Chapter 147 – Ambush in front of Zheng Yang Gate

A rush of footsteps sounded above the Imperial City, and several armored soldiers of the Forbidden Army ran up to the two of them, knelt down on one knee, and said a few words. Fan Xian stood behind the Grand Prince and listened calmly, with no feeling of surprise in his heart. The overnight search had captured the Empress but not the Crown Prince, and the soldiers sent to the homes of the Ye and Qin families had also come up empty.

Just as the Princess had sent people to surround the Fan House, the result is also hopelessly empty a reason, these older generation of characters, even if now there is no year’s gas, but for the movement of the storm, still see very clearly. Especially like Ye Qin two family, since the iron heart to hold the Princess skirt rebellion, where will let Fan Xian they capture any useful hostages.

As for the other several pro-colonels, they were reporting to the Grand Prince about the defense situation in Kyoto at this time. The Grand Prince frowned slightly as he listened, waved his hand for them to go down, and turned to Fan Xian and said, ”The situation at hand is that if we follow the established method of contracting into the palace …… it’s like handing over all the terrain outside of the palace to them. The rebels will set up a position and surround this palace city, and we will no longer have the power to turn the tide.”

Fan Xian looked at him.

“But the problem is that if we start our infestation from the moment the rebels enter the city, it will only serve as a harassment and won’t be able to do much at all.” The Grand Prince said, “I have too few troops in my hands.”

At this time the sunrise has risen, red light shines on the vermilion palace wall, and then reflected out, so that the entire palace city and a large square in front of them are shrouded in warm color, that is, the palace side of the back of the moat of the clear and ghostly, but also permeated with palpitations of the red, like blood in general.

“If we want to stall for time, we must launch a strike from the first moment they enter the gates of Kyoto.” The Grand Prince looked at the rising sun and said with slightly narrowed eyes, “The immediate problem is that your secret agents from the Supervisory Academy are cut off by the city walls in all directions, and are simply unable to pass in intelligence, we must guess from which city gate the army will enter Kyoto.”

“There is a distance from the city gates to the palace, enough for us to kill the other side’s momentum.” Fan Xian bowed his head and said, “If I really have to guess from which city gate the army will enter the capital, I’ll bet on …… Zheng Yang Gate.”

“Same idea as mine.” The Grand Prince nodded. The rebel army from the Yuan Tai camp directly stabbing Kyoto, the nearest city gate is the Zheng Yang Gate, and the thirteen city gate division of the ministry office is also located in that place, although Zhang Deqing rebel, but only that city gate is controlled by him personally, the army of the Princess’s side of the capital from this gate, the most safe and smooth.

The Grand Prince frowned and said, “I have left a cavalry unit there.”

Fan Xian glanced at him, a flash of color flashing through the pupils of his eyes. The disparity between the enemy’s strength and ours was so great that trying to defend the enemy outside the city gates was simply impossible, but he and the Grand Prince had to deal a blow so painful as to be memorable the moment the rebels entered the city in order to slightly reduce the rebels’ vigor.

However, this one troop that was thrown in would definitely be engulfed by the raging momentum of the army, and only a single person would not be able to survive.

Seemingly sensing what Fan Xian was thinking, the Grand Prince wrinkled his brow slightly and said in a hushed voice, “As a soldier of the Kingdom of Qing, it is only right that you lay down your life and forget about death.”

Fan Xian slightly astringent thought, is only the son of heaven’s family’s power struggle, but want these ordinary soldiers to go to throw their heads and spill their blood. At this moment, a morning wind swept in, along with the wind and the imperial city up and down some full of blood and murderous voice, it is those forbidden army within the school officers, began to their own subordinates for the final mobilization before the war, at a time, inside and outside the imperial city, a killing, the air seems to be permeated with tension.

“For the last time, I’m asking you if you want to go.” The Grand Prince squinted his eyes at the city gate in the east, not even glancing at Fan Xian, “When the army surrounds the palace, it will be impossible to break out again.”

He and Fan Xian had already discussed this issue several times. The Grand Prince had intended that he himself would lead the forbidden army to draw the rebels in the middle of Kyoto for a bloody fight, while Fan Xian, with the help of more than a thousand secret agents from the Supervisory Academy, would lead those in the palace to find a way out, kill the city gates, and rush south to Weizhou.

Fan Xian still gently shook his head as he had done during the previous discussions. Not to mention the chances of breaking out, even if he could, he would not let the eldest prince be torn to shreds by the army on the side of the Princess alone, and there was still a great expectation in his heart that allowed him to firmly place his feet on top of the city wall.

He followed the direction of the Grand Prince’s gaze and stared at the increasingly solemn Zhengyang Gate under the rising sun, not saying a word.

The whole Kyoto did not wake up with the rising sun, hundreds of thousands of people stayed in their homes fearfully, listening to the movements outside with their ears open, the streets and alleys between the people’s houses, the Tianhe Avenue, and the various government offices, were empty and silent.

So quiet, so cold, straight to make people feel the first day is still endless night, the whole Kyoto has become a lonely city, dead city.

Just at this moment, the morning wind suddenly came an ominous sound, seems to be the heavy Kyoto city gate was opened.

Hearing no hoofbeats, hearing no horses neighing, no sound of armor and long swords clashing against each other, seeing no military flags fluttering, and separated by such a distance, one should not be able to hear the sound of the city gates opening and closing.

But in such a deathly silent Kyoto, any hint of movement coming from the city gates would touch the sensitive minds of these people at the palace.

Fan Xian haughtily turned his head, looking in several directions to the west and south, gazing at the intelligence smoke sent out by those few secret agents of the Supervisory Office who had risked their lives, the pupils of his eyes shrinking slightly. A moment later, he and the Grand Prince exchanged glances and spoke, “We both guessed wrong.”

The look on the Grand Prince’s face was grave to the extreme as he nodded.

Green smoke was rising in all directions, horns were gradually sounding, and when one looked down from the imperial city, one could see that at this time, dozens of clumps of smoke and dust had appeared on the outer walls of Kyoto in different directions, and the sound of hoofbeats was like thunder as they rumbled from the gates of the city, along the four-pronged avenues of Kyoto, and were killing in the direction of the imperial palace!

Fan Xian and the eldest prince guessed that the rebels would enter the capital by the zhengyang gate, but did not expect that the rebels would actually enter the capital from …… nine city gates at the same time in such a bright and imposing manner!

The two princes above the imperial city sucked in a breath of cold air, thinking how many rebels are under the Princess? How dare they divide their troops and enter the city through the nine gates, pressing the city with an honorable force and creating such a terrifying momentum!

In an instant, Kyoto was filled with smoke.

Outside of Kyoto’s Masayang Gate, the yellow soil was trampled and crushed by the hooves of the galloping horses, and then kicked up again, turning into a cloud of dust and smoke that gradually rose up to become a cloud of yellow smoke, blocking the light cast by the sunrise that initially rose out of the horizon, and making the entire city inside and outside of the gate a bit darker.

The cavalry army of 5,000 men was riding in rows of five riders, at a steady speed, heading into the open Zheng Yang Gate. Everything seemed so silent and fast, the smoke and dust brought up by the hooves of the horses, which was scraped towards the city gates by the rush of these steeds, looked like a headless and tailless yellow dragon, which was constantly struggling to enter into Kyoto with the intention of devouring those poor mortals.

In the midst of the roiling yellow soil, a large military flag was fluttering in the wind, the black flag was painted with a large Qin character, the last stroke of the Qin character stabbed out with force, looking like a kind of indestructible power, even in the midst of the roiling smoke and dust, it was still full of murderous spirit.

Former Vice-Envoy of the Privy Council, now the commander of the Kyoto Guard Division, the leader of the second generation of the Qin family, Qin Heng, was under this flag, calmly watching his army, entering Kyoto with an irresistible aura.

He squinted his eyes, but didn’t cover his mouth and nose to avoid inhaling the yellow soil, he just calmly watched all of this, and unusually complex emotions emerged in his chest. As the commander of the Kyoto Guard Division, he was more than familiar with this Zhengyang Gate, and knew that if the gate was closed tightly, relying on these 3,000 cavalrymen alone, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to enter the capital even if he rushed for three years.

Qing’s capital had been besieged by foreign enemies throughout its history, but it had never been penetrated by the enemy. This Kyoto, which did not have a long history, had fully demonstrated its strong defense power.

Today, however, the gates of this Kyoto were finally captured – as the great man Zhuang Mo Han had once said in his book, the most powerful capitals in history had been captured, often from within.

This rebellion of the Qing Kingdom today was no exception.

Qin Heng watched all of this, as a soldier of the Kingdom of Qing, he had very complicated feelings, and felt immense admiration and fear for that Her Highness the Eldest Princess, who had controlled the thirteen city gate divisions with ease.

However, the situation at this moment did not allow him to think too much. Today, the army entered the capital through nine city gates, and the cavalry brigade he led went through the Zhengyang Gate, and he had to rush to the palace in front of everyone else.

This time, the army has gathered Qin Ye’s two families’ armies, as well as the Kyoto garrison division, totaling more than 30,000 people, while the palace’s defense force adds up to less than 6,000 people. The army to enter the capital, is to be upright, with the force, must be pressed to the people in the palace timid heart war, surrender out!

For Qin Heng, with a force of six against one, to fight this battle, it is really not a difficult task, he never thought that those acquaintances in the palace can resist such a powerful military force.

His pupils flashed through the steeds that rushed past in front of him, the generals …… then flashed through the name of a person, for Qin Heng, he was not so much worried about the side of the palace at the moment, but rather, he was worried that Ye Chong would rush to the palace before he did.

Thinking of the name Ye Chong, Qin Heng exhaled a mouthful of turbid air, this permanent of the Kyoto Guard Division received the Empress Dowager s decree, but did not return to Dingzhou! Although at the moment, it seems that the Ye family’s non-retreat is also the secret arrangement of the Elder Princess, which is of great significance for today’s battle in Kyoto, but for the Qin family, the existence of the Ye family’s military power has some other implications.

Ye Chong was the second prince’s father-in-law, and the Qin family rightfully supported the crown prince, so Master Qin had given a death order that for the sake of the crown prince’s future stability of the throne, the Qin family’s army had to perform strongly enough in this battle, and had to arrive before the Ye family did!

With a clip of his horse’s belly, Qin Heng led his own battalion of personal soldiers and joined the procession into the city, turning into the brightest scale on the yellow dragon.

The rebels divided into nine directions to enter Kyoto, the Qin family occupied six roads, the Ye family occupied three roads, precisely because the rebels were powerful and knew that Kyoto’s defenses were empty, so they didn’t care about splitting up their forces, on the contrary, such a large force to enter, on the contrary, they could make the Palace Division weak again to break out of their courage.

Thirteen city gate division of thousands of officers and soldiers did not join the ranks of the rebels. Ordinary soldiers looked at this scene with their jaws agape, not knowing what was going on, some smart school officers had already guessed that there was probably some kind of imperial rebellion, but they didn’t dare to move under the suppression of their officers. Zhang Deqing commander is a smart person, know that this kind of rebellion thing, they even if they add a hand will not have much credit, first deadlocked on their own city gate division, is the real smart choice.

The sound of horses’ hooves resounded like thunder on the avenue leading directly from Zheng Yang Gate to the palace. The cavalrymen of the Qin Family’s army took out their weapons and began to be on guard, yet their speed did not decrease one bit as they galloped by like a gust of wind.

Nowadays, the world revered black, and the light armor of the Qin Clan’s cavalrymen was also very dark in color, extremely close to the black cavalry of the Supervisory Court, only missing a dash of the most intense black, with a few pieces of bright colors at the breastplate.

A dozen or so galloping cavalrymen suddenly detached themselves from within the brigade and accelerated forward, stabbing into the quiet streets like lightning, brushing against the low eaves of the residential houses, and beginning to return scouting for the advance of the army.

It was business as usual. The dozen or so cavalrymen sped into the street, made another turn, spread out like arrows, and began to march deeper and deeper. All of this happened extremely swiftly and naturally, fully demonstrating the level of training of the Qing army and the might of the Qin family’s army.

The cavalry brigade did not slow down, following the direction that the dozen or so cavalrymen had stepped through, and continued to march forward. Qin Heng rode his horse and led his personal battalion, gazing indifferently more than a hundred feet ahead. He knew that Fan Xian and the Grand Prince would definitely not sit still, and that there would definitely be sniping and difficult tussles on this quiet long street.

But he didn’t care, he knew exactly how many people Fan Xian and the Grand Prince had in their hands, what he demanded was the speed of the march, a strong aura, and no matter what kind of obstruction they were subjected to, they had to mercilessly crush through with their army!

The speed of the rebels was so fast that the dozen or so cavalrymen who were in the lead could not play the role of scouts at all. To be precise, they were merely brave decoys, somewhat like the martyrs in Fan Xian’s world who bravely rolled through the minefield, using their own lives to touch the dead silence of Kyoto to find out what kind of danger existed within.

However, the rebels had already broken through five hundred feet from the Masayang Gate, and the dozen or so brave cavalrymen still hadn’t encountered any snipers. Until they could vaguely see the eaves of the palace under the sunrise, the streets and alleys were still quiet.

“Hiss!”

About a hundred feet away from the dozen or so cavalrymen, the rebel brigade, the horses at the forefront, which were powerfully breathing in the air of Kyoto, maintaining a steady speed, but at the same time, hissed in agony!

The neighing sound was cut off from it, and several warhorses tumbled to the ground at the same time!

The heavy bodies of the warhorses slammed hard against the street’s verdant stone floor, shaking up a few wisps of dust, but shaking the street as if it had trembled. The horse’s head collided heavily with the ground, and blood burst out!

And those cavalrymen on the warhorse with the best riding skills were also caught off guard by this sudden change and tumbled to the ground. Before they could wake up from the pain of their broken legs, a few black poisoned crossbow arrows shot out from the houses along the street, and ruthlessly pierced into their bodies.

At the same time when the first few horses fell to the ground and the cavalrymen were killed by the crossbow arrows, countless hissing sounds suddenly came from the entire quiet street.

These rattling sounds did not come from the mouths and noses of those galloping warhorses, but from the ground. Kyoto’s street floor was paved with square bluestone, and the gaps between the bluestone were filled with loess.

Those neighing noises came from the fine yellow soil between these stone slabs.

At the same instant, the yellow soil between the stone slabs on the long street suddenly cracked! Both sides of the street seems to have some magical power, even from the cracked yellow soil, popped up a thin black leather rope, leather rope is too thin to tie hooks and thorns, but can be seen faintly shining with a ghostly light, it should be a poisoned needle.

Dozens of black special trip wires appeared suddenly and magically on the street that was a straight path a moment before!

Countless muffled sounds rang out at the same time, and the Qin Family Army’s cavalry brigade suffered a merciless blow at this moment. Totaling about a hundred riders, they fell off the clouds and smashed into the deep earth before these dozens of trip wires.

For a time, the streets were filled with people, horses, and miserable cries. An unknown number of people or horses with broken tendons and bones were heavily smashed together, tumbling and bleeding.

Immediately afterward, whooshing air-breaking sounds rang out, and these sounds were like the whistles from the underworld that came to harvest lives, causing one’s heart to tremble. Countless black crossbow arrows were shot out from the residential houses along the street, shooting at those rebels who fell to the ground, instantly stopping their miserable cries.

But in a split second, there were more than a hundred dead people on this half of the street, and all of these dead people had crossbow arrows stuck in their bodies. While the ambushers didn’t shoot the horses, those broken limbs and poisoned warhorses lay powerless on the ground, lying next to their masters’ corpses, neighing in pain while stirring their legs one by one.

The scene looked incomparably miserable.