My father, King Chu, was besieged at Gaixia

Chapter 119 Don't Care
"Father, father..." Gong Wei's third son Gong Yin, a boy of about eleven or twelve years old with a pair of upturned nostrils and a face full of flesh, wore a small royal robe and quickly rushed into the magnificent palace of Linjiang King Gong Wei with his short legs, shouting loudly and fiercely.

Inside the palace, under the flattery of a dozen sycophants and attendants, the pleasure-loving Gong Wei buried his body on the soft white bear skin couch, watching the beautiful Ji girls singing and dancing while drinking fine wine.

The little boy rushed into the hall, where veils were flying, legs were spread out, and the graceful and soft body changed into various alluring postures from time to time, blocking his sight and his steps, making him unable to reach his father's side.

"Get out of here, get out of here..." The little boy was furious, screaming, and grabbed a big spear from the guards standing majestically on both sides of the palace. He swept, hit, and stabbed randomly, making the singing and dancing girls scream and tumble and flee in all directions. Some of them were unable to escape in time and were inevitably stabbed, bleeding immediately.

Seeing this scene, the little boy put his hands on his hips and laughed happily.

Hearing a familiar voice calling his father, Gong Wei stopped drinking and looked up, and saw that it was his third son Gong Yin wielding a spear and making a scene in the palace. Faced with his tyrannical behavior, Gong Wei did not care, laughed, and waved him to come closer.

"Father, Teacher Bo Pi said that there are many white foxes around his manor. I want to go hunt the white foxes." Gong Yin threw the spear to the ground with a "ding-dong" sound, ran to Gong Wei, and said loudly with his belly sticking out.

Gong Wei reached out and stroked his round head, then raised his head and saw, as expected, the fat and wealthy Great Pillar State Bo Pi, with his crown neatly arranged, his hands in his sleeves, and a smile on his face, walking into the hall leisurely.

"Your Majesty, Prince Yin has learned a lot of words recently and has worked very hard in his studies. In order to reward him, I, the old minister, agree to take him fox hunting. Riding a horse and hunting can also strengthen Prince Yin's muscles and bones." In response to Gong Wei's inquiry, Bo Pi bowed and reported.

Gong Wei naturally had no reason to refuse this and said, "Haha," he laughed, "The Great Pillar State has worked hard for the king and taught me a good son. It's very hard work. I will give you a hu of pearls and twenty pieces of brocade."

After Bo Pi thanked him with a grateful look on his face, he took Gong Yin's hand and left the hall.

Looking at the two figures, one tall and one short, with equally round bodies, walking away, Zhongjuan Wuxin's eyes flashed with disdain.

In addition to Gong Yin, Gong Wei also had two sons, Gong Lian and Gong Yan, who were sixteen and fourteen years old respectively, and both were extremely smart. Everyone in the court could see that the next King of Linjiang could only be born from these two princes, so they secretly placed their bets on these two princes.

What puzzled Wu Xin was that Bo Pi, one of the three pillars of Linjiang Kingdom and a powerful general, had some kind of crazy idea that he abandoned the two older and smarter princes who were most likely to succeed to the throne, and instead chose the stupid and tyrannical third prince and took him in as his disciple.

"It seems that the Bo family's wealth will end in this generation." Wu Xin sneered inwardly.

After dealing with this sudden incident, the captain was in a good mood. Just as he was about to call the musicians and dancers to continue playing music and dancing, suddenly a long and loud howl came from outside the palace gate:
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, you must avenge me. My entire family died tragically, ah, ah——"

The howling sounded like Du Juan crying blood, or like the cry of an owl at night. It was mournful and resentful, mournful and miserable, and frightening. Just listening to it made people shudder.

Hearing this, Gong Wei, the King of Linjiang, sat up straight with a start. His throat tightened and his scalp numbed. He no longer had any mood to sing, dance, feast and enjoy himself.

"Who is this again..." Gong Wei's tone was very angry. Before he could finish his words, the Grand Marshal Chu Licuo, who was dressed in mourning, wearing a tall filial piety hat, dragging a long mourning stick, crying and howling, with tears and snot streaming down his face, came into the hall and blocked the angry rebuke that was about to rise in his throat.

"Grand Marshal, what are you doing?" Upon seeing Chu Licuo's appearance, Gong Wei was shocked and quickly jumped down from the couch. He waved his hand to drive away all the people in the hall, leaving only Zhongjuan Wu Xin. He walked up to Chu Licuo, helped him up, and said with a frown.

After asking for the reason, Captain Gong was even more shocked. He never thought that after just one day of not seeing his trusted minister, he would encounter such a huge change and his entire family would die. Is the feng shui of his Linjiang Kingdom not good? Can't the whole family of the minister die?
"General Huang Jizhong wiped out your entire family? How is this possible? - Do you have any evidence?" Gong Wei frowned.

"That old thief is the founder of a clan-killing patriarch, a habitual criminal who kills nine generations of a clan. He deliberately planned to kill my entire family, so how could he leave any evidence?"

Chu Licuo, the Grand Marshal, returned to his mansion last night in a daze. Seeing the tragic deaths of all the people in the mansion, he howled and fainted on the spot. Fortunately, the remaining guards who followed him hurriedly rescued him and revived him. Then they spontaneously cleaned up the bodies, bought coffins for the burials, and cleaned the mansion, and they were busy until the morning.

After everything was almost ready, Chu Licuo immediately put on a heavy mourning dress and rushed to the palace to meet Gong Wei. In his opinion, he was ordered by Gong Wei to meet Xiang Chang, but he suffered this unexpected disaster. As the king's Gong Wei, he would definitely stand on his side and order the execution of Huang Jizhong to avenge him. Now, when he heard Gong Wei's question "Do you have any evidence?", he was stunned, his chest was full of anger, and he almost vomited blood.

"Hiss, if there is no evidence, we will have to consider this matter carefully. After all, what if the general refuses to admit it and says that you framed him?" Captain Gong rubbed his brows and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but his big, round, fat face looked full of embarrassment.

"Evidence? Do we need evidence for people like us?" Chu Licuo clenched his fists, his small eyes were bloodshot and red, bulging as if he had heard a huge joke. "--We have evidence. As long as we break into Huang Jizhong's mansion, capture his personal guards and torture them severely, I guarantee we will find evidence."

"Huang Jizhong is the general of the kingdom, how can he be so rude to others? Besides, in Linjiang Kingdom, everything is governed by law." Gong Wei was displeased, stepped forward and held Chu Licuo's hands, and said earnestly, "I know that the Sima family has suffered such a disaster, and I am sad and eager to take revenge. But revenge must be planned in the long run. We can't let a bad guy go, and we can't wrongly accuse a good guy, right? What if the murderer is not the general, and we accuse him wrongly and make a big mistake, how can we make amends then? So Sima, please wait patiently, I promise to give you an explanation."

Hearing Chu Licuo's confident words and solemn oaths, Captain Gong actually believed it completely and thought that this was the work of General Huang Jizhong.

He did not think that it was because of his own misleading attitude when facing the extermination of Huang Jizhong's entire family at the beginning, which caused Huang Jizhong, who was filled with hatred, to lose control and led to the death of Chu Licuo and his entire family. Instead, he was indescribably resentful of Huang Jizhong's reckless behavior of daring to exterminate the entire family of the kingdom's important minister.

However, just like when he did not dare to turn against Xiang Chang and stood firmly on Huang Jizhong's side, now that Huang Jizhong had a large army under his command, he also did not dare to turn against him and stand on Chu Licuo's side. Therefore, his attitude towards this matter and how he would deal with it were self-evident.

Chu Licuo stared blankly at Gong Wei, his good king, with grief and indignation in his heart: Well, I taught you this trick of making people confess, and now you use it on me, right?

At this moment, Chu Licuo discovered that in the mind of the King of Linjiang, although he was nominally the Grand Marshal's confidant, he was actually no different from Huang Jizhong and others. The only person the King of Linjiang loved was himself, and the only thing he cared about was maintaining his power. All the others were chess pieces that could be discarded at any time, and he had no feelings for them at all.

The most important thing is that what makes me inferior to Huang Jizhong is that I don’t have the ability to overturn the chessboard and compete with him head-on.

At this time, Lieutenant Xu Liao sent a servant to hurriedly enter the palace and kneel down to report to Captain Gong that last night General Huang Jizhong secretly mobilized 3,000 Northern Army cavalry to fight with Xiang Chang's Great Chu envoys' elite cavalry in the wilderness east of the city, attempting to annihilate them in one fell swoop, but unexpectedly suffered a miserable defeat.

When Chu Licuo heard this, his dull eyes were filled with light again, and his depressed expression was filled with hope again. He raised his head and looked at Gong Wei.

Mobilizing the army without the king's order at night, especially mobilizing 3,000 people, is tantamount to treason; especially when he suffered a great defeat and lost his army, which is a humiliation to the country. This is a crime upon crime and is simply unforgivable.

Sure enough, Captain Gong's face was gloomy and angry. He flicked his sleeves heavily and turned over to sit back on the couch. It was obvious that Huang Jizhong's disrespectful behavior really angered him.

After sitting back on the couch, Captain Gong's expression miraculously regained its composure. Under Chu Licuo's eager gaze, he stroked his chin and asked, "Where is the general now?"

When he learned that Huang Jizhong did not return to his residence after his defeat last night, but entered the Northern Army camp and has not left since, Captain Gong calmed down completely. He pondered for a while and said, "The general's entire family died, and his son was killed last night. He is heartbroken. It is good for him to relax in the military camp."

After hearing this, Chu Licuo's eyes almost popped out: Is this what a human being can say? There is another person whose whole family has died and he is also heartbroken, why don't you say anything? Are you blind?
Knowing that Gong Wei was trying to appease Huang Jizhong for the sake of the stability of Linjiang Kingdom, Chu Licuo felt a chill in his heart as he watched Gong Wei's eyes turn cold and cruel. Afterwards, despite Gong Wei's repeated persuasion, Chu Licuo lowered his head and kept silent, as if he had completely accepted his fate.

Gong Wei was not surprised by this, for he knew very well that Chu Licuo, the Grand Marshal, was promoted by him in the past two years. All his power came from the king himself, and he had no strength. Therefore, even if he was resentful and the situation was not favorable to him, he could only bow his head and accept his fate in the end.

After comforting him with a few words, feeling that he had fulfilled his duty as the king, Gong Wei waved his hand and asked Wu Xin to send Chu Licuo out of the palace.

Zhongjuan Wu Xin held Chu Licuo's arm, with a humble look on his face, lowered his head and looked submissive, and respectfully saw him out.

Chu Licuo walked slowly, squinting his eyes at the gray sky and the sparse yellowish clouds floating around. He gently patted Wu Xin's hand and said in a faint voice, "Wu Xin, I remember that you were just a poor man in Jiangling City. You had an argument with someone, killed him in anger, and were thrown into prison. Who saved you and promoted you to the honor and wealth you have today?"

"It's all thanks to you, sir. You treat Wu Xin like your own son or nephew, and your kindness is as heavy as a mountain." Wu Xin shuddered and said in a low voice with his head down.

Chu Licuo sighed deeply, wept and said sadly: "I won't talk about your kindness. I am old now, and my whole family has been killed. I have no other relatives. From now on, you are my son, and you will take care of me until the end of my life."

After saying this, he, whose temples had grown a lot of silver hair in just one night, stopped and looked back at the magnificent palace. He heard the soothing and pleasant music and dance that could not wait to be heard from the palace again. Suddenly, he hugged his fat body like an old hen and laughed "cluck, cluck".

He laughed so loudly and so hard that he bent over and tears came out of the corners of his eyes.

At this moment, Chu Licuo felt that his past was a joke.

At this moment, Chu Licuo knew clearly that he could not count on the King of Linjiang to take revenge.

——But fortunately, there are still people I can count on.

At night, he first killed Huang Jizhong's son in a pit in the guesthouse, and then defeated Huang Jizhong in the east of Jiangling City. He also defeated the 3,000 Northern Army cavalrymen and 600 family soldiers that Huang Jizhong had privately mobilized, and won a complete victory. Qu Fu and other generals tried their best to persuade Xiang Chang to immediately return to the manor of Bo Pi, the Great Pillar State, and wait and see what would happen.

Huang Jizhong was the general of Linjiang Kingdom after all, and now that he was ravaged like this, it was hard to predict what Gong Wei, the King of Linjiang, would think. If he got angry and chose to stand with Huang Jizhong, they would have nowhere to escape when they returned to Jiangling City.

After some thought, Xiang Chang waved his hand and chuckled, "You think too highly of Captain Gong. He is nothing but a pile of bones in a grave."

He immediately rejected the proposals of the generals, and under the protection of the remaining city gate guards led by Captain Meng Xia, he chose to re-enter Jiangling City and return to the guesthouse.

Of course, for the sake of safety, Xiang Chang selected a hundred or so cavalrymen from the thousand elite cavalrymen of the Great Chu, and added them to the cavalrymen of the Mengxia school lieutenant, replenishing the number to 300. Then he asked Qu Fu to lead the remaining elite cavalrymen of the Great Chu, hiding in the mountains east of Jiangling City, and be prepared to deal with any changes.

As expected, the situation turned out exactly as Xiang Chang had expected. As dusk fell in the afternoon, there was still no movement in the palace. Faced with the shocking incident of Huang Jizhong secretly mobilizing thousands of Northern Army cavalry to fight against the Great Chu envoys in the east of Jiangling City, Gong Wei, the King of Linjiang, remained strangely silent, without any expression, as if nothing had happened.

Zhuang Rong, who was always worried, put on his crown and found an excuse to go to the palace to see what was going on. He learned that the king, Gong Wei, was enjoying singing and dancing while feasting with his attendants. He was drunk and sleeping like a dead pig on the couch...

After receiving the accurate information from Zhuang Rong, generals Xiang Xi, Tian Jian and others who followed Xiang Chang back into Jiangling City were puzzled and could not help but respect Xiang Chang as a god, but they also cursed the royal palace in their hearts.

Xiang Chang sneered repeatedly, and his contempt for Gong Wei increased: No wonder he guarded such a large Linjiang Kingdom in his previous life, but ended up being captured by Liu Bang and beheaded in Luoyang. All the important officials of the kingdom defected and surrendered. Gong Wei's talent was just enough to be a king who maintained the status quo in a peaceful and prosperous era, but in this chaotic era when dragons and snakes are rising and a bunch of top strongmen are fighting each other, it is undoubtedly not enough. He couldn't even pull out any of the three pillars of the kingdom, the Grand Sima, the General, and the Great Pillar of the State. He really had his own faults in the end.

"Young Master, Grand Marshal Chu Licuo is here again and asks to see you." Zhuang Rong had a strange look on his face, walked quickly over, and reported to Xiang Chang in a low voice.

Looking at the Grand Marshal Chulico who was walking towards him with a cold and angry look and a menacing manner, Xiang Chang, who was kneeling quietly in the elegant room, showed great interest.

As if afraid of causing Xiang Chang's taboo, Grand Marshal Chu Licuo threw away all the mourning stick and filial piety hat he wore when he entered the palace to meet the emperor, and only wore a simple and refreshing mourning outfit.

Walking up to Xiang Chang step by step, Chu Licuo bowed politely, without a trace of the domineering and arrogant look of the villain who had usurped a high position when he came last night.

"My Lord, I went to the palace today. The King and the Commandant not only expressed their sympathy for my family's misfortune, but also did not agree to kill General Huang Jizhong to avenge me."

Hearing Chu Licuo's heavy tone, Xiang Chang's eyes flickered, and he sneered secretly in his heart, but he was very surprised on the surface: "Really? No way? I have to say that this is really a frustrating and disappointing answer."

Hearing Xiang Chang's bland and unfamiliar tone, his words were not smooth, and he did not respond to his words at all, Chu Licuo's heart sank, and he became more afraid of this boy's difficulty. However, at this time, he had no other way to go. He gritted his teeth, looked up and looked straight at Xiang Chang: "Master, do you trust me?"

Xiang Chang smiled, with a slight sneer on his lips, and looked at him quietly without saying anything.

Chu Licuo's face was filled with bitterness: "That's right. Last night, I was swearing at the eldest master here, and he even beat me up. How can there be trust between us?"

"Grand Marshal, you can just say whatever you want to say. I like to be straightforward and hate beating around the bush." ​​Xiang Chang was a little impatient. "As for whether we trust each other or not, I am the eldest son of the Great Chu Kingdom, and you are the Grand Marshal of the Linjiang Kingdom. There is no basis for mutual trust. Of course, having said that, although there is no basis for mutual trust, it does not mean that we cannot cooperate."

Facing Xiang Chang's almost explicit and well-prepared words, Chu Licuo was not only not happy, but even more frustrated. He knew that his intentions were completely seen through by this boy with sharp and vicious eyes who seemed to be able to see into people's hearts. He sighed secretly and finally stopped beating around the bush and directly challenged: "I want the general Huang Jizhong to die and avenge my whole family. Are you willing to lend a hand, Master Xiang Chang?"

We have to say that Chu Licuo was not completely useless as he was able to secure the position of Grand Marshal of the Kingdom. At least what he said was very well-spoken.

Since he came in, Xiang Chang had been showing him his attitude clearly, making him clearly feel that Xiang Chang was a person who would never be intimidated. Therefore, he also knew what to do and completely abandoned the unrealistic idea he had when he came here. He simply lowered his posture to the lowest level and begged with the attitude of a person seeking help rather than a collaborator.

As expected, Xiang Chang showed a "teachable" look, and without hesitation, he said, "Yes! I just don't know what the Grand Marshal is going to do? Has he already made a thorough plan?"

Zhuang Rong, who was standing beside him, looked at Chu Licuo, who was obediently lowering his head, with an expression of inexplicable excitement.

He did not expect Chu Licuo to take this step and surrender to the Great Chu envoys. It must be said that Chu Licuo's surrender was really a timely rain for them. Because Chu Licuo, as a confidant of Linjiang Wang Gongwei, mastered too many secrets of the palace and Gongwei, and had great power in the palace. In this regard, both the Great Pillar State Bo Pi and the Great General Huang Jizhong were far inferior. This point was also crucial for their next plan.

Zhuang Rong looked up at Xiang Chang, and couldn't help but feel an inexplicable awe in his eyes: Could it be that when he put the blame on Chu Licuo, the eldest master had already thought of this?
(End of this chapter)