Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

The old governor gasped: "Although this plan is brilliant, I'm afraid it will damage the reputation of the court..."

"Reliability?" Qin Heng grabbed a handful of sand and let it flow. "When the Turks used the salt and iron they exchanged for to make knives, who would talk about trust with the dead?" He turned to his father. "I've examined the horses' hoofprints, which are tangled, obviously from a long raid. Their real target is probably the Shule granary."

Qin Ming nodded, untied the jade ring from his waist and tossed it to his son: "Use this to mobilize the Anxi Army. Remember, I want him alive." After everyone left, he chuckled to the starry sky: "This kid even noticed the Turkic horseshoes."

Seven days later, the ambush at Xingxing Gorge was successful, but the captured Turkic nobles revealed a shocking secret: the King of Gaochang had married into Tubo, and his dowry included 300 carts of "fire-breathing iron pipes." Almost simultaneously, news arrived from Chang'an, expedited across 800 miles, that the Ministry of Industry's firearms depot had been robbed, and ten newly developed "Thunderbolt Rockets" had been lost!

"What a brilliant combination of inside and outside forces!" Qin Ming smashed his teacup, only to see the Crown Prince calmly unfold a map of the Western Regions. "Father, the firearms were stolen three days ago, and the Gaochang wedding procession left Yumen Pass ten days ago." He circled Dunhuang with a red pen. "The real firearms are still inside the pass."

On the night of the new moon, three purple smoke beams rose from the Dunhuang beacon towers. Meng Zhi led the Black Armor Army to raid a caravan, recovering firearms from the saddles of camels carrying silk. Almost simultaneously, the crown prince personally visited the Hexi Prison and used the leather and wine bags of captured Turkic prisoners to lure out a hidden culprit—unbeknownst to him, the head of the military equipment accounts at the Ministry of Revenue!

"I've checked," the young man tossed the account book onto the table. "This man's native place is Gaochang. He was recommended to the court by the Jiedushi of Hexi three years ago." He looked up at his father. "And the Jiedushi who recommended him was the one who advocated patrolling the border."

Qin Ming clapped his hands and laughed, startling the crows beyond the Great Wall. He pushed open a secret compartment and pulled out a scroll of yellowed silk—it turned out to be the tribal relationship map he had drawn while infiltrating the Turkic region twenty years ago!

"Heng'er, look." He pointed at the small cinnabar characters next to the King of Gaochang's name. "His mother is a Tibetan princess, and his wife is a Turkic noblewoman. How could such a person easily ally with Tibet?"

Thunder exploded in the boy's eyes: "He's acting! The one who really wants to take advantage of the situation... is Tubo!"

On the day of the Winter Solstice, reports of victory from Hexi and a letter from Tubo arrived simultaneously in Beijing. Meng Zhi had captured the King of Gaochang alive, and the secret letter he had seized revealed that the so-called marriage alliance was a Tubo plot to assassinate someone with a borrowed knife. And among the green poems burned on the altar, Qin Ming had quietly slipped in half a page of "Hydrological Records of the Western Regions."

That night, while father and son were drinking ginger tea together at the Stargazing Tower, the Crown Prince suddenly said, "Father, the Pleiades constellation in the Twenty-Eight Mansions is dimming, and there seems to be some unusual movement."

"It's not that the stars are dim," Qin Ming pointed westward, "it's that the newly cast bronze mirror in Hexi is reflecting the sky brightly." He put down his teacup and said, "Tomorrow I'll go to the Ministry of Works and see their newly polished crystal mirrors."

Snow fell silently, the Milky Way poured down. The young man gazed up at the starry sky, finally understanding: A ruler must not only understand the stars, but also understand that some stars are actually lights from the human world.

The first snow of the twenty-fourth year blanketed the beacon towers of the Hexi Corridor. Qin Ming stood atop the arrow tower at Yumen Pass, watching the snowflakes fall silently on the shoulders of Crown Prince Qin Heng. A young man was marking the locations of the thirty-six kingdoms of the Western Regions on the snow with his horsewhip. As the tip of his whip touched Qiuci, it suddenly stirred up a handful of bloody snow—the mark left by the scout who had fallen three days earlier.

"Father, the King of Kucha has submitted seven letters of surrender, but each time the envoys wore Arab scimitars at their waists." The prince kicked aside the snow, revealing the charred arrow shafts beneath. "I have examined them, and the ironwork of these arrowheads... resembles the work of Khorasan craftsmen."

Qin Ming leaned over to pick up the arrow shaft, his fingertips tracing the thread wrapping around the feathers. He had seen a similar method in the Western Regions during his campaign against the Turks twenty years ago. "Heng'er, do you know how wolves hunt?" he suddenly asked.

The young man was startled: "Lure the enemy deep into our territory and surround them from all sides?"

"That's a tactic." Qin Ming broke the arrow shaft in two. "The wolf pack's real killer move is to let the prey escape into the trap—" He threw the broken arrow to the west, disappearing into the snow and fog. "Just like now, someone wants to force us to march west to Khorasan."

Before he could finish his words, a commotion erupted below the pass. A bloody figure on horseback burst forth from the snow, holding aloft a fragment of the black-armored military flag. It was Meng Zhi's personal guard captain, a peacock-feather arrow lodged in his throat, and he collapsed before the drawbridge, dead. On a parchment scroll that fell from his arms, the words scrawled in blood were shocking: Shule was besieged, and Zhao Huaijin died for his country.

The prince clenched his whip so hard his knuckles turned white. Shule was the hub of the four Anxi towns, and Zhao Huaijin was a veteran who had served Qin Ming for thirty years. The snow fell harder and harder, covering the bloodstains but not the faint sound of war drums from outside the pass.

"Heng'er," Qin Ming's voice was terrifyingly calm. "If you were me, what would you do?"

The young man took a deep breath and suddenly drew three arrows on the snow with the tip of his whip. "First, send a pigeon to the King of Khotan, promising him the throne of Shule for life in exchange for sending troops to cut off the enemy's food supply. Second, order Meng Zhi to abandon Shule and retreat to Xingxing Gorge, using the canyon's terrain to perform the Fire Dragon Emerging from the Water. Third..." He paused, then jabbed the tip of his whip heavily to the southeast. "I, your son, will lead three thousand light cavalry and take the ancient Qilian Mountain Road to launch a surprise attack on the enemy's rear!"

Qin Ming's eyes flashed with admiration. This plan was extremely bold, practically a gamble on the fate of the nation—but wasn't that also a gamble when he attacked the Turkic royal court?

"Permitted." The emperor took off his black iron waist badge and said, "Bring the Imperial Seal."

The Crown Prince looked up in astonishment. The Imperial Seal was never allowed to leave the palace except for sacrificial ceremonies. His father's actions...

"It's not for you." Qin Ming stuffed the jade seal into his arms and pressed the dragon-shaped button with his fingertips. "It's for those waiting kings of the Western Regions to see—the heir of Daqian has arrived."

That night, the Crown Prince led his army out into the snow. Qin Ming stood alone in the fortress, watching the fiery dragon-like troops disappear through the mountain pass. Shadow Seven flashed from the shadows, "Your Majesty, will you proceed as planned?"

"Wait a little longer." Qin Ming stroked the knife marks on the arrow tower. "Let Heng'er encounter some difficulties first." He looked to the southwest. "Tell the King of Khotan that his petition... has been approved."

Ten days later, news of the crown prince's successful surprise attack and urgent reports of a Khotanese rebellion arrived in Beijing. It turned out that the Khotanese king had long been colluding with Khorasan, and his supposed aid was actually a decoy. The crown prince's 3,000 cavalry were drawn into the Valley of Death, but fortunately, they escaped thanks to the remnants of Meng Zhi's army.

Qin Ming wrote "Got it" on the military newspaper, then turned and unfolded the map of the Western Regions. He drew a blood-red cross at Khotan with a red pen, and circled Samarkand further west.

"Heng'er," he chuckled at the empty hall, "Now you should understand why I asked you to bring the Imperial Seal—"

A sudden commotion breaks out outside the palace. A hasty force rushes in: the Crown Prince has been seriously injured after falling from his horse while trying to break out, and the Imperial Seal is missing!