Chapter 115: Yingdun Negotiations [Jinjiang Authentic Edition Exclusive Release · You!] ...
Food is so precious nowadays. Even wheat rice, which tastes extremely bad, has a very limited production.
The Qin soldier stared at the wheat rice that the Xiongnu prince had placed upside down on the table, seriously suspecting that this savage from the grassland was just trying to use this opportunity to make a scene so that they could bring him a bowl of fragrant stew. He couldn't help but raise his eyelids and sneer:
"Prince Maodun, the news of the Baiyue victory has already spread everywhere. What else is possible? Impossible?"
"Since you're already breaking a bowl, you're obviously not hungry today. So, you don't need to eat dinner. Just get some rest!"
After he uttered these cold words, he immediately turned and walked away, sword in hand. Maodun wanted to continue asking for more details about the battle, but when he saw that the person who finally showed up and could talk was about to leave, he immediately stood up from his seat and tried to stop him: "Hey! Wait a minute! You've only just started talking, why don't you continue?"
"Hello! Hello!"
The Qin soldiers were too lazy to pay attention to the barbarians shouting behind them. They walked faster with the swords at their waists and walked out of the house after a few breaths.
Maodun, who failed to stop the Qin soldiers, was filled with anger but unable to vent it. When he turned around and came back, he was displeased with the house. He raised his right leg and kicked the big pillar in the room hard. Although the big pillar was not as old as the thousand-year-old trees in the palace, it had a growth period of hundreds of years and could not be easily shaken by human power. Maodun's kick did not even cause a crack in the pillar, but almost sprained his foot.
He sucked in a breath of cold air with a hiss, and dragged his aching right foot back to the table, feeling angry and aggrieved. He had no appetite at all when he looked at the food on the table, and this incident made his appetite even worse.
But this was all the food he could eat today. He stared at the rough wheat rice that was piled up like a small mountain on the table for a long time. Finally, he used chopsticks to put it back into the ceramic bowl with a cold face. He sat back on the seat with his legs apart, expressionless, and used chopsticks to scoop the hard wheat that could choke him to death into his mouth, while his eyes were dark as he thought about the news that the Qin soldiers came to report to him.
The purpose of the person behind this sudden news was obviously to shock him from the side and make him understand -
The combat effectiveness of their Qin army was actually much stronger than he, the prince of the Xiongnu, had imagined. The Baiyue and the grassland were both wild lands with roughly the same conditions. For the Qin army, both were expeditions that required a lot of effort. Now that the Qin army was able to successfully capture the Baiyue land with the Five Ridges and miasma as natural barriers, then marching north to capture the endless grassland would be as easy as taking something out of a bag.
After all, the grassland does not have so many barriers to protect it.
"well."
When he thought of this, Maodun frowned and sighed, put down the bowl, and couldn't eat a single bite of food.
He fell straight onto the floor with a thud, looking somewhat dejected, and stared blankly at the beams with spider webs crawling all over their heads.
Although he had anticipated the possibility of the Qin army successfully annexing the Baiyue, he had never imagined that the Qin army would conquer the Baiyue so quickly. In just a few years? It seemed that the Qin army only marched south after he arrived in Xianyang, right?
Even though the Yue people of Baiyue were not as strong as the Xiongnu, they were not to be trifled with with their skills in using poison and hiding in the mountains and forests. Even if the Xiongnu encountered them, they would be in big trouble.
But the Yue people, who were so formidable, were defeated so quickly by the Qin army. There must be something very important behind it that he has not seen yet - otherwise it is because the Qin army's individual combat capabilities are too strong. Once on the battlefield, they can fight ten people at a time, and the more elite soldiers can even fight a hundred people at a time.
Otherwise——
Maodun narrowed his eyes - there must be extremely powerful and dangerous weapons hidden within the Qin army. This kind of terrible weapon has great lethality. Once it appears on the battlefield, it can crush all enemies in an instant. That's why the Yue people were defeated so quickly.
But then again, is there really such a magical weapon in the world?
Maodun didn't dare to believe it from the bottom of his heart. He had accidentally heard the Qin people say before that the six-foot-long sword worn on Qin Shihuang's waist was a sword that had been passed down in the Qin royal family for hundreds of years. The sword seemed to be a precious metal extracted from a meteorite from outer space by a sword-making master many years ago. The sword made of this scarce metal was so sharp that it could cut iron like mud.
But such a precious weapon was only passed down from generation to generation in the hands of successive Qin kings as a symbol. After all, it was impossible for everyone in the Qin army to have such a sharp sword, right?
Maodun sneered. This newly-conceived guess failed to convince him, but instead made him laugh.
He shook his head, supported himself on the ground with both hands, and was about to sit up and lie back on the bed when he heard the familiar "boom" sound coming from outside the window again.
The disturbed Prince of the grassland could not help but glance at the window in annoyance, muttering viciously, "Refine the elixir! Refine the elixir! All you do all day is refine the elixir! Do you eat the elixir like it's your meal?! Why don't you just starve to death?!"
Influenced by the times, the angry Maodun killed him because he couldn't figure out what he thought "alchemy" meant.
After cursing a few times to vent some of his anger, the young and sloppy Xiongnu prince dragged his slightly lame right leg and slowly returned to his sleeping place.
After struggling for several days, it was the last day of March. After two years of hesitation, Maodun finally came up with an idea. He felt that dragging it on was not a solution after all, and he had to find an opportunity to communicate with Qin Shihuang face to face.
Qin Shi Huang was not in a hurry, but he was anxious!
He has been in Xianyang for several years. Perhaps in the minds of the tribesmen, he has already died in the conflict with the Yuezhi. If he can't get back to the grassland, not only will the people in the tribe forget about him, the prince who is held hostage, but his scumbag father may even die, and then his annoying and evil brother will be able to take over as the Chanyu!
Things are going to get even worse for him!
Feeling anxious, he ran into the yard and shouted to the black-clad soldiers guarding the door:
"Hey! Someone go to the palace and tell me I want to see His Majesty Qin Shi Huang."
Hearing the shouts of the Xiongnu prince, the Qin soldiers standing inside the gate all looked stern and ignored the young savage who was shouting in front of them.
Maodun frowned. When you are under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. He suppressed his temper and shouted three times in a row.
It was not until he was about to shout for the fifth time that he saw a soldier coming in from outside. Standing on the steps of the gate, he frowned and shouted at him:
"Hun hostage! What are you shouting at the gate so early in the morning?!"
Seeing that a high-ranking Qin soldier had finally arrived, Maodun didn't bother to get angry. He rushed forward in two steps, raised his head slightly, and said seriously:
"You're the boss here, right? Hurry up and pass a message to Zhangtai Palace. I need to go in and see His Majesty Qin Shi Huang right away! I have something important to discuss with him!"
Upon hearing this, the leader of the soldiers looked the downtrodden Xiongnu prince up and down, sneered with disdain, and said:
"Hun hostage, who do you think you are? His Majesty is not someone you can see whenever you want. Since you refused his toast two years ago and were imprisoned here, you should just endure it! Whenever His Majesty is free to summon you, you can enter the palace!"
"If you run to the gate and yell recklessly again, you won't have any food today!"
"You! Don't go too far!"
When Maodun saw that the leader of the soldiers was even more arrogant than him, he was so angry that he was like a Buddha leaving his body and ascending to heaven, and his whole face turned red.
The leader of the soldiers didn't look at him again. He waved to the group of soldiers inside the door and turned away decisively.
Looking at the door that was closed again, Maodun, who was standing there, was so angry that white smoke was almost coming out of his head, but in the end he turned around and went back to the house in helplessness and rage.
However, at dusk, when the leader of the soldiers went to the eldest prince's mansion as usual to find His Royal Highness the Emperor's eldest grandson who was studying there to report the situation of the Xiongnu prince, he also told Prince Xiao'an that the grassland prince wanted to enter the palace to pay homage to His Majesty.
Under the setting sun, Qin Ying, who was feeding the fawn in the back garden, patiently listened to the news from the Hostage House. She looked at the leader of the soldiers with some surprise and raised an eyebrow.
"Did Maodun personally request this?"
"Yes, Your Highness, this is the request he shouted to us at the gate early this morning. I saw that he was quite serious and anxious, so I guess he really thought it through."
Qin Ying nodded noncommittally, stroking the fawn's fur with her small hands. Then, she took the damp handkerchief handed to her by the servant and wiped her fingers carefully while thinking:
"You can take the initiative to talk to Maodun these days. If he asks you about the details of the Baiyue War, you can tell him everything except the existence of gunpowder."
"And there's tea leaves. Brew them again for him. He loves it, doesn't he? Every time I give him tea, I remind him to drink as much as he can, otherwise he'll only be able to drink it in his dreams when he returns to the grasslands. And don't even think about planting tea trees. Even if I give him fresh tea seedlings to take back to the tribe, the soil and climate in the grasslands won't allow them to grow."
"promise!"
The leader of the soldiers hurriedly clasped his fists and bowed, then carefully observed the expression of Xiao An Guojun, who had grown a lot taller after two years of martial arts training, and asked in a low voice:
"Your Highness, if the Xiongnu prince continues to clamor to see Your Majesty, what should we do?"
Qin Ying sneered, "Grandfather is so busy with all sorts of affairs, how can he see me whenever he wants? Let him keep yelling while he has the energy. I'll keep him locked up for another six months. At the end of the year, I'll go see him in person at the hostage house."
"promise!"
The leader of the soldiers bowed again and retreated.
Qin Ying looked up at the gorgeous sunset, pursed her lips, and wondered what she was thinking.
With the instructions of the little grandson, Maodun's life became better. Although the food was still as bad as before, he could drink his favorite tea. However, every time he drank it, the soldiers would look at him with cold faces and remind him in a sarcastic tone that tea was a precious green plant that could only be grown in their Great Qin, and it could never be grown on the wild and water-scarce grassland.
Although this is the truth, it is too heartbreaking and unpleasant to hear.
Maodun was very angry when he heard this, but the fact was that apart from various grasses, the most common thing growing on the grassland was wild leeks. It was difficult to even grow crops, let alone tea trees. Even if they could really grow them, their nomadic tribe was not good at it, so they could only drink tea and get angry in vain.
The only thing that made him feel fortunate was that these Qin soldiers who had been "mute" for two years were finally no longer "mute". Although they still didn't talk much, they told him a lot of things that happened on the Baiyue battlefield.
When he heard that Qin Shi Huang had forced the Qin army to connect two rivers and dig a Lingqu Canal by manpower in order to conquer the Baiyue in one fell swoop, he was stunned. This was simply impossible on the grassland.
He really couldn't understand why Qin Shi Huang loved to build such large-scale projects! Even more terrifying was that the people of Qin were willing to listen to him. How much courage and manpower did it take to dig ditches and build canals?
Maodun could not imagine it, but from the construction project alone, he deeply felt the huge ideological gap between him and Qin Shihuang, as well as the huge thinking gap between nomadic tribes and farming peoples.
When the young Xiongnu prince was completely convinced that the land of Baiyue had really been transformed into three new counties of the Qin Dynasty, he wanted even more urgently to meet Qin Shihuang to renegotiate with him, but he never saw him.
In the blink of an eye, the last bit of spring faded away, and the temperature in Xianyang rose day by day. When it reached its hottest peak, it was rained by the autumn rain and blown by the cool breeze, and Xianyang entered autumn again.
It was not until September, late autumn, that Maodun, who had been under house arrest in the hostage palace for two and a half years, was waiting anxiously. Even the fur clothes he had worn for several years were rotten to the point of looking like a beggar's outfit. Finally, he heard from the Qin soldier guarding the gate that the royal family was coming to see him.
However - it was the last day of the year.
Maodun, who had been eagerly anticipating a meeting with Qin Shi Huang to renegotiate, finally saw the royal family members escorted into the hostage house by a sea of Qin soldiers. However, upon seeing the innocent-looking child, barely reaching his waist height, the Xiongnu prince's defenses were broken once again. In a furious rage, he spread his hands at the innocent-looking child before him and said speechlessly:
"Your Highness, the Emperor's eldest grandson, why are you here? Maodun wants to see your great-grandfather. Even if His Majesty Qin Shi Huang is not available, he can always send the eldest son to talk to Maodun."
Qin Ying, deeply impressed by Maodun's contempt and disdain for her child's status, could not help but blink her eyes. She looked the Xiongnu prince up and down with a critical look. Then, she grinned, revealing a row of neat white teeth, pointed at Maodun, and smiled sweetly at Meng Yi behind her:
"Meng Nei Shi, look at this! Barbarians are indeed barbarians. Mr. Zhang Liang spent two years in prison. When this grandson of the emperor saw him again, even though he had lost a lot of weight and was wearing prison clothes, he still looked like a scholar. Now look at the Xiongnu crown prince. He was only kept in the hostage house for two and a half years to recuperate. After all, he was the crown prince of the Xiongnu tribe, but he actually made himself look like a savage. Tsk tsk—"
Upon hearing the words of the emperor's eldest grandson, all the soldiers following the young prince burst into laughter, and Meng Yi couldn't help but curl his lips upwards in laughter.
Originally, Maodun didn't think there was anything wrong, but when he saw the child pointing at him with a smile, and that mocking expression as if he were some ancient human who ate raw meat and drank blood, he subconsciously gathered his tattered clothes, knelt down on the seat, and said through gritted teeth:
"Lord Xiao'an, you are so sharp-tongued at such a young age. I can't argue with you, but I don't have time to play with you. I want to meet His Majesty Qin Shi Huang again and discuss sending me back to the grasslands."
Seeing that Maodun was getting serious, Qin Ying, who could vaguely sense his anxiety, lifted up her robe and looked at Maodun across the table, saying indifferently:
"Prince Maodun, my grandfather is extremely busy and has no time to talk nonsense with you. If you have figured it out, you can talk to me first."
Seeing the six-year-old brat speaking so arrogantly, Maodun sneered:
"Even if the little grandson of the emperor is favored by His Majesty Qin Shi Huang, can he be His Majesty's master?"
Qin Ying didn't even change his expression when he heard Maodun's digging words. Instead, he stared straight into Maodun's brown pupils and said slowly:
"Prince Maodun, I naturally cannot be Grandfather's master. In this world, no one except Grandfather himself can be Grandfather's master. However, I can be your master."
"Be my master?" Maodun subconsciously knitted his thick eyebrows together, puzzled, "Lord Xiao'an, what do you mean by that?"
Qin Ying spread her hands and said with a cheerful tone, but with an evil expression like a little devil, grinning and grinning:
"It's just what it means literally, Prince Maodun. My great grandfather was the most difficult emperor to please in the world. That day in Zhangtai Palace, you disobeyed my great grandfather and angered him. He completely abandoned you as a Xiongnu ally and completely left you, a grassland hostage, to me, his grandson, to deal with."
"Alas, although I am still young, I can decide on my own whether Crown Prince Maodun will return to the grassland in the future, upright or sideways. Well, when I think about it carefully, it's really a headache for me that my grandfather has given me such great decision-making power. Since Mr. Zhizi can return upright or sideways, it doesn't seem to matter whether he is alive or dead. Alas, Meng Neishi, it's better to drag him out and kill him as soon as possible, so that he can return to see his immortal heaven as soon as possible."
"you!"
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