Chapter 643: Why Not Be a Ban Dingyuan for Once?

A fine book...

Yuezhou, called Baling in ancient times and later known as Yueyang, has been a key stronghold of the Chu region since the Spring and Autumn period.

To speak of Yueyang City, one must speak of Yueyang Tower, ever since the lines in Fan Zhongyan's Record of Yueyang Tower appeared: "To worry before all under Heaven worries, and to rejoice after all under Heaven rejoices," and "When high in court, worry for the people; when far off among rivers and lakes, worry for one's lord."

Because of the Record of Yueyang Tower, Yueyang Tower became renowned throughout the realm, and in one leap became the cultural emblem of the Hunan-Chu region.

After that, Yueyang Tower was burned down many times and rebuilt many times, and even became an emblem of Chinese culture itself.

And at this moment, Wang Yun, who served as Prefect of Yuezhou and Chief Commander of the Yisheng Naval Command of Yuezhou, was waiting for a guest.

This guest was none other than Zhang Shaodi, the former young lord of the Ma-Chu Tian Ce Mansion and Troop Commander of the Governor's Guard, who had long since sent word ahead and was due to arrive today.

Wang Yun was indeed holding out for the best price, because Yuezhou's geographical position was far too important, and the officers and men of the entire Yisheng Command were also hoping Wang Yun could use this advantage to sell them for a good price.

Moreover, Wang Yun did not limit their future to the Central Plains state of Zhou alone, otherwise he would not have let Gao Baoxu and the others leave, because Gao Baoxu and his party had to pass through Yuezhou first on their way to Ezhou.

This was also why He Jingzhu was in such a hurry to memorialize Li Jing: Wang Yun's posture made He Jingzhu feel there was a good chance of winning over this regional general of Ma-Chu, and then, with the help of Gao Baoxu and the others, taking Jiangling.

After repeated petitions and persuasion, Li Jing finally agreed to recruit Wang Yun, and offered to raise Yuezhou to a military province, making it the Yisheng Military Province of Yuezhou with a Military Governor.

Wang Yun was appointed Supreme General of the Dragon Cavalry Guard and Military Governor of the Yisheng Army of Yuezhou, enfeoffed as Duke of Xu, and granted an extraordinary reward of one thousand bolts of brocade, ten gold-and-jade ornamented belts, ten sets of robes, and five hundred silver ingots.

The Southern Tang court also prepared to add a two-thousand-man imperial guard force in Yuezhou, placed under Wang Yun's command, with its pay borne by the Southern Tang court.

Besides what was given to Wang Yun, Li Jing also released silk from the inner treasury worth eighty thousand strings of cash, to be used to reward all the soldiers of the Yisheng Command.

Once these terms were laid out, Wang Yun was instantly overjoyed, floating as if upon the ninth heaven, and had he not still wanted to wait and see the price offered by the Shaoming Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, Wang Yun would have agreed on the spot.

In the end, however, he discussed it with his yabing officers: in the current situation under Heaven, the Central Plains state of Zhou looked far more promising than the state of Tang, so much so that even the Lord of Tang had been forced to submit to the Shaoming Son of Heaven.

When clinging to a powerful thigh, one naturally clings to the thickest one, so Wang Yun decided that as long as the Shaoming Son of Heaven's reward reached seventy percent of the Lord of Tang's, and he was also given a military province post, allowing him to hold Yuezhou in perpetuity, then he would certainly still choose the Central Plains court.

While Wang Yun waited anxiously atop Yueyang Tower, Zhang Shaodi and Yang Jiye, along with a dozen or so elite soldiers, had already slipped into Yuezhou City.

The Brocade Guard had long since arranged to steer Gao Baoxu toward Ezhou, precisely in order to get a hold over the Southern Tang, frightening them into not daring to send their navy upstream, and naturally they also had to infiltrate Yuezhou along the way.

That they could reach a hand into Yuezhou across a thousand mountains and rivers was not entirely because the Brocade Guard was all-powerful, nor entirely because Zhang Liecheng, Zhang Lieming, and Li Xiaojie were exceptionally capable.

The greatest reason was that Zhang Zhao had carried out a certain degree of integration between the Brocade Guard and the Hexi Trading Company.

Ever since it came to hold the four hard currencies of spices, rock sugar, white sugar, and cotton, the Hexi Trading Company's fame had soared.

Because no one under Heaven, whoever they might be, could do without these four things if they wanted to live any sort of decent life.

If you eat meat without fragrant leaves, nutmeg, star anise, and other spices, make drinks without Hexi rock sugar and white sugar, and in winter have no padded jacket to wear and no padded quilt to cover yourself with, can you still be counted as a wealthy household?

But these goods were essentially monopolized by the Hexi Trading Company; merchants great and small all needed to register with the Hexi Trading Company, and many of the traveling merchants who roamed north and south were themselves merchants from Hexi.

At the same time, if silk, porcelain, tea, ironware, and other goods from various regions were to earn money via the Silk Road, they also had to beg the Hexi Trading Company for help.

Therefore, relying on this network, and using their power to wholesale a portion of Hexi's sought-after goods at low prices and to help merchants of various states pass through Hexi customs quickly, the Brocade Guard found it as easy as turning over a hand to develop resident agents and secret agents.

And the rulers of the various states found it hard to guard against this; after all, you cannot round up every single merchant, can you? If you did, everything would fall into chaos.

Accompanying Yang Jiye was a Brocade Guard captain, but he was not there to put Yang Jiye in contact with the Brocade Guard's secret agents in Yuezhou City, because the Brocade Guard's key secret agents all operated on single-line contact, recognizing tokens rather than people.

This Brocade Guard officer carried on his person the token that confirmed his identity, while Yang Jiye alone knew the method and location of contact.

All three elements were indispensable; only when all three parties were present would the Brocade Guard's secret agents in Yuezhou City obey Yang Jiye.

Yuezhou was in fact no longer quite like a fortress stronghold on the Yangtze, or rather, starting from Jiangling, all the strongholds downstream along the river had this same problem.

Since the economic center of gravity had begun shifting south, and the south saw little warfare, the Two Lakes region along the river gradually became densely populated, and with the convenience of water transport, it was very suited to developing a commodity economy.

As a result, large populations gathered outside the walls of the great cities of Jiangling, Yuezhou, Ezhou (Wuchang), Jiangzhou (Jiujiang), and others.

They built shacks outside the walls of these fortresses, and even clustered in dwellings much like those inside the cities; in Yuezhou, for example, in many places the city walls could no longer even be seen.

Moreover, for the convenience of leaving the city and evading taxes, the residents outside the walls had dug small tunnels in many places, and even brazenly opened small gates.

What Yang Jiye and his party used was just such a small gate, and the person who met Yang Jiye also greatly broadened his horizons: it was not, as he had imagined, a traveling merchant or some lowlife city rat, but soldiers under the command of Yuezhou's Agricultural Commissioner.

A Captain at their head openly led them into the office of Yuezhou's Agricultural Commissioner, and after both sides had verified the token carried by the Brocade Guard captain who had come with Yang Jiye, the true mastermind behind it all appeared.

Xu Songzhi, Agricultural Commissioner of Yuezhou under Ma-Chu, had already been pulled into the water by the Brocade Guard. Seeing this, Zhang Shaodi could not help but grimace from behind.

According to Ma-Chu state policy, because Hunan had many native barbarians, and in order to ensure that the Tian Ce Mansion could control the various regions, Ma-Chu had established Agricultural Commissioners in every prefecture.

The Agricultural Commissioners were responsible for recruiting refugees, able-bodied men of the prefectures and counties, and even criminals, to farm and hold the fertile lands of each prefecture.

It could be said that apart from Ma-Chu's imperial guards and the yabing guards of the various garrisons, the Agricultural Commissioners and their farming troops were the most important local force, and the key by which the Ma-Chu Tian Ce Mansion controlled the regions.

Yet the Agricultural Commissioner of a great prefecture like Yuezhou had been won over so easily.

Xu Songzhi did not yet know Zhang Shaodi, and after the group exchanged a few pleasantries, Xu Songzhi began to describe the situation in Yuezhou.

Zhang Shaodi, not knowing what to say, listened quietly at the side, and before long he understood in his heart why this had happened.

There was no special reason; it was still a matter of interests.

Wang Huan had been the absolute trusted confidant of Ma Yin, King Wumu and founding king of Ma-Chu. He had garrisoned Yuezhou for twenty years, defeated Wu-Tang six times and Jingnan twice, and enjoyed towering prestige throughout Yuezhou; the power of Yuezhou's naval and land yabing armies far exceeded that of other places.

Therefore, from the very beginning, the agricultural colonization of Yuezhou dispatched by the Tian Ce Mansion had been somewhat difficult to carry out. It was fine while Wang Huan was alive; he was a loyal subject with prestige, and could still keep his officers and men in check.

By the time of Wang Yun, he did not have the prestige of his father Wang Huan. In order to maintain the Wang family's power in Yuezhou, he could only gradually go from being the Chief Commander who controlled the Yisheng Command to being swept along by the yabing guards and yabing officers of the Yisheng Command, becoming the spokesman of this interest group, constantly pushed by them to divert benefits that originally belonged to the court into the hands of the Yisheng Command's officers and men.

Those who suffered most from this were, of course, Yuezhou's Agricultural Commissioner and farming troops; most of the fields they had painstakingly opened up were seized by the yabing guards and yabing officers of the Yisheng Command.

Many farming troops had even become serfs of the Yisheng Command's officers, and accordingly Xu Songzhi, as Agricultural Commissioner, was worse off than a squad general of the Yisheng Command, so of course he was easily won over by the Brocade Guard.

Zhang Shaodi sighed: this was truly a case of a tiger father begetting a dog of a son!

How heroic was Ma Yin, King Wumu and founding king! On his seventieth birthday, even the Khitan far away in the north had sent envoys to offer him birthday congratulations.

By the time of Ma Xifan, in just a dozen or so short years, Ma-Chu's Tian Ce Mansion, six-army system, and agricultural colonization system had completely decayed.

Yang Jiye, of course, could not share Zhang Shaodi's lament. The sixteen-year-old Yang Wudi could not yet understand the sorrow of a man in his forties like Zhang Shaodi; his mind turned to another question.

The navy of this Ma-Chu Yisheng Command had already swallowed up all the benefits of Yuezhou's one prefecture and six counties, and was plainly the local tyrant of Yuezhou. So did the court even need to recruit them?

This Wang Yun covered the sky with one hand in Yuezhou, wielding more power than an ordinary Military Governor, already not much different from an independent state. To recruit him, not to mention how much reward to give, at the very least they could not come to reduce his power, could they?

Thinking of this, Yang Jiye recalled the policies now implemented by his adoptive father, the Shaoming Son of Heaven. Even men like Yin Zhengqi, Ma Zhaoyuan, and Zhang Zhao, when sent out to the regions, no longer had the full authority of a Military Governor. Was a petty Wang Yun worth such a grant of power?

However, although he thought of these things, he did not show it, because Zhang Shaodi was still an unknown variable to him.

His adoptive father the Son of Heaven trusted him, true, but that was at the highest level. He, Yang Jiye, was the one carrying out the specifics, and he could not casually treat a newly surrendered man like Zhang Shaodi as a bosom friend to whom he could say anything.

"Commandant Xu, has any news come from Ezhou?"

So after listening to Xu Songzhi speak for a while about the situation in Yuezhou, Yang Jiye stood up and asked quietly.

"Yes! Yes!" Xu Songzhi answered repeatedly, then fished out a writing brush from his person. He first let Yang Jiye clearly see the mark of the Brocade Guard upon it, then broke the brush in front of him, to show that he had not opened it in private.

Yang Jiye drew from the brush's hollow shaft a small strip of silk covered in tiny characters, then frowned and began deciphering it.

This thing was written in Hanyu pinyin, so Yang Jiye not only had to sound it out, but also convert it into the standard speech of his own time, whose pronunciation was vastly different.

Because of the pronunciation habits involved, this was far harder than learning the Turkic or Khitan speech of the present day. Even someone like Yang Jiye, who as long as he stayed by Zhang Zhao's side would suddenly be required to converse in standard speech, found it somewhat obscure and hard to understand.

After roughly two quarters of an hour, Yang Jiye finished the full translation. Then he withdrew to the inner chamber and said to Zhang Shaodi and the Brocade Guard captain who had come along.

"The trouble is great. The Southern Tang ruler Li Jing has not only bestowed nearly a hundred thousand strings of cash in goods and wealth, but has also agreed to enfeoff Wang Yun as Military Governor of the Yisheng Army of Yuezhou, with the noble title of Duke of Xu."

"Hiss!" Zhang Shaodi not only drew in a sharp breath, but then said with a face full of admiration: "It seems that last time the Sage personally led the great army and frightened the Southern Tang ruler out of his wits!"

"You must know that Wang Huan and his son Wang Yun have defeated the Southern Tang army several times. For Li Jing, who is so narrow-minded, to be willing to offer such rewards, he must be utterly terrified of the court."

A look of pride surfaced on Yang Jiye's face. He was, after all, still a youth, and had followed Zhang Zhao since the age of nine, raised in the palace. Hearing someone praise Zhang Zhao worked even better on him than praise of himself.

But he was still old Lord Yang. After that brief moment of pride, he calmed down. He looked at Zhang Shaodi and asked: "Lord Zhang, do you think we can still win Wang Yun over?"

Zhang Shaodi pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "The price the court has offered is far less than what the Southern Tang ruler has given, and moreover..."

He looked at Yang Jiye and smiled faintly. "Does the Chief Commander think the court still has any need to win over Wang Yun?"

"Hahaha!" Yang Jiye laughed quietly a few times. "Lord Zhang is indeed the great talent of the south that Father Emperor has his eye on. Indeed, this Wang Yun and the Yisheng capital no longer need to be won over."

"But this matter still requires the Sage's decision. We need only consider what to do about the situation before our eyes."

Zhang Shaodi looked at Yang Jiye, who had the air of one with a well-formed plan and a touch of eagerness, and immediately cupped his hands and asked: "The Chief Commander must already have an excellent strategy in mind. This old soldier is willing to take orders."

Although he knew perfectly well that Zhang Shaodi was flattering him, Yang Jiye still felt extremely comfortable. He said with a smile.

"Why does Lord Zhang so humble himself? In employing men, we appoint only on merit. As long as one has talent and learning, he will certainly be put to great and important use."

"I have not yet reached my coming of age, and am not as experienced and knowledgeable as Lord Zhang. I have a small idea, and would ask Lord Zhang to help me think it through."

"Please speak, Chief Commander."

Yang Jiye's manner also made Zhang Shaodi feel very comfortable. He feared nothing else, only that an imperial adopted son like Yang Jiye would be too arrogant and look down on everyone, which would make cooperation extremely unpleasant.

Yang Jiye cleared his throat, then looked at Zhang Shaodi and the Brocade Guard captain and said.

"For the present plan, if we go to him directly, our terms certainly cannot move Wang Yun. So I think, rather than waiting until we go to see Wang Yun, we should first break into the place north of the city where the Southern Tang envoys are staying, and kill them all!"

"Hiss!" This was the second time Zhang Shaodi drew in a sharp breath, and unlike the first time, which had been feigned, this time it was real.

He looked at Yang Jiye in shock, thought it over carefully for a short while, and yet had to admit that this was a bold but extremely effective strategy.

Originally, Ma Chu and the Southern Tang had been at odds since the time of Ma Yin and Yang Xingmi. Wang Huan and his son Wang Yun were even more the bane of the Southern Tang, and the two sides had never really trusted each other.

Now, as long as the Southern Tang secret envoys died in Yuezhou, even if Wang Yun had a hundred mouths, he would never be able to explain himself.

Moreover, the Southern Tang envoys had come secretly, and only Wang Yun knew their lodging place. If they were killed now, in the Southern Tang's eyes it would be one hundred percent certain that Wang Yun was about to defect to the Zhou state, and had therefore offered their heads as his pledge of allegiance.

Who could know that beside Gao Baoxu and within the Wuchang army of Ezhou, there were eyes of the Brocade Guard?

Zhang Shaodi agreed on the spot, and further proposed: "If we are to kill them, then we must certainly think of a way to deal with Wang Yun."

"In former years his father Wang Huan was a brave general under my father's command. When the time comes, the Chief Commander might as well exaggerate the court's rewards, and together with me first overawe Wang Yun, and wait for the court's great army to arrive."

Hearing the two of them speak thus, the Brocade Guard captain also cupped his hands. "The Brocade Guard has discovered in the Yisheng capital a man named Pan Shusi, a Left Escort Officer and Chief Commander, who has long had grudges against Wang Yun and is being pushed out of the army."

"If the Chief Commander and Lord Zhang wish to go assassinate the Southern Tang secret envoys, I will go seek out Pan Shusi, to prepare for dealing with Wang Yun in the future."

The three having settled their plan, they immediately split up to act. Yang Jiye went to gather his men, Zhang Shaodi went to survey the route, and the Brocade Guard captain went to win over Pan Shusi.

North of the city, there was a small two-courtyard residence. It was the outer residence of Wang En, a Captain of the Yisheng capital and Wang Yun's cousin. The surroundings were fairly quiet, with little foot traffic.

The person originally living here was a kept woman maintained by Wang En. Half a month ago the kept woman had injured her leg in a fall and gone back to her parents' home to recuperate, so the place happened to be used to house the Southern Tang envoys.

The Southern Tang envoy was a eunuch surnamed Sun, protected by six armored soldiers led by a squad general of the Wuchang army. Outside were six or seven yabing guards of the Yisheng capital. In total, the armed force was fewer than fifteen men.

Yang Jiye was lightly chewing on a small snack made from hawthorn and white sugar boiled together, something like a fruit leather. The thing was sweet and sour, high in sugar, and chewing a few pieces before battle could boost one's energy reserves.

As he listened to the garrison-farm soldier sent by the Garrison Farm Commissioner Xu Songzhi describe the situation inside the house, he quickly made his arrangements. This time fifty riders had come with Yang Jiye, but thirty of them were outside the city.

Because Yang Jiye had originally wanted to understand the situation first before going to see Wang Yun, but had not expected to immediately uncover such a major situation.

He looked at the armored soldiers of the Hanshan capital behind him, who were beginning to don their ring-linked armor, and said: "There are few people inside. Although they are also armored soldiers, they cannot possibly be in armor at all times. Even if they are, the Southern Tang curs are no match for the brave men of my Hanshan capital."

"So once we charge in, leave neither chicken nor dog alive. Kill everyone, men and women alike, to prevent the main target from slipping away."

"Zhao Jingangnu, you are responsible for taking five men to watch every window and any hidden passage in the house. Be sure to check thoroughly."

Zhao Jingangnu was a Tibetan with several patches of high-altitude flush on his face. But now he would not admit to being a Tibetan, insisting that his father had been a squad general under the Military Governor of Longyou in former years, a son of Tang who had fallen into Tibetan hands.

Zhao Jingangnu nodded, stuck a mace into his belt, and said in a muffled voice: "Rest easy, Chief Commander. No one can escape old Zhao's eyes."

Yang Jiye of course knew how reliable Zhao Jingangnu was. This was a fine hunter who could catch a Tibetan fox even on a snowy, windy night, with a nose keener than a dog's. He could even smell from the air whether people were hiding nearby.

Eunuch Sun was feeling somewhat uneasy, because such generous terms had been offered, yet Wang Yun had still not given any response. This showed that he was still waiting, waiting for the Zhou state's terms of surrender.

In the present great trend of the realm, the Zhou state, as the court of the Central Plains, was naturally more attractive than the Southern Tang, which looked to be in decline. So even with such generous terms offered, Eunuch Sun still feared that Wang Yun would go over to the Zhou.

If he did go over to the Zhou, the first thing would probably be to use the heads of these Southern Tang men as his pledge of allegiance.

Just as he was worrying, he suddenly heard a commotion outside. On the quiet street, the sound of many footsteps suddenly came and went.

Eunuch Sun jumped up at once and, taking two Southern Tang armored soldiers with him, was about to go out and look.

But before they could leave the room, the squad general of the Yisheng capital responsible for protecting them walked in.

"Do not be alarmed, Attendant Sun. A woodpile at the house diagonally opposite has caught fire. They are putting it out now."

Hearing this, Eunuch Sun breathed a soft sigh of relief. The several armored soldiers in the room who had been pulling out their lamellar armor to put it on also hurriedly put the armor back, afraid that the Chu troops outside would see them and think them cowards.

To be honest, I've recently been using Wild Fruit Reading to read books and follow updates. You can switch sources, and there are many reading voices. Works on both Android and Apple.

Yang Jiye led the way. Twenty-two men in long outer robes over ring-linked armor, hands tucked into their sleeves, appearing together, were still quite conspicuous.

But fortunately the raging fire gave them excellent cover. At the gate of the residence, the two yabing guards of the Yisheng capital responsible for observing the situation never even glanced their way.

Because the residence that had caught fire was not actually an accidental fire. Rather, a merchant who traded in Hexi rock sugar had kept a mistress, and his lawful wife had discovered her.

The fire had been set by the lawful wife's brothers, and before long it had frightened out a delicate young woman and her maidservant.

At that moment the principal wife was shrieking furiously, desperately tearing at the concubine's clothes, and those gleaming white thighs and that jiggling little bosom had the two yabing guards thoroughly entertained.

If they hadn't had business today, the two of them would have liked to go over and lend a hand, helping the principal wife catch those two little sluts.

After the squad general finished soothing Eunuch Sun, he stepped outside and saw the scene too, and he was just as amused. The two yabing guards at the door didn't dare leave their posts, but he had no such qualms.

Tsk tsk! The concubine had had the front of her clothes torn open, and in the gap, her bright red undergarment rose and fell like waves, while two slender white arms flailed up and down — how utterly alluring!

The squad general laughed loudly. "Hey there, little lady, come over to me, and I guarantee your mistress won't dare scratch you!"

Hearing the squad general's words, the concubine actually did run toward him, which delighted the squad general so much that he spread his arms wide from far off, his lecherous eyes narrowing into slits.

Suddenly, just as the squad general was about to embrace the beauty, someone patted him on the shoulder.

The squad general assumed it was one of the yabing guards behind him getting jealous and deliberately causing trouble. His expression changed, and he swept his hand back to knock the hand off his shoulder.

But unexpectedly, a tremendous force yanked him off balance. Before he could even cry out, his mouth was suddenly covered by a sour, stinking cloth, and then his neck was clamped under a powerful, muscular arm.

The squad general had spent years in the army and immediately knew things had gone badly wrong. Just as he began to struggle, a sharp pain suddenly shot through his waist.

Once, twice, three times — each thrust stabbed into his waist, precisely into his kidneys, and it wasn't just stabbing; the blade was twisting too.

At the brink of death, surging adrenaline suppressed the searing pain. The squad general opened his mouth to shout, but the cloth was suddenly shoved deep into his mouth, keeping him from making any sound at all.

And after three or four attempts at violent struggling, the squad general suddenly lost all his strength. No matter how his head commanded his limbs, his arms and legs simply would not move another inch.

In a few seconds at most, the adrenaline wore off, and the searing pain instantly spread through his whole body. The squad general felt as though he were drowning — he couldn't draw breath, and the things before his eyes rapidly blurred.

Soon, all that remained in his vision was that red undergarment, seeming to flutter. A sound of leaking water rose in his ears, and then the squad general crashed heavily to the ground.

His final consciousness flared in a brief return of clarity, and miraculously he found he could move his right hand again. The squad general strained with all his might and extended three fingers.

There must have been three people attacking him just now — one enormously strong man who had clamped him down, and two knife experts who had churned his kidneys to pulp.

At the very moment the squad general collapsed, Yang Jiye charged forward, and the mace in his hand split open the skull of one of the Yisheng Unit yabing guards at the door.

Zhang Shaodi, holding a longbow, had already shot the other yabing guard down even earlier, and the man lay on the ground spitting bloody foam.

The principal wife and the concubine at the door stopped fighting too. They quickly dragged the bodies of the squad general and the two yabing guards to the roadside, so as not to attract anyone else's attention.

At the same time, the armored soldiers of the Hanshan Unit raised their small round shields and, gripping maces and long daggers, charged in without a sound.

Inside the house, neither the Yisheng Unit yabing guards nor the armored soldiers of the Southern Tang Wuchang Army had had time to put on armor or even draw their weapons, and in an instant they were brutally thrown to the ground and stabbed to death one by one.

Eunuch Sun let out a terrified shriek and fled quickly through a window at the back of the house, never imagining that behind the window, Zhao Jingangnu had long been lying in ambush.

Eunuch Sun shouted and thrust with a short dagger. Zhao Jingangnu smiled cruelly and, instead of retreating, advanced, twisting Eunuch Sun's dagger hand with one hand while his other hand swung back and forth in several great slaps.

A super killer like Zhao Jingangnu — one hundred seventy or eighty jin, with at least a hundred lives on his hands — even without a weapon, using only those huge palm-leaf-fan hands with calluses harder than bronze and iron, was not someone just anyone could withstand.

Four great slaps knocked Eunuch Sun senseless on the spot.

Then Zhao Jingangnu carefully searched his body, and only after finding the seal, credentials, and waist token did he, amid the agonized screams of the suddenly awakened Eunuch Sun, cut off his entire head.