Despite his physical discomfort, Li Yanping set off and rushed back to Mobei as quickly as possible. He had lost a lot of weight and looked even worse.

Upon returning to the northern desert, he realized that the situation was even more dire than he had imagined. The destruction of the Li Ji Escort Agency in Qizhou led the Qizhou prefect to uncover a number of people along the way. Most of their moles planted in Qizhou were exposed, and the remaining people, like the civil officials in the capital, went into complete hiding.

Dingzhou fared even worse. Originally, only one rice shop was involved, but for some unknown reason, the Dingzhou prefect arrested all the people from the rice shop on the grounds of disrupting the order of Dingzhou.

There are five prefectures in the northern desert, and they have lost two of them at once!

Li Yanping felt a metallic sweetness rising in his throat again, and he gripped the corner of the table tightly to suppress it, saying hoarsely, "Stop stammering, tell me all the bad news."

The man knelt down: "Manager, things have been in chaos all over the state lately!"

"Quanzhou?" Li Yanping asked in surprise. "What kind of accident could happen in Quanzhou?"

Bai Jiwu, a soldier from the Northern Desert Army of Quanzhou, was also a member of the Huo family army back then, but his position was not very high. He was always suppressed by Huo Qiyuan in the Huo family army and could not be promoted. Back then, His Highness took advantage of Bai Jiwu's unwillingness to accept defeat and won him over.

Bai Jiwu's rise to power was ill-timed, and coupled with his selfish and petty nature, he squeezed out all of Huo Qiyuan's trusted confidants from the army camp, losing the morale of most of the troops. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken so long to subdue the entire Mobei army.

His Highness had long lost patience with Bai Jiwu. If it weren't for the fear that changing the commander-in-chief again would allow the Northern Di to take advantage of the situation and invade, Bai Jiwu would have been removed from his post long ago.

Li Yanping narrowed his eyes, his gaze filled with coldness.

Bai Jiwu, who holds military power and controls half of the prefecture, still managed to throw the entire prefecture into chaos. He is indeed all show and no substance.

If His Highness hadn't had no one else in the army to rely on back then, how could such an incompetent person have risen to the position!

"News came from Quanzhou that something very important had gone missing from the army. Bai Jiwu ordered the entire prefecture to be sealed off for a full investigation, but Prefect Ke Liangyi disagreed. A major conflict broke out between the army and the prefectural government, and Ke Liangyi was even injured by Bai Jiwu."

Li Yanping stared in disbelief, his body stiffened, and he dropped the cup in his hand, spilling water all over himself.

He had thought Bai Jiwu was stupid, but he hadn't thought he was this stupid!

Li Yanping's mind was filled with the words "pig teammate," and he wished he could throw Bai Jiwu into the water to wake him up.

He let out a heavy sigh, his anger finally rising: "This idiot, does he really think he's the local tyrant of the whole prefecture? Who else besides you knows this news?"

The man shook his head slightly: "I don't know either. Ke Liangyi is very prestigious in the hearts of the people of Quanzhou. Bai Jiwu has really stirred up a hornet's nest this time."

Bai Jiwu dared to attack Ke Liangyi, but he would never dare to attack ordinary people, because if he did, the whole prefecture would be thrown into chaos, and those former Huo family soldiers who were already dissatisfied with him would definitely take the opportunity to cause trouble...

Li Yanping suddenly felt something was wrong: "Did Bai Jiwu say what exactly was lost?"

What could have driven Bai Jiwu to such madness that he sealed off the entire city of Quanzhou and even attacked officials appointed by the imperial court? Didn't he know that if this matter were to spread throughout Quanzhou, his position as Grand General would be over?

Unless, what he lost was more important than his current position!

The man stammered for a long while before lowering his voice and saying, "I've inquired. Because there's no ore left to mine at the Xinliang Iron Mine, the person in charge there has spoken to Bai Jiwu several times, but Bai Jiwu has held back. Some time ago, the Xinliang Iron Mine collapsed, and Bai Jiwu couldn't find that person's body..."

Li Yanping's heart skipped a beat.

Connecting the words "unmoved," "collapsed," and "corpse," Li Yanping instantly realized the truth behind the collapse of the Xinliang Iron Mine and understood what Bai Jiwu was up to.

He slammed his fist on the table and coughed violently. His originally pale face flushed slightly as he angrily cursed, "That idiot, that idiot!"

Huo Qiyuan and his men didn’t dare to make a move while they were at the iron mine. They only dared to be so careful and calculating after the iron mine was completely mined out, but they still failed to succeed!

He sneered, "So you think Huo Qiyuan has infiltrated Quanzhou again?"

The man nodded, then frowned and said, "However, when the Xinliang Iron Mine collapsed, the first people to arrive were not Bai Jiwu's men, but His Highness Prince Wen's men."

The iron mine is located in Xinliang, so it's understandable that His Highness's men rushed there immediately...

Li Yanping suddenly lifted his eyelids and glanced at the man: "You mean, that person was rescued by His Highness Prince Wen's men?"

The man shook his head: "I don't know. I only heard that Xinliang's city guards sent people to rescue them. They chose a desolate mountain over there as a mass grave and buried all the people who died at the iron mine there."

“Xinliang seems to be under construction, but it is as solid as an iron barrel. I sent one or two people over to inquire about the situation, but they were quickly discovered to be strangers.”

They thought that Xinliang now had several thousand men, so it shouldn't be a problem to infiltrate one or two. Who knew they would be discovered so quickly? Forget about gathering information, their men were almost arrested as bad guys.

With the iron mine collapsing, the possibility of Huo Qiyuan dying is very small, but Li Yanping doesn't know why, but he always feels that anything connected to Prince Wen will develop in a very strange direction.

He now prefers that Huo Qiyuan's entire family was saved by Prince Wen!

Despite his physical discomfort, Li Yanping quickly wrote a letter to the Prince of Chu and handed it to his confidant: "Take this letter now and go to Jiangzhou as fast as you can to deliver it to His Highness!"

The trusted aide took the letter in a daze, staring at Li Yanping for a long while before finally stammering, "Manager, what is this...?"

In the past, when visiting the master in Jiangzhou, the head manager would always go in person. Why not this time...?

He looked up at the head steward and saw that his face was pale and his lips were even grayish. He was clearly in much worse condition than when he was traveling the other two days ago.

He exclaimed in surprise, "Manager!"

Li Yanping waved his hand and said, "Don't make a fuss! Let's leave quickly while the defenses in Mobei are not tight!"

What does it mean to be lax in security?

His confidant was flustered and confused. His hands and feet went numb. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but couldn't utter a single word. In his anxiety, he pounded his chest and cried out twice.

"Go."

The confidant then burst into tears, kowtowed several times, and turned to leave.

Only then did Li Yanping let out a long sigh of relief: "Is His Highness Prince Wen currently in Changzhou?"