If you traveled back to ancient times, while others ate Guanyin clay, you would actually have giant

“Since Niujia Town is in the southwest, why don’t we just avoid them? We can use harassment tactics on the eastern coast, sending out small groups to harass the coastal villagers. If government troops come, we fight if we can win, and retreat back to sea if we can’t. After the government troops retreat, we will repeat the process, keeping the Dalong government busy. Anyway, apart from Zhou Wu, there is no other navy in the entire Dalong.”

If Zhou Wu were here, he would definitely praise this strategist as a talent, saying that his tactics had some of the flair of his ancestors.

"Good, good, good."

Heilong was very satisfied with this plan, as it would not cause him too much loss, and he could also plunder more wealth along the coast.

While Zhou Wu was still instructing Lin Niangzi to strengthen maritime patrols, little did he know that Black Dragon had already abandoned Zhou Wu's side.

. . . . .

Royal Palace, morning court.

"Your Majesty, recently, many pirates and outlaws have appeared along the coast of our Great Dragon, burning, killing, and robbing our coastal people, causing panic among them. We beseech Your Majesty to issue an edict to quell the unrest."

The most serious incident recently has to be the harassment by pirates landing on the coast. This is because the incident has a wide reach, with almost the entire eastern coastal area of ​​Dalong being attacked by pirates. Every time the government receives a report and arrives at the scene, the pirates have already fled. This has happened repeatedly, and the local government is helpless.

"Does anyone have any good suggestions?"

Li Tiancheng already knew about the pirates; the memorials from the coast had long since piled up on his desk.

"Your Majesty, as far as I know, these pirates used to rob merchants passing by at sea, but recently they have been temporarily harassing the people along the coast for some unknown reason. I believe that the only way to completely resolve this issue is to send a capable navy to subdue them."

One of the military officers stepped forward and offered his opinion.

After listening, Li Tiancheng felt that what the other party said made some sense.

"In that case, my beloved ministers, who is willing to lead the troops into battle?"

Normally, military officers would be eager to volunteer for a war, but Dalong's troops were all elite horsemen. If the battlefield were to be moved to the sea, everyone would be unsure of themselves. Therefore, the scene of military officers bravely volunteering, as was the case in the past, did not occur.

"Father, I request permission to establish a new navy to annihilate the pirates."

Because of the incident at the Crown Prince's residence, the Fourth Prince had been clearly neglected by the Emperor recently, and now that this was an opportunity, he volunteered.

"Good, you are indeed my son."

Li Tiancheng glanced at his son who had volunteered, having already forgotten the unpleasantness of the past few days.

The Crown Prince, standing to the side, showed no obvious emotion on his face. He simply watched everything in front of him calmly. After Zhou Wuyi healed his leg, the Crown Prince began to clean up the internal affairs of his Crown Prince's residence. Sure enough, he found many spies from various forces. No wonder his whereabouts and every move of the Crown Prince's residence were known to outsiders.

After experiencing this incident, the Crown Prince has grown a lot. In Zhou Wu's words, one should not have the heart to harm others, but one should not be without the heart to guard against others.

The Fourth Prince is now volunteering to fight against the pirates, and Li Junren understands what that means—it's simply to gain some prestige for himself in the army.

However, Li Junren did not stop the other party's actions, because he had heard about pirates from Zhou Wu. They were fierce and warlike. Although they were definitely no match for the Great Dragon's army on land, they were not someone Li Zheng could easily wipe out at sea.

Li Tiancheng immediately issued an edict appointing Li Zheng as the commander of the Royal Navy of the Great Dragon Empire. The empire must give priority to all his needs, and he can freely select any soldiers he requires. For a time, the fourth prince, Li Zheng, was the most prominent figure.

Previously, Zhou Wu had earnestly pleaded with the Ministry of War for money to buy a ship, but the Ministry of War ignored him completely and only gave him a token amount of silver, which wasn't even enough to buy a Bull Demon King ship. Zhou Wu got angry at that time and took the money, vowing never to ask these office workers for help again.

The ships in Zhou Wu's navy were all bought with Zhou Wu's own money. Of course, it was fine for him to use them himself, but if the court ordered him to do something, he could just row a few sampans. Anyway, they knew exactly how much money the Ministry of War had given them.

Now it was the Fourth Prince Li Zheng's turn. There was no need for the other party to contact the Ministry of War. Officials from the Ministry of War came to visit him with ship design drawings.

"Your Highness, this is our current ship catalog. Please take a look."

The Ministry of War officials presented the ship construction blueprints with both hands. Li Zheng leisurely flipped through the pages one by one, but when he finished the last page, he couldn't find anything he liked, so he raised his question: those big ships at the capital's docks looked really impressive.

Why aren't there any large ships like those at the dock?

"Your Highness, the ships at the capital's docks do not belong to the Ministry of Works."

"Oh, such a fine ship, and it's not even from the Ministry of Works. In any case, I want this kind of ship."

Li Zheng didn't care about any rules or regulations. Anyone with eyes could see that the ships at the capital's docks were far superior to these damn Ministry of Works ships.

Li Zheng's thinking was simple: as long as he could be paired with a ship from the capital's docks, and with the elites selected from the capital's various armies, dealing with small-time pirates would be a piece of cake.

"How many ships does Your Highness require?"

"At least twenty ships, we are the Royal Navy after all, we can't lose face for the Royal Navy."

Li Zheng's words were simple, but the Ministry of War officials below were sweating profusely. Twenty ships? Of course, they knew where to buy Bull Demon King-class ships and what the price would be, but where would the Ministry of War get that much money? Just now, Zhou Wu's navy came to ask for money to buy ships, but the other party didn't have any powerful background, so after being turned away several times, they were sent away.

However, this time it was the Fourth Prince, and even the Minister of War greeted him with smiles. How could we, mere nobody, dare to offend him? We could only obey orders and rack our brains to come back and find a solution.

The Ministry of War.

"What do you suggest we do? Twenty ships—even if we sold the Ministry of War, we still couldn't raise that much money."

The speaker was the official who went to the Fourth Prince's residence today.

"Well, let's report this to the Minister, since we can't make a decision on this matter ourselves."

"Are you kidding me? Don't you know what kind of person the Minister is? If you report it, he'll just dump it on us and tell us to figure it out ourselves."

"What should we do? The Minister doesn't care, and we can't offend the Fourth Prince either. We, the people below, are doomed."

Several officials were in the room, discussing the matter with long faces, but they couldn't come up with a feasible solution after a long time.

"I have an idea."

Suddenly, one of them thought of something.

"Tell me quickly, what's the plan?"

The Fourth Prince's task of forming a navy to suppress bandits is imminent. Even the Emperor has said that he will fully cooperate. If the Fourth Prince were to accuse the Ministry of War of delaying the battle, the Ministry would be dismissed or even beheaded. So now any method is acceptable as long as we can get through this crisis.