Chapter 97: Fight!
Jinsui arrived at the Black Feather Camp first and asked the soldiers, “I believe everyone has heard that a thousand-strong Tartar army is outside the border city and will reach it within a day and a night at most.”
“Prefect Li asked this King to enter the city to avoid disaster, leaving the border city to be plundered and burned by the Tartars, and our provisions and people stolen.”
“However, this King disagrees! Tartars are also people, what is there to fear? We have three thousand border soldiers, why should we fear their one thousand Tartars?”
“This border city is this King’s border city, and the people of the border city are this King’s people. This King will never allow them to be bullied by external enemies!”
“Now, this King asks you all, are you willing to defend the border city with me, or hide in Yanzhou City like dogs? Watching our brothers and neighbors be killed and robbed.”
Cheng Yu was the first to respond loudly, “We swear to defend the border city with the Prince to the death!”
Wei Assistant Secretary was anxious and wanted to interject. He wanted to persuade Li King to enter the city to avoid disaster, and let them defend the border city.
In his heart, no person or thing was more important than the Prince’s safety. As long as the Prince was here, they could rise again.
Unfortunately, before he could utter his persuasion, it was drowned out by a deafening roar: “We swear to defend the border city with the Prince to the death!”
“We swear to follow the Prince to the death!”
…
The border soldiers of the Tuntian Camp were moved to tears. They believed that Li King wanted to stay to protect them, because according to custom, the Black Feather Camp could go to Yanzhou City.
Only the border soldiers of their Tuntian Camp, along with the people in the border villages, would have to flee into the deep mountains to avoid disaster. But the Tartars were extremely fast, and few could escape.
The old soldiers passed down word that the worst situation at the border was not natural disasters, nor oppression from superiors and exploitation by the gentry, but the arrival of the Tartars.
It was the same this time. If they hadn’t happened to be pursuing bandits and discovered that Tartar army, the border city might have been attacked while still asleep!
Li Heng, standing nearby, was awestruck by the morale of the Border Soldiers Army. Were these the same Black Feather Camp and Tuntian Army as before? Their morale was even stronger than the Yan Prefecture Army!
But soon he shook his head and sighed. The Prince was too naive! How could this border city, with its half-finished city walls, possibly withstand the Tartars?
He suddenly thought of something. If Li King died in this battle…
After a quick deliberation, he realized that Li King’s death would be even more advantageous to him. Moreover, Li King would die fighting the Tartars, and it would have nothing to do with him.
Having figured this out, Li Heng suddenly decided to help Li King!
If he wanted the Yan Prefecture Army, then let him have it. If he wanted the gentry to provide provisions, then let the gentry provide them. After all, for the gentry, those provisions were nothing.
The more Li Heng thought about it, the more excited he became. He looked at Li King with urgency, wishing the battle would start soon, so that Yandi could finally be peaceful after this scourge was gone!
Then Jinsui summoned Cheng Yu, Wei Assistant Secretary, Liu Xiaowei, and several captains of the Black Feather Camp individually.
She issued several instructions. First, send someone to notify Han Xing, telling him to observe but not engage, and not to foolishly try to block the Tartars outside the border city.
Second, the entire Tuntian Camp was to be mobilized to notify the people in the border villages, including refugees and herdsmen, that since the Tartars were coming to attack, they should hide in the mountains and forests.
Third, she gave Cheng Yu a separate instruction, to spread out the map of the border city she had drawn earlier and explain her plan.
Cheng Yu pondered and said, “The Prince’s plan has great potential, but it requires bait.”
Jinsui smiled, “Isn’t this King the best bait! If the Tartars know this King is in the city, how can they not pursue?”
Cheng Yu shook his head, “Your Highness, listening to Prefect Li, you should know that the Northern Frontier does not actually want to go to war directly with Great Xia. They are well aware that plundering some border people will have no consequences.”
“But if an Imperial Prince is killed, regardless of whether that Imperial Prince is favored or not, Great Xia will demand accountability for the sake of face.”
Jinsui frowned. She hadn’t thought of this at all. She thought that as long as she flew Li King’s banner and acted as bait herself, the Tartars would go mad and rush into the city to kill her.
She didn’t expect the Tartars to be as cowardly as Li Heng!
“In Assistant Secretary Cheng’s opinion, what would be the best bait?”
Cheng Yu stated confidently, “Provisions, gold and silver, and beautiful women.”
The first two were fine. Jinsui quickly came up with a new plan. That night, they would pretend to hold a banquet in the city, with meat stewed in large pots, piles of provisions displayed, and chests of gold and silver jewelry shown off.
However, with the beautiful women, one wrong move could lead to them being truly harmed, and she didn’t want to take that risk.
“First, set up the formations as this King instructed. This King and Prefect Li will go to Yanzhou City to bring back the Yan Prefecture Army and provisions.”
Before leaving, she had one last thing to do. She took Li Heng with her and had some soldiers capture a fat pig and carry it to the prison.
Boiled a pot of water and got a large iron brush for scraping fish scales.
They poured the boiling water over the pig, and then brushed the heated iron brush over its body, creating streaks of pork.
The key was that the pig was alive, its screams and cries chilling everyone who witnessed it to the bone.
Li Heng vomited in the corner, “Your Highness, why are you making this subordinate watch this scene?”
Jinsui sneered, “Who asked you to watch! This King is just conducting an experiment. There are too many Tartars, and we can’t win by brute force, so we have to use other methods.”
“For example, if this pig is fed poison, and its meat is made into dumplings for the Tartars to eat, it should be able to poison quite a few!”
Suddenly, as if she had thought of something, she waved her hand, and two soldiers dragged out Qing Feng, the assassin who was trembling nearby.
“The poison’s effect won’t be strong if fed temporarily. Qing Feng, you’ve eaten poisonous things since you were young, and your whole body is poisonous. If your meat is brushed into strips like this and given to the Tartars, it should be enough to poison a thousand people!”
As she spoke, the action of brushing the live pig with boiling water and an iron brush did not stop. The pig’s legs had already been stripped of meat, revealing the white bones.
Qing Feng’s eyes showed a look of ghostly terror. He had seen all sorts of torture in the Assassin’s Pavilion, but none compared to the fear this scene brought.
The iron brush, stained with white meat and blood, brushed the meat strip by strip, first breaking the skin, then bleeding, cutting the flesh, exposing the bone…
And yet, you couldn’t die, enduring this torture until your internal organs were exposed, until only your head remained intact…
Qing Feng’s mind conjured Huo Zi’an’s past evaluation: ‘a devil’!
“I’ll confess, I’ll confess, alright!”
Qing Feng’s words were truly heart-wrenching. He had not felt this terrified even when his fingers were broken or his hair was shaved.
Jinsui waved her hand, “Take this pig to the mess hall, it’s extra food for tonight.”
Looking at Li Heng, who was spitting out yellow bile, she said, “Lord Li, listen along. Let’s hear what this assassin confesses.”
Qing Feng confessed that the Zheng Family had hired him to assassinate Li King, and that the bandits were also his accomplices.
Jinsui had the confession written down, had Qing Feng press his palm print, with Li Heng as witness.
Li Heng quickly asked, “Your Highness doesn’t plan to punish the Zheng Family now?”
Jinsui said with a half-smile, “This King won’t make Lord Li the bad guy. It’s not too late to punish them when the Imperial Commissioner arrives.”
If she let Li Heng punish them, he would surely let half of the Zheng Family escape and eighty percent of their assets.
