Chapter 128 (end)
Gu Yun was at a loss for words. He wanted to open his arms to hug him, but the other did not budge even after pulling twice, he had to sit aside quietly and not say a word, waiting for Chang Geng to cry out all the grievances that accumulated for more than ten years.
However, it seemed that the new emperor’s luck was not so good. He couldn’t even cry to his heart’s content. Before he was even exhausted, there was a blast outside causing the whole tent to shake violently.
Then came the sharp cry of huge Eagle wings across the sky from far to near. Chang Geng only had time to turn his back. An Eagle Armor herald rushed in: “Marshal, the iron fence is broken, and the Westerners had entered the encirclement!”
Gu Yun’s fingertip was still stained with Chang Geng’s tears. He quietly tightened his hand and nodded calmly, “I know. Hold them down as planned.”
The herald’s toes touched the ground only for a moment, he turned and flew away again.
Only now did Chang Geng turn to look at him. The tears on his face were still wet, appearing very pitiful. Gu Yun could not bear this expression the most. He was disarmed on the spot and softly coaxed: “Chang Geng, come here, I’ll wipe your tears.”
Chang Geng: “Where are your sweet words?”
Gu Yun sighed quietly and lowered his voice a little: “Darling come here, I will lick your tears clean.”
Chang Geng: “…”
He was momentarily unable to let out a word from anger.
However, as he was stupefied for a second, Gu Yun had struggled to get up by the bedside. He could hardly bear the strength on his waist. When he got up, the steel plate between his legs hit the edge of the small bed heavily. His neck tendon raised abruptly from the bandage at the neckline. His messy hair spread across his shoulder and through the long chain of the liuli glass.
Chang Geng: “What are you doing!”
He stepped forward, trying to reach out and hold Gu Yun down, unexpectedly, Gu Yun took this chance and held him in his arms.
After Gu Yun made this move, cold sweat began to break out on his forehead. Most of his body weight was placed on Chang Geng’s body. He was short of breath, the steel plate that pressed on him was hindering in between the two. He sighed, closing his eyes gently, stroking Chang Geng’s tense back, and whispered, “Let me hug you, I miss you so much. Then whether you want to scold me or fight me afterward, I won’t fight back, alright?”
Chang Geng had just calmed down a bit, his nose began to sting again, he grabbed Gu Yun’s waist uncontrollably, feeling that the access part of the belt was not simply from missing the part in the letter: “I……”
As soon as he said a word, his voice was drowned in frenzied cannon fire and was interrupted again.
Gu Yun slightly turned his head, kissed his face, then actually kept to his words and followed his tears all the way down, finally stopped on the lips with a little taste of tears. Chang Geng’s lips were shaking all the while, not knowing whether it was from pain or anger or excitement. Gu Yun stopped for a moment, the tip of his tongue parted his lips.
Chang Geng’s hands holding his waist suddenly tightened——
…It’s a pity that he hadn’t tasted the sweetness yet when there’s another loud Eagle sound outside that even a half-deaf could hear.
Chang Geng: “…”
Can they cut it!
The two armies are facing off, so many elite generals and a whole new generation of generals of Great Liang are gathered in this war. Do these bastards have to come to the marshal tent to ask for instructions for every single thing?
In this situation, was there anything wrong with His Majesty not considering he was in the middle of blazing artillery, crying and acting spoiled at the commander of four sides?
The Black Eagle rushed in: “Marshal, seeing that the situation is not right, the Westerners are getting ready to escape! General Shen stopped the enemy’s main ship with the sea cuttles. General He asked when a large number of Black Eagles could move out.”
Gu Yun lightly wiped the corner of his lips: “Wait a moment, wait for their main ship to release the killing move.”
The Black Eagle responded hurriedly, then turned around and roared away.
The two exchanged glances at each other awkwardly. Chang Geng’s heartbeat still had not calmed down. He had no choice but to let out a bitter smile.
He half-supported and half-held Gu Yun to place him on the bed, pulled the blanket and covered him. He took a small piece of cloth material that Gu Yun sent him from his arm along with a needle and thread from his pouch. The color of the thread matched with the blue cloth, it seemed he was well prepared before coming. He pulled Gu Yun’s belt and turned it over carefully. As expected, one end of it was crudely removed, and the threads were ragged.
Chang Geng said helplessly, “Does Marshal walk around in this kind of rags every day?”
“No,” Gu Yun narrowed his eyes and carefully read his lips. He said with a low laugh, “I happened to wear this one today. Our spirits are perhaps connected when I was dreaming, I knew that Your Majesty will come to sew the clothing for me personally today.”
Chang Geng’s hand moved, but before he looked up at Gu Yun’s expression, a hand fell on his face, his fingers slid gently down his jaw toward the root of his ear: “Did you suffer?”
Chang Geng blinked his eyes quickly. He felt that the pain just now was too intense, the dams in his eyes might break today. The man only said three words yet his tears almost poured out again: “Then, are you in pain?”
He thought that Gu Yun wouldn’t answer, but after a moment of silence, Gu Yun said frankly, “It was so painful that I often can’t sleep.”
Chang Geng’s hands trembled, the needle pricked his finger.
Gu Yun said again, “Still not as painful as seeing you cry. Don’t cry anymore in the future, yifu can have a nightmare all his life.”
Chang Geng: “…”
Since he was a child, he could not tell which words of his were the sincere words from the heart and which were used to coax him, so he had to take them all as sincere words, his whole body was softened by just a few words.
Gu Yun: “Most of the Bone of Impurity has gone away, hasn’ it? Miss Chen has taken good care of you — there will be no accident in this battle. The enemy will move out into our ambush. Once they enter the ambush, there will be a large number of sea cuttle directed at their main ship. The main ship has a fatal weakness, that is, when it is in crisis, its maneuverability cannot keep up with it. When the pope is pushed to the extreme, it will… ”
Before he finished speaking, he was interrupted by a roar that could shake mountains. Although Gu Yun couldn’t hear it clearly, he felt the vibration of his bed. Gu Yun slowly smiled. He waited for a moment, the tremor subsided gradually. He continued: “He would move all the heavy guns hidden under the tortoiseshell of his main ship out and try to breakthrough. A large number of Ziliujin and ammunition are carried on the Western main ship. However, when facing the battle, they seldom show their true appearance. We have analyzed them from many angles for a long time. It is speculated that the first reason is that they cannot afford to be consumed, and the second reason is that once the main ship is put into the battle, it is incapable of taking care of the attached sea Jiao warships immediately — ”
A Black Eagle fell down and presented the third battle report: “Marshal, there really is a problem with the Western main ship. General Shen has taken advantage of the chaos to encircle it. Just then, in the chaos, the Western naval forces lost their order and nearly half of them sank! Black Eagles are ready to pursue… ”
Before he finished speaking, an almost deafening Eagle sound came across the sky. It was the sound of tens of thousands of aerial killers raising their wings in the wind.
Gu Yun turned to Chang Geng: “Your Majesty, do you want to have a look… at how our army recovers Jiangnan?”
When he made a detailed analysis of all these things, it seemed that he was no longer only a wounded man who could only lie on the bed, but the general who broke into the rebel army of Wei Wang, who fought against the bandits in the southwest, who brought peace to the northwest, and who laid out his formation to retake Jiangnan.
Chang Geng replied with a serious expression, “My general’s words carry great weight, ever-victorious.”
There was a Red Kite with a high level of defense in Liangjiang garrison. Chang Geng supported Gu Yun to move up to it. The Red Kite rose slowly from the marshal tent, one could see the whole battlefield when pointing the Qian Li Yan downwards — the blue sea with raising waves, the iron ships resembling dragons, crossing into the sea, everywhere was fire and smoke ——
After fighting for more than two hours, in the end, the Westerners could no longer sustain. The main ship with countless holes gathered the scattered warships and rushed to the direction of the Dong Ying Sea in a panic.
Three rows of Great Liang Navy chased after them like mad, determined not to let them escape, disregarding the rumor that ‘Great Liang Navy cannot fight on the open sea’. Tailing them for an entire night, they bravely broke into the sea area of Dong Ying.
Controlling the situation until this point, Gu Yun lifted his lips in a smile.
Dong Ying would be the Western Army’s last grave.
As the Western troops retreated, they sent four signals of request for support to Dong Ying. All of them resembled rocks that sunk into the sea. After they were chased into the Dong Ying Sea by the Great Liang Navy, the Westerners were shocked to find a group of Dong Ying warships standing in front of them in ready — These were the ships they had brought over and given to Dong Ying!
The two sides quickly approached each other, the Westerners madly signaled to the point of almost dropping the flag into the water. The ‘friendly army’ did not react, only a hoarse and long trumpet order was sounded in response ——
The Dong Ying warship’s muzzles were aimed at the ally who they had been strongly supporting in the past.
“Boom”——
A blood-red sunset on the sea seemed to be the period signaling the end of a turbulent era as the dust settled.
When the fireworks exploded at the far sea, Gu Yun smiled softly. He had been enduring to closely follow this journey. At this time, his body could no longer hold on, he was so exhausted that he could fall asleep as soon as his head touches a pillow.
But Chang Geng suddenly leaned down, pulled his chin towards him and asked, “You said before that you have a personal wish that could not be written down in your last letter, and that you will tell me next time. What is it?”
Gu Yun laughed.
“What is it?” Chang Geng pressed on.
Gu Yun pulled him closer, placed his lips next to his ear, and whispered: “Give you…all of my life until the end.”1
Chang Geng took a sharp inhale of breath, slowly calming down after a long moment: “It is you who said this, the general’s words carry great weight…
Gu Yun continued his words: “Ever-victorious.”
In the 10th year of Long An, on the fourth day of March, from the time of mutual exploration and decisive battle to when the Dong Ying turned sides at the last moment, the Western Navy, which had been occupying the entire Eastern Sea for several years, was defeated.
Gu Yun completed his mission and was ‘forced’ by the new emperor to return to the capital for recuperation.
Sixteen days later, the railway line was officially connected, and the great lifeline running through the north and south was completed. A large number of steel armors, fire engines, and Ziliujin, were able to be transported to the south at the fastest time. The Liangjiang garrison quickly established a naval base. The army was dispatched by Shen Yi, sweeping the Westerners’ garrison occupying half the nation in the south.
Without strong naval forces and domestic support, the Western garrison resembled leaves to be swept away by the autumn wind. The fragile frontline collapsed for thousands of miles.
The battle on land lasted only two months. At the beginning of May that year, the Western allied forces formally surrendered and a large number of captives were detained in Great Liang, including the pope himself.
To preserve their dignity, the Holy Land was forced to send people to negotiate. It ended with a compensation agreement: one side released the people, one side handed over the payment.
At this point, the dark cloud that loomed over the southern half of the nation was lifted. Year after year, there would come a day when Jiangnan will bask in the scent of osmanthus fragrance.
It was said that the pope died on his way back to his home country. No one knew whether he died naturally or was assassinated — but it no longer mattered.
Li Min, the former Yan Qin Wang, formally ascended the throne and was to be changed to Tai Shi* the next year.
*Ancient times refer to the era when the world was opened up and everything began to form.
At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, the new emperor immediately granted a decree that the children of the former emperor would not have to move out of the palace, nor would there be a change to the previously established crown prince, nor would he retract military power.
The Black Tiger Emblem would still be in the hands of Gu Yun, guarding the capital alongside him and could mobilize the power of the four regions at any time.
At the same time, the three factions of the former Black Iron Camp were scattered and incorporated into garrisons everywhere, a generation of brave generals who grew up in the smoke took over the instructions of the people who walked before them, standing tall guarding the four sides.
In the eighteen years of his reign, Emperor Tai Shi always regarded himself as the ‘acting emperor’ and issued a series of constitution starting from the ‘acting emperor’ himself down to all the officials of civil and military, a set of system to limit power and responsibility, everyone was to be treated equally, the goal was for each person to reflect on themselves at all times.
A vigorous reform pushed thousands of years of depression and thick fog casting over the nation away.
The end of one era was always the starting point of another.
11
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The end of the main story.2
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