Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

"kill?"

The word, uttered by Li Shimin, carried a hint of hesitation, but also a touch of the ruthlessness unique to emperors.

Not killing them would be a huge problem.

With hundreds of thousands of mouths to feed, how could the Tang Dynasty's newly recovered treasury withstand such a drain? Moreover, if these wild and untamed wolves were brought back to the interior, what if they turned on us one day? That would be a real problem.

But what if we really killed them all...

Li Shimin glanced at the Turks kneeling on the ground, their eyes filled with fear and pleading, and felt a little uneasy.

This involves the lives of hundreds of thousands of people! Not just hundreds of thousands of blades of grass!

If this were to be completely reversed, how would it be recorded in history books? What would future generations think? Would Li Shimin still retain his title of "Heavenly Khan"?

Just when Li Shimin was caught in a dilemma, his eyebrows almost knotted with worry.

A sinister figure, like a bat that has smelled blood, silently emerged from the shadows.

Bai Qi still held a half-eaten roasted lamb leg in his hand, his mouth greasy, but his pale, bloodless face wore a chilling indifference.

He walked up to Li Shimin, casually cupped his hands in greeting, without even bending down.

"His Majesty."

Bai Qi's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper polishing a rusty iron sheet, making one's ears water.

"If you think these prisoners are a nuisance, then this is easy to handle."

He stretched out his hand, still covered in cumin powder, and pointed to the huge valley beside him.

"Look over there."

Li Shimin looked in the direction he was pointing.

It was a naturally formed depression surrounded by cliffs, with only a narrow path leading to the valley floor. It was late autumn, and the valley floor was overgrown with withered grass. When the wind blew, it made a strange, howling sound, as if countless wronged souls were crying.

"This place has good feng shui."

Bai Qi grinned, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. "The terrain is low-lying, the soil is loose, and it's sheltered from the wind."

"We just need to let these hundreds of thousands of Turks walk in on their own, and then..."

He made a "filling in" gesture, as casually as if he were saying to sweep the trash into a dustpan.

"Block the entrance to the valley and then cover it with several layers of soil."

"It saves on food and avoids future troubles."

"Next spring, the grass in this field will definitely grow taller than a person, which will be perfect for grazing horses."

"See how convenient that is?"

boom--!

These words caused an immediate, deathly silence to fall over the entire barbecue area.

Even the crackling sound of the firewood popping in the fire seemed so jarring.

Li Shimin felt a chill run up his tailbone straight to the top of his head, and the hairs on his body stood on end at that moment.

A massacre?!

This guy actually wanted to massacre 150,000 prisoners?!

And they said it so casually and naturally, as if it wasn't killing people at all, but dealing with a pile of useless garbage!

"You...you..."

Li Shimin pointed at Bai Qi, his fingers trembling as if he had Parkinson's disease, "What you've done is simply... against the will of Heaven!"

"Tianhe?"

Bai Qi tilted his head, a hint of confusion flashing in his lifeless eyes, as if he had heard some incomprehensible words.

"Your Majesty, how can war not end in death?"

"Back then, during the Battle of Changping, I buried 400,000 Zhao soldiers, but I didn't see any lightning strike down from heaven to kill me."

"We'll see."

Bai Qi threw the lamb leg bone on the ground, and it shattered into pieces with a "crack".

"These barbarians raid southwards every year, killing my Han sons and daughters, and they never talk about harmony with Heaven."

"What, they're allowed to kill and commit arson, but we're not allowed to eliminate them completely?"

"That doesn't make sense, does it?"

Although these words are rough, the reasoning behind them hits right where it hurts.

The generals around Bai Qi, including Cheng Yaojin and Yuchi Gong, were also startled by Bai Qi's murderous nature, but upon closer examination, they found that... it actually made a lot of sense.

Yup!

Why should we Han Chinese be expected to uphold morality and righteousness, while these barbarians are allowed to burn, kill, and plunder?

Burying them is doing justice on behalf of Heaven! It's avenging the deaths of the border people!

"this……"

Li Shimin was speechless.

Although he was a ruthless man and showed no mercy during the Xuanwu Gate Incident, the psychological pressure of massacring tens of thousands of people at once was simply too great.

He subconsciously turned his pleading gaze to Li Chengqian, who was intently gnawing on a lamb chop next to him.

"Chengqian, what do you think?"

All eyes immediately turned to the eight-year-old crown prince.

He was the actual leader of this Northern Expedition and the true master of these legendary armies.

The lives of these hundreds of thousands of Turks were actually in his hands.

Li Chengqian frowned slightly, somewhat annoyed, as he sensed the sudden silence around him.

He tossed the cleanly gnawed lamb rib into the plate, picked up the damp towel beside him, and slowly wiped his hands and then his mouth.

The gesture was as elegant as drinking tea in one's own study, rather than deciding the life or death of hundreds of thousands of people on a battlefield strewn with corpses.

"Old Bai."

Li Chengqian sighed, looked at Bai Qi's "I'm a professional at killing" expression, and shook his head helplessly.

"Your thinking is still too outdated."

"kill?"

"How environmentally unfriendly!"

"and……"

Li Chengqian stood up, walked to the edge of the valley, looked down, then turned around and gave everyone an extremely bright smile.

"Isn't it a terrible waste to bury such a valuable workforce?"

"These guys may not be very bright, but they're still strong."

"Our Great Tang is currently undergoing construction everywhere, building roads, mining, and reclaiming wasteland. We are short of people everywhere."

"These hundreds of thousands of strong laborers are working for free, without pay, just given food and labor, and you actually want to bury them?"

Li Chengqian looked heartbroken, as if Bai Qi's suggestion to bury prisoners was not a suggestion to kill prisoners, but rather tens of thousands of taels of gold.

"What a waste! Absolutely wasteful!"

"I..." Bai Qi was stunned.

He'd killed people his whole life, and this was the first time he'd heard such a claim.

Not kill?

Keep it for work?

Will this... will this work?

"Your Highness."

Bai Qi asked uncertainly, "These people are wild and unruly. What if they riot? We can't keep a large army watching them forever, can we?"

"riot?"

Li Chengqian chuckled, a hint of contempt flashing in his eyes.

Don't worry.

"Just let them know that they'll get food if they work, and they'll die if they don't."

"Just make them understand that the whip of the Tang Dynasty is harder than their scimitar."

"They will be more obedient than anyone else."

He turned around and looked at the group of Turkic prisoners kneeling on the ground as if they were a herd of livestock that had been labeled.

"Pass down the order."

Li Chengqian's voice carried far in the cold wind.

"All prisoners will be incorporated into the 'Great Tang Construction Corps'!"

"Regardless of age or gender, anyone who can move, get to work!"

"Want to live? Sure!"

"Then use your strength to atone for your sins!"

"We'll talk about going home once we've repaired the roads to the Tang Dynasty and exhausted all the mines!"

"As for now..."

Li Chengqian snapped his fingers, his smile amiable.

Welcome to the era of the "996 Blessed" work culture!