I can't believe 61 is a Japanese pirate.

Wu Zhankui reminded Wei Guangde to properly prepare for the prefectural examination. Outside the door, a servant entered to report that a courier had arrived.

"Guangde, continue with your meal. Let's go outside and take a look."

Wu Zhankui stood up, spoke to Wei Guangde who was eating, and led Wei Meng out of the room.

Hearing that a courier had arrived, Wei Guangde guessed that news might have been sent from the Zhang family in the prefectural city.

Continuing to bury himself in his food, Wei Guangde knew that a child like him could not get involved in such matters. Intruding rashly would likely invite a scolding. In any case, his father had already promised that he would not have to take the upcoming county examination, so he might as well set his mind at ease and review his studies.

When Wei Guangde finished his breakfast and came out, he happened to see one of his uncle's personal guards leading the courier away. Wei Guangde nodded to the man and, on an inexplicable impulse, walked into the adjoining side chamber.

Only his uncle and his father were in the room. The moment he saw the two of them, Wei Guangde had a bad feeling. Both wore troubled expressions, suggesting that the news brought by the courier was certainly grim.

"Uncle, Father, what is the matter?"

Wei Guangde still asked with concern. In truth, he was already certain of what it was; it was likely that what was said last night was true—they were going to be sent to the northern frontier to defend against the Tatars.

"You should return to Bengshan Fortress tomorrow and diligently pursue your studies under Master Sun. That is the only real path forward."

Hearing his son ask this, Wei Meng forced a smile that looked worse than crying and spoke.

"Is the news confirmed? The northern frontier?"

Wei Guangde tentatively asked. Even though he had a hunch in his heart, he still voiced the question.

"No."

To his surprise, Old Father Wei flatly denied it, and his expression did not seem feigned.

Not going to the northern frontier?

Wei Guangde had already grown familiar with his father's temperament. Since his old man answered so directly, it certainly wasn't false; his worries from the previous night must have been mistaken.

Yet judging from the expressions of his father and his uncle, the news they had received seemed even more terrifying than going to the northern frontier. How strange.

"Spit it out. It's no big deal, the news will probably spread soon enough anyway."

Wu Zhankui looked bitterly at Wei Meng and said.

"What on earth is going on?"

Wei Guangde's curiosity was truly piqued. If they weren't going to the northern frontier, what else could it be?

Could someone have rebelled in Huguang, or had the situation in Guangdong escalated?

At worst, something major might have happened in Yunnan, Guizhou, or Guangxi, where the local chieftains seemed restless and revolted from time to time.

The Southwest—it actually seemed quite plausible.

Wei Guangde remembered reading reports mentioning that during the Ming Dynasty, minority chieftains in the Southwest frequently raised armies in rebellion.

Moreover, that region was full of towering mountains and dense forests, making pacification extremely troublesome. Disturbances there often dragged on for years or even longer to suppress.

These were the only things Wei Guangde could think of, and he felt he might have guessed the truth. However, Wei Guangde felt no complacency; if they were truly going to the Southwest to suppress a rebellion, that was not a job for ordinary people.

In fact, Wei Guangde also knew in his heart that there was another scourge in the Southwest, and that was Burma.

He remembered reading online articles introducing how both the Ming and Qing dynasties fought against Burma and seemingly suffered quite heavy losses.

During the Qing Dynasty, that Qianlong Emperor fought Burma several times and suffered crushing defeats every time. He only managed to force the opponent to surrender by relying on a deeply rooted foundation. However, to save face, the domestic propaganda claimed that the Qing army had won a complete victory, and he even styled himself the "Old Man of Ten Perfections." In short, it was all fabricated.

Actually, the Qing Dynasty had been playing this trick since the time of the Kangxi Emperor. In their clashes with the Russian state, they claimed to have defeated the enemy several times, yet the treaties they ended up signing involved continuous territory cessions. From this, one could tell what kind of victory that actually was.

His thoughts drifted a bit too far. Wei Guangde still needed to care about where his uncle and father were actually being dispatched this time.

"It hasn't been completely finalized yet. We are to assemble in Zhenjiang; we might head north, or we might push east."

Old Father Wei's words left Wei Guangde utterly confused.

Heading north was easy to understand, but what did pushing east mean?

"A large force of Japanese pirates has appeared around Zhoushan in Zhejiang, along with a large number of seafaring vessels. A few days ago, small bands of Japanese pirates already landed in Ningbo Prefecture. The Nanjing Ministry of War fears that the pirates will sail up the river and ravage the Southern Direct Subordination and Zhejiang, so they want us to redeploy to Zhenjiang. There is also the intention to reinforce the northern theater if hostilities break out there.

However, news coming from Jiujiang Prefecture suggests the pirates might make a major move this spring, and there are even rumors that tens of thousands of pirates have gathered on the coastal islands.

The news is a mix of truth and falsehood, and no definitive word can be gotten from that side."

"Japanese pirates? Tens of thousands of Japanese pirates?"

Hearing what his father said, Wei Guangde was truly astonished.

Japanese pirates—ever since he transmigrated, Wei Guangde had often heard people mention them, primarily because of the busy traffic on the Yangtze River, which allowed commercial vessels traveling back and forth to quickly spread news along the river valley.

In Wei Guangde's impression, what he had heard of before were only bands of dozens or hundreds of pirates. Hearing his father speak of tens of thousands of pirates abruptly frightened him.

This was Jiangxi, a long way from the ocean, but that did not mean there was no defense against pirate raids.

Historically, the Japanese pirates certainly never reached Jiangxi. Not to mention downstream places like the Taicang Guard guarding the mouth of the Yangtze River, or the Zhenjiang Guard further along, there was also the Anqing Water Camp near Anqing. It was simply impossible for the pirates to reach Jiangxi.

However, Jiangxi had plenty of water bandits—namely those in Poyang Lake. To wipe out the water bandits of Poyang Lake, the South Lake Camp had even been specifically established.

Very well, because of his garrison background, Wei Guangde knew much more about the circumstances of the Great Ming garrisons than outsiders did.

To be honest, this was also because Wei Guangde had traveled along the river, giving him a relatively good understanding of the locations of cities along the Yangtze.

Although times had changed and the locations of later prefectures and counties were certainly different from the prefectures and counties of the present, the general layout remained roughly similar. Therefore, even though he had not seen a map of this era, when he heard people talk about them, Wei Guangde still had a concept and knew their approximate locations.

In this regard, he was much better than his eldest brother or even his father.

Although they could fluently rattle off the names of garrisons in various places, they only knew the general direction and could not pinpoint the specifics.

However, through constant exposure, Wei Guangde also knew quite a bit about garrison affairs. Take this Taicang Guard, for example; it was previously called the Zhenhai Guard, and further up the river was the Zhenjiang Guard. It was only renamed a few decades ago because its name coincided with a garrison under the Fujian Regional Military Commission.

"There are plenty of garrisons in Zhejiang, why do they want our Jiujiang Guard to go?"

Although Wei Guangde knew that resisting the Japanese pirates was a national war effort and he shouldn't be thinking this way, he still didn't want his father to go.

He had read plenty of novels and analytical articles about the Ming Dynasty regarding the Japanese pirate turmoil of the Jiajing era. At first, it was just small-scale harassment, but by the Jiajing reign, it had turned into a massive upheaval that seemed to require a great deal of effort to resolve.

However, through the campaigns to suppress the pirates, figures like Qi Jiguang and that other general Yu Da, alongside certainly a few other military commanders, had achieved promotions based on their merits in suppressing the pirates.

Comparatively speaking, the risks outweighed the rewards.

This was Wei Guangde's view. The suppression of the pirates should be left to giants like Qi Jiguang; his own father probably lacked that kind of capability.