荔枝影院

Edited by: Michyrr

“Lord Marquis, do you remember when you had me send men to watch the movements of the other countries, particularly of the soldiers that had retreated?” Zhang Que asked, his tone hesitant.

“Of course!”

Wang Chong’s brow furrowed, a hint of displeasure in his eyes.

In the previous militarist-Confucian conflict, the Confucian Sect had negotiated with the other countries and eventually had the Great Tang and the other countries jointly withdraw their armies, but Wang Chong had never believed this. Thus, he had organized a well-trained group of soldiers to gather information on these countries and watch to see if they were actually complying with the treaty.

But this was not what Wang Chong was worried about. He had always been a stern taskmaster, and he had long ago ordered Zhang Que and the others that when it came to official business, they needed to be straightforward and resolute, not hesitant and stammering.

“What in the world happened? Talk!”

“Yes! Your Highness!”

Zhang Que’s heart froze and he hastily gave his report.

“I just received word from our scouts that a few days ago, when our men were watching the movements of the Eastern and Western Turks, they came upon a village while passing through an area of the border guarded by the Beiting Protectorate. But when they arrived, they discovered that the four hundred inhabitants of the village had all been massacred and all the buildings burned down. They discovered the hoofprints of Turkic horses on the scene.”

Zhang Que sneaked a glance at Wang Chong and then hesitantly continued.

“In addition... our men looked through the site and found the massacre unbearable. Even the corpses of women and children were burned black.”

Bang! Wang Chong’s body shivered as he raised his head, a dreadful light in his eyes.

“What did you say?”

“Your Highness, if my guess is right, the Turks have probably broken the peace treaty and crossed the border to strike with the autumn wind.”

Zhang Que lowered his head even further.

The room fell silent, but even Zhang Que could sense that a terrifying storm had arisen from Wang Chong’s body. Zhang Que was extremely familiar with this omen, an omen that preceded Wang Chong’s fury.

‘Strike with the autumn wind!’

Wang Chong was familiar with this phrase. The Turkic people raised nothing besides their herds, and in times of plenty, this was enough. However, when they lacked food, they would ride south to kill and plunder food.

This was called striking with the autumn wind.

In the eyes of the Turks, the people of the Central Plains to their south were a large and plump sheep, one they began to think about the moment they started getting hungry. Later on, it became a case where they raided and plundered regardless of whether they were hungry.

This was also why the dynasties of the Central Plains would always invade the north once they were strong enough to subjugate the Turks.

With the Confucian Sect signing so many peace treaties, Wang Chong had believed that everyone would not do anything too excessive, even if they were plotting something beneath the surface.

But to Wang Chong’s great surprise, the Turks, even with their peace treaty with the Great Tang, had still chosen to do something like this.

The Great Tang and the other parties had all withdrawn their soldiers several hundred li and reduced their armies to show their sincerity. In reality, many small skirmishes and raids had occurred in secret, but none of them had resulted in large losses of life.

“Our men were also astonished when they discovered it.”

Zhang Que’s voice was quiet.

The study continued to remain eerily quiet, an uneasy mood in the air.

After serving Wang Chong for so long, Zhang Que knew that Wang Chong loathed those Hu who raided across the border, and he even more hated those Hu who slaughtered the people living on the border after their raids.

Of course, no general of the Great Tang could tolerate such a thing.

Kaclack!

A cracking sound could be heard, and when Zhang Que looked up in shock, he saw that Wang Chong was clenching his fists so hard that his joints were going white.

Wang Chong’s head was slightly raised and his eyes were shut, but Zhang Que could still sense the stifling and frightening energy billowing off his body.

“Investigate! Within three days! I want all the details of this incident!” Wang Chong sternly said, each of his words seeming to thud against the floor.

Following Wang Chong’s order, countless messenger birds took flight. When the youngest and fiercest War God of the Great Tang was angered, the entire continent would tremble.

Countless cavalry surged toward the northern border. Even though he was seven to eight thousand li away, even the north could feel the chill from Wang Chong’s anger.

Soon after, streams of information began to converge on Wang Chong’s residence.

As the youngest War God of the Great Tang and the King of Foreign Lands, Wang Chong had a considerable force under his command, and it had formidable abilities whether it came to war or intelligence gathering.

With the immense compensation he had obtained after the Battle of Khorasan, Wang Chong had even been able to pull a few Turks into his scouting team.

It was quickly determined from analysis and intelligence, some of it gathered from within Turkic territory, that the group that had raided and burned down the village consisted of forty-eight men.

After carrying out the massacre, this group of cavalry had ridden away with the one-year food supply of the village and all the gold and silver.

The intelligence reports said that they were now located within a Turkic border garrison of eight thousand men, around six hundred li from the Beiting Protectorate.

These men were all on the defensive, and it seemed like they already knew of the incident. And it also seemed like their superiors were not going to blame them for their actions.

However, the Turks had increased their patrols, apparently worried about how the Tang would react.

When Turkic shepherds got within twenty li, they would be intercepted by cavalry and questioned. If they were this suspicious of their own people, one could only imagine how they would treat Han.

Wang Chong’s scouts had run into many difficulties while carrying out their surveillance, but they had still managed to complete their mission.

More and more details were being revealed, and Wang Chong was receiving sixty to seventy messenger birds each day.

As all these scattered bits of information congregated, the report on those eight thousand Turks became more complete.

These eight thousand soldiers were originally a vanguard stationed on the border. When the Great Tang and the Western Turkic Khaganate entered peace talks, both sides reduced their armies. As a result, those Turkic soldiers who were old or crippled were all ‘disbanded’.

The remaining eight thousand soldiers were all stronger than the Turkic cavalry of the past.

Moreover, the scouts within the Turkic territory had learned from a Hu merchant that there was a force of around three thousand special soldiers in this army of eight thousand.

From what they had gathered, this force of three thousand had been sent by Ishbara Khagan to the border to gain experience. This played a major role in the audacity of that squad of forty-eight to cross the border and engage in such a massacre.

A significant portion of the food and wealth they had plundered was gifted to that special force.

The more Wang Chong read, the dourer and grimmer his expression became.

All of Wang Chong’s subordinates from the capital to Qixi sensed this change in mood, and the frequent activity also made the countries watching Wang Chong very uneasy.

But Wang Chong had always acted with utmost secrecy, having even left Zhangchou Jianqiong in the dark as to his goals regarding the Public Order Squad. If even those at his side were like this, the foreign countries were in an even worse state.

On the tenth day of Wang Chong’s operation, shocking news erupted from the northern border, unleashing great waves.

A caravan that specialized in trading between various countries had passed through that village and discovered the massacre that had taken place. When this news spread through the other caravans, it caused fear and panic.

And then the entire north began to quake.

At the start, many people thought that this was just a rumor with no evidence.

After all, the steppe was just too vast and communications were not smooth. But several days later, a woman presented herself at the governor’s office in the north, wailing and weeping as she cried out for justice. Only then did all the north take note of this tragedy.

It turned out that this woman had lived in that village, but because she had returned to her parental home to spend the New Year’s celebrations, she had managed to avoid this disaster. Only when she returned home with dried and salted meat had she discovered what had happened to her village.

The woman had a fierce personality, and the massacre of all four-hundred-some inhabitants had given her an immense shock. She undid her hair, put on a white gown, and made her way barefoot from the village to the governor’s mansion, kowtowing every three steps.

By the time others saw her, she was covered in thorns and blood. She had a box with her that contained the ashes of the villagers.

She kowtowed her way to the governor’s mansion, where she implored the governor for justice.

This incident caused the entire north to quake. Not one person didn’t shed tears upon seeing that woman.

Once Zhang Que had finished his report, the study became eerily quiet. Everyone looked at Wang Chong, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

Wang Chong raised his head and suddenly asked, “Does the Beiting Protectorate know of this incident?”

“They should!” Zhang Que cautiously replied.

“What have they said?” Wang Chong continued.

“There’s no activity from the Beiting Protectorate, and Protector-General An Sishun isn’t showing signs of coming forward,” Xu Keyi replied.

They could all sense the anger in Wang Chong’s heart, and none of them knew what he might do next.

“Zhang Que, ask An Sishun for me what it means to be a Protector-General! What is the duty of the generals?! If he can’t even protect a small village, for what reason does the Beiting Protectorate have one hundred thousand soldiers?!”