Chapter 51 Military Discipline
Ling Tianshui is also a person who can't sit still. Although today is the Winter Solstice holiday, he has already run to the Beiya Forbidden Army.
The imperial guards were stationed not far from the Daming Palace. Ling Tianshui was the commander of the Beiya Shen Ce Army. Qian Deng had planned to call him when passing by the camp and then leave, but when he arrived at the camp gate, he saw that it was a major festival and there was chaos and wailing of ghosts and wolves at the gate.
Cui Fufeng rode forward and asked what had happened. Qiandeng also lifted the carriage curtain and looked through the gap.
A middle-aged man was stripped of his shirt and knelt in the snow, being whipped in public. The soldiers in the camp whipped him so fiercely and swiftly that even though the man gritted his teeth, he couldn't help but scream.
Behind the man, a white-haired old woman, a woman and four little girls were crying heart-wrenchingly, kowtowing and begging. The six cries and the man's screams mixed together, which was unbearable to hear.
But the figure standing in front of them was as hard as iron and stone. No matter how they screamed and wailed, there was no trace of emotion on his cold face.
After more than a dozen lashes, the man's back was covered in blood and flesh. As the whip fell, about to strike at the open wound, the youngest girl nearby suddenly rushed out, threw herself on the man's back, and cried, "Stop, stop... Daddy is going to be beaten to death by you!"
The whip could not be retracted in time and hit her back hard, tearing a hole in her clothes. However, her winter clothes could not completely block the force of the whip. She was young and weak, and she fell on her father's back in pain, her limbs twitching.
The soldier carrying out the execution withdrew his whip and hesitated. Ling Tianshui strode forward, grabbed the little girl from the man's back, and threw her back into the woman's arms. He said coldly, "Watch your child carefully. Otherwise, for disrupting military discipline, you will receive another twenty lashes!"
The woman sobbed suppressedly, and together with the old man, she held the four children tightly in her arms to prevent them from rushing out again.
Qiandeng asked Aunt Xuanji to take the carriage back to the mansion first. She put on a veil and got off the carriage, then walked towards Ling Tianshui with Cui Fufeng.
"It's a major holiday, why did Ling Sijie make such a fuss and punish this family?"
Ling Tianshui's face remained expressionless. Amidst the men's screams and the women's wails, he spoke calmly, "We've arranged a duty roster for the festival, but someone disregarded military discipline and went home to celebrate. The rebel army has just passed through the border. If a large enemy attacks and there's no one in the camp, how will we respond?"
Qiandeng looked at the family hugging each other and crying, sighed softly, and stopped talking.
After forty lashes, even the strongest man could not bear it. As soon as the person holding him let go, he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground.
A group of women surrounded him, crying and shouting. Ling Tianshui became annoyed and ordered the man to be dragged back to the camp and his family members to be kicked out.
The old woman rushed to him, kowtowed and cried, "Sir, I was ignorant and forced my son to go home. You can punish me if you want!"
Ling Tianshui looked her over and asked, "You're healthy and well. Is it because your son's military pay isn't enough to support the family?"
"No, my son's military pay is enough, my daughter-in-law is capable, and we have a good harvest from the farmland. I am..." she said, but it was a little difficult to speak. She looked up at his face and wiped her tears, "I only have this one son and four granddaughters. So I urged my son to come home more often so that he and my daughter-in-law can raise another grandson."
Ling Tianshui scoffed, but the old woman pleaded, "My nephew died in the war. He only had two daughters, and they couldn't hold a funeral for him. My nephew presided over the funeral and buried him carelessly. All the family property was plundered by the clan members, and the two daughters were half-sold and half-given away by the clan elders to marry off in distant places. My eldest sister hanged herself on her son's grave and followed him... General, I must leave my son with an offspring, even if it's only three or two years old, to carry his coffin for the funeral! My family... doesn't want to end up like that!"
Qiandeng felt as if needles were pricking his heart, thinking of the choice before him that he had to make but didn't know how to make.
Ling Tianshui had obviously thought of this as well. Although his expression remained gloomy, he couldn't help but glance at Qian Deng. He then signaled the soldiers to drag the women out. "Tell them, you can't die in this camp. If you do it again, I won't let you off so easily!"
After everyone had dispersed and the noise in the camp had died down, he looked at Cui Fufeng and Qian Deng and said, "What's the matter with you coming to see me?"
"There are new discoveries in the Shi Jingning case. I'd like you to go to the funeral home and re-examine the body."
"Oh? Tell me about it." Ling Tianshui just came to take a look today. After casually explaining some trivial matters, he went to the stable to pick out a few horses he liked and signaled to set off.
The three of them rode towards the charity cemetery. On the way, Cui Fufeng roughly recounted the incident of Princess Gaoguo and Princess Changyi causing trouble in the Daming Palace today.
Ling Tianshui listened to the strange incident of the golden bell turning white, and naturally understood what she meant: "So, Princess Gao and Yang Huaijiang reached a deal. She helped Yang Huaijiang become a candidate, and Yang Huaijiang helped her steal the imperial golden flower?"
"Although the plan went awry and Yang Huaijiang died in the fire at the palace, he did help them steal the golden flower - and of course, he also left behind the most important evidence in this case." Qian Deng said, holding the reins of his horse and looking towards the mountain path ahead.
The road ahead was blurred in the snow and fog, and the charity cemetery was half hidden and half visible.
Ling Tianshui asked, "My Lady, why do you think Princess Gao and Princess Changyi were so cruel to you? Besides the dispute at the mountain mausoleum, were there other issues?"
"I'm at home in mourning, rarely leaving the house. How could I have gotten into trouble with them? I don't know how a mere county lady like me could be worth their fuss and the painstaking effort to orchestrate such a vicious scheme to frame me." Qian Deng pondered for a long time, then shook his head. "Perhaps it's because of my father's dispute with the Grand Princess of Gao. I didn't expect that even after so many years, the princess's hatred hasn't subsided."
"Now that the Princess's Mansion and you are at loggerheads, what are your plans?"
"Since they want to kill me, what's the point of me swallowing my anger and avoiding them? The situation has already come to this point, so why not tear it apart in public and let everyone see clearly." Even though Qian Deng knew what kind of situation he was facing, he was worried but not afraid. "Let the world see who is right and who is wrong between my Changhua Palace and her Princess Gao's Palace."
Seeing her determination, Ling Tianshui couldn't help but raise an eyebrow: "Where does your confidence and reliance come from?"
Qian Deng said without hesitation: "It comes from our confrontation in the hall today."
"That's right. If Princess Gao really had any talent, she wouldn't have been completely ineffective in the court for over thirty years. She wouldn't have sought cooperation with someone like Yang Huaijiang, and she certainly wouldn't have been so impatient to launch an attack the moment she got the Nine Golden Flowers. Not only did she give us the opportunity to quickly turn the tables, but she also exposed her own fox tail."
Cui Fufeng was well-versed in the affairs of the imperial court. He was naturally aware of Princess Gao's status as a royal relative, and his assessment of her was unsparing. "Her actions over the years have been nothing but tangles with matters of sex. From her two consorts to the men she dated after becoming a widow, none of them were of any use to her. If it weren't for her status as the Imperial Aunt, how could she have safely survived these 38 years of arrogance and dominance?"
"Matters between men and women..." Ling Tianshui glanced at Qian Deng, "Sure enough, this is the plan she set today."
Cui Fufeng said, "Next time, it will probably be about this aspect. After all, some people have been confined to the palace their entire lives and only have this kind of vision."
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