Chapter 655: Thirty Years From Now, I'll Be a Hero Again!

Shang Yongzhong understood what Long Xiu meant, and he was indeed tempted, but he did not show any eagerness. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, “This Prince is shallow in ability and virtue. I’m afraid I may not be suitable.”

Long Xiu said, “Your Highness is Yan’s Grand Marshal. For you to command the army and suppress the rebellion would be entirely proper and legitimate. No one is more suitable.”

Shang Yongzhong smiled bitterly. “Palace Master, I’m afraid this matter won’t be so easy. I don’t have those one hundred thousand iron cavalry in my hands. I can’t shout the slogan ‘suppress the regional lords, not the rebels,’ much less carry it out.”

“In truth, Palace Master knows perfectly well that I cannot command those five regional lords at all. Asking me to replace Shang Chaozong is making things difficult for me.”

Long Xiu said, “You need not worry about that. Circumstances are different now. Wu Gongling’s rebels have proven to be nothing special. The five regional lords are fully confident they can wipe them out.”

“At present, the only concern is that they will each fight their own battle. What they need is someone in the middle to coordinate them. In both status and position, Your Highness is the most suitable candidate. I have already spoken with Gong Lince and Meng Xuan.”

Shang Yongzhong understood.

They were not asking him to issue absolute commands to the five regional lords. He merely needed to coordinate among them.

Even so, he did not dare agree lightly. After hesitating, he asked, “How does Palace Master intend to deal with Shang Chaozong?”

“An Elder of Xiaoyao Palace cannot die for nothing. I must give everyone in Xiaoyao Palace an explanation.” Long Xiu’s expression was indifferent. “I have already transferred Xiaoyao Palace manpower from the eastern army and sent them over.”

“They will wait for the right opportunity, seize Shang Chaozong, and escort him back to the capital for His Majesty to deal with.”

Shang Yongzhong reminded him, “Shang Chaozong has one hundred thousand iron cavalry beside him. If they suddenly turn hostile...”

Long Xiu raised a hand and cut him off. “You need not concern yourself with that. I will naturally handle the matter properly and will not create trouble for you when you take over.”

“I ask you only this: are you willing?”

Shang Yongzhong immediately cupped his hands. “Since Palace Master has given the instruction, how would I dare refuse?”

Long Xiu warned him, “Changing commanders before the battle is a great taboo in warfare. Some people at court may oppose it. You find a way to settle those people. I will cooperate with you on everything else.”

“Good. I understand.” Shang Yongzhong accepted.

After the two parted, Shang Yongzhong immediately went to the heart of the central administration and found Grand Minister of Works Tong Mo and Grand Minister of the Masses Gao Jiancheng. He explained the matter plainly and asked them to cooperate.

So long as those two supported him, there would naturally be little opposition at court.

Neither Tong Mo nor Gao Jiancheng resisted the idea much. Both knew Shang Jianxiong’s feelings. Since Long Xiu had already spoken, the matter actually became easier to handle.

The three therefore requested an audience with Shang Jianxiong together.

Shang Yongzhong did not conceal his meeting with Long Xiu either. He knew there was no possibility of hiding such a meeting inside the imperial palace from Shang Jianxiong, so he explained everything truthfully.

There was no surprise in the outcome.

The influence created by Shang Chaozong’s momentum in suppressing the rebellion had already become a thorn stuck in Shang Jianxiong’s throat.

Even so, Shang Jianxiong remained relatively cautious and did not issue the decree rashly.

The decree was first handed to Shang Yongzhong, but with one condition: Xiaoyao Palace had to settle the matter cleanly first. Only after it was confirmed that no disorder would arise could the decree replacing the commander be publicly announced.

Otherwise, if the imperial decree itself threw the war into chaos, then the Emperor issuing it really would become a muddleheaded ruler...

...

The speed with which Yan’s rebels were collapsing, or rather the speed with which Yan’s forces were suppressing the rebellion, astonished powers throughout the realm.

Wu Gongling’s force drove east at great speed.

Nearly everyone accompanying him belonged to the core Cangzhou forces, veterans seasoned by long years of battle.

The prefectures and provinces along the way found it difficult to block their momentum directly and therefore avoided their edge while trying to entangle them.

Wu Gongling, however, had no intention of becoming entangled with anyone. He simply broke away at speed and continued east.

As for the rebellion-suppression armies pursuing from behind, Wu Gongling gathered five hundred thousand men to serve as the rear guard and appointed a newly promoted commander to lead them.

The newly promoted commander was named Tu Mingguang.

He had originally been nothing more than a local bully in the marketplace. When the rebellion erupted, he decisively gathered a band of displaced refugees and became a bandit.

At his peak, more than one hundred thousand men had gathered beneath his banner.

Later, after seeing the Cangzhou rebels repeatedly defeat the imperial court, fear drove him to submit to Wu Gongling.

From then on he followed the rebels in attacking cities and seizing territory, burning, killing, plundering, violating women, drinking wine by the bowlful and eating meat in great chunks. He had enjoyed himself immensely.

But a mere street thug, whether in ability or experience, was no match for Wu Gongling.

This time, Wu Gongling used him thoroughly.

When Tu Mingguang heard he was being promoted to command five hundred thousand men, hot blood rushed straight to his head.

It was as though the chance to become a regional lord in his own right had suddenly appeared before him.

He thumped his chest before Wu Gongling and pledged his loyalty, guaranteeing that he could hold for one full day.

And so he led five hundred thousand men to defend a strategic pass.

In his thinking, with so many people under his command, holding casually for a single day could hardly be difficult. Afterward, he would simply withdraw at speed and rejoin the Grand General.

Instead, he encountered Xin Mao, Provincial Inspector of Fuzhou, personally leading fifty thousand troops against him.

When Xin Mao had fought Wu Gongling before, he had been concerned first and foremost with preserving himself and had never exerted his full strength.

Now he was fighting without reserve, and morale was high.

How could Xin Mao possibly take this rabble seriously?

They were indeed a rabble.

Nearly all of Cangzhou’s true rebel core had already left with Wu Gongling.

Still, the enemy had overwhelming numbers, so Xin Mao did not underestimate them.

He first faced off against them and observed for a while.

But once he saw the other side’s troop arrangement, he realized they knew almost nothing about deploying an army.

After confirming the situation, Xin Mao gave a cold laugh and immediately launched his offensive.

He sent two forces around the left and right flanks and attacked directly with fire arrows, setting the mountain forests ablaze.

Flames surged into the sky.

Large numbers of rebels hidden among the trees were burned until they wailed like ghosts and howled like wolves.

Tu Mingguang had intended to use the forests on both sides as cover to block the enemy army’s advance.

He never imagined one fire would throw his own men completely into chaos.

People rushed and fled in every direction. Even killing them could not stop the panic. Instead, the fugitives crashed into Tu Mingguang’s own formation and wrecked it from within.

Xin Mao’s main force seized the confusion to launch a direct assault.

In one concentrated charge, they broke through the pass.

The rabble, already in complete disorder, collapsed all at once.

The cultivators sent by Han and Song to support Wu Gongling suffered disaster along with them.

Wu Gongling had used them just as thoroughly.

Quite a few were killed or wounded, while the army around them dissolved into total chaos. There was nothing they could do to reverse the situation.

Facing attacks from the opposing cultivators, they had no choice but to flee in panic.

Tu Mingguang failed to escape.

Xin Mao captured him alive.

The rebels numbered in the hundreds of thousands, though calling them rebel soldiers was overly generous. They were really just a mass of people swept into disorder.

They did not even have standardized military uniforms and wore every kind of clothing imaginable.

After throwing down their weapons, they crouched across the ground in dense, sprawling masses.

More than ten thousand had burned to death in the flames. Some had been killed in the fighting, while others had escaped and scattered.

Of those remaining, nearly four hundred thousand surrendered.

As far as the eye could see, the scene was chaotic.

Every face showed fear.

No one knew what fate awaited them.

Mounted on a tall horse, Xin Mao rode back and forth among the captives, his mood heavy.

How to deal with these people was going to become a problem.

Kill them all?

He could not bear the reputation of massacring nearly four hundred thousand people.

Release them all?

If they gathered again and returned to rebellion, he could not bear that responsibility either.

Keep them under guard?

How much grain and fodder would that consume?

Merely watching over so many people had already become a burden.

Because of these hundreds of thousands of captives, Xin Mao’s pursuing forces were pinned in place and could no longer continue chasing Wu Gongling.

He understood perfectly well that these people could not be compared with Wu Gongling’s core forces.

Wu Gongling’s true troops were all seasoned veterans.

Xin Mao could not possibly send a small force after them. That would be sending men to their deaths.

Only now did he realize he seemed to have fallen into Wu Gongling’s scheme.

These captives themselves were the burden Wu Gongling had thrown down to delay the pursuit.

The delay lasted nearly an entire day.

Even late that night, the sky remained bright.

The forest fire on the mountain had still not gone out and continued spreading along the slopes.

By the next morning, smoke from the mountain fire still covered the sky.

The air was filled with the smell of burning.

Ash visible to the naked eye drifted slowly down from above like falling snow.

Then came a rapid, thunderous pounding of hooves.

After receiving the report, Shang Chaozong had personally led cavalry there at speed.

The hundreds of thousands of captives obviously could not have remained crouching all night.

After scraping through the night, they lay scattered across the ground in disorder.

Now the rumbling hoofbeats woke them one after another.

When he learned Shang Chaozong had arrived, Lingjian Mountain Elder Zu Ande avoided meeting him.

Seeing Shang Chaozong again left Xin Mao with complicated emotions.

Back when he served under Prince Ning, how could he not have known Shang Chaozong?

The two had been quite familiar.

Then he saw Meng Shanming arriving with the army, much older than before.

The moment Meng Shanming’s eyes settled on him, shame and embarrassment surged through Xin Mao.

He did not dare meet the old marshal’s gaze.

Slowly, he lowered his head.

Many of Fuzhou’s generals lowered their heads as well.

In the end, Xin Mao still had to steel himself and step forward to pay his respects.

Afterward, Tu Mingguang was dragged over.

A group of bandit chiefs were forced to their knees.

Only Tu Mingguang remained rigidly upright, refusing to kneel no matter what they did.

He shouted loudly, “Kill me if you want! Cut me to pieces if you want! Thirty years from now, I’ll be a hero again!”

Sitting straight in the saddle, Shang Chaozong said coldly, “Burning, killing, plundering, violating women, committing every evil imaginable, and you still dare call yourself a hero?”

“Drag him away. Execute him by lingchi!”

“All the other bandit chiefs are to be beheaded!”

Tu Mingguang roared, “Shang Chaozong, do you dare fight your grandfather in a proper—”

Before he could finish, the flat of a Saber slammed across his mouth.

His teeth shattered.

Blood burst from his mouth and nose, his vision swam, and the voice disappeared.

He was dragged away immediately.

“Your Highness, spare us!”

“Your Highness, spare our lives...!”

The bandit chiefs screamed miserably as they too were hauled away.

Soon cries of agony rang out.

Lingchi was no easy death to endure.

“Your force will continue the pursuit immediately!” Shang Chaozong turned and issued Xin Mao a direct order.

“Understood!” Xin Mao cupped his hands, accepted the command, and left.

He led his troops away at speed.

The hundreds of thousands of captives were handed over to Shang Chaozong.

Less than half a day later, several other rebellion-suppression forces arrived one after another.

Besides Xin Mao’s remaining troops, Shang Chaozong detached two more forces and ordered them to continue the pursuit.

Those who remained began discussing what to do with the captives.

Opinions differed.

The concerns were almost identical to those Xin Mao had faced earlier.

Shang Chaozong’s view was that most of these people were innocent commoners who had joined the disorder merely to survive.

There was no need to pursue responsibility against them. Release them and be done with it.

The places swept by war desperately needed population to recover and resume life.

Ga Miaoshui refused to agree.

As far as the imperial court was concerned, these people were all rebels.

What if they rebelled again after being released?

Yet if the answer was to kill them all, Ga Miaoshui did not dare say the words aloud either.

No one could bear the reputation of massacring hundreds of thousands of people caught up in rebellion...

...

In the mountains, a Goldenwing descended.

Guan Fangyi removed the message and walked toward Niu Youdao, who stood silently beneath a tree.

“Red-faced Monkey sent word.” She waved the message as she approached.

Niu Youdao accepted it.

The moment he looked, he saw that it was written in the script only he and Yuan Gang understood.

After reading it carefully, he slowly crushed the paper into fragments.

His eyes flickered as though he were thinking through something.

Guan Fangyi knew that whenever a secret letter appeared in this script, something important was happening.

She could not help asking, “What is it?”

Niu Youdao rested both hands once more on the sword planted before him and sighed.

“Killing Shi Sheng has caused trouble. Xiaoyao Palace is going to move against the Prince.”

Guan Fangyi looked suspicious. “How do you know Xiaoyao Palace is moving against the Prince? Don’t tell me you have spies inside Xiaoyao Palace too?”

[End of Chapter 655]