Chapter 69: The Fate of a King

"Let the young lord know: I am the younger sister of the Son of Heaven of the Golden Kingdom of Khotan, and I also carry the bloodline of the Li Tang. In the Guiyi Army to the east there is a princess of the Yuchi clan who is my elder sister. If I can gain a foothold here, they will surely support me!

Secondly, I am the rightful queen of this Zhongyun Kingdom, as everyone in Zhongyun knows. With the king dead, the queen temporarily taking charge of state affairs is only natural. As long as I spread a few benefits around, no one will object.

Lastly, I have twelve trusted armored warriors, all Khotanese warriors who came here with me back then, enough to protect myself. Add to that the Zhongyun warriors who have long since submitted to me, and I can certainly control the situation!"

The reasons were solid enough, and Zhang Zhao nodded in agreement.

"Then after I put you on the throne, what do I get?"

Li Ruoliu raised three fingers. "What the young lord has found in the Zhongyun royal treasury is no more than two or three tenths of it. Zhongyun has stood as a kingdom for over a hundred years and sits astride such a busy trade route — how could it have only this much wealth?

If the young lord will agree to my proposal, I guarantee the young lord can carry away twice as much treasure as he has now!"

"Young lord, don't listen to this wretch! This is the treasury of my Zhongyun royal line, passed down through generations — there is no way she could know of it. Release me, and I will offer up all the treasure!"

Hearing Li Ruoliu's words grow more and more alarming, Sanpoba could no longer hold back anything. He stared at Zhang Zhao with pleading eyes, his gaze full of desperate entreaty!

Amid Li Ruoliu's tense expression, Zhang Zhao waved a hand at Ma Yaozi, and the simpleton immediately tore off his own foul-smelling leg wrap and stuffed it straight into Sanpoba's mouth.

"The terms aren't bad. But I never negotiate with an enemy. If I don't kill you, what do I use to honor my fallen brothers and sons of war?"

Having said that, Zhang Zhao pointed at the hundred-plus Zhongyun warriors bound in the great hall and spoke to Li Ruoliu.

"Originally I intended to burn this city of Yuni to the ground, but you made me change my mind!

It is rare that a woman such as you, twenty years after the fall of the Great Tang, still remembers her and still keeps the Great Tang's vermilion banner.

Today I will give you a chance, and count it as repaying, on behalf of us Han folk, the loyal heart of Prince Wudu Commandery, Yuchi Sheng."

As he spoke, Zhang Zhao took a writing brush and a dish of ground cinnabar paste from Cao Yanming's hands and passed them to Li Ruoliu.

"Of the warriors in this hall, I will kill one in every two! Whoever has cinnabar on his forehead may keep his life and his fortune.

Whoever does not, will be executed on the spot!"

In an instant, tears burst from Li Ruoliu's eyes, and her nose stung so sharply she could barely breathe.

'I bet right! I bet right!' a voice screamed wildly inside Li Ruoliu's heart. What Zhang Zhao had handed her was no mere writing brush — it was the Administrative Assistant's brush that decides life and death and wins men's hearts!

Whoever bore cinnabar on his forehead would from this day be grateful to her, and would regard her as his sovereign and benefactor!

A sudden commotion stirred the great hall. Some of Sanpoba's trusted men turned pale, for they knew Li Ruoliu would surely choose to have them killed.

In the panic, a bound Zhongyun strongman suddenly broke free of one armored warrior's grip and came howling at Zhang Zhao.

"Dog slave!" The armored warrior's face flushed red with shame. He yanked the iron hammer from his waist and in one flying tackle pinned the strongman to the ground.

A rapid, furious hammering followed, and the sound of a skull cracking rang out. The thick stench of fresh blood and red and white matter filled the entire hall!

No one dared move again. All the Zhongyun warriors waited in despair and hope for the final moment.

Moduo froze, because Li Ruoliu walked straight past him without dabbing a spot of cinnabar on his forehead.

"Queen!" he cried out in a wretched shriek, trying to rise, but the armored warriors behind him held him down firmly.

"Young lord! I have finished choosing!" Li Ruoliu raised the brush and cinnabar high with both hands and knelt before Zhang Zhao.

"A traitor to his master — a mere attendant who dared covet the queen. His crime deserves death!"

Zhang Zhao hurriedly rose from the throne and stepped aside, for no other reason than that Li Ruoliu was kneeling to him.

Ah! Other things were one matter, but this kneeling he could not accept, because Li Ruoliu had clearly said that the Yuchi princess of the Guiyi Army — Zhang Zhao's own legal mother — was her elder sister.

Cao Yanming gave a mischievous grin, and Ma Yaozi and the others, knowing the reason, began to chuckle too.

Zhang Zhao put on a stern face and glared hard at the grinning Cao Yanming. Only then did Cao the Fourteenth force down his laughter and step forward to take the brush and cinnabar.

"Drag out those without cinnabar on their foreheads and execute them just outside the hall! Ma Yaozi, later go to the commoners in the south of the city and pick thirty strong men trained in martial skills to fill the ranks!"

Li Ruoliu's eyes lit up. This young lord thought of everything. Promoting thirty men from the south of the city to be palace-tent warriors would undoubtedly make them her loyal supporters as well.

At that thought, Li Ruoliu blinked her glistening eyes and gazed at Zhang Zhao with tender affection.

He is helping her like this merely for wealth and her identity as a Han woman? Could it be that he also wants to...

Mm! It must be so, Li Ruoliu nodded to herself. She was a beauty, wasn't she? Surely not everyone shared the same taste as that turtle Sanpoba?

Watching Moduo and the others who had betrayed her being dragged out wailing, Sanpoba felt a surge of satisfaction, and he cursed indistinctly through his gag.

"Traitors to their master — they deserve this blade!"

Zhang Zhao walked up to Sanpoba. Having passed through rage, bargaining, and pleading, the Zhongyun king, knowing death was unavoidable, had finally begun to accept his fate. No longer a coward groveling for his life, he now carried a measure of the dignity befitting a king.

Zhang Zhao waved a hand, signaling Ma Yaozi to release Sanpoba, whose head was pinned to the ground, and to remove the leg wrap from his mouth.

Sanpoba slowly sat upright, took a deep breath, and, looking at his weeping wives and children in the distance, asked Zhang Zhao.

"Can you leave this king a bloodline?"

Sanpoba had three daughters and two sons. The two older girls looked around eleven or twelve, the remaining daughter seven or eight. The two boys were even younger — one no more than three, and one still in swaddling clothes.

"They will all live," Zhang Zhao nodded.

"Your daughters I will raise, and when they come of age I will marry them to brave warriors under my command. Your sons I will keep by my side. As long as they do not die young, I will train them into the fiercest shock troops!"

Sanpoba's eyes widened suddenly. He stared at Zhang Zhao with some confusion. By the usual rules, rooting out the weeds entirely was the most convenient course.

"You and I had no enmity to begin with; everything arose from profit. A true man who has enjoyed the five-cauldron feast must be prepared to be boiled in the five cauldrons. That is your fate!"

Zhang Zhao smiled with confidence. "As for your children, if they can recognize this, I don't mind giving them a way to live. If they think of revenge, I can take their lives at any time!"

The reasoning was somewhat forced, but what else could Zhang Zhao do? As a civilized man, he could not bring himself to indiscriminately slaughter women, children, and the elderly.

If he did that... he would no longer be himself!

"Well said! You Han people have a true saying: a great man lives to feast from five cauldrons, and dies boiled in five cauldrons! I, Sanpoba, thank you, young lord!"

As he spoke, he looked toward his two young sons, a trace of tenderness showing in his eyes.

"My sons, grow up well. Do not avenge me. This is the fate of a king of a nation!"

Sanpoba was being quite the sport about it. The two men also tacitly avoided discussing the fate of his queen and consorts. Taking the wives and concubines of an enemy — wasn't that standard practice in this age!

"Now you're acting like a real man. But unfortunately, I would very much like to give you a quick death, yet I cannot."

Zhang Zhao sighed, then drew the dagger from Ma Yaozi's waist and tossed it into the center of the hall.

"Come! Those with cinnabar marks on their foreheads — one stroke each, to send off your king!

Be on your way!"

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