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

"Rumble—rumble—"

The sound grew closer and closer, like a thousand troops beating drums in the clouds, or like the entire snow-capped mountain roaring angrily.

The people of Lhasa emerged in terror from their low mud-brick houses, clutching tsampa and prayer wheels. They stared blankly at the mountain pass to the north, wondering if it was an earthquake or the wrath of the mountain god.

However, when the first crimson dragon flag embroidered with a huge "Tang" character pierced through the breathtakingly blue sky of the plateau and appeared at the edge of everyone's sight...

The entire city of Lhasa fell into a deathly silence in an instant.

Immediately following was a torrent of black steel that surged in like a tidal wave.

Ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand... a full 150,000 elite troops of the Tang Dynasty!

They didn't experience the slightest altitude sickness, and their breathing didn't even become rapid.

Everyone was wearing white clothes that looked extremely strange to the Tibetans, puffed up like steamed buns.

The clothes had a soft sheen in the sunlight, and they looked so warm that it made one envious.

What suffocated Songtsen Gampo the most was the hundred red-clad cannons being pulled by yak oxen in the very center of the procession.

Even from several miles away, the chilling killing intent emanating from the dark muzzle of the cannon was enough to instantly soak the back of this highland overlord.

"This is... the army of the Tang Dynasty?"

Songtsen Gampo stood on the highest terrace of the Red Mountain Palace, gripping the railing tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force.

His voice trembled, an incredulity that came from the depths of his being.

Although that old man Lu Dongzan spoke eloquently in his letter, talking about "heavenly thunder" and "divine punishment,"

But Songtsen Gampo always thought it was an exaggeration, a smokescreen by the Tang Dynasty.

But now, this overwhelming, well-equipped army, so vast it inspires despair, has truly stopped at his doorstep.

There wasn't even any smoke from cooking!

Songtsen Gampo held the telescope he had bought at a high price from a Persian merchant, his hands trembling as he looked through it.

The Tang soldiers were casually pulling out hard objects wrapped in oiled paper from their pockets, tearing them open and stuffing them into their mouths.

Some people even took those round tin cans, pried them open with bayonets, and found large chunks of braised pork dripping with oil inside!

"What are they eating? Don't they need to light a fire? Is it some kind of magic pill?"

Songtsen Gampo felt his worldview was collapsing.

These Tang soldiers don't seem to be here to fight at all; they seem to be here for a picnic and to take down a country on the side!

"Zanpu! We can't let them get any closer!"

Unable to bear the suffocating pressure any longer, a Tibetan general standing nearby drew his scimitar and roared.

"Our Tibetan warriors are the eagles of the plateau! Even with their superior equipment, no one can defeat us on horseback!"

"Give me three thousand cavalrymen; I'll go and break their formation!"

Before Songtsen Gampo could stop them, the general had already led a group of equally bloodthirsty Tibetan cavalrymen out of the city gate like a pack of mad wolves.

"For the glory of Tibet! Kill—!"

Three thousand iron cavalrymen kicked up clouds of dust and charged toward the Tang army's position with overwhelming momentum.

However, faced with this seemingly fierce charge...

Mo Ju, the commander of the Shenji Battalion at the forefront of the Tang army's position, didn't even lift his eyelids.

He simply waved the command flag in his hand lazily.

"First platoon of the Divine Machine Battalion, 400 paces from the enemy, prepare for three-stage attack."

"Splash—"

A thousand musketeers, dressed in down jackets and carrying extended rifled guns, raised their guns in unison.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The gunshots, like popping beans, sounded particularly crisp and piercing in the thin air of the plateau.

There's no need to aim; against this dense, queuing firing tactic, any charge in the era of cold weapons would be suicide.

Before the three thousand Tibetan cavalrymen could even get within two hundred paces of the Tang army, they were as if they had been ruthlessly harvested by an invisible scythe of death.

The cavalrymen in front, along with their horses, were riddled with bullets, fell to the ground screaming, and tripped up the cavalrymen behind them.

It was just two rounds of salvo.

Those three thousand proud highland cavalrymen were reduced to piles of steaming corpses and wailing wounded soldiers.

They didn't even touch a hair on the Tang army's head!

"This...this is impossible..."

The general was lucky to survive; he was only grazed on the arm by a stray bullet.

He slumped down amidst the pile of corpses, staring at the gun barrels still emitting white smoke in the distance, his eyes filled with desperate fear.

"Sorcery...this is Han Chinese sorcery!"

He no longer had the courage he had before. He threw down his scimitar and scrambled back home.

Songtsen Gampo was clearly visible on the city wall.

His legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, the scimitar that symbolized power rolling to the side.

It’s over.

It's completely over.

Natural barriers and archery skills are nothing but a joke in the face of the Tang Dynasty's revolutionary firepower.

If those one hundred red-coated cannons fired simultaneously...

Songtsen Gampo looked up at the magnificent Red Mountain Palace behind him.

He could almost see the palace, a symbol of Tibetan royal power, reduced to ruins by cannon fire.

"Order...the entire army...is forbidden from engaging in battle..."

Songtsen Gampo's voice was hoarse, like that of a frail old man.

"Prepare the white flag...prepare to surrender..."

He closed his eyes, and two streams of murky tears slid down his cheeks.

It's not that he didn't try hard enough, it's just that the enemy was too monstrous!

This battle is impossible to fight. Surrendering would mean losing half the battle, but at least it would save the people of Lhasa from being slaughtered.

However, just as Songtsen Gampo was desperately preparing to surrender, he...

Outside the city, on the Tang army's position, a strange thing happened that left him completely baffled.

"Report! Your Majesty! Look!"

A minister pointed outside the city and cried out in alarm.

"The Tang army...it seems the Tang army doesn't have those terrifying iron balls loaded!"

Songtsen Gampo suddenly opened his eyes and leaned over the railing to look down.

really!

Although the muzzles of the hundred red-coated cannons were still pointed at the Red Mountain Palace, the artillerymen next to them did not move the cannonballs.

Instead, in the open space right in the center of the position, a group of craftsmen dressed in brightly colored clothes were assembling something with clanging and banging.

That thing looked neither like a siege tower nor a catapult.

It looks more like a huge... wooden platform?

In the very center of that wooden platform, an extremely luxurious palanquin, pulled by two black and white iron-eating beasts, was slowly swaying over.

Li Chengqian was wrapped in a pure white fox fur down jacket and held a simple megaphone that the Mo family had just developed.

He leaned lazily against the soft couch, looking at the Tibetan king and his ministers on the city wall who looked as if they were facing a formidable enemy, and a wicked smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Hey—can you hear me, Songtsen Gampo upstairs?"

Li Chengqian's voice, amplified by loudspeakers, echoed across the vast plateau, making Songtsen Gampo's ears ring.

"Don't be nervous, I'm in a good mood today, I'm not here to fight."

"I've heard that you Tibetans are skilled in singing and dancing, so I've brought the best performing arts troupe from the Tang Dynasty to exchange ideas with you."

Li Chengqian snapped his fingers, and hundreds of Tang Dynasty musicians and dancers dressed in brightly colored dance dresses rushed out from behind him.

"Come, perform a show for the King, it's called—'Pure Land of Bliss'!"

A series of highly rhythmic and catchy drumbeats began.

On that huge wooden platform, hundreds of Tang Dynasty dancers began to sway wildly to the music.

Songtsen Gampo was completely dumbfounded.

What... what kind of approach is this?

Is this the legendary "courtesy before force" of the Tang Dynasty?

On the battlefield where two armies are facing each other and swords are about to be drawn, they actually set up a stage and started dancing?!

"This...this is outrageous! This is simply outrageous!"

Songtsen Gampo was so angry that he trembled all over, feeling that he had been humiliated like never before.

But within this humiliation lies a profound sense of powerlessness.

The fact that someone dares to dance in front of your house shows that they don't respect you at all!

If you dare to move even a little, it won't be dancing, it will be bombardment!

"Your Majesty, this dance...it's actually quite beautiful?"

A young minister standing nearby couldn't help but swallow hard and mutter something under his breath.

Songtsen Gampo glared at him fiercely, then turned to look at the young prince holding the megaphone.

He knew this was definitely not a simple dance.

There must be a conspiracy more terrifying than swords and spears hidden behind this!

Li Chengqian looked at the bewildered Tibetans on the city wall and laughed even harder.

"How was it, Your Majesty? Was the dance beautiful?"

"If it doesn't look good, I can have those hundred red-coated cannons provide you with a thousand-person ensemble accompaniment."