That trembling "rebel" from Zhu Gaochi drained every ounce of strength from his body.
He sat on the cushion inside the carriage, his plump body shaking violently from fear and excitement. His beady eyes were fixed on Zhu Zhanjun outside the carriage, filled with terror, confusion, and a trace of dependence he himself had not even noticed.
Indeed, at the most desperate moment in the entire Great Ming Dynasty, when he—the Regent Crown Prince—had been so frightened that he vomited blood, and the civil and military officials of the entire court were weeping and shouting about fleeing south, it was his most useless Second Son who had stepped forward.
But this stabilizing pillar was far too thick!
So thick that it frightened him!
"Son... you... tell your father the truth..."
Zhu Gaochi's voice was dry. "You raised such a... such an army. What exactly are you planning to do? If Imperial Grandfather finds out, he... he'll have you flayed alive!"
Seeing his old father's terrified expression, Zhu Zhanjun found it somewhat amusing, but also somewhat painful.
He dismounted, strode to the carriage window, and lifted the curtain, revealing a face still wearing a somewhat carefree, roguish smile.
"Father, look at you. What are you so scared of? I already told you—they're household guards, just household guards with a rather special establishment."
"Bullshit!"
Zhu Gaochi rarely swore, but now he did, spittle spraying onto Zhu Zhanjun's face. "Do you take your old man for a blind fool? Those horses! They're a head taller than Mongol horses! And that armor! It covers even the horses completely—the elites of the Three Thousand Camp don't get such extravagant equipment! And those blades—what kind of blades are those? Just looking at them makes my blood run cold! You call this a household guard force? This is an army of slaughterers that could hack its way through an entire city from one end to the other!"
Xia Yuanji, Fang Bin, and the others nearby had already scrambled up from the ground and retreated far away.
Though they had been battered until they were dizzy and disoriented, the storm raging in their hearts at that moment was ten thousand times more intense than their physical pain.
Fang Bin in particular covered his swollen, reddened face as he stared at the silent steel army in the wind and snow. He felt a chill shoot straight from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
He had dared to mock His Highness Prince Zheng for taking a Cricket Cage into battle. Now he felt that even if His Highness Prince Zheng really threw a Cricket Cage over there, the cage could probably still crush an entire line of Mongol soldiers to death.
How was this a private army?
This was clearly a tiger-and-wolf army preparing to seize dominion over the world!
"Father, keep your voice down."
Zhu Zhanjun took out a handkerchief and leisurely wiped the spittle from his face. "If my soldiers hear you, they'll think you have something against them. I spent a fortune raising them—they're precious, you know."
Lowering his voice, he leaned close to Zhu Gaochi's ear and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear. "Father, think about it. If I really wanted to rebel, would I have waited until today? Imperial Grandfather took the nation's elite troops with him, Elder Brother is at the Frontline, and you're the only one in Beijing City. If I led these three thousand men in a charge into the Imperial Palace, who do you think could stop me?"
Zhu Gaochi's breathing caught.
Indeed, Second Son was right.
With this army's combat strength, setting aside Beijing City's garrison—even if the Three Great Camps were fully staffed, it was questionable whether they could stop them.
If he had truly possessed such intentions, this Regent Crown Prince would have been tied up by him long ago.
"Then answer me this: does Imperial Grandfather know that you raised this army?"
Zhu Gaochi seized upon the crux of the matter.
"He didn't know before, but now..."
Zhu Zhanjun grinned. "Once I haul Imperial Grandfather out of the Great Snow Mountain, won't he know? When the time comes, let the old man decide for himself whether to reward me or punish me. That's still better than the current situation, where we can't even find him, right?"
That statement was practically the height of shameless stubbornness.
Zhu Gaochi was choked speechless for a long while.
He discovered that his son had become an entirely different person today.
He had been a scoundrel before, but still within the bounds of what one could understand.
Today, Zhu Zhanxi was like a mass of impenetrable fog. You thought he was fooling around, yet he produced an invincible army; you thought he intended to rebel, yet he put on the face of a "deeply loyal and filial subject."
"Your Highness! Your Highness!"
Crown Princess Zhang's voice came from behind. She, too, had arrived in another carriage, evidently drawn by the commotion.
When Crown Princess Zhang saw those three thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders, she was likewise so shaken that she could not speak.
Yet she was a heroine among women, and quickly regained her composure.
She walked to Zhu Gaochi's carriage and glanced first at her husband's complicated expression, then at her son's relaxed face.
"Second Son, are these really your troops?"
Crown Princess Zhang's voice was steady.
"Mother, of course they are. I saved up my private money for many years to raise them."
Zhu Zhanjun replied with a cheeky grin.
Crown Princess Zhang's phoenix eyes narrowed as she immediately grasped the key point. "Can they fight? Can they bring your grandfather back?"
"They can!"
Zhu Zhanjun's answer was decisive, without the slightest hesitation. "Forget one Arutai—even if the Oirats and the Tatars all came, these three thousand men of mine could still cut straight through every last one of them!"
His confidence was so powerful that it left no room for doubt.
Crown Princess Zhang drew a deep breath and turned to Zhu Gaochi. "Your Highness, at this point, do we have any other choice? Let Second Son go! No matter where these troops came from, so long as they can bring the Emperor back and preserve Great Ming, even if he dug them out from beneath the earth, they are still heroes of the Zhu family!"
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