Phi-Fic Chapter 1078 Yang Tong
Chapter 1078 Yang Tong
Li Che could see clearly that this group was also a mixed race.
The group at the head, dressed in worn-out Qing army armor, were likely officers; they were clearly Qing people.
After that, the soldiers' attire became varied and diverse. Some wore tattered leather armor, some were wrapped in animal skins and rattan armor, and some were even shirtless and carrying only wooden spears. Both the Liao and Qing people were dressed in these styles.
Without exception, they followed closely behind the Qing officer, their eyes filled with vigilance.
"Halt! State your name!" shouted the leading Qing officer, his hand on his sword.
One of Li Che's personal guards immediately spurred his horse forward a few steps, his voice booming: "How dare you! The Emperor himself is here! Open the city gates at once to welcome him!"
The Emperor? The Imperial Carriage?
The officer at the gate was stunned, his face filled with disbelief.
In this impoverished and desolate place, the most powerful official who comes here is no more than a minor official from Chengdu.
Now that they say the emperor has arrived, who can believe it?
This is tantamount to the school announcing a leadership visit today, only to find out it's the Jade Emperor himself...
"What emperor? Which emperor? Don't talk nonsense..."
The officer's reaction was blunt and almost rude, but it also truly reflected how distant and vague the concept of imperial power was in this place.
"Nonsense!" Luo Yueniang shouted, spurring her horse forward. "Under the whole heaven, all land belongs to the king! Daqing has only one emperor, so how can you talk about 'which'!"
The officer recognized the voice and, upon seeing Luo Yueniang's face, was terrified.
The astonishment on his face was instantly replaced by panic, and he quickly clasped his hands and asked, "Was it General Luo in person?"
Luo Yueniang frowned and said, "That's right!"
The officer immediately knelt on one knee and repeatedly said, "This humble general was blind! I did not know that General Luo had arrived. I deserve death! I deserve death!"
Luo Yueniang pursed her lips, subconsciously turning her head to look at Li Che, a look of helplessness flashing in her eyes.
This was not the first time such a situation had occurred since entering Shu; the emperor's title was not as effective as her position as the former commander of the Shu army.
Although she knew the emperor was very magnanimous, the repeated occurrences still made her feel extremely uncomfortable.
Li Che merely raised the corners of his mouth slightly, showing no annoyance but rather finding it quite amusing.
This precisely proves that his move to persuade Luo Yueniang to surrender, rather than to exterminate her, was a brilliant strategy.
The Shu region was able to transition relatively smoothly, and the former enemy leader has now become an asset in his takeover and integration of the Shu region.
Seeing that the emperor's expression remained normal, Luo Yueniang felt somewhat relieved.
Turning back to the kneeling officer, he solemnly said, "Since you recognize me, why don't you quickly go and inform Yang Tong and Atuna?"
"His Majesty has arrived in person; order them to immediately leave the pass to welcome him!"
Yang Tong was the official in charge of supervising this place, while Atuna was the leader of this area.
"Yes! Yes! I'll go right away! I'll go right away!"
The officer, as if granted a pardon, scrambled to his feet and ran towards the gate, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Open the gate! Open the gate quickly! It's General Luo! Oh yes... and His Majesty too! Go and report to Lord Yang and that man, Atu!"
The heavy door slowly opened again, this time much faster.
The soldiers and their comrades all turned to look at them, their eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment.
Especially when they saw Li Che surrounded by a large number of soldiers, many people's eyes revealed a shock as they looked at the 'people from beyond the heavens'.
They seemed not to understand what an emperor was, and the way they looked at Li Che was no different from the way Li Che looked at Sheng Liao.
Li Che, however, did not care. He simply sat upright on his horse and waited calmly.
Before long, a cacophony of voices and footsteps arose within the fortified city, raising a light dust as a group of people hurriedly emerged.
The two leading figures had strikingly contrasting appearances.
He was as thin as a bamboo pole, with a sparse goatee, wearing an old official robe that had been starched and faded and patched with dark colors, yet he possessed a scholarly air about him.
The other was dark-skinned and fat, like a small hill, with shiny black skin. He was wrapped in an equally tattered official robe, the front of which was stretched taut. His fat jiggled as he ran.
Li Che's gaze swept over them, and he subconsciously made a judgment.
The thin one must be Qing Guan Yang Tong, and the fat one must be Liao Ren Tou Na.
The fat, dark-skinned man ran out of the city gate, squinted at Luo Yueniang at the front of the procession, his small eyes widened suddenly, and his face instantly filled with excitement.
Then, surprisingly, he rushed ahead of the skinny man and knelt down in the dust with a thud, his voice loud but trembling:
"It really is General Luo! Heaven has smiled upon us! Your humble servant, Yang Tong, pays his respects to the General! General..."
Li Che raised an eyebrow, realizing he had mistaken the person for someone else; the fat one was actually Qing Guan.
No... How come you, a Qing person, look even more Liao people than Liao people?
Luo Yueniang frowned and scolded, "Stand up and speak! His Majesty is here; how can you be so disrespectful!"
The fat, dark-skinned man, Yang Tong, didn't get up. He just raised his sweaty face and asked with a simple yet anxious tone, "Is it really His Majesty... His Majesty has really come? Where is he?"
Luo Yueniang turned to the side and looked at Li Che, who was surrounded by his personal guards.
Yang Tong followed the gaze and, upon seeing the young figure seated on the horse, was as if shaken by something, his face filled with horror.
He shuddered, then scrambled to his feet and crawled to a few feet in front of Li Che's horse, whereupon he burst into tears:
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty! It is truly Your Majesty's countenance!" He spoke with a heavy Sichuan accent, tears and snot instantly streaming down his face. "This humble official is but an ant from the mountains and fields, a lowly and insignificant person, yet in this lifetime I am fortunate enough to have the honor of seeing Your Majesty in person!"
"It was worth it! It was totally worth it! It's a blessing from our ancestors, earned over ten lifetimes!"
Without paying attention to the gravel and mud on the ground, he began to kowtow loudly, shouting, "Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!"
The head was pounded hard, each blow landing squarely, leaving bloodstains on the forehead immediately.
Li Che silently looked down at him, thinking that this guy was actually quite interesting.
This man had a coarse and uncouth appearance, like a barbarian, but his willingness to disregard his dignity and pride was something none of the other Shu officials possessed.
Looking at the tall, thin Atuna beside him, he was already frozen in place, completely at a loss. He looked bewildered at Yang Tong's performance and the emperor in front of him, and even seemed to have forgotten how to bow.
It's clear at a glance who is primary and who is secondary.
People like Yang Tong are either extremely treacherous or extremely loyal!
"Alright," Li Che said slowly, and Yang Tong's wailing immediately stopped. "Stop kowtowing."
Yang Tong stopped immediately, but remained kneeling with her buttocks sticking up high, not daring to move.
Li Che's gaze swept past him and landed on the simple fortified city wall in the distance: "I have come from afar, and you just want me to stand here outside the city?"
Yang Tong shuddered and immediately straightened up, raising his hand to slap himself hard across the face: "Your Majesty, I am guilty! I was blinded by greed! I forgot that Your Majesty was exhausted from your journey!"
He scrambled to his feet in a panic, not even bothering to brush off the dust, and bowed repeatedly, pleading, "Your Majesty, please move to another palace! Although the palace here is simple, I will immediately prepare the best room for Your Majesty as a temporary palace, and hot water and food will be prepared right away!"
Seeing his flustered yet shrewd appearance, Li Che couldn't help but chuckle.
He then lightly flicked the whip in his hand: "Get up and speak properly. I don't like people kneeling and bowing all the time... Remember, from now on, you can speak to me standing up."
Yang Tong nodded vigorously, but his back remained bent as usual: "Yes, yes, yes! Your Majesty is benevolent and compassionate!"
Li Che said no more and gently spurred his horse.
Yang Tong hurriedly jogged ahead to lead the way, occasionally glancing back at the emperor's expression. His dark, plump face was covered in sweat and dust, making him look like a simple and loyal subject.
Meanwhile, Atuna, like a silent shadow, hurriedly followed behind Yang Tong, disappearing into the shadows of the gate wall.
Upon entering the fortified city, the scene before one's eyes unfolds:
The first thing that catches the eye is the dense array of salt well frames that rise up along the contours of the mountain.
All of them are made of logs and thick bamboo, simple in form yet tall, like a silent forest of bones.
The top of the derrick is equipped with a windlass, and a long bamboo rope hangs down into the bottomless well, making a creaking friction sound.
Occasionally, bare-chested laborers would work together to crank the windlass, laboriously lifting wooden barrels filled with grayish-black brine and pouring them into a bamboo chute beside them.
These interconnected chutes, like crude blood vessels, guide the brine drawn up to the center of the valley.
The closer you get to the center, the stronger and more pungent the salty, damp smell in the air becomes, mixed with the acrid smell of burning smoke.
The central area is a huge open-air salt-making field, with hundreds of large round stoves arranged densely like scars on the earth.
The firewood roared beneath the stove, its flames licking the huge salt pot set up on top.
The thick brine in the pot boiled and churned, steaming up plumes of white vapor and smoke that shrouded half the sky in gray.
Li Che squinted, gazing at the area shrouded in thick smoke.
Even without much medical knowledge, he knew how devastating it was to the lungs to inhale this fumes, which were a mixture of salt, sulfur, and other minerals, for a long time.
It's likely that the hidden illness will develop within just a few months, not even within a few years.
Amidst this toxic, miasma-like smoke, thousands of Liao people were working in the stoves.
They were almost completely naked, with only a piece of tattered cloth of indeterminate color hastily tied around their waists or groins. Their skin was blackened and shiny from the smoke and covered with grayish-white salt stains.
They moved between the scalding stoves, stirring the boiling brine with long-handled iron ladles, adding firewood, sprinkling salt, and scraping the coarse salt crystallized on the sides of the pots... their movements were mechanical and numb.
The thick smoke made them cough violently from time to time, but no one stopped what they were doing.
Many people have red and swollen eyes, and they often wipe them with the backs of their blackened hands, leaving even dirtier stains on their faces.
On the outer edge of the salt-making site, in the windward direction, there were large areas of low thatched huts and bedding, which were obviously the dwellings of these salt workers and their families.
The shantytowns were invariably covered in the pervasive smoke of salt, and clothes hung on bamboo poles would soon be covered with a layer of white frost.
Several thin children chased each other between the shacks, while a woman sat at the doorway holding an infant, watching all of this numbly.
Tiny salt crystals clung to their hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes.
Li Che slowly withdrew his gaze, his face expressionless, but his hand holding the reins tightened slightly for a moment.
Pity is frivolous, even an insult, in such a place.
This is not a natural disaster, but their livelihood, which they have relied on for generations.
What Li Che needs to do is take these jobs away from them...