Volume Four, The Year of the Curtain, Chapter 102: The Body is Dismayed (Seventh)
No matter how fiercely opposed Xu Chi and Han Qing, as well as other generals in the Zhenbei Army, the Empress only responded calmly, but refused to change her mind and insisted on taking the Sixth Prince back to Chang'an.
The generals really had no choice. Now that the Golden Horde was invading from the south, the Northern Territory of the Tang Dynasty was in danger. It was impossible for them to send a large army to escort them, so they finally decided to dispatch 500 elite cavalry to accompany them.
The morning before leaving Peking University Camp, Ning Que found Xu Chi again and said, "The Queen and I have brought you a team of tens of thousands of people. I think we are qualified to ask you for a few people."
Xu Chi thought for a while and said: "The number of five hundred cavalry is indeed a little less."
"That's not what I meant."
Ning Que said: "What I want is not a living person, I want a dead person."
Xu Chi understood what he meant, frowned slightly and said, "Those two generals committed suicide on the spot after the assassination failed. Even if you take their bodies, it will be of no use."
Ning Que said: "The two generals are dead, but the hundreds of cavalry who participated in the assassination have not been punished. I know that you have disarmed these people and locked them up in the military camp."
Xu Chi's brows furrowed deeper and he said, "Mr. Thirteen wants to be implicated?"
"If it were normal times, those who dared to disturb His Majesty's body and assassinate the Queen and the Crown Prince would be punished by death. I know why you are reluctant to kill them now."
Ning Que said: "So I won't ask you to kill all these hundreds of cavalry, but I want you to promise me that these cavalry must be sent to the front line, the most dangerous battlefield."
"A few years later, when this war is over, if any of these cavalrymen are lucky enough to be alive, then I will no longer pursue them. If they die, it will be considered as atonement."
After saying this, he turned and left.
When I was about to leave, I encountered another very difficult problem.
That heavy pine coffin.
Everyone knew that when Ning Que returned to Chang'an with the Queen and the Sixth Prince, what he wanted was time and confidentiality. If the heavy pine coffin accompanied him, it would cause great inconvenience.
Xu Chi suggested that His Majesty's coffin should be left in the Beida camp for the time being, so as to encourage the soldiers and the three armies to sacrifice their lives.
The queen shook her head and said softly: "Your Majesty wants to return to Chang'an, so I want to take him back."
"Burn it."
She looked at the heavy gray coffin and said.
The audience was shocked.
The queen smiled and said: "How can your majesty, such a cool and unrestrained person, care about this?"
Ning Que recalled the constant voices in the palace scolding idiots. He smiled and said, "That's true."
The pine coffin gradually burned on the pyre.
The bark crackled and sparks flew.
Eventually turned into a box of ashes.
…
…
The fact that the house leaked and it rained all night was far from enough to describe the continuous blows Datang was suffering at the moment, and the precarious weather was not enough to describe the danger. The waves were roaring and crashing, one after another, higher than the last.
If we say that the Battle of Chengjing was a great shock to the Tang people, but it still had no impact on their self-confidence, it was the march of the Golden Court to the south that really made all the Tang people vigilant and uneasy.
The edict from the Xiling Temple called on the world to attack the Tang Dynasty, which made the Tang people truly feel the possibility of national subjugation for the first time. The recent news of Qinghe County's treason and self-reliance has become the heaviest blow.
Angry because of uneasiness, angry because of fear, and angry because of anger. The whole city of Chang'an fell into an atmosphere of anger. The ministers of the Queen's faction who had forcibly tolerated it for the sake of the overall interests of the country could no longer bear the current situation.
The court publically criticized the new emperor and princess in the palace.
The officials asked the palace why the Queen and the Sixth Prince had not returned to Chang'an, why there was no news about Helan City, and why Qinghe County, an ally of Her Royal Highness the Princess, would commit such a treasonous and shameless act at the most critical moment of the court.
, asked His Majesty and His Highness how shameful they were to see the late Emperor.
After the academy closed its doors, the new batch of students in the front courtyard were sent home or worked as volunteers in various government offices. They and the young students from Taixue and other places were the most passionate and exciting group of people in Chang'an City. When the Tang Dynasty
When they were shrouded in dark clouds, they finally took to the streets and gathered in front of the imperial city to start a petition.
As for the specific content of the petition, these students are actually not very clear about it, but in short they want to change the current situation and they want to see changes.
News that I don't know where it came from began to spread among the petitioners. Xu Shi, the general of Zhenguo who was supposed to return within a few days, had actually been assassinated by the Xiling Temple in the Xiaoshan area in the south!
The whereabouts of General Xu Shi was betrayed to the Xiling Temple by a certain nobleman in the palace!
As for why the noble man did this, it was obviously because he came from an improper position and was afraid that General Xu Shi, who was always known for his uprightness, would return to Chang'an and overthrow him from the throne!
When the news spread from the petitioners to all parts of Chang'an City, more and more people took to the streets to express their anger and suspicion, and the entire Chang'an City seemed to have turned into countless angry rivers.
Angry rivers are often turbid, so some people began to take advantage of the muddy water to fish, while others tried to take advantage of the muddy water to turn into fish and escape. The Xiling Temple spent hundreds of years burying those secret sentinels in Chang'an City.
and the lurkers began to make moves, preparing to take this opportunity to make the situation even more chaotic.
After receiving the order from Chao Xiaoshu, he led the Xiaoqi battalion to the east to resist the invaders. A part of the Yulin army had already gone north to join the battle line against the Jinzhang Royal Court cavalry. Today's Chang'an City still seems to be impregnable, but in fact it is not
At the time, there were only more than 800 Yulin troops and hundreds of palace guards, plus the government officials of Chang'an Mansion, who could maintain law and order and suppress the riots. The situation was precarious.
The Qinghe County Guild Hall is located in a prosperous area of Chang'an City. Before the news came that the clans had surrendered to the enemy, this was the place where the imperial court focused its surveillance. Now it is even heavily guarded. The disciples of the clans who were trapped in the guild hall looked bleak.
Waiting for an unknown fate, however, several people looked at the increasingly chaotic situation and had other thoughts.
Li Hunyuan was also very angry. He even felt that he was angrier than the people who petitioned in front of the imperial city.
He felt that he was very innocent, and the pain of not being understood kept biting his heart like a poisonous snake. Yes, it was he who made He Mingchi find out the whereabouts of General Xu Shi, and it was true that he had to spend a lot of effort to find out.
It was he who asked He Mingchi to find a way to contact the important people in Xiling Temple.
The situation at that time was completely different from now. At that time, the Northeast Frontier Army was just destroyed, and the Tang Dynasty still seemed strong and unshakable. When the news of the Golden Horde's southern invasion reached Chang'an City, he immediately ordered He Mingchi to go
To terminate that plan, even if he doesn't hesitate to expose his insidious deeds, he must find a way to inform Xu Shi.
However... the big shots in the Xiling Temple didn't listen to me, and neither He Mingchi nor the military contacted Xu Shi. Xu Shi actually died like this. Can you blame me? If that old guy really thought of me as the emperor, how could he?
He left the Zhennan Army without any order? If he had still stayed in the Zhennan Army, how could he have died? Why is everyone blaming me now? Blame me!
The main hall in the palace seemed particularly lonely and cold. Li Hunyuan sat on a chair and stared blankly at the night outside the hall. Countless thoughts passed through his mind quickly, and then flashed back again.
The eunuchs and maids were all afraid of him now because he was very angry. This made him even more angry, because he clearly saw indifference, alienation, and contempt in the eyes of these eunuchs and maids.
I am the emperor now. When I was the prince, you could all be so close to me and look at me with admiration and awe. Why do you dare to leave me so rudely now?
Li Hunyuan couldn't bear it anymore. From yesterday to tonight, he had secretly killed several eunuchs and maids. However, even so, he still couldn't see the look he wanted to see in these people's eyes.
So he became angrier and angrier.
He suddenly felt that this lonely cold palace was not a place for people to stay. He stood up suddenly, waved his hand and pushed an eunuch who was begging him to the ground, and took Xu Chongshan, who was always guarding outside the palace, to the depths of the imperial garden.
Go.
It was late autumn, and the Imperial Garden was also bleak, but fortunately there were still several kinds of flowers in bloom, showing their beauty in the night. Looking at the beautiful flowers and trees, Li Hunyuan finally felt calmer.
"Why don't you think these people understand me?" he said with a frown.
Xu Chongshan glanced at the eaves beast on the eaves of the palace in the distance, and after a moment of silence he said, "Because you are not a person that is easy for others to understand."
Li Hunyuan did not notice that Xu Chongshan was not respectful in his title, and asked in confusion: "What do you mean?"
Xu Chongshan said: "No matter how you came to the throne, you are now the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. No one with a normal mind would do the things you did. But what's strange is that you
You seem to always be able to find some reasonable explanations for the things you do. It seems that your brain is actually normal. Normal people always do abnormal things. Who do you think can understand?"
After he said the first sentence, Li Hunyuan woke up, but did not respond. She continued to listen to him silently, but her face became more and more gloomy.
"It seems that you also want to rebel against me." He looked at Xu Chongshan and said coldly.
Xu Chongshan leaned forward slightly and saluted, then straightened up and turned into a mountain peak.
"Your Majesty has been very kind to me. I originally had some psychological barriers to killing you, but these days it seems that they have disappeared, because your existence in this world is your Majesty's greatest shame."
Li Huanyuan looked slightly nervous, but did not turn around and run away. She said sharply: "You have been in the palace for many years. Don't you know that you can't kill me here?"
"So I didn't do anything until you came to the Royal Garden to relax."
Xu Chongshan said: "You may not know that this is the farthest place from all the palaces in the palace, and the beasts in the palace can no longer protect you."
…
...{PiaoTian Literature www.PiaoTian.com thanks all book friends for their support, your support is our greatest motivation}