Wang Chong had barely left the boundary of the formation when a blood-covered scout captain carrying a spear walked over. “Lord Marquis, the battle has already concluded. The Turks have been crushed, with only four or five hundred managing to flee. In addition, we managed to take some of them captive. How should we handle them?”
“If they escaped, forget it. There’s no need to chase them down,” Wang Chong indifferently said. “As for the captives, bring them all back with us. In addition, tell everyone to get ready to withdraw.”
He was very satisfied with the results of this battle. The ground was covered with corpses, but most of them belonged to the Turks and their wolves. The casualties of the Wushang Cavalry were extremely limited, with the majority only having suffered light wounds.
Xu Keyi rode up on a horse and called out, “Lord Marquis! The people from the Qixi Protectorate seem to finally be coming over. Should we meet with them and hand the matter over to them?”
Wang Chong followed Xu Keyi’s gaze and saw the light of torches in the distance. The torches were approaching, accompanied by the thundering of hooves. After all this time, the Qixi Protectorate had finally reacted. Some people were coming to see what was going on, but based on the sound of the hooves, it wasn’t very many.
“Forget it. This isn’t the time to meet them. Inform everyone that we’re leaving soon. As for the armory, let’s leave it to them to handle.”
“Yes, Lord Marquis!”
……
Wang Chong and his five thousand Wushang Cavalry quickly departed, not waiting for the people from the Qixi Protectorate to arrive. Not long after they left, a fierce Qixi commander along with some two thousand soldiers appeared. In the light of their torches, they saw a gruesome battlefield, and all of them recoiled in shock, some of them ghastly pale and apparently about to vomit.
“How formidable. Look at the symbol on their armor, a wolf head. This is the sign of a Turkic warrior. All of them were true soldiers!”
“If I remember correctly, these people would be considered elites under the command of the legendary Black Wolf Yabgu. These fellows enjoy their sneak attacks. In their last operation, the protectorate lost more than a thousand people, and even a few veteran generals were lost. I didn’t think that they would die here!”
“This is too gruesome. Just look at their wounds! There’s no second one. How powerful would someone have to be to do this? Just the thought of it makes me tremble!”
“Thankfully, they came to help us. If they were together with the Turks, we would already be dead!”
All of the soldiers felt their hearts thump in fear as they examined the miserable state of the Turkic corpses. Their blood was still warm, indicating that they had been slaughtered in a very short time. The strength of a force that could pull off such a feat made their blood freeze. Before this, no one would have dared to believe that such a powerful force existed in Qixi.
“What did you find?”
Meanwhile, that fierce Hu commander from the Qixi Protectorate was standing in a place out of view, speaking in a hushed tone with a grimace on his face.
A sturdy Hu scout lowered his head. After thinking for a few moments, he raised his head and offered a cautious assessment. “It’s still not too clear, but it seems to have been the people from Wushang’s City of Steel. In Qixi, they’re the only ones who have this kind of strength.
“Milord, they shouldn’t be far. Do you want to chase after them?”
The Hu commander thought for a few moments before shaking his head. “There’s no need!
“That person is currently a taboo in Qixi. No one is allowed to carelessly approach him. Let’s not invite disaster on our heads. Quickly have this place cleaned up.”
“Yes, Milord!”
……
After traveling several hundred li, Wang Chong’s forces returned to the City of Steel. It was the Chou Period, and the sky was still dark, the city still in silent slumber. But at this moment, the gates to the city were open, and a delicate figure dressed in white, riding a white horse, was waiting at the gate, a smiling fairy descended from the heavens. (TN: The Chou Period goes from 1 am to 3 am.)
Xu Qiqin’s gorgeous eyes flashed as she saw Wang Chong at the front. She immediately urged her horse forward, her head slightly raised as she proudly demanded, “How was it? My plan wasn’t bad, right?”
“Haha, of course. After all, it was your plan.”
Wang Chong couldn’t help but break out in laughter as he saw Xu Qiqin’s proud figure. The two shared a mutual understanding and knew that they were talking about the letter that had baited Agudu Lan. The letter was faked, but the contents were real. Wang Chong’s second brother Wang Bei truly had been released from the imperial prison, but not long after he left, he had suffered a bout of Berserker Syndrome in the middle of the street and accidentally crashed into a princess’s carriage. However, Wang Bei had not killed the princess, nor had he engaged in some senseless massacre in broad daylight. On the contrary, just when he was about to lose his rationality, Wang Bei had suddenly succeeded in controlling himself.
Such a thing had never happened before.
After this incident, Wang Bei had written a letter to Wang Chong telling him that he would arrive in Wushang soon to help him subdue the Western Regions.
This news was like music to Wang Chong’s ears.
This letter had arrived in Wang Chong’s hand quite a few days ago, but when Xu Qiqin saw it, she thought of the idea of using it to trick Agudu Lan into letting down his guard and beginning his operation earlier than planned. Agudu Lan was truly a very cautious man. Even after confirming that Wang Chong had left Sand Pass in the direction of the capital, he had even gathered information to confirm the veracity of the incident involving Wang Bei.
But while evildoers could grow one foot, the righteous would grow a zhang. In the end, Agudu Lan still lost to Wang Chong and Xu Qiqin, expiring with his grievances in front of Qixi Armory, all his cultivation becoming Wang Chong’s.
“But don’t get careless. Don’t let someone steal your credit like at the battle of the triangular gap,” Xu Qiqin chided. “Prepare a memorial to the court. You need to get at least a little reward for your efforts.”
“Haha, you know that I don’t care that much about these things, but what you say is reasonable. I’ll leave the matter of the memorial to you.”
Wang Chong smiled as he waved behind him, quickly leading his men back into the City of Steel.
Flapflap!
A while later, a messenger bird flew into the dark skies, quickly vanishing in the direction of the capital.
……
A night passed, and in the early morning, Wang Chong had just finished a bowl of swallow’s nest porridge when the door to the room suddenly opened with a bang.
Xu Keyi entered the room and shouted, “Lord Marquis, there’s a problem!”
“What happened?”
Wang Chong put down the porridge and frowned. Xu Keyi and the others should have known about the rules he had set down. Unless something was particularly urgent, it was forbidden to intrude into his room at this hour.
Chapter 832 - Captive, the Turkic Fourth Prince?!
Chapter 832: Captive, the Turkic Fourth Prince?!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“It’s unbelievable! Lord Marquis, do you remember those captives we took last night?” Xu Keyi said, his face red from excitement.
“I know; what’s wrong with them?” Wang Chong somewhat confusedly replied. After the large battle yesterday, he remembered a report that they had taken captives, but he didn’t understand what was so special about that.
“Lord Marquis, we caught a big fish this time! Amongst these captives is a prince of the Western Turkic Khaganate, and it’s Ishbara Khagan’s most beloved Fourth Prince, the offspring of the Khatun! Agudu Lan had brought him this time to gain some merit for himself and give Ishbara Khagan an excuse to grant him an of
ficial rank. He didn’t think that he would end up losing and get the prince captured.”
Xu Keyi was in such a rush to speak that he hardly breathed as he spoke.
“Ah?!”
Alarmed, Wang Chong immediately stood up.
In the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates, the status of prince was even higher than it was in the Central Plains. The reason was very simple: the two Turkic Khaganates did not have the Three Palaces and the Six Courts, so they also did not have as many princes and princesses. A prince who was the offspring of the Khatun and was beloved by Ishbara Khagan had a simply unimaginable status in the Western Turkic Khaganate.
Wang Chong had never imagined that while dealing with Agudu Lan, he would also capture a prince of the Western Turkic Khaganate.
……
“Lord Marquis, this morning, we brought out the captives from last night so that we could interrogate them to see if they knew anything useful about the Western Turks. But at this time, we noticed that one of the captives looked a bit off. He was dressed in very luxurious clothes, not like the clothes of an ordinary soldier, and he also had a different temperament. He didn’t look like a soldier at all, but someone of very high status, and stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the other captives.”
Although Xu Keyi had been the one to inform Wang Chong of the matter, Chen Bin had been the one to discover the Turkic prince. In the prison beneath the City of Steel, Li Siye, Huang Botian, City of Steel, Su Shixuan, and even Elders Fang and Du were gathered, all of them listening to Chen Bin’s explanation.
“I immediately felt that something was wrong, so I found someone who knew Turkic and brought them over. I didn’t imagine that he would be a Turkic prince. I still wasn’t sure, so I thought a bit and decided to have Hulayeg take a look. He’s very socially active, with acquaintances at all levels of society, so I believed that he should be familiar with all the members of the Turkic imperial clan. When Hulayeg arrived, he recognized the Turkic Fourth Prince at a glance!”
“Mm.”
Wang Chong nodded as he peered through the small cell window, more than six feet off the ground. The Turkic Fourth Prince was a youth of twenty-one or so. His clothes were filthy from last night’s battle, but it was still possible to see that they were extremely gorgeous Turkic clothes.
He truly is a member of the Turkic imperial clan! Wang Chong concluded, as he could see the blazing suns and howling wolves embroidered on the clothes of the youth. Although Wang Chong had rarely interacted with the Turkic imperials, he knew that the Turks regarded the sun as a sacred mountain, which served as one of their targets of worship alongside wolves. These were symbols that only the imperial households of the Turkic Khaganates could use, evidence of their revered bloodlines.
Rumble!
Without the slightest hesitation, Wang Chong opened the door to the cell and walked in.
“Don’t, don’t kill me… I’m a Turkic prince! I can give you lots of money! Don’t kill me!”
The young prince seemed to be greatly alarmed at the opening of the cell, and he immediately curled up into a trembling ball. This young Turkic prince was actually the Turkic youth who had been at Agudu Lan’s side.
“Mm?”
At the sight of this Turkic prince’s frightened demeanor, Wang Chong slightly frowned.
“Lord Marquis, this fellow seems like a coward. It’s probably because last night’s slaughter scared him out of his wits,” Xu Keyi whispered into Wang Chong’s ears.
Wang Chong thought this over for a few moments and then nodded. In last night’s battle, the Wushang Cavalry had treated those Turkic elites like they were cutting melons, easily crushing them. It was said that the Turks were natural warriors with fierce dispositions, but this Turkic prince had been raised at Mount Sanmi, in the middle of the Khagan’s court. One could probably count the numbers of battles he had experienced with one’s fingers, and of those he had experienced, it had probably been in the rear and in situations where the Turks had the advantage.
The slaughter of four to five thousand Turkic warriors like they were pigs was probably something he had never seen before. That scene would probably plague his nightmares long past today.
Wang Chong squatted down and asked, “You said that you could give me a lot of money?”
The young Turkic prince was at first dazed that the question was being asked in Turkic, but he quickly came around. “Rightrightright! No matter how much money it is, I can give it to you. Pearls, agate, gold… my imperial father and imperial mother will definitely agree.”
Wang Chong laughed. “Hahaha, I don’t need any pearls or agate. As for gold, how much could you Turks have, and would your imperial father and imperial mother be willing to give it to you?”
The Turkic prince was momentarily stupefied. Unlike the other empires, the Turkic people did not have very well-developed commerce, nor were they rich in goods and resources. This meant that even if the Turks had a great deal of wealth, they could not use this wealth to buy things en masse whenever they pleased.
In other words, the wealth of the Turks only had worth when carrying out transactions with other empires. Not all Turks cared that much about accumulating great wealth, and people like Hulayeg made up a very small minority in both of the Khaganates. In addition, there were no gold mines to be found on the Turkic steppe, so even the collected gold of both Khaganates would not amount to much.
Thus, it was very hard to say if Ishbara Khagan was willing to pay gold for a single prince. After all, the gold of the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates was used to buy luxuries to be shared amongst all the nobles and imperial clansmen.
“Hahaha…”
Seeing the dumbstruck look on the prince’s face, Wang Chong heartily laughed and began to stand back up. The laughter terrified the prince, and his body began to tremble all over.
“Wait! Wait a moment… I know that you need warhorses!” the Turkic prince suddenly yelled. “I can give you a lot of warhorses! Our Western Turkic Khaganate has the best warhorses of the Great Steppe! I can give you as many as you need…”
But Wang Chong pretended not to hear. Shaking his head, he turned around and left the cell, with the terrified gaze of the prince fixed on his back. As the door to the cell closed, the Turkic prince seemed to be struck by lightning, his face paling as he plopped down to the ground.
Wang Chong had barely walked out of the cell and turned a corner when he was accosted by a slightly plump figure, furtive and apparently hiding from something.
“Eh? Milord, why didn’t you agree with him? The Fourth Prince has a very high status in the Western Turkic Khaganate. Even though it doesn’t have much gold, if you want warhorses, Ishbara Khagan would definitely agree to a deal. In the steppe, there’s a rule that if a noble is taken hostage, all the nobles will put up some money to pay the ransom, and this is a prince we’re talking about!”
“I know,” Wang Chong indifferently said, not even glancing at Hulayeg.
“You know?”
Hulayeg was dumbstruck. He knew Wang Chong was in dire need of warhorses, and Wang Chong had probably agreed to help him in the first place in part because of the three hundred thousand warhorses on the line. But with this excellent chance before him, Wang Chong was actually abandoning it, an action that he found inexplicable.
“But, why?”
“I’ve already decided to let you handle this matter.”
Wang Chong smiled and patted the flabbergasted Hulayeg on the shoulder before taking his leave. Meanwhile, Hulayeg seemed nailed to the floor, his lips trembling, his mind blank. After some time, he finally seemed to understand. His eyes grew bright, his face turned exultant, and he let out an excited roar.
“Wonderful!”
……
Several thousand li northwest of Qixi, across the vast Turkic steppe and into the extreme north, a massive and lofty mountain range loomed. It spanned the gap between the heavens and earth, causing anyone who saw it to sigh in praise and realize
just how insignificant they were.
Mount Sanmi!
This was the seat of the Western Turkic Khagan. If one looked carefully, one would realize that this majestic mountain range was actually formed from three mountains, two short and one tall. The highest peak was where the Khagan of the Western Turks, Ishbara Khagan, resided.
The Turkic steppe had always been flat and boundless, a land lacking in prominent mountains.
If one traveled north from Qixi through the Turkic steppe, they wouldn’t even see a hill, much less a mountain. So one could easily imagine the symbolic effect the behemoth of Mount Sanmi looming over the Great Steppe would have on the Turks.
The Turkic Khagans would spend a part of each year touring through the tribes, so that great tent that symbolized the Khagan would move with him. However, everyone would admit that the court of the Khagan could only be in one place: Mount Sanmi.
“What?! Agudu Lan was killed and the Fourth Prince was captured? A Qixi without Fumeng Lingcha actually managed to inflict a grievous defeat on us and even capture the Fourth Prince!!”
At the summit of Mount Sanmi, within a golden tent ten-some zhang tall, a roar like a lion’s exploded, echoing across all of Mount Sanmi. A wind burst out of the tent, sweeping in all directions. Outside the tent, thousands of Turkic warriors leading wolves in patrols around the mountain quivered in fear at the sound of this furious bellow, terrified expressions on their faces.
Chapter 833 - Ishbara Khagan of the Western Turks!
Chapter 833: Ishbara Khagan of the Western Turks!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Mighty Khagan, although Fumeng Lingcha is no longer in Qixi, Wushang’s City of Steel is home to an extremely formidable Tang youth called Wang Chong. He pretended to leave Qixi, baiting the Black Wolf Yabgu into a trap. He ambushed them, killing the Lord Yabgu and capturing the Fourth Prince!”
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 547