The fifth watch was the fourth quarter of the Yin hour. Summer had already arrived, and as dawn spread its light, heaven and earth became clear and bright.

Huangzhou City’s gates also opened at this time. Fan Xicheng hired horse carts to transport the hundred-some jars of wine, whether genuine or fake, out of the city by cart to load onto the boats, meeting up with Zhao Kuo, Lin Zongjing, Guo Nu’er and others who were responsible for guarding the boats at the dock outside the city.

No matter how rampant the river pirates and lake bandits were between Jiang and E, they still couldn’t completely cut off merchant travel. At the dock outside Huangzhou City, quite a few boats were moored, though mainly for short-distance travel.

Inside an inconspicuous black-canopy boat, Ji Kun peered through a small hole, staring at the two boats a hundred-some paces away. He watched Han Daoxun and his son Han Qian, surrounded by numerous household soldiers, standing at the bow, seemingly gazing with considerable feeling at Huangzhou’s earth walls that hadn’t been repaired in a long time.

“The Han father and son actually thought to transport wine from Huangzhou to sell in Xuzhou. This time they’re going to fall into our hands—they truly can’t blame anyone else.” A thin-faced man sitting in a corner of the cabin couldn’t help but sneer as he watched this scene.

Ji Kun furrowed his brow. He still had hidden in his bosom a letter that Zhao Mingting had only sent someone to deliver yesterday.

They had spent most of half a month, and only now had they thoroughly sorted out the matters before and after the Dragon Sparrow Army’s establishment. All signs indicated that the Third Prince’s side had clearly mastered methods to control epidemic transmission from the very beginning of establishing the Dragon Sparrow Army, and had been implementing them step by step from the garrison military headquarters’ inception.

Over the past six months, Han Daoxun’s son Han Qian hadn’t been reporting much to the Marquis of Linjiang’s residence, but spent more time entering and exiting the Qiuhu Mountain villa located inside the Dragon Sparrow Army garrison military headquarters. Quicklime, as the most important material for controlling epidemic source transmission, had been heavily invested by the garrison military headquarters—in half a year, no less than forty thousand dan had been invested, also mainly produced by workshops belonging to Qiuhu Mountain villa.

Combined with Han Daoxun’s appointment as Xuzhou Prefect this time, and Han Qian receiving a rank-eight military official position before even turning twenty, all this indicated that Han Daoxun was the core figure planning for the Third Prince.

The so-called memorial to expel refugees was merely the first step in Han Daoxun’s scheme to establish the Dragon Sparrow Army from plague-stricken refugees.

To scheme for this matter, Han Daoxun hadn’t hesitated to anger the Emperor at court and even bore the evil reputation of memorializing to expel refugees. Would such a figure truly believe the road ahead was now smooth and safe, allowing him to transport wine for profit on the side?

Ji Kun harbored deep doubts about everything he saw before him, far from being as optimistic as his several subordinates beside him. But he couldn’t see where the suspicious points were, and his chest felt stuffy and uncomfortable with frustration.

“They’ve raised their sails!” A subordinate disguised as a boatman, barefoot and crouching, crawled under the black canopy, rubbing his hands expectantly as he asked: “Do we wait here for news, or follow behind to watch the excitement?”

“No, prepare three fast horses. We’ll go ashore and follow the boat on foot.” Ji Kun ultimately didn’t feel they truly had victory in hand this time. It was just that a black-canopy boat with two or three people rowing was too slow.

Even without being detected, after rowing upstream for over ten li with three people, their stamina would quickly be exhausted. Better to go ashore and follow on horseback.

“Won’t our target be somewhat obvious?” The subordinate said hesitantly.

“If we don’t show ourselves, do you think they won’t know we’re watching?” Ji Kun gave his subordinate a sideways glance and urged him to quickly go ashore to prepare fast horses.

Along the river, only the Huangzhou City section had river embankments and roads built. In most other places, streams and rivers of various sizes flowing down from the southern foothills of Huaiyang Mountain met with the river waters, forming grass marshes and lake wetlands of all sizes.

Ji Kun led two subordinates riding fast horses. Blocked by streams and rivers, searching for ferries to cross, detouring around lake marshes and wetlands, they were quickly left far behind by the sailing ship Han Daoxun was aboard. In the afternoon, they saw from over ten or twenty li away that in the lake marshes, firelight was faintly rising.

Blocked by vegetation and positioned in low-lying ground with no high ground on either side, Ji Kun had no idea what was happening there. He only saw birds startled into flight—quite a commotion, but definitely not wildfire.

Ji Kun’s heart was full of foreboding. Disregarding the danger, he waded directly through shallow water in the grass wetlands and lake marshes toward the firelight. But by the time he arrived, two double-hours had already passed.

As the setting sun shone down, he saw in a narrow river lane with relatively steep banks only four charred remnant boats remained—some half-sunk in water, some stranded on the riverbank.

On the riverbank were over twenty corpses scattered about. From their dress, all were river pirates. It seemed that as they abandoned ship wanting to wade ashore, they were shot and killed on the riverbank by ambush forces on shore. Who knew how many more corpses had been washed into the river? At this moment, there was no trace at all of the flagship Han Daoxun had been aboard.

Ji Kun stared dumbfounded at everything before him. His two subordinates found it even harder to believe.

Seeing that ahead of the four remnant boats, an oar-sail boat was tilted on its side in the river lane, then examining the traces on the riverbed and shoreline, they could generally judge that the bandit boats had been lured by Han Daoxun into this narrow-watered river lane. Han Daoxun’s side had first scuttled one boat to block the bandit soldiers’ advancing route, then had ambush forces on shore throw incendiaries to ignite the bandit boats from behind.

The fire had spread in a very short time. At least four bandit boats were completely burned, leaving only half-charred remnant shells. The out-of-control fire had then forced the bandit soldiers in extremely unfavorable circumstances to abandon ship and wade ashore, but they suffered powerful strikes at the shoreline, leaving over twenty corpses on the riverbank before losing their will to fight. Most of the bandit soldiers could only flee along the riverbank toward the river, or panic and escape into the grass marshes on the other side where shrubs, reeds, and water grasses grew in wild profusion.

It was evident that after the bandit soldiers were completely routed, Han Daoxun’s side had pulled the sunken boat to one side so their flagship could exit the river lane. Everyone on their side should have already safely withdrawn.

Ji Kun and his two subordinates abandoned their horses and cautiously felt their way south along the riverbank. Seven or eight li later, they saw another six or seven corpses washed onto the riverbank by water. Among them were two of the covert agents they had sent to contact the bandit troops. Seeing that their armor had been burned and damaged by fire, they should have been severely burned, fallen into the river, and drowned.

Examining the battle traces on the riverbank, they could roughly estimate that the forces Han Daoxun’s side had ambushed on the east bank directly participating in the ambush wouldn’t exceed fifty men. Yet they had used favorable terrain and unexpected fire attacks to kill nearly three hundred river pirates, sending them fleeing in great rout, with over fifty bandit soldiers perishing here.

Although the bandit soldiers had weak fighting spirit and their training and armor were far from elite, how could they have been killed like this?

Looking at all this, Ji Kun felt a chill run straight up from his tailbone. Just what kind of enemy was this Han Daoxun he had to deal with? When he had patted his chest promising Zhao Mingting that Han Daoxun absolutely wouldn’t live to reach Xuzhou, had he been too overconfident?

…

…

While Ji Kun trembled with shock and fear, on the river surface over twenty li to the west, Tian Cheng, Gao Shao and others were drinking the small half-jar of remaining pure alcohol with high spirits and delight.

Although the purified alcohol was mixed with some lime water and tasted quite bitter, they had never drunk such strong liquor before. Taking small sips, feeling the burning sensation like a line of fire traveling down their throats into their bellies was still uniquely refreshing. Or rather, today’s ambush battle had been fought too refreshingly.

Apart from three of them being wounded by arrows and two spraining their ankles while running, they had killed nearly three hundred bandits, sending them crying for their parents and fleeing in great rout.

Even for Tian Cheng and Gao Shao, who had previously ambushed and killed quite a few roving bandits in the army who could only be considered rabble, such battle achievements were rarely seen.

Yang Qin led his forces aboard another oar-sail boat. Their mood, however, was complex.

Besides, having just experienced the tragic disaster of their settlement’s destruction and relatives’ deaths, no matter how smoothly this battle was fought, they found it difficult to feel excited. Thinking that they, a group of rabble, had actually been instigated by Ji Kun to foolishly plot an ambush against such an enemy, an indescribable and peculiarly uncomfortable emotion was growing in their hearts.

In the eyes of true elite forces, weren’t they just rabble vulnerable to a single blow?

Yet they hadn’t known this themselves, and had provoked such a terrible and tragic calamity.

Han Qian sat at the stern without much excitement. Only when looking at the two oar-sail boats captured from the river pirates trailing behind did his mood feel somewhat comfortable.

He thought that in order to trap the river pirates in the ambush river lane, they had scuttled Yang Qin’s oar-sail boat, so they needed to give Yang Qin back one oar-sail boat. That meant they could still keep one oar-sail boat, which about offset the consumption of this battle—basically breaking even, neither losing nor gaining.

However, thinking further about such small-scale warfare and the consumption along this journey, Han Qian hesitated about whether to continue cultivating Yang Qin’s group.

He had previously sent Zhao Wuji and others to lead the Left Bureau scouts as escort along the way—fewer than fifty men, borrowing fifty fast horses from the garrison military headquarters. But to deliver messages along the way while avoiding the Department of Operations’ surveillance, they could only take detours around the periphery, which particularly heavily strained and consumed the horses. Sometimes to hide their tracks, they had to abandon or even painfully slaughter horses at the drop of a hat. By now, they had already lost over twenty fast horses.

In the north, horse prices were somewhat cheaper, but in Jianghuai, each healthy horse that could take the battlefield was worth eighty to ninety thousand coins. The loss of over twenty fast horses was equivalent to two million coins.

Han Qian was still troubled about how to smooth over this account or simply default on it after returning to Jinling.

Furthermore, when personnel were dispatched externally, to maintain their strength they mostly used dried rations during travel, but at market towns they needed to find ways to supplement meat, even needing to drink large quantities of alcohol to eliminate fatigue. Combined with buying information, stopping for meals and lodging, purchasing outfits to conceal their tracks, and so on—at the beginning of external deployment, each person was allocated the equivalent of ten thousand coins in gold, silver, and precious metals plus some copper coins as expenses. In the end, probably not much could be left.

This expenditure was another five hundred-some thousand coins.

Fortunately, there had been no casualties so far, so they didn’t need to pay large amounts in pensions. But if they truly succeeded in escorting his father to Xuzhou, they would have to symbolically give some rewards—at least a hundred or two hundred thousand coins would need to be handed out.

Calculating this way, Han Qian felt that he was about to completely exhaust all the public surplus money His Highness had promised to allocate to him this year.

Yang Qin’s group, roaming between Jiang and E, were extremely familiar with the water conditions of this area. If cultivated, even directly incorporated into the Secret Office’s Left Bureau, they would certainly be very useful. But raising thirty to fifty people as elite forces externally wasn’t just about giving them three jin of grain daily to fill their bellies.

Han Qian privately estimated that to maintain an elite force of thirty to fifty people between Jiang and E while keeping them in a covert state, monitoring the water bandits in the Jiang-E area as well as the expansion of influence in this region by the maternal relatives the Xu clan and Peace Palace—the military pay plus large amounts of additional expenses would require investing at least two to three million coins annually. Could he raise this much more money?

Or to put it another way, at such a great cost to recruit Yang Qin’s team between Jiang and E, could they bring him this much in additional revenue each year?

At this moment, Han Qian could understand why the Marquis of Xinchang’s residence and Evening Red Chamber, with such deep foundations and such long periods of plotting, had their resources drained dry in just half a year by the Dragon Sparrow Army, which wasn’t even that large in scale. The reality was that their long-term maintenance of an elite secret force for operations consumed way too much damn money.