She could handle them?
Hearing this, even in her confusion, Ziqing suddenly understood.
How could it possibly be Baili Weisheng! That man, though he’d helped them quite a bit, had never truly stood on their side — his help always seemed to come with some hidden purpose.
Jun Beiyue was never someone who actively sought others’ help, let alone from someone like Baili Weisheng, whose loyalty remained unknown to this day.
Without relying on the merfolk, destroying Nanzhao’s merfolk navy, given the crude conditions of ancient weaponry, would be harder than reaching the heavens.
And yet, if there were modern equipment — never mind anything else, just the gunpowder Ziqing herself had developed — as long as the quantity was sufficient, destroying the merfolk naval fleet was truly something within the realm of possibility!
Jun Beiyue hadn’t built a navy — that didn’t mean he hadn’t prepared!
Maritime fishing and coastal defense were forces not to be underestimated. Not only had Jun Beiyue thought of this, but Ziqing had too — she had even made preparations.
When she developed explosives, she had also once developed naval mines, though it had been terribly difficult finding the raw materials needed to formulate gunpowder anywhere on the Longyuan continent.
If there had been enough raw materials, never mind the merfolk navy — even Nanzhao’s beast clan army could have been dealt with without hesitation, and Jun Beiyue could have swept unchallenged across the world!
Unfortunately, materials were limited, and she had only managed to produce a handful of naval mines. Most of the raw materials had gone toward making explosives, and by now, what remained in her stock could be counted on fewer than five fingers.
These were things reserved as an absolute last resort to save their lives.
“I… don’t think we have enough.” Ziqing said helplessly, looking out at the merfolk navy ahead. A fleet had slowly come to a stop not far to their south, arranged in a single line, with the ship carrying the Jiao chieftain positioned at the very front of the fleet. It seemed they intended to use only that one ship to fight.
Perhaps it was all just for show — the Black Jiao troops beneath the water had surely already been lying in wait, ready for battle.
“Why wouldn’t it be enough? A single stick of incense is more than enough time!” Jun Beiyue said with a smile, gently wrapping Ziqing in his arms from behind. A lone ship facing a mighty navy, the other side bristling with hostility — yet on his side, it was as if he were simply taking the woman he loved out to sea to enjoy the scenery, leisurely and warm.
Not a single soldier stood on the deck — only the two of them.
On the large ship to the north, Prince Nanzhao, watching this, grew even more suspicious, utterly unable to figure out what Jun Beiyue was up to.
And though the Empress of Dongqin and Yelu Chenyi showed no outward reaction, inside, their emotions were already surging violently. What did Jun Beiyue have to rely on?
Having come this far, they had originally wanted to see just how much confidence he had left, how much longer he could keep up this air of righteous indignation — yet unexpectedly, he seemed even more relaxed and at ease than before.
Could it be that he really thought he was just taking Han Ziqing out for a pleasure cruise?
The preparation time was set at one stick of incense. The Jiao chieftain, originally brimming with confidence, now found himself unable to deny that Jun Beiyue’s composed demeanor had rattled him deep down.
“Father, the Black Jiao have already gone into the water! I think we’d better not get close to them,” the young Jiao chieftain said in a low voice. Though the difference in strength was clearly obvious, their opponent was none other than Prince Yao of Da Zhou, the invincible one on the battlefield — even the Jiao chieftain himself dared not accept the possibility that Jun Beiyue could lose here.
“Yes, better to be cautious,” the Jiao chieftain said gravely.
They waited in silence for the incense to burn down. Meanwhile, on Jun Beiyue’s side, Ziqing, after pondering for a long while, suddenly gasped in realization. “Could it be that you…”
Jun Beiyue smiled and nodded. He had found the raw materials — on Liuxian Island, Ziqing had found sulfur and other raw materials near Qinse Valley, and had begun making bombs and naval mines.
Prince Baxian, and even Physician Gu, had always believed this woman was a source of trouble, that she would hinder his conquest of the realm, hinder his efforts to secure lasting peace for Da Zhou and Longyuan. Ziqing’s poison-immune bloodline from the Isolated Island would bring him no end of trouble, would ruin the peace between Da Zhou and Nanzhao, and would draw countless dark forces from across the realm down upon the imperial house of Da Zhou.
But what they didn’t know was that this woman was also someone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him, someone who could ride into battle alongside him across the battlefield, someone who could strategize with him and win victories from a thousand miles away!
Not only had she created the most advanced weapons in all of Longyuan, but she also had her own remarkably keen insights into the affairs of the realm and matters of court policy!
“I’ve been searching all along. I found a small deposit in the Western Territories, borrowed your team of craftsmen, and had a batch of naval mines made. I’d originally planned to use them on Yaoshun Island — I never expected I’d end up using them here first,” Jun Beiyue explained calmly.
Of course, Ziqing couldn’t possibly have made all the gunpowder herself — she had a team of well-trained craftsmen at her disposal.
There were many types of naval mines. The most advanced were those detonated using sensor devices, but such sophisticated technology, without any of the necessary materials, was beyond what Ziqing could manage. The simplest, cheapest naval mines, however, she could produce without difficulty.
Naval mines and bombs weren’t fundamentally different — the raw materials were the same. What differed was the detonation mechanism.
Bombs could be detonated by fuse or by throwing them, while naval mines, besides needing to be waterproof, also required a way to be triggered.
Waterproofing materials were easy enough to find — much like the thin layer of human-skin mask currently covering the poison scar on her face, which was itself a waterproofing material.
The key to a naval mine lay in how it was triggered.
And the simplest method of triggering a naval mine was to use the changes in water pressure caused by a ship’s passage. Whether a vessel was on the surface or beneath the water, it would create pressure changes in the area below it — the greater the ship’s displacement, the more pronounced the effect.
Put simply, as long as the enemy’s ships passed over the spot where they’d planted the mines, the resulting change in water pressure would trigger the detonation.
Given the limited raw materials, the mines wouldn’t blow up an entire ship, but they were more than enough to blast through a hull — and once the bottom of a ship was destroyed, no matter how large the vessel, staying afloat would be nearly impossible.
“In the middle?”
Ziqing’s gaze shifted to the stretch of sea between the two fleets of ships. The distance wasn’t far, but the mines she’d designed weren’t precise enough to detonate within a tightly controlled range.
The detonation zone could only be estimated roughly, and she didn’t have the weight data for either side’s ships at the moment — she couldn’t calculate what speed would produce how much water pressure.
Under these circumstances, all they could do was wait and hold their position.
“If we just hold position, then the Black Jiao…”
The Black Jiao, moving through the water, produced almost no water pressure changes at all. They couldn’t trigger the mines, but they could silently sneak beneath their ship.
Thinking of this, Ziqing couldn’t help frowning. If they were facing anyone else, she could simply provoke them where they stood — but they were dealing with the Jiao clan, and that was something to worry about.
The incense had nearly burned down, and still there was no movement from the Jiao clan’s side. Ziqing couldn’t help but want to turn and look at Jun Beiyue, but he only held her tighter, saying calmly, “I’ve always wanted to watch a sunset with you. Tell me — do you think the place where the sun sets is the end of the world? When I was young, my dream was to lead an army west, all the way to the very edge of the sunset.”
Ziqing couldn’t help but follow the direction Jun Beiyue was pointing. On the western horizon, the entire sea had been dyed golden, the sky ablaze with sunset clouds, as a round sun slowly sank below the waves.
And at that very moment, the stick of incense beside them finally burned down to its end.