Chapter 27: Everyone in Fan Gu City is a good person

  The atmosphere in the room was a bit stiff, and maybe it was because the stove had been moved out. Li Xiaozong, who was kneeling on one knee on the ground, had a pale face, and I didn't know if he was frozen or scared.

  Li Yuanshan looked at him and slightly furrowed his brow: "Although you are not the eldest son of the Li family in Longyou, I have always felt that you will make something of yourself in the future. Perhaps you don't even remember, when you were seven years old... on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, your father, my second brother Li Yuanmou, built a enclosure in the hunting grounds and trapped thirty or fifty starving wolves and two equally hungry tigers inside, saying it was to find some entertainment for the people in the clan, even inviting the elderly patriarch to come."

  "That day, the pack of wolves and the hungry tigers were entangled in a fierce battle, it was indeed quite interesting to watch. The old master had been standing for a long time and was getting tired, your father ordered that all the beasts in the enclosure be shot dead. Arrows rained down, and both the wolves and tigers died. The old master insisted on going down to take a look, your father and I supported the old master into the enclosure, and you, who were only seven years old at the time, also followed with a short knife in hand. Who knew that when we walked up to the body of a hungry tiger, that beast was not quite dead yet."

  "Your father and I drew our swords at the same time, but you took a step forward and loudly said that Grandfather's safety was the most important. Father and Third Uncle protected Grandfather tightly, and you went forward with one knife and stabbed the starving tiger to death."

  "At that time, your father scolded you for being unruly, I didn't say anything, and even the old master turned around and left without saying much to you. But you don't know...the old master regretted it for a long time afterwards. He said what a pity it was that this child had such courage and wisdom, if only he weren't born out of wedlock, he would have been greatly nurtured."

  Li Yuanshan paused for a moment before continuing, "You had the bravery to kill a tiger at the age of seven. From that day on, I have been paying attention to you. Your admission to the Martial Arts Academy was also something your father and I discussed beforehand. His original intention was to select one child from among his legitimate children to send for the examination. I advised him for half a day before he agreed."

  Li Xiaozong's face changed slightly, changing from a single-knee salute to a double-knee salute.

  "Thank you, General."

  Li Yuanshan sat down on the chair and shook his head: "You should call me Third Uncle."

  Li Xiangzong bowed his head and said: "Wearing military uniform, I dare not address you as Third Uncle."

  Li Yuanshan's eyes flashed with a hint of appreciation, and he nodded: "You can still remember the military law at this time, very good... But your courage when you were young was already impressive, why are you so timid now? I sent Wu Peisheng a large mansion in Jiangdu, and only then did he agree to help you suppress the corruption case. A few dead thugs, a few dead civilians, for your future career, it's just a small matter like dust, how can't you bear to do it?"

  Without waiting for Li Xiang to explain, Li Yuanshan continued: "Even if you have a bitter intention and don't take action, the death of Wu Peisheng makes me even angrier! Wu Peisheng is the emperor's favorite, the chief eunuch of the imperial study, and his death will inevitably shock the court and astonish the emperor. But... he's dead and gone, no need to worry too much about it... as long as things are done cleanly and neatly, surely the emperor won't kill a brilliant general because of one dead person?"

  "But you didn't even do this thing well, completely lacking in vigor!"

  Li Xiangzong hung his head and didn't bother to explain.

  "I've watched you grow up and thought you'd amount to something. That's why I've always thought you had potential, so it's hard not to interfere a bit more."

  Li Yuanshan stood up, patted Li Xiaozong's shoulder: "You're thinking too much, this is not wrong. But since you want to think about it, you can't think too narrowly... You plan to use the Mongolian cavalry infiltration as an excuse to fool the investigators from the imperial capital in the future, this is simply impossible, even if you stuff more money into their pockets, no one dares to guarantee that they won't regret it later, those people in the imperial capital... are all sinister to the bone."

  "I've said so much, do you understand what to do now?"

  He asked.

  Li Xiaozong nodded and then shook his head: "General, the reason I couldn't bear to do it is not because of sympathy for women, but because I wanted to leave some helpers for the future. The border army of Fan's solid city has a rotation every six years, these people are all old veterans, after a few years, I plan to find a way to transfer them back under my command."

  "Veterans are treasures, but not for promotion."

  Li Yuanshan sighed and said: "Since you can't bear to see this happen, then don't interfere."

  He turned and walked towards the door, and when he reached the entrance, his footsteps paused for a moment: "You don't want to kill people, I won't force you... But you need to rewrite the memorial to the imperial court. The officials sent by the imperial court to investigate the case will arrive in at least two months. Two months is enough time to do many things, and... I didn't plan to let you wait for two months."

  "In the eleventh year of Dà Yuán Tiān Yòu, on the second day of the second month, due to the private transportation of horses by the Northern Liao people, the Mongol Empire suddenly launched an attack on Fǎn Gù. A Wanhu (10,000-strong) army from Mǎndū Qí crossed over the Láng Rǔ Mountains and attacked Fǎn Gù. The commander-in-chief of Fǎn Gù, Li Xiāo Zōng, led his troops to fight back, and after a bloody battle that lasted for several days, they killed more than 1,000 enemies... Just as Imperial Envoy Wú Péi Shèng arrived at Fǎn Gù, he entered the city to assist in its defense. The officials from the Ministry of War and the Grand Court of Revision fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the border troops, defending the city... However, they were vastly outnumbered, and after ten or more days of fighting, most of the defenders inside the city had died. Imperial Envoy Wú Péi Shèng and 36 officials who accompanied him were killed in battle. Commander-in-Chief Li Xiāo Zōng was severely injured in six or seven places but continued to fight back with his blood-covered body... Just as the city was about to fall, Right Vanguard General Li Yuǎn Shān led his troops to arrive and defeated the enemy outside Fǎn Gù City, killing 6,000 enemies..."

  Li Yuanshan said in a cold voice, "The petition you sent to the imperial court a few days ago, I withheld it. What's written on it is my own memorial to the Emperor."

  Li Yuanshan's expression was stiff, and he smiled self-deprecatingly: "Fortunately, it was more than half rather than all of them who died in battle."

  Li Yuanshan smiled and said, "It's all... the remaining small part written on the memorial, I will allocate it to you from the right Rongweiwei, the Ministry of War has a list of registered soldiers for the border defense, but the name... is just a code name, anyone can be called Zhang San, or Li Si."

  "As for Fang Lie... I'll send someone to take care of him."

  After saying this, Li Yuanshan walked away with a long stride.

  ……

  ……

  In the eleventh year of Daxu Tianyou, on February 2nd, 775 soldiers from the Fan Gu border army gathered at the drill ground after receiving military orders. After waiting for a long time, General Li Xiaozong did not show up. They stood on the drill ground for three hours, and everyone was exhausted and hungry. At dusk, they suddenly received another military order that the Right Vanguard Great General Li Yuanshan had ordered Fan Gu's garrison troops to exit the city 30 miles away due to an urgent military situation.

  Soldiers who had gone a day without food or drink dragged their weary bodies out of the city and hurried to the vicinity of Flying Hawk Pavilion thirty miles east of the city, where they were met with five hundred heavily armored cavalrymen and three thousand elite infantrymen.

  Seven hundred and seventy-five people, all dead.

  At midnight, the Youji soldiers wearing Huafu military uniforms entered Huafu. The next day, the people of Huafu received news that three hundred Mongol cavalrymen were raiding the border, and Li Xiangzong led his army to meet them, but unexpectedly fell into an ambush, and the enemy cavalry was not just three hundred, but at least several thousand. The frontier army fought hard, and most of them died in battle.

  The people were shocked and outraged.

  Li Xiaozong, who was seriously injured, gathered all the people in the city and recruited soldiers. However, at this time, thousands of Mongol-Yuan Empire soldiers entered Fan'er City under the guidance of spies and slaughtered all the people in the city. More than 2,000 people in the whole city were killed, and no one survived.

  Li Xiaozong only came to his senses that day, and it turned out that Li Yuanshan said that the massacre was a bit troublesome, not because of the killing, but because of how to explain it to the imperial court.

  On the eve of the massacre, when the elite soldiers of the Right Valiant Guard disguised themselves as General Fan's border troops and entered the city, Du Hongxian, the owner of the Cloud Calculation dog meat shop, released a carrier pigeon from the city head and left the city with a small bundle on her back. She did not know that soon after she left, all the citizens in the city became headless wild ghosts.

  ……

  ……

  The horse carriage moved slowly, although the wind was still cold, but wrapping up in clothes to find warmth in the sun, it was also a bit interesting. The big dog drove the horses at a moderate pace, far behind the seven carriages led by Hongxiu. The people in front didn't pay attention to them, and they were too lazy to get close to those girls.

  Although Daquan likes to draw naked women in the snow, he actually has no desire for women. At least in the past fifteen years, Fang Jie has never seen him go find a woman, so Fang Jie's definition of Daquan is that this person is either a miser who loves money more than anything else or someone with physical problems.

  While Mu Xiaoyao was even more unwilling to interact with those women who were on good terms with Hong Xiu, beautiful women and beautiful women originally didn't have much to say to each other. So she would rather sleep in the carriage every day than go and chat with that group of sisters. As for Fang Jie, he would rather wear a large cape and sit outside chatting with the big dog than enter the carriage, because Mu Xiaoyao was simply a woman who didn't take herself seriously as a woman.

  Her red skirt was originally thin, and she didn't have a bit of ladylike demeanor when sleeping. After tossing and turning, a pair of white legs as smooth as condensed milk were exposed outside. Letting Fang Jie, an ordinary man, sit in the carriage and watch her beautiful body laid out before him, yet unable to partake, was no better than chatting with a big dog outside.

  "Great hound, you said that if I return to Fanggu as a high-ranking official of the Great Sui, what kind of welcome would the people of Fanggu City give me?"

  The big dog smiled and said: "It's nothing more than beating gongs and drums, and setting off firecrackers."

  Fang Jie shook his head and stopped talking, his face looking somewhat unsightly for some unknown reason.

  "What's wrong?"

  Big dog asks.

  "I fell asleep leaning against the train carriage just now and had a dream."

  "What did you dream of?"

  "I dreamed that I returned to Fanggu after many years, and all the fellow townspeople were waiting for me at the city gate. I saw them so excited that they almost hugged each other in joy. But when I smiled and ran forward, I suddenly felt something was off... Why did He Auntie still look the same after so many years, like a blooming trumpet flower that hadn't changed? Why was Little Jiao still only as tall as my knee after all these years? And why was her voice still so soft and gentle? Why was Qu Feng still just a low-ranking military officer after all these years without any promotion? As I looked at them, I became more and more frightened, until I woke myself up."

  "Because you just left Fan Gu, they definitely haven't changed after having this dream."

  The big dog thought for a moment and said: "Your brain is their current appearance, so naturally your dreams are also their current appearance."

  "No..."

  He slowly wiped the sweat from his forehead: "They were all wearing white clothes, their faces whiter than their clothes... I went to hug them, but couldn't hold any of them... Their feet didn't touch the ground, they were floating. It took me a long time to realize that the ones I saw in my dream... were all dead."

  The big dog was stunned, and he crawled into the carriage to retrieve a wine jug from Xiao Yao's waist and handed it to Fang Jie: "It's just an extremely absurd dream, if you're still worried, we can go back and take a look now."

  Fang Xuan took a sip of wine and felt the chill on his back: "No need... didn't people say that dreams and reality are opposite? If you dream of someone's death, they will live longer. I dreamed that all the villagers from Fan Gu's hometown died, so won't they all live to be 100 years old?"

  "Hmm!"

  The big dog nodded and smiled: "In the past fifteen years, I have dreamed many times that we are dead, but we are still alive and well. And isn't there an old saying that good people don't die young, while troublemakers live for a thousand years... I'm not a good person, neither is Xiao Yao, nor are you."

  Fang Jie laughed and his suppressed emotions dissipated a bit: "The people in Fan Gu Cheng... are all good people, right?"