I did it all for the Han Dynasty!

Chapter 473 War begins!
[Zhongshan of Langya, unable to distinguish between beans and wheat, lacking the essential knowledge to master the art, and his name insufficient to be recorded in ink, is like a fledgling egg just beginning to sprout feathers, yet already running rampant and unrestrained, barking at its master and seizing women! He is a wicked bandit!]

The southern lands are now nothing more than reeds and rushes; if you virtuous men were to reside there, your lives would be in grave danger. Our Holy Dynasty is magnanimous and compassionate, valuing the lives of its people. Punishment is carried out on one person, yet the execution of many is carried out without restraint. Therefore, extraordinary rewards are offered to await extraordinary achievements. This is an opportune time for even the most ruthless and courageous to risk their lives. Should we not strive for this?

Before a war begins, a proclamation must always be issued.

However, when Liu Miao heard the soldiers of Yuan's army read out the proclamation denouncing him, his expression became somewhat strange.

"Am I really that bad?"

Inside the emperor's tent, Zhou Tai and Chen Wu stood on either side with their swords at their sides. Under the tent sat generals such as Zang Ba, Sun Ce, and Zhang Liao, all of whom used their eyes to scrape off pieces of flesh from the bodies of the Yuan army soldiers!

The soldiers of Yuan's army who came to deliver the proclamation were terrified!

They've completely forgotten all about the integrity of envoys.

"No, that's not the case."

"This was merely the work of a scholar serving Your Highness."

"Furthermore, in war between two armies, messengers are not to be killed..."

Upon seeing the other party's expression, Liu Miao immediately burst into laughter: "Don't worry! I'm not such an unruly person! Last time, when your prince came to Jiangdong, didn't I treat him to good food and drink? How could I possibly do something like beheading his envoy?"

Liu Miao looked relaxed, as if he wasn't about to have a life-or-death battle with Yuan Tan, but rather enjoying a drinking contest after dinner.

When Yuan Jun's envoy saw Liu Miao like this, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"However, you must go back and speak with Yuan Tan about this. If you're going to issue a proclamation, then issue one; you can't tarnish my reputation!"

Liu Miao was very dissatisfied with one thing!
"That proclamation says something about seizing another man's woman... I have never done such a thing! Even a proclamation cannot be written carelessly! Don't you agree?"

Upon hearing Liu Miao's question, Yuan's envoy nodded obsequiously.

"Put your chest out!"

But it was precisely this behavior that caused Liu Miao to suddenly shout a rebuke, startling the other party.

"You are, after all, an envoy on the front lines of the two armies. Even if your country is no longer called the Han Dynasty, you are still of Han descent, with Han blood flowing through your veins. How can you be so cowardly?"

When Liu Miao faced the Yuan army envoy, he instead began to lecture him with a sense of disappointment and frustration.

"Remember! As an envoy, you must be bold! And your voice must be loud! Do you understand?"

The Yuan army envoy, who had been inexplicably given a lesson, nodded slightly: "Yes."

"Speak louder!"

“Here!!!”

"That's more like it! How come after living with those Wuhuan barbarians for a while, you've picked up that dog smell too! Raise your head! Look at me when you speak! What are you afraid of, you upright Han men?"

Yuan Jun's envoy was reprimanded by Liu Miao. Although he seemed to have gained some momentum, he didn't know how to continue speaking.

It's truly humiliating for an envoy to be reprimanded by others...

Liu Miao seemed oblivious to the other man's flushed face, leisurely reclining on the backrest behind him.

"Go tell Yuan Tan that you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want."

"I originally intended to send his wife to Ye City, but his father took it upon himself to marry another woman for him. No one wanted her when I sent her there, so I had no choice but to bring her back temporarily."

"It's happening again! I went through all sorts of trouble to escort his wife to him and return her, but he still refused! Tell me, can you blame me for this? Hmm? Is there any man in this world as resolute as me?"

"..."

"besides!"

As Liu Miao spoke, he tried to use his tongue to pull a small piece of meat out of his teeth.

"I didn't even know his wife had a birthmark on her buttocks before, so how can he accuse me of stealing another man's woman?"

"That's slandering others, that's not good! Go back and make him change it!"

"Here..."

"Why is the sound so low again?"

"Here!"

The Han generals on both sides were also secretly laughing.

Why was this Yuan army envoy, who came to provoke us, treated like a son by Liu Miao?
In an instant, the tense atmosphere inside the emperor's tent immediately turned cheerful.

This delight made the Yuan army envoy blush.

"Hey? Why aren't you looking at me when you speak?"

Only then did Liu Miao notice the other person's flushed face and the way they were looking to his side.

There are only two burly, rough men next to me. What's so interesting about that?

However, when Liu Miao followed the other person's gaze, he couldn't help but smile.

There were two leftover boiled eggs from this morning.

Liu Miao took two eggs and threw them directly at the Yuan army soldier, who could only catch them by opening his arms in surprise.

"Hungry? Eat before you go back. I don't have the habit of letting guests leave hungry."

The other person was holding two eggs, looking somewhat flustered, and their expression began to waver between reluctance and acceptance.

He is now an envoy of the enemy, how could he possibly eat the egg of Liu Miao, the most vicious person in the eyes of the Great Zhao?
"Alright! Eat! Do you think I don't know the situation of your Yuan army?"

At the same time, Liu Miao instructed Zhou Tai: "Youping, have the cook boil another thirty eggs, so he can take them back and eat them slowly!"

"..."

Upon hearing Liu Miao's order, the other party became even more flustered.

"Your subject is a soldier of the Great Zhao..."

"Bullshit! Great Zhao, my foot! Do you even know that the ancient Zhao state's territory was only a tiny bit in what is now Bingzhou? You're in Qingzhou now, what are you afraid of? Besides, why do you think Yuan Shao chose Zhao as the name of his state? Hasn't he heard the story of King Wuling of Zhao and his two sons' filial piety?"

"Who knows?"

"Maybe he wants to be the orphan of the Zhao family!"

"..."

Yuan Jun's envoy stood there dejectedly, listening to Liu Miao and the surrounding Han generals mention the name of the Northern Zhao state, but dared not utter a word.

Before long, Zhou Tai brought thirty eggs with him.

Liu Miao stood up and handed it to the other person, adding, "Eat it with water! It must be hot water! Don't end up like this guy next to me, who almost died from an egg the other day!"

Zhou Tai rolled his eyes, then looked away...

"Tell Yuan Tan, stop with all this nonsense, just fight! After the fight, everyone wants to go home and cuddle with their wives and kids in the warm kang (heated brick bed)! Who wants to be stuck in this freezing weather with a bunch of unwashed men? Don't you agree?"

The Yuan army envoy, already dizzy and disoriented, inexplicably echoed a statement—

"Yes."

Upon hearing the other person suddenly speak, Liu Miao paused for a moment, then burst into laughter again.

"Alright! Remember that! Go! Be careful on the road! I later discovered that those Wuhuan wolf cubs poop everywhere, and you can easily step in it if you're not careful, so be careful not to get caught!"

"..."

Yuan Jun's envoy, carrying eggs, fled the Han army camp as if escaping.

As he rode on horseback, he felt something pounding wildly in his chest for no reason!
He glanced back.

The familiar black and red Han Dynasty dragon banner fluttered silently above the Han army, as if it were a mother standing still, waving goodbye to her wandering son.

The lingering warmth of the freshly boiled eggs in his arms seeped through the fabric covering his skin, and for some reason, tears welled up in the Yuan army's envoy's eyes.

They arrived at Yuan Jun's camp.

Aside from Liu Miao's reprimand that an envoy should stand tall and upright, Yuan Tan recounted his entire conversation with Liu Miao in detail. He also presented the thirty eggs.

"absurd!"

Yuan Tan was furious when he heard Liu Miao discussing the birthmark on his wife's buttocks in public!
Yuan Tan overturned the thirty eggs, shattering them on the ground.

"How dare Liu Miao insult me!"

"Attack immediately! Attack! I want to cut off Liu Miao's hand!"

The thought of Liu Miao's hands kneading that pale pink birthmark and transforming it into various shapes made Yuan Tan's eyes blaze with fury!
No, it might not just be the hands!
They also want to cut off Liu Miao's mouth! They also want to cut off Liu Miao's...

Yuan Tan completely forgot Chen Deng's instructions.

He now has only one thought in mind: to fight Liu Miao to the death!

What he didn't notice was that the Yuan army envoy was staring intently at the thirty eggs that Yuan Tan had smashed on the ground...

Carefully reaching into his robes to make sure that something there was still intact, the Yuan army envoy's eyes gradually darkened.

Yuan's army launched an attack.

An army of 30,000 men had no chance of hiding their tracks in the flat plains of central Jiaodong.

Yuan Tan had no intention of hiding it.

After finishing off the last of the army's stored rations, the ranks of Yuan's soldiers marched south again.

A tall, strong-voiced young man from a respectable family in Guanzhong.

The athletes from Hebei are bold and vigorous, with strong physiques.

And the Wuhuan cavalry, like jackals, walked at the forefront, glancing back every now and then.

The army advanced, traversing narrow roads, barren fields, and dried-up irrigation ditches, step by step approaching the Han army.

When the Han scouts informed Liu Miao of the intelligence, Liu Miao simply took his fingers, which he was frantically picking at his teeth, out of his mouth.

"He's finally here. If he hadn't come soon, I would have gone to find him."

Liu Miao temporarily set aside his plan to find the bits of meat stuck in his teeth and focused his energy on military matters.

"You should know better than I how to fight this war."

"so……"

Liu Miao ran to the back of his tent, rummaged through the boxes and cabinets, and then pulled out a wine jar.

Upon seeing this, Zhou Tai immediately widened his eyes: "Where did Your Majesty hide it? How come I didn't know?"

"Nonsense! If you knew, would I still be alive today?"

Liu Miao took a bowl and poured half a bowl for each of the generals present.

"Having waited so long, I have no desire to say another word now."

Liu Miao held up the porcelain bowl—

"Consider this wine a celebration for your victory!"

"Drink half now! We'll drink the other half after we defeat Yuan Tan!"

"Here!"

After drinking this half bowl of wine, the Han army generals returned to their posts accordingly.

Zang Ba led a small number of infantrymen, together with Zhou Tai and Chen Wu, to guard the central army and protect the emperor.

Zhang Liao, Huang Gai, and Han Dang all returned to the camp and instructed the soldiers to put on their armor and equipment.

Sun Ce led his two thousand light cavalry and was the first to leave the camp.

Warhorses galloped across the land, and the banners of the Han army, like raging flames, began to burn and spread.

"General! A small group of Wuhuan troops has been spotted ahead!"

"Humph!"

After Sun Ce's scouts found the enemy's trail, he immediately led his soldiers to meet the enemy.

When the Wuhuan cavalry saw that the Han army was so numerous and powerful, they naturally turned tail and ran back, not daring to fight Sun Ce at all.

Meanwhile, Yuan Jun's side also learned that Sun Ce had led light cavalry to the battlefield.

Sun Ce? Never heard of him!

Tadun was rather disdainful when he heard Sun Ce's name.

"If Liu Miao's Taishi Ci and Zhang Liao were here, I might have avoided their sharp edge... But this Sun Ce who has come here, how could I possibly avoid him?"

Upon learning that Sun Ce's mother, Lady Wu, was actually Lady Liu Miao, Tadun laughed arrogantly and dismissively, "He's just an adopted son!"

Tadun became even more confident in defeating Sun Ce.

Sun Ce was seen by Tadun as someone who had connections, and it was through these connections that he was able to rise to the rank of general!
Tadun had seen far too many people like this.

The vast majority of them are nothing but good-for-nothings!
Sun Ce, I suppose, is the same!
"Tell Your Highness! I'll go and take Sun Ce's head right now to avenge the theft of his wife! Haha!"

Under Tadun's command, four Wuhuan chieftains led a total of two thousand Wuhuan cavalrymen to join forces and charge straight towards where Sun Ce was!

After so many years of fighting with the Han people, Tadun believed that with equal forces, the Wuhuan would always be the ones to defeat the Han people!
Tadun leisurely waited in the rear for good news from the front.

At the same time, Tadun unconsciously looked towards the fertile plains and enchanting landscape of Qingzhou.

"This is the land of the Han people!"

Although he looked at it carefully more than once, each time, Tadun was deeply moved.

Such land was practically a sacred place for the Wuhuan people, who could only live in impoverished and harsh environments!
Even the legendary Xiongnu royal court could not compare to the rich Central Plains of the Han Dynasty.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we Wuhuan could graze our livestock on all these lands?"

Although, given the current strength of the Wuhuan, this is nothing but a pipe dream.

But who says that a hundred or even a thousand years later, the Hu people cannot enter the Central Plains and become the masters of this place?
Just as Tadun was eyeing Han territory and enjoying the future of the Wuhuan, a scout from the front line hurriedly rode up to Tadun.

"Chanyu! Something terrible has happened! Our lord is dead!"

died?

Tadun was slightly taken aback.

Sun Ce actually killed a Wuhuan chieftain?
Could it be that he was caught off guard and killed by a sneak attack?

"Which one is it?"

"Tuoba? Bald? Or Liwei? Murong?"

The scout's face was filled with terror: "They're all dead!"

"Ok?"

Tadun didn't hear clearly at first, or rather, he simply couldn't believe it.

"Who did you say died?"

"Chanyu! That Sun Ce was like a tiger! He charged straight into the army formation, charging left and right, killing four officials in succession, and then left triumphantly!"

Tadun's mind exploded with a bang!

My lord! Those are the backbone of the Wuhuan tribe! Often, one of them represents an entire powerful tribe!

Last time, Yuan Tan asked him to send an important official to Yexian, but he hesitated. This time, four of them died as soon as he arrived.

Tadun's eyes changed.

Only at this moment did he recall the deep-seated fear of the Han people and the humiliation of being driven out of the entire Donghu ethnic group from the Nine Provinces!

(End of this chapter)