Great Qian's High Ministers Were Dumbstruck-What a Glorious, Spectacular Battle Was This?
Afternoon.
The Directorate of Ceremonial's offices.
Several powerful eunuchs bent over their desks, adding vermilion endorsements, while Python-Robe Eunuchs bustled back and forth.
Suddenly.
"Urgent dispatch from Northern Liang!"
A eunuch hurried in, frantic, and presented two silk scrolls.
The name signed on them was unmistakably Mu Shou'en.
An attending eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and also Northern Liang's military overseer.
Four powerful eunuchs gathered at the call. The Seal-Holding Eunuch unrolled a silk scroll and read with measured emphasis:
"A great victory in Northern Liang!"
"With overwhelming calamity bearing down upon us, Pacification Commissioner Jia upheld the falling heavens, leading Northern Liang's army in slaughtering seventy-three thousand six hundred and twenty-one barbarians. No prisoners were taken. One hundred and twenty thousand warhorses and one hundred and seventy thousand cattle and sheep were captured."
Bang!
The Seal-Holding Eunuch abruptly slammed the silk scroll onto the long desk, his fury blazing three feet high:
"Was Mu Shou'en threatened too? That wretched slave, heedless of imperial grace and utterly devoid of conscience!"
The other three powerful eunuchs were equally furious, their faces livid.
Mu Shou'en's battle report was even more outlandish than Qi Shanguo's!
It specified the count down to those six hundred and twenty-one heads, along with one hundred and twenty thousand warhorses and one hundred and seventy thousand cattle and sheep!
Northern Mang's cavalry, whose might intimidated the world, had abandoned even their supplies. How complete a collapse would that have required?
The nine frontier strongholds had yet to send reinforcements. Could Northern Liang, barely managing to hold its defenses, have climbed from the abyss to the mountaintop in one leap?
No. It was utterly laughable!
The Brush-Holder Eunuch's expression was grave as he rasped:
"Mu Shou'en was either threatened or willingly became that fiend's accomplice. What exactly did