The next morning.
Late morning.
Qiachuan Wharf.
Hoofbeats thundered along the western bank of the Yellow River.
Zao Ying and her unit came galloping back, shouting even before they slowed.
"Wang Jiayin's river force is coming!"
That single shout shattered the wharf's fragile calm.
The militia that had waited here all day stiffened at once. More than a few men swallowed hard.
On a hastily built arrow tower stood Bai Yuan, eyes fixed forward.
"How long until they arrive?" he shouted down.
Zao Ying replied without slowing her horse.
"The speed of boats isn't slower than horses. We arrived first—so they'll arrive right after."
"How many?"
Zao Ying shook her head.
"I can't judge numbers from ships. If they were cavalry, I could count them at a glance."
Bai Yuan nodded.
"You've done enough."
"My people can dismount and help defend the wharf," Zao Ying offered.
Bai Yuan smiled and shook his head.
"Cavalry that dismounts becomes expensive infantry. Commander Zao, pull your riders back one li. If our wooden barricades fall, then you charge in and clean up."
Zao Ying knew he was right.
Training those few hundred riders had been brutal—men who barely knew how to sit on a horse, battered into something resembling cavalry. Using them as dock guards would be criminally wasteful.
"I'll pull back," she said.
"Be careful, mister Bai."
She wheeled her horse northwest, leaving a clear lane for a future charge.
Bai Yuan turned back toward the river.
Too far to see clearly.
He reached into his robe and withdrew a long, slender iron tube.
A gift from Young Master Bai to his father.
It was called a telescope—a device born from lessons on optics, forged by the Workshop's smiths, fitted with two glass lenses crafted by a glassmaker once "recruited" from Xi'an by Chi Lang. The workmanship was crude. The magnification modest.
But it beat the human eye.
Bai Yuan raised it.
Now he could see.
A massive flotilla was emerging from the northern bend of the river. Several medium-sized merchant ships led the way, followed by a swarm of fishing boats. The smallest were little more than flat skiffs; the largest carried a few dozen men at most.
Together, they blanketed the river.
The Yellow River was violent here, but bandit ranks were full of lifelong fishermen. In their hands, the water behaved.
On the lead ship flew a large banner.
A single character.
Bai.
Bai Yuan lowered the telescope and turned to Wang Er, who stood beside him.
"Brother Wang," Bai Yuan said lightly, "looks like you've come to attack us yourself. That's Baishui Wang Er's banner."
Wang Er frowned.
"My surname is Wang. My banner is Wang."
"Then it must be your subordinate, Bai Mao," Bai Yuan continued smoothly. "Leading the attack."
Wang Er pointed downward.
"Bai Mao is downstairs. Yellow hat. Watching this unfold."
Bai Yuan sighed and spread his hands.
"Hero Wang, your sense of humor is underdeveloped."
Wang Er gave a helpless smile. He hadn't laughed much in recent years.
On another arrow tower, Feng Jun craned his neck toward the river. Without a telescope, he could see ships but not banners.
"Bai-sir!" he shouted. "Can you tell which bandit leader it is?"
"Only saw a Bai banner," Bai Yuan called back. "Looks like I'm attacking myself."
Feng Jun burst out laughing.
"To joke at a time like this—very reassuring."
Bai Yuan leaned toward Wang Er and murmured,
"See? Other people get it."
Wang Er said nothing.
Feng Jun raised his voice again.
"If it's a Bai banner, then it should be one of Wang Jiayin's commanders—Bai Yuzhu."
"Oh?" Bai Yuan said. "Can't say I've heard of him."
Wang Er spoke quietly.
"Bai Yuzhu is… average. Not brilliant, not stupid. Ranked just below Zijin Liang. High position, low presence. The kind of man you forget five minutes after seeing him."
Bai Yuan snorted.
"Same surname, yet one of us shines brilliantly while the other is instantly forgettable. Shameful for the Bai name."
"He doesn't actually have the surname Bai," Wang Er said. "It's a nickname."
"…."
Silence.
Five full seconds.
Bai Yuan raised his hands, palms up.
"Did you return to Gaojia Village just to roast me?"
Wang Er blinked.
"?"
Feng Jun shouted again.
"They're almost here! Stop chatting and think!"
Bai Yuan straightened.
"All units, hold positions! Gaojia militia—follow me."
He climbed down the tower at speed. One hundred men from Gaojia Village gathered around him.
They stopped before two stainless-steel cannons.
The guns were already fixed on stone platforms, muzzles angled toward the river. Bai Yuzhu's flotilla was closing fast.
"Powder!" Bai Yuan called.
Flat Rabbit rushed over, handing him a large powder charge.
Bai Yuan dumped the entire bundle into the barrel, then took a ramrod and packed it down thoroughly.
"Shot!"
A tall, broad-shouldered militiaman brought over a solid iron ball.
Bai Yuan took it—and immediately sank.
The cannonball slammed into the ground with a heavy thud, nearly crushing his foot.
His face changed.
"This heavy?"
"A solid iron sphere," Wang Er said, bending down. "Of course it's heavy."
He lifted it and helped slide it into the barrel.
Bai Yuan rammed it home, compressing shot and powder together.
He grinned, moved behind the cannon, flipped open the touch-hole cover, fed in the slow match, and sealed it again.
"Done," Bai Yuan said cheerfully.
"Cannons are basically oversized muskets."
And this time—
He wasn't wrong.
These Red Barbarian cannons worked on the same principles as large smoothbore firearms of the era. Different scale. Same logic.
Which meant that very soon, someone on the river was about to learn a lesson.
A lesson that history had taught many times before:
systems don't care whether you understand them—only whether you're standing in front of them.