Killing Monks

Upon reaching the city walls, they did not stop but immediately launched an attack.

Some of the defenders on the city wall were shooting arrows, some were throwing stones, and some were pouring boiling hot liquid down.

But their hands were trembling, their legs were trembling, and their hearts were trembling. As they trembled, the arrows went astray, the stones were thrown off course, and the molten gold was spilled on their own people.

The person on their own was scalded and screamed, but after a few cries, they stopped. They stopped screaming because they were dead. Once dead, there's no need to scream.

There was no need to shout anymore; it fell silent. In the silence, the shouts of battle could be heard from below the city. The shouts grew louder and louder, until they drowned out the wind, the rain, the thunder, and everything else that could make a sound.

So big that they couldn't even hold their knives anymore. They couldn't hold them anymore, and the knives fell. The knives fell, and the men ran away. The men ran away, and the city fell.

The capital has fallen.

It wasn't breached; it broke itself.

The garrison fled, the people hid, and the officials went into hiding.

The streets were deserted, with only the wind swirling fallen leaves from east to west, and from west to south, blowing back and forth, unable to find a place to settle down.

The palace was also destroyed.

Some of the imperial guards protected the emperor and fled, some ran away on their own, and some stood at the palace gate, holding swords, watching the Tang soldiers pouring in, motionless.

It's not that I'm not afraid, it's that I don't want to run anymore. I've run my whole life, but I can't run anymore. I can't run anymore, so I'll stand still. I'll stand still and wait to die. Death is also a kind of ending. Once it's over, I won't have to run anymore.

When the emperor fled, he only took a few dozen personal guards with him.

They went out through the back gate of the palace, crossed the imperial garden, climbed over a low wall, and jumped into a stinking ditch.

The stinking ditch was very deep, up to waist-deep, the water was black, and the smell was pungent, making it hard to open one's eyes.

The emperor covered his nose and walked half a mile through the stinking ditch before climbing out. When he finally emerged, he was soaked through, not with water, but with excrement and urine.

He squatted by the ditch, dry heaved a few times, but nothing came out. It wasn't that he didn't want to vomit, but that there was nothing to vomit. He hadn't eaten anything all day.

If I eat, there's nothing to vomit. If there's nothing to vomit, I can only dry heave. As I dry heave, tears start to fall.

It wasn't crying, it was vomiting.

The tears vomited out don't count as crying. Crying makes a sound, but he made no sound. Since there's no sound, it doesn't count as crying. If it doesn't count as crying, then he hasn't lost yet.

As long as you haven't lost, there's still a chance. With a chance, you can turn the tables. If you turn the tables, you're still the emperor. And the emperor doesn't have to squat by a stinking ditch.

The emperor sat on the throne in the Golden Palace, with delicacies laid out before him, beautiful concubines standing behind him, and a group of ministers kneeling below shouting "Long live the Emperor!"

That's what an emperor should be like.

He's not like that now. Now he's just a pathetic wretch covered in excrement, squatting by a ditch, dry heaving, weeping, not knowing where to go.

The Northern Zhou dynasty was destroyed.

It didn't go out gradually; it went out suddenly. Like a lamp, you watch it light up, light up, light up, and then suddenly it goes out.

Once it goes out, it will never light up again. Once it never lights up, it will be dark forever. Once it's dark, no one will remember that it was ever lit.

No one remembers it, and it's truly dead. Once dead, it's gone.

The remaining Northern Zhou army, supporting the fleeing emperor, wanted to escape north.

They ran north, to a place where there were still people loyal to the Northern Zhou, to a place where they could regroup and make a comeback.

But they couldn't outrun the Tang army. The Tang army was like a gust of wind, chasing after them from behind, flanking them from the side, and blocking them from the front.

The news of the sudden destruction of the Northern Zhou Dynasty was like a muffled thunderclap, exploding in the courts of various countries.

When the emperor of Wei received the war report, he was having a meal with his newly acquired concubine.

After reading the battle report, he dropped his silver chopsticks, which clattered and rolled a long way. The concubine bent down to pick them up, but he pushed her away.

He stood up, walked to the map, and stared at the small southern country marked "Tang" for a long time. He didn't believe it.

What is the Tang Dynasty? It's a barbarian land, a land of miasma, where people wear their hair loose and their robes fastened on the left, worship evil monks, and can't even muster a decent cavalry.

What about the Northern Zhou? The Northern Zhou had 100,000 iron cavalry, the Nine Dragons Martial Academy, and a foundation built over hundreds of years.

How could the Northern Zhou Dynasty, in its current state, be destroyed by the Tang Dynasty? Not defeated, but annihilated.

"Extinction" means uprooting completely, leaving not a single blade of grass behind, and signifying that from this day forward, the Northern Zhou dynasty will never exist again.

He turned around, looking at the ministers in the hall with their heads bowed, and his voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth: "Didn't you say that the Tang Dynasty was still embroiled in internal strife and unable to launch a northern expedition? Didn't you say that the Northern Zhou was impregnable and could hold out for at least three years?"

No one answered. The hall was as quiet as a tomb.

The emperor of Jin did not throw down his chopsticks, nor did he curse anyone.

He read the battle report once, then again, then folded it up and placed it under the inkstone.

He walked to the window, looked at the gray sky outside, and stood there for a long time.

The Liao emperor was the most decisive. He slammed the battle report on the table and said only two words: "Investigate thoroughly."

Therefore, the State of Wei sent spies, the State of Jin sent spies, and the State of Liao also sent spies.

Disguised as merchants, monks, beggars, and itinerant performers, they set off south with money and missions in hand.

The spy from Wei was named Zhou De. He was in his thirties, with a long, thin face and narrow eyes, and looked like a shrewd herbal medicine merchant.

He was driving a mule cart piled high with astragalus and codonopsis brought from the north, intending to travel around the territory of Tang to see what this country, which had destroyed Northern Zhou overnight, had become.

On his first day in the Tang Dynasty, he passed through a village.

At the entrance of the village stood a newly built house with a roof covered in blue tiles and whitewashed walls. A wooden plaque above the door read "School". He assumed it was a private school, so he parked his mule cart by the roadside and went over to take a look.

There were twenty or thirty children sitting in the school, of varying heights and builds. The oldest looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old, while the youngest had pigtails.

The same books were laid out in front of them; the covers were thin, the paper was rough, but every single one was identical.

This would be impossible in the State of Wei. In the private schools of Wei, children from wealthy families used white paper, while children from poor families used straw paper. Some children couldn't even afford paper and would draw on the ground with twigs.

The children here use the same books, and although their clothes are old, they are all clean and tidy; none of them are naked.

The teacher was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt, holding a thin bamboo stick in his hand, pointing to the words on the blackboard and reading them one by one.

The children repeated after them, their voices soft but in perfect unison. After they finished, the teacher asked, "What does this sentence mean?"

A thin boy raised his hand, stood up, and said, "People stand up because they have bones. If a bone breaks, a person can't stand up."

The man then asked, "How can the bones be kept intact?"

The boy thought for a moment and said, "I'll eat my fill." The man smiled, nodded, and told him to sit down.

He was driving a mule cart piled high with astragalus and codonopsis brought from the north, intending to travel around the territory of Tang to see what this country, which had destroyed Northern Zhou overnight, had become.

On his first day in the Tang Dynasty, he passed through a village.

At the entrance of the village stood a newly built house with a roof covered in blue tiles and whitewashed walls. A wooden plaque above the door read "School". He assumed it was a private school, so he parked his mule cart by the roadside and went over to take a look.

There were twenty or thirty children sitting in the school, of varying heights and builds. The oldest looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old, while the youngest had pigtails.

The same books were laid out in front of them; the covers were thin, the paper was rough, but every single one was identical.

This would be impossible in the State of Wei. In the private schools of Wei, children from wealthy families used white paper, while children from poor families used straw paper. Some children couldn't even afford paper and would draw on the ground with twigs.

The children here use the same books, and although their clothes are old, they are all clean and tidy; none of them are naked.

The teacher was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt, holding a thin bamboo stick in his hand, pointing to the words on the blackboard and reading them one by one.

The children repeated after them, their voices soft but in perfect unison. After they finished, the teacher asked, "What does this sentence mean?"

A thin boy raised his hand, stood up, and said, "People stand up because they have bones. If a bone breaks, a person can't stand up."

The man then asked, "How can the bones be kept intact?"

The boy thought for a moment and said, "I'll eat my fill." The man smiled, nodded, and told him to sit down.

Read the full text of Chapter 196, "Shocking," for free. Link:

He was driving a mule cart piled high with astragalus and codonopsis brought from the north, intending to travel around the territory of Tang to see what this country, which had destroyed Northern Zhou overnight, had become.

On his first day in the Tang Dynasty, he passed through a village.

At the entrance of the village stood a newly built house with a roof covered in blue tiles and whitewashed walls. A wooden plaque above the door read "School". He assumed it was a private school, so he parked his mule cart by the roadside and went over to take a look.

There were twenty or thirty children sitting in the school, of varying heights and builds. The oldest looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old, while the youngest had pigtails.

The same books were laid out in front of them; the covers were thin, the paper was rough, but every single one was identical.

This would be impossible in the State of Wei. In the private schools of Wei, children from wealthy families used white paper, while children from poor families used straw paper. Some children couldn't even afford paper and would draw on the ground with twigs.

The children here use the same books, and although their clothes are old, they are all clean and tidy; none of them are naked.

The teacher was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt, holding a thin bamboo stick in his hand, pointing to the words on the blackboard and reading them one by one.

The children repeated after them, their voices soft but in perfect unison. After they finished, the teacher asked, "What does this sentence mean?"

A thin boy raised his hand, stood up, and said, "People stand up because they have bones. If a bone breaks, a person can't stand up."

The man then asked, "How can the bones be kept intact?"

The boy thought for a moment and said, "I'll eat my fill." The man smiled, nodded, and told him to sit down.

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He was driving a mule cart piled high with astragalus and codonopsis brought from the north, intending to travel around the territory of Tang to see what this country, which had destroyed Northern Zhou overnight, had become.

On his first day in the Tang Dynasty, he passed through a village.

At the entrance of the village stood a newly built house with a roof covered in blue tiles and whitewashed walls. A wooden plaque above the door read "School". He assumed it was a private school, so he parked his mule cart by the roadside and went over to take a look.

There were twenty or thirty children sitting in the school, of varying heights and builds. The oldest looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old, while the youngest had pigtails.

The same books were laid out in front of them; the covers were thin, the paper was rough, but every single one was identical.

This would be impossible in the State of Wei. In the private schools of Wei, children from wealthy families used white paper, while children from poor families used straw paper. Some children couldn't even afford paper and would draw on the ground with twigs.

The children here use the same books, and although their clothes are old, they are all clean and tidy; none of them are naked.

The teacher was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt, holding a thin bamboo stick in his hand, pointing to the words on the blackboard and reading them one by one.

The children repeated after them, their voices soft but in perfect unison. After they finished, the teacher asked, "What does this sentence mean?"

A thin boy raised his hand, stood up, and said, "People stand up because they have bones. If a bone breaks, a person can't stand up."

The man then asked, "How can the bones be kept intact?"

The boy thought for a moment and said, "I'll eat my fill." The man smiled, nodded, and told him to sit down.

The spy from Wei was named Zhou De. He was in his thirties, with a long, thin face and narrow eyes, and looked like a shrewd herbal medicine merchant.

He was driving a mule cart piled high with astragalus and codonopsis brought from the north, intending to travel around the territory of Tang to see what this country, which had destroyed Northern Zhou overnight, had become.

On his first day in the Tang Dynasty, he passed through a village.

At the entrance of the village stood a newly built house with a roof covered in blue tiles and whitewashed walls. A wooden plaque above the door read "School". He assumed it was a private school, so he parked his mule cart by the roadside and went over to take a look.

There were twenty or thirty children sitting in the school, of varying heights and builds. The oldest looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old, while the youngest had pigtails.

The same books were laid out in front of them; the covers were thin, the paper was rough, but every single one was identical.

This would be impossible in the State of Wei. In the private schools of Wei, children from wealthy families used white paper, while children from poor families used straw paper. Some children couldn't even afford paper and would draw on the ground with twigs.

The children here use the same books, and although their clothes are old, they are all clean and tidy; none of them are naked.

The teacher was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt, holding a thin bamboo stick in his hand, pointing to the words on the blackboard and reading them one by one.

The children repeated after them, their voices soft but in perfect unison. After they finished, the teacher asked, "What does this sentence mean?"

A thin boy raised his hand, stood up, and said, "People stand up because they have bones. If a bone breaks, a person can't stand up."

The man then asked, "How can the bones be kept intact?"

The boy thought for a moment and said, "I'll eat my fill." The man smiled, nodded, and told him to sit down.