Chapter 162

  It was raining that day, the air smelled damp and wet, rainwater fell from the sky to the trees, and flowed down along the trunk, mixed with white and red, accumulating a pool of water on the muddy streets.

  Wow!

  A horse's hoof sinks into the water, shattering the inverted reflection of the entire city. A man in a leather cloak rides on horseback, galloping down the long street. In his hand, he holds a long rope tied to a string of people, both men and women, some dressed in fine clothes, others in hemp shirts, now all bearing the same despair.

  Whoosh!

  An arrow flew in and pierced a man's chest, but he didn't die, his body still writhing on the ground.

  "You dare to be so impudent! This is my slave!" The Han man shouted loudly.

  Following his line of sight, all he saw was a man sitting on the railing of the second floor of the wine building. He held a wine pot in his left hand and an iron bow on his leg.

  "You've grabbed too much, can you take it back? Let me handle it for you."

  Whoosh!

  The arrow shot out again and lodged in the man's throat, finally stopping his struggles. Blood flowed from his throat, dyeing the rainwater on the ground an even deeper red.

  "Red Eyebrows, Laozi and you are going to fight!" The Han man shouted.

  Hurry up!

  Two youths, sixteen or seventeen years old, galloped down the main street, leaving behind a cheerful and bright laughter. The leader of them rode on horseback, with a long spear in his hand, carrying the corpse of an infant.

  "Fudele, you don't even dare to kill a man, how can you be a brave warrior of the Northern Barbarian tribe? Huh, follow me!"

  Behind him, a young man's face turned red and his ears were burning: "I... I didn't... I..."

  "Hey, hey, keep up with me, you coward!"

  "I'm not a coward!"

  The youth known as Fodderle grasped his fist tightly and whipped it down, galloping after the runaway horse.

  A galloping horse sped through the city, and Forder gazed at the scenery on both sides of the road. Perhaps due to the rain, the entire city gave him a grayish feeling.

  All along the way he saw collapsed courtyard walls, burning wooden buildings, men and women lying on the ground with vacant stares gazing up at the sky.

  In the ruins of broken walls, one could often hear the mournful and piercing cries of women. Even at just sixteen years old, Fuderer understood what was happening inside.

  He envied some men in the tribe who dared to do so and could feel happy, while he himself couldn't.

  The horse passed in front of the city lord's mansion, and a row of heads were hanging from the flagpole at the gate. It is said that when the tribe first entered the city, he was beheaded, and his head should also be hung on the flagpole now, drifting with the wind that blows from time to time.

  Wow!

  Fuder let out a long sigh, dismounted his horse and stepped into the city lord's mansion.

  ……

  "So... Xue Banquan is dead?"

  Qingniu Mountain, Hama Village.

  Cheng Dairen asked this question with an expression that seemed somewhat disbelieving. It was unclear whether he didn't believe Xue Banchuan had died like that or if he didn't believe the Rong tribe would suddenly launch a surprise attack.

  "He's dead, he's dead!" Huang San Yuan waved his hand indifferently: "The Rong tribe had just breached the city and beheaded him. The city was in chaos, and Lu Heng also died. Luckily, Zhao brothers were skilled and managed to bring me out of the encirclement of ten thousand soldiers."

  Cheng Dali curled his lips, Zhao Zilong's hidden attribute was indeed Longdan, coming and going freely in the midst of a thousand armies. Just pretend to be Liu Shan for once.

  Cheng Darui and Xue Banquan had a poor relationship with Lu Heng, to the point of being sworn enemies. However, after their deaths, Cheng Darui still felt some sorrow and sympathy.

  "What about Yang Long? How is he?" Cheng Dairen asked: "Is he also dead?"

  "It's estimated that he didn't die, on the way I heard that Yang Long has escaped and should still be alive."

  "This old dog is so ferocious, he commands 50,000 elite soldiers. How can he be so incompetent in front of the Rong tribe? Moreover, Yang Long stopped for two months and couldn't take down Heishi City, how could the Rong tribe do it in half a day? Are they heavenly soldiers and generals descended from heaven?"

  Cheng Dalai was half talking to himself and half asking, he had some doubts in his heart. Yang Longjun stopped with 50,000 troops, and Xue Banjiang had more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in the city. Even if some old, weak, women and children were unable to be used, there must be one or two million usable strong men.

  At this moment, Cheng Dalai thought of that very classic phrase: Even if tens of thousands of pigs were caught, it would take several days to catch them, how could they lose so badly.

  Cheng Darui finished asking and saw that several people around him were looking at him with strange eyes.

  "Great Dangjia, that's a Rong tribe!" Xu Shenji exclaimed.

  Others' eyes also showed this meaning, Cheng Dalai did not make a sound, but in his heart, he blurted out a sentence: What's wrong with the Rong tribe?

  Within one hundred and twenty years after Da Wu established the country, even if we don't mention that thirty-year war, in other big or small battles, the empire mostly lost and rarely won.

  It's strange to say, but this group of rough, backward, and illiterate barbarians have incredibly strong combat power. They pinned the empire's elite soldiers to the ground, rubbing them until they didn't even have any temper left.

  From the emperor to the king, down to the slaves, everyone has a phobia of war, to the point where they turn pale at the mere mention of it.

  This time Yang Long stopped and faced the Rong tribe without a fight, and half of the defenders of Heishi City fled in fear at the sight of the Rong tribe.

  Even Yang Longtan, who had fled in defeat, may not have realized that Heishi City was the last stronghold of the Empire's northern territories. Once this city fell, and the Qingniu Mountains were crossed, it would be a flat plain all the way to the fertile lands of the thousand-mile-wide territory; the Empire would have no more defenses in the far north.

  Thirty years ago, to be exact thirty-one years ago, the Rong tribe invaded deep into the empire, burning, killing and looting, leaving no grass growing wherever they passed, with corpses scattered all over the fields, even the emperor himself was forced to flee the capital.

  That war was a shame for the entire empire, and the imperial power was shaken by that war. Many years later, in both the court and among the people, poets and officials were trying to whitewash that battle: we didn't actually lose, it was just a strategic retreat to lure the enemy deep into our territory, showing off the emperor's wisdom and bravery, and in the end, weren't the Rong tribes driven away?

  How many soldiers were hailed as heroes in that war, and how many heroes were pursued to the point of being deified.

  But actually what's going on, everyone understands.

  That afternoon, Cheng Daire vaguely remembered that he had eaten two slices of bread for breakfast and drank some wine, then felt a little uncomfortable in his stomach. Afterwards, he fell into a dilemma about whether to drink wine in the morning or not, whether to drink wine at all, and what time to drink it every day.

  Louis XVI was executed at the age of thirty-eight. On the day of his execution, he wrote in his diary: Nothing.

  Originally, in Cheng Dairen's impression, that day was also a dull and boring day. At that time, he had not realized that the wind rises from the end of the green duckweed, and many big things actually start on days when one thinks they are dull and depressed.

  The empire was knocked to the ground by the Rong tribe thirty years ago, and it still can't get back up after all these years. But who can guarantee that what happened thirty years ago won't happen again?

  Turbulent times can come so suddenly sometimes.