Chapter 7: The Young Man Who Walked Out of the King’s Tent

Two days later, Fan Xian and his group were ready to leave Qingzhou. This trip needed to go deeper into the grasslands, so naturally it was inconvenient to take a carriage anymore, and apart from the carts pulling the goods, the rest of the merchants, all of them, rode on horseback. During these two days, Mu Feng’er had already naturally gotten on with those merchants and agreed to go all the way.

Early in the morning, when a large number of merchants started to leave the city in turn, the Qingzhou cavalry, who had once again returned from hunting rabbits, happened to return to the city, and the two groups brushed past each other.

The cavalrymen did not look these merchants in the eye, although sometimes their superiors would send these cavalrymen to escort these merchants, but more often than not, the two sides seldom had any dealings. Without the escort of the Qing army, these merchants might even be a bit safer.

Ye Ling’er, whose face was a bit tired, rode on a horse, and a few strands of green silk leaked out from her helmet, mixing with the sweat in one place, making it a bit sticky. She fiddled with her fingers and subconsciously glanced at the caravan at the city gate.

It was just a glance, but it was like being attracted by a magnet. Ye Ling’er’s brows furrowed, somewhat puzzled as she looked at the caravan, a young merchant standing beside his horse, that merchant was wearing a cotton coat, ordinary, not too harsh looking, but Ye Ling’er always felt that it felt a bit odd.

From this angle, she could only see the young merchant’s back, it was this back that allowed Ye Ling’er to discover the other party’s true identity, her face abruptly changed, and her pupils flashed through a few complex emotions.

It was Fan Xian.

Why was Ye Ling’er able to spot Fan Xian’s figure so easily? It was because Fan Xian was her master, having once taught her a year’s worth of small tricks, and Ye Ling’er had taught the Ye Family’s Great Splitting Coffin to the other party without hiding anything. Palms intersected, bodies fought each other, and they were familiar with each other’s movement habits and physical characteristics to a terrifying degree.

Ye Ling’er stared blankly at that back, biting her lips and suppressing her emotions, not riding forward, swinging down with a whip, calling out to her master and crying out.

Because she knew that since Fan Xian had come to Qingzhou City in disguise and had not come to see himself, what he was doing must not be a private matter, but rather, the court had an extremely important mission and the Supervisory Yuan wanted to make some noise on the grasslands.

If it wasn’t something extremely important, a son of a thousand gold like Fan Xian would never have risked so much to go deep into the grasslands. Nowadays Ye Ling’er has long since not been that flamboyant little girl, people have matured a lot, naturally will not be in front of the crowd, pointing out Fan Xian’s identity, just deeply looked at the back of that two eyes, then silently led the horse head, toward the state capital traveling.

After entering the state capital, before resting for a moment, she opened her mouth and said, “The Grand General’s residence in Dingzhou ordered an autumn hunt the other day, so we should also make some moves.”

A general listened on the sidelines, his heart chilling, secretly thinking that miss is getting more and more ruthless now. It was just that the men and horses were exhausted from the nightly raids, and explained, “The military order from the Great General’s House is clear that Qingzhou is not included in the scope of this Autumn Hunt.”

“Then we’ll do it ourselves.” Ye Ling’er lowered her head. She was now not a little girl who came to play, but a female general in the army who had a lot of experience to consider, and with her identity and origin, the words she entered must be carefully considered even by her top boss.

No one was clear on why Ye Ling’er insisted that the Qingzhou army join the scope of the Autumn Hunt, because no one knew that the Supervisory Authority’s Tishee, Fan Xian, had come to Qingzhou, left it, and entered the grasslands. Ye Ling’er’s proposal was just to use the cavalry of Qingzhou to attract most of the attention of the Hu people and protect the safety of the caravan along that route, “This year’s merchants are coming in unusually large numbers, and no one knows if the Hu people will suddenly go crazy.”

“Those nobles of the Hu are still counting on the merchants to keep shipping goods in, how could they possibly go crazy.” The general thought in his heart and frowned, “Don’t mind those merchants, if we send out troops, I’m only afraid that it will bring them inconvenience instead.”

Ye Ling’er didn’t say anything, looking down and thinking, if the three roads into the grasslands were in chaos, it should make it easier for Fan Xian to do things. Although she wasn’t at all clear at this point as to why Fan Xian was venturing into the grasslands, she only knew one thing: Master, this person, had always been the best at making the most out of chaos.

During these two or three days, there were suddenly many more outsiders in the Dingzhou base camp at the back of Qingzhou. Some of these people were using the identities of officials from various imperial ministries who claimed to have come to check on the status of their expenditures, some were merchants from all over the world, and there were also some hard laborers who had taken advantage of the fact that the war was about to subside and had come to the west to pan for gold.

The identities of these people were so disorganized that they didn’t attract much attention, but were only vaguely divided into many groups, and within each group, there was a leader. Just as Fan Xian and his group left Qingzhou and began to head towards the Grassland King’s Tent to look for the person called Songzhi Xianling, these leading figures entered the Great General’s Mansion silently.

Today, there were important matters in the Great General’s residence, and all the idle people were driven out of the residence. Looking at the dozen or so people in different costumes under the hall, Great General Li Hongcheng couldn’t help but smile bitterly and say, “Fan Xian’s handiwork is really big this time.”

These people who had entered Dingzhou City were all officials and spies of the Supervisory Office, and at this time, in the Great General’s residence, they were the heads of the various parts, but there was only one person who was qualified to sit on the chair under the hall. This person has reached middle age, Chinese hair is not born, but the eyes are a little tired, it seems that these three years in a foreign country, really had an exceptionally hard time.

This person looked at Li Hongcheng and made a bow and said, “The courtyard thought that if you want to empty Dingzhou city of spies, then you must use thunderous means.”

Li Hongcheng looked at this person, frowned and said, “But how can I not let you come here personally, Deng Ziyue, you are not in the Upper Capital and suddenly arrived in Dingzhou, what about the court’s affairs in the north?”

Li Hongcheng’s status was honorable, but he also spoke more politely to this middle-aged man, because he knew that the other party was the chief head of the Supervisory Office’s secret spies in Northern Qi, and an even more important status was that of the head of the Qinian group, one of Fan Xian’s most powerful cronies nowadays.

Not bad, this commanding officer of the Supervisory Yuan in Dingzhou to get rid of traitors is Deng Ziyue, who was sent by Fan Xian to Beiqi for more than two years, and I don’t know what is the problem of this action, which even made Fan Xian transfer this person back.

“If I don’t come back myself, how can I catch those people.” Deng Ziyue thought in his heart, but he did not make it clear to Shi Zi, because this matter not only involved the war between Western Hu and Daqing, but also involved another powerful force.

When Fan Xian transferred him south, he was not prepared to let him go back to Shangjing, and what he was going to use was his infiltration of the Northern Qi Brocade Guards in Shangjing over the past three years, as well as his familiarity with the Northern Qi side.

“After finishing this matter, my humble servant will not return to Shangjing.” Deng Ziyue respectfully bowed to Li Hongcheng.

Li Hongcheng looked into his eyes and slowly spoke, “How is the Western Battalion going to cooperate?”

“Deng Ziyue should have already been in Dingzhou for three days.” Fan Xian half-closed his eyes as he sat on the back of his horse, seemingly not worried at all about being thrown off his horse, yawned, and said, “According to the agreed upon time, we have to be quicker, or else if they move within Dingzhou City and enrage those people on the grasslands, I’m afraid that it will be a bit of a problem.”

He had been preparing for this matter for four months, and if the anger in his heart hadn’t accumulated to such a thick level, Fan Xian probably wouldn’t have resorted to such crude means. But he also knew in his heart that the other party had entered the grasslands far before himself, and his infiltration of Dingzhou City had been underway for more than a year, so he was already much slower in terms of time, and he was afraid that if he could not hold the other party’s main generals at bay in the grasslands, he would only go awry.

Mu Feng’er glanced at his lordship and then forward at the long caravan, frowning, he said, “These people are moving too slowly, and with the various tribes stopping along the way, there’s no telling what time it will be when they really get to the king’s tent.”

Originally, according to the scheduled plan, Fan Xian and his merchant group should have separated from the large group of these merchants yesterday, and there was a fork in the grassland yesterday, where Hu Ge should have sent his cronies to meet them, and then Fan Xian and his group would have taken a shortcut and arrived at their target.

But it didn’t occur to me that there was no one at the fork in the road to meet them, just one of Hu Ge’s absolute confidants, who watched for an opening and sneaked into the tent in the evening to express his apologies and recount the reasons.

The other two roads above the grassland were being invaded by the Qingzhou army, and Hu Ge, as the number one expert under King Zuo Xian’s account, happened to be leading his own men here, and was rightfully deployed to support them, and there was no way he could have left the main force and come to meet the Qing State Supervisory Academy’s party.

Fan Xian didn’t know that this was Ye Ling’er’s intention, and even less did he think that his female disciple’s attempt to share his worries had brought him more trouble.

“Since that person hasn’t been showing himself, even if we arrive at the king’s tent, it’s unlikely that we’ll see each other.” Mu Feng’er looked at Fan Xian and reminded, “The other party won’t make this kind of mistake, knowing that it’s a merchant caravan from the Qing Kingdom, he won’t reveal his appearance in front of us.”

The horse slowly moved forward, its hooves treading on the autumn grass without fragrance.

“The Dingzhou side is ready.” Mu Feng’er reminded again, because in his opinion, even if there were so-called high ranking people in the Hu people’s king’s tent, but as long as the spies within Dingzhou City were eliminated, the other side wouldn’t be able to make too much of a fuss, so why take the risk?

Fan Xian’s thumb gently moved on the reins, and after a moment, he said, “I have to know who that person is, this is a very important point, if the other party is the one I suspect, I have to change my tactics, merely wiping out the city of Dingzhou does not work fundamentally.”

He had never heard of the name Songzhi Xianling, nor did he know what this foreign name stood for in the Hu language, but almost subconsciously he assumed that the person who possessed it was a woman, which was an unreasonable sort of deduction, somewhat arcane and illogical.

Fan Xian became more and more convinced of his judgment, and he became angrier and angrier.

There were a few white birds in the distance, scurrying across the knee-length autumn grasslands. Fan Xian raised his eyes and looked, and could faintly see that further behind the grasslands was a large desert, and what was further beyond the desert?

“East of the desert, is the North Sea.” Mu Feng’er looked at her lord’s slightly furrowed brow, knowing what he was thinking, and said softly, “Over there in the vast North Sea, is Northern Qi.”

“I’ve been to the North Sea.” Fan Xian looked over there, as if to see the reeds in the North Sea, and said quietly, “This desert stretches for thousands of miles, and it is said that no one has ever been able to pass through it alive, and that North Sea, although it is beautiful, is so horizontal and limitless that if one wishes to cross it, it would be difficult to do so. I have been thinking about this question …… To go from North Qi to West Hu, how exactly should I go?”

“First go south into the country, then from Kyoto northwest straight swept Dingzhou, then to Qingzhou into the grassland, then arrived at the place where we are now.” Mu Feng’er, who had obviously put in some effort in Kyoto, said, “It will take a long time, but it’s very convenient and more feasible than forcing our way across the North Sea and through the desert.”

“But the Western Hu King’s Tent and those two wise kings will never trust a Central Plains man from Qing.” Fan Xian said with a cold look on his face, “It’s an extremely difficult task in itself to win the trust of the seemingly warm, but actually suspicious Hu people, so I’m curious as to how exactly they managed to do it.”

In the following ten days, the caravan traveled towards the depths of the grassland, everywhere is a scenery of autumn grass, occasionally see nomadic people, grazing hundreds of cattle and sheep, if a white cloud, floating in the slightly undulating meadows above, beautiful and peaceful to the extreme.

This place is no longer a place of war between the Western Hu and the Qing army, so it gradually reveals some feelings of a paradise outside the country.

On the way through the two big tribes, the merchants of Qing sold many goods, the whole caravan seems much lighter and faster. But still no merchant sold out the goods, follow the original road back, because the more valuable goods the lighter, and if you want to sell a big price, you can only go to the hu people’s king’s tent.

Along the way, Fan Xian paid close attention to the attitude of the Hu people towards his own caravan, because this involves very important things in the world in the future. He realized with some self-deprecation that the gazes of the Hu people looking at the merchants of the Central Plains were still somewhat unkind, and even contained bone-deep hatred.

The blood debt of a thousand years could not be washed away with just gems and tea.

However, the tribal head priests and nobles had a much better attitude towards the Chinese merchants. After Mu Feng’er’s little inquiry, she learned from those old merchants that this change in attitude had only begun more than a year ago.

It seems that the Western Hu King’s tent finally realized the importance of commerce, and sent word to the various tribes, strictly forbidding them from harassing the caravans entering the grasslands, and even in certain dangerous areas, they were also responsible for deploying the elite of their tribes to escort these caravans. A year ago, there is a poor small tribe, once did not endure the temptation of the Central Plains caravan, secretly sneak attack, robbed a lot of goods, caused the king’s tent was furious, directly sent troops to eliminate, or rather, slaughtered, a small tribe even a person did not survive.

It is also such a blood-soaked example, so that everyone on the grassland, clear the determination of the king’s tent, but also fundamentally, to ensure the safety of the Central Plains caravan, since then, although in the grasslands can still usher in some unkind eyes, but the Central Plains merchants, never ushered in any dangerous swords.

This was a very long-term arrangement, and Fan Xian secretly admired it. He knew clearly that although today’s caravans sold only some luxury goods, but no business is no life, as long as the business routes on the grasslands were guaranteed to be open, who knew that merchants from the Qing Kingdom and even the Eastern Barbarians and Northern Qi would sneakily disregard the ban of the Qing Kingdom and secretly import living and military materials to the grasslands because of their interests.

In the long run, the border ban will be loosened, and the power of the Hu people will become stronger day by day.

On this day, the king’s tent finally arrived. Looking at the crescent moon sea under the lone mountain, the small desert beside the sea, and a large piece of verdant grassland, Fan Xian was also put into a trance by the beauty of the scenery. The place where the king’s tent was located was really different from ordinary places, and there was a distinctive pattern between heaven and earth.

Especially those green grasslands made Fan Xian feel very strange, this was fall, why was the grass still green?

On the side of Lone Mountain, countless cows and sheep were scattered on the broad grassland.

The young girls of the Hu tribe were washing pottery pots and utensils by the Crescent Moon Sea in preparation for welcoming the guests from the Central Plains.

The sky seemed to be much lower than the rest of the world, even touching the ground of the grassland. The autumn wind was blowing, and the grass was low, so it was very refreshing.

Fan Xian dismounted from his horse and traveled, glancing at an ordinary Supervisory Court official behind him, smiled, turned his head, looked at this beautiful scene in front of him, and couldn’t help but shake his head.

Xihu Erlang led this line of hard-working merchants from the Central Plains to a tent on the shores of the Crescent Moon Sea, allowing them to take a short rest, and said very sincerely that after some more time, the Great King would personally host a banquet to entertain these honored guests.

This caravan should be considered the largest group of caravans in the entire fall, so the king’s tent was very attentive to their hospitality.

But Fan Xian always felt something strange in his heart, the attitude of the Western Hu people seemed to be a bit too good, could it be that the Songzhi Immortal Order really had such a far-reaching influence on the king’s tent?

After slightly using some food, Fan Xian rubbed his stomach and walked out of the tent, walking on top of the meadow next to the Crescent Moon Sea and squinting at the surrounding scenery. His current identity was that of a merchant, and apart from the close proximity of the king’s tent where he couldn’t pry, Xihu didn’t prohibit these merchants of the Central Plains from wandering around – no one on the grasslands knew him, so there was no need to worry about safety at all, and his mood was naturally light-hearted.

“The sky is pale and wild ……”

After only having the time to say six words, he was disturbed by a shout of approval from his side, and Fan Xian looked back, only to see a young man walking briskly to his side, hastily shouting his approval.

“I only said six words, where is it good?” Fan Xian smiled as he looked at this young man of Chinese appearance, but his eyes subconsciously glanced at the king’s tent tent not far away; he had seen this young man earlier in the meadow, walking out from the king’s tent.