Chapter 98 - The Art of the Memorial

"Build a Jingguan."

"I want to let those Wa people know that the people of the Central Plains will not tolerate being bullied by foreign tribes."

The so-called Jingguan: Jing means a high mound; Guan means a watchtower shape. When the ancients killed bandits and were victorious in battle, they would display the corpses and were certain to build a Jingguan as a place to bury the bodies. They existed wherever ancient battlefields were.

Initially, the Jingguan was purely for burying corpses. Who knows when it started to become a way to show off military achievements.

And as the scale of battles grew larger and larger, with a single war easily causing tens of thousands of deaths, wanting to build all the corpses into a Jingguan had become somewhat unrealistic. Thus, it changed from bodies to heads.

Song Yan spoke slowly, the coldness in his words surprising even Luo Yuheng.

She had originally thought that because Song Yan had been trapped in the backyard for years, his concept of country and clan was weak. But now it seemed she had thought wrong. He might not have a concept of clan or a concept of country, but he had a very strong concept of ethnicity.

The corpses on the beach were collected, and the heads were cut off.

As for the bodies, Luo Yuheng arranged for some people to transport them into the deep mountains and old forests. They wouldn't be wasted. The jackals, wolves, tigers, leopards, rats, worms, crows, and vultures in the mountain forest would clean the bodies up, ensuring that not the slightest bit of meat was wasted.

The matter of building the Jingguan did not require Song Yan to worry about it.

Ningping County also gradually returned to peace. Even the bloodstains at the city gate were cleaned up. But in the end, it couldn't be restored to its original state. It is said that if you walk over there and see the dark brown patches on the stone slabs, that is the blood shed by the Wokou.

The people who had fled earlier also gradually returned.

The teahouses and wine shops were packed.

From time to time, one could hear some talk, such as: 'Yang Siye is unworthy of being a County Magistrate, to actually collude with the Wokou and plunder the county town'; 'Yang Miaoqing made peace with the Wokou, attempting to use them to throw Ningping into chaos and stage a jailbreak in the confusion.'

Regarding the more than one hundred corpses in the county yamen and the dungeon, everyone clapped their hands and cheered.

In these few days, some other things also happened. For example, the Duke Song's mansion.

Yang Miaoqing was dead. No matter what, she was nominally still the mistress of the Duke's mansion, so she had a grand funeral. It is said that Song Hongtao cried very sadly, even fainting from crying several times.

Then, no more than three days after Yang Miaoqing was buried, he took in seven mistresses.

The Songzhou Provincial Governor, Fang Hai, also took a stroll to Ningping County.

It is said that when Fang Hai first heard that Ningping County was attacked by a large number of Wokou, he was still in bed making love with his little concubine. He was so scared that he came on the spot. He didn't even care about things like etiquette or dignity, grabbed a long robe and threw it on, and rushed out the door without even fastening the buttons.

It wasn't that he was so devoted to the country and its people. Who let him be the highest official of Song Prefecture?

What a joke, he had just been transferred to be the Provincial Governor of Songzhou.

If a county under his jurisdiction was slaughtered by Wokou at this time, then he wouldn't have to be a Provincial Governor anymore. The Fang family could pull some strings and perhaps save his life, but his official's hat would definitely be gone. He might even have to squat in a big prison for a few years.

I heard that Fang Hai cursed the Wokou in his courtyard for a quarter of an hour at that time, and only stopped after hearing that all the Wokou had been burned to death at sea.

Then he immediately brought a large number of gifts to visit the Luo family.

After learning that the farmers who had resisted the Wokou and the weapon named 'wolf brush' were all made by Song Yan, he held Song Yan's hand and spoke for a long time. It was mostly about him being 'young and promising' and the like, making Song Yan think that this fellow must have some strange predilections.

Originally, he had been a little uncomfortable about how Song Yan had used his own foolish son to frame and kill Song Yun, but now that feeling had vanished like smoke.

Fang Hai even took many officials from the prefectural government to personally see the Jingguan by the sea.

At that time, the three Jingguans had already been completed. One bloody, mangled head after another was mixed in with the earth. Because of the stuffy weather of early autumn, the heads had already started to rot.

During the viewing, dark clouds pressed down from the firmament, as if even the celestial gods in the heavens were disgusted by this human purgatory and refused to bestow a single ray of light. Above the corpses, flies buzzed, greedily gathering, their wings stained with congealed blood.

The air was filled with a thick smell of blood and stench. This smell was enough to suffocate a living person. Intermittently, the cawing of crows could be heard from the ruined walls. Their beaks were stained with blood; they had clearly enjoyed a sufficient delicacy.

Fang Hai and the others' faces were also pale. Then, forcefully suppressing the fear in their hearts, they added a handful of dirt to the Jingguan and hurriedly turned to leave.

Returning to the prefectural capital, he wrote a memorial overnight and sent it to Dongling with the utmost speed.

……

"In the early eighth month of the nineteenth year of the Ninghe era, the Wokou landed from the coast and raided Ningping at night."

"The Ningping County Magistrate Yang Siye, County Deputy Yang Zhongning, County Commandant Yang Cheng'en, and the wife of the Duke of Song, Yang Miaoqing, colluded with the Wokou, opening the city gate from the inside and allowing the Wokou to enter Ningping."

"The Wokou burned, killed, and plundered wantonly within Ningping County. Wherever they went, cries of sorrow filled the land and blood flowed like a river. One thousand nine hundred and seventy-two commoners of Ningping were killed or injured."

"Three hundred and sixty-seven houses were burned down."

"The number of fleeing citizens was countless."

"Fortunately, the County Mistress of Ningping, Luo Yuheng, holding a long pike, led the household guards of the Luo Mansion to resist and intercept the Wokou at the east city gate, protecting the tens of thousands of people in the county."

"The County Mistress led from the front, personally beheading one hundred and seventy-six Wokou. The five hundred household guards and servants under her command fought to the death without retreating, defending Ningping."

A memorial that used a tiny bit of exaggerated rhetoric, recited in the eunuch's special voice, echoed in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the ears of all the civil and military officials.

Hmm, putting aside that tiny bit of exaggeration, the vast majority of the content in the memorial was factual, for example, the Wokou attack and so on. It was just that some small details had undergone a slight processing.

Listening to the eunuch's voice, the officials below had various expressions. There were those who were dumbstruck.

The County Mistress of Ningping, Luo Yuheng, personally beheaded one hundred and seventy-six Wokou? Who are you kidding? That shrewish and willful Grand Princess is capable of doing such a thing?

Speaking of which, how many Wokou can five hundred household guards and servants hold off? Are their bodies made of iron?

There were also those whose brows were tightly furrowed.

Such as the President of the Central Secretariat, Yang Hetong, the Minister of Rites, Yang Guochen, and other officials from the Yang family or the Yang faction.

After all, in this memorial, the three side-branch members of the Yang family—Yang Siye, Yang Zhongning, and Yang Cheng'en—were portrayed in an extremely disgraceful light.

"I, your subject Fang Hai, upon hearing the news, could not sleep at night. I immediately summoned my many colleagues from the Song Prefecture government, such as the Song Prefecture Prefect Meng Kuo, the Song Prefecture Vice Prefect Lu Zhao, the Song Prefecture Sima Wu Xiao, the Song Prefecture Vice Magistrate Ji Cheng... and led all the garrison soldiers of Song Prefecture, as well as the household guards of my many colleagues, to rush to Ningping under the stars."

"The Wokou fled to the seashore, attempting to board their ships and escape. The three sons of the Ningping County Mistress, Luo Yuheng—Luo Tianshu, Luo Tianquan, and Luo Tianyang—then led men to attack from the flank. They shot them with fire arrows, igniting the sea vessels. The Wokou were all burned to death.”

"Afterward, a count was taken. A total of nine thousand seven hundred and seventy-two Wa slave heads were taken. Three Jingguans have been built on the coast to intimidate the coastal Wa slaves."

"In addition, there were Wa slave corpses that sank into the sea, numbering more than three thousand."

"Although more than thirteen thousand Wokou were killed in this battle, I, your subject Fang Hai, as the Provincial Governor of Song Prefecture, failed to guard the borders and pacify the state, resulting in the unjust deaths of one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two commoners under my jurisdiction. Your subject feels deeply guilty and is in a state of panic all day long. I specially beg to return my bones to my hometown and retire. I hope Your Majesty will grant this request."

"In addition, the Luo Mansion's live-in son-in-law, Song Yan, developed the weapon 'wolf brush,' which has a miraculous effect against the Wa slaves. Perhaps it can be promoted in the coastal areas."

One memorial, a flowing several thousand characters, which described in detail how dedicated, fearless, and self-sacrificing the various officials of Song Prefecture were when resisting the Wokou, and depicted how brave and fearless Luo Yuheng was, and how perilous the battle process was.

As for the matter of the three Yang family officials' entire families being wiped out, it was only mentioned in passing. After all, it's very normal for people to die in a Wokou attack.

What's more, for the Wokou to encounter resistance and feel they were deceived, killing people to vent their anger is also within the bounds of reason.

Only at the very end was Song Yan mentioned.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony was completely silent.

The numerous officials looked at me, and I looked at you, their expressions varied.

On the Dragon Throne directly in front, a middle-aged man sat upright. It was Emperor Ninghe. He wore a golden dragon robe, his bearing majestic.

His eye sockets were deeply sunken, as if he hadn't had a proper rest for a long time. That face revealed a trace of abnormal pallor.

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