Madam, don't do this!

Chapter 580: It Has Already Taken Song Yan's Shape (5000 words)

The twentieth year of Ninghe.

Mid-October.

The cold weather has spread to Dongshan Prefecture, and snow has begun to fall. As the goose-feather-like snowflakes fall, a white coat quietly covers the ancient city of Dongshan and the surrounding mountains and forests.

The snow has only just begun to fall.

It melted quickly after falling to the ground.

However, the snowfall is a signal. Judging from the abnormal weather in recent years, Dongshan Prefecture will get colder and colder in the coming days, and snow will fall continuously. It may not be much better than Pingyang.

In previous years, when it snowed, most people would choose to stay at home. Firstly, the autumn harvest was over, and the busy farming season would have to wait until next year. In addition, the fields were frozen, so it was impossible to turn the soil and hoe the land. Secondly, after the snow fell, wealthy families rarely hired people to do work, and it was difficult to find any work. Everything on the mountain withered, and wild vegetables and other things were covered by snow. Even small animals would go back to their dens to hibernate.

For most ordinary people, there are no winter clothes available. In this kind of weather, it's better to stay wrapped in a quilt and huddle on the kang (heated brick bed) all day long. At least that's a little warmer, and with less activity, you might even save half a bowl of rice.

In this era, winter is definitely the most unbearable time of the year.

However, the situation was somewhat different on this day.

Although snowflakes were still falling gently from the sky, Dongshan Prefecture was bustling with activity like never before.

The sounds of fighting were deafening.

A large number of government troops gathered at the foot of the tall city wall of Dongshan Prefecture, using ladders to quickly climb the wall. On the wall were a large number of peasant soldiers who did not even have armor, but were only dressed in coarse cloth clothes. Some held rusty swords, while others held axes and pitchforks. They lay on the wall and thrust their weapons down.

Some men even carried huge rocks in their arms and smashed them down on the heads of government soldiers from above. With a loud bang, each blow would cause blood to flow from the head, brains to splatter, and the rocks would fall downwards along with the corpses.

Further away, the government troops' archers unleashed a volley of arrows from a great distance, sending a dense rain of arrows sweeping over the city walls. Although the upward attack severely hampered accuracy, such a concentrated assault inevitably resulted in a significant number of arrows and crossbow bolts landing on the peasant soldiers.

Amidst spurting blood, some were shot through the chest and forehead, dying instantly; others were shot in the abdomen and shoulder, collapsing to the ground with blood spurting out, screaming in agony.

Beneath the city wall, corpses piled up endlessly, countless in number, their blood pooling into a massive crimson mass that rapidly melted the snowflakes drifting down from the sky.

On the city wall, corpses were also laid out in a thick layer; it was impossible to count exactly how many people had died.

These farmers, who were usually timid and cowardly, displayed unprecedented ferocity. Even though their companions had died and they themselves might die in the next second, they did not stop their actions at all. The corrupt officials who had been oppressing them were finally caught and beheaded. They finally got their share of land and could live a good life from now on.

How can we stand by and watch the imperial court take away such a good life?

They will fight to the death against anyone who tries to take away their hope.

However, these peasant soldiers only had a little combat experience from the previous battle. Although the Ningguo soldiers were exhausted, they were still trained, and their weapons and armor, even though they hadn't been replaced for a long time, were still far superior to those of the peasant soldiers. The two sides were simply not on the same level in terms of combat methods.

Slowly, a soldier climbed onto the city wall.

He had barely climbed up, and before he could even raise his eyes to see what the city wall looked like, his sword swept across it.

laugh.

It looked as if something had been torn open.

A ragged farmer staggered backward, dropping the stone he was holding to the ground.

The farmer, who was in his thirties or forties, looked more like he was in his fifties or sixties. His eyes widened suddenly, and there was a hint of despair in his pupils. Looking down, he saw a long gash on his stomach.

Something like intestines is gushing out.

Good days were just around the corner, but he was probably going to die.

His expression showed some resentment, but that resentment quickly turned into relief.

It's okay, it doesn't matter if I die.

The child and his wife are still alive.

The nobleman from the Yang family said that if someone dies in battle while defending the city, they will receive a pension of twenty taels of silver. Twenty taels of silver! That should be enough for the child and wife to live on for a long time, right? Plus, there are twenty acres of land allocated to the family. They should be able to make ends meet.

Thinking like this, I felt less upset.

Ah ah ah ah ah……

Suddenly, the old farmer let out a howl like a mad beast, lunged forward, grabbed the soldier who had just climbed onto the city wall, and leaped off. The two of them fell off the high wall together.

boom!
A sudden tremor ran through me, and darkness gradually enveloped my vision.

Similar situations occurred repeatedly at various locations along the city wall.

On one side were soldiers from Ningguo, and on the other were farmers from Ningguo—all Han Chinese, all citizens of Ningguo—yet they were fighting each other in a way that was unbearable to watch. This was one of the reasons why Mei Wu, Liu Yisheng, Liang Guangzong, and others were trying their best to persuade Song Yan not to immediately attack Dongshan Prefecture and annihilate the Yang family.

The people of Dongshan Prefecture had long been misled by the Yang family.

The Yang family exploited corrupt officials to squeeze money and grain from the people, yet on the other hand, when the people were struggling to survive, they would slip in some favors through their fingers, easily bribing these people. This kind of manipulation was not formed in a day or two; it was the accumulation of decades or even centuries, deeply rooted and almost unchangeable.

Some knowledgeable people in Ningguo knew about the Yang family's behavior and that they had murdered the emperor in the street, a crime that was unforgivable. However, in the eyes of the people of Dongshan Prefecture, the Yang family was a family that had accumulated good deeds, and the people of the Yang family were great philanthropists.

They were unaware of the intricacies of the situation; all they knew was that the Yang family had allocated land to them, and the imperial court had sent a large army to take away their land… They would fight to the death, not only for the sake of the Yang family, but also for the survival of their own families.

Whoever attacks Dongshan Prefecture at this time will encounter the fiercest resistance.

If Song Yan were to encounter an army composed of these common people, what would he do?

Were they killed? How innocent they were!
Not kill them? Are we just going to let them attack our soldiers at will? Don't the soldiers' lives matter?

Perhaps remaining on the sidelines is the only option; even though Song Yan is intelligent, she is powerless in the face of such a situation.

The commander of the six prefectures' army frowned deeply. He had thought this would be an extremely simple task. He feared that a mere group of peasants who usually carried hoes would be easily routed by the imperial army. He never expected the resistance of the people of Dongshan Prefecture to be so fierce, and the losses of his soldiers were too great. But now that they had already climbed the city walls, if they withdrew now, wouldn't all those brothers have died in vain?

Gritting his teeth, the commander prepared to send another group of government troops to attack. But just then, a howling sound, like that of monkeys and wild dogs, suddenly came from the forests on both sides of Dongshan Prefecture. The next moment, a large group of densely packed dwarfs, wielding Japanese swords almost as long as their bodies, charged out.

Japanese pirates!

The general's expression changed drastically in an instant.

Most Japanese pirates were short in stature and not particularly strong, so normally they wouldn't be considered a formidable enemy. However, they were inherently fierce and cruel, even more so than jackals and wolves. Before the rise of Prince Yan, Ningguo was plagued by Japanese pirates, precisely because of this. Ordinary soldiers, upon encountering Japanese pirates, would feel a surge of fear at the mere sight of their ferocious faces and the sound of their mad howls, even before engaging in battle.

Upon suddenly seeing the Japanese pirates appear, the general was immediately startled and quickly ordered his troops to intercept them.

The two sides collided head-on.

The sound of swords clashing suddenly erupted.

In an instant, blood spurted out. The thick stench of blood filled the air, and as the knife fell, screams of agony shook the heavens.

In a short time, the formation of the garrison troops was broken up by the Japanese pirates.

These local soldiers were only good at dealing with ordinary people; when they encountered the ruthless Japanese pirates, they were almost instantly slaughtered.

The general clenched his fists and kept shouting orders, but to no avail. If this continued, who knew how many more of the 60,000 soldiers would be lost in this small Dongshan Prefecture? He absolutely could not afford that price.

Left with no other option, they had to order a retreat.

The government troops near the city wall quickly began to retreat in disarray.

Just then, an even more despairing scene unfolded for the general: the tightly closed gates of Dongshan Prefecture suddenly opened, and a group of cavalrymen clad in leather armor burst forth from the city. Unlike the Japanese pirates, these cavalrymen were tall and burly, with dark skin and faces even more ferocious and cruel. They emitted strange and eerie shouts as they spurred their horses to chase after the fleeing soldiers ahead.

puff.

puff.

puff!

With each rise and fall of the scimitar, a head is severed.

The headless corpse gushed blood like a fountain.

They were cruel to the extreme. Even when government troops couldn't withstand the pressure and had dropped their weapons and knelt down to surrender, the scimitar still slashed diagonally across them. With a scream, another corpse appeared on the ground.

Blood splattered on Wanyan Guangzhi's face, making his face appear even more distorted.

That's right, it's Wanyan Guangzhi.

Wanyan Guangzhi personally went to Dongshan Prefecture to negotiate with the Yang family as a representative of the Jurchens and Xiongnu. Originally, Wanyan Guangzhi was unwilling to come, after all, the Jurchens had only just united and he had many things to deal with. However, he had no choice but to comply because Suochuoluo directly ordered him to comply as the suzerain state.

The Jurchens were eventually unified.

With the help of the Xiongnu cavalry, Wanyan Guangzhi's unification of the Haixi grasslands proceeded quite smoothly. After eliminating a few troublemakers in the early stages with ruthless methods, the remaining tribes became much easier to deal with. They even surrendered one by one before he could lead his army to attack.

They were probably terrified by the countless human heads piled up into mounds of skulls.

The method of creating this mound of skulls was something Wanyan Guangzhi learned from Song Yan.

Originally, Wanyan Guangzhi's conquests involved simply leading his army to the land; those who refused to submit were killed on the spot, leaving behind fields strewn with corpses and rivers of blood. He believed this carnage would be enough to terrify his enemies, and that once his army arrived, they would surrender without a fight. However, the reality was significantly different from his expectations. While some did surrender after the massacres, others resisted even more fiercely.

However, since he started building the Jingguan (a mound of skulls), such resistance has decreased considerably, indicating that the Jingguan's deterrent effect is indeed extraordinary.

The only two things that displeased Wanyan Guangzhi were Batu, the Khan of the Blackwater Tribe, who fled with eight thousand cavalry.

Wanyan Guangzhi was determined to kill his father-in-law. Song Yan, that bastard, had taken Nahetuya away, and Batu had actually sent three thousand warhorses as a dowry. In Wanyan Guangzhi's eyes, this was blatant betrayal and absolutely unforgivable.

Song Yan couldn't defeat them for the time being, but he didn't have much trouble fighting the Blackwater Tribe. As punishment, he plundered all the Blackwater Tribe's wealth, killed all the elders and young men who refused to submit, and even took all the women of the Blackwater Tribe. He didn't even spare his father-in-law's seventy-two wives. He had been taking two a day for days, and now his back was starting to hurt.

He wanted to make Batu, that traitor, experience what it was like to have his woman stolen.

Another thing that annoyed Wanyan Guangzhi was that the mound of corpses he built was not as large as Song Yan's.

I heard that Song Yan built several large mounds of corpses outside Xinhou County, at the border of Anzhou and Pingyang, each containing tens of thousands of heads. His mound, however, only had a little over a thousand heads; compared to that, it was only…small?

Thinking of Song Yan, Wanyan Guangzhi couldn't help but recall Nahetuya, who had been taken away by Song Yan. Every time he thought of that woman, Wanyan Guangzhi could feel the restless flames in his chest. As a Dajilie Khan deeply influenced by Han Chinese culture, Wanyan Guangzhi knew very well what this was called—cuckoldry.

He was cheated on by Song Yan.

Even though he had unified the entire Jurchen people and become the only Great Khan of the millions of Jurchen tribes, with a supreme status, the humiliation of being cuckolded would surely accompany him for the rest of his life and even be passed down through the ages. Whenever Wanyan Guangzhi thought of this, he felt so depressed that he wanted to vomit blood.

This matter has almost become an insurmountable obstacle for Wanyan Guangzhi. Clearly, Nahetuya's appearance is only considered good among the Jurchens, and only above average in the Central Plains. Not to mention, there are quite a few women in the Yang family of Dongchuan Prefecture who are more beautiful than Nahetuya.

But perhaps it's true that what you can't have is always the best. In Wanyan Guangzhi's heart, Nakhtoya has now become an incarnation of a celestial being, growing more beautiful every day, surpassing all the women in the world combined.

Perhaps, only by reclaiming Nakhtoya can he overcome this obstacle.

But then he thought that so much time had passed, and his princess might have already turned into Song Yan's form, which made him even more depressed.

Frustration made Wanyan Guangzhi increasingly irritable. His once handsome face was now twisted beyond recognition. He could no longer suppress his roar and suddenly spurted out a howl. He squeezed his legs tightly around the horse's belly and charged forward once again.

His eyes were wide open in a strange way.

Just as he was passing by a surrendered soldier from Ningguo, his arm slashed diagonally downwards.

puff.

The scimitar struck the surrendered soldier directly in the neck.

It must have severed a major artery; a spurt of blood gushed out, spraying onto Wanyan Guangzhi's face again, turning his entire face crimson, as if a blood-red veil had been shrouded in his vision. The pungent smell of blood filled his nostrils, and as his tongue traced the bloodstains on his lips, Wanyan Guangzhi's excitement reached an unparalleled level:

Look, look, this is what the Han people are like.

This is how Han people should be.

They are like pigs and sheep, slaughtered at will.

Song Yan was only slightly stronger than an ordinary Han Chinese; he was nothing to be afraid of. With just one strike, he could surely dismember Song Yan.

Of course, the Thunderclap Thunder in Song Yan's hand was indeed quite frightening, but after so much time, Wanyan Guangzhi had already seen through it. Although the Thunderclap Thunder was terrifying, it was only most terrifying when encountered for the first time. The royal court of the Wuji tribe was trampled by Song Yan's black-armored soldiers with warhorses and bombarded with Thunderclap Thunder. Afterwards, after counting, the number of people directly killed by the Thunderclap Thunder was not too many, not even a third.

A large portion of them were trampled to death by their clansmen during their desperate escape.

Moreover, the Thunderclap Bomb has a serious drawback: it needs to be thrown by hand, and human strength is limited. The Thunderclap Bomb can only be thrown about thirty paces, while the Jurchen's powerful bows and crossbows can reach eighty paces, or even one hundred paces.

Most importantly, if the warhorses could overcome their fear of the deafening roar of the thunderclap, thirty paces would be a mere blink of an eye at their speed. Once the two sides clashed, facing the Jurchen's most elite cavalry, Song Yan and his men would only be slaughtered.

……

Rumble!
Pingyang City, outside the city walls.

A dark, round lump of iron shot out from a huge black iron pipe at a speed that was difficult to detect with the naked eye.

It traced a graceful arc in mid-air before crashing into the snow eight hundred paces away.

Then came a deafening roar, like thunder from the heavens, and even from a great distance, one could feel a slight tremor beneath one's feet.

The Red Barbarian Cannon is complete!
(End of this chapter)