Chapter 773: Boundary Monument Asserts Authority, Slaughters Qi Dogs; Hot Porridge Aroma Wins the People

The Qi State cavalry commander, boasting the ferocious might of his five hundred Iron Armor cavalry on the wasteland, paid no heed at all to the rough, cold Qingshi Boundary Monument of Great Zhou.

He roughly tugged the sturdy rein made of rhinoceros hide in his hand, forcibly halting the tall warhorse that was extremely restless from smelling the strong scent of blood.

The horse's hooves hammered the yellow earth littered with ice shards, splashing clumps of foul, blood‑stained mud mixed with the refugees' blood, and the mud droplets flew directly onto the edge of the Da Zhou Boundary Monument that symbolized the sacred, inviolable territories of the two nations.

The commander's face, covered with flabby flesh, was packed with an oily, wildly exaggerated sneer; with one hand he raised high the sharp saber that was still dripping dark red blood down its blood groove.

The blade tip, only a few dozen steps away, pointed without reverence directly at Lu Ming, the Commander-in-Chief of Xiazhou, seated on a massive black warhorse like a black iron tower.

His coarse voice, driven insane by the slaughter, tore the night sky wilfully amid the howling cold wind.

"You Xiazhou watchdog, listen to this General, these pig‑dog scum are the treasonous fugitives appointed by my Qi Court."

He swaggered the saber in midair twice, generating a whistling, sharp gust of wind.

"This General orders you to immediately lay down those broken copper and rusted iron, and hand over the tens of thousands of the old, weak, sick and crippled to me one by one."

The Qi army commander hammered the back of his saber heavily against the Guardian Heart Mirror of fine steel on his chest, producing a deafening metallic clang.

"If you Great Zhou softies dare utter a single 'no', this General will today lead five hundred Iron Cavalry to flatten your broken pass, directly mobilize troops to spark a full‑scale war between the two nations, and lay waste to all life in Xiazhou."

Facing this unabashed, boundlessly arrogant war threat, Lu Ming's rough, brutal face showed not a hint of apprehension or cowardice toward such a grand scene.

In his twin, copper‑bell‑like massive eyes, he was too lazy even to don the last layer of hypocritical veneer that a commander uses for negotiation, and instead ripped open a merciless, blood‑thirsty, cruel grin.

Lu Ming, with his broad hand sheathed in thick cowhide gauntlets, slowly patted the sturdy neck of his massive black warhorse twice, soothing the horse's impending violent charge.

"Just because you Qi State dog‑rabble bring these few hundred rotten scallions, you dare to howl before my great army's formation, provoking a war."

His guttural, resonant voice, like a muffled thunder rolling in the Nine‑dark Underworld, reverberated back and forth across the hard Gobi, shaking the eardrums of the nearest Qi cavalrymen into a tingling numbness.

Lu Ming despised even a half‑sentence of idle chatter, and his right arm, as thick as a century‑old tree root, brazenly rose.

In midair he summoned a violent, wind‑ripping afterimage, slamming his sandbag‑sized fist downwards, issuing to the entire army the most uncompromising, no‑retreat execution order.

"For me, send all these Qi State rabble who dare thrust their hooves over the Boundary Monument straight to hell."

Accompanied by this command booming like thunder through the Xiazhou Border Army camp, thousands of Xiazhou elite clad in Xuan Tie Heavy Armor instantly performed a unified action.

A continuous, spine‑tingling cascade of metallic crossbow bolt firing erupted in that instant.

Thousands of modified armor‑piercing crossbows, refined by old blacksmiths of the Western Regions, spewed angry tongues of flame, and the sky filled with fine steel bolts that formed a black, death‑shrouding iron curtain that blocked the heavens.

Those bolts, roaring with a bone‑chilling, gut‑splitting howl that tore the air, met the biting north wind and ripped through the chaotic black night without hindrance.

Those ten‑plus Qi vanguard cavalry, overconfident in bravery and heedless of death, spurred their warhorses; the hooves had barely cleared the Da Zhou Qingshi Boundary Monument by half an inch, and they hadn't even formed the thought of raising a round shield to block.

Man and horse alike were, in the blink of an eye, pierced by the terrifyingly dense armor‑piercing bolt heads, turning them into Rousheng Ciwai.

The bolts' terrifying penetrative power easily tore through the Qi State leather armor they prized, mercilessly piercing their organs and fragile bones.

Warm fresh blood mixed with shattered organ fragments sprayed outward in midair like a miniature crimson rain, and the heavy corpses, like torn burlap sacks, fell one after another into the mud outside the Da Zhou Boundary Monument.

Such a brazen, tyrannical stance that offers no diplomatic reasoning and kills on the spot anyone who defies the rules smashed the Qi army commander's cowardly guts like a heavy hammer.

His eyes, bulging from extreme terror, stared fixedly at the hundreds of comrades' corpses on the ground that had perished within a few breaths, his Adam's apple laboriously bobbing up and down as he gulped the saliva produced by fear.

He lifted his head again to look at the line of Xiazhou Iron Cavalry behind the Boundary Monument, motionless like black reapers and preparing for a second round of bolt loading, their legs thrashing uncontrollably within the expensive stirrups.

The once‑arrogant Qi army commander, terrified, even forgot the harsh words he had prepared, recklessly turned his horse's head, not even bothering to pick up his saber that fell onto the snow.

He was like a bereaved dog whose spine had been broken, leading the remaining terrified Qi cavalry, tail between his legs, and fled in a wildly chaotic, desperate retreat toward the southern border of Qi State.

Those Qi refugees who had just escaped death, having crossed the Boundary Monument by hand and foot, now huddled densely on the cold yellow earth, trembling.

They watched the Great Zhou army, as ruthless as a divine force descending from heaven, and their numb, desperate minds instinctively felt they were moving from a wolf's den straight into a tiger's mouth.

Given the brutal temperament of such soldiers in chaotic times, Great Zhou commanders would surely, to avoid the hassle of shelter and provisions, exterminate these useless, starving bodies as if driving away livestock.

Several women cradling crying children had already closed their eyes in despair, awaiting the cold butcher's blade to fall upon their withered necks.

What followed completely upended the shattered worldview of these tens of thousands of refugees, plunging them into profound shock and disbelief.

With Lu Ming's steady hand motion, the Xiazhou Border Army uniformly and precisely sheathed their powerful crossbows and long spears onto their backs, relieving the suffocating offensive stance.

The army's formation split slowly to both sides like a stream, and hundreds of logistics troops from the rear tents of the main camp jointly pushed sturdy giant wooden carts forward into the Training Ground.

Each wooden cart bore a massive black‑iron cauldron large enough to hold two big fat pigs, with vigorous crackling charcoal fire burning beneath.

The cauldron simmered thick white rice porridge so dense a chopstick could be stuck in it, with large chunks of marbled meat glistening with tempting oil floating within.

When two soldiers together lifted the heavy wooden lid off the cauldron, an overwhelming, indecipherable aroma of meat and rice surged, riding the biting cold wind to swiftly spread across the entire wasteland.

This life‑warming fragrance, for these Qi refugees who had been gnawing on bark and loess for months, was more irresistibly lethal than any miracle sent down by the Eternal Blue Sky.

The crowd instantly erupted in a thunderous, densely packed frenzy of saliva‑swallowing sounds, every eye glued to the steaming iron cauldrons, unable to look away.

"Minister Chen Zhuguo's order is here, my Xiazhou Border Army will not kill unarmed civilians; all refugees who have crossed the Boundary Monument may line up to receive a bowl of hot porridge to warm their bodies."

A robust Xiazhou deputy commander stood atop a porridge cart, holding a rolled‑up iron horn, and shouted with a hoarse voice to the immobilized refugees, proclaiming a way to live.

The refugees hesitated briefly, but when a few bold half‑grown children shakily stepped forward and truly received the large coarse porcelain bowls of steaming meat porridge from the cold‑faced, warm‑hearted Xiazhou soldiers, the crowd's defense collapsed completely.

Tens of thousands of cornered refugees formed long queues, clutching the scorching porcelain bowls with frozen, blistered, purple hands, gulping down the delicious meal they had never tasted in their lives.

Even though the scalding porridge burned their cracked lips and tongues, not a single person was willing to stop the frantic eating.

That long‑missed feeling of fullness and the body's gradual warming became, in this ice‑bound wasteland, the most effective tear‑inducing weapon that shattered people's mental defenses.

Someone in the crowd tossed the empty bowl from their hand, and slammed both knees heavily onto the mud mixed with ice and snow.

Tens of thousands of Qi citizens who had eaten the life‑saving grain knelt en masse, a black tide flowing toward Xiazhou City.

Their foreheads, smeared with dust and blood, pounded the Great Zhou soil until heads burst with blood, unaware, and their harrowing, voice‑breaking cries and tears merged together.

Using the last of their strength, they shouted on the wilderness with heart‑rending cries, "Chen Zhuguo lives, ten thousand families become living Buddhas," a roar that even drowned out the howling white‑fur wind above.

Such Great Zhou soldiers not only spared the surrendering, but also generously provided porridge to protect the people, a divine act, was by no means accidental.

Under the chaotic incitement of the Mingjing Department spy that Gao Jiong had pre‑placed within Qi territory, this countless life‑saving benevolence grew invisible wings.

An unprecedented terrifying speed and penetrative power, in this hand‑invisible cold winter, rapidly spread throughout the oppressed northern border of Qi State.

This beacon of hope fully ignited the long‑dead, desperate hearts of Qi's lower‑class people, and directly sparked within the neighboring nation's territory a massive exodus tsunami of such scale that it could shake the very foundation of a nation.

Just as the outside roar proclaiming Chen Yan's fame was about to overturn the heavens, at the same moment, within the heavily fortified central courtyard of the Xiazhou General Command, the atmosphere had already become so heavy it seemed ready to drip water.

Xiazhou Deputy Governor Zhang Wenqian stood in the core Shufang lit by several vigorous dragons, bright as daylight, his hands tightly clutching the compiled refugee registry sent from all border passes by swift couriers.

His eyes, well‑versed in political calculations, swept over the long string of population figures that were skyrocketing in geometric multiples, and he seemed as if he had fallen into a bottomless ice cavern.

The face that had always been refined and composed instantly lost all its color, and a dense layer of cold sweat uncontrollably seeped from his forehead.

From his clenched jaw the tension gathered into droplets that fell to the floor, and the back of his heavy fox‑fur official robe, meant for keeping out the cold, had already been completely drenched by the cold sweat that had seeped out unnoticed.

Zhang Wenqian gasped heavily, his chest heaving violently, as he stared at the piles of documents on the desk that were almost stacked to the ceiling.