lcionline Chapter 211 Grassland Express: The Marriage Package Turns into a Cold Pass
Chapter 211 Grassland Express: The Marriage Package Turns into a Cold Pass
In June of the first year of Taiji, the snow at the foot of Lengxing Mountain had not yet melted, but the wolfsbane flowers were crushed into crimson under the iron hooves.
Sun Quan stood atop the city wall of Youzhou, gazing at the dust rising on the distant horizon. His deputy, Li Kailuo, strode in carrying a map, his black armor damp with lingering frost.
"Grand Commander, scouts report that the Xi tribe's vanguard is only eighty li from Ji County." Li Kailuo's voice was like a taut bowstring. On the unfolded sheepskin map, the passes outlined in ink were now marked with several cracks in vermilion. Sun Quan noticed that the name of Li Jin, the governor of Yanzhou, was blurred by the ink, and recalling the impeachment memorial from three days ago, a cold smile appeared on his lips—he was the one left to clean up the mess left by Xue Ne.
Suddenly, the crisp sound of horses' hooves shattering ice shards came from below the city gate. Yu Zhanmo rode his horse through the morning mist, his black cloak fluttering like a flag in the north wind.
The foreign strategist dismounted, the wolf-tooth pendant between his brows still damp with snowflakes from the frontier: "Does the Grand Commander truly intend to sacrifice the lives of thirty thousand men to fill the gaps between the teeth of those Turkic wolf cubs?"
His Mandarin carried the pungent odor of the region north of Jieshi Mountain, and his gaze swept across the Lengxing Gorge on the map. "A white blizzard will surely rise in seven days, at which point our supply lines will be cut off..."
"Insolence!" Li Kailuo's sword flashed half an inch from its sheath, but stopped abruptly as Sun Quan raised his hand. The Grand Commander's suede wrist guard brushed against the map, making the vermilion-stained Lengxing Mountain seem to bleed: "This commander wants to see whether the Turks' scimitars are harder, or my Tang army's longswords are sharper."
At dawn, four thousand elite Xuanjia cavalrymen surged across the frozen earth like a black tide. Li Kailuo's silver helmet reflected the waning moon, and the shards of jade splashed up as his iron hooves shattered the icy river all turned into the flowing sand of the hourglass in the tent.
Sun Quan sat upright in the central command tent when suddenly the clappers outside the tent clattered violently—an urgent report of the vanguard's defeat burst in at the same time as the north wind blew through the door.
At the bottom of Lengjing Valley, the wolf-head banner of Xi chieftain Li Dapu was stained with blood. Eight thousand iron cavalrymen, like hungry wolves devouring their prey, tore the Tang army's formation to shreds.
Li Kailuo's silver helmet rolled into the mud, his right arm armor embedded with two half-whistling arrows, yet he still roared and swung his longsword.
The sound of horses' hooves, like muffled thunder, came from the distant mountains, but the central army banner that should have been rushing to the rescue was gradually disappearing into the wind and snow.
Three days later, Sun Quan's purple robe and gold belt stood out conspicuously in the Xi tribe's royal tent.
Li Dapu toyed with the blood-stained seal of the military governor, his fangs gleaming coldly in the campfire: "Didn't Governor Sun say he was ordered to pacify the region?"
He kicked at Li Kailuo's silver helmet at his feet, and with a Turkic scimitar, he unfurled the bright yellow imperial edict. "How about having Chang'an send another 30,000 bolts of silk in exchange for the governor's head?"
A sudden gust of wind arose outside the tent, swirling snowflakes and extinguishing half the campfire. Yu Zhanmo's sigh mingled with the howling north wind, much like the morning mist atop Youzhou City that day.
"Oh my god, Little Si, let's talk about the Battle of Lengjing today!" Zi An, with his pipe in his mouth, began to explain to Little Si:
"Well, around 710 AD, the Xi people and the Eastern Turks were in cahoots, wreaking havoc like locusts, especially around the Wuqing area of Ji County in Tianjin..."
Xiao Si said, "Oh, I know about this. Guess what? Xue Ne, the Grand General of Youzhou, got into a fight with Li Jin, the Prefect of Yanzhou, in the yamen. When the Emperor saw this infighting, he directly transferred Xue Ne to Bingzhou as the Chief Clerk, and replaced him with Sun Quan, the Left Feathered Forest General."
Zi An took a deep drag on his pipe: "Sun Quan was like a man possessed as soon as he took office, his eyes fixed on Yingzhou, which had been occupied by the Khitan. He led his two deputy generals, Li Kailuo and Zhou Yiti, and a force of about 30,000 men, splitting into three groups and heading towards Beimang."
Yu Zhanmo, mimicking a Northeastern accent, said, "Exactly! Back then, I was in the ranks advising him: 'Boss, this is a dead-end road in the middle of nowhere, going through ravines in this sweltering heat. Aren't we just asking for trouble?' Sun Quan retorted, 'What do you know?!'"
Xiao Si and Zi An laughed heartily, and Yu Zhanmo continued, "What happened? On July 22nd, just as they reached Lengxing Pass, eight thousand Xi cavalrymen roared out and charged! Li Kailuo, leading four thousand elite vanguard troops, was like dumplings being dropped into a pot; they shriveled up after a couple of thuds..."
Xiao Si nodded: "Oh, I understand. It wasn't the legendary army of over 100,000 that was wiped out by the Xi tribe's 4,000, but rather that 4,000 elite soldiers were wiped out by the enemy's 8,000."
Yu Zhanmo said, "Sun Quan is as cowardly as a quail, tail between his legs, ready to run away. When the Xi chieftain Li Dapu sent an envoy to hurl insults, Sun Quan still acted like a big shot: 'Misunderstanding, misunderstanding! We're here to offer help! We're sent by the court to offer amnesty, all thanks to that cowardly Li Kailuo!' In the end, he even gave them silk robes and gold belts, making it seem like they were visiting relatives for the New Year!"
Li Dapu actually told Sun Quan and the others to go back, saying, "Oh my god, don't scare each other like that again!!"
Yu Zhanmo imitated Zi An, slamming his pipe against the sole of his shoe: "Li Dapu was also thinking to himself: 'Get the hell out of here! If you show off like this again, I'll beat you so badly your own mother won't recognize you!'"
Little Si listened to Yu Zhanmo's storytelling with her chin resting on her hand, her eyes sparkling brightly.
"Now, when the Xi chieftain Li Dapu saw the Tang army retreating with their banners falling and their horses trampled, he was so happy that he grinned and danced with joy. His scouts, like a pack of sand foxes smelling blood, followed the tracks of the defeated army day and night, and actually dragged Sun Quan and Zhou Yiti, two defeated generals, out of the chaos and wrapped them in straw mats overnight and sent them to the Turkic camp by fast horse—" Yu Zhanmo snapped his folding fan shut, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
Xiao Si chuckled, "This speed of presenting prisoners... is it some kind of rushed birthday gift for the Turkic Khan?"
"At that time, the Turkic Khan was seething with rage—first, his request to marry a Tang princess was rejected, and then he was publicly humiliated by the broken letter of the state regarding the marriage alliance; he was like a groom kicked off his wedding bed by his bride. Suddenly, when the Xi tribe presented this 'gift package of generals from the Celestial Empire,' his eyes lit up, and he slaughtered people like lambs. The poor Tang prisoners, before they could even discern the desert sands, became innocent victims under his blade."
"To say that this grassland overlord is reckless in a unique way, he is like a snowfield bear that has drunk three jars of mare's milk wine. When he is furious, he even wants to overturn the dome of the golden tent!"
This bloody storm cleaved the abrupt relationship into a frozen wasteland—forget about marriage alliances; even messengers traveling to and from the border would be frozen solid in the north wind.
Zi An smiled and continued:
"Li Kailuo and Wukeli escaped swiftly, probably even leaving their horses with several tufts of mane bald. The Xi tribe's use of a borrowed knife to kill was brilliant, they've learned a smattering of the Three Kingdoms' political maneuvering. It's just a pity for the Turkic Khan, his impulsiveness turning the diplomatic arena into a battlefield. This operation deserves a front-page inclusion in 'The Pictorial Guide to the Grassland Rams.'"
Little Si laughed so hard her hairpins jingled, then suddenly composed herself and sighed softly:
"The Khan's two failed attempts to win his hand in marriage fueled his resentment, which burned like strong liquor in his throat. He became bloodthirsty at the sight of prisoners. This momentary gratification revealed the shortsightedness of a steppe warlord—with a flash of the blade, not only hundreds of lives were lost, but the last wisp of smoke of peace between the two nations was extinguished. In that case, has this paved the way for Brother Qiu Rongmu to seize the throne?"