Starting from 1618 of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 154 Heading North in Search

On the day we set off, it was still dark.

Fan Fu carried the luggage onto the ship: two boxes, one containing a change of clothes and the other containing official documents and travel permits. There was also a separate small wooden box, locked with a copper clasp. This box was brought out of Lu Yan's study and carried onto the ship by himself, placing it in the cabin near the window. No one asked what was inside. Fan Fu saw him carry it in and turned to tidy up other things, not paying much attention.

Zhao Changying stood on the ship's side, watching the sailors untie the mooring ropes and toss them onto the bow. He turned around and asked, "Young Master, how many days will this trip take?"

"If things go quickly, it will take seven or eight days to go and come back," Lu Yan said as he came out of the cabin, stood on the deck, and glanced at the dock. The lanterns glowed in the mist, yellow, large, and with blurred edges. "If things go slowly, it will take a little over ten days."

"How many people are you bringing?"

"You, add two personal guards," Lu Yan said, glancing at Zhao Changying. "It's not a war. Bringing too many would be conspicuous. The pretext is to inspect the construction of warships. With an official certificate from the Assistant Magistrate, we'll make a detour to Ningyuan, then pass through Dengzhou on the way back, and pay a visit to Lord Sun. No more than four people know this story."

Zhao Changying nodded, asked no more questions, and jumped to the other side of the deck to watch the sailors pole the boat.

As the boat left the dock, the mist gradually pushed the outline of Dengzhou City toward the stern. The city towers first faded, then became blurred, until finally only a single lamp atop the city wall remained, yellow and hazy through the mist, until it disappeared.

Lu Yan didn't turn around to look. He went into the cabin, sat down on the bench by the window, took out the small wooden box, placed it on his lap, and left it there without opening it.

The boat moves on the water: the water laps against the hull: thumping rhythmically, like a steady heartbeat; the early morning wind seeps in through the window cracks.

It has a slightly fishy smell, is cool and refreshing, and invigorates the mind.

He felt the weight of the small wooden box on his lap and remembered what was inside.

It was the latest flintlock pistol from the Changshan Island branch workshop. Zhao Tie had just adjusted the firing mechanism last month and replaced the main spring, making it nearly 30% easier to pull the hammer. He had Zhao Tie pick the best one from this batch of finished products. The barrel was wiped inside and out with a fine cloth, and the wood grain of the stock was clearly visible. It wasn't a sample; it was a ready-made, functional pistol that could be fired once loaded.

He tested the gun himself. He fired it seven times, and all seven shots were successful without a single misfire.

Before he set off, Shen Qing's last words were still in his mind: "Sun Yuanhua, in the Dengzhou government office, talked the most about artillery matters; talked the least about court personnel; talked less about those days on the walls of Ningyuan, but in a different way. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk, but that no one could keep up with his words, so he simply didn't say anything."

After saying this, Shen Qing paused, glanced at Lu Yan, and then left.

Lu Yan understood the meaning behind that glance.

Shen Qing had served in the Northern Garrison of the Embroidered Uniform Guard for many years and had witnessed far too many people die in their offices, suffocating in the process. Before they died, no one could respond to their words, and after they died, no one remembered what they had said. This was something Shen Qing knew intimately. He told Lu Yan not as a lament, but as a reminder.

Lu Yan pressed his hand down on the wooden crate, processed the words in his mind, got up and left the cabin, standing on the deck for a while.

The sky began to change; the deep blue retreated eastward, and a thin line of pale white appeared on the eastern horizon, as if someone had used an extremely fine brush to draw a line at the boundary between the sky and the sea, and then stopped moving. The white had a hint of orange, the most fleeting color before sunrise, gone in the blink of an eye, too fleeting to remember, only visible.

Zhao Changying stood at the bow of the boat. When he saw him come out, she turned around and said, "You're out? Have something to eat. Fan Fu has prepared something hot in the cabin."

"Wait a moment," Lu Yan said, standing on the deck and looking at the water ahead with the wind. "It'll be light soon."

Zhao Changying stopped urging him and turned back to look ahead. The two stood on the deck for a while without saying anything, just watching the pale light slowly rise, dyeing the horizon orange, then red, and finally bright gold. The sun emerged from under the sea, and at that moment, the entire sea looked as if a large expanse of gold had been overturned, making their eyes sting.

"Let's go," Lu Yan said, walking towards the cabin, "to get something to eat."

The ship traveled for nearly three days, stopping once near Jinzhou to change to fresh water and replenish supplies. It then traveled for almost another day before reaching the anchorage off the coast of Ningyuan.

Lu Yan changed into a plain cloth robe, wore only the waist tag of a sub-prefect, and took only Zhao Changying with him. He went ashore, took the document, and wandered around Ningyuan City for most of the day.

He wasn't looking at the bullet holes left on the city wall, the charred beams, or the broken plaster on the rammed earth wall mentioned in the victory report. These things had already been estimated on the ship, and seeing them in front of him was just confirming those estimates; there were no other surprises.

What he actually spent time looking at was the city wall.

Walking along the section of the city wall between the west and north gates, I strolled along slowly, pausing wherever I came to observe the cannon marks on the wall, then shifting my gaze from the scuff marks on the ground to the slope outside the wall, mentally reconstructing the arrangement of the eleven cannons.

Where are the traces of the gun emplacements, and at what angle? Where are the bricks newly replaced, indicating that the original bricks were cracked by artillery fire? The location where the bricks were replaced means that the area was under the heaviest load at the time. The northwest corner of the city gate tower is an obvious blind spot from the outside, but the gun emplacements were angled towards this spot, covering that blind spot. This detail is not something that would be thought of by simply following the textbook; it is something that only someone who understands the tactics of Paomapo would deliberately cover up.

Zhao Changying followed behind him, watching him stop here and there without saying a word or urging him on. She just watched and roughly understood that this was not an ordinary inspection, but she didn't understand what he was looking at, so she simply didn't ask.

After descending from the city wall and reaching the city gate, Zhao Changying couldn't help but ask, "What did you figure out?"

"I can tell that Sun Yuanhua is not just someone who sits in his study talking about cannons," Lu Yan said, without stopping. He walked through the city gate towards the direction where the ships were moored. The wind came from the sea and hit him head-on. He did not stop. "He has served on the city walls, fought, and is familiar with the cavalry's charging tactics."

"How did you figure that out?" Zhao Changying followed up.

"The gun emplacement at the north gate is out of position," Lu Yan said. "It's out of position in the blind spot of the gate tower, in the northwest. Conventional gun emplacements wouldn't be positioned there. Only someone who knows the angle from which cavalry usually charge in would think of placing it there." He paused, changed direction, and went left around a section of ruins before continuing, "This experience isn't something you read in books; it's something you've seen or heard from others who have seen it. It's so profound that it directly impacts your judgment on troop deployment and artillery arrangement."

Zhao Changying took two steps and asked, "So this person is worth meeting?"

"It's worth it," Lu Yan said, his voice not loud, but carrying something in it, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, whether it was certainty or something else. "It's not just worth seeing, it's worth doing for a long time—but let's see him first, and then we'll talk."

That afternoon, they boarded the boat and headed back towards Dengzhou.

The wind at sea picked up in the afternoon, billowing the sails and taut the ropes. Zhao Changying stood at the bow for a while, facing the wind, taking in the view of the stretch of road. Then he turned and lowered the windshield, returning to the deck. Leaning against the railing, he said to Lu Yan, "Young Master, when you go to see Sun Yuanhua, do you plan to speak directly or indirectly?"

“By twists and turns, there’s no use,” Lu Yan said, taking the small wooden box from beside his seat and placing it on his lap. “He sees through any roundabout talk with that kind of person in an instant. It’s better to be direct.” He paused for a moment. “Direct doesn’t mean finishing the story. First, lay out the contents and let him think for himself.”

After listening to this, Zhao Changying processed the information for a moment and then asked, "What is this thing—that gun?"

"The gun is the beginning," Lu Yan said. "That's enough for the beginning. As for the rest, we'll wait for him to ask."

The ship continued south, and the sun sank to the right, casting a sunset glow on the sea—a vast, spreading orange-red hue. The sea breeze dispersed most of that color, scattering it to the horizon, leaving only a faint, thin line on the horizon, like a brushstroke of color that was about to dry, lingering there as if it might vanish at any moment.

Zhao Changying watched for a while, then loosened the railing and went into the cabin.

Lu Yan sat on the deck for a while longer, waiting for the color to completely disappear before standing up, returning to the cabin, placing the small wooden box back in place, closing his eyes, and listening to the sound of the water, the sound of the sail ropes, and the sound of the wind swirling around the bow of the ship, layer upon layer, like the sea breathing itself.

We're almost in Dengzhou.