Chapter 1051: That Creature Is a Harmful Creature (6)

For the time being, they returned to the village and told them what had happened to the Japanese pirates.

They had all wiped each other out fighting among themselves, and from the look of it, there was no need to worry about a pirate raid right away.

Still, no one knew what might happen later, so they would have to go make arrangements. Once things were settled, they could slaughter the pig then.

And so the party left the village.

“Bye!”

“Come again next time!”

Apparently, the ones who had grown the most attached to them were the little brats. The village children came swarming out, waving, clinging to each other, and some of them even brought over crude but well-worn toys to give away.

Jayeo silently gathered the toys up.

At first it seemed like a scene full of regret but still fairly cheerful, but the moment one of the little brats suddenly broke into sobs, the crying spread at once, just as it would among children.

No matter how much love a child received, maybe there really were things only friends their own age could fill.

Jangmyeong and Heema probably were not all that different from Jayeo in mental age, but still.

Or maybe she ought to bring Jayeo to the Martial Alliance and keep her there for a while. Or maybe she should suggest that the Martial Alliance hold some kind of academy for Murim juniors—otherwise known as a little-brat training retreat.

On the way back to Shanghai, there was one slight inconvenience: they had given the carriage over to the prince and the Japanese pirate warrior, so everyone else had no choice but to sit on the driver’s bench or up on the roof.

Honestly, had she saved that Japanese bastard for nothing? Then again, it had felt wasteful to just let him die like that.

And this was all that prince bastard’s fault. It was hard to imagine a greater public nuisance than that idiot.

He had gone scouting even though he was nowhere near capable of it, gotten his subordinates killed, gotten himself captured, and then his own army had fallen into infighting and butchered itself.

Most of all, the Central Plains had suddenly gotten saddled with the blame. Over in Ippen, they apparently believed their Crown Prince had been killed by Central Plains troops.

One idiot had forgotten both his own abilities and his own status and run wild, and now it looked as though a war might break out over it. Really, what other war in the world had ever started for a stupider reason than this?

Qing did not know it, but there actually was one.

Back in her homeland, in the past—and from the perspective of this era, in the far distant future as well—there had been an incompetent junior officer who forgot both his abilities and his station and charged in on his own without authority or orders, just because. Literally just because.

Astonishingly enough, that bastard had also been Japanese, and that war too had been a war between Japan and the Central Plains. Even more astonishingly, the Central Plains had still lost.

To be fair, the history of Qing’s home world had been full to bursting with stupid and absurd reasons for wars to start, but still.

Anyway, someone incompetent had stepped forward and nearly brought about a real catastrophe, and she wanted him to feel, properly and clearly, what sort of consequences his actions had created.

That was why she had left that bastard Nakamura alive—so he could suffer for a while, and incidentally because she wanted the man who had worn that necklace of ears so proudly to die in agony.

The only problem was, well, she had not thought about the carriage.

So after going to the trouble of renting an expensive one, they now rode through the pouring rain getting drenched and making themselves miserable, and in the middle of all that the party was deep in discussion.

“You said you were going to wipe out the Japanese pirates, and now you’re talking about invading Japan itself. Did I hear that correctly?”

“I’m not invading. Listen. First, we go with the prince on a warship. Then, if I’m the prince’s benefactor—no, the Crown Prince’s benefactor—then the king ought to personally say thank you at least once, right?”

Once she got inside the Japanese royal palace, that would be when the real pirate extermination began.

First, she would kill everyone in the palace. Then, as the history of the Central Plains had always shown, they would start fighting each other over who got to be king.

And once that happened, they would be too busy killing one another to bother with piracy.

After that, they would simply ride the warship back and be done with it.

The prince would only be sailing on a single warship, but a fleet was supposed to trail behind in secret, so there was no need to worry about the return trip.

“...I do not even know where to begin criticizing that, but let’s start with the warship part. Is there any guarantee the Water Forces will move the way you think they will?”

“If they don’t, then sooner or later the Japanese pirates are going to come pouring in with a proper army. Of course they have to cooperate. Want to make a bet?”

“...I do not know whether things will go the way you think they will.”

Even while saying that, Peng Daesan still did not take the bet. Was this bastard getting cold feet?

So that was his game? Later, if it all fell apart, he would just sneer and say, And what did I tell you?

She had not taken him for that type, but apparently he had a bit of a petty side to him after all.

“You won’t listen no matter who tries to stop you, so I will go as well this time.”

“This concerns Hangzhou and Jiangsu Province, and in a matter concerning Jiangsu Province, the Gongsun Gong Clan cannot remain absent. I too will go with Qing. I will accompany you, I mean. No, I’ll go.”

By now, one would have thought Gongsun Yoye would be getting used to speaking more casually, but instead of growing more natural, she only seemed to get more tangled up every time. Still, she stepped forward and declared that she would go too.

And once that happened, everyone’s eyes turned naturally toward Seol Iri.

“No. I’m going too. And I think, for Jayeo’s future, someone should stay behind to teach her letters.”

In an oddly logical tone that did not suit her at all, Seol Iri dumped the Jayeo assignment onto someone else.

Just as Peng Daesan was about to say something—

“Then I guess we can all go. Jayeo just has to stay on the warship for a few days. I guess she’ll need to stay at the County Magistrate’s house for a bit. Hmm. Yoye, can you write a letter to your family? Send word and have them take Jayeo to the Zhuge Family. Jayeo, don’t you miss Hyangi?”

“Hyangi? Yeah! I miss her!”

They had been inseparable little best friends in the Righteous-Proper Martial Academy’s youth division, so Jayeo’s eyes instantly began to sparkle.

“Dad has to go punish some bad people, and it looks like it might take a while. So if you stay for a little while at the house of an elder Dad knows, then your Damp Mom’s uncles will take you to Hyangi’s house, okay?”

“Umm, I’m Not-Damp Mom...”

“Right. Not-Damp Mom’s uncles.”

Qing’s bombshell declaration: Jayeo was getting left behind.

“No.”

“That’s a bit...”

“Qing, I do not think that is right, no, I mean, I do not think so, no, I mean—”

Three “no”s in a row were practically the universal sign of a matter that ought to be reconsidered.

Qing, however, remained perfectly confident.

“Why? The County Magistrate’s house isn’t some dangerous place, and it’s not like anyone there would treat the daughter of a benefactor badly. She’d only stay there a little while, and then she’d go to the Zhuge Family.”

“It isn’t about danger. You can’t just leave a child behind—”

“No. If it isn’t danger, then what is it? If there’s something you truly ought to do, then you can’t put it off or duck out of it by using Jayeo as an excuse. Right, Jayeo?”

“That’s right!”

If someone avoided doing what had to be done by using a child as an excuse, then how was that any different from using the child as a piece of luggage to hide behind?

That was no good.

Besides, it would not be good for Jayeo either.

She might feel hurt for the moment, but later, once she understood, it would only leave her miserable too. Parents, people said, carried for the rest of their lives the things they had failed to do for their children—but children, too, only realized later what their parents had given up for them, and when they did, that was when they beat their chests in sorrow.

And it was a decision Qing herself needed as well.

It was true that she felt a little uneasy, and a little guilty too, but if she did not make a choice like this, would she not eventually start thinking of Jayeo as luggage?

Of course, it was possible this might produce one of those family conflicts she heard about all the time in stories from her homeland.

Dad, is work more important than me?

Dad, you’re always like this. More than our family, it’s work, work, work, nothing but work!

Something like that.

Hmm. Would Jayeo one day reach puberty—have a rebellious phase, in other words?

Hmm. That might actually be cute in its own way. Hard to imagine, though, which made her a little curious.

Anyway, the carriage kept rolling.

By the time they reached Shanghai, it was already deep into the night, and naturally the city gates were shut tight.

Qing did not think it was a good idea to keep flashing her censorial pass around, but this seemed like an important enough matter that she might have to use it this time.

She thought that, at least.

Thought was free, after all, even if in practice she had a habit of pulling that thing out at the slightest excuse.

...Or so she thought?

“Oh, martial artists, are you? I’ll make an exception and open up for you this time, but people really shouldn’t be wandering around this late. You lot, open the gate!”

To her surprise, the guards opened the city gate readily enough. They did not even bother checking what was inside the carriage before waving them through.

Come to think of it, they had been similarly kind the first time she arrived in Shanghai.

She had stood in line and waited, and they had said martial artists did not have to wait at all, that she could have come straight over this way, and that next time she should simply walk right up. They had been strikingly friendly.

At the time, she had not thought much of it. But after seeing what the Japanese pirates really were like, and after going through the suspiciously warm behavior of the villagers, she felt as though she understood now.

This had probably been a region where Japanese pirates appeared often enough that martial artists, who could be of help just by existing, were welcome on sight....

And so: Shanghai again.

The carriage headed not for an inn, but for the County Magistrate’s residence.

Their arrival in the middle of the night naturally caused a stir there, but only for a moment.

After all, their benefactor might very well come calling late at night. This, truly, was why a person’s ordinary conduct mattered.

The County Magistrate welcomed them gladly despite the late hour, but unfortunately Qing had no choice except to bring deeply unwelcome news.

“At this rate, the Japanese pirates are going to invade. They say their forces number ten thousand, though I can’t confirm the exact number—”

“Wait, Benefactor, what exactly do you mean by that? Japanese pirates?”

“Well, the thing is...”

Qing explained what had happened in Salt Village.

Her account was rambling in Qing’s usual fashion, but any high-ranking official of the Central Plains naturally possessed the ability to understand something like that. Central Plains officials, by their very nature, were creatures who lived surrounded by such reports.

After hearing her out, the County Magistrate let out a long, heavy sigh.

“Ha. Ippen, is it? So those bastards finally did it. This is exactly why I submitted a memorial long ago saying they ought to be eradicated.”

“Hm? You know about Ippen?”

“Ippen, my foot. They’re just pirate scum. A band of Japanese pirates occupying Maji Island. Though from what you’re saying, it seems they’ve managed to put on a fairly convincing show of being a country.”

Out on the East Sea, near the border between Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province, there was a region called the Zhoushan Archipelago, where more than a hundred islands large and small were clustered together.

Because the archipelago sat along the routes linking the Central Plains, Joseon, and Japan, it had been a pirate den since ancient times.

On the northernmost end of that archipelago, off the waters before Shanghai, there was a fairly large island called Maji Island. The Japanese pirates who had planted themselves there for good had begun calling themselves Ippen.

So that was why nobody had known anything about Ippen.

Of course they had not. It was only the name of some pirate band.

But the court had known about Ippen and still left them alone?

Well, because this was the Central Plains’ method of dealing with Japanese pirates.

Pirates were like vermin. No matter how many times you beat them to death, fresh vermin would keep swarming in.

So instead of that, better to take away what they could eat. If there was nothing there for them, they would either starve or move on somewhere else.

In other words, nobody should live on the coast at all.

If there was not a single person living within a hundred li of the sea, then even if the Japanese pirates came, there would be nothing to loot.

That, precisely, was the Maritime Prohibition Decree.

At first glance, it sounded ridiculous.

It sounded ridiculous to Qing too.

But it was not because the emperors of the Central Plains had been stupid when they enacted such a measure.

From ancient times, those who traded with outside powers by sea had regularly used the wealth they built that way, together with foreign backing, to start rebellions whenever they got the chance.

And in the Central Plains, water transport was like the bloodstream of the vast empire. At this point in history, after all, there still was no means of transport faster or more accurate than water routes.

The Water Forces were an armed body capable of seizing that lifeline. If the court simply told them to go wipe out the Japanese pirates on their own, then they might use that excuse to swell their power—

and just as expected, another rebellion would break out.

Better, then, to empty the coast so the Japanese pirates would disappear on their own.

That was the logic behind the Maritime Prohibition Decree, the law that said people were not to live by the sea.

To Qing, who knew none of that background, it still sounded completely absurd.

In the middle of that—

“Haaah... this is bad. Of all times, why did it have to be now?”

At that sudden deep sigh from the County Magistrate, Qing tilted her head.

“What do you mean, of all times?”

“That... Benefactor, this must remain between us. Soon, a million-strong army will march north to subjugate those northern barbarians. Because of that, soldiers and supplies across the entire Central Plains are being mobilized, and Shanghai County is no exception...”

The problem, he said, was that because of that, even if the Japanese pirates came flooding in, there were no troops to stop them.

It would be nice if the Water Forces chose to move, but the Water Forces were conservative by nature. Without an imperial decree, they were not the sort to step forward easily....

At that moment, Qing’s eyes lit up.

Wait.

If that was the case, then this was actually going to make things a lot easier.