In tonight’s bandit night raid, a total of nine hundred six people were deployed. Bandit chief and great chief Chen Wei was killed by Prince Qing, second chief Wang Sheng was hit by an arrow and captured alive by the naval forces under Peng Daji. The remaining eight hundred plus people died on the spot under the swords and arrows of the court’s naval forces and cavalry. Thirty-some people were wounded and captured. A few who were good swimmers took advantage of the chaos to jump into the water and escape. The mountains were dark and gloomy. To avoid another ambush, Peng Daji didn’t have the naval forces give chase.

The naval forces on the eight large ships were well-prepared. Only seven died from arrow wounds, with forty-some wounded.

But of the prefectural troops Prince Qing led, over nine hundred died under the random arrows of Chen Wei and the other bandits. Among them, a batch had arrow wounds insufficient to cause death, but were finished off by the bandit group charging down. Only the dozen or so who fled backward and a few official soldiers who played dead after falling survived by chance.

Prince Qing’s arm was slashed, the wound not particularly deep, but of the twenty-four guards he brought from the capital prince’s manor who had to protect him, only two persisted until the cavalry reinforcements arrived.

The warship carried a military physician. After coming ashore, the military physician hurriedly cleaned and bandaged Prince Qing’s wound.

Small soldiers held torches, standing guard tightly around Prince Qing on all sides.

Prince Qing sat on the ground, eyes lowered, face gloomy.

In tonight’s battle, two bandit chiefs were dead or captured, and the bandit group’s main force was also successfully eliminated. Looking at just these facts, he had won. But Peng Daji’s naval forces were almost completely intact, while the reinforcements he brought had more deaths than the bandits. If it weren’t for Peng Daji arranging for the Wuling Guard’s deputy commander to bring three hundred cavalry as backup support arriving in time, even Prince Qing himself would have been captured by Chen Wei and the others…

Thinking of the look in Chen Wei’s eyes when he was alive, Prince Qing wished he could pick up his blade again and dismember Chen Wei into ten thousand pieces.

The military physician carefully sprinkled a layer of medicinal powder on Prince Qing’s left arm, then carefully bandaged it.

After the wound was treated, Prince Qing swept his eyes over the river surface and questioned Peng Daji, “Why not pursue? Those few escaped bandits went toward the tributary—they’ll definitely flee back to tonight’s temporary bandit lair location.”

Peng Daji: “The further in the tributary goes, the narrower the water surface and the shallower the river channel. Warships cannot pass through. Using the small boats left by the bandits carries the danger of encountering an ambush by archers.”

Prince Qing pressed his lips together. Right now, he most hated hearing “archers.”

Peng Daji already understood Prince Qing’s temperament. He ordered people to bring over the trussed-up Wang Sheng and interrogated him, “How did you learn the merchant ships were bait, and how did you know there would be prefectural troops on shore?”

Other merchant ships detoured because they had little cargo and were timid. The merchant ships Prince Qing arranged had much cargo and had also hired Jingzhou naval forces as escort—the reasoning made sense. Moreover, Prince Qing only brought a small number of guards to secretly enter Tanzhou City. As soon as he arrived, he decided on the plan to lure snakes out of their hole. After that, he never had contact with Prefect Feng. Even the one thousand prefectural troops were only mobilized temporarily after nightfall tonight. Even if the bandits had informants, it would be very difficult to discover that the Shu merchants coming from Jiangling were bait.

Wang Sheng laughed loudly, “I dreamed it last night! Too bad heaven only let me dream about your Prince Qing and didn’t let me dream you also arranged cavalry!”

Such ghost stories were clearly refusing to confess the truth.

The bandit chiefs needed to be kept for transport to the capital. Peng Daji had people gag Wang Sheng’s mouth and began interrogating the captured underlings. Those who couldn’t answer were beheaded on the spot. After cutting down six, the seventh knelt down: “General, spare my life! The three chiefs acted cautiously. Every time they went out of the mountains, they gave orders on the spot and never revealed any plans in advance. This lowly one only knows that an informant came this morning. It must have been that informant who found out the information!”

Peng Daji frowned and looked toward Prince Qing. He had only sent a trusted subordinate into the city last night to inform Prince Qing of the specific time the merchant ships would arrive at this river section tonight. This was an itinerary that even the Jingzhou army couldn’t know. The naval forces on the ships had even less ability to leak the secret.

Prince Qing understood Peng Daji’s meaning. The information had leaked from his side.

But tonight’s troop deployment was something Prince Qing only told that one guard beside him whom he sent to relay the message to Prefect Feng. The guard was already dead. Even if he hadn’t died, a capital guard wouldn’t collude with the Tanzhou bandit group. If so…

Prince Qing gritted his teeth, “Someone come! Lead troops to surround the prefectural office!”

By the time Prince Qing and Peng Daji subsequently arrived at the prefectural office, Prefect Feng had long since removed his official hat and was prostrated on the ground. This was because his extremely favored concubine Lady Xia—favored to the point where he would answer whatever she was curious about—upon hearing that cavalry had surrounded the office, laughed charmingly at him a few times, then broke off her hairpin, extracted poison, and committed suicide, leaving only a rotten mess for him.

“Your Highness, this subordinate official truly didn’t know she…”

Prince Qing kicked and broke off Prefect Feng’s pleas for mercy.

Of the three great bandit chiefs, Chen Wei was dead, Wang Sheng captured. In the mountains remained only the scholar Liu Siyi who had plans but no combat ability, along with the remaining hundred or so underlings.

The stratagem to lure snakes out couldn’t be used again well. Prince Qing was just worried about how to explain things to Father Emperor when he returned to the capital. Vexed and distracted, he couldn’t think of any good method. At this time, Peng Daji献策offered a plan: “Your Highness, the bandits’ main force has been eliminated. The remnants are precisely in a state of panic. Your Highness can send those prisoners back to take a message to the bandits in the mountains, saying the court has issued a notice that those who voluntarily surrender can be spared the death penalty and only serve three years of hard labor. If anyone can bring Liu Siyi’s head to see us, all crimes will be pardoned and they’ll be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver. Thus, the bandit remnants will inevitably kill each other and completely disintegrate.”

If it were Chen Wei or Wang Sheng who killed like mowing grass, the small underlings might not dare to make a move. But Liu Siyi was just a scholar—any random small bandit could beat him.

Prince Qing looked at his hem and smiled, “Guard Commander’s excellent plan. It doesn’t disappoint that before I left the capital, Father Emperor praised you effusively.”

Peng Daji lowered his eyes and said, “Your Highness overpraises. This entire bandit suppression was all Your Highness devising strategies. This subordinate only led troops and contributed effort.”

Prince Qing, seeing he was a clever person, felt somewhat more comfortable.

Thus, both his strategies against the bandit group’s main force and remnants were meritorious achievements. Last night’s cavalry was also something he had Peng Daji arrange as backup support. And the deaths of those nearly one thousand official troops were entirely because Prefect Feng was blinded by lust and hid an internal traitor from the bandits at his side.

On May twenty-second, after dozens of mountain bandits successively surrendered, finally a fierce bandit with a scarred face came out, holding in his hand third chief Liu Siyi’s head. The fifty or sixty mountain bandits surrounding Liu Siyi all died in the internecine killing over competing for Liu Siyi’s head.

At this point, the Tanzhou Shifeng Ridge bandit group was finally completely cleared out.

Both Peng Daji and Prince Qing had to write memorials to the capital to be sent ahead by four-hundred-li express. Peng Daji even specially asked Prince Qing to review his memorial first.

Prince Qing read it very carefully and discovered that although Peng Daji hadn’t praised him to the skies, he had given him all the credit for devising strategies. He also separately reported Prince Qing’s achievement in killing Chen Wei, reported the military achievement of that centurion among the naval forces who captured Wang Sheng alive, and finally bitterly denounced Prefect Feng’s leak of secrets.

Having arrived in Jingzhou for over half a month, Prince Qing finally gave Peng Daji a word of praise in his heart: an honest and loyal person who neither sought nor coveted glory.

Before departing, Prince Qing even specially treated Peng Daji to a banquet.

Peng Daji was deeply versed in official ways. Naturally, he wouldn’t openly offend Prince Qing, but he understood even better that Emperor Yongchang was the person he should be most loyal to.

Therefore, Peng Daji didn’t tell Prince Qing that the Emperor had long ago transferred over one of Jingzhou’s secret guards who supervised local officials on the Emperor’s behalf. When the secret guard asked him about Prince Qing’s every word and deed regarding bandit suppression, Peng Daji, as if seeing the Son of Heaven, didn’t dare conceal half a sentence.

On May twenty-sixth, Emperor Yongchang, who had just arrived at the Northern Garden after several days of carriage and horse jolting, slept a good night alone in the sleeping chamber of the traveling palace. Early the next morning, the two chief ministers delivered two high stacks of memorials. Beside them was also a small stack that Eunuch Wang had separately placed—secret memorials from various regions that didn’t need to go through the Secretariat and were directly submitted for the Emperor’s personal review.

Emperor Yongchang’s coming to the Northern Garden to escape summer heat was true, and not delaying state affairs was also true. Because he would be staying at the traveling palace for nearly four months, Emperor Yongchang had brought both chief ministers, the six ministers, and important officials among the nobles and military generals in the capital. Memorials that should be sent to the capital from various regions would be directly sent to the traveling palace. After the emperor and important ministers reviewed them, they would be sent to the capital’s various official bureaus to handle.

Emperor Yongchang first looked at the memorials the two chief ministers had placed on top. These were usually major matters. Although secret memorials were secret, they weren’t urgent affairs. Some regional secret guards reported things as trivial as a certain high official receiving beautiful concubines sent by so-and-so on a certain month and day.

To let Emperor Yongchang have a good mood, the first two memorials were the reports from Prince Qing and Peng Daji regarding Tanzhou bandit suppression.

Emperor Yongchang first read Peng Daji’s.

Before opening it, Emperor Yongchang’s mood was calm, because for a mere one thousand bandits, the court had sent five thousand guard station elite troops to suppress them. Successfully suppressing them was as it should be. Failing once or twice at most counted as handling the matter poorly, at most requiring more delay, but there absolutely wouldn’t be major casualties.

After opening it, Emperor Yongchang first saw Peng Daji’s concise summary: the bandit lair was broken.

Emperor Yongchang unconsciously nodded. Reading further down, the third son, upon initially arriving in Tanzhou and understanding the situation, decided on the excellent strategy of luring snakes out of their hole.

These words, no matter how you looked at them, were praising Prince Qing for possessing strategic wisdom and acting decisively. Yet Emperor Yongchang’s brows furrowed. Just listening to Prefect Feng talk at length and directly deciding on a plan? Didn’t he say he wanted to find hunters and woodcutters to inquire about strategies for entering the mountains? If Prefect Feng said it was difficult to find, then it was difficult? Perhaps it was just that Prefect Feng himself was incompetent.

While his head was thinking about these things, Emperor Yongchang’s eyes had already seen the casualty numbers for both sides. Counting both battlefields—luring snakes out and disintegrating the remnants—fewer than nine hundred bandits were killed, yet nine hundred seventy-seven Tanzhou prefectural troops died!

Although it could be said that Prefect Feng’s side held things back, if Emperor Yongchang went, he would definitely first thoroughly understand Prefect Feng’s background—investigate how this person had previously suppressed bandits, investigate how this person was performing as prefect and whether his character had flaws. With this investigation, wouldn’t he discover that beside Prefect Feng was a beautiful young concubine who had experienced bandit troubles and could survive?

Fierce bandits who could kill their own parents—going down the mountain was to rob silver and rob beauties. They would definitely investigate in advance which households had silver and which had beauties. Could they miss one and let a half-old man like Prefect Feng play hero saving the beauty?

Emperor Yongchang slapped Peng Daji’s memorial on the desk and picked up Prince Qing’s memorial with a dark face.

The third son who had been full of spring pride just after receiving the assignment was now being modest in his memorial, praising the bravery of Peng Daji’s naval forces, praising how the cavalry backup support he arranged arrived in time and didn’t let the bandits’ ambush succeed.

Emperor Yongchang was still unhappy, but thinking that the third son had nearly been captured alive by bandits and had even taken a slash on his body, and that arranging cavalry backup support also counted as being cautious, Emperor Yongchang couldn’t bear to blame his son further. After all, he was still young, his first time out on assignment. Having suffered this lesson, next time he should understand the military principle of knowing yourself and knowing your enemy.

Having finished reading these two memorials that brought half joy and no joy, Emperor Yongchang was just about to pick up the next Secretariat memorial when he suddenly glimpsed that the one on top of the secret memorial stack was from Jingzhou.

Emperor Yongchang’s large hand turned and picked up this one.

What the secret guard wrote was all what Peng Daji had stated, listing like a theatrical script every conversation between Peng Daji and Prince Qing, including details not mentioned in the two memorials.

Only then did Emperor Yongchang learn that the cavalry unit that saved the third son was something Peng Daji had arranged himself after his counsel failed. That after the third son took a slash, he still wanted Peng Daji’s naval forces to chase the mountain bandits who dove into the tributary to escape. That of the twenty-four guards the third son brought, only two remained. And the method of offering amnesty to the bandit remnants had absolutely nothing to do with the third son!

Therefore, his third son on this trip to Jingzhou only accomplished one thing: bringing shame and embarrassment to their Old Zhao family in front of regional military forces!