Ma Fang said, frightened, "General Yuan, your pardon. This officer did not leave camp on his own authority; he left it under an edict, to carry out an order."

Yuan Long said coldly, "Where is the edict?"

"General Yuan, it was a secret edict."

"Then where is the secret edict?"

Ma Fang was struck dumb. Didn't Yuan Long understand what the two words secret edict meant?

If it was a secret edict, of course it could not be shown to anybody else.

"General Yuan, this officer received the secret edict and burned it once he had read it."

Yuan Long gave a cold laugh. "Burned once read. So there is no secret edict."

"General Yuan, this officer's nerve would have to be enormous, and even then he would not dare counterfeit an imperial edict."

"Not dare? The sheer nerve of it... You took troops out on your own authority. What did you mean to do with them?"

Ma Fang's face changed.

Yuan Long said sharply, "Ma Fang, this is a bold thing you have done. You counterfeited an imperial edict, you took troops out of camp on your own authority, and you meant to rebel. Your crime deserves ten thousand deaths... This general commands the Dragon Guard by my lord prince's order, and has the right to execute first and report afterward."

Ma Fang's face changed, and before he could explain, the length of rebar in Yuan Long's hand was already coming down.

Ma Fang was at his wits' end, and staggered back.

Yuan Long put his horse straight at him, and the rebar in his hand came down on Ma Fang's head with the weight of ten thousand jun behind it. (TL Note: 萬鈞之力 — a jun is an old weight of about thirty catties, so ten thousand of them is the standing Chinese figure for a crushing, irresistible force.)

Thud!!!

The crown of Ma Fang's skull caved in, and he went down dead on the spot.

The thousand men Ma Fang had brought out with him were at their wits' end.

Yuan Long brought the Ning'an Army forward…