The city gate swung slowly open!
The drawbridge came down.
Ning Chen rode out of the city with Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng, and no more than ten musketeers besides.
On the Wu Kingdom’s side, the man at their head was middle-aged, and he wore no armor but a scholar’s robe.
He was tall and spare, his hair hanging loose and untidy down his back — a man careless of small proprieties, with arrogance in his brow.
He narrowed his eyes at the boy galloping toward them in fine clothes on a spirited horse, and said quietly, “That will be the celebrated Ning the Silver Coat of the Great Xuan. How young he is.”
Beside him, a big man in armor, with a coarse face full of contempt, gave a cold snort.
“Nothing but an infant with the milk not dry on him. It seems the Great Xuan really has run out of men.”
The man in the scholar’s robe smiled. “Don’t take your enemy lightly. That infant of yours cut his way through the North Royal Court and took the King of the Left Court alive — and not long ago he handed Zhao Bokang a defeat.”
The big man’s face was as contemptuous as ever. “Luck, most likely.”
The man in the scholar’s robe frowned slightly. “General Ran is bold and a fine fighter, but he had better not underestimate this Ning the Silver Coat of the Great Xuan.”
“By what our spies send back, the man is a mover and shaker in the Great Xuan’s capital. He put the Empress’s brother to the sword, he brought down the Left Chancellor — and even the death of the Great Xuan’s Empress is not unconnected to him.”
“For putting the Empress’s brother to the sword, ten thousand deaths would not have been too many for Ning Chen under the Great Xuan’s own law. Yet not only is he alive and thriving, he stands high in the favor of the Great Xuan’s emperor.”
“Do you know how Her Majesty once summed up the Great Xuan’s emperor?”
The fellow in armor shook his head.
The man in the scholar’s robe laughed lightly. “Her Majesty once said that the Great Xuan’s emperor is short on ambition and long on judgment.”
“Meaning what?”
The man in the scholar’s robe smiled. “Meaning the Great Xuan’s emperor has no great designs, but his eye for a man is deadly, and he knows how to pick them and how to use them.”
“Ning Chen stands high in that emperor’s favor. That tells you the man has something in him beyond the ordinary.”
While they were speaking, Ning Chen had brought his party up in front of them.
The man in the scholar’s robe bowed slightly to Ning Chen from the saddle. “Are you General Ning Chen?”
Ning Chen nodded. “That’s right! And who are you?”
“I am Pang Yun, envoy of the Wu Kingdom, come by command of Her Majesty the woman emperor of Great Wu to see General Ning face to face.”
Ning Chen looked him over. “On what business?”
Pang Yun smiled faintly, raised his head slowly, and said with arrogance, “To ask the Great Xuan for a few things.”
Ning Chen raised an eyebrow. “What things?”
Pang Yun said, “Her Majesty wants the thousand miles of territory from the city of Mangzhou to the frontier passes.”
Ning Chen was taken aback, and then he burst out laughing.
“Direct enough. And if the Great Xuan doesn’t agree, the Wu Kingdom sends troops to reinforce Zhao Bokang, is that it?”
Pang Yun smiled. “General Ning is quick, as I expected.”
Pan Yucheng, Feng Qizheng and the rest were furious.
This was naked blackmail from the Wu Kingdom!
But Ning Chen showed not the slightest anger. He said, smiling, “What are your other terms? Let’s have them all at once.”
“Besides that thousand miles of territory, the Great Xuan is to send our Wu Kingdom a yearly tribute of a million taels of silver, a hundred thousand bolts of cloth, and a hundred thousand head of cattle and sheep.”
Pang Yun did not bother being polite about it.
He was negotiating on behalf of a state, and he had to be hard.
Ning Chen looked at him. “That all?”
Pang Yun nodded. “That is all.”
Ning Chen roared with laughter. “The Wu Kingdom thinks too small! Our Great Xuan is a vast land, rich in every kind of thing. What you’re asking is really very little — a hair off nine oxen, to the Great Xuan.”
“For a trifle like this I don’t even need our emperor’s nod. I can decide it myself.”
“Good. Everything you’ve asked for, I grant. And I won’t only give it to you — I’ll give you double.”
Pang Yun was at a loss. “Does General Ning mean that in earnest?”
Ning Chen laughed. “Of course! You come begging for so little — if I refused, wouldn’t it make the Great Xuan look mean?”
“But I have a condition of my own.”
Pang Yun said, “Let General Ning name it.”
Ning Chen said in a ringing voice, “What you want, I’ll give you double. My condition is very simple — send me your Wu Kingdom’s woman emperor to be my concubine. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Ning Chen does not cry out, but when he does, he startles the world.
One sentence, and the face of every man of the Wu Kingdom changed, and their fury was past holding.
Even Pan Yucheng and the others stood there open-mouthed. Good God — he dares say a thing like that? That is an insult to the sovereign of a state.
“Insolence! You dare insult Her Majesty?”
The fellow in armor bellowed it, his eyes all but shooting fire, fixed hard on Ning Chen.
Every Wu Kingdom soldier’s face was full of rage, wearing the look of men who would swallow Ning Chen whole and skin him raw.
Pang Yun’s face darkened, and he stared at Ning Chen. “Does General Ning know the saying that trouble comes out of the mouth? Don’t take the pleasure of a quick tongue and bring ruin down on the Great Xuan for it.”
Ning Chen laughed out loud, and his bearing was insolent. “It is not a quick tongue. I mean it. Go back and carry my words to Her Majesty exactly as I said them — she would not be losing by becoming Ning Chen’s concubine.”
“Right now I ask for nothing else. I only require her as a concubine. If she won’t have it, then I’ll trample the Wu Kingdom under my horses, and when that day comes, if she wants to be my concubine she’ll have to bring the whole Wu Kingdom for a dowry.”
Pang Yun lost his temper completely.
“Ning Chen, don’t be too arrogant. The day our Wu army stands under your walls, mind you don’t wet your pants with fright.”
Ning Chen laughed. “You Wu Kingdom people are too small-spirited. You want to rob a burning house and make the Great Xuan cede land and pay indemnities, and I agreed to it.”
“But one small request from me and every one of you bares his teeth like a mad dog. Men out of a pellet of a country really are small-bellied and chicken-gutted.”
Pang Yun’s eyes went cold and hard, and he said harshly, “Ning Chen, to insult Her Majesty is to insult the whole Wu Kingdom. We will certainly not let the matter rest.”
“In that case, don’t blame the Wu Kingdom for helping Zhao Bokang and flattening your Great Xuan.”
Ning Chen shook his head, laughing in spite of himself, his face full of derision. “Pang Yun, do you really take me for a fool? That you could come the whole way from the frontier to the city of Mangzhou without trouble proves Zhao Bokang has already thrown in with the Wu Kingdom.”
“And I’d guess this business of robbing a burning house — making the Great Xuan cede land and pay indemnities — was Zhao Bokang’s rotten idea too, wasn’t it?”
“You’ve already thrown in with him, and now you want the Great Xuan to cede land and pay indemnities on top of it. You only mean to scoop up what you can while the chance is there. Am I right?”
Pang Yun’s expression flickered.
Ning Chen smiled coldly. “I think greed has blinded you.”
Pang Yun gave a cold snort. “Ning Chen, Zhao Bokang’s hundred and some thousand men, and our Wu army with them — do you really believe you can hold back our iron hooves?”
Ning Chen laughed out loud, and said it one word at a time:
“You hear me clearly. Our Great Xuan makes no marriage alliances, pays no indemnities, cedes no land, and sends no tribute. Whoever offends our Great Xuan will be put to death, however far he runs!“
“Of the Great Xuan’s territory, not an inch is given up. Since you have chosen to help the traitor Zhao Bokang, you have made yourselves the enemies of the Great Xuan.”
“Go back and tell your woman emperor that doing wrong has a price. I, Ning Chen, swear it — one day I will lead an army and trample the Wu Kingdom under my horses. And on that day, you will not even get to beg.”
(End of Chapter 268)