Chapter 56 Wind

"Captain Wu, you are a busy man tonight."

From atop the city tower, an imperial guard commander looked down at the crowd outside the palace gate, a trace of amusement flashing in his eyes.

Clearly, he knew what was going to happen tonight.

The Guangshun Gate was the only obstacle standing between Wu An and the Xuanwu Gate. Although there was still some distance to cover ahead, the path was lined with pavilions and palace terraces, and there were no longer any palace walls that could block them.

Most importantly, Wu An had previously learned from a captive that the Emperor might be lodging at the Taiye Pond—once they entered the Guangshun Gate, the Taiye Pond was not far away.

However, considering the imperial guards protecting the Emperor's chariot, the safest approach was to spend a little time first going to the North Gate to seize military command.

Immediately, dozens of cavalrymen bent their bows and fitted arrows, defiantly aiming at the city tower. Wu An waved his hand to signal the surrounding soldiers to lower their bows and crossbows, and rode his horse out from the crowd.

"During the day, many thanks to Brother Li for bringing the Empress's verbal decree to the Pei residence to congratulate me. If you have time tomorrow, I must invite you to my home for a celebratory drink."

The person standing on the city tower was clad in bright-light armor; it was none other than Li Duozuo, whom Wu An had met several times before.

He pressed both hands against the parapet and shouted loudly:

"Drinking wine is another matter; I want to know why Captain Wu has brought so many troops here tonight?"

"By the Empress's decree, we enter the palace to suppress the rebellion!"

The Empress...

Li Duozuo straightened up, glanced at the tense imperial guards around him, and frowned.

"Captain Wu, you know the rules of this palace. Once the curfew begins, to say nothing of the outer gates, no one can open the inner gates unless the Emperor arrives in person!"

His hand rested on the hilt of his saber, slightly drawing out an inch of the blade.

"Take another step forward, and have you considered the consequences?"

"Brother Li, have you forgotten everything you said at my house earlier?"

Li Duozuo chuckled inwardly. Seeing that the "rebels" around Wu An were few in number—a mere few hundred at most—he guessed that it would be impossible for Wu An to succeed tonight.

That actually made things easier to handle.

Regardless of whose name you mention, I will just say I cannot obey this person's orders.

"Captain Wu, business is business. Let's handle it by the book."

Li Duozuo shouted from atop the city tower: "Show me the Empress's decree!"

"The Empress gave a verbal decree, but I have the tally and the pass for the palace禁军 here with me. You can verify their authenticity!"

"That won't do."

Li Duozuo waved his hand and shouted: "I command the North Gate Imperial Guards and guard the gate for His Majesty. Without His Majesty's order, I cannot let you pass."

Wu An immediately took out another tally right before his eyes.

"This is the fish tally bestowed by the Emperor himself. It can mobilize the imperial guards as if the Emperor had arrived in person!"

The Thousand Riders were also considered imperial guards, so fundamentally there was no error.

Li Duozuo was slightly startled. He was aware of certain affairs in the court previously, so it was not difficult to understand how Wu An had obtained these two tallies.

"I'm sorry..."

He shouted loudly:

"South of the Guangshun Gate are the Eastern Palace and the Western Inner苑. Even if you have tallies from the Emperor and the Empress, who knows if they are real or fake? If you say there are rebels in the palace, either bring the Crown Prince himself here to prove it, or produce a token of the Crown Prince, and I will believe you!"

Wu An immediately produced yet another military tally and shouted:

"The Eastern Palace Tiger Tally is here. With this tally, the soldiers of the Eastern Palace's Ten Regiments can be mobilized!"

Li Duozuo: "......"

The actual items were right there in the man's hands, not some nonsense spoken with his eyes closed while grabbing a handful of dirt.

Li Duozuo understood Wu An; since the other party dared to produce it, it meant he was not afraid of him verifying its authenticity.

But what on earth had happened tonight?

The garrison of the Western Inner Park had collapsed too quickly. After breaking through the Western Inner Park, Wu An's force had pushed north without stopping, resulting in the shockwaves not yet spreading to other parts of the palace.

Even the garrisons that had received advance word or orders had not received any further instructions.

However, everyone knew clearly that when faced with an order they were ostensibly required to obey, they were left with only one choice.

Furthermore, for Li Duozuo, it was as if the three most powerful figures on the surface of the Great Tang court were giving him direct orders right now.

Refusing was an option, provided you dared to gamble that your judgment was correct.

If either the Empress or the Crown Prince was rebelling, and he chose one side, the odds were fifty-fifty anyway;

But now that three tallies had appeared, it meant the probability of success had been split three ways.

Damn it!

Li Duozuo spat, turned around, and gave the order: "Open the palace gates and let them pass!"

The palace gates opened, and over a hundred cavalrymen slowly filed in. Li Duozuo descended the city tower, and by the torchlight, he noticed that the mounts of some cavalrymen were actually stained with blood!

Unlike other imperial guard commanders who had entered officialdom through hereditary family privilege, Li Duozuo was of foreign extraction and had earned military merits on the battlefields, which allowed him to be transferred to the palace city of Chang'an to protect the Emperor of Great Tang.

To him, this was an immense grace and glory, while also proving his capability.

That day in the study, Qiu Shenji had shown considerable disdain for Zhou Xing, but he did not know that Li Duozuo looked at him the same way one might look at a chirping chick flapping its wings to show off its existence.

"You will come with me north to the Xuanwu Gate and mobilize all the imperial guards of the North Gate."

Li Duozuo felt his scalp go numb. After a moment of heavy thought, he bargregated: "How about you punch me and snatch the military tallies off my body? That way, I can at least claim I was coerced while still mobilizing some troops."

Although he did not know what was happening, the moment he heard this, he knew tonight's affair was no small matter.

At worst, he'd be kicked back to the north to gnaw on sand afterward!

"You've been in the North Gate Imperial Guards for a long time; you are certainly more familiar with the personnel up and down the guards than I am. Therefore, I need you to come with me and help me mobilize the troops."

"Why should I?"

Li Duozuo wished he could tear open his armor and shout, "If you have the ability, hack me to death!"

Heichi Changzhi rode over, stopped in front of the two, and directly drew his saber.

"Wait!"

Li Duozuo shouted: "First tell me, what on earth is going on tonight!"

"I've already said, there are rebels in the palace, and we are mobilizing the imperial guards to suppress the rebellion."

Li Duozuo raised a hand to cut off Wu An's words, emphasizing: "Who... is mobilizing the troops, and whose rebellion are we suppressing?"

Heichi Changzhi was about to scold him for following orders, but Wu An stared at Li Duozuo and suddenly smiled.

"The Crown Prince is mobilizing the troops,

the Crown Prince is... rebelling!"

Li Duozuo cursed another "damn it," asked no further questions, grabbed a horse from a nearby soldier, vaulted onto the saddle himself, and rode closely beside Wu An.

"Why aren't you asking anymore?"

Wu An asked in surprise. He casually gathered the reins as his horse broke into a gallop, and Li Duozuo let out a vicious curse.

"You Han people kill each other, and in the end, it's always us Hu people who die!"

Hearing this, Heichi Changzhi, who was riding alongside, nodded in deep agreement.

"General Li, how many troops are stationed at the North Gate?"

"At least two garrison camps are permanently stationed there, several thousand men at least."

Li Duozuo fiercely dug his heels into his horse's flanks, urging it to run faster. Hearing the question, he said coldly:

"Even if you only mobilize seven or eight hundred of them, you can run amok inside this palace city tonight."

"Then how many can I mobilize?"

Li Duozuo thought about the three tallies in Wu An's hands, coupled with his own personal appearance, how many among the North Gate ranks could be directly mobilized...

A flash of ruthlessness crossed his eyes.

Rather than calling it resigning to fate, it was more that Li Duozuo's inherent ferocity had been thoroughly stirred up by this sudden upheaval.

Freezing in the cold wind, having to run around the palace city in the middle of the night—

Li Duozuo didn't harbor much resentment toward Wu An. He knew Wu An was most likely a small fry just like himself; the events of tonight couldn't possibly have been instigated by him.

It must be those three deities fighting their divine battle!

In comparison, coupled with the conversation in the study earlier, this Captain Wu had shown him "sincerity" for the second time. Since he said it was the Crown Prince... why not hitch a ride and gain the merit of supporting a new emperor?

Advancement in rank begins tonight!

"Half!"

He looked at Wu An and shouted: "First open the North Gate, then seize the imperial stables, and then you lead a thousand iron cavalrymen across the inner palace. You and I will make the initial assault for the Crown Prince!"

"Then... do you know where His Majesty is?"

"I know. Just now I heard a night-patrol guard say that for some unknown reason, the imperial chariot has moved south from Taiye Pond, supposedly heading toward the Eastern Inner Park."

Li Duozuo was momentarily stunned, his brain failing to turn the corner for a second, but upon careful thought, it made sense: if the Crown Prince was rebelling, wasn't he rebelling against his own father?

Wu An inwardly cursed. Now that Li Jingxuan's whereabouts were unknown, changing the primary objective to helping the Crown Prince first was not unacceptable.

But judging from what Li Duozuo said, since the Emperor's chariot was heading south, if his own route had deviated just slightly, would he happen to run straight into the Emperor's chariot head-on?

"Are we still going to the Xuanwu Gate?" Li Duozuo asked hastily seeing him stay silent.

"Go!"

The imperial chariot had already moved, but Wu An judged that some temporary contingency had occurred; it didn't mean the Emperor and the imperial guards elsewhere already knew of his arrival.

He was moving far too fast; they simply couldn't realize what kind of upheaval was erupting within the palace right now.

Furthermore, the Crown Prince was constantly mobilizing all forces from the rear to prepare for a frontal assault on the Eastern Inner Park. If the Emperor learned of this, there was no way he would walk in that direction.

As long as Wu An's turnaround time was fast enough, catching up with the Emperor midway was not entirely impossible.

The Emperor was riding in an imperial chariot, after all, not a donkey cart!

"I'm going to the Xuanwu Gate to mobilize the North Gate Imperial Guards, and then..."

Wu An savagely whipped his horse's rump and shouted:

"Chase the dragon!"

......

"Ah!"

"Your Highness, Your Highness, it was just a dream, don't be afraid, don't be afraid."

The palace wet nurse knelt on the edge of the bed as Princess Taiping shrank further into the bedcovers. After a long moment of catching her breath, she mumbled vaguely: "Has dawn broken?"

"Not yet, but Her Majesty the Empress just sent someone to say that there is a strong wind in the palace tonight, and ordered all quarters of the Imperial Wives' Court to guard their gates tightly, especially instructing that Your Highness must not catch a chill."

"I know."

Princess Taiping muttered, then let out a lingering yawn. Her gaze fell on the head of the bed, where an exquisite wooden carved steed was placed—a horse treading on a flying swallow, its momentum fierce as if galloping madly.

This was one of the items Wu An had previously sent over. She had nearly finished the snacks, but the wooden carving was rather interesting, so she had kept it in her room to admire.

After looking at it for a moment, she sat up, picked up the wooden carving to admire it once more. Seeing that she had been frightened by her nightmare and fearing she would catch a chill, the nurse urged her to lie back down and sleep for a bit.

Princess Taiping gave a soft hum, aligned the wooden steed to its spot, and carefully set it down—she always felt this wooden carving had strange proportions and feared it wouldn't stand steadily.

At that moment, the horse's hooves landed firmly, making a light thud on the bedside table.

......

"Boom!"

Hundreds of horse hooves heavily trampled the blue bricks paved within the palace, rolling forward across the ground like peals of thunder.

A troop of cavalry finally came to a halt before the Xuanwu Gate. A moment later, the city gates opened. After that unit of cavalry entered, successive paths of torchlight began to ignite atop the Xuanwu Gate tower and within the several sprawling military camps outside the palace gates to the north.

Dozens of messengers galloped frantically among the troops, shouting loudly:

"The commander-in-chief orders: ride out of the camp to suppress the rebellion!"

"Tonight's password... Great Wind!"