Chapter 1598: Punish No Matter How Far! (I)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Find four hundred volunteers from the triangular gap. Tell them all the dangers and let them make the choice for themselves. Provide them with the finest weapons. In addition, mobilize all our power. I don’t care what difficulties you face, whether it’s surveillance in the air, scouts from the various countries, or Turkic sentries on the steppe. Within ten days, I want to see the result. No one can recklessly slaughter the people of the Great Tang without paying a price. Those who commit crimes against the Tang will be punished no matter how far they are!”
w.a.n.g Chong’s voice was ice-cold, his words resounding through the room.
“Yes!”
The subordinates in the room shouted in unison and then left.
Following w.a.n.g Chong’s order, the entire northwest region began to shake, and storms began to build up on the border.
……
To the north, past the Beiting Protectorate, and seven hundred li into the deserted Turkic steppe, numerous people had gathered together, their tents rising from the earth, banners of black wolves representing the Western Turks standing between them.
The Turkic war banners snapped in the howling winds.
While the people of the Great Tang’s capital and north were grieving and raging, this Western Turkic camp abounded in cheers and laughter, bonfires brightly burning while wine cups clinked together.
“Hahaha, come! Drink as much wine as you want, eat as much as you want!
“This is the dried meat the southerners went through so much trouble to cook! The quality is exquisite! I hear that they need to smoke the meat for seven days and nights to make this.
“How is it? Not bad, right?”
At this moment, in the northernmost part of the camp, a Turkic man with long and messy hair, a scar on his face, and a bare chest was raising a large bowl of alcohol. He was seated around a bonfire with several other Turkic soldiers, all of them loudly cheering and drinking.
The large bowls they used to drink alcohol were not the ones commonly used by the Turks. These were made of white porcelain and had a ring of green flower designs. And if one looked carefully, one would see that these bowls also had dried blood stains.
But these Turkic soldiers didn’t care about this.
“What a pity! In order to not leave behind clues, we had to kill all those southern women. Otherwise, we could have taken them back to camp to have some fun with them.”
One of the Turkic soldiers regretfully sighed. Taking a dagger, he cut a piece off the meat that was roasting over the fire, put the piece in his mouth, and slowly chewed.
His words caused the other soldiers to go quiet, all of them with looks of yearning. All of them knew of how tender and soft the skin of southern women was, and their soft and supple bodies had a quality that Turkic women didn’t possess.
Unfortunately, the influence of the Great Tang had made all southern women exceptionally fierce. The women of that village had struggled mightily, and the soldiers were also somewhat fearful of the consequences of their deeds, so it had been decided to kill them all.
“But Milord, are we really being transferred away in a few days?” one of the Turkic soldiers suddenly said, his face br.i.m.m.i.n.g with reluctance. “We barely got a taste and now we’re being ordered to withdraw. It’s really hard to accept this!”
“There’s nothing to be done about that. I heard that our ma.s.sacre of that village has been discovered. We were still too careless and left behind some footprints, allowing them to conjecture that it was us. I hear that this incident has caused a great stir in the capital of the Great Tang, and even the King of Foreign Lands has taken notice of us. Our superiors are preparing to send us farther north until this storm blows over,” the bare-chested Turkic captain said.
The other soldiers fell quiet. They were none other than members of the squad who had ma.s.sacred four-hundred-some Tang and burned down an entire village, sending great quakes through the Great Tang and its surrounding countries.
They had also heard of the impact this incident had had on the Great Tang’s capital and the northern region. They cared little about the anger in the Beiting Protectorate and in the capital. What they truly feared was the King of Foreign Lands.
This was a man who had killed one million of the Arabian Empire’s soldiers, killed the Black Wolf Yabgu, Agudu Lan, and even defeated the Celestial Wolf Great General, Duwu Sili. Even one of the three great cavalry forces of the Western Turks, the Celestial Wolf Cavalry, had almost been wiped out in the Battle of Talas. Even though this individual was very far away, they still felt an immense pressure.
“Milord, I hear that the Great Tang wants to deal with us, that the King of Foreign Lands is investigating us. I even heard that people managed to find this place and were noticed by the patrolling scouts. Is all this true?” a Turkic soldier worriedly asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind. Everyone turned to look at their captain.
It had been their captain who had led them to the village, and in their moment of panic, they looked to him for guidance.
“Haha, look at how scared you are. The Great Tang empire is far, far away, and the King of Foreign Lands is all the way in the capital of the Great Tang. Is he going to come and deal with us personally? And even if he wants to, does he even know who we are? And do they have evidence? Who said that it was us who killed them?
“…True, we’re drinking and feasting on the wine and meat of southerners, but can’t we have bought these things? Hasn’t the Great Tang always liked to trade? If they can sell, we can naturally buy.”
The captain patted his belly and laughed. As he looked at his subordinates, his eyes brimmed with derision.
“Relax! With the Turkic eagles watching the skies, the Beiting Protectorate can’t make a move. A single move would set off a major war, and the southerners hate the idea of war at the moment. As for the Qixi Protectorate, even if only a single fly flies out of it, we would still be able to notice it.”
“But I heard that soldiers are gathering in the Qixi Protectorate and at the triangular gap. Doesn’t it seem like they’re going to attack us?” someone softly whispered.
This rumor had been spreading through the camp for some time, apparently unintentionally revealed by a Hu merchant from the Western Regions. Apparently, the King of Foreign Lands was gathering a group of special soldiers to capture them. There was no evidence as to the rumor’s veracity, but this news had spread through the Western Turks and made all the soldiers nervous.
“Jincha’er, look at you! You would believe a rumor like that? Just think about it! Our superiors are even more worried about this incident than us, and we’ve set up checkpoints from here all the way to Qixi. Four to five hundred soldiers have been placed on patrol, and we also have eagles in the air. If they truly send people, how would we not know? And don’t forget that we have more than ten thousand men in this camp. If they come at us with too few people, they won’t do any good, and if they have too many, won’t we notice? So relax! Nothing will happen!”
The Turkic captain raised an oily sheep leg and took a large bite from it.
“You know, while the southerners also raise pigs and cattle, it’s still their sheep that taste the best. Southern sheep meat is soft and tender, completely unlike the sheep raised by us Turks. With some c.u.min and a few other seasonings, it truly has a unique flavor.”
Hearing their captain’s words and seeing him chewing happily away and even patting his belly, everyone relaxed.
A Turkic soldier seemed to think of something, and burst into laughter as he looked around. “Hahaha, that’s right! What’s there to be afraid of? There’s a solution for every problem, and no matter who comes, they’ll first have to ask the more than ten thousand soldiers and the general and see if they’ll agree.”
Around him, the sounds of feasting and cheering were endless. The entire camp seemed to be in the midst of a celebration, and all of them were using the large southerner bowls and eating the dried meats, fruits, steamed buns, and roasted fish of the southerners.
As they looked once more at the bare-chested captain, the several dozen soldiers felt sincere admiration.
That village of four-hundred-some people had stocked up a year of supplies and had been extremely prosperous. When they had been bringing those things back, they had needed to gather a herd of more than one thousand war horses, each one loaded with food. Even then, their group of forty-some people had needed to make two trips.
And upon returning, the captain had given the camp fifty percent of the spoils and twenty percent to the commanding general, leaving only thirty percent for the squad. They had all been confused about this at the time, but now, they only felt admiration.
None of their fellow soldiers in the camp were criticizing them for their raid, and they were even being guarded by numerous layers of soldiers. Even if those southerners wanted to deal with them, such thoughts were nothing more than delusions.
Creee!
As the soldiers toasted and cheered each other, a sharp cry came from above, causing the entire camp to fall silent. The Turkic captain had just been about to bring his bowl of wine to his lips when he paused and raised his head. Toward the southwest, a large Turkic eagle was flying toward the camp.
These were golden eagles that the Western Turks had caught from the distant north and trained. They had fierce personalities and tough wings. The stronger eagles could even snap small trees with a flap of their wings. The Turks had trained these golden eagles to be their eyes and ears in the skies.
These golden eagles were tyrants of the sky, and only the gyrfalcons used by the Eastern Turks and Goguryeo could compare. But at this moment, everyone could see that this golden eagle was panicked, its wings unsteady.