The bells marking the mao hour rang out. The emperor, accompanied by the chief eunuch, emerged from behind the curtains and took his seat on the dragon throne.
“Long live Your Majesty! Long live Your Majesty! May Your Majesty live for ten thousand years!”
All the ministers knelt and paid their respects.
Once the ceremonies were complete, the Left Prime Minister stepped forward first.
“Your Majesty, yesterday a red-feathered urgent courier arrived in the capital. Did he bring back a battle report?”
The other ministers all pricked up their ears.
The emperor had not summoned them yesterday, leading many to suspect that the Ninth Princess had only sent a red-feathered courier to announce victory and calm the people and the court, while the official battle report had not yet arrived.
Although such a situation was rare, it was not impossible.
“There is a battle report!”
Chen Ji nodded to the chief eunuch. “Read the battle report aloud!”
“Yes!”
The chief eunuch bowed, took the report, and read it out in a loud voice.
The ministers’ reactions were much like Chen Ji’s own.
At first, they remained very calm, but as the reading went on, the expressions on their faces grew increasingly vivid.
When the chief eunuch finished reading the report, the Hongde Hall fell completely silent.
All the ministers were stunned into speechlessness.
Never in history had a princess personally taken the field to beat the war drum for the soldiers!
Just imagining that scene made the ministers’ blood boil.
This was definitely a battle that would go down in the annals of history!
Normally, even over minor matters, the pro-peace faction and the pro-war faction would argue for ages, but this time, on the issue of Tubo, Chen Ji, who was usually fickle, firmly declared that he would fight to the end.
The main reason was that the Ninth Princess understood Chen Ji too well and knew exactly how to touch his heart.
This battle report could be said to have been tailor-made by the Ninth Princess for Chen Ji.
To leave the emperor no chance to back down, immediately after morning court, pro-war officials secretly spread word of the emperor’s stance.
The citizens of the capital had been closely following the war in Xichuan these past few days. Upon receiving news from the palace, the people were all greatly inspired.
Storytellers had been worried that they kept telling the tale of Qingshui Valley and the patrons were tired of it. Now they had new material.
For the next period, the stories of the black-armoured troops under Jin Feng’s command, and of the Ninth Princess beating the drum in military attire, spread thoroughly throughout the capital.
In the Battle of Qingshui Valley, Jin Feng had mainly relied on terrain advantage, so storytellers did not have much to say.
But this time was different. In the Xichuan campaign, both sides not only matched wits but also fought hand-to-hand.
There was simply too much to tell.
In the storytellers’ depictions, the black-armoured troops used male soldiers as shields and female soldiers as support. Under Jin Feng’s leadership, they charged into and out of the Danzhu camp three times, finally seizing the enemy commander and slaying the general in his own camp, securing victory in this battle.
Jin Feng had already been very popular in the capital before. Now, just as the excitement had begun to die down, the storytellers heated it up again.
In streets and alleys, discussions about him were everywhere.
The common people passed on his stories, while scholars recited his poetry collections.
Even the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce gained another surge of popularity.
The soap that Luo Lan had stockpiled was snapped up completely.
Female escorts also officially entered the public eye.
Since the storytellers dared not fabricate tales about the Ninth Princess, they began gathering information about Qing Muluan and others.
Soon, stories of female escorts started appearing in the teahouses.
Meanwhile, the Xue family finally received news that Xue Henglu had been beaten with military rods by Jin Feng.
In the Eastern Palace.
The Duke of Xue, his hair already turning grey, rushed hurriedly into the main hall.
The Crown Prince of Great Kang, Chen Yuankuang, was reading behind his desk.
As soon as the Duke of Xue entered, he said nothing but fell to his knees before the Crown Prince. “Your Highness, you must seek justice for Henglu!”
“Duke Xue, what are you doing?”
The Crown Prince quickly put down his book and went to help the Duke of Xue to his feet.
This man was not only a duke but also his father-in-law.
The Duke of Xue grabbed the Crown Prince’s sleeve and pleaded again. “Your Highness, you must seek justice for Henglu!”
“What happened to Henglu?” the Crown Prince asked, frowning.
“Henglu… Henglu was beaten to death by Jin Feng…”
Wiping away tears, the Duke of Xue told the Crown Prince what he had learned.
All thirty strokes of Xue Henglu’s punishment had been delivered by Da Zhuang himself, with no leniency whatsoever.
His personal guards had not escaped either, each receiving twenty strokes.
After the caning, before the Xiongwu Army could carry them back to Xichuan city, Xue Henglu had already breathed his last.
Fearing punishment, the captain abandoned Xue Henglu’s body, disbanded the Xiongwu Army on the spot, and fled south with his close followers.
They were probably planning to become bandits somewhere.
Xue Henglu’s corpse was thus left by the roadside for a night. By the time passers-by discovered it the next day, it had been gnawed beyond recognition by wild animals.
When the Duke of Xue first received this news, he nearly fainted from grief.
He immediately came to the Crown Prince to complain.
Of course, he did not mention that Xue Henglu had charged into the camp, only that he had quarrelled with Jin Feng.
Hearing that his brother-in-law had been so humiliated, the Crown Prince was also furious. He immediately took the Duke of Xue to confront Chen Ji, demanding that Chen Ji execute Jin Feng.
The Ninth Princess had anticipated that the Xue family would cause trouble, so she had sent someone ahead to explain the full circumstances to Chen Ji.
Chen Ji was still moved by the Ninth Princess’s heroic deeds and naturally favoured her and Jin Feng. He agreed to dock Jin Feng half a year’s salary as punishment.
Did Jin Feng care about that small amount of salary?
The penalty was essentially no penalty at all.
Since Xue Henglu had been in the wrong to begin with, and the emperor had already passed judgement, the Duke of Xue, no matter how unwilling, dared not openly oppose the emperor. He could only suppress his resentment in his heart.
…
Xichuan, Big Python Slope.
The disputes in the court had no effect here at all.
After these days of rest and recovery, the battlefield had been completely cleared.
Yet the bloodstains remaining on the ground still bore witness to the ferocity of the fighting.
In the past, after battles, people would simply collect their own dead, dig a pit, and bury them.
This time, both sides had suffered heavy losses, with corpses piled like mountains. If not handled properly, it could easily lead to plague.
So Jin Feng ordered that all bodies, friend or foe, be cremated.
Fortunately, cremation was common in Great Kang, and the soldiers did not object.
The only difference was that enemy corpses were simply piled together and burned casually, with no one caring about the ashes.
Their own dead were treated far more formally. Each body had to be identified by its tooth plaque, and the ashes carefully collected in urns, temporarily placed on shelves in the charnel house.
This was an extremely laborious task, but fortunately there were many displaced people lately, so it gave them work to do.
When the Ninth Princess found Jin Feng, he was helping out in the charnel house.
Since it was, after all, a place for storing bodies and inevitably somewhat eerie, the Ninth Princess did not dare enter. Instead, she stood at the door and waved to Jin Feng.
“Sir, come here a moment. I have good news for you!”
“What good news?”
Jin Feng wiped his hands with a damp towel and walked out of the charnel house.
“This palace has secured approval for the second-class military designation you requested, as well as permission to erect a monument!”
The Ninth Princess took a wooden box from Qin’er and presented it to Jin Feng.
Jin Feng opened the box and found inside two seals, a pair of tiger tallies for mobilising troops, and various other documents.
With these items, Jin Feng could now openly forge armour and equip weapons!
