Chapter 826: Dogs jumping over walls to incite mutiny, iron cavalry pressing down to shatter the yellow millet dream

The sound of the bugle was still colliding back and forth in the night sky, causing the flags above the military camp to snap and flutter.

Chen Yan had only taken the third step down the stairs of the commander's tent when he saw the surge of firelight coming from the main road in the center of the camp.

Row upon row, patch upon patch, dense crowds of torches emerged from the tent areas on the east and north sides. Beneath the firelight were thousands of faces twisted by anger and fear, the spears and horizontal blades clutched in their hands shaking into a blinding orange-red steel forest in the firelight.

"Chen Yan wants to kill us all!"

A centurion with a full beard stood at the very front of the crowd, pointing his horizontal blade toward the commander's tent, his voice raised to a thunderous volume.

"Brothers, he arrested the commandant just to purge us old soldiers! Anyone who has followed the commandant for ten years won't be able to escape!"

The garrison soldiers behind him were burned red-eyed by these few words, their weapons clutched so tightly in their hands that they creaked, and their footsteps grew faster as they pressed toward the commander's tent.

Lu Ming's heavy armored infantry had already completed the encirclement outside the camp, five thousand long spears forming an iron wall under the moonlight, but the situation inside the camp was sliding toward an abyss of uncontrollability at an unstoppable speed.

Lu Ming rushed out of the commander's tent, his long spear thudding against the ground, and he slammed one knee onto the stone slab; the sound of armor plates colliding was like a bronze gong being struck.

"Pillar of State! This subordinate requests the order: have the five thousand heavy armored troops press in directly and hack all these rebels to pieces!"

His honest, broad face was filled with killing intent at this moment, and the veins on his temples were jumping like two living snakes.

Chen Yan stood on the high platform at the entrance of the commander's tent, his gaze slowly sweeping over the sea of torches that were surging closer and closer.

"Hack them all to pieces?"

His voice was not loud, but Lu Ming's spine tightened by three degrees upon hearing the tone of these two words.

"After you hack them to pieces, who will guard the western border of Xia Prefecture for this Duke tomorrow?"

Lu Ming's mouth opened, then closed again.

Chen Yan's fingers slowly traced an arc on the hilt of the horizontal blade at his waist, his gaze falling on the bearded centurion at the very front of the crowd who was screaming and inciting them.

"These soldiers are not rebels; they are fools being used as guns by others."

His voice dropped by half a level.

"Fools don't need to be killed; just kill the people holding the guns."

He turned his head and gestured toward the inside of the commander's tent.

"Drag He Lanhu and that bugler deputy general out."

Two Beiwei Death Guards walked out of the commander's tent, each dragging an iron chain; the other ends of the chains were tied to He Lanhu and the bugler deputy general respectively. The two men were dragged on the ground like two skinned dead sheep, the iron chains scraping out a trail of sparks on the stone slabs with a clatter.

Chen Yan stepped onto the high platform outside the commander's tent used for reviewing troops.

The firelight shone on him, and the outline of his dark-colored martial uniform was etched into a sharp black silhouette in the wind.

He reached out and took He Lanhu's iron chain from the Beiwei Death Guard, giving it a tug forward.

He Lanhu's body was pulled into a stagger for two steps; his shattered kneecaps made it impossible for him to stand straight, and he slumped crookedly on the edge of the high platform. That old face, covered in fat, revealed a nauseating gray defeat in the firelight.

Chen Yan did not look at him.

He first glanced at the deputy general who had been dragged to the other side of the high platform.

The deputy general was still struggling, shouting something unintelligible, with saliva and blood foam dripping from the corners of his mouth all over his face.

Chen Yan drew his horizontal blade.

The blade reflected a cold arc in the firelight, an arc that extended from the edge of the high platform all the way into the pupils of the garrison soldiers who were approaching below.

One strike.

The horizontal blade slashed diagonally down from the deputy general's nape, the force precise to a terrifying degree. The sound of the blade entering flesh was covered by the wind, but the crisp crack that came from the cervical vertebrae was clear enough to make the soldiers closest to the high platform shudder in unison.

The head rolled off.

It rolled two zhang away, knocking against the toe of a garrison soldier who was rushing forward holding a torch. Those dead eyes, widened to their limit, stared at the garrison soldier for a breath across the firelight.

The garrison soldier's torch fell from his hand.

The noise of the entire military camp seemed to have been split down the middle the moment that head hit the ground.

Chen Yan wiped the blood from the horizontal blade onto the pant leg at his thigh, pointing the blade toward the crowd below, which had slowed to a near standstill.

Then he turned around and took out the smuggling ledger that had been searched out from the blockhouse from his bosom.

He smashed the ledger onto He Lanhu's face.

It hit with great force, and the silk pages of the ledger scattered all over the ground, fluttering and falling onto the high platform, onto the stairs, with a few pages blown by the wind to the feet of the garrison soldiers closest to the platform.

"You think He Lanhu is protecting you?"

Chen Yan's voice reached a height rare even for him at this moment, the sound wave crushing out from the high platform and pouring into every corner of the military camp.

"He is drinking your blood!"

His finger pointed fiercely at the ledger scattered all over the ground.

"Look at what is written on this! The weapons you forged, the iron ore you dug out, all sold to the Qi people by him! How much was sold? Three hundred and seventy thousand catties of iron, twelve thousand weapons! What do the Qi people do with these blades and spears? They use them to hack your brothers! To kill your relatives you left behind in your hometowns in Qi!"

The garrison soldiers below picked up the silk pages of the ledger that had drifted to their feet, bringing their torches close to look; the numbers and signatures on every line of record were blindingly clear in the firelight.

The bearded centurion who had been screaming and inciting the mutiny also picked up a page. His eyes darted from left to right across the silk surface, and when he reached the last line, his fingers began to tremble.

He recognized He Lanhu's signature.

Having followed the man for ten years and looked at his signature for ten years, he would recognize it even if it were burned to ashes.

His horizontal blade slid from his hand, clattering twice on the ground.

"It's true..."

When his voice squeezed out from his throat, it carried a hoarseness of having been betrayed by the whole world.

"Commandant, did the commandant really sell the weapons to the Qi people?"

He Lanhu slumped on the high platform, his mouth opening twice, wanting to defend himself.

Lu Ming kicked his left kneecap.

The sound of bone shattering traveled more than ten zhang in the night wind.

He Lanhu let out a scream that tore his throat, his whole body sprawling on the high platform, both knees completely ruined, never to stand up again.

Chen Yan held the horizontal blade above his head, the blood residue on the blade glowing with a dark red light in the firelight.

"This Duke will only say one thing today!"

His gaze swept one by one across the group of garrison soldiers below who had already begun to waver.

"The chief culprit must be executed, those who blindly followed will not be investigated! This Duke has already sent people to raid He Lanhu's assets; as for how much gold and silver is inside, this Duke doesn't want a single coin, it will all be distributed to you! The military pay he embezzled over these years, the empty slots he ate, the soldiers' blood he drank, this Duke will make it up to you, not a single coin less!"

He withdrew the horizontal blade from above his head, thudding the tip against the ground.

"But if anyone still wants to rebel by following an old dog who colludes with the enemy and betrays the country, this Duke's five thousand heavy armored infantry are waiting outside!"

His chin lifted toward the direction of the camp perimeter.

"You can try and see whether your bones are harder, or this Duke's long spears are harder!"

The sound of iron armor colliding coming from the camp perimeter seemed to be a footnote to his words, a dull and rhythmic metal tide closing in from all directions, wrapping the entire military camp in a cold iron cage.

The thousand garrison soldiers below stared at each other for three breaths.

Then, the sound of weapons hitting the ground connected like rain.

The first to kneel was the bearded centurion; the dull thud of his knees hitting the mud triggered a large crowd behind him.

"The Pillar of State is wise!"

"The Pillar of State is wise!"

More than a thousand voices knelt down within ten breaths, the sound wave rolling out from the center of the camp, rushing past the iron armor blockade line, and into the wilderness deep in the night.

Chen Yan stood on the high platform, slowly sheathing the horizontal blade back into the scabbard at his waist.

His gaze withdrew from the kneeling garrison soldiers and fell on the low-level soldiers in the distance who were still watching from the tent entrances and had not participated in the mutiny.

There was no arc to the corners of his mouth.

Hongye stood on the side of the high platform, her short sword already returned to her sleeve. Her gaze lingered on Chen Yan's profile for a breath, then shifted to the garrison soldiers kneeling all over the ground.

Chen Yan walked down from the high platform.

When he passed by Lu Ming, his footsteps paused for a beat.

"Go, raid He Lanhu's assets immediately, and transport the goods back to Tongwan City before dawn tomorrow."

Lu Ming hammered his chest armor with a fist.

Chen Yan continued walking forward, his boot soles treading over the ledger silk pages scattered on the ground, walking into the night.

After his back disappeared into the shadows at the corner of the commander's tent, a sentence squeezed out from between his teeth that only Hongye could hear.

"Although these soldiers have been suppressed, their souls are empty."

His fingers tapped on the hilt of the blade at his waist.

"One He Lanhu could make them mutiny; what about the next one?"

Hongye followed half a step behind him, not responding.

But she heard something in Chen Yan's voice that was heavier than killing intent.

It was worry.