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

"Bang--!"

Ju Wentai, weighing over 200 jin, was slammed onto the wool carpet of the central military tent by Li Ke like a broken sack.

His severed left arm was still dripping black blood.

The crimson bloodstains instantly stained the snow-white carpet.

"Brother! I have failed in my mission!"

Li Ke casually stuck the bloodstained sword into the weapon rack beside him.

He wiped the gunpowder ash from his face and grinned so hard that his back teeth were showing.

"That old dog tried to escape through a tunnel, but I, his younger brother, sliced ​​him back down with a single stroke, right up to the door frame!"

A deafening burst of laughter immediately erupted inside the tent.

Cheng Yaojin and Yuchi Gong, those two roughnecks, were completely unrefined, pointing and gesturing at Ju Wentai.

It was as if I were watching a hairless monkey at a street performance stall in the West Market.

"Your Highness, I told you to be careful when you grab him, how did you end up breaking his arm!"

Wu Meiniang emerged from behind the palanquin, clutching a small golden abacus, her lips pouting high.

She picked up the package that Ju Wentai had dropped with a pained expression and carefully wiped it with a silk handkerchief.

"Look, this is a top-quality ruby!"

"Now that the blood is stained and can't be washed off, its quality is greatly diminished, resulting in a loss of at least five hundred strings of cash!"

Li Shimin sat on a tiger-skin chair next to her, listening to the little girl do the accounting, and kept rolling his eyes.

The Tang Dynasty won a war that destroyed a nation, yet this group of people were completely focused on a few stones.

At this moment, Ju Wentai no longer resembled the overlord of the Western Regions at all.

Ignoring the excruciating pain of his severed arm, he gripped the carpet tightly with his remaining right hand.

Like a dying maggot, it desperately crawled toward Li Chengqian.

"Your Highness! Your Highness the Crown Prince of the Great Tang Dynasty, spare my life!"

"I know I was wrong! I was blinded by greed and shouldn't have detained the imperial merchant of the Tang Dynasty!"

He kowtowed frantically, his forehead slamming against the ground with loud thuds, his face covered in blood.

"The Gaochang Kingdom's treasury still holds piles of gold coins! Spices! Top-quality Akhal-Teke horses!"

Ju Wentai roared incoherently, his eyes filled with pleading.

"As long as Your Highness spares my life, Gaochang is willing to serve the Tang Dynasty like a slave for generations to come!"

Li Shimin snorted coldly and threw away the strip of cloth he was using to wipe his sword.

"To be treated like a beast of burden? You old codger, you're dreaming."

"You chickened out after just one shot from my cannon? Where did your arrogance go from on the city wall?"

Faced with Ju Wentai's tearful pleas for mercy, Li Chengqian leaned against the soft couch, not even sitting up straight.

He listlessly fiddled with a gold coin in his hand, his eyes devoid of even the slightest pity.

Keep him? Keep him for the New Year?

Within the territory of the Tang Dynasty, there is absolutely no need for such fickle, opportunistic opportunists.

"Drag him out and chop him up."

Li Chengqian yawned lazily, his tone as indifferent as if he were deciding what to eat for dinner.

"Their heads were hung on the shattered city gate tower as a sacrifice to the flag."

"The corpses were chopped up and thrown into the Gobi Desert to feed the wolves of the Western Regions."

A hammer is fixed.

They didn't even bother with the formalities of interrogation.

Ju Wentai's eyes widened suddenly, and he screamed in terror.

"No—! You can't kill me! I am the King of Gaochang..."

"Shut your stinking mouth!"

Xu Xiao's withered, bony hands gripped his neck tightly like iron clamps.

The piercing screams abruptly stopped.

This butcher steward dragged Ju Wentai out of the tent without any effort, like a piece of trash.

The air inside the tent suddenly became quiet for a moment.

Li Chengqian finally sat up straight.

He walked slowly in his soft wool boots to the huge sand table depicting the terrain of the Western Regions in the center of the tent.

He picked up a long baton and casually tapped it on the small mound representing "Gaochang".

Then, he suddenly swung his wrist.

With a whoosh, the small mound of earth was instantly swept into a flat patch of ground.

"Brother, now that Gaochang has been captured, shouldn't we break camp and return to Chang'an?"

Li Ke asked tentatively, feeling that he had already accumulated enough merits in this battle.

"Back to the manor?"

Li Chengqian raised an eyebrow, as if he had heard a joke.

He pointed to the numerous small flags of various Western Regions kingdoms on the sand table and sneered.

"I've come all this way, enduring wind and sand, just to take down this wretched Gaochang?"

"Does the maintenance of the Shenji Battalion's cannons cost nothing? Does the food expense for an army of 100,000 cost nothing?"

Li Chengqian held the command pole and moved westward along the sand table.

With his movements, the command stick drew an extremely domineering deep mark on the sand table.

Kucha, Yanqi, Shule, Khotan...

Wherever the command pole passed, it was within the absolute range of the Tang army's advance.

"Now that the red-coated cannons have been brought out, there's no need to hide them anymore."

Li Chengqian's voice suddenly rose in pitch.

That youthful face revealed an extreme arrogance that looked down upon the world.

"Pass on the order to the isolated army! The main force is not allowed to rest!"

"Since we're going to fight, then let's wipe out all thirty-six kingdoms in the Western Regions!"

"Leave none behind, incorporate them all into the territory of the Tang Dynasty!"

"boom--!"

The entire central command tent was instantly ignited by these words.

Huo Qubing's eyes flashed with a sharp light, and his arrogant face was full of bloodthirsty fanaticism.

Chen Zhibao silently clenched the plum wine in his hand, his white robes fluttering even without wind.

Even Li Shimin was so excited that he suddenly stood up and smashed the low table in front of him with a slap.

This is the true spirit of a Celestial Empire!

Use cannons and steel to measure the boundless territory of the Tang Dynasty!

However, in this corner of boiling frenzy...

Gar Tongtsen Yulsung, the Tibetan Grand Minister who had just changed into a clean pair of trousers, was huddled in the shadows, trembling.

Smash the thirty-six kingdoms of the Western Regions?!

This eight-year-old crown prince of the Tang Dynasty is not human at all; he is a madman who eats people without spitting out the bones!

Once the entire Western Regions are completely under the control of the Tang Dynasty, the Tibetan Empire's proud northern defense line will be completely exposed to the Tang Dynasty's artillery!

We can't stay here!

We must immediately flee back to Lhasa overnight and tell King Songtsen Gampo this terrible news!

Lu Dongzan was covered in cold sweat, and his heart was pounding like a drum.

While all the generals were shouting enthusiastically at the sand table, he crouched down and slowly crept towards the tent flap.

One step, two steps.

My trembling fingers were about to touch the heavy felt curtain.

Just then.

"Great Minister, it's pitch black, where are you going?"

Li Chengqian's soft voice, like the coldest night wind from the Western Regions, drifted lightly from behind him.

Lu Dongzan froze, cold sweat instantly soaking through the back of his clothes.

He turned his head in terror.

He met Li Chengqian's unfathomable, enigmatic eyes, which seemed to be both smiling and not smiling.

"The show is about to get even more exciting. Are you going to leave without even watching? Are you looking down on me?"