Jinghong Tower

Chapter 405 Suicide
This veteran is one of the two witnesses that Xiao He and Fang Dalong found today.

His surname is Wang and he is a good friend of Meng Zhong. He has followed Meng Zhong for many years and has a high prestige in the army. However, his ability is limited and he has made very few military achievements over the years. Therefore, although he is highly respected, his official position is not high.

With Meng Zhong's fall, Mr. Wang's military career also came to an end.

But he has feelings for the Meng family, and even if Meng Cheng is a scumbag, he will still protect him.

Now that the situation has reversed, thinking about the commander's seal that he "suddenly found" this morning, there is nothing left for Old Wang to understand.

He and his old brother were all used by Xiao He and Fang Dalong.

Wang Lao felt that his integrity had been ruined, and he hated the adulterous couple, and scolded Meng Cheng for not living up to his expectations. Is there any need to ask? He had heard some rumors about Meng Cheng sleeping with his sister-in-law before, but he heard it, but he didn't expose it, right? Now that this scandal was exposed in broad daylight in front of so many people, who could he blame? He could only hate Meng Cheng for being stupid, being seduced by that adulteress, and losing his reputation and even his life.

Mr. Wang watched Meng Cheng grow up, he can tolerate Meng Cheng, but others cannot.

As soon as he took Meng Cheng's head, it was snatched away by someone.

Old Wang saw several angry faces. They were all young generals and military children. They grew up listening to the stories of Wu Dongming and Meng Zhong. They respected Meng Zhong like a god.

Now, their god was insulted, and it was his younger brother and wife who insulted him.

Meng Zhong was powerless to do anything about this, but they couldn't tolerate it.

"Mr. Wang, what are you going to do with this bastard's head? You don't want to give him a grand funeral, do you? He doesn't deserve it. Feed this head to the dogs!"

Everyone pushed and shoved, and Meng Cheng's head was kicked from one person's feet to another's feet. Someone suddenly remembered the culprit and shouted loudly: "Brothers, don't let the adulterer and the adulteress go!"

Fang Dalong wanted to run, but it was too late. Those energetic young people surrounded him. He could hear shouting, cursing, crying, and the sound of swords clashing.

He Shuting watched all this expressionlessly, and said in a faint voice: "Father, we won."

He Jiang let out a long breath. Yes, they won this game.

In the capital, Zhong Yi delivered a piece of information to He Ran.

"Longxi mutiny, He Shuting took Wu Ji's place to gather 100,000 Meng's troops."

He Ran smiled: "Where's Wu Ji?"

A hint of mockery flashed in Zhong Yi's eyes: "He was trapped in Qianzhou by He Dali. Oh, when the information was sent out, he had been trapped for five days. Now I don't know if he has escaped. It depends on whether He Shuting will rescue him."

He Ran nodded. She had a hunch that He Shuting would not come to help. Or, she would send troops to stop He Dali from advancing westward instead of rescuing Wu Ji.

Zhong Yi added: "There is another piece of news. Luo Yun, who was with Wu Ji, has led his troops to Longnan and joined Xiao Wenyuan."

He Ran became interested. Coincidentally, she had just studied Xiao Wenyuan yesterday.

"Xiao Wenyuan betrothed his daughter to Meng Cheng's son. Now that Meng Cheng is dead, it looks like this marriage is going to fall through again. I wonder who Xiao Wenyuan will marry his daughter to next time."

The first time was Wu Ju. As soon as Wu Dongming died, Xiao Wenyuan betrothed his daughter to the second son of the Meng family. Unfortunately, before he received the betrothal gift from the Meng family, Meng Cheng died. With Xiao Wenyuan's usual behavior, it was time for him to unilaterally tear up the engagement again.

However, after two consecutive times, Miss Xiao's reputation of being unlucky for her father-in-law spread, and few people dared to marry into the Xiao family.

Two fathers-in-law have already died, who will fill the vacancy of the third?

Neither He Ran nor Zhong Yi had expected that a month later, news came that Xiao Wenyuan had betrothed his daughter to the young Tartar emperor, and she became the Tartar queen!
When the news reached the capital, everyone's eyes widened into bells.

The little Tartar emperor was only five years old!

The one who really ruled the Tartars was the Queen Mother Man. She held great power and acted ruthlessly, and could be considered a heroine.

Unfortunately, the little emperor was too young, and the Tartars had been plagued by internal and external troubles, so they had not had an easy time in the past two years.

Zhong Yi said: "The Queen Mother Man is the Princess of Dalai. Originally, Dalai was the most powerful foreign aid of the Tartars. But since her brother, Prince Ajin, died in battle, the real power of Dalai has been in the hands of her uncle. Her uncle is eyeing the Tartars covetously. The Queen Mother Man is wary of him everywhere and dares not cooperate with him.

As far as I know, after Wu Dongming was defeated, Empress Dowager Man sent envoys to Xi'an, Longnan and Longxi successively.

He Shuting once met the envoy of Empress Dowager Man at the Chang'an Palace in Xi'an."

He Ran looked at him and asked, "Did you place someone around He Shuting?"

I'm afraid even Wu Ji doesn't know this secret information.

But Zhong Yi knew that there was only one reason, and that was that He Shuting had someone of his around.

"Is it one of those female killers in Hengshan?"

"Yes, Wu Ji once assigned two powerful men to He Shuting. After the Jinghong Tower incident, Wu Ji felt that He Shuting was instigated by these two people and caused such a disaster, so he took the two people back and selected a few martial maids for He Shuting. Wu Ji trusted the most the aristocratic families in Yulin. These martial maids came from the Zhang and Liu families in Yulin. The master of the Zhang family who raised the martial maids was from Jinyang, and her two sons were both in Jinyang."

He Ran understood: "You threatened him with his son and replaced the maidservant sent to Xi'an with a killer?"

Zhong Yi didn't say anything and agreed to this matter.

He Ran once thought about recruiting these killers trained by Prince Jin for her own use, but in the end she handed them over to Zhong Yi.

After all, the original owner of this body was also one of these killers, and He Ran instinctively did not want to have direct contact with them.

There is no one more suitable than Zhong Yi to manage these female killers.

When it comes to dealing with the barbarians, He Ran trusts Wu Ji.

Wu Ji has been resisting the Tartars since he was in his mother's womb. The Wu family has lived in Yulin for a long time. They have been guarding the border. He would not cooperate with the Tartars and betray his ancestors.

Therefore, Wu Ji definitely did not know about He Shuting's meeting with Empress Dowager Man's envoy, otherwise the current situation would not be the case.

He Ran guessed right again. Wu Ji really didn't know about this.

Moreover, even if someone told him now that He Shuting had met the Tartar envoy in private, he would never believe it.

In fact, of the three envoys sent by the Tartars to Xi'an, Longnan and Longxi, only the one who came to Longxi returned in vain.

Meng Cheng even wanted to kill him, but the messenger fled overnight and avoided death by Meng Cheng's knife.

Although Meng Cheng was a lewd and lascivious man, like Wu Ji, he had been following his father and brothers to fight the Tartars since he could remember. In his eyes, all those who were not of his race should die, and he took pleasure in torturing and killing the Tartars.

When the envoy arrived in Longxi, Meng Cheng not only held military power, but also slept with his sister-in-law. He was in high spirits and was so happy that he should kill a few Tartars as a sacrifice.

So, the messenger ran away in fear.

In Xi'an, the envoy successfully met He Shuting, and the meeting between the two sides was peaceful and friendly. The same thing happened in Longnan, but the envoy arrived later. There was no other way, as there were wars all the way, which delayed the time.

When he arrived, the news of Meng Cheng's death had just reached Longnan.

In the letter that Empress Dowager Man wrote to Xiao Wenyuan, she sincerely proposed marriage to the young emperor. She was not a god, so she did not know that Meng Cheng would die. Therefore, she proposed to marry Xiao Wenyuan's second daughter on behalf of the young emperor.

Xiao Wenyuan's second daughter, who was twelve years old at the time.

Although, a twelve-year-old queen and a five-year-old emperor, such a combination is advantageous for the royal family, at least for now.

However, after weighing the pros and cons, Xiao Wenyuan felt that his twelve-year-old second daughter was not up to the task. Coincidentally, the news of Meng Cheng's death came, so Xiao Wenyuan wrote a letter agreeing to the marriage, but wanted to replace his second daughter with his eldest daughter.

Moreover, the wedding should be held early.

Empress Dowager Man was very happy when she saw the letter and agreed to the marriage immediately.

The eighteen-year-old Miss Xiao became the Queen of the Tartars and assisted the Queen Mother Man in governing the country.

On the tenth day of the tenth month, Xiao Wenyuan, with the support of the Tartars, proclaimed himself king. He felt that the title of King of Longnan was too limiting, so he named his country Xiao and was known in history as King of Western Xiao.

A month later, Wu Ji, who was trapped in Qianzhou, finally failed to wait for reinforcements. He held on for three months, and the weather was getting colder and colder. Both the officers and soldiers and the civilians in the city were out of rice and firewood, and were about to starve to death or freeze to death in this cold winter.

The people were angry. They had been trapped for too long and had eaten everything edible in their homes. The leaves had long been eaten up, and even the tree roots had been dug out to fill their stomachs. The next step was to eat their own children.

However, the King of Chang'an was still resisting. A news came from somewhere that the Ran army would not kill or loot the people when entering the city, but would provide porridge and medicine to help the people overcome the difficulties.

There was a little girl who ran to the city gate with her younger sister. She said that her three younger brothers were starving to death and that her father wanted to kill her and her sister and stew them for her brothers to eat. She begged the soldiers guarding the gate to let her and her sisters leave the city, for they were worried that their father would chase them and kill them.

Perhaps the little girls' crying was too miserable, and one of the soldiers softened his heart. He turned around and ran towards the city gate. He also wanted to leave the city, and he wanted to take the two little girls with him.

Staying in the city will only lead to death, but leaving the city may result in being captured. Now there is a war and there is a shortage of people everywhere. Prisoners can be treated preferentially, at least better and much better than staying here.

Suddenly, an arrow came from the sky and shot into the soldier's back. Then, two more arrows hit the soldier, and the little girl and her sister fell to the ground.

The person who shot the arrow was a guard beside Wu Ji.

Wu Ji was furious: "What are you doing? Who told you to shoot them to death?"

The guards knelt down and said, "Your Majesty, they are disturbing the morale of the army! They deserve to die!"

Wu Ji looked at the guard and suddenly remembered that he once lent several people, including this guard, to He Shuting and asked them to work for her.

Later, the incident at Jinghong Tower became too serious, so he called back these guards. This made He Shuting cry, and he comforted her for a long time.

"Before attacking Jinghong Tower, the princess also told you the same thing? She said that everyone in Jinghong Tower deserved to die, right?"

The guard lowered his head. What should he say? He felt that the princess was much more decisive than the prince.

Wu Ji was silent for a moment. The three bodies had been dragged away, but Wu Ji knew that the backlash had already begun.

The consequences of his indulgence and incompetence are now baring their fangs to bite him back.

This guard is like this, and He Shuting may be like this too.

These three arrows killed not only three people, but also the lives of the people in the entire city.

That very night, the hungry and cold people took to the streets with wooden sticks and carrying poles, and some even carried stools. They wanted to beat the soldiers to death. They wanted to go out of the city to find food. They were going to die, either starving to death or freezing to death. They would not survive anyway, so they might as well fight before they died.

The hand-to-hand combat ended in a hail of arrows.

The next morning, the streets were littered with dead bodies.

But these people were not Ran’s army, but ordinary people.

The blood flowed all the way to the front of the office.

Wu Ji walked out of the office, stepping on a ground full of blood, and went all the way to the city gate. He climbed up the city wall and saw flags flying not far away. That was the Ran army.

He turned around and looked towards the city. The corpses had been cleared away, leaving only patches of dark red. That was blood.

Wu Ji looked towards the direction of Yulin. There was Yulin, the home he could never return to.

His home is gone, his father is dead, his mother is still alive, his brother is missing, his wife
Wu Ji's heart ached because He Shuting was still pregnant with his child.

"Shu Ting, for the sake of our relationship, you must keep our child and raise him."

Wu Ji thought that He Shuting would treat their child well, after all, that was her flesh and blood.

Wu Ji scoffed at his own thoughts again. Why did he think like this? Didn’t he believe Shu Ting?
Shu Ting is his most beloved person and the best woman in the world.

But she left him at the critical moment of Wu's life and death.

Wu Ji smiled bitterly and said he didn’t want to think about it anymore. He didn’t want to think about it at all.

He let his father down. His father would never kill people, but he did.

It was his fault, but he had no choice.

The situation was now completely out of control and there was nothing he could do.

He will explain it when he sees his father, and his father will probably forgive him.

At this moment, Wu Ji suddenly thought, if he had not left Yulin in anger that year, he had not married He Shuting on his own initiative, and he had not let Shuting harm the old shopkeeper of Jinghong Tower, if these things had not happened, then He Ran would not have taken revenge, Yulin would still be there, his parents would still be there, his brother would still be there, and his home would still be there.

If, if, there are not so many ifs in this world.

Wu Ji stood on the city wall. He took off his helmet and armor. Under the armor, he was wearing mourning clothes.

Wu Ji said loudly: "All the generals of the Chang'an army, listen to my order. After I die, you must open the city gates and surrender. You must not disobey my order!"

"My lord, no, my lord, no!"

There was a cry from under the city wall. Wu Ji did not hesitate. He drew the long sword from his waist and cut his neck!

On the first day of the twelfth lunar month, King Wu Ji of Chang'an committed suicide in Qianzhou at the age of 29.

On this day, there was heavy snow in Qianzhou City, and the soldiers of Chang'an Army surrendered by leaving the city with mourning bands wrapped around their heads.