(Side Story) Grand General 018

"How dare you not kneel before this general! Is this how Fang Zhiyi taught you? Whip them!" Li Xiang bellowed.

Before him knelt a row of soldiers, pinned down by guards. The whip lashed across their bodies, and though every soldier's face burned with indignation, they held their heads high and refused to bow.

"Your Grand General Fang is finished! Still hoping he'll return? Dream on! You are my men now, and you will follow my rules!" Li Xiang's eyes swept over the soldiers below. "Hmph, it's time I made an example of you! Guards—take these men and behead them in public as a warning!"

"And whose head do you intend to take?" A slow, unhurried voice drifted over.

Li Xiang flew into a rage and turned to look. He saw Fang Zhiyi draped in a robe, followed by dozens of personal guards, strolling toward him.

Li Xiang was taken aback, but quickly regained his composure: "General Fang, you can actually get out of bed now?" What surprised him was that the men he had sent to keep watch on Fang Zhiyi had not come to report!

Fang Zhiyi ignored him entirely, instead looking at the soldiers. They too lifted their heads and saw Fang Zhiyi, joy shining in their eyes.

"I asked you—whose head do you intend to take?"

"Grand General Fang, I still show you respect by calling you 'general,' but as you well know, the military authority and the command token of the frontier army are in my hands now. I suggest you mind your own business. Since you can walk, you'd best return to the capital as soon as possible." Li Xiang was arrogantly dismissive.

Fang Zhiyi simply shook his head: "Military authority? Command token? Do these things alone decide who lives and who dies?"

"Fang Zhiyi!" Li Xiang slammed his hand on the table. "Don't be ungrateful! I am the Frontier Guardian General now!"

But Fang Zhiyi walked straight to a pinned soldier and, as one of his guards shoved aside the man who was holding the soldier down, Fang Zhiyi helped the soldier to his feet.

"Brothers of this general need not kneel."

"Fang Zhiyi, you—" Li Xiang sensed something was wrong and shot a meaningful glance at his trusted subordinate, his intention clear: take Fang Zhiyi down directly.

But the moment the trusted subordinate started to move, he turned and had his throat slit.

Wang Hui's hands trembled slightly. By now, he knew there was no turning back—the entire Wang family had already been dragged into Fang Zhiyi's camp. First they had secretly transported salt and iron for Fang Zhiyi, then they had mobilized censors connected to the Wang family to speak up for him. Life at home was hardly easy these days, with frequent suppression from other court officials.

"Damn you! Deputy General Wang, are you rebelling?!" Li Xiang was shocked—he never expected them to kill his own man in broad daylight!

In response, Fang Zhiyi's personal guards drew their blades and struck without hesitation. In an instant, Li Xiang's trusted men collapsed in a heap.

"Grand General Li," Fang Zhiyi said with a smile, "you didn't really think that just because they made you a general, you could command the frontier army, did you?"

"Guards! Seize them!" At Li Xiang's command, the commanders of each battalion drew their swords—but the very next moment, they were overwhelmed by their own soldiers and promptly had their throats slit, clean and swift, without a moment's hesitation.

"You've got nerve..." Fang Zhiyi turned around, walking up the steps as if he hadn't just witnessed a bloodbath.

"You, all of you—this is mutiny! Killing your own superiors means the extermination of your entire clans!" Li Xiang was truly panicking now.

"Their superiors weren't transferred away by you all?" Fang Zhiyi stopped in his tracks. Behind him, his personal guards charged the platform with murderous intent. Li Xiang's furious cursing did him no good at all—until the sound cut out entirely.

After a long moment, Fang Zhiyi took a step forward again. One of his guards kicked a corpse out of the way.

When he finally came to a stop, his eyes swept across every soldier below.

"I, Fang Zhiyi, led you all against the barbarian hordes of the grasslands and earned our glory!"

"And yet the Emperor could not stomach me! He secretly ordered the Marquis of Ding'an, Wei An, to ambush and kill me!"

"If they would do this to a Frontier Guardian General like me, then what do you think they'd do to you?"

Behind him, Wang Hui just shrugged. Kill you? You were literally wrapped in a blanket, playing mahjong for days with a few buddies. But he wouldn't say that out loud—he was Fang Zhiyi's man now.

He glanced at the headless corpses nearby and shook his head with a sigh. Coming to Fang Zhiyi's territory to take over his army? These fellows thought it would be just like the old days, didn't they? Fang Zhiyi had embedded two political commissars in every battalion. They held no official rank, only tasked with guiding ideological work. Under their influence, these soldiers would never recognize anyone else as their Grand General! You could send the Emperor himself down here, and these men would still cut anyone down on command!

He watched Fang Zhiyi's impassioned speech, then his gaze drifted unconsciously southward. A strange thrill rose in his chest—maybe, just maybe, he'd make a name in the history books after all.

"This land is ours. These fields are ours. This world belongs to every common man!" Fang Zhiyi swept his arm through the air, and the robe draped over his shoulders fell to the ground. Silence fell over the crowd, and a sea of feverish eyes fixed on Fang Zhiyi. "My brothers, I believe the world should not be like this."

"Long live the Grand General! Long live! Long live!" At the lead of a political commissar, the cry of "Long live" shook the very sky.

"Long live the people!" Fang Zhiyi slowly uttered those four words, then raised the blade in his hand and, before everyone's eyes, cut off his own queue. The soldiers followed suit, chopping off their queues one after another.

Then came an even more frenzied roar.

"You say what? Fang Zhiyi has led the rebels all the way to the capital, and those bastards couldn't stop him?" The Emperor was frantic, his lips cracked with anxiety. "What about the Xining Army? The Xining Army I ordered you to deploy—where are they?"

"Well..." The Minister of War hesitated, then finally dropped to his knees. "The Xining Army has mutinied as well—half the soldiers have revolted! The leader is one of the officers who once served under Fang Zhiyi!"

"The Four Directions Guard Army has also mutinied!"

"The commander of the Jingning Navy was killed, and the commander's seal has been seized!"

The Emperor drew a deep breath. Suddenly it all clicked—everything was part of Fang Zhiyi's plan! He knew that the moment he fell, the court would scatter his trusted officers to different posts to break up his power.

In other words, he had used the court's own hands to lay out this entire chess game!

"There have long been rumors in the army," the Minister of War dared to look up at the Emperor. "That Your Majesty could not tolerate a victorious Han general, nor the Han soldiers who served under him! The Marquis of Ding'an's ambush on Fang Zhiyi was just the excuse he needed. That's the very grounds Fang Zhiyi used to raise his banner!"

"Outrageous!" Another teacup shattered against the floor.

Someone came rushing in, his footsteps hurried. Prince Min appeared, face pale with panic, all traces of his earlier scheming gone: "It's over! Fang Zhiyi's rebels are already approaching the capital—they'll reach the East Gate within half a day!"

The Emperor's legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the dragon throne.

"He, he—"

"Do not panic, Your Majesty! The Capital Garrison still stands! The Imperial Guard still stands!"

The Emperor looked at Prince Min, his mouth opening slightly, but before he could speak—

"Your Majesty! The Marquis of Ding'an has escaped with your consort amid the chaos!" A eunuch came rushing in.