Chapter 106: Blood Debt Repaid with Blood
The soldiers of Nanling walked on the snow, and the cold wind cut their faces like a knife.
The sky was covered with heavy snow, and the whole world was covered with desolate snow.
The soldiers sank deep into the snow with every step, making it difficult for them to move forward.
After five days of relentless pursuit, they still found no trace of Heng Hongbo and his group who had fled after their defeat.
Chu Zhao led a group of men to eliminate a scattered group of enemy troops. He then brought a soldier who was willing to reveal the whereabouts of the Baishang army to Xie Xuan's horse and reported, "General, this soldier said Heng Hongbo knew he was no match for them, and knowing full well that you would not let him go, he split up his forces and fled in the direction of Kuncheng, Nanzhao."
Despite the vast snowy wilderness, the war horses under the soldiers' crotch still maintain their former bravery. Although their manes are covered with snow at this moment, fortunately, there are warm cloths to protect them from the cold, so they can fight side by side with their masters.
"Pass the order down, rest here, and set off in an hour."
Chu Zhao couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he heard this.
Although the winter clothes were unexpectedly effective in keeping warm, the soldiers were exhausted after continuous fighting in this cold winter.
Originally, Xie Xuan personally led an army of 60,000 from the Thirteen Passes deep into the enemy's rear, and took advantage of the internal strife between Heng Hongbo and Queen Mother Xia to launch a surprise attack from the side and seize the initiative.
However, Heng Hongbo was a coward. Seeing Xie Xuan staring at him and Queen Mother Xia standing by and watching, he actually fled.
He was originally a traitor who surrendered to Baishang Kingdom from Nanling. I don't know what benefits he was promised, but this time he asked Nanzhao Kingdom to mediate.
If this villain Heng Hongbo sets foot in the territory of Nanzhao, it will be difficult to deal with him.
Therefore, Xie Xuan ordered the army to pursue the enemy without sleep in the past few days.
Although the soldiers were exhausted, they were fearless when they thought of the hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers who were slaughtered because of Heng Hongbo's surrender. Even if they were separated from the main force and faced the danger of having no support, they vowed to behead the enemy.
This time, the kitchen responsible for supply actually brought out boxes of steaming hot broth for the soldiers.
This surprised the soldiers who had already been frozen like ice sculptures.
They had been eating frozen biscuits for several days in a row, and even the dried meat they had prepared was used up.
In this icy world where you can't even light a fire, how can you drink hot broth?
"General, this thing can actually generate electricity without fire. It's really strange. Where did it come from?"
The deputy general held the hot pot in his hands and walked to Xie Xuan, who had dismounted and was looking into the distance, his face full of disbelief.
Seeing Xie Xuan was lost in thought, Chu Zhao explained to the equally puzzled deputy general standing beside him, "It was made by Miss Su."
"Miss Su?" The deputy general was even more confused. He couldn't understand how the female manager of the Su family, who was thousands of miles away, could provide such miraculous help to their kitchen.
Half an hour later, the scout reported: "General, six miles to the right, there are soldiers from the Baishang Kingdom making fire and cooking. Judging from the number of stoves, there are less than a thousand of them."
When the deputy generals heard this, they immediately became excited: "Damn it, they finally caught up!"
A layer of ice crystals had formed between Xie Xuan's brows, and his gaze was as deep as a cold river: "Let them eat this bowl of execution rice."
The scout received the order, took the fragrant meat soup and rice handed to him by the kitchen, ate it up in big mouthfuls, and then hurried back to continue monitoring the enemy situation.
The setting sun was blood-red, and the two sides finally met on a narrow road before the arrival of winter night.
Heng Hongbo appeared in front in a disheveled state, followed by several concubines and their young children, who were crying.
Heng Hongbo couldn't help but look pale when he saw Xie Xuan and his party descending from the sky as if assisted by God, and even after going through several fierce battles, they still looked extremely brave.
"Xie Xuan, when the Baishang Kingdom's cavalry besieged the two states, you were only a one-year-old child. Do you know why the two states' troops were so utterly defeated? Do you also understand why the imperial court was so reluctant to send troops to support them?"
When Heng Hongbo talked about this, he was so excited that he could hardly control himself, but he saw Xie Xuan looking at him with indifference.
His voice turned low, and his face was dejected: "If you are willing to spare the lives of my wife, children and elders, I will tell you the whole truth of what happened back then."
As dusk fell, Xie Xuan, dressed in a black robe, looked like a Shura returning from the underworld. He walked in the bloody afterglow and slowly rushed towards his former enemy.
The cold and murderous aura emanating from his body was as solid as a substance, as if even the air was being frozen into ice bit by bit, and everything around him was shrouded in the shadow of death.
Heng Hongbo looked at him, his eyes filled with fear and despair. His once arrogant demeanor was now completely devoured by fear. His lips trembled, "Do you really want to work for that traitor to the country in order to gain his favor?"
Xie Xuan raised the corners of his eyes slightly, and a death-like gaze shot out from his phoenix eyes. There was no warmth at all, only an endless abyss.
"You...you already knew it?" Heng Hongbo trembled and withered under his gaze.
"Do you know why I have spared your life until now?" Xie Xuan looked like a bloodthirsty Shura crawling out from the underworld. His face was as cold as thousand-year-old black ice, and his body was surrounded by a strong smell of blood and murderous aura, which was intimidating.
Every time the dark horse took a step forward, Heng Hongbo couldn't help but tremble.
"How can the crimes you committed be redeemed by one person's life?" Xie Xuan's lips curled up into a cruel smile. "Only your descendants, generation after generation, can repay this blood debt."
After he finished speaking, a flash of scarlet flashed in Xie Xuan's eyes, and the smile on his lips turned into a murderous aura: "Kill, don't spare a single one!"
The five thousand soldiers behind him could no longer hold back and they all picked up their guns and mounted their horses, charging forward.
It was like the gates of hell suddenly opened, releasing endless breath of death.
The people around Heng Hongbo had gone through several battles and were already exhausted.
Under this breath of death, they were terrified, collapsed to the ground, and begged for mercy.
However, the blade that chopped down the blade was like the scythe of the god of death, without any warmth.
Watching his beloved concubine and child being shot to death one after another by arrows, Heng Hongbo's eyes almost popped out: "You didn't even spare the children, Xie Xuan, is this the Qilin Army you command?"
"How dare you mention the Qilin Army?" Chu Zhao was also an orphan left behind after the great battle that day. If the generals and his subordinates had not rescued him from the pile of dead bodies, he would have died long ago.
Chu Zhao, who had personally killed several of Heng Hongbo's sons, was now furious: "Today, I demand that you pay for the lives of my father, my mother, the seventy-two members of my Chu family, and the tens of thousands of people in Chiyan City!"
As the hand rose and the knife fell, figures fell and the snow was dyed red.
Seeing his wife, children, and elders all dying before his eyes, Heng Hongbo's eyes were bloodshot. He lay on the ground, gasping for breath, but a shameless smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. He said confidently: "The winner is the king, the loser is the enemy. This is the will of heaven."
He suddenly looked up to the sky and laughed heartily, "My surrender to the enemy is truly in compliance with destiny, preserving my life and property. As for those civilians who were defeated and slaughtered, they were merely casualties of the chaotic world, completely insignificant in the eyes of those high and mighty kings. I was merely seeking a glimmer of hope for my family in these troubled times. As the saying goes, if a man does not work for himself, he will be punished by heaven and earth. So what have I done wrong?"
Hearing him not only justify his actions with high-sounding words, but also trample on the lives of the people with firm words, Chu Zhao was finally enraged by the mockery in his words and raised his gun to attack.
On the way, he was intercepted by Xie Xuan's deputy general.
"He just wants to die quickly. Don't fall for his trick."
Heng Hongbo laughed heartily, tears streaming down his face. He glanced at his descendants who had fallen to the ground and breathed their last, then glared at Xie Xuan fiercely: "You executioners, you will surely receive retribution one day, and your wife and children will not escape the same fate!"
The spear in Xie Xuan's hand went straight into his brow and went through his bones.
Heng Hongbo slowly knelt on the ground, his face distorted and his eyes wide open.
The body kept twitching, and every twitch seemed to be telling of the unwillingness and pain in the heart.
His wide eyes were filled with resentment, as if he was questioning why the heavens were so unfair to him.
His fingers gripped the ground tightly, his nails digging deep into the snow, as if trying to grasp the faintest hope of survival.
However, all of this was lost in the end...
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