Chapter 1 The Impasse

Outside the capital city gates, the princes' faces were contorted with rage as they waved their sabers, urging the assembled troops to attack the city gates.

After establishing the capital, the Great Wei Dynasty's founding emperor had specially ordered the construction of high city walls, making the entire capital as solid as a rock.

Not to mention how difficult it was to climb such high walls, even if it were easy, the troops these princes had gathered were not professional siege soldiers and didn't even have the tools to scale the walls.

Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, Jiang Chen issued an order to all the vassal kings.

Forcefully attack the eight gates of the capital!

He believed that the capital's defenses were currently weak, and as long as they attacked the city gates at all costs, they could definitely succeed.

Jiang Sheng's considerations were indeed very thorough, but he underestimated Jiang Chen.

After making the decision to leave the palace for the draft, Jiang Chen secretly ordered Yao Shouxin to transfer the Imperial Guards, originally stationed not far outside the capital, into the city in batches.

Now, within the capital city alone, there were as many as 20,000 Imperial Guards!

Those who could be selected as Imperial Guards were naturally the elite of the elite. On the battlefield, they might not be able to take on ten enemies, but taking on three was definitely no problem.

As for the soldiers outside the city, apart from the soldiers that Jiang Sheng had been planning for a long time and had trained, most of the others were folk guards, hooligans, local ruffians, and even mountain bandits and robbers recruited by the vassal kings from various places.

Although such a composition had a certain combat power, it lacked organizational discipline.

In the matter of attacking the city, which was very strategic, it completely backfired.

It could be seen that outside the eight city gates, apart from the soldiers led by Jiang Sheng who had managed to find logs to ram the city gates open, outside the other seven city gates, those soldiers fully demonstrated their imagination.

They first swarmed up, some pushing with their hands, some kicking with their feet, and some slashing at the city gates with their sabers.

But no matter how they attacked, the city gates remained unmoved.

In addition to being disorganized and undisciplined in their attacks, these hooligans obviously lacked willpower.

After discovering that the gates could not be opened no matter what, some people gave up and even prepared to leave.

The princes, who were holding the line at the back, were terrified when they saw this scene.

The only way for them to survive now was to break into the capital, usurp the throne, but these people were not attacking!

At this moment, the vassal kings showed their ruthlessness.

They drew their sabers and mercilessly hacked down on the hooligans who dared to retreat, while shouting, "Those who retreat will be killed without mercy!"

Then, the princes added, "After breaking through the city, each person will be rewarded with five hundred taels of silver! Ten beauties! The first to rush into the capital will be rewarded with five thousand taels of silver! A hundred beauties!"

With coercion and enticement, the hooligans quickly calculated the gains.

Fight!

For a time, morale outside the city was extremely high, and the shouts shook the heavens.

But unfortunately, they were facing the emotionless gates of the capital, which did not yield in the slightest because of their passion.

As the saying goes, a surge of energy, then a decline, and finally exhaustion.

Since they had not been able to push the gates even half an inch when their morale was at its highest, the impatient hooligans quickly lost their fighting spirit and were just pretending to put in effort.

On the city wall, the city gate general couldn't help but rub his hands together when he saw this scene.

This was a good opportunity to attack!

The enemy was already exhausted, and as long as they attacked now, they would definitely be able to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop!

The general immediately asked Yao Shouxin for permission to fight: "Lord, your subordinate is willing to lead troops to attack! I swear to defeat the bandits!"

However, Yao Shouxin resolutely shook his head: "We cannot attack."

"Why is that?" the general asked, his face full of doubt.

They had all heard that although Yao Shouxin, the Minister of War, was a civil official, his talent for fighting was not low at all.

Logically speaking, he shouldn't be unable to see that now was a good time to attack.

Yao Shouxin smiled slightly: "I know that attacking now can defeat the enemy in one fell swoop, but we cannot attack."

"Because we lack one thing."

The general was stunned, then suddenly realized.

The thing they lacked was the order of Jiang Chen, the Great Wei Emperor.

At the beginning of the Great Wei Dynasty's founding, in order to prevent the situation of powerful generals holding military power from appearing as in the previous dynasty, on the one hand, the military camps in various places were reformed, and on the other hand, it was established that they must have the emperor's order to be able to go to war.

Of course, normally speaking, once there was a rebellion in a certain place, the local garrison could completely report to the capital while fighting the rebels.

After all, some places were remote, and it might take more than ten days to send the news to the capital and back.

They couldn't possibly endure without fighting back for these ten days, and then fight back when the order arrived, right?

So under normal circumstances, the garrison could take action, and the emperor would not blame them.

Who told the news to travel too slowly?

But this time was an exception.

Because this time, the rebels were the vassal kings!

Looking at it from afar, they were imperial relatives; looking at it up close, they were all the Emperor's brothers.

For ordinary rebellions, the emperor would certainly not blame them for suppressing the rebellion without receiving orders.

But when it involved the emperor's relatives, the situation was different.

What if the emperor had other plans?

Yao Shouxin was a smart man and would certainly not make such a mistake.

"Then can we only wait for the Emperor's order?" the general asked at this time.

Although the attack outside was painless, it was too frustrating to be blocked at the door and beaten!

Yao Shouxin smiled again and looked at the Prince Gong beside him.

"Your Highness, Prince Gong, I wonder if the Emperor has given you any other instructions?"

Prince Gong had already been scared silly.

Born in a time of peace, where had he ever seen such a scene of fighting and killing?

Not to mention that one of them was Jiang Sheng, who had bullied him before.

So after being brought back to the city by Yao Shouxin, he had been in a state of blankness.

He only came to his senses when Yao Shouxin called him.

"What did you say?" Prince Gong asked blankly.

Yao Shouxin was a little speechless and repeated: "I would like to ask, before Your Highness came to the capital, did the Emperor give you anything else?"

Only then did Prince Gong remember that Jiang Chen had indeed given him something besides the imperial decree.

He quickly took out the item and handed it to Yao Shouxin: "The Emperor also gave me this."

Yao Shouxin opened it and immediately smiled.

The general on the side was also overjoyed.

This thing was the tiger tally used to deploy troops!

Obviously, the Emperor had anticipated the worst-case scenario of this incident and had given the final means.

Yao Shouxin looked at the general's excited appearance, waved his hand, and shouted: "The Emperor has ordered, suppress the rebellion!"

This news was quickly conveyed to the eight city gates by messengers.

Almost at the same time, the eight gates opened simultaneously.

The rabble who were trying to break into the city were racking their brains to take action when they suddenly discovered that the gates had been opened from the inside, and they were overjoyed.

Had they succeeded?

"The city gates are open! Rush in!" someone shouted.

While shouting, this person also took the lead and rushed in first.

The prince had said that the first to rush into the capital would be rewarded with five thousand taels of silver! A hundred beauties!