A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

Ke Zhenchuan's main force has fled, but the coastal areas have not truly calmed down.

As Liu Jingshuang squatted on the watchtower at Yuezhou Port, reviewing the latest intelligence reports sent by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, it was still dark outside.

The intelligence report clearly stated that a small boat docked at night off the coast of Mingzhou, stole half a village's dried salted fish, and ran away.

Three pirate corpses were found behind the rocks south of Yuezhou, seemingly killed in an internal fight.

The situation was even more chaotic in Quanzhou. A dozen or so people sneaked into a fishing village pretending to be fishermen, but when the village chief discovered them, they jumped over the wall and ran away, even losing their shoes in the process.

Three or four hundred people.

Liu Jingshuang closed the intelligence report and started calculating in her mind.

When Ke Zhenchuan left, he took more than 7,000 main force members with him. The rest were either unwilling to follow or unable to keep up.

After they dispersed, they split into smaller groups of three to five, hiding in fishing villages and on islands, and would go ashore to rob when they got hungry.

It's not a major problem, but we can't ignore it either.

These scattered bandits are the most agonizing.

If you send 20,000 cavalry to chase them, they'll just disappear into the reeds, and your horses won't even be able to get in.

If you don't do anything, it will come out every few days to take a bite out of people, and the people's hearts, which have just settled down for two days, will be on edge again.

She stood up and slammed the intelligence report onto the table.

"Someone come here."

The vice-general poked his head in from outside the door.

"Post a notice."

The lieutenant was taken aback. "What are you posting?"

Liu Jingshuang had already sat down at her desk and started writing.

She wrote very quickly, pushing the paper over before the ink was even dry.

"Anyone who reports a pirate hideout will be rewarded with ten taels of silver. Anyone who harbors pirates will be punished the same as the pirates."

The lieutenant took it and read it, then opened his mouth slightly:

"General, ten taels of silver... ten taels for each clue. If we distribute that across three prefectures, how much silver will we get?"

"It has to be spent no matter how much."

Liu Jingshuang put down her pen.

She had it all figured out.

Even if we send our 20,000 cavalry to search the coast, we'd be exhausted and still not be able to finish.

There are so many places where people hide—reefs, reed beds, islands, caves—it would take until next year to search them all.

But it's different for ordinary people.

Villagers can tell at a glance which house has a new face, which boat has secretly docked at night, or which house has suddenly gained an unfamiliar person.

She doesn't need 20,000 cavalry to go find her.

She only needs tens of thousands of eyes to keep an eye on her.

Ten taels of silver is not a small amount.

For coastal fishermen, it's enough to feed a family for half a year.

If the reward is generous enough, people will naturally gravitate towards her.

"The patches were applied simultaneously in three states, and were rolled out across the entire region within a single day."

Liu Jingshuang said, "Also, write down clearly the clause about harboring pirates. This isn't meant to scare you; it's serious. If we find one, we'll prosecute them, confiscate their property, and send their entire family to war."

The lieutenant's throat bobbed: "Isn't this... a bit too harsh? Some fishermen might have been forced to take them in..."

"Just report it when you're forced to."

Liu Jingshuang looked at him, her tone unwavering: "If you report it, you're a law-abiding citizen; if you keep quiet, you're an accomplice. I've given them a way out; whether they choose to take it or not is their own decision."

The lieutenant said nothing more, and left with the paper in his hand.

The notices covered the coastlines of the three states within three days.

Liu Jingshuang didn't expect immediate results, but someone came on the fourth day.

The first person to report it was an old fisherwoman from Minnesota.

Holding a tattered basket, she stood at the entrance of the yamen, too afraid to go in. Her legs were trembling when the bailiffs brought her before Liu Jingshuang.

"explain."

The old fisherwoman pointed southeast: "There are people at that abandoned shipyard behind the village... five or six of them. They don't come out during the day, but they climb over the wall at night to steal chickens..."

That very night, Liu Jingshuang dispatched a cavalry unit.

Five pirates were squatting in the abandoned shipyard, with two rusty scimitars and half a bag of stolen sweet potatoes beside them.

After being brought back and interrogated, they revealed two more hiding places.

After the news spread, the number of people reporting it suddenly increased.

Someone reported that a small boat was hidden under the dock at the village entrance, and people were secretly rowing it out every night.

Someone reported that a widow in the next town had two "distant relatives" at home, and they were sharpening knives in the middle of the night.

There was also a daring young man who tied up a pirate hiding in his woodshed and brought him to the yamen gate.

Over the course of ten days, a thick stack of tip-offs and leads had accumulated from various parts of the three states.

Liu Jingshuang looked at each document one by one, feeling more and more at ease with each reading.

It's not because there are many clues. It's because the people are willing to report them.

This shows that people's hearts have returned.

When Ke Zhenchuan was running rampant at sea, the people along the coast dared not utter a sound, for fear of offending the pirates and being retaliated against.

Now that Ke Zhenchuan has fled and the grain has been distributed, the people know that the government can be relied upon, and their courage has naturally increased.

The human heart is like water.

When you can't block it, nothing you use to block it will work; when it comes along, you can move it with just a push.

For the next month, Liu Jingshuang followed the map and cleared out each location one by one.

Where cavalry is ineffective, infantry are sent; where infantry cannot reach, the Embroidered Uniform Guard's spies are sent to investigate.

Some pirates hid deep on the islands, so she asked Lao Zhao to find a few fishing boats and send people to surround them when the tide was out.

More than two hundred scattered bandits were wiped out.

The remaining hundred or so people either fled into the deeper mountains and forests or took small boats out to sea to pursue Ke Zhenchuan to the south.

She didn't pursue these people.

There's no point in chasing after them, since we can't catch up anyway.

A hundred or so people won't amount to much. Let them starve in the mountains for a few months, and they'll either come out and surrender or become savages.

The people living along the coast gradually realized that their lives were changing.

No more people will be banging on the door and stealing our food in the middle of the night.

No firelight or shouts of battle could be seen on the sea.

The fishermen began to secretly inquire—when could they go out to sea to fish?

Liu Jingshuang loosened the port closure order by half.

Fishing is permitted within five li of the coast, but not beyond five li.

Fishing boats are registered when they go out and checked when they return; if even one boat is missing, the entire port is immediately closed.

Although the rules are strict, it's much better than before when not a single boat was allowed to move.

The fishermen complained that it was "meddling," but they were very efficient, setting sail in their fine boats before dawn.

On the day the first batch of fish was hauled back, a crowd gathered at the harbor to watch.

An old man was squatting on the dock, looking at the white fish in the boat, and suddenly he smiled.

Liu Jingshuang didn't look at these things.

She was packing her things.

It's time to go.

The major battles in the southeast have been over, and the scattered bandits have been mostly wiped out.

The 20,000 cavalry she brought couldn't stay at the seaside indefinitely; there were still a lot of things to deal with in the capital.

Bai Tu Kui in the Northwest doesn't know when she'll make a move. She can't possibly stay stuck in the Southeast forever.

Before leaving, she convened a meeting with the officials from the Maritime Trade Office and the coastal garrison in the council hall of Yuezhou City.

There were quite a few people there.

The officials of the Maritime Trade Office, the commanders and deputy commanders of the garrison in the three prefectures, and a few minor officials in charge of the ports in various places.

The room was packed with people, and those standing in the back had to crane their necks.

Liu Jingshuang didn't sit. She stood at the very front, with a nautical chart of the southeastern coast hanging on the wall behind her, covered with markings drawn in vermilion ink.

"The pirates will return."

Her very first words instantly put an end to the tense atmosphere in the room.

The expressions of the officials who had just breathed a sigh of relief changed.

"Ke Zhenchuan left unwillingly. He had been at sea for several years and still had seven thousand men under his command. Although he had fewer ships, he still had his men. Give him three months to catch his breath, and he could rebuild a fleet from the South China Sea. Give him six months, and he would dare to come back."

No one in the room made a sound.

Liu Jingshuang pointed to the nautical chart: "Your mission is not to wait for them to come back before you fight, but to make the coastline as solid as a rock before they return."

She gestured from Mingzhou to Quanzhou.

"Fortify the ports. Each port should be equipped with at least two ballistae, with a range covering the entire inbound waterway. The beacon towers should be rebuilt, with the spacing reduced from the current thirty li to fifteen li, and they must be manned at night. An outpost should be placed every ten li along the coastline, using flag signals during the day and lights at night. The granaries should be moved from the ports to thirty li inland and stored in a dispersed manner, so as not to give anyone another chance to take them all at once."

She recited each point one by one, while someone took notes beside her.

The garrison commander stood at the front row and remained silent.

He was in his forties, surnamed Han, and a veteran who had spent more than ten years in the southeast. He had fought against several small-scale pirates, but had never experienced someone of Ke Zhenchuan's caliber.

After Liu Jingshuang finished speaking, she looked at him.

"General Han."

General Han immediately stood up straight: "Your subordinate is here."

Liu Jingshuang took out the black iron token from her bosom.

The token was small and dark, with the dragon pattern of the new martial arts engraved on it.

This item was personally handed to her by Wei Zhao; seeing this edict was like seeing the emperor himself.

She handed over the token.

"I'll leave the token with you for now."

General Han accepted it with both hands, his palms sweaty.

The token was heavy, pressing down in my palm like a piece of red-hot iron.

"If Ke Zhenchuan comes back, you must act before anyone else."

General Han swallowed hard and nodded.