novelraw Chapter 59 : An Unreasonable Opportunity (3)
Chapter 59 : An Unreasonable Opportunity (3)
"You want to discuss the commission fee, now of all times?"
Duan Sijin asked, not even hiding his bewilderment. It was understandable that he was puzzled. A plan of several decades had collapsed, and a grand dream had vanished. Anyone could see that they were already ruined.
Then was there any reason to discuss the commission fee now? Shouldn't they mobilize all possible funds to summon the best master from the assassination den and take that bastard's head?
But Yelu Ze did not think so. He answered in a shrill voice.
"We are not ruined yet. So we must think about the aftermath."
"What?"
Yelu Ze spat out a bloody phlegm with a 'kack-'. Then he added in a much clearer voice.
"If we kill the inspector, chaos will begin again. Do you know why the Beggars' Sect was able to occupy Yunnan so easily?"
"Wasn't it possible because of the active help of the Martial Alliance?"
"That's right. To be more precise, it's because there are two people in charge of the Martial Alliance's support."
"Two people?"
"First is the Thousand Li Young Master, Sima Hui."
He has an excellent military strategy of identifying the main bases of the Black Way or the Unorthodox Faction located in key positions and effectively crushing them. Because of Sima Hui's full command, the Beggars' Sect can exert all its military power.
"The second is the inspector of the Martial Alliance."
Jang So-gil was feeding and housing over ten thousand beggars of the Beggars' Sect and perfectly preventing any leakage of their power. This was an amazing feat that no one could imitate.
The opponent was not a trained soldier or a martial sect that could be controlled. The beggars of the Beggars' Sect had a particularly large number of people with a maverick temperament.
While they had their own ranks among the beggars, such as One-Knot, Two-Knot, and Three-Knot Beggars, and they tried to control them using the position of a branch leader, which was given the authority to carry out summary executions on beggars by the state, that only worked for the beggars who lived quietly in the big cities.
In a foreign land like this, far from the Central Plains, neither position nor rank worked, so it was impossible to control them.
"If you try to control them by force, it's the beggars who have a fit."
"Then how are they preventing the leakage of their power?"
"By forming a huge post station network from Luoyang to Yunnan and creating a supply chain with not a single gap. They've given up on control and have completely let the beggars of the Beggars' Sect loose, focusing only on feeding and housing them."
"It's simple."
"But it's something no one can do."
"No one? You too?"
"That's right."
Ten thousand beggars who were not united moved at their own pace, each as they pleased. To set up post stations and supply them accordingly, one would have to spend a huge amount of money to form a supply chain that was not just overflowing with leeway, but gushing. But Jang So-gil's method was not like that.
"I heard that he is supplying without waste or leakage through a perfect distribution and management of funds with almost no error within a limited budget."
If the Thousand Li Young Master Sima Hui were to be killed, it's not that there would be no one to replace him. Even if it wasn't a genius of military strategy, if you brought in a decent military advisor, they could imitate it. If you had several people who were good at gathering information, you could probably achieve the same effect.
But in Yelu Ze's eyes, Jang So-gil's role was something no one could imitate. Even he, who was famous as a genius, couldn't do it, so who else could?
"So if only that bastard dies, the situation will change. The Beggars' Sect, unable to receive proper supplies, will move inefficiently and scatter, and then the Sichuan Tang Clan will start to intervene again."
"If the Beggars' Sect and the Sichuan Tang Clan fight..."
"That chaos will make Yunnan a mess again, so it will be another chance for us."
Although Yelu Ze's hope was mixed in to a large extent, it was not an absurd story.
It is always easier to start a fire than to put it out. It is difficult to prevent chaos, but it is easy to create chaos. The financial power of the Dali Ye Clan was still intact, and the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty that Yelu Ze had planted were also in good health. Making them create the embers of war was like twisting a child's wrist.
"So I will guarantee it once again. We have not completely failed yet. We just need to eliminate the inspector."
"Is there really a chance?"
Duan Sijin, who understood his words, intentionally held back his words. The part he held back was the word 'we'. The Dali Ye Clan and the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty were on the same boat, but their natures were strictly different.
The difference between the long-ruined Dali Kingdom and the remnants of the Yuan, who were still harassing the Ming from the south and north, was great. The Ming imperial family did not see the descendants of the Dali Kingdom as enemies, but they hated the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty like scorpions and were still carrying out northern expeditions from time to time. If the imperial family found out that there were remnants of the Yuan Dynasty in Yunnan, a southern expedition would begin.
Duan Sijin believed that the Martial Alliance must have noticed that the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty and the Dali Ye Clan had joined hands. For him, it was a rare rational thought that did not underestimate the enemy.
Yelu Ze understood Duan Sijin's words without difficulty and said in a low voice.
"Are you afraid of the imperial family?"
"Don't state the obvious."
"Put aside such worries. The Martial Alliance does not want the intervention of the imperial family, so they will not snitch."
"Why is that?"
"Will those who claim that the government and the martial world are inviolable take the lead in dragging in the government? That too, those who are called the orthodox sect? And among them, the Martial Alliance that represents the orthodox sect? Not a chance."
"That's true too. Haha, haha. I see. Hmm. Yes."
"So what we have to do is to move the assassination den with the optimal amount of money."
"But why do we have to calculate the optimal amount? For the sake of the aftermath, shouldn't we rather commission them with the maximum amount to surely kill that bastard?"
Yelu Ze took out a small book. It was a ledger that recorded the financial transactions with the Dali Ye Clan so far.
"No matter what you do, if you spend money, a trace is left. Let's say we hired an assassin from an assassination den for a large sum of money. After the inspector is killed, the Martial Alliance will look for the assassin who killed the inspector. And they will investigate the power dynamics and find the person who commissioned the assassination den. What would be the means of finding them? Money. They will investigate the traces of money coming and going and find the client."
"Th-th-that's right."
This guy still doesn't get it. Inwardly displeased, Yelu Ze continued.
"The traces of a small amount of money can be hidden somehow. But there is no way to hide the traces of a large amount of money, thousands of taels, coming and going. If those traces are discovered, we will all be annihilated for the crime of killing the inspector."
"Ah, then we have to kill the inspector with a moderate amount of money that we can hide."
"That's right."
They would set the maximum amount of funds that could be concealed, and prepare a commission fee that would be appropriate to kill the inspector by commissioning an assassination den. It was a surprisingly troublesome and cumbersome task.
Duan Sijin, who had thought it would be over just by preparing the money and throwing it to the assassination den, blushed in embarrassment.
"Huu..."
He's finally getting it.
Yelu Ze let out a sigh and shifted his gaze to the ledger.
How much money could they spend?
How much money could they hide?
How much money would it take to kill the inspector?
What would they do after that?
How would they deceive the eyes of the Eastern Depot?
The immediate problems exploded in his head like firecrackers, and Yelu Ze twisted his mouth.
No matter what the hardship, if you solve it step by step, starting with what you can do, nothing is impossible.
First, one by one. One step at a time.
Let's start constructively and diligently.
The man called the hope of the Yuan Dynasty, Yelu Ze, encouraged himself so.
"First, the inspector's head."
* * *
Shang Yang, the famous prime minister of the Qin state, had carried out reforms based on Legalist thought and left many achievements. Jang So-gil thought of that Shang Yang.
Shang Yang had created many methods of execution, saying that if one achieved merit, they should be rewarded, and if one committed a crime, they should be punished. Among those various execution methods, there was one called 'dismemberment by chariots', where the five parts of the body were tied with ropes to five bulls, and then they were made to run in all directions to tear the limbs apart.
Jang So-gil thought he was being subjected to that dismemberment by chariots.
His limbs were being torn apart. By an overwhelming force, they were being mercilessly torn off like a child tearing the wings off a dragonfly.
'Dismemberment by chariots is also called 'five bodies torn asunder', right? It really feels like my head and limbs are falling off.'
He was observing calmly, but a pain that was hard to describe in words rushed in. But he endured it. His pride of not wanting to show an unsightly appearance to others and his pride in himself allowed him to overcome the pain.
But this was the beginning.
'Keuk.'
As he overcame the pain of dismemberment by chariots, another kind of pain came next.
His flesh was being sliced. Like a skilled cook thinly slicing a radish to make a decoration, his flesh was being sliced off little by little. It was being sliced off so persistently in one area that at this rate, only the bones would be left and all the flesh would be scraped off.
'It's like death by a thousand cuts.'
Death by a thousand cuts was a punishment also called the 'hundred cuts punishment' or the 'thousand cuts and a kill', meaning to imprint the pain by cutting a hundred times and to keep the person alive even after a thousand cuts.
'In that sense, is it several times better than death by a thousand cuts?'
In death by a thousand cuts, the prisoner had to not die even after a thousand cuts, so they cut the person in various ways. They started by cutting the fingers or toes, which wouldn't kill them even if cut, then crushed the joints, cut off the arms and legs, and finally, after scraping off the flesh of the torso, they took out the heart and pierced it to kill.
Compared to that, this could be called paradise.
'Still, this is enough for Yang Gwan to call it torture.'
It was understandable that he had asserted that he couldn't succeed. Wasn't torture originally not made for humans to endure?
He was convinced that any peak master could use Dividing Muscles and Dislocating Bones. To be able to inflict both dismemberment by chariots and death by a thousand cuts at the same time just by infusing internal energy, what a cost-effective thing this was!
Jang So-gil resolved that when he became a peak master later, he would definitely learn this technique called Dividing Muscles and Dislocating Bones.
'By the way, to have to practice breathing techniques while enduring such torture, isn't it a miracle that even one of the forty who tried survived? No, more than that, who is that one person who succeeded? He endured this? Isn't that too amazing? I'm a little impressed.'
Jang So-gil thought of the question and chuckled.
'No. There's no need to be amazed.'
If one person succeeded, it wouldn't be strange for it to become two.
It wasn't something to be praised, nor was it something to be surprised about.
If someone else did it, I can do it too.
When he thought so, even the pain felt trivial.
As Jang So-gil's trembling body calmed down, Sima Hui's eyes shone with a strange light. The wound, which had become a complete rag, was healing at an incredible speed. It seemed like a scab was forming, but in a few seconds, the scab fell off on its own. And in its place, fair new skin grew. The old wound had disappeared, and the wound that had just been made had also disappeared. Even if it wasn't a complete transformation, this meant that the medicinal effect of the Fierce Bull Live Bezoar Pill was flowing properly throughout his body through the breathing technique, so it could be called a great success.
"With this, the first gate has been passed."
"Th-the first gate?"
As Yang Gwan asked in terror, Sima Hui wiped the sweat that had formed on his forehead.
"I've injured the muscles and bones to let the elixir seep in. The result is successful. Now it's time to rupture the qi meridians."
"Hmmmm, how about we stop here?"
If the muscles and bones are injured, a lifelong injury remains. But if the qi meridians are injured wrongly, one dies on the spot. That's why Qi Deviation is scary.
It was only natural for Yang Gwan to be scared. If the elixir had permeated the muscles and bones, the initial goal had already been achieved. Did he really have to put his head in the tiger's mouth?
Jang So-gil, without a word, focused on his breathing technique.
There was no negotiation. Yang Gwan sighed, and Sima Hui raised his internal energy again.
"Then I'll rupture the qi meridians now. So..."
There was no need to say more to someone who was already concentrating.
Sima Hui held back his words and infused his internal energy.
Then, blood burst out of Jang So-gil's mouth as if it had exploded.
That wasn't all.
Blood flowed madly from his eyes, nose, and ears as well.
The bleeding from the seven orifices had begun.
(End of Chapter)