese silver mines, a new line of small characters, in red ink, had been added: "All saltpeter is imported." A cold smile crossed the young man's lips.

In the autumn of the twenty-third year of the Xin Emperor's reign, the stars in the Hexi Corridor hung exceptionally low, as if they could be plucked with a single hand. Qin Ming reined in his horse and paused to watch Crown Prince Qin Heng trace a star map on the sand with a branch. A young man was arguing fiercely with an old astrologer: "The Gan-Shi Star Classic says Mars in the Heart signifies catastrophe, yet last year, when Mars entered the Southern Dipper, Lingnan experienced a bountiful harvest!"

The night wind blew up grains of sand, rustling Qin Ming's dark cloak. He recalled how twenty years ago, beneath this very starry sky, he had argued with the Imperial Astronomical Observatory about the trajectory of a comet. Now his son was the debater, but the stars remained the same.

"Your Majesty," the Hexi Jiedushi rode up and lowered his voice, "The remnants of the Turks have contacted Gaochang, intending to plunder the merchant caravans during the autumn. Should we follow the old practice of sending troops to patrol the border?"

Qin Ming didn't answer, but pointed his whip at the prince: "Heng'er, what do you say?"

The young man stared at the star map for a long time, then suddenly erased the lines with the toe of his boot. "No border patrols. Spread the word that the imperial court intends to reopen the silk and horse trade in Hexi, allowing the Turks to exchange war horses for salt and iron." The Milky Way reflected in his eyes. "When they enter the country with their horses—have Meng Zhi set an ambush in Xingxing Gorge."