Chapter 898: Gao Jiong uses a poisonous scheme to cut off the retreat; Qifugu angrily beheads the envoy

Qifugu leaned down from the gilded saddle, braced both hands on the low table, and his gaze fell on the sheepskin map.

The map was drawn sloppily but lacked no key information. Tuoba Lie's route from the Royal Court was marked with a black line, and three supply points along the way were crossed out with 'X's, meaning these three supply points had been abandoned or sealed and no longer provided grain or grass.

Gao Jiong's index finger pointed at Tuoba Lie's current station on the map.

"Tuoba Lie has one thousand elite cavalry, only brought three days' rations, and no follow-up supplies. He didn't intend to wear the Great Khan down at all; his plan was to use the Royal Court's prestige to scare the Great Khan into kneeling, and then return with the cattle and horses within three days to report."

Qifugu's fingers rubbed on the position of Tuoba Lie's station on the map, and his fingernails scraped a shallow mark on the paper surface.

"Three days' rations?"

Gao Jiong withdrew his hand from the map, retreated half a step, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Three days' rations means he cannot afford to retreat, nor can he afford to drag it out. Once the Great Khan does not kneel or pay, he will either have to bite the bullet and fight, or return hungry and empty-handed to report to Nuhe Ti why he came back empty-handed."

Qifugu's gaze lifted from the map and landed on Gao Jiong's face.

"What if he chooses to fight?"

Gao Jiong's mouth twitched.

"He will definitely choose to fight."

The eyes of all the leaders in the tent were focused on Gao Jiong, and even Bayar, who had been shrinking back just now, craned his neck.

Gao Jiong walked from beside the low table to Qifugu's side, bent down, and his finger landed on a position marked at the end of the black line on the map.

"Tuoba Lie is currently stationed thirty li due north of the Great Khan's camp. If he wants to attack, the cavalry must advance from the north, and there are only two roads between the north and the Great Khan's camp that can accommodate a large force."

His fingertip slid to the first road.

"The eastern detour is too far, adding half a day's journey. With Tuoba Lie's rash temperament, he won't choose it."

His fingertip moved to the second road.

"He will only take the western road, passing through Stone Valley."

Qifugu stared at the position pressed by Gao Jiong's fingertip, his lips moving.

"I know Stone Valley; two cliffs sandwiching a narrow path, the bottom is full of gravel, horses can't run once they get in."

Gao Jiong straightened up, a smile appearing on his face, which looked cold in the dim firelight in the tent, as if it had been dug out of a tomb.

"If the horses can't run, the Royal Court elite's iron armor is just a pile of scrap metal shells. Heavy cavalry that can't charge is not as good as a dead dog tied with a chain."

Qifugu tapped his fingers on the hilt of his horizontal saber twice.

"You want me to ambush him in Stone Valley?"

Gao Jiong did not answer this question directly. He turned from beside the low table to the middle of the tent, facing all the leaders.

"This official will say one other thing clearly to the Great Khan first."

His gaze swept across the faces of everyone in the tent from left to right, finally stopping on Qifugu.

"Has the Great Khan ever thought that whether we fight or not today, Nuhe Ti has already treated the Great Khan as a nail to be pulled out?"

Qifugu didn't make a sound.

Gao Jiong took another slip of paper from his bosom, much smaller than the map, only two fingers wide, with a few lines written on it.

"This is news intercepted by the Mingjing Si the day before yesterday. Before Tuoba Lie set out, his deputy general Tie Muzhen let something slip while drinking with a centurion of the Royal Court."

He handed the slip of paper to Qifugu.

"Tie Muzhen said that this time they not only want livestock, but Tuoba Lie also brought a secret order: if Qifugu does not kneel to receive the golden arrow, kill him on the spot and take his head back to claim credit."

Qifugu's hand grabbed the slip of paper; the characters on it were crooked, like a sloppy script written in haste.

"Take my head back to claim credit?"

Gao Jiong nodded.

"The Great Khan should understand that Nuhe Ti never intended to give you any room for choice. Whether you pay taxes or not, your life in his eyes was already destined to be taken back; the only difference is whether he takes it today or tomorrow."

Qifugu's hand clutching the slip of paper was trembling—not from fear, but from rage.

That rage surged from his chest to the top of his head, making the blood vessels at his temples jump.

The faces of the old leaders on the right side of the tent all changed color. Bayar's lips trembled, and the words "Great Khan, think twice" that had reached his lips were swallowed back down.

Gao Jiong uncrossed his arms, walked to Qifugu, and lowered his voice.

"Great Khan, this official will put it plainly: as long as the Great Khan dares to fight this battle, Great Zhou's next batch of weapons and winter provisions will be sent out from Xiazhou within ten days, three times more than this time."

Qifugu threw the slip of paper onto the low table, stood up abruptly from the gilded saddle, drew his horizontal saber, and the blade drew an arc in the tent, chopping down in the middle of the low table.

The solid wood low table split into two halves from the blade, and the map, wine bowls, and bone scraps on the table all fell to the ground with a clatter.

"Fight! I will fight that old bastard Nuhe Ti to the death!"

Amu Ri was the first to kneel down.

"Great Khan is wise! The brothers have been waiting for these words for how many days!"

The young faction on the left all knelt down with a 'whoosh'.

Bayar and Tarhan on the right looked at each other. They wanted to say something, but their feet didn't dare to move forward.

Qifugu's eyeballs turned and nailed onto the two of them, and the blade with wood shavings from the low table pointed toward them.

"You two, do you still have anything to say?"

Bayar's knees softened, and he knelt on the ground with a 'thump'.

"Great Khan, forgive me, this old man was confused for a moment, I will listen to everything the Great Khan says."

Tarhan's mouth opened, and the old leader named Hurile behind him tugged at his sleeve, giving him a desperate wink.

Tarhan did not kneel.

"Great Khan, this old man still says that the Royal Court's foundation is not something we can compare to. Great Khan, you can fight if you want, but at least let this old man take people to retreat to the south first..."

He didn't finish his sentence.

Qifugu's horizontal saber had already slashed from his words—not at Tarhan, but at the old leader named Hurile behind him.

Hurile didn't even have a chance to react. The horizontal saber slashed diagonally from his left shoulder to his right waist, and a line of blood exploded in mid-air, splashing warm blood beads onto everyone's faces and clothes nearby.

Hurile's body stood in place for the duration of a breath before falling backward. The muffled sound of him hitting the carpet made everyone's bodies in the tent tremble.

Tarhan's legs softened as if the bones had been pulled out, and he knelt beside the pool of blood, trembling like a sieve.

"Drag him out." Qifugu's horizontal saber was still dripping blood, and he didn't even glance at the corpse on the ground.

Two personal guards rushed in and dragged Hurile's corpse out, leaving a three-foot-long bloodstain on the carpet.

Qifugu's gaze swept from Tarhan's face to Bayar's face, and the tip of the blade pointed to the ground.

"Who else wants to retreat to the south?"

There was a deathly silence in the tent.

Qifugu wiped the blood on the horizontal saber on his thigh robe twice and sheathed it.

"Pass the order: all men in the camp who can hold a saber are to gather at the northern slope within an hour. Amu Ri will take three thousand men first, and this Khan will follow."

Amu Ri jumped up from the ground and rushed out of the tent flap like a wisp of smoke.

The remaining people in the tent filed out, not a single person saying another word. When passing the bloodstain on the ground, everyone took a big detour, as if afraid that the blood would stain the soles of their boots.

Only Qifugu and Gao Jiong remained in the tent.

Qifugu's rage hadn't completely faded, the heaving of his chest stretching the gold thread at his collar tightly. He turned to look at Gao Jiong standing in the shadows of the tent.

"Lord Gao, what happens after this battle is fought?"

Gao Jiong was chewing on a piece of new dried meat, chewing twice before answering.

"After it's fought, Nuhe Ti will truly know that the Great Khan is not a paper tiger."

Qifugu stared at him for three breaths, didn't pursue the question, lifted the flap, and went out.

Gao Jiong stood in the tent for a while, chewed and swallowed the dried meat in his mouth, looked down at the bloodstain still seeping on the carpet, and touched the edge of the bloodstain with his boot tip.

Songqi squeezed in from outside the tent flap, his face pale.

"Boss, he just chopped that old man with one saber, without even blinking."

Gao Jiong stepped over the bloodstain and walked to the tent flap.

"What should be feared is not this; what should be feared is that look he gave this official after chopping the man."

Songqi followed him out.

"What do you mean?"

Gao Jiong didn't look back.

"The thing in that look is not trust, it is hunger. He is looking at how much longer this official can feed him."

The camp outside was already boiling, filled with shouting, horse neighing, and the clashing of weapons. More than three thousand men surged from various tent areas toward the northern slope, like a group of black ants that had smelled blood.

Gao Jiong and Songqi led their horses to avoid the densest flow of people and circled to the southernmost edge of the camp.

Just as they reached the vicinity of their tent, the sound of horse hooves and a high-pitched scolding came from the direction of the camp's outskirts.

A cavalryman wearing Royal Court armor rushed over from the north, followed by two guards. The three horses were stopped by Qifu tribe's patrol soldiers at the edge of the camp.

The cavalryman in Royal Court armor shouted loudly on his horse.

"Lord Tuoba urges the Qifu tribe leader to leave the camp immediately to receive the decree! If you don't come out, his lordship's saber won't recognize anyone!"

The news quickly reached the ears of Qifugu, who was rushing to the northern slope.

Qifugu stopped in the crowd and turned to walk two steps toward the personal guard who brought the message.

"Bring the person to this Khan."

The Royal Court envoy was pushed and shoved by five or six Qifu tribe soldiers to Qifugu. The three were pushed into the mud half a knee deep. The Royal Court envoy was still struggling and calling out with his neck raised.

"Release this envoy! This envoy is a personal attendant of Lord Tuoba, acting on behalf of the Royal Court. You group of rebels..."

His gaze swept over the man wearing the silver leather crown in front of him, and the words in his mouth suddenly changed tone, changing from shouting to pointing at Qifugu's nose and cursing.

"Qifugu! You ungrateful rebel! The Great Khan has raised you for many years, and you dare to self-proclaim as Khan and raise the rebel flag! Lord Tuoba said, if you don't kneel out of the camp within an hour, his lordship will come personally to take your dog head!"

Qifugu stood there, the hilt of his horizontal saber being squeezed with hand sweat in his palm. He looked at this envoy, whose attitude was arrogant to the bone, for five breaths.

Then he drew his saber.

No nonsense, no response, no hesitation.

The drawing of the horizontal saber to the falling took only one movement. The blade slashed diagonally from behind the envoy's neck, and a head with a neck stub still spraying blood rolled off his shoulders, landed in the mud, turned twice, and stopped face up. The mouth still maintained the wide-open shape from when he was cursing.

Warm blood sprayed half of Qifugu's body, from his face to his chest to the blade of the horizontal saber, all covered in blood. The white wolf-head flag behind him was stained into shocking mottled spots by the splashing blood.

"Put the head in a box and send it back to Tuoba Lie."

Qifugu shook the blood off the horizontal saber onto the mud and turned to continue walking toward the northern slope.

The Qifu tribe soldiers around looked at the head on the ground that was still staring with wide eyes. They were silent for two breaths, and then erupted into a roar fiercer than a wolf's howl.

Gao Jiong retreated into the shadows between the tents on the south side of the camp, watching the scene from a hundred paces away, chewing the dried meat in his mouth.

Songqi stood beside him, his face whiter than the white frost on the tent roof.

Gao Jiong swallowed the dried meat in his mouth, turned, and walked into his tent. Before the tent flap fell, the smile on his mouth was still hanging there.

"It's settled."

The tent flap closed.

And on the wilderness thirty li outside the camp, Tuoba Lie was sitting on a flat stone sharpening his ancestral curved saber. The blade had gone back and forth on the whetstone dozens of times and was already bright enough to reflect a person's shadow.

A horse rushed over from the direction of the Qifu tribe's camp. The cavalryman on the horse was not one of the three who left; only one returned, and a palm-sized wooden box was tied to the horse's back.

Tie Muzhen, the deputy general sent by Ba Dou, untied the wooden box from the horse's back and brought it to Tuoba Lie.

"My lord, the Qifu tribe's reply."

Tuoba Lie lifted the curved saber from the whetstone and tested the edge with his thumb, cutting out a line of blood beads. He didn't even look at the blood beads, picked up the lid of the wooden box, and lifted it.

The head in the box had already started to turn gray. The half-open eyeballs were like two turbid glass balls under the noon sun, and the mouth was still wide open, with half-coagulated black blood on the teeth.

Tuoba Lie looked at the head for three breaths, then threw the wooden box away fiercely. The box fell on the gravel ten steps away and popped open. The head rolled out of it, knocked twice on the gravel, and stopped.

"This bastard."

Tuoba Lie stood up from the flat stone, spun the curved saber in his hand, and pointed the blade toward the direction of the Qifu tribe's camp.

"Tie Muzhen."

"Subordinate is here."

"Pass the order: all troops mount, trample the Qifu tribe within an hour."

Tie Muzhen's lips moved.

"My lord, should we send scouts to probe the enemy's reality first..."

Tuoba Lie kicked over the whetstone in front of him, and the stone rolled twice and hit the tip of Tie Muzhen's boot.

"Probe what? A group of shepherd slaves, even if they are given iron armor, are just ants wearing shells. This general will lead one thousand Royal Court elite cavalry to trample them; they won't even have a chance to fight back!"

Tie Muzhen swallowed the words at the edge of his mouth, cupped his hands, and retreated.

One thousand elite cavalry completed their formation within a quarter of an hour. The sound of iron armor colliding gathered into a torrent of metal on the wilderness. Tuoba Lie rode on the black horse at the very front, which was wearing half-body horse armor, and held his curved saber high above his head.

"Charge!"

One thousand warhorses exerted force at the same time, the sound of hooves exploding on the ground like muffled thunder. Gravel and mud were splashed up, and a black torrent of steel rolled toward the direction of the Qifu tribe's camp.

He did not know that on the road thirty li ahead, a narrow path called Stone Valley was opening its mouth. ===== CHAPTER 899 =====