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

"Father, please calm down. What's the matter that makes you so angry?"

In fact, Li Junren was asking a question he already knew the answer to.

"This bastard messed up the Royal Navy and still has the nerve to ask for command of the Imperial Navy? Bullshit."

Li Tiancheng was truly furious with his son's incompetence this time. He lied to everyone the first time, and this time he was completely wiped out, yet he still had the nerve to ask Zhou Wu for his navy.

"Father, there must be a misunderstanding about Fourth Brother. He might..."

Li Junren's "concern" only made Li Tiancheng angrier.

"Stop pleading for him. I know what kind of person he is. Guards!"

"promise"

"Issue an imperial decree to appoint Crown Prince Li Junren as the Grand Coordinator of the Maritime Expedition and order him to proceed to Qingyang County immediately. Appoint Zhou Wu as the Vanguard General of the Maritime Expedition and, by the way, tell that bastard Li Zheng to get back to the capital."

"promise."

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Tiancheng made the decision immediately. Li Tiancheng originally thought that his father would just recall Li Zheng and give him a scolding, but he did not expect that he would directly replace Li Zheng to suppress the bandits. Fortunately, Zhou Wu was there to assist him.

The small-time pirates are now giving Li Tiancheng a huge headache. The Royal Navy, which was built with a lot of money, was completely wiped out by the pirates that everyone was talking about. It was a disgrace. Now it's not just Li Zheng's problem, but the entire Royal Navy and the court have lost face.

"Your Highness, we must not lose this time."

Li Tiancheng's words carried an undeniable authority, and Li Junren, as the crown prince, also understood the significance of this battle.

There was no grand send-off for the Crown Prince this time. After bidding farewell to the Crown Princess, Li Junren boarded a ship and set off lightly.

. . . .

Niujia Town.

The letter had been sent out for several days, and Li Zheng was eagerly awaiting his father's imperial edict so that he could trample Zhou Wu underfoot.

Li Zheng had really had enough these past few days. He was eating three meals a day: thin porridge in the morning, and noodles for lunch and dinner, all with chili peppers. His anus had been burning a bit these past few days, and occasionally when he farted, it felt like oil was coming out.

Li Zheng had never been treated like this before, and he used his status as a prince to confront Zhou Wu.

"Your Highness, this is already the best food we have here. If it weren't for you, Fourth Prince, we would only have two meals of thin porridge a day at most. There's nothing we can do, we're too poor, this is all we can afford."

Zhou Wu's words were so obviously a lie. Li Zheng had clearly seen that the laborers selling their labor on the roadside were eating better than him, with a big bowl of white rice topped with fatty meat and gravy. Li Zheng had never eaten fatty meat before, but now he was craving it.

. . . . .

"Sir, isn't what we're doing inappropriate?"

Deng Yuanliang thought that the other party was, after all, a prince, and wondered if his master's actions might cause him trouble.

"What's wrong with him? Didn't I give him a place to stay? Didn't I give him food? He lives much better than many people in Dalong, so there's no need to feel sorry for him."

Although Zhou Wu wasn't a bad person, he was vengeful. He was still angry when he thought about how Li Zheng and his gang of rich kids had caused him trouble back in the capital restaurant. What was most hateful was that this good-for-nothing was incompetent and only knew how to eat, drink, and have fun. He insisted on going out to suppress bandits, which caused trouble for so many of Da Long's soldiers and wasted the heavily invested fleet.

The angel Li Zheng had been eagerly awaiting never arrived, but instead, the Crown Prince appeared.

"Fourth brother, how have you been?"

Li Junren looked at Li Zheng's haggard face, which showed he had lost a lot of weight. Although he looked sad, he felt a sense of relief.

Back in the capital, Li Zheng, relying on Gao Li's merits, had no shortage of schemes to undermine him, but he never expected to meet his end today.

"Your Highness, Your Highness, Brother, what brings you here?"

When Li Zheng saw the Crown Prince, he was already somewhat apprehensive. He had never expected that the person who came would be the Crown Prince.

"My father sent me to bring you home."

The crown prince always wore a smile, but in Li Zheng's eyes, that smile was full of irony.

"Impossible! I haven't finished exterminating the pirates yet. My father would never let me go back. I don't believe it."

"This is His Majesty's edict, and the palace guards are also here. Take a look for yourself."

Li Zheng tremblingly accepted the edict, and after reading it, he collapsed to the ground, simply because Li Tiancheng's tone in the edict was perhaps as tactful as that of the Crown Prince.

Li Zheng understood that everything was over. His two defeats had already made his father lose patience, and now the fact that the crown prince was succeeding him was the best proof of that.

At this point, Li Zheng had no more illusions and followed the guards onto the ship back to the capital like a puppet.

"Haha, we've finally gotten rid of this plague."

Li Zheng's departure signified that he had completely lost his importance in Li Tiancheng's heart.

. . . . . . .

"Zhou Wu, this is a secret order from Father."

Besides Li Zheng, Li Tiancheng also gave Zhou Wu a secret order, which was to tell him to do his best to assist the Crown Prince in suppressing the pirates. Moreover, because of Li Zheng's two previous failures, Li Tiancheng required the Crown Prince and Zhou Wu to succeed this time.

"Your Highness, rest assured, I will do my utmost to assist you in suppressing the bandits."

"Okay, Zhou Wu, I'm relieved to hear that."

Just as Li Junren was full of ambition and ready to make a big splash, Zhou Wu untimely poured cold water on his plans.

"Your Highness, now that you are the commander-in-chief of the anti-bandit campaign, I think you should take a look at the configuration list of the Great Dragon Empire's navy."

"Oh, let me see it."

As it happened, Li Junren also wanted to know just how powerful Zhou Wu's navy was. Based on his understanding of Zhou Wu, Zhou Wu's navy was only better than Li Zheng's.

"Your Highness, please take a look."

Li Junren flipped through the configuration booklet with great interest, but the more he looked, the more his brows furrowed.

"Zhou Wu, isn't this wrong?"

Based on Li Junren's understanding of Zhou Wu, the data in this configuration book is clearly incorrect.

"Your Highness, what do you think is the problem?"

"You have a full complement of three thousand men, but you don't have a single Bull Demon King ship, just some broken sampans. And your weapons are even more outrageous—are they made from all over the world? You don't even have three thousand sets of swords. Are you trying to fool me?"

"Your Highness, no problem. This is the entire navy's equipment. The Ministry of War only issued us this much."

Zhou Wu also put on an innocent face.

Actually, it wasn't that Zhou Wu was deliberately trying to fool Li Junren. The things in this booklet were indeed issued by the Ministry of War. That's right, it was all this scrap metal. Back then, Zhou Wu personally went to the Ministry of War to ask for military funds, but the Ministry of War didn't care about the navy at all and avoided seeing Zhou Wu.

At the time, Zhou Wu was so angry that he almost made a scene at the Ministry of War. However, after calming down and thinking about it, he held back because he knew that the navy would come in very handy sooner or later, and then he would settle accounts with the Ministry of War.

Li Junren was cursing the Ministry of War a thousand times in his heart. His chance to turn his life around was about to be ruined by these parasites in the Ministry of War.