Break through 100 levels

  The Grand Historian once said: "Everyone in the world is bustling about, all for the sake of gain; everyone in the world is scrambling about, all for the sake of profit."

  A man should not live a single day without power, a small man cannot live a single day without money. Without power and money, one can only suffer from being looked down upon and swallow his anger. When this young man heard that the Khan promised to reward him heavily, he still did not show any sign of joy, and spoke in a calm tone:

  "The little road, down there I know a hidden path that can bypass Schleuse."

  The leader of the grassland tribe also attaches importance to blood lineage, but more importantly, ability is not like the Central Plains dynasty where procedure comes first in everything. In the grassland tribes where survival competition is even more 'fierce', the incompetent will eventually die at the hands of their subordinates and competitors, this is a recognized law of survival.

  Commanding tens of thousands of troops, Iron Khan Si Kundu also started from a young age riding sheep and shooting mice, at this moment he stroked his whiskers and said:

  "Hmm, you say it's a small path, how many people can walk on it?"

  This Qin person who had thrown himself into a different tribe seemed to have a plan in mind and said without hesitation:

  "The narrow path is only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, stretching forty miles from north to south, but it's very difficult to traverse, and a round trip takes almost three hours."

  Thinking about the credibility of these words, the corners of his mouth twitched, revealing a smile as he said:

  "Wu Hu Qi La, Da Chi Sang Tuo, you two go with him to explore the way."

  At this time, the two strong men standing beside Sijilnoi as the Imperial Guard generals bowed to the Khan and then rushed towards the new Tangut envoy saying:

  "Lead the way, kid."

  Walking in the military camp, as a Qin person, Ye Fei could clearly feel the contempt of the Tie Le people towards himself, a Qin traitor. He didn't expect otherwise. The grassland nation has always valued personal martial valor and looked down on those who only knew how to stab knives from behind. People like Si Jie Nuo Du, who were upper-class figures in their tribe, still had some city manners and knew how to hide their likes and dislikes in front of others. But these Tie Le people didn't care, their thoughts and feelings were written all over their faces.

  Shouldering the blood feud of 'destroying the gate' and the debt of 293 lives of the Ye family, Ye Fei always took as his model the 'Spring and Autumn' period minister Wu Zixu who had a similar experience.

  Born into a family of imperial officials, Ye Fei knew that the Great Qin Empire was a dead bug with a hundred legs. For this reason, he also attempted to organize a righteous army in Hebei, and his actions failed without surprise.

  Now reduced to serving under the banner of a foreign tribe for revenge, although Ye Fei himself also feels not very glorious, unfortunately there is no other choice. Because the enemy who destroyed the three tribes of the Ye family was none other than Qin Emperor Eighty-four, who liked to seek immortality and ask about Taoism, and practiced meditation and alchemy every day.

  Ye Fei's father was a government official who petitioned the emperor not to listen to the deceitful words of Guo Shi Pudu Ci Hang, but this only enraged the mediocre and arrogant ruler. What happened afterwards is easy to guess: with a stroke of the imperial brush, every member of the Ye family, regardless of age or sex, was beheaded, including Ye Fei's two sisters and his mother. If Ye Fei had not been an illegitimate son who was not taken seriously and was away studying at the time, he would have also lost his head.

  Currently, the 84th generation of Qin has passed away due to taking golden elixir, and will be buried in the imperial mausoleum within ten days. If not for running around and risking his life for the sake of Iron Tuo people, a foreign invader like him, relying solely on Ye Fei's own strength, it is feared that there will be no hope of avenging this deep blood feud forever.

  Driven by a desire for revenge, Ye Fei led a team of Tie Le people through this remote path with an extraordinary work enthusiasm and at the fastest speed.

  As they rounded a bend in the valley, Ye Fei, who was walking at the front, suddenly stopped and jumped onto a boulder several feet high, saying:

  "Look, you two, that's the valley mouth over there. From here, going out and heading north for ten li is the south gate of Fushicheng."

  After the scouts finished their reconnaissance, Wu Huchi La and Dachi Sanduo, two Tie Le nobles, were overjoyed and couldn't close their mouths. Wu Huchi La even changed his previous cold demeanor, heavily patting Ye Fei's shoulder and loudly saying:

  "Well done, kid! Our boss will definitely reward you heavily."

  Another Tieli leader, Dachisan Tuo, was more calm and composed, directing the messenger to report to Si Jiedu while beginning to deploy troops for the siege, drawing his curved knife and saying:

  "Prepare for the siege, Dasan said before, whoever is the first brave warrior to climb up to the city head will be rewarded with a thousand cows, who can get it?"

  The surrounding Tiele soldiers all became excited and shouted loudly:

  "Me! Me! Me!"

  As dusk approached, the defenders had been fighting for a whole day and were exhausted. They were trapped in this isolated city, facing an unfavorable situation with many enemies and few allies, and reinforcements were nowhere to be seen. In the past few days, they could barely maintain their morale, on the one hand because of Bai Zhengzong's good command, his determination to fight to the death had temporarily stabilized the army's morale, and on the other hand, the soldiers knew that the rear was still very safe. In fact, only the north wall of the city needed to be defended, and everyone was also looking forward to the arrival of reinforcements from Xianyang.

  Since the Huns invaded last year, the total number of troops stationed in Guanzhong has increased to 400,000, with Xianyang accounting for more than 150,000. As long as we hold on until reinforcements arrive, the outcome of the battle in Shangjun will be immediately reversed.

  Alas, human calculations are inferior to heavenly ones! When the thousands of Tieli archers and crossbowmen began their attack on the south gate of Fushicheng with fire arrows, they suddenly realized that the morale of the defending soldiers had collapsed. The hometowns of many of the soldiers were in the Guanzhong region, and since the Tieli people had already bypassed Fushicheng, this meant that the entire Guanzhong region was now open to them. At this point, defeat was inevitable. Bai Zhengzong knew that the situation was irretrievable, let out a long sigh, and his entire spirit seemed to collapse instantly.

  He drew out the horizontal knife from his waist and placed it on his neck, shouting:

  "With a heart to kill the villain, but no strength to change fate. What can be done, what can be done?"

  After that, Bai Zhengzong's hand rose and fell with his knife, and at the place where blood was splashing everywhere, his body "thudded" and fell to the ground. The dozen or so personal soldiers surrounding him all wailed in grief, and then also drew out their swords and killed themselves.

  Through the historian's special intelligence channel, he learned of the changes that had taken place on the front lines. A historian of the current dynasty took up his pen and wrote the following: Shangjun Taishou Shao Shangzao Baigong Zhengzong, with the strength of one county, resisted the Hu cavalry for several days. Due to the fall of Yuyi City, he was unwilling to be humiliated and killed himself by cutting his throat, dying at the age of 49. His posthumous title should be "Zhongsu".

  Just as the historian was neatly recording the death of Bai Zhengzong in clerical script, only a few people in Xianyang City knew what had happened in Shangjun County in the north. The reason for this strange situation is very simple: the historians who have mastered countless secrets of celebrities over thousands of years are not extinct because they always follow the principle of observing but not participating, recording but not interfering, so no one will be killed because their own secrets are discovered by outsiders, which is also the way for historians to protect themselves.

  At the head of the city wall, General Bai Zhengzong died, and the remaining Qin army soldiers lost their will to fight and scattered in all directions, each fleeing for their lives.

  At this time, no one noticed that a doctor in the camp was walking towards Bai Zhengzong's body with a swagger, as if he had nothing to do with the Tie Le people who were killing their way into the city.

  He slowly walked up to Bai Zhengzong's body and Lin Xu couldn't help but let out a sigh, saying:

  "Alas, what's the use of this? If we go to the underworld, we'll surely be sent to the wrong death city and suffer a crime. Considering our friendship, why not follow me instead?"

  After finishing speaking, Lin Xu stretched out his hand and grasped the 'yin' soul floating above Bai Zhengzong's corpse, stuffing it into the medicine gourd beside him.

  Just as the vanguard of the Tie Le people was about to reach the city gate, Lin Xu's incarnation slowly raised the soul flag and waved it in all directions, shouting:

  "Oh, soul return! Oh, soul return!"

  A dense, blood-red glow enveloped the Soul Summoning Flag, and the originally invisible Yin Souls and Vengeful Spirits all turned semi-transparent. As Lin Xu shouted out one by one, the Yin Souls unconsciously rushed towards the Soul Summoning Flag in his hand.

  It's a big harvest for Lin Xu this time, one day's gain is worth more than his usual year's results, it's not in vain that he was forced to work here for more than a year.

  The Shangjun army of over 40,000 people was almost halved in the battle, and the corpses of Tie Le soldiers piled up under the city wall were nearly level with the top of the city. This also proves that the total number of casualties in this war is staggering. Even if not all the dead are qualified to form a military soul, their spiritual quality is absolutely superior to those who died on their beds by a hundred times, and it's indeed a bountiful harvest.

  "Heavens! The beacon fires have been lit again!"

  In the imperial capital of Xianyang, a wisp of black smoke billowed up to the clouds, instantly throwing the city into chaos. Seeing the beacon fire rising in the north, the people of Xianyang fell into extreme panic.

  The cruel reality ultimately pierced the empty and illusory prosperity of Xianyang's secular world. In the end, a peaceful and prosperous era is not created by propaganda and boasting. No matter how beautiful the lies are, they will still be pierced through.

  Although people had known that many border counties, including Shangjun, were in a state of emergency, they still harbored some illusions. Those barbarians came last year, didn't they retreat in the end? Maybe this time will be the same! Until the wolf smoke that rose up clearly and unmistakably told them, no, those wolves-like ferocious and cunning barbarians really came.

  Located north of the Wei River, the imperial capital Xianyang is guarded by 150,000 elite Qin troops. Since the end of the Warring States period, for the first time in a thousand years, a well-organized enemy army has arrived at the foot of Xianyang City.

  As the saying goes, Guanzhong has been the imperial capital since ancient times. Within this land, the Qin Empire, which lasted for a thousand years without decline, unremittingly built countless palaces and various sacrificial buildings on both banks of the Wei River.

  To the north of the Wei River, there were mainly city walls, palaces and watchtowers, while on the south bank of the Wei River, there were buildings such as Zhangtai, ancestral temples, and Shanglin Garden. Especially after the First Emperor unified the six states, he built a large palace complex known to people as "Afang Palace". The scale and layout of its architecture was so grand and beautiful that it had almost reached an unprecedented level.

  After Emperor Fusu ascended to the throne, he issued a decree to suspend this grand project and let the people rest. It wasn't until later emperors resumed the construction of the imperial palace that another hundred years were spent on it, based on the original foundation.

  In the many palaces and gardens represented by Chaoyang Palace, taking the earliest completed front hall as an example, it is nearly 700 meters long from east to west and over 100 meters deep from south to north. The main hall can accommodate tens of thousands of people seated, and a five-zhang-high flagpole can be erected below. How grand the scale of this palace complex is, and how astonishing the cost is, can also be seen from this.

  Although the empire later also had a number of emperors who squandered money, building a palace more luxurious than their ancestors' imperial palace was indeed beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Even if there were a few die-hards who roughly calculated the manpower and material resources required for the project, they all gave up. As for the various reasons, it's simple: even if everything went smoothly, the emperor who proposed the project would not be able to see the completion of the palace in his lifetime.

  The good deed of predecessors planting trees for their successors to enjoy shade is usually disliked by idle and lazy prodigal sons.