The Empress’s Gigolo

The residence of the warlord was ablaze with light when the winged cavalry attacked the city.

Xie Kun was sitting at the head of the table with a cup of wine in his hand. He was deep in thought.

Earlier in the afternoon, he had received the news from his scouts that, contrary to expectations, the aboriginals didn’t suffer losses of more than half of their forces due to the flood. In fact, they seemed to suffer almost no losses, and he was unable to understand how they managed to do it.

He guessed that they would most likely attack the city that very night. After all, their provisions and equipment were washed away, so they would have to withdraw to Jiangbei City if they didn’t attack.

It could be deduced from their act of crossing the river that the aboriginals certainly didn’t intend to retreat.

In that case, the supplies in the city were what the aboriginals were after, and the probability of the aboriginals attacking this very night was about 80 percent.

As a result, he was already well prepared.

Although the aboriginals were very powerful, their numbers were too small and their total forces were less than 10,000.

There were already 100,000 soldiers in the city, and in the afternoon, Rao Yu and Tie Zihe went separately to two other cities to prepare for battle. As long as he could hold out for one day, 200,000 more soldiers would be coming.

With 300,000 soldiers, he would like to see how the 10,00 aboriginals could win the battle.

Even if it were 300,000 sheep or cattle, the aboriginals would have to keep slaughtering until their arms were sore, let alone 300,000 soldiers.

After thinking of this, Xie Kun gulped down the cup of wine and asked, “Is Mister Ning still in his room?”

“Yes.” Although Mister Ning had bathed for the whole afternoon, the guard was trying his best to smile because the smell had only slightly diminished.

He had soaked in the tub and changed the water every half hour in order to make himself feel that he was not so smelly.

“Do not take things for granted,” Xie Kun said coolly. Although the two schemes didn’t cause much harm to the aboriginals, he attributed these results to the will of Heaven. If he was looking from the point of view of the aboriginals, casualties would finally result from landslides or floods. (TLC. Not sure about this part.)

In particular, the strategy of the landslide had used rolling rocks, logs, troops, and strange animals to distract the aboriginals from the hollowing out of the mountain. This was a testament of Mister Ning’s talent.

Not to mention Mister Ning’s special status and that he also had the backing of the Yun Nation. Therefore, they needed him in order to walk out of Tianjing Basin after their victory.

While Xie Kun was pondering, a guard entered through the door and announced, “Governor, the aboriginals are attacking.”

“I got it.” Xie Kun nodded.

The attack by the aboriginals was inevitable.

His forces only needed to hold out for one day to win.

At this moment, a series of explosions were heard coming from the city walls.

Xie Kun listened to the explosions without changing his expression and continued to wait for more news.

In less time than it took to drink a cup of tea, a series of explosions were heard again, and someone quickly came to report, “Governor, the walls have fallen! The whole eastern wall has been occupied by the barbarians, and the generals in charge have died in battle!”

“What?” Xie Kun was extremely shocked and his favorite tea cup shattered as it fell to the ground, but he couldn’t even care. Not much time had passed, yet the aboriginals had occupied the whole eastern wall!

How could they be so fast?

What was Xue Li doing?

However, before he could recover, another urgent report came in.

“Reporting! Governor, the eastern city gate has broken, the aboriginals are swarming in, and the generals in charge of attacking the north are bringing their forces to block them.”

“Reporting! Those generals have been captured!”

“Reporting! The chief of the Yedao Sect and his disciples are all dead!”

“Reporting! Everyone in the Liangshan Sect has died!”

“Reporting! The aboriginal soldiers are coming to attack the warlord’s residence!”

A succession of urgent reports made Xie Kun pale as bean-sized drops of sweat trickled down his spine.

How was this possible? How could they be so fast?

“Pass the order for the north and south barracks to intercept the enemy soldiers!” Xie Kun shouted loudly.

Xie Kun gnashed his teeth as he said, “Send people to the granary in the western sector of the city and await my command. If it can’t be defended, burn the grain.”

“Send the young masters and mistresses out of the city. Gather all the ladies to the main hall.”

…

Ren Baqian rode a flat goat as he entered through the city gate. The animal was an enormous mountain goat which the winged cavalry used as their mount.

In front of him were the soldiers from the Protectorate of the South, who were charging at the enemy troops like a tidal wave.

Flashbangs and hand grenades were used to swiftly disable most of the enemy troops on the eastern wall. After quickly occupying the wall, they opened the city gate to let the forces from the Protectorate of the South come in and join the assault. The defenders were taken by surprise, the wall was quickly cleared, and the aboriginals subsequently made rapid progress into the city.

After being taken by surprise at the very beginning, the defenders started to retaliate, tremendously slowing down the forward progress of the soldiers from the Protectorate of the South.

In particular, when all the soldiers were crowded into the three streets, the advancement was even slower.

Fortunately, the weakest of the aboriginals was at the Man Wheel level. Ordinary houses couldn’t stop many of them from jumping onto the roofs to move forward at high speed. They then jumped down from the rooftops on both sides of the street to land among the enemy soldiers, slaughtering them.

Occasionally, there would be some accidents.

Ren Baqian saw with his own eyes as a group of soldiers jumped onto the houses at the side and then disappeared.

This group of soldiers only emerged much later from the houses with dusty faces.

“Attention,” Ren Baqian called out.

“Sir.”

“Send out soldiers from the Rearguard Commandery in separate groups to look for the granaries. Do not let the other side burn or poison the food supply out of desperation,” Ren Baqian ordered.

After the order was passed down, many baihu behind Ren Baqian rushed to the nearby houses and asked about the location of the granaries before heading west in the city.

Ren Baqian gradually led the troops forward. The corpses on the ground were getting more and more numerous, fresh blood stained the whole street red, and the smell of blood was everywhere. There were also severed limbs all over, and the walls were splashed with blood

“Amitabha!” Ren Baqian sat on his mount and sincerely chanted a Buddhist mantra. He didn’t even refrain from killing a chicken and wondered whether he would go to hell when he died.

At this moment, the door of a house by the side suddenly opened, and a few people who looked like commoners charged at Ren Baqian with kitchen knives that were made out of bone.

“Villains, go to hell!” These few male commoners looked extremely frightened, but this didn’t stop them from charging at him.

Xie Kun had repeatedly instilled the message that the barbarians would not leave anyone alive after taking the city.

In this era, besides hearing from people around them or seeing news posted on the bulletin boards in the city, there were almost no other channels to receive outside information. In addition, the repeated indoctrination by Xie Kun had made them believe him firmly.

Therefore, when they saw a person like Ren Baqian, who looked like a “big official,” they couldn’t resist the urge to come out and attack him.

Following them were some young men who came charging from another direction.

“Kill all of them!” Ren Baqian said calmly, but he frowned as it could be clearly seen with just one glance that these were commoners.

As the guards flashed their sabers, the more than 10 commoners were instantly slashed and fell to the ground bleeding.

“Fools!” Ren Baqian muttered to himself. It was unclear whether his tone was compassionate or not.

Ren Baqian turned around and dismounted. Next, he walked into the house with the open door, kicked the door of a room to open it, and said after looking around, “Search and see whether anyone alive is around. Also, search the other houses where those people came out of.”

After a moment, more than 10 people—some male, some female, some young, and some old—were put in front of Ren Baqian. Two of them had their hands cut off.

Everyone looked at this man in front of them with fear and hatred.

“Why did you guys attack us?” Ren Baqian asked calmly.

It was obvious that the fighting was between soldiers and didn’t involve the civilians. Why did they resist? Why did they launch an attack?

One man, who had lost a hand and was expecting to be killed, ranted, “You are a bunch of animals! If you don’t die, we will die!”

“Why do you say that?” Ren Baqian squatted in front of him and asked calmly.

“You will die a horrible death…” this man continued to curse.

“Wrong answer!” Ren Baqian stood up to kick him and then stepped on his neck.

The sound of bones breaking could be heard by everyone.

“Next… Who can tell me why?” Ren Baqian asked the crowd.

A short while later, Ren Baqian got the information he wanted and turned to slowly walk down the long street. These rebels really dragged everyone into trouble.

He had to admit that Xie Kun was successful in brainwashing these foolish people!

“Sir, what about these people… ?”

“Kill them!”

“Get two people to announce this loudly along the streets: ‘Commoners who stay behind closed door and don’t rebel will not die. Those who dare to attack us will have their whole family exterminated!'” Ren Baqian ordered.