Yun Ye took a thoroughly satisfying hot bath—the water temperature was almost hot enough to scald pig bristles. His entire body was cooked like a large shrimp. How refreshing! All the filth from inside and out was completely swept away.
Only then did he realize that the self-pity from the previous days was actually a product of stress, as well as remorse emanating from the depths of his heart after committing murder.
Remorse and killing were two separate concepts. In this world, there were plenty of people who repented while killing—Yun Ye wasn’t the only one. Li Anlan ultimately didn’t escape his clutches and lay on the bed moaning like a pile of mud. Of course, outside the sun was blazing bright.
The cook who had come to Lingnan from his household prepared a large bowl of century egg and lean pork congee for the marquis. Eating it with pickled garlic in sugar, he ate his fill. Thinking of Li Anlan still collapsed on the bed, he told Lingdang to serve the princess a bowl as well, saying that the marquis had personally cooked it.
His son disdained Yun Ye’s garlic breath after eating and wouldn’t let him kiss him, shaking his head left and right to avoid being caught. Fine, he was a good child—he had just put a green tangerine in his father’s bowl, wanting him to replenish his vitality.
The handsome Wang Cai now had nothing better to do than sniff the rear ends of mares. Two slaps couldn’t change this habit. The stable hand said Wang Cai was missing female horses.
The south belonged to the element of fire—not only was the weather hot, but people also got inflamed. Not to mention Wang Cai, who had become a magnificent horse—excessive internal heat damaged the body. He couldn’t just solve his own problem and ignore poor Wang Cai. Now that fellow would go up and sniff even water buffaloes. How pitiful.
Hong Cheng had been working himself to exhaustion these past days until he was barely recognizable. The veteran soldiers under his command were driven by him like startled donkeys, riding horses and wielding whips, collecting treasures and goods everywhere.
There weren’t enough men—less than a thousand remained. Sun Rengshi had taken two thousand, recruited three thousand new soldiers from who knows where, and to strengthen the training of the new recruits, the two thousand veterans couldn’t return yet. They needed to wait until the new soldiers became veterans before they could return to Chang’an by land.
On the North Sea was a natural harbor where the ships built by the Yun family gathered. They sat deep in the water, fully loaded with rice grain. Unfortunately, there were too few ships to transport all that grain. The court’s naval vessels also stopped there, preparing to transport the grain to Shandong in one go. The court actually didn’t place much hope in them, always feeling it was improper to tie their fate to Heaven’s whims.
The person who brought the ships was Liu Renyuan. Whenever Yun Ye saw this fellow, he wanted to beat him—he’d wanted to for a year now. Which family’s student runs away while studying? Of all the students in the academy, he was the only one. After hearing Yun Ye casually boast about Caribbean pirates during his leisure time, he became fascinated by those fierce pirates with red silk wrapped around their heads, curved blades in their hands, one eye, and a dragon-phoenix hook replacing their left hand.
The dim-witted fool wanted to go to sea to find the Fountain of Youth and catch a siren to keep in a water tank to hear her sing. His father Liu Daju indulged his son in everything, spending a fortune to get his son into the navy, securing him a position as a Zhiguo Colonel of the seventh rank. If it were in the Six Guards, even bankrupting the family wouldn’t make it possible, but with the navy there was no problem—Great Tang didn’t pay much attention to the navy.
Just the fact that he took a tower ship out to sea was enough to have him torn apart by five horses, so Yun Ye had no psychological burden whipping this fellow.
“The academy producing someone like you is purely the academy’s shame. Taking a tower ship out to sea, and bringing mengchong warships too! A small wind and waves could take you to the ocean floor. It doesn’t matter if you die—your father is wealthy—but you don’t even care about the lives of the other soldiers! With a Zhiguo Colonel like you, there must be a bastard Ningyuan General. I’ll beat you to death! I’m going to submit a memorial impeaching that bastard general who treats soldiers’ lives as a game. I won’t rest until I have him sent to the North Sea to herd sheep, making him ten times more miserable than Su Wu!”
Liu Renyuan didn’t dare resist. Fortunately, he was wearing armor, so a few whip lashes didn’t hurt much. But hearing that his teacher wouldn’t even spare his superior made him anxious. The teacher’s memorials had never been rejected by the emperor. His superior was his own uncle by marriage—if he was sent to the North Sea, that place was now Turkic territory, and there he probably couldn’t even eat grass.
“I’ve been wronged, wronged! Those aren’t tower ships. The court forbids building giant vessels. This student modified the ships myself. If I’d really taken tower ships out to sea, I would have been torn apart by five horses long ago.”
Hearing his words, Yun Ye stopped his whip and looked suspiciously at the dozen or so ships floating on the sea. High decks with foolishly added building structures on top. Most infuriating was that the bow even had a catapult, and the ship’s stern tilted lightly upward. If these weren’t the tower ships used on the Yangtze River, what were they?
This made him furious. He threw away the whip and searched everywhere for a chain hammer. If he didn’t properly discipline this traitorous scoundrel today, he would really be failing his painstaking efforts in teaching students.
“Accept a small stick, flee from a large one”—this was something the academy had taught students early on, just in case some teacher was angered senseless by an idiotic student and killed them with a club. To avoid such tragedies, students could run at such times.
Liu Renyuan ran in circles ahead while Yun Ye chased behind wielding a mace. After two laps, Yun Ye couldn’t run anymore. He had exerted himself too much taking revenge on the princess today, and his legs were weak. He could only lean on the mace and pant.
Seeing his teacher stop chasing, Liu Renyuan kept his distance and apologized to his teacher. After apologizing, he shouted orders at the naval soldiers. A miracle occurred—the superstructures of those tower ships bloomed like peonies in an instant, opening layer by layer, transforming into a new deck amid the soldiers’ chanting. The forward-leaning stance also disappeared. The catapult was disassembled in three moves, and an imposing eight-oxen crossbow stood majestically at the bow.
Yun Ye tossed away the mace and walked to the seaside to carefully observe these ships. Good—the sails above had also changed from a screen-like rigid sail to three adjustable soft sails. The fatal thing was that those soft sails were actually made of silk cloth.
Liu Renyuan stood beside Yun Ye with his chest out, pointing at the fleet and saying, “Teacher, do you think this student is a fool? I already asked Master Gongshu to design these things for me. Brocade sails appeared during the Three Kingdoms period—what’s wrong with this student using them here? With these soft sails, this student can maximize the use of wind power. Isn’t that how your sail cart works?”
“As for the upper floors, they’re useful for fighting on great rivers, but useless at sea. Just as you said, a small gust could capsize the ship. This student made the floors movable—raise them up when returning to the river, fold them down when going out to sea, and they can also reinforce the deck.”
“You don’t need to look at this student that way. I’ve considered the timber problem. We’re using all materials for sea vessels—primarily lychee wood, camphor wood, and wulan wood, connected and riveted with iron nails. This student found a group of seafaring men whose caulking skills are unparalleled. I’ve seen your ships—in this regard, they still can’t match this student’s vessels.” Having said all this, he looked expectantly at Yun Ye, hoping his teacher would praise him a few times.
“What about the keel? I’m asking about the keel. Did your ships use keels or not? If not, take them back to the river as soon as possible. Don’t embarrass yourself at sea.”
“Teacher, my sea vessels really did use keels. I didn’t understand at first and consulted many craftsmen before understanding their purpose. One craftsman accidentally caught a large fish, and while removing the meat, he figured out how to install the keel. My family has always made our living from the water. This student remembers all the stories you told. Each time I heard about something, I told my father to experiment with it, passed it to my uncle—that person you’re preparing to send to the North Sea to herd sheep—and implemented them one by one. Finally, we had these ships. That’s why this student left without informing anyone to operate these vessels. For them, my Liu family nearly went bankrupt. My father only eats two meals a day and hasn’t eaten meat in two years, all for this disciple’s dream of seeing the great sea. Now…”
Even the greatest families couldn’t withstand such trials. Yun Ye still remembered that after Liu Renyuan ran away, his old father knelt before Teacher Li Gang, desperately pleading with the academy not to expel Liu Renyuan, to give his son a way back.
How pitiful are parents’ hearts! Li Gang ultimately didn’t deliver this harsh blow. As long as his enrollment was retained, if Liu Renyuan failed, he would still have a chance to rise again. This was also why Yun Ye beat him without asking questions when he saw Liu Renyuan.
The twenty-two-year-old Liu Renyuan had long shed his naivety from his academy days. With broad shoulders, a well-proportioned build, and a face weathered rough by sea winds, he was already a full-fledged man.
“This time, return to the capital with me to complete your unfinished coursework at the academy and participate in this winter’s examinations together. This is very important for you. If you want your ideals to fly higher, you need a higher starting point.”
“Thank you for your forgiveness, Teacher.” Liu Renyuan bowed and performed the disciple’s rite.
Yun Ye patted his solid back and continued, “Not studying properly—you only learned half of everything. You can build ships but haven’t systematically studied how to use these warships to accumulate wealth for yourself and the nation. Your father went two years without meat because of your foolishness. A bottle not full, half a bottle sloshing.”
Yun Ye put on his teacher’s airs and boarded a small boat. Liu Renyuan rowed the small vessel, sending Yun Ye to the large ship, preparing to examine carefully whether this ship was actually good—whether it was just for show or truly functional. Right now there was no reference model; everything needed constant experimentation, constant improvement, and would constantly result in deaths.
Walking unsteadily on the deck, those barefooted men all cast contemptuous looks, not understanding why their colonel would respectfully invite a landlubber aboard to inspect this treasure ship they were so proud of. What could a landlubber inspect? He couldn’t even stand steady. Was he here to check whether their ship could climb ashore?
“The cables aren’t coiled up—unacceptable.”
“The rudder is actually two iron rods. Can’t you use your brain and change it to a wheel? It would be more comfortable to operate and easier to handle—unacceptable.”
“The knots aren’t standardized, completely chaotic—unacceptable.”
“Sharp corners everywhere in the cabin—people will be knocked to death in wind and waves—unacceptable.”
“Miscellaneous items not secured, water buckets and cargo placed everywhere—they’ll shift and crush people when there are waves—unacceptable.”
“Rats on the ship will bring disease—unacceptable.”
“No tangerines or bean sprouts prepared for long voyages—this is foolish—unacceptable.”
“Every crotch reeks to high heaven—unhygienic—unacceptable.”
A fellow with one eye heard Yun Ye’s string of “unacceptables” and immediately flew into a rage. He opened his mouth and spoke in garbled sounds. Looking carefully, one could see he was missing half his tongue…