xymnovel Chapter 396 The Great Chanyu
Chapter 396 The Great Chanyu
The city gates opened wide, and Ying Zheng's imperial carriage, escorted by hundreds of chariots, slowly drove out of the city walls.
Ying Zheng stepped down from the imperial carriage and ascended the high platform that had already been built.
He was not wearing his usual clothes today, but instead donned a black imperial armor and had the Tianwen Sword at his waist.
Hundreds of thousands of eyes instantly focused on Ying Zheng.
Ying Zheng surveyed the soldiers below. Wherever his gaze fell, the soldiers straightened their backs.
Without any formalities, Ying Zheng suddenly drew the Tianwen Sword from his waist and pointed it straight north.
"The elite warriors of Qin!" Ying Zheng's voice, amplified by his inner strength, resounded throughout the plain, clearly reaching everyone's ears.
"The Xiongnu are insatiable! They think the swords of Qin are dull, and the horses of Qin are slow! They dare to burn, kill, and plunder on our borders!"
Ying Zheng gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and roared, "Tell me, can the swords of Qin still kill?!"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Three hundred thousand people roared in unison, their voices shaking the heavens.
The earth trembled slightly at the roar.
"good!"
Ying Zheng roared, "My only military order to you today is: regardless of the cost, take no prisoners. Raze the Xiongnu's royal camp to the ground and turn their land into the pastures of Qin!"
"Wind!" Meng Tian raised his long spear high.
"Wind! Wind! Strong wind!"
The overwhelming cries echoed across the sky.
The people of Xianyang who were watching from afar were also infected by this momentum and joined in the shouting.
Countless people were filled with excitement and their eyes welled up with tears.
Fusu rode his horse behind Zhang Fan, looking at his father on the high platform and listening to the deafening shouts around him.
My heart was pounding, and a surge of pride rose from my chest!
An invincible army!
This is the true foundation upon which the Qin Dynasty was founded!
Zhang Fan sat on horseback, wearing a wide robe with a dragon-scale stab-proof vest clinging to his body underneath.
"Let's go!" Zhang Fan withdrew his gaze and spurred his horse.
The central army flag waved, and the heavy bugle call sounded.
The Qin cavalry slowly started moving, wheels rolling and hooves clattering.
The army marched along the official road toward the Great Wall in the north in a grand and imposing manner.
……
North of the Yinshan Mountains lies the northern grassland.
There is no warmth like in Xianyang City here, only bitter cold.
This year, the grasslands were hit by a white disaster.
The heavy snow had been falling for half a month, and the once lush grassland was now buried under several feet of snow, with the world covered in a vast expanse of white and the howling wind sweeping through every corner.
Outside the tribe, the sounds of livestock calling out could be heard everywhere.
Countless cattle and sheep froze and starved to death in the snow because they could not find grass roots.
Large numbers of livestock carcasses were quickly covered by snow, turning into snow mounds.
The herders huddled in their felt tents, shivering.
Once all the cattle and sheep have died, they themselves will be the next to starve to death.
The Xiongnu royal court, the Chanyu's main tent.
Inside the large tent made of wolf skins, a campfire burned in the center.
Touman Chanyu, wearing a bearskin coat, held a wine bowl made of a skull and gulped down strong liquor.
His face was gloomy, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"Great Chanyu, the Left Guli King has sent word that thirty percent of the tribe's cattle and sheep have frozen to death! Without a food supply, they will not survive the winter!"
"Great Chanyu, the Right General is in dire need of help! Heavy snow has blocked the roads, and the warhorses are so hungry they are nibbling on their tails, making it impossible to organize a cavalry charge!"
Inside the tent, several Xiongnu generals knelt on one knee beside the fire, reporting on the situation in various regions.
Upon hearing this news, Touman Chanyu suddenly smashed the skull wine bowl into the fire, sending sparks flying.
"What's the panic?"
Touman Chanyu roared, "I have already sent an envoy to Xianyang! That southern country has just suffered a great war and is internally weak!"
"The intelligence Xiang Liang sent is accurate; Qin cannot afford to fight a war right now! As long as I, the Chanyu, lead my army to the border and intimidate them, the Qin emperor will definitely send 300,000 shi of grain and 30,000 jin of pig iron!"
"And that woman from Chu named Mi Yueyao... Xiang Liang said that woman is a beauty of unparalleled grace and charm, a rare gem!"
"As long as Qin's grain arrives, we will survive the famine! When spring comes and flowers bloom, I, the Chanyu, will lead an army of 300,000 to seize their cities, kill their men, and turn the Central Plains into our pastures!"
At that moment, a commotion arose outside the tent.
"Who goes there? How dare you disturb the Great Chanyu's royal tent!" A guard general drew his scimitar and roared angrily.
The felt curtain was lifted.
As the cold wind rushed into the tent, two Xiongnu soldiers dragged in a man covered in blood.
The man's face was covered in mud, and his legs had been smashed and were now useless.
"Great Chanyu... Help!"
The people on the ground saw Touman and screamed in agony, desperately pulling themselves forward with their hands.
Touman Chanyu stood up. The surrounding Xiongnu generals gasped.
They recognized the man, whose legs had been crippled and who was groaning on the ground, as the chief envoy sent to Xianyang to demand grain and women.
"How did you end up like this?"
Touman Chanyu rushed forward, grabbed the envoy by the collar, and lifted him up, roaring, "Where is the grain? Where are the 100,000 shi of life-saving grain? Where is the pig iron?"
The envoy convulsed in pain, crying and wailing, "Nothing... Great Chanyu, nothing at all! The Qin people have gone mad!"
"When my subordinates arrived in Xianyang, they used both kindness and force in the Qin court, thinking they would be afraid of us and obediently submit..."
"But the Qin emperor not only rejected our conditions, but also allowed his guards to break both my legs in the main hall and force his subordinates to kneel!"
The royal tent fell into a deathly silence. All the Xiongnu generals wore expressions of disbelief.
In times of war, envoys are not to be killed. Yet the Qin emperor crippled the legs of the Chanyu's chief envoy in the court, a blatant humiliation of the entire Xiongnu.
"waste!"
Touman Chanyu was so angry that he trembled all over and slapped the envoy across the face, knocking out several teeth.
"The Chanyu sent you to negotiate, and you couldn't even handle the Qin civil officials? Didn't you tell them that if they didn't agree to our conditions, our 300,000-strong army would breach the border?"
"I already told you! I've told you everything!"
The envoy covered his face and cried out, "I've even backed down again and again, lowering my demands to the bare minimum. Just hand over the supplies and that Mi Yueyao, and I'll exchange them for a year of peace!"
"And the result?" Touman Chanyu gritted his teeth.
"As a result... that Qin official named Zhang Fan, in front of the entire court, pointed at his subordinates and cursed them!"
The envoy's eyes were filled with fear, and then he said through gritted teeth, "Great Chanyu, Xiang Liang is right. Zhang Fan in the Qin court is not a celestial master at all. He is a fake fraud!"
The true immortal master with supernatural abilities is Ji Dan, the one who was with Xiang Liang!
"That fake immortal master dared to spout such nonsense in the imperial court, saying that the iron of the Great Qin was used to forge swords to cut off our heads! And that the grain of the Great Qin was used to feed our warhorses to trample our royal tents!"
"He also said..." The envoy swallowed hard, his voice trembling.
"What else did he say? Tell me!" Touman Chanyu roared.