This episode tells how, after Tong Guan returned to the capital in defeat, Gao Qiu and Grand Tutor Cai Jing conspired to deceive Emperor Huizong by claiming that the weather had been hot, that the troops were unaccustomed to the local climate, and that Liangshan's marshy terrain required the construction of warships before a coordinated land-and-naval campaign could succeed. Gao Qiu volunteered to command ten columns of government troops together with elite land and naval force, and advanced on Liangshan in a great show of force. Liu Menglong's naval force entered Liangshan Marsh, fell into an ambush, and suffered a crushing defeat, forcing Gao Qiu to flee in humiliation. The Liangshan heroes captured Han Cunbao alive. Gao Qiu then commandeered civilian boats throughout the region and launched a second attack on Liangshan, only to be routed once more when his fleet was set ablaze. Wen Huanzhang arrived with an imperial edict offering amnesty. Wang Jin, an elderly clerk of Jizhou, proposed a treacherous scheme, but Wu Yong saw through it, and the heroes clamored for an assault on the city. Gao Qiu again reported to the throne that Liangshan refused to submit, whereupon the court dispatched additional elite troops. He then built Sea Loach warships and launched a third campaign against Liangshan. Song Jiang and Wu Yong deployed their naval force to meet the attack, while Lu Junyi led the land force in battle. After a third defeat, Gao Qiu was captured alive, yet Song Jiang treated him with courtesy. Later, after becoming drunk, Gao Qiu wrestled with Yan Qing and was thrown to the ground in humiliation. Still hoping for imperial amnesty, Song Jiang sent Xiao Rang and Yue He back to the capital with Gao Qiu, then later dispatched Yan Qing and Dai Zong to learn what was really happening there.
The translation of this book series was assisted by various AI tools, but the translator has manually reviewed the content sentence by sentence, with particular care given to correcting potentially confusing expressions. The result is fundamentally different from content directly generated and edited by AI.