Chapter 233: Hello Chang’an
Chapter 233: What Do You Want to Trade For?
The soldiers who had been summoned gathered in great numbers, their ranks forming long lines that stretched endlessly into the darkness, as if the crowd had no end in sight.
Chang Ren and his companion stood among them, both with hearts raised high in apprehension.
The soldiers being searched were ordered to first remove their armor, then strip off their padded garments and trousers, leaving only thin innerwear. Afterward, they were subjected to a meticulous search by the inspecting men.
This act stirred confusion among the troops. It felt less like a search for internal spies and more like an attempt to find something specific.
Had something important been lost?
But of course, the higher-ups would not answer their doubts. All they could do was obey and cooperate.
Chang Ren and his companion submitted obediently to the inspection.
The soldiers conducting the search swept their hands carefully over their bodies, probing every corner.
Though they did not know what exactly these people were looking for, Chang Ren already felt a heavy unease settle in his chest.
If they continued searching this way, once it came to the young lady’s turn… even if nothing else was exposed, the secret that she was a woman would surely be discovered!
“Next!”
“Don’t dawdle! Take off your armor and clothing ahead of time!”
The inspecting soldiers barked commands loudly—when suddenly, a deeper, more sonorous sound split through the night sky.
It was the bugle call for troop assembly!
The crowd straightened at once, then quickly broke into commotion.
They were summoning the troops!
“No one is allowed to move about recklessly!” one of the inspecting soldiers shouted sternly, his voice rising above the growing noise. “Those who have been searched, proceed to assembly! The rest, stay where you are and await inspection! Anyone attempting to flee or evade the search will be treated as a spy and dealt with under military law! Understood?!”
“Yes, sir!”
Chang Ren and his companion exchanged glances, then quietly retreated from the crowd.
They had only just walked a short distance when someone suddenly patted Chang Ren on the shoulder from behind.
Chang Ren turned sharply, alert—but upon seeing who it was, he exhaled in relief.
Thankfully, the young lady was safe!
All around them, the camp was in chaos following the sudden bugle call. Soldiers hurried to and fro; shouts rang out; armor and weapons clashed; blazing torches whipped in the night wind, their flickering light heightening the restlessness in every heart.
“…Where did the young lady go just now?” Once they had hidden behind a haystack, Chang Ren finally found a moment to ask.
“I hid,” Chang Suining replied. As she spoke, she produced three flatbreads from somewhere unknown, bit into one herself, and handed the remaining two to the men. “I guessed they would start body searches, so I went to hide.”
Chang Ren accepted the flatbread—which clearly wasn’t something she had brought along—with mixed feelings. Did “hid” mean she’d also happened to steal some flatbreads while hiding?
One of the guards, however, was suddenly moved. No matter how hard life grew while following the young lady, she would never let them starve—she even had ways to steal meat-stuffed flatbreads for them!
Now he understood what his comrade had once said: “Even if the young lady ordered me to strip and run a lap around Zhuque Street, I’d do it without hesitation.”
Now, he could say the same!
“Why did the young lady know ahead of time that they were going to conduct searches?” Chang Ren asked in a low voice between bites of flatbread.
The girl’s dark eyes swept their surroundings warily as she whispered, “Because what they’re looking for is with me.”
She was carrying the item General He Wei had entrusted to her before his death—naturally, she couldn’t expose herself before others.
Chang Ren’s expression changed. He was about to speak again when Chang Suining said, “Now isn’t the time to talk. Fill your stomachs quickly, and follow me to find Father.”
Both men nodded.
They hastily devoured most of the meat-stuffed flatbread and tucked away the rest. Then Chang Suining slipped out from behind the haystack and caught a passing soldier by the arm. “What’s happening? Another battle?”
“You haven’t heard? The Xu rebels have taken Jiangning and are now attacking Hezhou!”
“Grand General Chang is assembling troops—we’ll depart at once! The 3rd through 10th Divisions are all ordered to move. Which division are you from?”
“We’re with the Ninth Division!” Chang Suining replied without hesitation.
“Then hurry! If you’re late, you’ll be punished for delaying a military order!” The soldier shouted and ran ahead.
Chang Suining turned to her companions. “Let’s go—follow them!”
The Da Sheng army’s infantry numbered twelve thousand five hundred per division. The 3rd through 10th Divisions—together—were a hundred thousand strong.
Upon hearing that Grand General Chang Kuo would personally lead this battle, Chang Suining felt a fleeting moment of relief. If he was still commanding troops, then he was at least safe for now—meaning he had, in some sense, “escaped his predicament.”
But this so-called escape was surely allowed by Li Yi. Likely because General He Wei was dead and the threat he posed was gone.
Would Li Yi truly let her father go so easily? Considering the ruthless way he had killed He Wei, she could not hold out any hope.
Her father’s crisis was far from over. This “freedom” was only on the surface. She had to find him and stay close!
Moreover—
Jiangning had fallen, and Hezhou was in peril…
Through gritted teeth, Chang Suining spat a curse under her breath. “Cowardly fool!”
He’d lacked the courage to do what mattered most, yet had learned to act like a gutter rat instead!
That once spineless, timid man—driven now by selfish ambition—had dared to plot the death of General He Wei, and was surely brewing some wicked scheme against her father.
A general without wisdom could doom ten thousand soldiers; a commander without vision could cripple an entire army. And this man was not merely foolish—he was viciously stupid.
If the Li clan’s royal line was now filled with such creatures, then it wouldn’t take rebels like Xu Zhengye or foreign tribes from the northwest to destroy it. For this Li dynasty not to collapse would be an offense to heaven itself.
As she strode swiftly, Chang Suining cast a glance back toward the main command tent, her clear eyes flashing with a murderous light that she forced herself to suppress.
Soon, the three of them merged into the ranks of the Ninth Division.
The numbers were fixed, so for the three of them to blend in, they had knocked out three real soldiers from the Ninth Division and taken their places.
Ten thousand troops assembled; even as Chang Suining stood upright among them, she couldn’t see her father’s figure on the distant platform.
On the parade ground, a hundred thousand men waited for battle. Inside the command tent, however, Li Yi wore a deep frown.
When anxious, his palms always sweated, and he paced ceaselessly. Now was no different.
“…Letting him march to Hezhou just like that? Impossible!”
Only his two advisers and a few trusted guards were present, and Li Yi no longer bothered to conceal his agitation.
The march to Hezhou had been Chang Kuo’s own proposal, seconded by both advisers.
“General, calm yourself,” one of them said. “We know you wish to rid yourself of Chang Kuo once and for all—but General He Wei’s envoy just perished, and rumors are already spreading through the army. If you move against Chang Kuo without a legitimate reason now, you’ll provoke unrest.”
That was why, these past days, they had dared only to keep Chang Kuo confined under the pretext of his injuries.
Chang Kuo was deeply respected among the troops—he could not be struck down openly.
And precisely for that reason, they knew better than anyone: as long as Chang Kuo remained alive, Li Yi would never truly command the full two hundred thousand troops or win their loyalty.
“If I could help it, I wouldn’t want to kill him either!” Li Yi said, still pacing. “But I’ve kept him under watch for days to prevent him from seeing General He Wei. Today he saw the corpse—he must have realized something, yet held back. He’s waiting to settle the score later! Volunteering to lead the Hezhou campaign is his way to escape!”
“If I don’t kill him, he’ll never spare me!”
“You were the ones who advised me to imprison him, and now you’re the ones letting him go! Once he’s out of the camp, how am I to face what follows? You know he’s my greatest threat!” Sweat dripped from his brow as he spoke faster and faster. “And you even let him lead a hundred thousand troops!”
If those hundred thousand left camp, he’d be left with barely sixty thousand!
Even if Chang Kuo turned his army against him, he wouldn’t stand a chance—
and worse still, his true “enemy” wasn’t just Chang Kuo, but that Holy One in the capital. Once the news of He Wei’s death reached the Holy Emperor, she would see through his refusal to surrender command—and punish him.
He needed power—troops—to survive what was coming.
“General, do not worry. Hear us out…”
The two advisers, dizzy from watching him pace, almost wished they could harness him to a plow to make use of all that restless energy.
One stroked his beard and said calmly, “Chang Kuo must not die by your hand, nor within this camp. Remember, for a general, to die on the battlefield is the proper way of things.”
“Die in battle?” Li Yi looked at him sharply.
The adviser continued, “And another thing—since you have resolved to oppose the Holy Emperor, Xu Zhengye is no longer your enemy. Why not cooperate with him?”
Li Yi froze mid-step.
Cooperate… with Xu Zhengye?
“Do you recall, General,” said the other adviser, “that Xu Zhengye once sent you a secret letter? Do you still remember its contents?”
Of course, Li Yi remembered.
It was back when his father, the Prince of Huainan, was still alive—and he himself had just lost a battle at Duliang Mountain.
Xu Zhengye had sent Luo Guanlin to deliver that letter, in which he wrote that Li Yi’s defeat must have been intentional—that Li Yi, too, wished to overthrow the female emperor. The letter invited him to join forces in the grand cause.
After reading it, Li Yi’s face turned alternately pale and red.
Pale from fear—fear that the letter would implicate him as a traitor.
Red from humiliation—because that defeat at Duliang Mountain hadn’t been intentional at all!
His generalship was simply that bad! Had he fought so poorly that even his enemies thought he’d been pretending to lose?
That Xu Zhengye must have been mocking him deliberately!
He’d burned the letter on the spot.
At the time, he’d had no thought of rebellion—his loyalty had been wholly to the court and the Holy Emperor. But no sooner had his father died than the Holy Emperor turned on him—first stripping the Huainan estate of its military power, now demanding he surrender command entirely and submit to punishment!
“Xu Zhengye is still recruiting men from across the land,” said the adviser. “It is not too late to respond.”
“Indeed. His banner claims to restore the Li dynasty. You, General, are of Li blood yourself. If you stand with him, it will rally countless hearts.”
“And with your army in hand, they will surely honor you. With time and prudence, you can win the people’s loyalty. The current Crown Prince is unfit for rule. When the dust settles—why stop at being a mere Prince of Huainan?”
Li Yi’s eyes widened, his heart pounding violently in his chest.
He had been wondering how to maintain control once the Holy Emperor turned on him—how to unite the army and justify his command.
Now he had his answer.
Yes—he, too, bore the Li name!
He might not be of the direct line, but wasn’t the Crown Prince adopted as well?
He, a son of Li blood, using Li troops to “restore the Li dynasty”—what could be more righteous? It was Heaven’s will itself!
Alone, he could not defy the court—but with Xu Zhengye’s aid… everything would change.
Outside, the sound of war drums began to pound, echoing through the tent—and through Li Yi’s heart. Every beat seemed to shake his entire being.
After a long while, Li Yi finally sat down.
“Chang Kuo is obstinate,” the adviser said softly, “and a thorn in the rebels’ side. Why not offer his head as a token of sincerity to Xu Zhengye?”
Li Yi hesitated. “But if Chang Kuo leads a hundred thousand men, he might not lose to Xu Zhengye…”
The adviser smiled faintly. “General jests. Who said he leads a hundred thousand?”
Li Yi’s eyes flickered. The adviser met them calmly. “The battle of Hezhou is of utmost importance. As the commander-in-chief, surely you have… another plan.”
Li Yi’s gaze shifted.
——
The army did not move all at once. After the bugle call, the vanguard and cavalry set out first; the central army followed; and the rear, carrying supplies and provisions, moved last.
Chang Suining and her two companions were placed among the central ranks. By dawn, they had marched out of the camp.
Earlier, she had considered showing the imperial edict transferring command, joining forces with her father to seize Li Yi. But the idea had been naïve.
General He Wei was dead, with no witness left. In the ensuing chaos, she and her father would have had no time to plan, and Li Yi could easily have had her killed on the spot, then branded the edict a forgery—and used that “forgery” as pretext to condemn Chang Kuo.
She wouldn’t harm her father by acting rashly.
Li Yi might not control every aspect of the situation, but the advantage still lay seven to three in his favor.
Even if her father commanded loyalty, if he started an open mutiny, it would split the army—and drag both sides into ruin.
And above all—Hezhou was in danger. The people were suffering. If she caused civil strife now, she’d be no better than Li Yi—reckless and cruel, harming their own for the enemy’s gain.
If Xu Zhengye learned of such “righteous foolishness,” he’d probably burn incense in gratitude for her help.
She had to remember: the imperial edict could only be revealed once. She needed a strike that would succeed in one blow.
Yet not long after leaving camp, she realized something was wrong.
After three more li, she was certain of it—
this was not the route to Hezhou!
Ordinary soldiers might not notice, but some officers began to sense something amiss.
One of them, after some hesitation, rode forward to the deputy leading them. “Vice General Qu, aren’t we to follow Vice Commander Chang to Hezhou? Are we splitting into two forces?”
The man gave him a cold glance. “Military movements are classified. You are not to pry.”
The officer bowed slightly. “I only fear that speculation among the men will harm morale…”
“Then control your men! If anyone questions the route, tell them this was jointly decided by the commander and Vice Commander Chang. Anyone who spreads doubt or stirs unrest will face military punishment!”
The officer could only bow again and fall back to his own unit.
During a rest stop, he sat absentmindedly on a large rock, until a soldier approached and handed him a water flask.
The officer frowned. “No need. I have my own.”
“I’d like to trade this flask for something,” said the soldier quietly.
The officer lifted his gaze. The request was bold, almost absurd. Yet something in the other’s eyes—firm, steady, unflinching—made him pause.
“What do you want to trade for?” he asked.
“Three fast horses… and some provisions.”
As the “soldier” spoke, the hand holding the flask lifted slightly higher.
The officer’s eyes flicked toward it—and changed subtly.
For in that hand, hidden beneath the flask, lay another object.
A moment later, the officer accepted the flask and murmured,
“Very well. I can arrange that.”
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