Chapter 9 Imperial Edict Round and round, the echoes of history’s cause and effect…

Chapter 9: The Edict

The twists and turns of history resonated in the present...

When a man asks a woman her name in her presence, beyond the usual social pleasantries, it usually means only one thing—he is interested in her.

And now, amid the ongoing carnage, in this shattered and blood-soaked night, Tuo Baxiao's strong arm remained tightly wrapped around her waist, her face almost pressed against his chest. Their position was so close, yet he was asking for her name.

Jiang Congyan's heart missed a beat. The cold sweat on her back drenched her clothes, leaving her feeling icy, yet her waist burned as if aflame. The clash of ice and fire quickened her breath. She instinctively looked away, lowering her thick lashes, peering past Tuo Baxiao's arm at the distant flickering palace lights.

"My name is Jiang Congyan. My father is the late Crown Prince Zhaowen's son, King of Chu, Jiang Huai." After introducing herself in a single breath, Jiang Congyan waited for Tuo Baxiao to release her.

However, he seemed oblivious to the impropriety of their current position. He gazed at her as if flowers were blooming on her face.

She suddenly recalled being covered in blood, blurring her vision. She wanted to wipe it away, but he held her arms in place.

Ruo Lan and Si Zi had already risen from the ground. They stood by, watching Tuo Baxiao dispatch the assassins and then cling to their lady, unwilling to release her.

If anyone else had treated their lady so casually, they would have intervened immediately. But this was the Prince of Mobei.

Not to mention they were outmatched by him, but provoking the Prince of Mobei would only worsen their lady's plight. So, though anxious, they dared not reveal it, hoping their lady could cleverly resolve the situation.

Unfortunately, their lady was about to disappoint them.

Her cleverness was futile against absolute power.

Jiang Congyan blinked, shaking off the blood droplets from her lashes, then turned her face to meet Tuo Baxiao's gaze with a clear and resolute look. "I am deeply grateful to the Prince of Mobei for saving my life. I will repay this kindness in the future. However, now that the situation has temporarily stabilized, it is improper for us to remain in this position. Could the Prince of Mobei please release me?"

She knew that subtlety would be lost on this man, so Jiang Congyan had to make her request to Tuo Baxiao clear.

And Tuo Baxiao was exactly as Jiang Congyan had expected. If she hadn't reminded him, he wouldn't have realized it at all.

He had been staring at her, not missing her earlier evasive action, and now he saw the calm and distant look in her beautiful eyes. He knew she was a bit unhappy.

This was understandable. Han women valued etiquette highly, as his mother had once told him.

She said, "If you ever fall for a Han woman, you must treat her with respect. You can't be too barbaric and try to take her by force, or she might come to dislike you."

She also said, "True feelings are hard to come by. If you meet a woman you like, you must cherish her. If you treat her with sincerity, she will surely reciprocate."

His mother was a Han woman who had been taken to the grasslands, so she had never truly loved his father. Her heart had always longed for her former fiancé, from whom she had experienced true sincerity.

He was a gentleman, gentle and upright, knowing when to advance and when to retreat, understanding etiquette. If not for that disaster, she would have married her fiancé and lived a harmonious life.

Tuo Baxiao didn't want her to dislike him!

Thinking of this, Tuo Baxiao suppressed the urge to hold her tighter. Slowly, he relaxed his strong fingers, gradually releasing the delicate figure in his arms.

Even after she had completely left his embrace, his fingertips still lingered with reluctance. Her waist was as soft and slender as a tender willow...

Seeing that Tuo Baxiao had taken her words to heart, Jiang Congyan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't a completely unreasonable barbarian.

But just as she was about to step back, her legs felt as if they had been drained of strength. Without Tuo Baxiao's support, she nearly collapsed. The man quickly caught her again, his emerald eyes gleaming with obvious amusement.

Earlier, in the heat of the escape, the adrenaline had masked everything else. Now that the danger had passed, her body was belatedly expressing its fear. A flash of embarrassment and awkwardness crossed Jiang Congyan's face. She lowered her head to avoid the man's teasing, quietly steadying her weak limbs. Once she had regained some strength, she composed herself and gently pushed his arm away.

Jiang Congyan took a few steps back until she felt safe, then took out a silk handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe the blood from her face. She tucked her disheveled hair behind her ears with her fingers, clasped her hands together, and curtsied to him, formally thanking him once more for saving her life.

Tuo Baxiao didn't seem to mind. Jiang Congyan noticed that he was still looking at her with that gaze, as if she were both prey and a treasure, which made her feel uneasy. This unease soon turned into reality, because she heard him say—

"Doesn't make sense? If it did, would you still say no?"

—

"Miss, what was the Prince of Mobei getting at?"

In a small room off Tongling Garden's side hall, Jiang Congyan and her two maids huddled together. Si Zi asked anxiously.

It had been an hour since the assassination attempt. The assassins were few in number, sneaking in due to a momentary lapse in Liang State's defenses. Guards from outside quickly surrounded and took them out. They had planned to capture some for questioning, but seeing their mission fail and with no way out, all the assassins committed suicide.

Unmasked, they were clearly barbarians. Their curved swords marked them as Xiongnu.

The Xiongnu dominated the northwest, their territory stretching from Helan Mountain in the east to Wusun in the west, and from Liangzhou in the south to the North Sea in the north. They ruled as the strongest barbarian kingdom in the northwest. Tuo Baxiao, the Xianbei King, controlled the area east of Helan Mountain, encompassing the Yin Mountains, Yanshan, and the northeastern grasslands, challenging the Xiongnu's power. The Jie tribe separated Liang State from the Xianbei Kingdom.

The alliance threatened the Jie tribe caught between them. Surprisingly, the Xiongnu made the first move.

Before, the Xiongnu's lands lay east of Helan Mountain. Four years ago, they aimed to exploit the old Xianbei King's death and the ensuing chaos among the princes vying for the throne to march east and annex the Xianbei Kingdom. However, Tuo Baxiao burst onto the scene, killing the usurping prince and successfully ascending to the throne in just two months. He swiftly gathered his tribes and fought back the Xiongnu south of the Yin Mountains.

At that time, the Xiongnu forces were commanded by Prince Wudati Hou, a renowned and formidable warrior. He marched a hundred thousand cavalry to the frontier, and learning his foe was the obscure Tuo Baxiao, he sneered, mocking him as a mere child who hadn't even grown hair yet, and deriding the Xianbei royal family as a bunch of incompetents who let a naked child seize the throne. He thought he'd wipe out the Xianbei Kingdom with ease. Yet Tuo Baxiao's thirty thousand men held off his hundred thousand cavalry. Within weeks, Tuo Baxiao launched a counterattack.

Tuo Baxiao seemed destined for battle. Despite leading a patchwork army with divided loyalties, and even though they looked down on his mixed Han and barbarian heritage, against the odds, Tuo Baxiao drove back the Xiongnu cavalry. Tuo Baxiao's leadership only made his army stronger. After three brutal months, Tuo Baxiao pushed Wudati Hou back beyond Helan Mountain, reclaiming the region the Xiongnu had occupied.

This battle, though it did not severely damage the Xiongnu's strength, catapulted Tuo Baxiao's name to fame across the land, even reaching as far as the distant Western Regions and Tibet, where they heard of the new powerful lord emerging on the grasslands.

Tuo Baxiao's success in resisting the Xiongnu proved his capabilities and solidified his newly seized throne. However, Prince Wudati Hou lost face and fell out of favor with the Xiongnu Khan.

The Khan had high hopes for this son, who had fought bravely and achieved many victories for him. Originally, upon his triumphant return, he would have been enfeoffed as the Left Virtuous King, equivalent to the crown prince in the Central Plains. His defeat at the hands of a novice not only resulted in heavy losses but also greatly diminished the Xiongnu's prestige in the northwest. Many small states in the Western Regions even considered breaking away from the Xiongnu and allying with Wusun or Liangzhou. The Khan was furious and, displeased with his defeated son, stripped him of his troops and sent him away in disgrace.

Wudati Hou thus harbored a deep hatred for Tuo Baxiao, considering him his lifelong nemesis, and vowed that one day he would cut off Tuo Baxiao's head and use it as his wine cup.

In later history, Wudati Hou clashed with Tuo Baxiao twice more, both times ending in defeat. Tuo Baxiao became an inescapable nightmare for Wudati Hou, the greatest obstacle to his ambition of ruling the grasslands, and his only true rival in life.

It wasn't until three years later, when Tuo Baxiao suddenly fell, that the shadow over Wudati Hou's head finally lifted. He took advantage of the chaos to attack the Xianbei Kingdom. Without Tuo Baxiao to restrain him in the north, he led his troops south and invaded the Central Plains with unstoppable force, trampling the Liang State into ruins. Ten years later, his son broke through the Southern Liang's defenses along the Huai River. From then on, the Han culture was nearly destroyed, historical records were lost, and a cultural gap emerged, marking the darkest period in Chinese history.

Now, three years later, Wudati Hou had survived the most difficult phase. A few victories in battles against neighboring tribes brought him back into the Khan's favor, and he regained his trust and importance.

The more he rose, the deeper his hatred for Tuo Baxiao grew. Hearing that Tuo Baxiao had come to the Central Plains to form an alliance with Liang State made him restless, so he sent a group of assassins to kill him. If by some stroke of luck they managed to cut off Tuo Baxiao's head, that would be ideal. Even if they failed, causing him trouble would still bring Wudati Hou great satisfaction.

With the Xiongnu assassins eliminated, Tongling Garden was temporarily safe. However, it was difficult to travel in the dark of night, and fearing that the assassins might have backup, everyone was gathered in the palace for safety, surrounded by layers of guards. The Emperor of Liang also sent troops to the capital's military camp to mobilize more soldiers, planning to return to the palace the next day when the army arrived.

The Xiongnu's assassination attempt had also greatly angered the emperor, whose authority had been challenged. He repeatedly ordered a thorough investigation into how so many assassins had managed to enter the heavily guarded Chang'an.

All of this was now irrelevant to Jiang Congyan, as she could not participate.

After moving to the side hall, they first checked everyone's injuries. Si Zi and Ruo Lan were fine, but the Sixth Princess was the most severely injured. She had taken a blow to delay the assassins and had been thrown to the ground, suffering extensive abrasions and bruises, with a particularly serious injury to her chest. Fortunately, her bones were unharmed.

Jiang Congyan had brought various medicines in her luggage. After applying the medicine and giving the Sixth Princess a bowl of calming soup to help her sleep, she returned to her small room.

The situation was temporarily safe, but Jiang Congyan now faced a new problem.

Recalling Tuo Baxiao's words, all three of them felt uneasy.

"Could the Prince of Mobei be planning to have you marry him?" Si Zi asked again.

Jiang Congyan closed her eyes, and the image of Tuo Baxiao's wolf-like eyes gleaming in the dark seemed to reappear before her.

"I don't know..." Jiang Congyan whispered softly.

The only dim oil lamp in the room cast a faint light on her slender neck and profile, illuminating her jade-like skin with a soft glow, outlining a delicate curve and revealing a vulnerability and helplessness she had never shown before.

"Edict: In the spring of the fifteenth year, at an auspicious time, the Prince of Mobei sent an envoy to Chang'an... to propose a marriage alliance. Now, there is a virtuous maiden, the great-granddaughter of the Founding Emperor, granddaughter of the late Crown Prince Zhaowen, and daughter of King Chu Huai. She is filial, harmonious, gentle, and accomplished in virtue and talent. I hereby specially confer upon her the title of Princess You'an, to wed the Prince of Mobei, thereby cementing a lasting alliance between our two nations."

"So it is decreed!"

Jiang Congyan knelt at the entrance of the main hall in the front courtyard of the King of Chu's residence, bowing her head as the envoy finished reading the ornate multicolored brocade decree. Finally, she raised her head to look at the document in the envoy's hand, symbolizing the highest honor of Liang. Her gaze shifted to the cloudless sky behind the envoy, where a blazing sun hung eternally, casting its light over the land and the souls of a thousand years to come.

Jiang Congyan closed her eyes—

Round and round, the echoes of history reverberated within her!