Chapter 473

The people the Great King sent to find the court of the bald-headed Xianbei were quick; originally they hadn't even left the other side's territory.

The chief of the Bald Xianbei felt a bad premonition upon hearing that the Northern Border envoy had come again.

"Northern Border people came again? What they wanted wasn't already sent?!"

"The aide beside him asked, 'Could it be that they truly intend to march on the royal court after refusing to withdraw their troops?'"

"The subordinate who came to report said he didn't know, only that the newly arrived envoy wore a full set of silver armor, unlike the previous envoy who came to demand tribute."

Upon hearing the decree conveyed by the Snow Riders from the Great King, the chief almost choked on his anger.

"I've never seen the Central Plains be this shameless before!"

"What the hell is this?! The Northern Border King personally came to demand tribute, yet the Five Thousand of Hu Ye dared to assassinate him—and even failed!"

He stared at the cold glint of the silver armor, then after a long while spoke: "Does the Northern Border King's action not lose face? On one hand he says tribute preserves border peace, on the other he leads troops to loot the Xianbei tribes… The Hu Ye are also acting impulsively."

The Snow Riders suppressed their anger and directly challenged: "Have you lot been raiding, burning, killing, and plundering the Northern Border these years? The agreed tribute—if the Bald Xianbei say they'll renege, they renege; for His Highness to come personally is an honor for the Bald Xianbei. Our Highness has killed no civilians or surrendered soldiers, yet you lot have indiscriminately slaughtered Northern Border border-town civilians these years! In the Tuoba tribe we even found many Youzhou people captured and enslaved. If the chief speaks of dignity, then our Northern Border is even more dignified!"

His face fell, but the Xianbei eased their expression—after all, the money had been paid, and further offending the Northern Border would be a loss not worth the gain.

The chief again asked whether the Northern Border King's 'shock‑compensation fee' could be waived, not knowing how large a sum it was.

"This cannot be waived. When the Xiongnu's Third Prince Lian Xiceng assassinated His Highness, the Xiongnu paid two million taels of silver as apology; the Bald Xianbei will follow the Xiongnu's amount. His Highness's decree states that if the payment is not seen within three months, troops will continue to be stationed at the border to claim compensation—this is the formal notice."

After the Snow Riders' people left, the royal tent was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. After a while someone finally couldn't take it anymore: "The Northern Border King is trying to drive us to death; we might as well ally with the other tribes and the Xiongnu, muster troops, and march south to fight them!"

"The Xiongnu just gave a huge sum of silver—will they join us?"

"The Eastern Xianbei paid tribute right away; even fawning over Youzhou isn't enough, they simply won't send troops."

The chief finally calmed down: "How do we fight? Can we win? If we don't pay, the Bald Xianbei might vanish entirely; if we do pay, we won't be able to recover for the next ten years."

With a sigh, he still couldn't fathom why a principality like the Northern Border, with an environment similar to the Xianbei's, could rise so quickly.

Wei Shen also asked; the Bald Xianbei are just a bit larger in territory than the Eastern and Western Xianbei, and after just scraping together the tribute, could they possibly come up with two million taels?

The Great King was quite honest: "It just depends on whether you have the reserves; if not, that's fine—I will accept part of it on credit, but giving nothing at all is absolutely out of the question. I can dote on the people of the Great Jin, but the Bald Xianbei don't have that much face."

Wei Shen: …

The sincere, unpretentious Great King thought he could immediately return to Youzhou to stockpile grain urgently; seeing the border line in sight, that night while encamping he told Wei Shen they should first go out to sea to plunder the ocean, giving him a sense of impending storm.

That night, asleep until midnight, he suddenly heard a familiar buzzing sound in his dream, and the Great King jolted awake, sitting up.

"Something's happened in Youzhou!"

Bai Ze, Zhe Tian, and Wei Shen, who shared his tent, all woke up.

"Had a nightmare?"

The Great King gasped twice, recalling that Youzhou was no longer as fragile as before; he still had the Owl Riders and thirty thousand cavalry stationed there.

The Great King slowly withdrew his panic: '…It was just a dream.'

Wei Shen lay back down, speechless; the Great King hastily opened his interface, and sure enough a large red exclamation‑mark warning appeared again on the home page.

【Warning! Warning! Warning! A large army is moving toward the Northern Border, with only two hundred meters left before entering the Northern Border map—please, my lord, prepare your defenses! Do not forget the lord‑of‑the‑city's heart; if the city falls, the people perish.】

The Great King: …Speechless. You only mention the two hundred meters now, and you don't even mark which province—my lord's domain is huge these days.

The Great King hastily pulled up all five maps, took a look, but couldn't see where this army was invading from, so he had no choice but to wait patiently. Two hundred meters—it'll be there soon.

While waiting, he wondered if it couldn't be a Xiongnu night raid.

He opened the full topographic map of Liangzhou, began staring at the northern border line. Incidentally, he checked Shuofang Pass: the Xiongnu had already paid tribute, General Li had withdrawn back to Shuofang Pass, and he could still see the sentinels standing guard on the gate‑wall.

The money's already been paid—there's no reason they'd turn back and cause trouble now, is there? That wouldn't make the payment for nothing, would it?!

"Shouldn't the two hundred meters have been reached by now?" he wondered, having already crawled there—could they have set up camp?

The Great King was anxious as fire, while Liangzhou lay utterly silent.

When the Great King, face full of confusion, released the Liangzhou map, he noticed the red light of the warning box flashing at the edge of the Youzhou map—he realized, it really was Youzhou!

Opening the most familiar full topographic map of Youzhou, he quickly spotted the target: it wasn't the two relatively nearby Xianbei groups that were sufficient; the great army came from the south.

I don't know which clever detour avoided Luoshui Pass, skirting the coastline silently to reach the sea, then entering Youzhou from Fuyang Commandery.

The Great King zoomed in, speechless: upon looking, the regular troops inside Youzhou were few, while the vanguard camp at the front actually consisted of twenty‑to‑thirty thousand refugees.

Who could have lured them with grain from the disaster zone, I wonder?

You ask how the Great King can tell—these people wear no armor, not even rattan armor; under the moonlight their silhouettes are thin and frail, nothing like regular troops.

Youzhou was originally vast and sparsely populated; between Youzhou and Fuyang there are no major counties, just a windswept wasteland ravaged by sea breezes. It's said that crops grown near the coast are mediocre, so after expanding his domain the Great King never bothered to reclaim the seaside, still hoping Youzhou would develop into a super‑city to expand outward—building houses by the sea would also be nice.

Now it's come to this—on this open expanse the invaders have been here a while with no one in sight, and he never expected that in the end it would be the Great Jin who first attacked Youzhou.

The Great King sighed, with no time to think further, he stepped out of the tent to summon Zhu Ti.

Furious! Struck again at home.