"Greetings...Greetings to the General of the Great Tang!"
"This is Prince Li! The Grand General of the Tang Dynasty's Army! What business does your clan leader have with you?" Cheng Huailiang asked, his eyes wide.
"Reporting to the General, reporting to Prince Li, our Prince has sent me to sue for surrender," the monkey clan envoy said, bowing once more.
"How dare you! You call yourself king of such a tiny place!" Fang Yi'ai roared. He didn't know why, but after Qin Mu taught him so much, this guy seemed completely brainwashed; his heart was filled only with justice and the nation.
"Yes, yes, the chieftain sent us to pray for surrender," the monkey clan envoy hurriedly replied.
Cheng Huailiang and Fang Yi'ai, both tall and strong, with their imposing physiques, stood like two mountains before the monkey tribe. Even the surrounding guards were specially chosen by Qin Mu—they had to be tall and imposing to instill pressure in the monkey tribe.
"Surrender! Why doesn't your clan leader come himself! Do you look down on me, the Prince?" Li Shenfu suddenly stood up and shouted.
"No...no, Your Majesty, no...the clan chief is seriously ill and cannot come in person." The envoy was startled and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Hmm! I will believe you for now. So, how exactly do you intend to surrender?" Li Shenfu asked, stroking his beard expressionlessly.
"As long as the Prince is willing to withdraw his troops, the clan chief is willing to offer 100,000 taels of gold and 10,000 gemstones, and submit to the Tang Dynasty." The envoy breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Li Shenfu ask how to surrender.
"Do you think we're beggars? This is all you have, and you want us to withdraw our troops!" Before Li Shenfu could speak, Cheng Huailiang immediately shouted through gritted teeth.
This was all agreed upon beforehand; whatever conditions the other party initially proposed, they certainly wouldn't be the bottom line.
"What does the general desire?" the envoy asked cautiously. He understood that he had come to accept the Tang Dynasty's exorbitant demands.
"A million taels of gold, ten million taels of silver, and a hundred thousand gemstones—the land we occupy will all belong to the Tang Dynasty!" Cheng Huailiang declared with a loud mouth.
“Impossible, impossible! General, even if you kill me, our tribe cannot produce that many things,” the envoy shook his head repeatedly.
“It’s okay if you can’t come up with the money. You can take half first, and we’ll give you the rest every year for five years. That should be fine!” Qin Mu stepped forward and said.
"No, not even half. Generals, please suggest some conditions that we can offer! As this general just said, we are just a tiny place and simply cannot offer that much." The envoy, having given up all hope, became much more at ease and shook his head again.
"It's okay if you can't come up with anything, we can use other things to offset it! Even withdrawing troops is not out of the question!" Qin Mu said with a smile.
"Offer something as a discount? General, you must be joking. Our tribe doesn't even have extra clothes, what else would we have to offer as a discount?" the envoy said with a wry smile. Compared to the Tang Dynasty, they were truly like beggars, and seeing Qin Mu and his group dressed in fine clothes, they felt somewhat inferior.
"It's alright. Since I've said it, it must be something you have," Qin Mu said with his smile unchanged.
"General, what are you talking about?" the envoy asked curiously.
"A million women! As long as you hand over a million women, we don't need your money, and we'll withdraw our troops and return all the occupied territories to you!" Qin Mu shouted.
"Don't rush to refuse! Think about how many able-bodied men you've lost, and how many women you have left. You might as well hand them over to us. Here's a suggestion: you can pay 500,000 upfront, and use the remaining 500,000 to raid other tribes. You can take the able-bodied men too; it doesn't have to be women." Qin Mu gestured to stop the envoy from speaking and continued.
"General, you don't mean to kill them, do you?" the envoy asked cautiously after taking a few deep breaths.
"Why would I kill them! I just want them to do the work," Qin Mu said, raising an eyebrow.
The envoy finally breathed a sigh of relief. The main problem was that Qin Mu and his group had fought their way here, and very few had managed to escape, leading the monkey tribe to believe they were all dead. There was nothing they could do; the White-Eyed Wolf tribe had slaughtered everyone they passed through.
"This matter is of great importance, and I cannot make the decision on my own. I need to go back and report to the clan chief," the envoy said after a moment of silence.
"Sure! You can tell your clan chief to agree to the Tang Dynasty's conditions. The Tang Dynasty can also sell you weapons, leather armor, salt, dried fish, porcelain, and cloth! These can all be sold to you, or you can exchange them for people. As long as they are young, regardless of gender, and no matter where you bring them from," Qin Mu said loudly.
"General, are you serious?" the envoy asked in surprise. Things from the Tang Dynasty had always been something they admired and desired to possess.
"Of course! I keep my word and will never break it!" Qin Mu nodded.
"Yes! Yes! I misspoke. I wonder if the general could order the wolf-dog tribe to stop their attack? I will return immediately to report to the chieftain," the messenger hurriedly replied.
"That's the White-Eyed Wolf Clan. They only have a cooperative relationship with the Tang Dynasty, but I still have some influence with them, so I can try to persuade them," Qin Mu nodded solemnly.
Although he knew Qin Mu was lying, the envoy dared not pursue the matter and hurriedly thanked him.
"Thank you, General! Thank you, General!"
The messenger received the answer and hurriedly left with his men. He needed to get the message back as soon as possible.
Although he knew Qin Mu's conditions were excessive, he still felt they were acceptable; he didn't care about the lives of those small tribes. Besides, Qin Mu had reminded him that he could forcibly take things from others; he didn't necessarily have to pay for them himself.
With the superior weapons of the Tang Dynasty, those small Yuan tribes in the west would certainly be no match for them.
"Huai Dao, do you think the Monkey Clan will agree?" Li Shenfu asked. He was taken aback by Qin Mu's outrageous demand. A million young people—that's a million households! Comparable to the entire Lingnan region! And that still has to include the mountain strongholds.
"They'll agree. The monkey tribe has a large population, and so many young men have died in battle. We need women to lighten their burden. Besides, can't they just rob other people?" Qin Mu said with a smile.
“Lingnan is a vast and sparsely populated area. If we had so many more people, development would be much easier,” Li Shenfu said, stroking his beard.
"There are too many! It's not good to leave them all in Lingnan. We can move some to Jiangnan. The women can be concubines, and the men can be slaves! Those who are not of our race can never become citizens of the Tang Dynasty," Qin Mu said.
“Hmm! Those who are not of our kind will surely have different hearts! I will report this matter to the court and ask His Majesty to issue an edict to establish it as a permanent law. But what about the descendants of those concubines?” Li Shenfu asked.
“Of course, it’s my human race! After all, we are the offspring of the human race!” Qin Mu said with a smile.
"Haha! That's right, that's right, whose seed it is, of course it belongs to that person!" Cheng Huailiang laughed loudly.
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