The Perilous Palace Dream - Chapter 81
Chapter 81
The fleeting tenderness in the military camp lasted only for a brief moment.
That very day, the Grand Tutor immediately dispatched several trusted aides and a troop of soldiers, riding hard toward Yishan Village. At the same time, he ordered the workshops in several nearby towns and counties at the rear to construct a large number of Crimsom Horse Boats within five days.
A few days later, his trusted soldiers returned in a cloud of dust, driving wagons back to camp, while over a thousand Crimsom Horse Boats had also been completed. Seeing them bring back a vast quantity of Ding Shui Vines, the Grand Tutor handpicked a few experienced shipwrights and secretly tested ten Red Horse Boats, experimenting with how to best place and arrange the vines.
After wrecking several boats in the process, the craftsmen finally mastered the knack of securing the Stabilizing Water Vine. The modified Crimsom Horse Boats now possessed stability comparable to that of large warships. Once he inspected the batch, the Grand Tutor ordered that all Crimsom Horse Boats be modified. When all one thousand vessels had been completed, he commanded southern generals skilled in naval warfare who had surrendered to drill soldiers on the improved boats, helping his northern troops swiftly adapt to river combat and the Crimsom Horse Boats.
When the army had more or less mastered the essentials of water warfare, the Grand Tutor issued the order.
The Crimsom Horse Boats would all set out, seeking the decisive battle with the southern forces.
The Grand Tutor’s bloody back-thrust spear was already prepared, waiting only to be unleashed.
When news of the Grand Tutor’s massive flotilla advancing reached him, the king of southern frontier was drinking and reveling with his generals inside the royal tent. He slammed down his wine bowl with a loud crack, laughed heartily, and said to his generals:
“Much is said of how formidable the Grand Tutor is. That under the capital he struck down the Grand General with a single move, that he alone stormed the Langxi army. Yet, who would have thought he is nothing more than a silver spearhead on a pewter shaft, not worth a blow. That traitor Wei has no guts. Defeated twice, he dared not fight me head-on, or else I would have taken his head long ago. And now, this time, he dares to swallow leopard gall and come challenge me of his own accord. No need to put away the wine. Generals, follow me to battle. Once we defeat that brat, we will come back and keep drinking.”
All the generals roared with laughter, showering the King with praise, boasting that his battle prowess was unmatched and far beyond what that traitor Wei could ever compare to.
But in a corner of the tent, Ge Qingyuan’s brows knit slightly.
He knew the Wei Lenghou all too well.
It was precisely this man who, at the height of Ge Qingyuan’s glory, returned from the dead, army at his gates, stripping him of everything in a single night.
This was a supremely troublesome enemy and he could not be taken lightly for even a moment.
Thinking of this, he lifted his eyes slightly and exchanged a meaningful glance with his younger sister, who was nestled in his embrace.
Ge Yun’er immediately understood, leaning softly into the King’s chest and speaking tenderly:
“My lord is valiant, far beyond that traitor Wei. But since that traitor has not fled in panic and instead comes striking on his own, I fear there must be some scheme at play. I beg my lord to send your soldiers to the front. How could you personally take such risk?”
But the King of southern frontier, already intoxicated by the taste of anticipated victory, would hear none of it.
He simply smashed his wine cup, and before the eyes of the court, fiercely pressed a kiss to Ge Yun’er’s cherry lips, before leading his generals down to the riverbank to witness the battle.
When the two armies clashed upon the water, the northern soldiers indeed could not withstand the southerners.
Before long, their defeat was written plainly, and they began to retreat in disorder.
The King of southern frontier was overjoyed, at once ordering a full assault to utterly crush the Grand Tutor’s forces in a single battle.
Ge Qingyuan frowned slightly and advised:
“That Grand Tutor is seasoned in a hundred battles. He should not be so incompetent. Could it be a ruse?”
The King merely snorted.
A general nearby, long disdainful of this Wei-born favorite at the King’s side, spoke mockingly:
“That brat’s past opponents were all dullards and incompetents. How could they compare with our lord? Besides, the Prince of Lingnan has already revealed the boy’s background to us. From the losses of his earlier campaigns, he has no more than thirty thousand men. Judging by today’s troop numbers, he has thrown in everything he has.”
“Even if he has some trick, he cannot conjure more soldiers out of thin air. What is there to fear?”
The King cast a satisfied glance at the general, then waved his hand boldly.
“Full army pursuit.”
The vast southern fleet surged in pursuit of the Grand Tutor’s forces, swiftly passing beyond the marshes into a narrower stretch of river choked with reeds.
Suddenly, the crash of a gong resounded.
From the reed beds rowed out countless Crimsom Horse Boats, circling from behind.
It was the Grand Tutor’s five hundred Crimsom Horse Boats and three thousand soldiers, concealed there in ambush.
The retreating troops ahead tossed the wooden vines from their decks into the water, then wheeled about to surround part of the southern flotilla in bamboo rafts and boats.
From the towering command ship, the King of southern frontier saw his men encircled, yet remained calm, sneering:
“Even if surrounded, what of it? Northern soldiers are useless on water. Strike them once and they scatter. Ignore the rear. The army must simply charge forward.”
But what followed shocked him and his generals.
This time the northern Crimsom Horse Boats were steady beyond belief, scarcely rocking at all, and their soldiers displayed none of the clumsy signs of men unskilled at naval combat.
Without their advantage in water warfare, when it came down to raw combat strength, southern frontier soldiers were no match for the Grand Tutor’s troops.
The Black Banner Army’s warriors had honed their skills through real blades and real blood on the battlefield.
How could the mostly militia southern forces compare? Not only could they not break through the encirclement, they were steadily beaten back, the ring tightening ever smaller.
At last, the King of Southern Frontier began to panic.
He ordered the five bizarrely constructed twin keel warships beside his flagship to engage.
These great vessels were his trump card, costing him years and untold treasure to build.
Their hulls rose three meters high yet remained narrow, sturdy beyond measure, bristling with ramming prows.
Reeds posed no barrier, and in the past, even Great Wei’s largest warships had been capsized after just a few strikes from these iron headed monsters.
They had never before been used in battle.
This was his ultimate weapon.
From the shore, the Grand Tutor saw the monstrous vessels charging forward.
He gave a cold smile.
His spies in southern frontier had long since reported the construction of these strange ships, and he had prepared a counter.
With a faint wave of his hand, the signal officer behind him lifted two flags, one red and one white, and swiftly flashed a sequence.
At once, several great northern warships surged forth, two ships to a group, iron chains thick as arms linking them between.
They flanked the giant vessels to left and right, hemming them in, the chains binding the enemy ships so tightly they could not move.
An immobile ship was nothing but a sitting target.
Under a hail of arrows, northern soldiers swarmed aboard and engaged the southerners in hand to hand combat, quickly seizing control of several of the monstrous vessels.
When the King of Nanjiang saw his trump card, the copper-prowed iron-hulled ships, fail, his face turned ashen. In desperation, he kept shouting for his soldiers to dive into the water and bore holes into the Red Horse Boats, so that his own command ship could break free.
The Nanjiang soldiers leapt into the river like dumplings falling into a pot. But when they swam beneath the northern ships, they discovered to their despair that the hulls were shielded by thick wooden stakes, like the bars of a birdcage. The gaps between them were too narrow for a man to squeeze through. The stakes were so massive that underwater there was no leverage to hack them apart; one breath was nowhere near enough to cut through even a single pillar, and surfacing for air turned the Nanjiang divers into easy targets for northern arrows.
Hundreds of Nanjiang soldiers died, yet only a handful of Red Horse Boats were sunk.
At this point the King of Southern Frontier completely lost his composure.
Screaming hoarsely, he ordered his men to fight their way forward at all costs, promising that whoever carved him a path through the blood and chaos would be promoted to high office, showered with gold and jewels, and even given his own concubines to share.
From the command ship, his overseer squads also loosed volleys of arrows, shooting down soldiers who dared hang back.
Under the lure of wealth and status, and the terror of overseer arrows, the southern frontier troops charged recklessly.
The river surface and reed marshes ran red with blood.
Corpses floated up and down with the current.
But sounthern frontier had already squandered its advantage.
Within half an hour, most of its soldiers lay dead, the remainder surrendering in droves.
Only the King of Southern Frontier and a handful of loyal generals remained aboard the command ship.
From the riverbank, Wei Lenghou saw the command ship being forced closer to shore by the Crimsom Horse Boats.
He also noticed the desperate king preparing to jump into the water and flee by swimming.
Calmly, Wei Lenghou drew his heavy stone-bow, pulled the string taut, and loosed an arrow with a piercing whistle.
With a single shot, the arrow pierced the King of Southern Frontier’s shoulder and nailed him firmly against the mast, making him scream in agony.
With this one stroke, Wei Lenghou secured total victory, capturing the King of Southern Frontier alive.
But when he led his troops into the enemy camp, the siblings of the Ge clan were nowhere to be found.
Clearly, they had slipped away at the first sign of defeat.
Wei Lenghou frowned, gave a cold snort, and muttered, “Ge Qingyuan, let us see how long a rat like you can keep hiding.”
After the Battle of the Reed Marshes, southern frontier’s forces were broken beyond repair.
The Prince of Lingnan, realizing the situation was hopeless, fled back to his own fief.
But the Wei Lenghou personally led the pursuit.
How could he allow a rebellious vassal prince who had dared to openly challenge him to survive? A month later, Lingnan was pacified.
Though remnants of southern frontier loyalists tried to form guerrilla bands in the mountains, they were but the last struggling shots of a spent bow, no longer a real threat.
The old King of Southern Frontier, long imprisoned, was released, and he announced his daughter, Princess Qike, as the new ruler of Southern Frontier.
At her enthronement ceremony, Marquis Wei himself came to offer congratulations.
During the banquet, Lu Yuda curled his lip at the so-called lords of southern frontier and asked quietly, “Grand Tutor, why do we not press the advantage and directly annex southern frontier into Great Wei’s territory, instead of letting it remain as a tributary state?”
The Grand Tutor, though he had drunk heavily, showed no change in expression.
He answered, “Southern frontier is a patchwork of many tribes with divided loyalties. The mountains stand between us, making direct control troublesome. It is better to bind their new ruler to us and use the barbarians to control the barbarians. That is the long-lasting strategy.”
Lu Yuda nodded in dawning understanding.
After the banquet, as the Grand Tutor prepared to depart, a maid of Princess Qike quietly approached him and said, “The Queen invites the Grand Tutor to her palace chambers. She has words to say.”
When the Grand Tutor entered the inner hall of the southern frontier palace, night had already fallen.
The lamps flickered, the curtains swayed, and the air was heavy with fragrance.
The newly crowned queen had removed her ceremonial robes and changed into a soft white silk gown that trailed along the floor.
Beneath it she wore only a red embroidered bellyband, her full breasts rising proudly, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders.
She had dressed herself entirely in the style of a Han woman.
Half reclining on her bed, her large eyes smoldered as she spoke softly, “The Grand Tutor has labored for months in the camp to bring peace to southern frontier. With no concubines by your side, you must have endured much restraint. I have no other way to repay such merit, save by offering myself. Let me serve as your pillow companion, so that the Grand Tutor may find comfort and restful sleep.”
As she spoke, she tugged lightly at her robe, parting her long legs just enough for the lamplight to cast a deep shadow where they met.
The obscurity of it only added to the allure.
Had this been the Grand Tutor of old, he would never have denied himself.
After a great battle, with wine in his belly, to take a beauty into his arms for a night of unrestrained pleasure was always his finest reward.
At that moment, the wine was strong in his veins, and the heady fragrance in the air stirred desires that had been suppressed for months.
The Grand Tutor could not help but take a few steps forward.
His cold eyes flickered with a faint flame.
Princess Qike’s smile deepened; she slowly reclined, her long hair cascading over the bed, her eyes misty with allure, her lips slightly parted.
Reaching back, she loosened the knot of her red bellyband.
The tall man stood at the edge of the bed, gazing down at the woman’s jade-like body stretched out before him.
He gave a slight smile, bent down, and reached out his hand… but when his palm came close to her face, a dagger gleaming with cold light suddenly appeared in his grasp and pressed firmly against her delicate neck.
“I wonder what the King of Southern Frontier put in that incense burner. It does smell rather enticing.”
Princess Qike’s smile froze on her lips.
Her expression soured as she stared at his handsome face.
“Qike would never dare plot against the Grand Tutor. It was only some incense to heighten the mood. Grand Tutor, I do not ask for much. If you disdain me, unwilling to accept me as your wife, then at least grant me a child of your blood. Let the Grand Tutor’s descendants rule over the vast lands of southern frontier…”
For if an ambitious man can resist beauty, how could he resist the temptation of power? She knew well his reluctance to annex southern frontier outright, but if she gave him a chance..if his child could one day inherit southern frontier’s throne legitimately—how could he possibly refuse? Qike’s confidence quickly returned.
She was certain she could bind this man she had long admired to her that very night.
If she could conceive his child, then with her skills in the bedchamber she would surely ensnare Wei Lenghou in the pleasures of her embrace, making him forget all his petty concubines.
By then, as the reigning ruler of southern frontier, how could she not be worthy of him? To become his principal wife would be no difficult matter.
But the dagger blade already cutting into her tender flesh gave her a chilling answer.
“It seems Princess Qike has forgotten what I told you before. I am not someone you can scheme against. My only wish was for the people to know peace and the tribes to live in harmony. If the King of Southern Frontier were willing to honor that peace, I would have gladly allowed stability to take root. But if the King of Southern Frontie refuses, and dares mistake me for a weakling who needs a woman’s womb to uphold peace, then I shall unleash a hundred thousand iron riders to prove otherwise. Forget mountain ridges—no peak, however high, will remain standing before the soldiers of Great Wei.”
Scarlet blood streamed from Princess Qike’s neck, staining her snow-white robe in an instant.
The sharp pain snapped her out of her infatuation with the Grand Tutor.
The man before her was not only a striking figure who could drive women to madness, but a ruthless wielder of Great Wei’s supreme power.
In his eyes there was no tenderness, no intimacy—only the unyielding creed: submit and prosper, resist and perish.
Those who dared overstep, even if they offered beauty and treasure, would be discarded without a second thought.
And she herself was no longer merely the willful, spoiled Princess of Southern Frontier, but the reigning ruler, responsible for the lives of countless subjects.
Such reckless conduct tonight, if it truly provoked the Grand Tutor’s wrath, could plunge this land, only just returned to peace, back into the fires of war.
A cold sweat broke across her body.
Raising her eyes, she said, “The Grand Tutor’s lesson is just. Qike knows her fault, and will never again dare offend your dignity. I beg the Grand Tutor to forgive both me and southern frontier this once.”
Wei Lenghou did not answer.
Slowly, he drew back his dagger.
On Qike’s pale neck was left a deep wound, raw flesh exposed, blood gushing forth.
Even once it healed, it would leave a permanent scar.
It was his warning to the new King of Southern Frontier: if she ever followed in her brother’s footsteps and tried to play tricks against Great Wei, then that scar would mark the place where her head would one day be severed.
After putting away the dagger, the Grand Tutor no longer spared a glance at the pale-faced King of Southern Frontier lying on the bed.
He turned resolutely and left the palace.
Once mounted, instead of returning straight to camp with his guards, he rode to a nearby cold spring.
Without even removing his clothes, he plunged directly into the water.
The aphrodisiac Princess Qike had used was indeed potent.
For a moment, he truly felt as if his lower body might burst apart. If not for the long period of abstinence and restraint he had endured in the past, he doubted he would have had the strength to withstand its effects.
Only after soaking in the icy spring for half an hour did Wei Lenghou finally rise, his whole body chilled and drenched.
“Inform the army, we depart for the capital tonight!” he ordered Lu Yuda, who was waiting by the bank.
If he could, he would have flown straight back to the capital that very instant, just to tear the clothes from that little one who haunted his dreams night after night, to take her legs in his hands and love her fiercely, completely.
Day and night they marched without pause.
Even though the Black Banner Army was as tough as iron, such forced marching left many soldiers coughing blood from exhaustion.
None of them knew of the torment their commander bore in his loins, and so they secretly wondered in confusion: why was the Grand Tutor so anxious? Had some great upheaval struck the capital, requiring his return to suppress it?
Meanwhile, the victory reports had already flown back to the capital by carrier pigeon. The ministers, who had prepared themselves for a long, grueling campaign, were overjoyed at the unexpected news.
The officials of the Ministry of Revenue clattered their abacuses, only to find that, thanks to the shortened war, the treasury would actually see a small surplus.
For once, they wouldn’t be scolded harshly by the Grand Tutor during the New Year. They wouldn’t need to preach frugality so strictly, could wear new clothes, and even eat a few extra pieces of meat.
All together they muttered “Amitabha” in relief and delight.
While the court buzzed with excitement, Shan Tihua was accompanying Princess Yong’an, playing the flower-card game with a group of noble ladies in the palace.
Yong’an’s luck was poor, she lost hand after hand yet her delicate face remained lit with bright smiles.
Shan Tihua recalled that night when the princess had ordered her to fetch naval records from the palace library, then stayed up the whole night reading and sketching plans.
She thought again of the decisive strategy that had brought victory to the Grand Tutor.
A faint, quiet awe stirred in her heart.
Not even the most seasoned ministers and veteran scholars could have guessed that the inspiration behind the Grand Tutor’s brilliance, the strategist whose ideas had miraculously brought the Central Plains to heel, was this seemingly innocent and indolent young princess of the inner palace.
For the first time, General Shan Tihua of Great Wei felt a genuine, heartfelt respect for this frail court-bred girl.
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Yay!! I have missed this book so much! Thank you for the update!!