novelSusiti Chapter 1013 The Dust Settles
Chapter 1013 The Dust Settles
By the time dawn broke, more than 10,000 Imperial Guards had brought the fire under control.
Wei Qing was inspecting the streets, his feet wet with dew, when he suddenly saw an old man kneeling in front of a pharmacy in the East Market, weeping bitterly while embracing a blackened medicine cabinet.
Why is the old man crying?
He dismounted, the clanging of armor startling the old man.
"General, you are unaware of this..."
"This is honey-processed fritillaria cirrhosa for treating Granny Wang's asthma in the west of the city. It was just prepared yesterday, and her son was supposed to come and pick it up this morning..."
The old man shakily picked up a porcelain bottle, on which a crane painted with a picture of it was missing half a wing.
Wei Qing remained silent, gazing at the price list on the pharmacy wall that had escaped the flames—"Licorice 3 coins" and "Angelica 5 coins," the handwriting childish, likely written by an apprentice.
"Commander Wei! A cellar has been discovered in the West Market!"
Huo Qubing's voice suddenly rang out. Wei Qing followed the young general through two streets and saw twenty Imperial Guards surrounding a hole covered by a bluestone slab. The ropes held up by their spears were still covered with fresh mud.
The moment the cellar door opened, the aroma of aged wine mixed with the scent of malt wafted out.
Wei Qing held up a torch and bent down, where he saw hundreds of jars of sorghum wine neatly stacked, with the seals on the grain jars next to them clearly marked "Supervised by Taicang".
He reached out and peeled off the seal, and the fresh aroma of the new wheat instantly filled his nostrils.
"Commander Wei, this..."
Huo Qubing's eyes widened. They had pursued the Yellow Turban army for three days and witnessed those thugs scattering and trampling the grain from the official granaries on the road, unaware that such a large amount of grain was hidden in the cellars.
Wei Qing picked up a few grains of wheat and put them in his mouth. The sweetness immediately filled his tongue. He suddenly remembered the "sword wound" on Meng Zhang's shoulder and the smile in Su Ye's eyes when he stroked the sword.
This game of chess was probably laid out years ago during the Taiping Rebellion and the Yellow Turban Rebellion!
"Pass down the order."
"All the grain stored in the cellars will be registered and recorded. For any household lacking grain, it will be distributed according to the number of people in the household, and furthermore..."
He straightened up, the firelight casting dancing shadows on his armor.
"Register the people whose pharmacies were destroyed, and have them come to Taicang to pick up their medicine tomorrow."
He caught a glimpse of the medicinal herbs piled up in the corner.
"Wait, you personally lead men to the dock and settle those prison wagons... no, settle those old, weak, sick and disabled people in the post station and ask a doctor to treat them."
Huo Qubing accepted the order and was about to leave when Wei Qing stopped him.
"Send a message to the lord, saying..."
Watching Huo Qubing's departing figure, Wei Qing turned to the accompanying quartermaster and said.
"Tell me about the fire in Qiandu; it should be extinguished."
His fingertips brushed against the jade pendant at his waist, a keepsake given to him by Su Ye before he went to war.
As the sun climbed over the palace walls, the last fire was extinguished. Wei Qing stood before the ruins of the Grand Tutor's Mansion, gazing at the half-piece of the Book of Rites that the Imperial Guards had dug out of the ashes.
The small seal script on the bamboo strip was blurred by the smoke, but the eight characters "The Great Way prevails, and the world belongs to all" could still be faintly seen.
He suddenly recalled that not long ago, during his leisure time in Hengzhou, he had heard the old master Guan Zhong lecture at the Jixia Academy: "Governing a country is like cooking a small fish; if the heat is not right, it will be raw; if the heat is too high, it will be burnt."
Now, this city of Qiandu is like a place that has been simmering over a low flame for a hundred years. Finally, someone has lifted the lid, letting the accumulated steam dissipate completely.
"Commander Wei!"
"We found this at the dock; it contained..."
Ran Min rode up from behind, a Yellow Turban helmet hanging from his double-edged spear.
"There's half a tiger tally hidden there, just like the one you wear at your waist..."
He suddenly lowered his voice and pointed to the half of the bronze tiger tally at Wei Qing's waist.
Wei Qing pressed his hand against the tiger tally at his waist, and the warm, smooth bronze patterns on it sent a jolt through him.
He suddenly understood why Meng Zhang had burned down the official residence—the land deeds hidden in the secret room, the account books hidden in the wall, and the gold bricks hidden under the ancestral graves had all turned to ashes, while the living witnesses were being "invited" into the post station by the Imperial Guards for tea.
"Send the order to the three armies."
"Effective immediately, the nine gates of Qiandu are under the control of the Imperial Guards. Anyone who causes trouble..."
Wei Qing mounted his horse, and the morning light gilded the imperial guards beside him.
"Then I invited them to the ruins of the Grand Commandant's mansion and explained to them the meaning of 'the victor is king, the loser is villain!'"
He stroked the tiger tally at his waist, then suddenly chuckled. In the instant his whip cracked, Wei Qing took one last look at the eaves of the palace.
...
Before the morning mist had dissipated, the banners on the walls of Qiandu had already faded into charred fragments. At this moment, outside Qiandu, Su Ye reined in his Luzhou Xuanchi horse, gazing at this imperial capital steeped in four hundred years of splendor, his nostrils filled with the bizarre smell of smoke and burnt earth.
Behind him, tens of thousands of Hengzhou soldiers, their armor gleaming with frost, stood silently. The remaining hundreds of thousands of Qian troops left behind by Gu Changqing remained silent. Tens of thousands of Red Armored Soldiers, their crimson tassels like blood, and the two guards of Wu Xiong, the Silver Armored Cavalrymen ravaged by the Yellow Turban Army, were quietly mending their tattered armor. Half a broken arrow was still embedded in the heavy shields of the Chongyan Guard. This large army, a mix of Gu Changqing's remnants and Hengzhou's elite troops, now resembled a colorful, venomous dragon, coiled before the mottled city walls of Qiandu.
"My lord, Commander Wei is waiting for you at Qiantian Gate."
Xuanwu spurred his horse closer, his heavy black iron armor rumbling like thunder with each movement. The patterns on his Xuanwu mace were still stained with mud splattered from his previous bloody battle with Li Cunxiao, gleaming with a dark red luster in the morning light.
Su Ye nodded slightly, and the pearl on the tassel of Chun Jun sword swayed gently with the movement, reflecting a faint, cold light.
He suddenly chuckled, startling his black horse, Xuanchi, which snorted. This fine horse was a fine steed from the Western Regions that Meng Zhang had secretly sent to Hengzhou last month. It was jet black, except for its four hooves, which were covered in snow. Now, as it trod among the broken tiles, it looked as if it were stepping on fragments of clouds.
"Lingguang, can you smell the blood in the scorched earth?"
He turned his head and called out, the crimson cloak behind the figure in red beside him sweeping across the Vermilion Bird Burning Heaven Bow hanging on the saddle.
"The ambergris bestowed by the imperial palace is mixed with the bamboo leaf green wine of the Minister of the Court of Imperial Stud."
The female general in red rode side by side, her fiery red battle robe intertwining with Su Ye's black cloak like blood-red vines.
"Meng Zhang is so considerate; he even saved a century-old vintage for you."
Her fingertips brushed against the crimson jade flute at her waist. The flute's pipes were decorated with flowing patterns, and it was actually carved from warm jade from the imperial palace of the previous dynasty.
Su Ye's smile deepened upon hearing this, his gaze sweeping over the half-flying banner hanging in the city gate. The banner should have been embroidered with the imperial emblem of the Great Qian Dynasty, but now only a half-burnt strip of cloth remained, fluttering in the wind.
"Even the stone lions in front of the palace gate were smashed with great care—the one on the east side was missing its left ear, and the one on the west side had its right eye cracked, which perfectly fulfills the prophecy of 'the blind dragon losing its hearing'!"
He suddenly raised his whip and pointed it out, then chuckled lightly at the Black Tortoise and Vermilion Bird beside him.
Seeing that Qiandu, the capital of the Great Qian Dynasty for hundreds of years, was about to fall into his hands, Su Ye, who had suppressed his ambition for years and painstakingly pretended to be a loyal subject of the Great Qian Dynasty, finally revealed a hint of his own ambition!
"My lord is right! Commander Meng is the most cunning fellow. He burned down the Imperial Academy's library, but he deliberately left the Book of Changes pavilion for last. Even when the fire reached the roof beams, he still ordered people to snatch the bamboo slips of the Qian hexagram and place them in front of the ruins."
A muffled laugh, like thunder, came from beneath the heavy armor of Xuan Tie, and the Xuanwu Mace slammed heavily onto the ground.