Chapter 171: The Barbarians Arrive
Our Discord Server: .gg/PazjBDkTmW
The scent of green grass and damp earth drifted in from the land north of Cangzhou City.
Outside the city, golden sunlight poured across the boundless prairie. A narrow trail led into the distance, and the occasional collapsed thatch hut by the roadside whispered of a past long gone.
“After the barbarians took Youzhou, they burned homes and forests, captured civilians. What was once a flourishing land turned into a wilderness of weeds within ten years, now reduced to grazing fields for the Huyan Tuo tribe,” Niu Ben said as he stood on the city wall, gazing across the vast prairie with a voice tinged with melancholy.
Ten years ago, he had stood on this very wall, watching barbarian cavalry sweep across the land. Flames had raged for months, painting the sky crimson like fresh blood.
Zhan Xingchang stood beside him. After working tirelessly for over two months, he had grown visibly thinner. But with tens of thousands of slaves laboring day and night, a majestic wall had risen from the earth.
“It’s a shame. Prince Yong guarded Youzhou and was once the most powerful among the princes. Yet even he couldn’t hold off the barbarians,” Zhan said.
Xiao Ming gazed at the fertile land beyond the walls. From Cangzhou to Youzhou, it was about four hundred li. Youzhou was where the Forbidden City stood in modern Ming Dynasty history.
The Ming, once known for ‘The Son of Heaven guards the gates, and the monarch dies for the country,’ had crumbled like dust after losing Shanhaiguan. Prince Yong’s territory had been completely overrun by the barbarians.
If Niu Ben had not held firm in Cangzhou back then, and if the barbarians hadn’t encountered resistance from the Ottoman Empire in the west, they would never have stopped their push south.
In that sense, the Ottomans had inadvertently delayed the downfall of the Great Yu.
“Don’t boost the enemy’s morale and dampen our own spirit,” Xiao Ming said calmly. Right now, with Great Yu trembling at the mention of the barbarians, what they needed most was morale. Xiao Ming had no path of retreat left—if he didn’t hold Cangzhou, death would be his only fate.