Hidden in his eyes wasn’t fear of death, only deep sorrow. Having died once, he did not think that death was something to be feared anymore. If he desired for nobility and wealth, he would have never submitted the memorial.
Thus, all Wang Chong felt was sorrow.
Wang Chong, his grandfather, his big uncle, and many others had stood up and given their all to oppose and warn others of the regional commanders and utilizing Hu talents policies. However, it still eventually ended up like that.
This made Wang Chong feel defeated and despondent.
“Hehehe, look at that new brat, he is petrified! He’s actually sitting there completely motionless as though a statue.”
Peals of laughter echoed across the entire prison.
Even so, Wang Chong still remained motionless, as if he was oblivious to their mockery.
The laughter grew louder and louder, but when it failed to evoke a response in Wang Chong, it slowly died down out of boredom.
Wang Chong continued sitting there, motionless.
After an unknown period of time, the sound of footsteps echoed. Alarmed, Wang Chong abruptly lifted his head, only to see an authoritative, austere, scholarly-looking, middle-aged man walking into the underground passageway. Six to seven prison guards who carried an aura reminiscent of a powerful storm followed behind him.
Klang klang klang!
Amidst the flickering flames, the metal bars that isolated Wang Chong from the world reverberated under their knocking. A cold-faced warden stood before Wang Chong and stared down at him with a frosty and sharp gaze.
“You’re Wang Chong?”
The warden asked as he glanced at the token in his hand.
“Yes!”
Wang Chong didn’t deny it.
“Hmph! If that’s the case, you might as well confess obediently.”
The austere warden spouted coldly.
“Confess to what?”
Wang Chong finally lifted his head to look at the warden.
“Hmph, audacious! You’re already a prisoner here, do you think that there’s any use for you to stubbornly deny your sins? If you are innocent, do you that you would be brought here? You should just confess obediently. This way, at least you can avoid suffering unnecessary pain!”
The eyebrows of the cold-faced warden shot up as he stared at Wang Chong in displeasure.
“I am unaware of my crimes and so there’s nothing for me to confess about.”
Wang Chong replied calmly.
“Hahaha, this fellow sure has tight lips!”
“Lad, this is a routine interrogation. You should hurry up and confess so as to avoid being tortured. There’s no one who doesn’t confess here.”
“Indeed. It’s no different from courting death to be acting tough before Lord Zhou! Lord Zhou has at least a hundred ways to pry open your mouth.”
Laughter burst in the surroundings. The prison guards gazed at Wang Chong with contempt reflected in their eyes, as though they could already see the excruciating pain Wang Chong would be subjected to in a moment’s time.
Warden Zhou Xing was a true master of interrogation.
Everyone who went through his hands ended up having their flesh parted. He had countless ways of inflicting pain on one. It was impossible to endure it even if one was made of metal.
Putting on a tough front before him would only subject one to greater suffering. It wasn’t worth it.
“Shut up!”
A furious bellow reminiscent to the roar of a lion sounded. In an instant, all of the prisoners closed their mouths, and silence returned to the imperial prison.
The imperial prison was another world in itself, and in this world, Zhou Xing was the dictator. The life and death of all here was determined by a single thought of his.
There was no one who could stand up to him here.
“Is that what you’ve decided? There’s nothing you wish to speak of?”
Zhou Xing glanced at Wang Chong with a frighteningly dark expression.
“There’s nothing for me to say.”
Wang Chong shook his head calmly.
“Very well. Since it’s your first time here and you don’t know the rules, I’ll give you several hours to think it through. If you’re going to offer me the same answer at daybreak, I’ll be extremely displeased!”
Zhou Xing’s words were laced with threat. He was the law here, and whoever who dared to disobey him had to be punished!
“Let’s go!”
Soon, Zhou Xing led his group of prison guards away.
After Zhou Xing left, countless sympathetic gazes from all directions immediately gathered on Wang Chong. The gaze Zhou Xing showed before he left, they had seen it before.
The last time such an expression appeared on Zhou Xing’s face, three people in the imperial prison died.
“Sigh, it’s truly a pity for this lad.”
An old prisoner glanced at Wang Chong and sighed deeply.
Wang Chong, however, remained completely nonchalant to everything around him. Seated cross-legged in his cell, he remained motionless. Amidst the silence, time slowly crept by.
After another seemingly long period of time, when the falling water droplets sounded for the twenty-one thousand six-hundredth time, Wang Chong finally heard familiar footsteps once more.
“It’s daybreak!”
Wang Chong sighed. Opening his eyes, he saw Warden Zhou Xing standing before him with several prison guards tagging behind him.
But different from the previous time, Zhou Xing did not say a single word. Beyond the iron bars, he stared at Wang Chong with an extremely bizarre expression, as though reevaluating the person before him.
“You’re Wang Chong?”
Zhou Xing asked.
The exact same words from the exact same person, but the feeling it induced was completely different.
“I am!”
Even though he was surprised, Wang Chong still replied with the same calmness from before.
As soon as he spoke, a bizarre expression suddenly crept on Zhou Xing’s face. In it, one could see a slight trace of surprise, a slight trace of intrigue, and deep fear.
“Wang gongzi, I apologize for my offensive remarks yesterday night.”
Zhou Xing suddenly bowed deeply.
Weng!
In an instant, all of the prisoners who were waiting for Zhou Xing to bring out a full set of torture equipment were dumbfounded. What was going on?
Zhou Xing was known for his torture means!
Why would he bow to an insignificant new prisoner?
Everyone couldn’t comprehend the situation happening before them.
“You fellows, hurry up and prepare some food for Wang gongzi. Do you think that the food here is qualified for Wang gongzi‘s palate?”
Zhou Xing kicked away the rice bowl placed outside of the iron bar while bellowing to the guard beside him. After which, he turned to face Wang Chong, and carefully, he said:
“Wang gongzi, the imperial prison is damp. I’ll arrange to have my men clean your cell and lay out some mats for you. A person like you shouldn’t be locked up here or handcuffed. However, the words from the Son of Heaven can’t be disobeyed, so I seek for gongzi‘s understanding.”
Zhou Xing secretly glanced at Wang Chong fearfully.
“What happened?”
Unable to hold it in anymore, Wang Chong asked.
“This… gongzi, forgive me, but I can’t reveal the details.”
Halfway through his words, Zhou Xing hesitated.
After cleaning up the rice spilt on the floor, he left hurriedly, as if intimidated by Wang Chong’s presence. Only after investigating the matter did he realize what kind of figure the new prisoner locked here was.
Zhou Xing had met all kinds of powerful officials in his entire life. Be it grade-9 officials or grade-1 officials, small county governors or renowned generals and ministers, none of these mattered to him.
In the imperial prison, there were only prisoner
s. And all prisoners had to obey him.
But this youngster… was too unique. Zhou Xing had never encountered with such a matter throughout his entire life. The other party was not an influential official, and neither was he a general nor a minister.
However, he was not someone who should be held in a small cell like this.
Zhou Xing had intended to subject him to cruel torture, but after learning of the happenings that had transpired in the royal court this morning, even if someone were to inflate his guts by a hundredfold, he would never dare to lay his hands on him!
Someone like him could not afford to offend such a figure!
From morning to noon, batch after a batch of golden-armored prison guards kept walking up Wang Chong’s cell.
In here, unless a torturing session was being conducted, it was generally impossible to meet these prison guards.
But in a single day, the prisoners here had met at least thirty to forty of the guards. This left them into contemplation, and they racked their minds to deduce the identity of this newcomer.
Curiosity and fear gleamed in their eyes.
But none of the guards said a single word. After loitering outside Wang Chong’s cell for a moment, they would leave hurriedly.
This made the prisoners in the area even more curious. No one could comprehend this bizarre sight, and they couldn’t fathom what kind of backing this young man possessed to induce such fear in the guards of the royal court.
Chi!
After another seemingly long period of time, when another group of prison guards walked by yet again, one of them discreetly threw a crumpled piece of paper onto the ground in front of Wang Chong.
When the group left, Wang Chong stood up, walked over, and picked the paper up.
Opening the crumpled note, Wang Chong’s complexion immediately warped into shock at the first glance. Only at this moment did he realize what kind of storm had happened while he was locked in the imperial prison!
Just that, Wang Chong could not have imagined that the true situation outside was much more intense than what that was described.
Chapter 168: Rattling the World!
Most people could not have imagined the extent of the rage the Han generals felt when they heard that the Hu generals were sending in memorials demanding Wang Chong’s execution.
All of them were triggered into action.
Thus, in the morning assembly the next day, a small mountain consisting of nearly a thousand memorials appeared in the royal court, leaving all of the officials with their jaws on the ground.
These memorials came from all around Great Tang. Every single one of them bore the seal of a general, and every single sentence was packed with extreme rage.
The pressure that came from the memorials from nearly a thousand generals was unimaginable.
Never had such a situation appeared in the history of Great Tang. It was unimaginable to have a thousand Han generals stand up for a single person!
Yet, Wang Chong did it!
‘Whoever who pushes for Wang Chong’s execution will be our enemy’, such charged words appeared in nearly every single one of the memorials.
Even though the phrases they chose to use was different, they all conveyed the same meaning. On top of that, it seemed like they were unwilling to compromise at all.
For the first time, the Han commanders expressed their intentions as a whole.
This ‘expression of intention’ was not just limited to the memorials sent to the royal court, many letters were sent to the Hu generals as well.
Countless of military reports stuffed with the rage of the Han commanders reached the table of the Hu generals by the borders. Nearly all of the Hu generals who demanded Wang Chong’s execution received letters from the Han commanders in their own armies.
Similar letters also appeared on the tables of great Hu generals such as Go Seonji, Fumeng Lingcha, Geshu Han, and An Sishun.
The impact of this incident shocked the Hu generals. For the very first time, they felt the strength of the Han generals as a whole.
That noon, when a petition containing the signatures of a hundred generals appeared on the royal court, the scale of the event was pushed to even greater heights.
The signatures that appeared on this document did not come from ordinary generals, but from the ‘Conferred Generals’ of Great Tang.
Tracing back to the previous Qin dynasty, Western Han, all the way back to Great Han, only influential military generals who had contributed immensely to their country could receive a unique ‘conferment’, and these people were known as ‘Conferred Generals’.
Ordinary generals could not start to compare to the weight of the words of these people.
The Crouching Waves General, the Myriad Ships Admiral, the Breakout General, the Nine Cauldron General, the Myriad Crossbows General, the Sea Dominating Admiral, the Barbarian Slaughtering General, the South Guardian General, the North Eradication General, the South War General, the Dragon Martial General, the Dragon Cavalry General, the Vanguard General…
These Conferred Generals were scattered all over Great Tang, but due to Wang Chong, the signatures of all of them were gathered in a single day. This feat, in itself, was incredulous.
A document carrying the names of nearly all of the famous generals in Great Tang; the weight of it was unimaginable.
In the document, on top of bailing Wang Chong, the hundred Conferred Generals also questioned Geshu Han, Go Seonji, Fumeng Lingcha, An Sishun, and the other Hu generals, telling them to reflect on the proportion of Hu generals and Han generals in the military.
There were three hundred thousand Han soldiers by the border, but there were only slightly more than a hundred thousand Hu soldiers in contrast. The number of Han far exceeded the Hu, and the moment a Han soldier died, the capital would immediately dispatch someone to take his place. Despite this, who were the ones who held power in the border?
Of an army consisting of mostly Han, were there more Han commanders or Hu commanders?
Once some matters were analyzed and publicly pointed out, their nature would change completely.
The Han and Hu conflict had been present for a very long time. The Beiting Protectorate Manor, Western Protectorate Manor, Western Region Protectorate Manor, and the Geshu Han’s Big Dipper army; all of them were mainly made up of Han soldiers. Be it whether a soldier was a Han or a Hu, their equipment, bows, arrows, ration, and steeds were all provided by the royal court.
Yet, of these four important military camps, their Grand Marshals were Hu, and the ultimate authority was grasped in their hands. There were many people who were unsatisfied to see such a sight, but due to pressure from above, no one dared to bring this matter up.
However, due to Wang Chong, all of these burst out as though a leaking dam.
The officials in the royal court might be unsure of the matters raised by Wang Chong in his memorial, but to the generals in the military, Wang Chong’s words mirrored their thoughts!
On this aspect, they stood on the same line as Wang Chong. In truth, the memorial Wang Chong sent was vying for the interests for the Han generals.
They would not be able to accept it if Wang Chong was executed by the royal court over this matter.
No one had expected this matter to develop to such a point. Be it the Bureau of Military Personnel, Bureau of Punishments, the censors… The entire royal court fell into great chaos.
It had grown far beyond the scale for any individual to shoulder alone.
Innumerable memorials from the Han generals supporting Wang Chong flew straight into the royal palace from all directions. Similarly, memorials from the Hu generals demanding Wang Chong’s death to uphold the honor of the Hu also arrived at the royal palace in a steady stream.
This conflict had already blown out of proportion. Even Geshu Han, Go Seonji, Fumeng Lingcha, and the other influential Hu generals could not contain the issue anymore. After all, this was a matter concerning the interest of all of the Hu.
This was the first time the Hu and Han were clashing head on against one another in the two centuries of Great Tang’s history. Neither side was willing to give in to the other!
South of the Jianmen Pass in Western Shu, ominous rain fell relentlessly. Amidst the rain, oil torches burnt furiously. A huge army was stationed over a distance of eight hundred li across the meandering mountains.
(400km)
In the center of the army stood a gigantic residence, and on the plaque hanging above the entrance were three large golden words:
“Southern Protectorate Manor!”
These words were forceful and heavy, as though reflecting the immense power wielded by the owner of the residence.
The Great Tang Empire had established six great protectorates. Even though the Hu possessed great authority over a significant number of the powerful armies, not all of the elites were grasped in their hands.
In the Great Tang Empire, south of the Western Shu’s Jianmen Pass, a hundred and eighty thousand men strong army was stationed. They were in charge of guarding against Erhai’s Mengshe Zhao, as well as the Ü-Tsang empire located in the western highlands.
(Mengshe Zhao is a tribe in Erhai, modern Yunnan, and it’s also known as Nanzhao)
In the Great Tang empire, the Southern Protectorate Manor maintained quite a low profile. As conflicts were not as strife as compared to the other locations, there were very few reports from this area. As such, its presence felt relatively weak in the royal palace.
However, this did not mean that the might of this one hundred and eighty thousand men strong army could be disregarded.
“Hmph! The Western Protector-General, the Western Region Protector-General, and the Big Dipper army vice-commander, do they really think that they are the only ones in Great Tang?”
Flames blazed within the massive residence. A short-haired, brawny, middle-aged man dressed in black armor sat cross-legged on the floor, and placed before him was a metal board.
Placed on the board was the newest intelligence from the royal court.
“Grand Marshal, we’ve always been keeping a low profile to stay out of unnecessary conflicts. The matter in the royal court this time around is rather troublesome, so shouldn’t we avoid getting involved?”
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 131
