Peace Order-Chapter 81 - 61 Regent King’s Power_2

Li Guanyi thought back to when Xue Daoyong had mentioned Xiao Wuliang, saying that he had gone to war at the age of thirteen to deal with the Regent King’s rebellion. Li Guanyi found Xiao Wuliang’s records and searched through them, eventually finding a description of him.

[In the third year of Taiching, Prince Puyang did not respect the Emperor, absent at the state sacrifice, infuriating the Emperor who then waged war. Prince Puyang raised troops to resist the Emperor. At that time, Wuliang was thirteen and rode alone into battle, unmatched in the army.]

"Prince Puyang?"

Li Guanyi found the critical name and quickly sought the cause. It was because during Chen Country’s great sacrifice, Prince Puyang had not come to the Capital to pay homage to the Emperor, but had instead indulged privately in wine and pleasure. Thus, the Emperor, greatly angered and fearful of his martial prowess, dispatched troops to arrest him.

Essentially, it was a conflict between the local lords and the Emperor in the Capital.

This also indicated the Emperor’s lack of authority.

Xiao Wuliang was a war general under Prince Puyang, imposing and awe-inspiring.

Li Guanyi found the records of Prince Puyang.

This prince had abolished the market tax, land rent, and the head tax on city gates within his jurisdiction, much to the joy of the common people, who went on to marry their children to soldiers and officers in the army, allowing them to live near military camps.

He also demanded money and treasures from the Court, and since the Emperor had previously failed in his military expeditions and could not mobilize a large army due to Ying Country by his side, he had no choice but to accept such acts, perhaps thinking that Prince Puyang’s greed and debauchery made him easier to manipulate, thus sent emissaries with rewards and gold and silver for Prince Puyang.

The wild histories describe this using the words "Emissaries looking out for each other."

Li Guanyi grimaced. Under General Xue’s guidance, he roughly understood what would happen.

Sure enough, five years after the great sacrifice, Prince Puyang claimed to go hunting.

In reality, he led his troops to strike near Jiangzhou City.

His army, abandoning the era’s strongest Armored Armor, consisted of eight thousand Light Cavalry officers, Night Riders who claimed to attack the west side of Jiangnan, but they headed straight for the capital. The records described Prince Puyang as a lord proficient in martial arts, fleet-footed, yet possessing top-tier strategic and equestrian skills.

Chen Country boasted hundreds of thousands of Armored Soldiers, while Night Rider Cavalry was renowned throughout the lands.

Yet Prince Puyang chose the most perfect moment, under the pretense of "purifying the monarch’s side," his eight thousand Light Cavalry breached the capital’s defenses. The battle that day saw nearly all the eight thousand Light Cavalry perish, but Jiangzhou City also crumbled. In the end, the eighteen-year-old Xiao Wuliang, with his heavy spear, shattered the city’s defenses.

The officials of Chen Country’s Capital, filled with Literary Energy, could fend off enemies and weaken the Qi Fortune of their adversaries.

But facing such a sudden attack, they ultimately fell short against these crude, armored martial artists. The eighteen-year-old Xiao Wuliang, in this "battle that doomed a nation," ascended to the ranks of the world’s great generals as Jiangzhou City burned in raging flames.

Prince Puyang rode his horse into the Capital, with officials kneeling on both sides chanting "Long live the King."

Back then, the Emperor of the Southern Dynasty deeply believed in the Buddhist Sect, and the Southern Dynasty in Jiangnan was famous for its many temples, claiming to have four hundred and eighty temples.

Prince Puyang confined the Emperor to the palace, letting his deeply religious older brother starve to death.

When the door was finally opened, the Emperor was as thin as a skeleton, his eyes bulging in anger as he banged on the door, his fingertips like white bones, clawing at the ground, his fingernails all burst, and there were bite marks on the red-painted pillars, exposing the white wood dust. The Emperor died with a mass of indigestible material in his stomach.

He had eaten candles and cloth, ultimately dying in extreme hunger and severe abdominal pain.

"The Buddha you so deeply believed in ultimately did not come to save you."

Later, Prince Puyang sat in front of his younger brother, with whom he had played in his younger years, his armored palm covering the unblinking eyes of his older brother, his tone cold and hard, he said,

"This is a chaotic world, iron and fire are everything, big brother."

In the records of wild histories, Prince Puyang threw down his sword, looking at his brother, becoming listless.

At that time, the young famous general, Xiao Wuliang, stood by his side, watching this figure.

He did not become the Emperor.

Instead, he supported the Crown Prince as the Emperor, pacified the Court officials and the great aristocratic families, and took on the roles of Grandmaster, Situ, and Sima himself, eradicating all temples, incorporating the monks into the very front of the military, providing them with wooden sticks and robes, and sending them to clash head-on with the Turkic Iron Futu.

The lands were claimed by him, and over the next three years, Chen Country saw two more emperors.

Prince Puyang proclaimed himself Regent, bearing his sword and entering the Court without bowing.

Each time he supported a new emperor, a general amnesty was declared throughout the nation, but at the same time, Prince Puyang’s troops conquered the rest of Jiangnan.

His military tactics were harsh, and during the conquest of Jiangnan, he permitted slaughters; after breaking through a city, his troops would pillage for three days. That year, the Empress gave birth to a child, and afterwards, the Emperor abdicated, and the Regent King ascended the throne while the previous emperor died in the palace.

It was also that year.

The Taiping Duke, overturning the Western Regions, returned to the city with eight hundred iron cavalry, much like Prince Puyang who had stormed through the gate. This famed general of Chen Country broke through the city gates, wielding a spear, wearing a dark golden mask, and before Taihe Palace, he killed the Regent King.

The tyrant who had starved his emperor brother to death finally died under the heavily varnished red pillar his brother had clawed at.

Once filled with grand ambitions, having slain the emperor, trampled the entire empire, and reduced the supremely powerful emperor to a mere plaything in his palm, this tyrant inevitably met his demise, his head pierced by a heavy spear, and he himself became merely a stepping stone for another famous general renowned across the world.

Colonel Yue Pengwu, under the command of the Taiping Duke, was twenty years old at the time, first to ascend, first to slay a general, first to capture a flag.

The unofficial histories that followed suddenly became concise.

It seemed as if a part had been torn out.

"The Regent King died in the Taihe Palace."

"Prince Jing, cultured and virtuous, ascended the throne, declared amnesty across the empire, and the Taiping Duke was crowned."

And then it ended, the rest concerned the current emperor, as if that famous general who had dominated the Western Regions and then returned had never existed. Li Guanyi looked through it for a long time, finally seeing the fate of the Taiping Duke at the end.

[In the third year of Taihe, the Taiping Duke died tragically]

Beyond this, there were no further records about the Taiping Duke.

Even the Regent King, who committed numerous atrocities, was clearly depicted in these scholarly records, showcasing both his brilliant strategies and his cold madness, but as for the Taiping Duke, why he was called the Taiping Duke, how he rose to power, or how he became a famous general known throughout the world.

There were no records.

It only stated that in that year the Taiping Duke returned from the Western Regions, carrying a spear, and pierced the shadow that loomed over Chen Country.

It seemed as if everyone harbored a deep taboo against this famed general.

Li Guanyi exhaled a breath, the tyrannical past recorded in words, even if in unofficial history, still had a shocking effect: the cold, domineering, and mad Regent King, the quietly menacing Xiao Wuliang, the meteoric Taiping Duke, and Yue Pengwu, who rose among chaos and a myriad of white bones.

But, the Regent...

Li Guanyi frowned. If it was ordered by the Regent, the timing did not align.

He had fled when the Regent King was already dead.

Unless it was... related to the Regent King?

A thought suddenly flashed through Li Guanyi’s mind. He pulled out the records and laid out a timeline to calculate—

In the third year of Taiching, the Regent King began his tyranny, Xiao Wuliang became famous at the age of thirteen.

In the eighth year of Taiching, the Regent King killed the emperor, Xiao Wuliang aged eighteen.

In the following two to three years, the Regent King changed emperors twice, forcing them to abdicate to him. Xiao Wuliang was twenty, the Taiping Duke stormed in from the Western Regions, Yue Pengwu made a name at twenty, Prince Jing took the throne, and Chen became Taihe.

In the third year of Taihe, the Taiping Duke died tragically.

And now, according to the Great Emperor of Central State’s calculations, it was the Tenth Year of Tianqi.

For Chen, it was the thirteenth year of Taihe.

Li Guanyi put down his pen, the timeline now laid out before him.

The last emperor to abdicate to the Regent King had a son born thirteen years ago.

The Taiping Duke came from the Western Regions and killed the Regent King also thirteen years ago.

The Taiping Duke died tragically—

Li Guanyi paused.

[Ten years ago].

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