Chapter 1238: Beauties, Prepare for the Emperor's Examination!

Scared?

Sima Yong turned his head and shot a vicious glare at Jialali. He was a soldier of the Great Shun's garrison forces — how could he possibly be scared?

He was just a bit on alert right now. On alert, got it?

Bang—

At that moment, another gunshot rang out!

Sima Yong's heart lurched again, and his alertness had him trembling slightly. Then he heard someone shouting: "There are people on the beach, a lot of people..."

It turned out the gunshots just now and before had been fired by the soldiers up ahead as a warning and to summon their comrades — the landing force was currently spread very thin and couldn't form a combined strength, so if they needed to prepare for battle, they had to concentrate their troops first.

Besides, it was still fairly dark, and in the pitch black no one knew which way to go, so someone had fired shots to call their comrades over.

There really were enemies!

Sima Yong's scalp went numb! But he still steeled himself and walked toward the enemy where the gunshots had come from — he was a "second-generation garrison soldier" who had been indoctrinated since childhood to fight for the Great Shun Heavenly Dynasty, and years of upbringing and education kicked in at the critical moment.

"No need to be scared, it's fine, this is India..." the foreigner Jialali was still laughing and joking, not caring in the slightest.

Sima Yong ignored him and simply strode forward, ready to meet the battle!

He hadn't walked long before he reached the beach, but the battle he'd been expecting never broke out. There were indeed people on the beach, and quite a few of them, but they weren't warriors of the Indian Timurid Empire — they were starving, half-naked Indian laborers.

In the lightening sky, Sima Yong could see that every one of them was very thin, clearly underfed, and they had no clothes either, just a pair of underpants, their bodies baked black by the sun. But these Indian laborers were bold enough — not the least bit afraid of the fully armed Great Shun heavenly soldiers, just staring blankly with wide eyes!

Several dozen Great Shun soldiers stood face to face with them, lined up in a row. A few of them were reloading, while the rest still held rifles with fixed bayonets.

The one leading them was a squad commander who recognized Sima Yong and the foreigner behind him, so he shouted at them: "Sima Yong, bring Old Jia over here, quick!"

Sima Yong hurriedly pulled Jialali along, breaking into a jog across the soft sand, saying as he ran: "Old Jia, those people look very poor. They must be Indian tenant farmers, right? Hurry and tell them that our Great Shun Emperor is benevolent, and has come to give them land and abolish the caste system!"

"Sure, sure!" Jialali agreed readily, but when they got there, he didn't speak nicely to those poor Indians at all. Instead, in the Oriya language, he said: "You fishermen, go quickly and fetch your zamindar masters or jagirdar masters, and the Brahmin masters too!

We are the invincible mighty army of the Great Shun Empire, and we have come to conquer India!"

It turned out that the place where Sima Yong and the others had landed was near a fishing village. Outside the village lived several untouchable families who did filthy work to make a living, but they weren't allowed to live inside the village, so they'd built thatched huts near the beach. They had already risen before dawn, preparing to work to atone for their sins — they had sinned in a past life, which was why they had been born as untouchables in this one, and they had to atone properly...

As a result, they had discovered many small boats surging onto the tidal flats as the tide rose, and they had also seen lights from oared sailing ships far out at sea. Thinking pirates had come, they hurried to notify the fishermen in the village.

The fishermen of Odisha were not afraid of pirates, because many pirates were themselves of fisherman origin — most pirates in the Bay of Bengal were led by Westerners and Arabian Muslims, who cared little about caste, and so would recruit from the Shudra fishermen. And there were always some Odisha fishermen who wanted to change their fate and were willing to take the risk!

So when they heard pirates had come, the fishermen all came out to watch the excitement, and perhaps some of them were thinking about changing jobs... but when they got closer, they realized this group of "pirates" was quite unusual. They looked similar to people from Burma, and Burmese pirates were rare!

While they were still standing there dumbfounded, Jialali had already announced the "invasion" to them in Oriya!

The moment the Shudra fishermen heard this news, they immediately turned and ran whooping toward the village, leaving only a few untouchables standing far off, looking somewhat numb, who did not leave.

"What's going on? What did you say to them?" the squad commander loudly asked Jialali.

"Sir," Jialali said, "there's nothing worth saying to these people. I told them to go fetch someone!"

"Fetch someone? Fetch whom?"

"The zamindars, jagirdars, and Brahmins, of course!"

Who were these three people?

The squad commander didn't understand, but he didn't press the question either. Instead, he began directing the Great Shun officers and soldiers who were coming ashore one after another to set up defensive positions.

Directly ahead of the beach was a grove of coconut trees, and to the right front was a fishing village!

The squad commander chose not to enter the village, but instead led his men to occupy the tree grove. Once inside the grove, they discovered that its depth was very shallow — only a bit over a hundred paces. Beyond the grove lay large stretches of farmland and a settlement that looked far more respectable than the fishing village. Inside the settlement were several fine, large houses — probably belonging to a landlord!

The landed Great Shun garrison troops did not immediately move to occupy the two villages. They simply held position inside the grove, protecting the landing zone behind them. They also raised a blue banner with the character "Roving" on the side of the grove facing the beach!

At the sight of this banner, more and more Great Shun soldiers gathered toward it, and the sampans that had delivered the first batch of soldiers now brought a second batch of landing troops. By this time the sky had brightened and the sea mist had dispersed, so the landing was organized better than the previous one.

Song Yaowen also waded ashore through the seawater with several battalion officers, then plunged straight into the grove — it was cooler in the trees, while the beach was scorching!

Several squad commanders who had landed before him came forward to report on the landing situation. Before the reports were even finished, several well-dressed fellows arrived on horseback, in sedan chairs, or on foot surrounded by a crowd of villagers.

Jialali had already sidled up to Song Yaowen and reported ingratiatingly: "Military Advisor, the zamindars, jagirdars, and Brahmins from the nearby villages have all come!"

Song Yaowen had been to India before, and had even stayed for a while, so of course he knew who these people were — they were all the local landlords of India!

But he wasn't about to start attacking the local tyrants the moment he came ashore, because he knew the truly big tyrants didn't live here. They were all in the provincial capital, Cuttack...

Song Yaowen nodded, then placed his hand on his saber, straightened his back, and his expression darkened. "Go bring them here!"

Before long, the Indian masters were all standing respectfully before Song Yaowen.

Song Yaowen said: "I am the Military Advisor of the Great Shun Governor-General's Office in Burma. By order of the Great Shun Imperial Grandson, I have come to India to deliver the common people and uphold justice for them. If you know what's good for you, you will submit at once, and then lead the Great Shun heavenly soldiers to Cuttack!"

After speaking, he said to Jialali: "Translate!"

Jialali bowed respectfully, then turned to the Indian masters and said: "The heavenly soldiers of the Great Shun from the East have come to India. They will defeat the Timurid dynasty and become the masters of India. If you're smart, you'll submit quickly, and you can continue to be zamindars, jagirdars, and Brahmins, collecting taxes for the Great Shun Empire! If you're not smart... heh heh, then go die!"

"We are all willing to submit!"

"We are willing to collect taxes for the Great Shun Empire..."

"May I ask how much tax the Great Shun Empire will collect?"

These Indian masters naturally submitted — collecting taxes for whoever was collecting taxes for whoever, wasn't it all the same? And whoever came was coming for taxes! Why else would they travel all this way? The only question now was how much tax the new invaders planned to collect. They'd better not collect more than Aurangzeb did, or else the income of these tax farmers would shrink!

For the Shudras below, how much the conquerors above collected made no difference — they were always hovering on the edge of starvation anyway. But for the tax farmers, the difference was huge! They could only hope the new invaders would be more merciful than the Timurid Empire...