Chapter 427
Chapter 427
Although Shen Lang's main army was not marching at a particularly fast pace, he had sent several highly skilled martial artists ahead to prepare fresh mounts. This allowed his forces to switch to new horses whenever theirs began to tire, enabling them to ride without pause. Thanks to this, they were able to arrive at the Qiang Royal Palace two or three days before Su Nan's army.
The current queen of the Qiang Kingdom was A'Lu'nan'a, so the royal palace was naturally hers. Before the queen herself had even arrived, the eunuchs and guards defending the palace had already pledged their loyalty to her. The grand eunuchs, in particular, established a rule that they must chant, "May the heavens protect our queen!" at least ten times a day.
But for what reason had Shen Lang sent people to the Qiang Royal Palace? Was it to coat the gold plating the palace with poison? That was impossible. While the Qiang Royal Palace was not as large as the palace in the State of Yue, it still spanned over a hundred acres, its floors and roofs all gilded in gold. Poisonous herbs were exceedingly rare in this world; coating the entire palace would require an immense quantity. Besides, any attempt to apply poison beforehand would surely be noticed.
So, let's consider it from another angle. With the queen arriving soon, shouldn't the palace be given a thorough cleaning? Shouldn't the walls, roofs, and floors be scrubbed clean? A grand cleaning was a perfectly normal thing to do. So, what kind of water would be used to clean the palace? The Qiang Kingdom had recently seen countless deaths, especially from the smallpox epidemic a few months prior. It was impossible to cremate so many bodies, so a large pit had been dug to dispose of them, and by now, the corpses had all decomposed. The men Shen Lang sent, wearing gas masks he had designed, drew dozens of barrels of water from that very corpse pit and diluted it. They then ordered the palace's golden surfaces to be cleaned with this water.
The smallpox virus would have long since died with its hosts. However, the water drawn from the corpse pit was undoubtedly the filthiest water in the entire Qiang Kingdom. There was no telling how many microorganisms and bacteria remained within it. Drinking even a small amount wouldn't kill a person, but it would certainly cause an upset stomach or, very likely, malaria. The grasslands of the Qiang Kingdom were home to the eggs of malaria-carrying insects.
Furthermore, Wu Lie added dozens of catties of arsenic to the hundred barrels of water from the corpse pit. This was the entirety of Shen Lang's arsenic supply. In terms of lethal dosage, dozens of catties of arsenic were enough to kill ten thousand people. But it couldn't be calculated that way in practice. The arsenic was dissolved in ten thousand catties of water and then applied to the golden surfaces. Any amount that entered someone's mouth would be minuscule, enough to cause only mild poisoning, not death.
After all preparations were complete, Wu Lie led his men away from the Qiang Royal Palace. The entire palace, now gleaming like new, radiated a brilliant golden light, ready to welcome its new guests.
* * *
Now, let us turn to the situation at the Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate.
Zheng Tuo and Yang Yongnian were overcome with a joy so immense they could hardly believe what they were seeing. The two had led an army of twenty-five thousand to attack the Marquis's estate as a last resort. They had expected a bloody battle. As everyone knew, the Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate was built in a treacherous location, making it easy to defend and exceedingly difficult to attack. But the vanguard that had charged to the foot of the estate was left completely dumbfounded. There were no defenders on the fortress walls. Moreover, a great commotion seemed to have erupted within the fortress, and the people inside appeared to be in a state of panic.
Su Nan was gone. The direct bloodline of the Su Clan was gone. The entire army was gone. The old and the weak, the women and children left inside the fortress, all sensed that something was amiss and soon realized the entire Su Clan had fled. Some of them escaped the fortress, but most remained, clinging to the illusion that the worst would not come to pass. They believed it was safer inside the fortress than out.
Faced with the empty estate of Marquis Zhenyuan, the first thought that crossed the minds of Zheng Tuo and Yang Yongnian was to flee.
‘An Empty Fort Strategy! There must be a plot laid within the fortress. Everyone knows what a fearsome man that old fox Su Nan is. Would he really leave the fortress abandoned? There must be a trap inside. But we can't just flee at the sight of an empty fortress.’
Eventually, Zheng Tuo sent a death-defying squad to launch a probing attack on the Marquis's estate. But who would have thought that this cautious attack would lead to the fortress being captured almost immediately? This shocked them nearly to death. The Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate was one of the most difficult fortresses to conquer in the State of Yue, far more so than even White Night Fortress. Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to take, even with an army of tens of thousands attacking for months. Yet, it had fallen in less than fifteen minutes to the few hundred men of Zheng Tuo's death-defying squad.
‘This is definitely a conspiracy!’
Zheng Tuo did not flee, but Yang Yongnian retreated several miles away. Su Nan was such a formidable figure that he had left a deep impression on them. Zheng Tuo and his army dared not enter the Marquis's estate. In the end, he sent a few thousand men from the death-defying squad to investigate inside the fortress. After scouting the massive fortress several times, the squad reported back to Count Zheng Tuo. The Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate was truly empty; Su Nan had fled with his entire clan and his army of several thousand.
Zheng Tuo still did not enter the fortress, sending his son in first instead. Several hours later, his son emerged and reported that there were no traps at all inside the estate, only the old, the weak, women, and children. Only then did Zheng Tuo and Yang Yongnian finally believe that the old fox Su Nan had truly fled. In that moment, the two were filled with immense admiration for him.
‘Su Nan is truly Su Nan. What a remarkable man. To so decisively abandon a fortress this grand.’
For Su Nan to lead his clan to the Western Regions meant starting over from scratch, rebuilding the Su Clan's foundation from the ground up. Few others would have been able to abandon a foundation so painstakingly built. To have done so, Su Nan was truly a man of extraordinary spirit. After their admiration for Su Nan passed, Zheng Tuo and Yang Yongnian were overcome with manic joy. They had expected to pay a heavy price to take the Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate, but now they had obtained it without any effort at all.
"Hahahaha. The heavens must be smiling upon us, bestowing upon us this peerless achievement. Shen Lang and Zhang Chong merely defended White Night Fortress, but we have annihilated Su Nan's main force and seized the Marquis of Zhenyuan's Estate. Compared to our accomplishment, what is Shen Lang's merit?"
"That fool, Shen Lang. He thought he could sit back and watch the fight, hoping to profit after both we and Su Nan were wounded? What a foolish dream! But who could have known that Su Nan would abandon his fortress, or that we would capture it so easily? The credit for annihilating the Su Clan and quelling Su Nan's rebellion now belongs to us."
"What did Shen Lang say before? That the Su Clan schemed to conquer the world but ended up losing the battle at White Night Fortress, suffering losses on all fronts? That statement is more fitting for him now."
"Indeed. With the Wu army attacking Raging Tide City, the Jin Clan's destruction is a foregone conclusion, and Jin Mulan is destined to have her martial arts crippled and be sent to the Crown Prince's bed. Now that the great merit of destroying the Su Clan has fallen to us, it is Shen Lang who has truly suffered losses on all fronts."
"He struts around, pretending to be so clever, but he's nothing more than a rampant clown! If he had any real ability, he would have pursued Su Nan and brought back his head. Only then would the credit for destroying the Su Clan be his. But Su Nan has long since fled. For all we know, he might have already escaped to the distant Western Regions by now. Hahaha!"
* * *
Within the borders of the Qiang Kingdom.
"Hiyah!"
"Giddy-up!"
The five-thousand-strong army led by Su Nan halted its march toward the Western Regions, turned their horses around, and galloped south toward the Qiang Royal Palace. When the Su army was still dozens of miles from the palace, the people there—all the eunuchs and guards defending it—had already fled. How could they possibly stay and wait for death? Not only the people in the palace, but even those from the nearby tribes had fled. The Su army covered the two-hundred-mile distance in less than a day. Su Nan's five thousand men easily occupied the Qiang Royal Palace. Still on his horse, Su Nan issued his command.
"Send out a hundred scouts to watch the four directions: east, west, south, and north. They must detect even the slightest change within a hundred-mile radius."
"Yes, sir!"
A hundred scouts galloped off madly to survey the surroundings. After they left, Su Nan gave another order.
"Half the army, dismount and start cutting away the gold. Move quickly! No one is to privately conceal any of the gold they cut. It must all be turned in. It will be distributed after it is all collected! The other half will form a defensive perimeter and be ready for battle at any moment!"
As soon as Su Nan's order fell, over four thousand men roared in excitement.
"Yes, sir!"
Over two thousand warriors drew their sharp blades and charged toward the Qiang Royal Palace. They looked like butchers, brandishing their cleavers as they rushed toward pigs and sheep. The remaining two thousand formed a simple defensive line and held their positions. The task of cutting the gold was exhilarating. A harvest is always a joyous occasion. If harvesting grain or fruit brings such great joy, how much more so the harvesting of gold!
The two thousand men assigned to the harvest each took a section and began cutting the gold from the floor with their blades. Gold is softer than iron, so it could be cut with a sword. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour, then two. The amount of gold they harvested grew and grew. But the two thousand men soon realized the work was not as enjoyable as they had imagined. The gold was plated on the roofs, the floors, and even the walls; if laid out flat, its surface area would be hundreds of thousands of square meters. This meant each person had to scrape an area of several hundred square meters.
Furthermore, while the glittering gold would weigh over a hundred thousand catties when collected, it was spread out over hundreds of thousands of square meters, meaning it was just a single, incredibly thin layer. Although gold was soft, that was only relative to iron. The stone of the walls and floors was extremely hard, making it difficult to cut even a small piece and dulling their blades very quickly.
After three hours of scraping gold, the two thousand men were on the verge of collapse. The constant crouching was exhausting, and the glare was blinding. It was summer, and the sun beat down relentlessly, causing sweat to pour from them like rain. Finally, Su Nan ordered the two groups to switch. The soldiers who had been scraping gold were to stand guard, and those on guard were to start cutting. Hearing Su Nan's command, they were all delighted. They worked from noon until dusk, all of them cursing the Qiang King, A'Lu'gang.
‘That madman. Why did he have to melt down the gold he plundered and plate his palace with it? If he had just made it into ingots and stored them in a vault, how much easier would it have been for us to carry? How satisfying would that have been?’
Cutting the gold was truly back-breaking labor.
‘Just how much longer do we have to keep scraping?’