Chapter 86

Hong Chengchou stared in shock at the towering flames in the distance and demanded in a harsh voice

"What is happening in the west?!"

"Where are the scouts?!"

Just then, beneath Songshan City, several ragged scouts fought their way back to Songshan.

They had not yet entered the city.

When they suddenly tumbled from their horses and, facing the city wall, burst into loud weeping, saying

"Great Marshal, it is the reinforcements! The reinforcements of our Great Ming have arrived!"

"Prince Fu, Prince Shen, Prince Shu, Prince Chu, and Prince Lu have all perished in battle!"

"Those who died are all the imperial clansmen of our Great Ming!"

Hearing the wailing beneath the city wall,

Hong Chengchou on the city wall immediately felt the world spin.

When the expedition set out, the imperial clansmen were indeed waiting in the suburbs of the capital.

But Hong Chengchou never in his life imagined this battle would be fought so fiercely!

"Enter the city and report!"

Shortly after, under the gaze of the Ming army's Regional Commanders,

that scout, choking with emotion, looked at the crowd before him and said

"Earlier at Xingshan, the various Princes already engaged the Tatars."

"The lowest official rank in that army was Fengguo Zhongwei!"

"Great Marshal, these are all the Dragon Sons and Dragon Grandsons of the Taizu Emperor!"

"Even the Dragon Sons and Dragon Grandsons of the Taizu Emperor have been sent."

"If Liaodong cannot be reclaimed, how can we have the face to meet our ancestors..."

Inside the Marshal's residence.

All eight Regional Commanders had their eyes wide open, as if something were about to burst forth from them.

After the scout finished speaking,

Cao Bianjiao did not even look at Hong Chengchou; facing the crowd, he clasped his hands in a bow and said

"Everyone, I, Cao Bianjiao, fear I will not see the ancestors; I shall go ahead first. Those of you remaining in Songshan, do not forget to collect my body later."

Having spoken, Cao Bianjiao turned and walked toward the exit of the Marshal's residence.

The scout's cries from just now had already spread throughout Songshan City.

Outside the Marshal's residence, Ming army soldiers who had come to inquire had already gathered in large numbers.

Cao Bianjiao looked at these soldiers before him and finally lost his composure.

Choking with emotion, he looked at the soldiers and angrily cursed

"Damn it! More than a dozen Princes have died in battle; today, anyone with a pair of balls will go with me to fight to the death."

"I put my words here today: once we leave this Songshan City, I do not expect to return alive!"

One shichen later.

The gates of Songshan City swung wide open.

On the other side, the Personal Guard Fan Wencheng had sent to Xingshan had also hurriedly returned to Fan Wencheng's presence.

With a "clang,"

a large sack of tally tokens fell before Fan Wencheng.

At that moment, the Personal Guard before him already had his face filled with joy.

"Mr. Fan, they are all here."

Fan Wencheng had no patience to listen to the Personal Guard's nonsense.

He immediately stepped forward and opened the hemp sack.

"Fengguo Zhongwei... Zhenguo General... Fengguo General..."

Seeing this, Fan Wencheng suddenly raised his head, looking at those Personal Guards in disbelief and asking

"These, these are all imperial clansmen?!"

That Personal Guard, unable to contain his joy, clicked his tongue and said

"Mr. Fan, not a single commoner among them. This Ming army is all surnamed Zhu; this Zhu Emperor is determined to wipe out the Zhu family so they have no descendants!"

"With this battle, our Great Qing shall be immortalized in history."

The Personal Guard did not notice at all

that Fan Wencheng's expression before him had already twisted into sheer terror.

Fan Wencheng paid no heed to anything else.

Carrying the sack of tally tokens, he strode toward Huang Taiji's Dragon Tent.

Killing to this extent,

even if Huang Taiji were an idiot, he would have sensed something was wrong.

Previously, killing one or two Princes allowed the entire army to celebrate.

Now, only numbness remained.

And just at this moment,

Fan Wencheng, flustered and at a loss, carried the sack of tally tokens and rushed into the Dragon Tent, repeatedly saying

"Your Majesty, we can no longer kill!"

Fan Wencheng pulled out a series of waist tokens from his hand and, excitedly, pointed toward the distant canyon, saying,

"Your Majesty, these are all members of the Zhu family's imperial clan!"

When Huang Taiji clearly saw the waist tokens in Fan Wencheng's hand,

he immediately drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

At that moment, Fan Wencheng was pounding his chest and stamping his feet, looking at Huang Taiji and saying,

"I, your subject, calculated a thousand times, yet never expected that Emperor Zhu would dare such a desperate move!"

"Since ancient times, no fallen nation or broken house has met its end with such heroism."

"If our Great Qing were to slaughter this entire force to the last man, how would the people of the world view our Great Qing?!"

Fan Wencheng's words instantly awakened Huang Taiji.

Huang Taiji immediately raised his hand sharply and, shouting at the top of his voice, roared at Dorgon and others outside,

"Stop immediately!"

"Go and persuade them to surrender! Call back Ji'Erha Lang and the others ahead!"

"Without My Imperial Decree, no soldier among the troops is to kill anyone without authorization!"

The Eight Banners army, which had already gained the upper hand, immediately froze in place, stunned.

However, by this time, the Ming army had already been split by the Eight Banners into several small fragments.

Trapped in the canyon, they struggled desperately.

Huang Taiji changed into a set of armor, rushed out of the main camp, and rode his horse to the front lines between the two armies.

Looking at the several Ming soldiers surrounded by the Eight Banners before him, Huang Taiji gritted his teeth and sternly demanded,

"Why do you not surrender?"

Hearing Huang Taiji's words,

those few Ming soldiers exchanged smiles and immediately shouted loudly,

"I am the eighth-generation descendant of the Prince of Zhongshan, Wuning! How could I lower myself to surrender to the slaves?!"

"I, this Prince, am the Commandery Prince of Changyang of the Great Ming! Surrender to the slaves? A foolish dream!"

"Since the founding of the Kaiping Zhongwu Wang Fu by our ancestors, we have never had the habit of being Han traitors!"

"..."

Hearing these shouts of curses,

the Qing soldiers, who had previously looked ferocious and grotesque, also hesitated.

Especially the Han Eight Banners within the Qing army.

All of them stood frozen in place, at a loss.