Chapter 451: Presenting the head at the palace gates!
The Royal Palace of Dayuan.
Luo Shi looked at the Dayuan Princess kneeling before his horse. Western Regions women were quite famous in the Great Han, and high officials and nobles liked taking them as concubines or using them as dancing girls.
From Luo Shi's vantage atop his horse, the Dayuan Princess had a spectacularly voluptuous figure, the very picture of a woman built for bearing children. Her clothing was revealing, her face like peach blossoms, her beauty extraordinarily vivid, and her eyes held something that could hook a soul and steal it away.
Accustomed to the peerless beauty of Luo Clan women, Luo Shi felt nothing particular, but the others found it rather harder to restrain themselves. On the battlefield, the Temple Army were merciless killing machines; off it, they were people of flesh and blood. Searing gazes fell upon the Dayuan Princess's body.
Luo Shi's first reaction was to present this woman to the emperor, following his father's example of presenting the princess of Loulan to Liu Che years before. If she bore a son, he could be brought back to the Western Regions to rule as king, dividing the Kingdom of Dayuan just as they had divided the Wusun Kingdom and easing the military pressure on the Protectorate of the Western Regions.
Luo Shi knew very well that victory in this war was only temporary. Unless suitable political measures secured its gains, the Kingdom of Dayuan, distant as it was, would betray the Great Han again within two or three years.
Military victory alone could not establish stable rule. Rule that relied on force was bound to fail.
"Beautiful princess, I shall present you to the supreme sovereign of the Great Han Empire, the most exalted person beneath