Watching Ning Chen’s high, sweeping bearing and listening to the ring of iron in his words, Pang Yun’s face grew darker and darker.
He forced down the anger in him.
This was outside the city of Mangzhou. Forcing the matter would gain them nothing.
But as the Wu Kingdom’s envoy, he could not let the Wu Kingdom’s dignity suffer.
Pang Yun softened his tone. “Does General Ning understand that one irresponsible word from him could bring two states to war and lay waste to every living thing?”
Ning Chen’s face was cool. “Are you telling me my business?”
Pang Yun said, “I am only setting out for General Ning where his interests lie.”
Ning Chen’s voice dropped a good deal too. “That the Wu Kingdom’s woman emperor could send you here says you are somebody, and at the very least an intelligent man.”
“An intelligent man should not do stupid things.”
“Ning here knows the Wu are good fighters, but the young men of the Great Xuan are not made of mud either, and the Great Xuan was also founded on horseback.”
“The Wu may be good fighters, but you are a pellet of a country. Your people are few and your troops are not enough. You are already at war with the Tuoluo Kingdom — do you have soldiers left over to stand against the Great Xuan’s million?”
Pang Yun spoke up. “General Ning seems to have forgotten that we also have Zhao Bokang’s hundred and some thousand men.”
Ning Chen let out a small, contemptuous laugh, his eyes full of scorn.
“You must know what happened a few days ago, when Zhao Bokang led a hundred thousand men here and was broken past holding — throwing away helmets and armor and running for his life.”
“Those hundred and some thousand men under him are young men of the Great Xuan when all is said and done. Whether they will fight with everything they have once they are on the field is an open question.”
“You only mean to do as Nanyue did and squeeze the Great Xuan while the chance is there. All I can tell you is that greed has blinded you.”
Pang Yun said in a heavy voice, “It seems General Ning has set his heart on war with the Wu Kingdom?”
Ning Chen’s eyes were cold and sharp. “It is you who do not know your own measure, you who are pressing us hard, you who want to rob a burning house. Since the Wu Kingdom wants a war, the young men of the Great Xuan will oblige you.”
“Go back and tell your woman emperor that if she wants ceded land, she is dreaming — and if she wants an indemnity, there isn’t a copper in it.”
Pang Yun’s face went iron-gray, and he said harshly, “In that case, General Ning will have to pay for his own arrogance. We shall meet on the field.”
Ning Chen gave a proud smile. “Good! Then let me see whether the soldiers of the Wu Kingdom fight better, or the young men of the Great Xuan come out on top.”
Pang Yun knew he had come for nothing. The extortion had failed.
In fact, when the woman emperor sent him, they had analyzed Ning Chen’s character and worked out the odds of the thing succeeding.
Their analysis was that the chances of a successful extortion were not high.
The woman emperor’s position was that succeeding would be well and good, and failing would do no harm.
So Ning Chen’s refusal was within what they had expected, and the disappointment was not so sharp.
Pang Yun cupped his fists. “In that case — until we meet again!”
“Stop right there!”
Ning Chen spoke, calling them back.
Pang Yun turned his horse and looked at Ning Chen. “Has General Ning recognized his mistake?”
Ning Chen burst out laughing, his whole face mocking.
He said mildly, “You may go. Leave the horses, and walk back!”
Pang Yun was furious. From here to the frontier passes was ten days or half a month even at a forced march. Walking back would take until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.
“What — unwilling?”
Pang Yun said in a heavy voice, “Is General Ning not bullying us a little too far?”
Ning Chen smiled. “You came here to demand our land and our silver and thought nothing of it, and my asking for a few of your horses is bullying you too far?”
With that, Ning Chen’s face darkened all at once. “Do you take the Great Xuan’s territory for your own back yard? Come when you please and go when you please?”
“If it were not that killing an envoy when two armies are at war shames the honor of a state, it would not be your horses I asked for. It would be your lives.”
Ning Chen raised his hand slowly, then brought it down hard.
The runner on the wall passed Ning Chen’s meaning to Yuan Long at once.
Yuan Long led five thousand horse and foot charging out of the gate.
The faces of the Wu Kingdom’s envoys all changed on the instant.
Pang Yun was alarmed. “Ning Chen, what — what do you mean to do? When two armies are at war, envoys are not put to the sword.”
“Hey! Stop your squalling. My advice is that you do as Ning Chen says. He isn’t level-headed like me — there’s something wrong with his head, and there’s nothing he doesn’t dare do. He cut down the Empress’s brother with one stroke. What’s an envoy worth?”
Feng Qizheng said it at the top of his lungs.
Ning Chen turned and looked at him, and privately gave up on him.
Ning Chen’s face was ice, his eyes fixed on Pang Yun. “Get down. Get lost!”
Pang Yun’s face was full of fury.
Ning Chen said mildly, “I’ll count to three. Either leave the horses or leave your lives. Take your pick.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Dismount!”
Pang Yun roared it, without giving Ning Chen the chance to say three.
He did not dare gamble his own life on Ning Chen’s temper.
The soldiers of the Wu Kingdom swung down from their saddles, every one of them glaring at Ning Chen in fury.
Ning Chen smiled easily. “Yuan Long, have the men take the horses in. And relieve them of their weapons. Anyone who resists, cut him down on the spot!”
“Yes!”
Yuan Long gave the order, and the soldiers went over to lead the horses away.
The Wu were past holding their rage, and could do nothing at all. They watched with their own eyes as the warhorses were led off and their weapons were unbuckled and carried away.
Good fighters they might be, but against five thousand Great Xuan soldiers, to make trouble was to look for death.
Pang Yun’s fists were clenched, the knuckles white, his nails cutting into his palms, his eyes fixed hard on Ning Chen’s back. But Ning Chen did not so much as turn his head. He rode back toward the city and left them nothing to look at but his back, easy and elegant.
The armored fellow beside Pang Yun was angrier still — his eyes were red with it, and his face was full of swallowed grievance.
“We… are going!”
Pang Yun ground his back teeth and got it out viciously.
They had meant to take advantage of the Great Xuan’s troubles and squeeze something out of it. In the end they had squeezed out nothing, and had their horses and their weapons taken on top of it.
Damn Ning Chen. When the day came and they met on the field, they would make him pay for it.
In truth Ning Chen had been merciful in not sending them back bare-assed.
To kill an envoy when two armies are at war shames the dignity of a state.
In this bitter cold, walking back with nothing on, they would certainly have frozen to death along the way — and how would that differ from killing the envoys outright?
Ning Chen rode back into the city.
The gate closed, and the drawbridge went up!
Pan Yucheng said in a heavy voice, “The Wu are good fighters, and the Wu woman emperor often takes the field in person. You have insulted her envoy — I doubt that woman emperor will let the matter rest.”
Ning Chen smiled coldly. “It isn’t that she won’t let it rest. It’s that we won’t. A pellet of a country, daring to think of squeezing the Great Xuan, and daring to back the traitor Zhao Bokang on top of it — it seems Her Majesty the woman emperor has never taken a beating.”
“My guess is that His Majesty’s reinforcements should be here in the next few days. Let’s rest well while we can. Before long we’ll be marching a long way.”
Pan Yucheng said, “We’re going to attack the frontier passes?”
Ning Chen corrected him. “We are going to recover the frontier passes. That land was the Great Xuan’s to begin with.”
Pan Yucheng shook his head. “The New Year is nearly on us. It looks as though we’ll be seeing it in on a battlefield.”
Ning Chen laughed lightly. “If it goes smoothly, there’s still time.”
Pan Yucheng gave a small laugh. “Today is the seventeenth of the eleventh month.”
“It is. The New Year will be here soon!”
Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng both gave him an odd look.
Ning Chen had no idea what they meant. “What is it?”
Pan Yucheng asked, “What day is today?”
“Didn’t you just say? The seventeenth of the eleventh month.”
Feng Qizheng said, at the top of his lungs, “Ning Chen, have you forgotten that today is your birthday?”
Ning Chen was startled, then clapped a hand to his forehead. “So it is. I’d forgotten it completely!”
Pan Yucheng smiled. “Come on, back to the Mei residence. I’ve had a banquet made ready to celebrate your birthday!”
Ning Chen could not help being moved.
The Inspectorate has every particular about him on file, so it was no wonder Pan Yucheng knew which day his birthday fell on. What moved him was that he had forgotten it himself, and they had remembered.
(End of Chapter 269)