Strange Tales from the Northern Qi Dynasty

Chapter 417: The Devouring Demon Is Not Dead Yet

Chen Shubao was so frightened that his face turned pale in an instant, and he quickly let go of the people around him.

The musicians also hurriedly put away their instruments.

"Quick, put away the drinks, put them away."

The crowd suddenly became chaotic and there was chaos everywhere.

The friend in front of Chen Shubao was flushed, disheveled, and had a silly smile on his face. Seeing Chen Shubao's panicked face, he was unmoved and still had a silly smile on his face. Chen Shubao shook him hard a few times, but the man was still smiling silly.

Chen Shubao was so angry that he raised his hand and slapped him.

The man finally woke up and looked around blankly, "Where am I?"

Before this person could react, the footsteps outside the door became more and more rapid. The next moment, the sound of slapping came from not far away, and someone was heard begging for mercy loudly. Then, Chen Xu broke into the hall.

It is really impossible to see inside the hall at this moment.

The fragrance of the incense and everyone's body condensed together, as well as all kinds of unknown disgusting smells. It was blinding and pungent!
As soon as Chen Xu came in, the smell hit him hard in the face. Chen Xu almost burst into tears. He covered his mouth and nose and shouted to the people around him: "Open the window! Open the window!!"

The servants were busy, some were fanning the air, some were opening the windows.

The room finally became brighter, and Chen Shubao couldn't help squinting his eyes to block out the sunlight.

Only then did Chen Xu look at the situation inside the hall.

There was a group of untidy young men, about ten of them, and a shivering little palace maid.

Various kinds of alcoholic beverages were placed on the ground, as well as some loose items. It was extremely messy, just casually spread all over the ground. There were also a few Hu musicians standing on the left.

At this moment, Chen Xu's face instantly turned blood red, and the change was extremely obvious.

He was fine the moment before, but in the blink of an eye, his whole body turned red.

"Someone, someone, come and kill these beasts, beasts..."

Chen Xu's chest heaved violently, his breathing became difficult, and his hands began to tremble.

Chen Shubao was extremely frightened when facing his father, just like the palace maid just now. He lowered his head, no longer as frivolous as usual, and obeyed his father's orders.

Just when Chen Xu was about to lose his temper, a second group of people came in.

"What happened?"

Then someone was heard asking, and then Chen Xu's queen Liu Jingyan walked in quickly with many female officials.

When Queen Liu walked in, she saw the messy scene in front of her. Then she looked at her son, and seeing his dull expression, a trace of heartache flashed in her eyes.

"Your Majesty, what happened?"

"What happened??"

"Look, I just appointed him as the crown prince this year, and this brat has already revealed his true colors, bringing such a large group of people to defile the harem!! I must dethrone him today!! Isn't Shu Ling a hundred times better than him? He should be the crown prince!!"

"Your Majesty! Be careful with your words!"

Queen Liu hurriedly reminded.

Chen Xu realized that he had said something wrong and just became angry and stopped talking.

The queen signaled all the guards and eunuchs to go out.

After taking a look at the situation in the room, he walked to the maid, helped her up, and said gently: "I'm sorry for making you suffer, don't be afraid, you will stay by my side from now on, with me here, no one will dare to bully you anymore."

"Thank you Queen."

As the little palace maid spoke, she couldn't help but shed tears.

The queen wiped away her tears with heartache and asked her attendants to take her back.

Then she stood up and looked at those young celebrities again. Her expression became colder again. "Is this how you study when I ask you to study with the prince?"

"From now on, you are not allowed to enter the palace again!"

"Someone, get them all out!"

The guards came in again and took away these young men who looked like they had lost their parents.

There were only three of them left in the house.

Queen Liu looked at her son, sighed helplessly, and then looked at the emperor.

"Your Majesty, Shubao is just young and doesn't understand reason. Wait until he is older."

"Still young??"

"Yuwen Yong of Zhou! He is 26 years old this year! He is ten years older than your precious son. Liu Taozi of Han is 25 years old this year, which means he is nine years older than your son!"

"When Yuwen Yong was sixteen, he was already a member of the royal family with a good reputation! When Liu Taozi was sixteen, he had already become famous as an official!"

"Look at your son again!"

Queen Liu felt a little distressed, "You can't say that, my son is kind"

"It's because of you that he became like this!"

"We were hostages in the enemy country and suffered a lot. How much suffering has this child endured at such a young age?"

Empress Liu's eyes were red, and she couldn't help asking, "If Yuwen Yong and Liu Taozi had suffered the same hardships as my son when they were young, would they have achieved such great success? You have been separated from him for many years, and you haven't seen him for many years. You know how those people bullied him."

When it comes to this, Chen Xu is speechless.

Queen Liu asked her son to come over and held his hand. "You will do great things in the future. You must not be so negligent. You must study hard in the future. Don't forget the hardships we have suffered in the past. Don't make me worry, okay?"

After hearing his mother's words, Chen Shubao regained some vitality. In front of his father, he was like a corpse and had almost no expression.

He nodded to his mother to show that he remembered it.

Empress Liu reminded him again: "Your Majesty just said those words in anger. Go and apologize to him. Don't do it again. Your father and your brother both love you."

Chen Shubao walked up to his father and apologized to him.

They are obviously father and son, but when they look at each other, there is an indescribable sense of strangeness and awkwardness.

The two of them were like facing strangers.

Chen Xu didn't want to say anything more, he just waved his hand and let his son go back.

He and Queen Liu also quickly walked out of the smoky hall.

As they walked along the road, Empress Liu was filled with worry. "How could Your Majesty say that Shuling is more suitable to be the crown prince than Shubao?"

"What would Shubao think after hearing this?"

"If Shu Ling knew, what would he think?"

Chen Xu didn't care much. He waved his hand and said, "What's the big deal? Can we fight against each other?"

Queen Liu said seriously: "How can we talk about this kind of thing?"

"Shu Ling is only one year younger than Shu Bao, and has a hot temper, like a raging fire. Your Majesty, please don't say such things again."

Chen Xu was helpless and just shook his head.

He was quite disappointed with his eldest son, especially after seeing the two guys in the north, this thought became even stronger. He was almost forty years old.

Logically speaking, this age is definitely not considered old.

But when he thought about the ages of his two neighbors to the north, Chen Xu couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine.

These two bastards are not even thirty years old!!
Given the talents his son has shown today, Chen Xu couldn't imagine what Chen State would become if he were gone.

Let this foolish son of his own face Yuwen Yong and Liu Taozi? ?

Looking at Chen Xu's expression, Empress Liu seemed to be able to guess something. She gently held her husband's hand and said, "Don't worry, Your Majesty. There will always be a way. Your Majesty, I went to the temple recently and saw that there were many more slaves in the temple. I summoned a few of them and asked them about them. I found out that these people were local farmers in the past. After the temple was built, their farmland was taken away and they became private slaves."

"This is not good. The temple's taxes depend on the farmers who have farmland. If the farmers all become tenants of the temple, no one will pay taxes. All expenses will be borne by the remaining farmers who still have farmland, becoming increasingly burdensome and making their income less and less."

Chen Xu touched his chin, "Well, what does the Queen think?"

"I am just a woman, I can only observe some things around me. Your Majesty is dealing with the major affairs of the world, why does he need me to give advice? As long as my words can be of some help to Your Majesty, that is enough. I dare not say anything of my own ideas."

Chen Xu was in a good mood, he smiled and looked at his wife tenderly, "You have accumulated good deeds to get such a beautiful woman."

Queen Liu just smiled and added, "Also, Shuling is getting old. Do you think we should send him to a rural area so that he can start to share the burden of the country?"

"it is good!"

A group of people left Jiankang City in a mighty manner.

A teenage boy, wearing armor and riding a warhorse, looked particularly handsome.

If you just look at his body shape, this man is exactly like Chen Shubao, with similar height and weight. But if you look at his face, he looks more like Chen Xu, with smaller and longer eyes, but this makes him look inexplicably cold and vicious.

He was smiling the whole time, but that smile looked eerie and scary. The knights following him were all silent, looking at the young man with some fear in their eyes.

This man's name is Chen Shuling.

He is Chen Shubao's younger brother and the second child in the family.

Chen Lao Er and Chen Lao Da have completely opposite personalities. They are only one year apart in age and were both hostages at the beginning, but their personalities went to different extremes as they grew up.

The eldest son has a more introverted personality and when his father is not around, he looks like a famous scholar of the Wei and Jin Dynasties who has been in disarray.

The second son has a particularly rough personality, and when his father is not around, he acts like a Xianbei veteran holding a knife.

It is not easy for a family to produce two such things. It can be seen that Chen Xu's daily worship of Buddha has indeed accumulated a lot of merit for himself.

It is worth mentioning that the one who worshipped Buddha the most in the Northern Dynasties was Empress Dowager Lou, and her sons were also exceptionally outstanding! They could be called geniuses of the Northern Kingdom.

Chen Shuling officially became the Prince of Shixing County, and performed sacrifices to King Zhaolie. He was further granted the titles of Envoy with Special Powers, Commander-in-Chief of the Military Affairs of Jiang, Ying and Jin Provinces, and Military Advisor General. Oh, he was also appointed as a Governor.

But he was only in his teens.

Chen Xu personally engraved the seals of powerful officials on his youngest son. This official position was so luxurious that Chunyu Liang and Huang Fachi had to give him some distance when they saw him.

Chen Shuling was officially going to Jiangzhou to serve as an official.

His father was worried about his safety, so he gave him another thousand knights to protect him. Chen Xu doted on this son to the extreme, perhaps because his eldest son was incompetent, or perhaps because he saw the demeanor of a Northern Dynasty warrior in his second son.

When Chen Shubao and Chen Shuling were hostages in the north, Chen Shubao was often bullied by the Hu children, and Chen Shuling often followed the Hu children to bully his brother.

After returning to the State of Chen, he did not restrain himself. Instead, he was influenced by the unruly legacy of the nobles of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and became even more "excellent".

The knights following Chen Shuling were all very afraid of him.

To put it nicely, Chen Shuling is very opinionated in doing things.

To put it bluntly, Chen Shuling was extremely willful and no one dared to say anything.

Chen Shuling didn't care at all about leaving the capital. On the contrary, he was very happy and felt as if he had been freed from restrictions.

Chen Shuling didn't care about the pedestrians on the road and started charging with his knights.

Drive at full speed and enjoy the scenery along the way.

They rushed all the way until night, when the sky became dark. Chen Shuling then followed his men to find an inn to rest.

As soon as he entered the posthouse, Chen Shuling could not help but call the officials here in.

The official had never seen such a high-ranking official before and was so frightened that he stammered.

"Let me ask you, is there any cemetery around here?"

"Ah? A cemetery?"

The officials were a little confused.

Chen Shuling continued, "A cemetery is a place where the dead are buried. It would be even better if there were any cemeteries of ancient celebrities!"

The knights around him were not surprised at all when they heard his question, they just watched.

Hearing Chen Shuling's strange question, the official hesitated for a moment before saying, "There is one, there is one! In the past, there was a county magistrate here. He was kind and did a lot of good deeds. After his death, he was buried simply. The people spontaneously built a tomb for him, not far from here."

"You are the county magistrate?"

Chen Shuling was somewhat helpless, but he still nodded, "Take us there!"

"You want to worship now? Why not wait until dawn?"

"I said, take me there."

"only."

Chen Shuling followed the officials here and walked for less than an hour before finally seeing the tomb that the officials mentioned.

There is a stone tablet here, which tells the past and life achievements of the county magistrate.

Chen Shuling read it for a long time and enjoyed it very much.

Then he gave orders to the knights around him.

"dig!!"

The official leading the way was stunned. He hurried forward and said, "Your Majesty! What are you doing?!"

"Dig it out and have a look."

"Don't dig! Don't dig! This is a good thing."

"Pfft!"

Chen Shuling slashed the official with his sword and he fell in a pool of blood. The knights then rushed out and began to dig.

After they dug up the grave, Chen Shuling asked them to rob the valuables inside. After taking away the money, he personally went down and dug out the man's body. He held the bones in his hands and said, "This bone is good. Take it back! As one of my trophies!!"

The knights immediately agreed.

The reason why they were not surprised before was because Chen Shuling had a strange hobby.

He liked to dig graves, whether they were those of ordinary people or celebrities. He especially liked to dig up the graves of celebrities, steal the burial objects, play with their bones, and make all kinds of sculptures.

He dug up almost all the ancient tombs around Jiankang, leaving nothing behind, and destroyed many very meaningful historical materials.

This led to later archaeology professors gritting their teeth, glaring and cursing whenever they mentioned this person's name.

After properly completing the tomb-robbing task, Chen Shuling went to sleep and continued on his journey the next day.

When he was some distance away from Jiankang, Chen Shuling finally stopped pretending.

He led these knights and charged forward like a mob of soldiers.

When they encountered a caravan, they killed its members and took its property.

If they encountered a pedestrian, they would kill him, cut open his body, and keep his bones.

When they encountered a village, they would set it on fire and let the soldiers loot.

In this way, he came to Jiangzhou. After arriving, Chen Shuling did not go to meet the officials. Instead, he started playing various games.

Chen Shuling likes more games than Gao Wei.

He also likes role-playing. He likes to lead his army to attack villages and kill the civilians as enemies.

He also liked all kinds of wonders and ordered the people to build all kinds of fun things for him. Less than four days after he arrived at the place, he began to recruit people on a large scale to build a mansion for him.

Of course, he also liked women. As long as he took a fancy to a girl, no matter whose daughter she was, he would snatch her away. He had many wives and concubines, and he indulged himself day and night.

He did not like dealing with local affairs and did not meet with any officials. Apart from corvée and taxes, he did not care about anything else. He would not even look at the documents regarding prisoners in the local area. With a stroke of his pen, he would detain both the person who filed the complaint and the person being complained about.

There was chaos in Jiangzhou and the people were filled with resentment.

He had just arrived for half a month when local officials could no longer bear it. The Chief Secretary of Jiangzhou no longer cared about the other party's identity and directly wrote a letter to the imperial court, accusing Chen Shuling of many crimes to the emperor.

When Chen Xu heard this, he was naturally angry.

He immediately wrote down the letter: Tell your son to stop making trouble and be good.

After the emperor's letter arrived, Chen Shuling calmed down a little.

The next month, Changshi encountered thieves on his way home and was dismembered. His family members disappeared inexplicably.

For a time, Jiangzhou seemed like hell on earth, even more tragic than that of Qi.

It was at this time that the two generals of the Han Dynasty finally arrived at the southern front line.

As expected, they came with troops to quell the rebellion.

Unfortunately, neither of them was able to gain military merit because local officials had already dealt with the rebels before they arrived.

It wasn't even hard.

One was killed by his own subordinates, and two were killed by officials and militia organized by petty officials.

The reinforcements from the State of Chen failed to rescue them in time, and only one rebel was successfully rescued and brought back to the State of Chen.

The Han State also began to confront the Chen State in the Lianghuai area.

In this way, the situation in the world gradually became clear.

ps: Shuling became increasingly violent and tyrannical. He conquered the barbarians and took all the proceeds for himself, without giving any reward. He recruited laborers without any rules. He often stayed up all night, burning candles until dawn, calling guests, talking about trivial matters among the people, and making jokes. He wrote documents for the Cao Bureau. If he was not called, he would report himself. Those who were flogged were imprisoned and often not examined for several years. In the south of Xiaoxiang, he forced all the people to be his subordinates. There was almost no one left in the shops. If any of them escaped, he would kill their wives and children. No one in the prefectures or counties dared to report to him.

He also liked to wander around tombs. If he came across a tomb with a name on it, he would order his men to dig it up, take out the stone tablets, ancient artifacts, and bones, and hide them in his storehouse. He would also force young wives and girls in the palace who were slightly attractive to marry him. - "Book of Chen: Biography of Chen Shuling"

(End of this chapter)