127 127
◎ Let the princess' name spread throughout the grassland!◎
Yelu Chong launched this night attack in order to abduct the Princess of Qi in order to humiliate the Emperor of Qi who was far away in the south. After being injured and realizing that he was going to be defeated, Yelu Chong wanted to commit suicide to defend his integrity as the King of Donghu and a grassland warrior!
The gunshot wound on his waist was already serious enough. If he really wanted to commit suicide, he would die from excessive blood loss even if his hands and feet were tied and he struggled and rolled on the spot. Therefore, Qingyang directly ordered Fan Huaizhong to knock Yelu Chong unconscious, and then asked the military doctor to use the best medicine to save Yelu Chong's life.
This battle was fought to enhance the prestige of the Great Qi. Escorting a living King of Donghu back to the capital would make the people along the way feel better and relieved than bringing back a rotten corpse!
The soldiers fought all night, and Qingyang watched the battle all night. When the Hu people were fighting most frantically to rescue their Wang Chong, Qingyang only left fifty personal soldiers to protect him, and ordered Fan Huaizhong to lead the remaining more than a thousand personal soldiers to rush down to reinforce the defenders under Meng Ji and Hou Wanzhong. Even though the victory of Qi was already decided, Qingyang still hoped to minimize the sacrifice of his own soldiers.
When the first rays of morning light illuminated the entire grassland, the river valley had already become quiet. Smoke rose from the stoves set up by the cooks. Wounded soldiers lay in rows on the river bank, waiting for military doctors to clean and bandage them. The uninjured soldiers were divided into groups of two, carrying the bodies of the two armies to different places to wait for cremation.
As Prince Yong and his cavalry returned, carrying hundreds of captured Hu deserters and thousands of Hu horses that had fled the battlefield the previous night, they spotted his niece, squatting and rising, from a distance, near the wounded. He ran over, and as he got closer, he saw his niece tending to the wounded, her own body stained with blood.
There were groaning sounds everywhere, coupled with the bloody broken arms, leg wounds, arrow wounds and even head wounds. King Yong's hair stood on end when he saw them, as if he would feel the pain himself.
"Lin'er, take a break. You've been busy all night." King Yong dismounted and stood on the grass outside the wounded soldiers to advise.
Qingyang didn't feel tired. Some wounds could save a life if treated in time. Losing an arm or a leg is painful, but as long as you are alive, there is hope.
The soldier, whose wounds were being washed by the princess, closed his eyes tightly, tears rolling down his face which was covered with blood and sweat.
The wounded soldiers, lying or sitting around him, watched the princess, whose movements were as skillful as a military doctor's, the princess who had accompanied them through months of wind and sun, fighting against the barbarians. Their wounds still ached, but a warm current welled up in their hearts. The princes thought the princess should rest, but she would rather endure the hardship to heal their wounds.
At this time, a soldier came running over to the tent and said, "Princess, Yelu Chong has woken up and is threatening to commit suicide!"
King Yong laughed loudly: "He wants to die, I will help him!"
Qingyang looked up, stopped his uncle Wang, and said to the soldier who was delivering the message, "Have Fan Huaizhong bring Yeluxu over here. First, chop off his left little finger. Then tell Yeluchong that if he lives to come to the capital to surrender, I will spare his life and send him and his brothers back after signing the surrender agreement. Otherwise, if he makes a scene, I will chop off a piece of Yeluxu's body until he is chopped into pieces."
The soldier went back to pass on the message.
Qingyang was about to continue with the work at hand when she suddenly noticed that the wounded soldier who had been crying and shaking in pain just now had stopped crying and was looking at her in a daze. The groans that were coming from all around him had also disappeared.
Qingyang seemed unable to guess what they were thinking and focused on applying medicine to the wounded soldiers.
Prince Yong hadn't expected his niece, who could write books and master tactics, to be so ruthless. She was practically a true man. However, there was one thing that still left him unsatisfied: "Are you really going to send them back? Isn't that like letting a tiger go back to the mountains?"
Noticing the wounded soldiers' gazes still on her, Qingyang said without looking up, "I did agree to release it, but no one can guarantee whether a wounded tiger can survive until it's time to return to the mountains."
Yelu Chong wanted to die and refused to cooperate, so the military doctors really couldn't do anything. But when Yelu Chong wanted to live, wouldn't it be easy for the military doctors to kill him?
The wounded soldiers: "..."
Prince Yong: “…”
Qingyang asked Uncle Wang how many prisoners of war he brought back.
Prince Yong reported the number and then asked, "What should be done with these prisoners of war?"
Qingyang: "Tie them up first. Once our army has rested, bring them all to the front and behead them as a tribute to the spirits of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives last night."
Prince Yong was very pleased with his niece's ruthlessness, and the wounded soldiers felt extremely happy after hearing it!
After all the soldiers had finished breakfast, Qingyang changed into his scarlet armor and walked in front of the prisoners. Fan Huaizhong grabbed the collar of Yelu Xu, the Right Wise King, whose hands were tied, and forced him to kneel beside the princess, facing the Hu prisoners.
Although it was autumn and the wind was cool, the sunlight on the grassland was hot and dazzling, illuminating the dragon pattern embroidered with gold thread on the princess's armor and also illuminating the princess's calm and resolute face.
Some of the Hu prisoners held their heads high, while others hung their heads. Qingyang examined their faces one by one and said loudly, "I am Princess Qingyang of Qi, daughter of Emperor Xingwu of the Great Qi State. Today may be the first time you have seen my face clearly, and it is also the first time I have seen your faces clearly."
Every time she spoke, a soldier next to her who could speak Donghu would explain to the prisoners in Donghu.
"Perhaps you don't know what I usually do, but I know you like riding horses, herding sheep, archery, eating meat, and drinking wine. I know you also have parents, wives, and children, and I know you also want to return alive to reunite with your families."
"I have no personal grudge against any of you. If I were just an ordinary general or soldier, I would even be willing to let you go. But I am the princess of Qi. I know that once you return, if you have the chance, you will continue to follow your king to attack the cities of Qi and massacre the people of Qi. If I let you go, it would be like killing the people of Qi with my own hands!"
"Since you grassland people like to call yourselves wolves, then I, Qingyang, am willing to be a wolf hunter. For any grassland wolf that invades my Great Qi territory, if you kill one of my people, I will hunt down ten of your wolves. If you kill ten thousand of my people, I will hunt down a hundred thousand of your wolves. As long as there is still one wolf that dares to covet my land and people, my arrow will always be aimed at the grassland until I die, until there is no trace of a wolf outside the Great Qi Pass!"
"Execution!"
Throughout the night, nearly ten thousand Hu prisoners of war were beheaded almost simultaneously at the command of Princess Da Qi.
Blood gushed out, dyeing patches of wild grass and yellow earth red. The Right Wise King Yelu Xu first turned his head away, unable to bear to watch, then thought of something and looked up at the Princess of Qi beside him.
Noticing his movements, the Princess of Qi, who remained calm in the face of the headless corpses, lowered her eyes. Her eyes, which were brighter and more beautiful than the moon on the grassland, were now filled with a cold and murderous look.
Yelu Xu's blood also froze.
Isn’t it said that the crown prince of the Qi emperor is weak and sickly? How come the daughter of the Qi emperor is more like a wolf than these Hu people?
.
On the night when Qingyang deliberately lured Yelu Chong to launch a surprise attack, Guo Yanqing, the general of Jizhou who was responsible for the rear guard, and Chen Sheng, who led 3,000 cavalrymen to go around the rear of another Hu army at night, launched a pincer attack. After a night of hard fighting, they killed more than 30,000 Donghu people and left more than 20,000 Hu war horses.
After reuniting the troops, although the number of Qi troops was reduced from 180,000 to 130,000, King Yong was still full of fighting spirit and wanted to continue to attack the royal court of Donghu.
Qingyang: "It's too far. Moreover, the remaining Donghu troops will definitely continue to retreat north after hearing that Yelu Chong and his brothers have been captured. It will be difficult for our army to find them in the vast grasslands."
Guo Yanqing, Meng Ji, Hou Wanzhong and Chen Sheng all agreed with the princess's decision.
Prince Yong: "...If you don't want to go, then don't go. I was just saying it casually. But it's been so long, why is there still no news from Prince Jing and Zhang Su?"
Guo Yanqing: "We've been marching for almost a month since we set out, and it was only when Yelu Chong took the initiative that the battle began. They had to go even further into the grasslands and search for the various Donghu tribes. Even if they didn't get lost, they might have only fought a few small battles. With a distance of hundreds of miles, it wouldn't be easy for the Donghu tribes to pass on news to Yelu Chong."
King Yong glanced at the grassland map hanging in his niece's tent and sighed irritably. Fighting on the grassland was indeed frustrating. It took a lot of effort just to find people.
In the northeast of the grassland, Deng Kun, who had just conquered a small tribe of about a hundred people, was also feeling very frustrated. In more than two months, he had not encountered any large tribes, let alone found the Donghu's lair.
Deng Kun was furious and wanted to kill someone, so he caught an old Hu man hiding in a sheep pen and wanted to attack him.
Cheng Zhixu, who came over, stopped him in time and said, "The princess has ordered that the old, weak, women and children of the Hu people shall not be killed!"
Deng Kun glared at him: "The old man was young once too. Maybe he also killed people at the border when he was young!"
The old Hu man who could not understand Chinese was trembling as he held a lamb in his arms, his eyes closed and his face full of tears.
Cheng Zhixu: "These have nothing to do with me. I only know to obey the princess's military orders."
Just as Deng Kun was about to sneer, Meng Changhe came with a group of soldiers and helped stop Deng Kun.
Deng Kun thought they were too long-winded, and looking at the skinny old Hu man, he felt that killing him was really boring, so he left.
After a satisfying meal and a night's rest, the eastern cavalry was ready to set off again. Before leaving, Cheng Zhixu, as usual, had soldiers who could speak Donghu dialect convey the princess's message to the surviving elderly, weak, women, and children in the tribe: "The emperor of Qi is a benevolent emperor, and Princess Qingyang is also a benevolent princess. But kindness does not mean cowardice. Any Hu people who dare to invade the land of Qi will be punished by the princess. Those who are willing to live in harmony with Qi will also be treated as friends by the princess!"
"If you want to be treated well by Da Qi, teach your children to respect Da Qi. If you still want to continue to invade Da Qi, we will also follow the orders of the Emperor and the Princess and continue to kill the men of Dong Hu to avenge our people!
Deng Kun scoffed after hearing this and said, "What's the point of saying this nonsense?"
Meng Changhe looked at the women crying while holding their children, and at the children huddled in fear in their mothers' arms.
From the previous dynasty to the present, all these women and children heard was how much food, gold, silver and women the warriors of the grassland had looted from Qi. After hearing so much, they thought Qi was really easy to bully. The princess's soldiers wanted to let them taste the pain of being killed and robbed, so that they would know how powerful Qi's soldiers were. The princess's words planted a seed of fear of Qi in their hearts, making them remember the name of Princess Qingyang. Even a princess could plunge this grassland into blood and tears.
.
No matter how vast the grassland is, it still has a limit. Deng Kun searched all over the northeast but couldn't find the Donghu royal court. Qin Bing, Zhang Su, and Fu Kui led their troops from the southwest. When they encountered a village, they killed the men and stole the food and meat to replenish their supplies. After that, they continued their search northward. On the third day of September, the sentinels returned at full speed, exhausted but with a happy face: "Your Highness, just over a hundred miles ahead is the Donghu royal court!"
Qin Bing cursed directly, confirmed the news was correct, and wanted to lead his troops to attack immediately.
Zhang Su stopped the men because the royal court had 50,000 to 60,000 troops, while they only had 10,000, so it was not advisable to launch a frontal attack.
Qin Bing and Fu Kui patiently continued to rest and march at night. When they were close, they would lie in wait for a day and then march out in the middle of the night.
Yelu Chong never expected that the army of Qi would come here. All the soldiers left in the royal court were old and weak. Only the Left Wise King Yelu Hong had a few thousand elite soldiers under his command. However, when he was sleeping soundly at night and heard the noise, 10,000 elite soldiers of Qi had already rushed in. Each of them was like a vicious jackal. Yelu Hong was unprepared and was killed by Qin Bing with a single sword before he could even put on his armor.
Qin Bing was only thinking about getting rid of his anger, while Fu Kui was eager to make a contribution. The two of them killed until their eyes turned red. Zhang Su only managed to spare the lives of a few children of the Yelu family and some young royal boys aged thirteen or fourteen. However, they were brave and went to "meet the enemy" with their swords, but it was like hitting a rock with an egg. All the lives became the achievements of Qin Bing and Fu Kui.
【Author’s words】
Here they come, 100 little red envelopes, see you tomorrow!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com