The Emperor ordered Zhao Tang

Chapter 322 The Shazhou Uprising (Part 1)

Several screams pierced the night sky once more. The sound of banging on the door preceded the screams. Cui Xuan had already rushed to the door, crouching down with Zhao Simo, their faces pressed against the door, their knives wedged into the crack, desperately hacking at the bolt. The Tibetans also noticed the commotion and, through the crack in the door, exchanged blows with Cui Xuan and his companion.

Beneath the walls on both sides, a group of bloodied and mangled bastards were building human ladders, knives in their mouths as they rummaged through the walls.

From inside the courtyard came a chaotic, rough voice: "@#￥#!"

"Snap!" The bolt finally broke and fell heavily to the ground.

"Ashide! Come help me!" Cui Xuan shouted, his eyes red as he rammed his body against the door. He was incredibly strong; even with such a large door and the Tibetans holding it back inside, he managed to send one of them bouncing inward. "Charge in! If the dark doesn't work, then the light will! I'll pay with my life to kill all these bastards!"

Cui Xuan and seven or eight others were locked in a struggle with the Tibetans through the door, hacking wildly at the door with their knives.

A moment later, Li Xiong's Turkic language rang out from inside the door. He had already climbed over the wall and was engaging the Tibetans blocking the door in hand-to-hand combat.

"We are reinforcements invited by Commander Zhang. Who are you, daring to commit such atrocities!" a Tibetan shouted sternly in Chinese.

"We'll kill you!" In response, more people jumped off the wall and began a more ferocious slaughter.

The courtyard was filled with shouts and screams as a dozen or so burly, purple-faced Tibetan men ran around frantically, yelling and snarling. Upstairs in the two-story building, several civil officials in flowery robes and braids were loudly directing operations, cursing and swearing.

Cui Xuan, his eyes pressed against the crack in the door, spotted them and screamed in a frantic voice, "Shoot him! Shoot him!! Li Xiong, Li Xiong! Forget about the others, go upstairs and kill the civil official!"

"Whoosh!" A long spear flew towards the window, piercing the felt hat of a Tibetan civil official.

"Well done!" Cui Xuan shouted hoarsely, spitting as he yelled, "Shoot him to death!"

As he spoke, he lunged forward again, slamming the already crumbling gate with a deafening roar.

At that moment, the distant roar of warhorses suddenly arose, and large contingents of the Shazhou Street garrison were surging towards the guild hall. Many warriors were already striking their shields with the backs of their swords, issuing a warning of slaughter, and many voices were being raised in unison. Civil officials were also shouting in Chinese, Turkic, and Tibetan. Iron spears were pointed diagonally, their blades gleaming, filling the street with a blinding light!

Cui Xuan personally stepped forward, using all his strength, but he only managed to hack at the door repeatedly. The door wasn't thick to begin with, making it difficult to gain leverage, especially against the sharp edge of the blade!
How many cuts have been made already? And it's only a few grooves! Breaking the tension would be easier; a few clever cuts at a good spot might be enough to break it! But even with Cui Xuan's backside sticking out and his bloodied claws, the crumbling door is just holding on by a thread. The more it goes on, the more anxious, angry, and defensive Cui Xuan becomes, even uttering the same curse the Holy Emperor used when he was ranting about traitors in court: "Fuck your mother!"

Over there, the military and civil officials' stern shouts rang out: "Put down your weapons and armor immediately! Otherwise, we'll stab you, no matter if you're the Holy Emperor or the Heavenly Emperor!"

"Cui Jun, Cui Xuan, come out quickly! The door is about to collapse, don't crouch down there!" The shaking inside and outside the door had increased violently, and sawdust and dust rained down, soaking everyone's faces and bodies. Zhao Simo held the door open with one hand and gripped the sill with the other, pulling it back and forth violently. He saw Cui Xuan crouching at his feet, desperately trying to leverage the door by wedging a wooden stick into the threshold! His cheeks were bulging like a toad's.

"Get out of the way!" Zhao Simo kicked him. Cui Xuan turned around, baring his teeth, and said, "Pull your door! I—"

crunch
Without warning, a slow creaking sound followed, and the door slammed shut.

"Ah!" Cui Xuan roared, shaking off Zhao Simo who was holding him. He scrambled away, then somersaulted over the threshold, wielding a knife, and charged straight at the blood-soaked courtyard: "Go to hell!"

After only seven or eight steps, he collided head-on with a burly man with a purple face. Both men were wielding blood-stained steel knives, and with a series of sharp, slashing sounds, their blades crossed and clashed fiercely, sending sparks flying!

Zhao Simo and his men also rushed in from beside Cui Xuan. In the blink of an eye, they had cut down two people.

Cui Xuan was disheveled, blood spurting from his hands and feet. After killing the purple-faced Tibetan, he ran up the stairs with his eyes red and his knife raised, just like Wu Song who massacred the Mandarin Duck Tower.

"Pfft!" With a single slash, the Tibetan civil official in the flowery robes in front of him, whose martial arts skills were actually inferior to Cui Xuan's, had his head blown off after a few dodges.

Cui Xuan rushed forward, using his shoulder to brace against the man as he drew his sword from the wall. Then, using the momentum, he spun around and swung the sword, throwing the Tibetan official off the railing.

Another short, stocky Tibetan official, however, was fierce and valiant, wrestling and grappling with Cui Xuan on the ground like a mad tiger, gouging out his eyes and kicking his groin. Cui Xuan hadn't expected this short man to be so ferocious. He gripped the short man's throat tightly, while the short man, clutching the broken knife, plunged it vertically downwards, inch by inch, into Cui Xuan's shoulder blade.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" His arm trembled with pain, but his strength remained undiminished. Blood welled from his teeth, yet he held onto the dwarf's neck tightly.

Blood splattered, and the two men spat out saliva and roared incessantly.

"Hehehe," the dwarf's face turned purple, but he couldn't shake off Cui Xuan. Seeing that the knife was stuck in his shoulder blade, he simply grabbed Cui Xuan and slammed him against the railing.

Then there were two muffled thuds as two people came up from the second floor, knocked over the railing, and fell onto the bluestone slab!
The dwarf lay face down, his head bleeding, motionless.

Cui Xuan landed sideways with a sharp crack, a broken bone apparently from somewhere. Despite his severe injuries, Cui Xuan was incredibly tenacious, feeling around before rolling over and pinning the dwarf beneath him. The dwarf could only weakly paw at the ground with his claws. Both of them were covered in blood and gore.

Cui Xuan grabbed the dwarf's head, lifted him up hard, and then smashed a rock into his face!
"Bang, bang!"

Once, twice, three times.
After a dozen or so stones fell, the dwarf finally let go and fell into a deep, infant-like sleep beneath Cui Xuan.

At that moment, a series of clattering footsteps echoed from the street outside the courtyard as leather boots stopped in unison.

Reflecting the glint of blades, countless spears shot from the street toward the guild hall!

Footsteps echoed, punctuated by the taut sound of bows being drawn. A dense swarm of infantrymen, their swords drawn, filed out from the flanks of the spear formation and surged into the courtyard.

Zhao Simo and Ashide, dressed in rags, had already discarded their armor and weapons, and slowly raised their hands.

Li Xiong and the remaining few bastards exchanged glances, then stood back to back protecting Cui Xuan in the middle, staring at the cursing Shazhou city defense soldiers.

Inside and outside the courtyard, a series of shouts echoed: "Chop them all down! Chop them all down!"

More and more soldiers from Shazhou crowded the courtyard, their eyes filled with complicated emotions as they looked at the lingering blood and Cui Xuan, who was staggering to his feet with a knife in his hand!
On the 26th day of the seventh month of the fourth year of Qianning, Cui Xuan, the Right Remonstrator of the Imperial Secretariat, killed three envoys from Shazhou: Hua Haizicheng, Jinshan Bodhisattva, and Cibei Xinzhe.

(End of this chapter)