"I feel that this face is a little familiar." Gu Yun held a wooden stick and repeatedly looked at the "woman" on the ground for a while before coming to a conclusion.
Calais Yinghou's Wolf King's tent was turned upside down by the Black Iron Battalion. They found that there were no rare pearls, iron nets, or corals. It looked impressive, but it was poor inside. It could be seen that he didn't even spare himself before he drained the aristocrats of their wealth. He was really a selfless madman.
What made Gu Yun very disappointed was that they couldn't find the legendary secret voodoo technique of the goddess.
Thinking about it, only the Liang people liked to write everything down on paper and compile it into a book. The 18 tribes preserved many primitive customs. Some things that needed to be recorded were probably carved on stones, tortoise shells, fur … or simply passed down by word of mouth. The secret voodoo technique that they wanted to find might only be hidden in Calais's brain and have been burned to ashes.
In the end, only this strange human statue was brought back to the Beijiang garrison under Chen Qingxu's insistence.
"What did Miss Chen say that this thing might be?" Gu Yun asked the bodyguard next to him, "What puppet?"
"Soul puppet." The bodyguard replied. Seeing Gu Yun poking around with the wooden stick without restraint, he couldn't help but say, "Marshal, I think this thing is very insidious. It might be unclean. You should stay away from it, right?"
The "soul puppet" was the size of a human and weighed about twenty to thirty pounds. After it was cleaned, its appearance and skin were no different from a real person at first glance. It was as if it could speak when it opened its eyes.
It was said that this was not a complete human skin. It was pieced together with the best human skin of many young men and young women. After processing it with some kind of voodoo technique, it was formed into a whole piece and wrapped around a piece of wood. The wood was shaved into a complete human shape in advance. This way, the human skin and wood could be stuck together seamlessly to imitate a lifelike dummy.
The 18 tribes believed that this kind of soul puppet could summon the souls of people who died in foreign lands.
In the beginning, the Soul Doll was covered in a layer of dust. After it was cleaned, it looked like a naked real person. Shen Yi felt that it was too improper, so she specially asked someone to find a set of clothes for it to "wear".
Gu Yun stared at the closed eyebrows of the Soul Puppet and vaguely felt that it looked a little like Changgeng when he was young. He stretched out his finger and stroked his chin, trying hard to recall his memories. He asked, "Do you think this is the Barbarian Consort's Soul?"
The personal guard believed in the supernatural and didn't dare to look. He said in fear, "Marshal, it's better to move out quickly. These ghosts and ghosts are so scary …"
"It's fine." Gu Yun glanced at the Soul Puppet's face and said casually, "I think she's quite pretty."
The bodyguards were speechless.
During this period of time, Marshal Gu had been juggling the northern and southern battlefields. He was probably so tired that he had lost his mind.
At this moment, Chen Qingxu, who had been worried about Shen Yi, suddenly rushed in. "I remember now!"
Gu Yun said, "Hmm?"
Chen Qingxu took out a knife from nowhere and half-knelt on the ground. Under the gaze of Gu Yun and his superstitious bodyguards, he cut open the Soul Puppet's chest.
Gu Yun was speechless.
His bodyguards were so scared that they trembled. They turned their faces away and chanted, "Amitabha." Gu Yun looked at him and then looked at Miss Chen, who was skillfully dissecting an ox. He stretched out his hand and handed the wooden stick to his bodyguards, who were silent like cicadas in winter. He said with pity, "Take it to ward off evil spirits and protect yourself."
Chen Qingxu didn't pay attention to his surroundings and concentrated on the tip of the knife. The human skin looked flat on the outside and was even very soft. After being cut open, there was no flesh on the inside. It was cleanly separated into two sides and the texture was like tanned cowhide. Chen Qingxu controlled his strength very well. It was just enough to cut open the human skin but didn't hurt the wood underneath.
Gu Yun was watching idly at the side at first. Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes, rolled up his sleeves, and squatted down. He didn't shy away from using his hands. He gently lifted the peeled skin and carefully touched the surface of the wood.
The bodyguard's face turned green. He hurriedly apologized and ran outside to guard the door with the Demon-Warding Rod that the Marshal gave him.
Gu Yun touched it for a while and asked doubtfully, "Why? There are words on this wood?"
Chen Qingxu had already cut the human skin from head to tail. She changed to a smaller knife like peeling an eggshell and carefully peeled off the human skin bit by bit until the entire human-shaped wood was revealed. She was slightly relieved and took the time to reply to Gu Yun, "There are, but the engravings are small and shallow. Only people with an extremely sensitive sense of touch can feel it. If ordinary people want to see it, I'm afraid they have to use tools. Marshal, can you help me identify what's written on it?"
The Black Iron Battalion and the Eighteen Tribes could be said to be two generations of enemies. Many of the high-ranking officers in the Black Iron Battalion could recognize the commonly used barbarian language. Gu Yun touched the neck of the human-shaped wood for a moment and hesitated for a long time before replying, "They are all very rare words. Steam … something … I don't know. There's a number behind it … Oh, it seems to mention something about sunlight …"
Gu Yun looked at Chen Qingxu in confusion, "Why is there a mysterious recipe engraved on this Soul Puppet? Uh … Miss Chen, what's wrong? "
Gu Yun had never seen such an emotional expression on Chen Qing Xu's face before. Her icy cold eyes were almost filled with tears.
She carried the human-shaped wood with both hands as if she had never seen it before. She took out a silk handkerchief and carefully wiped the dust on it, as if she was carrying a rare treasure.
"In order for a Soul Puppet to attract the souls of foreign lands to return, it needs to communicate between life and death. The usual method is to hide a personal item of that person in the Soul Puppet's heart. However, since this method is used to pay tribute to the deceased, the deceased is usually thousands of miles away and most likely cannot find their burial place. Therefore, the personal item can't be obtained every time. I just remembered that in this case, the caster will usually use the last words left behind by the deceased or words that can represent the deceased to replace it."
"Back then, the two barbarian sisters fled from the depths of the palace. Along the way, the elder sister died in a foreign land while the younger sister brought her child and wandered into the bandit's lair. Before the imperial concubine died, she left behind a very important item for Hu Ge'er. Later, it passed through Hu Ge'er's hands and finally landed in the hands of Wolf King Jia Lai …"
When Gu Yun heard this, his heart started beating wildly without warning.
"It's the Goddess's Secret Technique." Chen Qingxu pointed out his thoughts. "I … I originally thought that there was such a possibility. Who knew that it was actually …"
Everyone's impression of the "Barbarian Goddess" was only left with the image of Hu Ge'er, that crazy woman. The imperial concubine, on the other hand, didn't have much of a sense of existence. She died too early. From the high and mighty "demigod" of the grassland, she was reduced to a harem with nine doors tightly shut. Until now, there was no way to know whether she was resentful, hateful, or resigned to her fate.
What was her attitude towards her child?
Presumably, according to human nature, she should hate. Even Jia Lai couldn't help but have a murderous intent when he saw the face of the Changgeng sisters when they were young, let alone the person involved.
However, the voodoo techniques of the 18 tribes were so unpredictable that even the Chen family couldn't find a solution for many years. As the inheritor, the imperial concubine could easily kill an unformed fetus without anyone noticing. Why did she keep the child?
Did she know that the child was eventually made into a Wuer bone by the crazy Hu Ge'er?
Almost all of the old people were dead. No one would know whether the Barbarian Goddess decided to keep the child because of a mother's reluctance, or because she happened to know that Hu Ge'er was pregnant with another child. Out of hatred for the extinction of her tribe, she planned to create a peerless evil god.
But no matter what, after going around in circles, it was still the Goddess's Soul Puppet that gave Changgeng a chance of survival.
This almost had the mysterious meaning of karma.
Chen Qingxu didn't want to talk about karma. She was wholeheartedly focused on this piece of wood. Before Gu Yun could react, she picked up the wooden figure and ran away like the wind. She didn't even bother to pick up the silk that fell to the ground. Gu Yun was stunned for a long time. He exhaled a breath of air in his chest. His chest was smashed by an unspeakable hope. After standing up, his vision almost turned black. It took him a long time to recover, but his ears were still ringing.
He couldn't help but reach out to rub his chin. He tried his best to put on a normal and serious face. His brows furrowed together subconsciously, but the corners of his mouth couldn't help but smile. The tense seriousness and uncontrollable joy intertwined to form a standard "not knowing whether to laugh or cry" expression. Gu Yun himself felt that his current appearance was a little crazy.
At this moment, the General Shen's bodyguard next door poked his head out of the tent for a moment and asked, "Has Divine Doctor Chen finally left?"
"Yes," Gu Yun heard his bodyguard reply. "Why, is there something wrong?"
The soldier who inquired about the Divine Doctor's whereabouts quickly shook his head and ran back to report.
The next moment, Gu Yun heard a painful cry that had been suppressed for a long time coming from the General Shen's tent.
Shen Yi's back was covered with bruises and burns. He was extremely miserable, but he still stubbornly refused Miss Chen's treatment and visits. He locked Miss Chen, who came to visit him, outside several times. He was determined not to let her see his miserable appearance. He also resolutely found a military doctor who was good at slaughtering pigs to treat his wounds. During this period, he sent people to secretly investigate four or five times. He held it in until Chen Qingxu finally left. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore and could howl freely.
Gu Yun listened for a while and felt that he couldn't even scream so miserably when giving birth to a child. He couldn't bear it, so he picked up the silk handkerchief that fell on the ground, shook off the dust on it, and went out to give it to his bodyguard. He instructed, "Quickly send this to General Shen. It's for pain relief."
Regardless of what the silk handkerchief had been rubbed on, its effect was very effective. As soon as it was delivered, Shen Yi's howling immediately became much softer.
After Gu Yun was done entertaining his own brother, he returned to the commander's tent. He originally planned to write down the pile of battle reports on the table and the pile of letters from the major garrisons. However, when he picked up the pen, he realized that he couldn't calm down at all.
He could recognize every word on the battle reports, but he couldn't connect them into a sentence that jumped into his head. After a while, he thought aimlessly, "Could it be that the wooden block only recorded the method and didn't have a solution?"
After a while, he thought again, "That doesn't matter. As long as we know the ins and outs of Wu 'er Gu, the Chen family will be able to think of a solution."
Then, after a while, he thought to himself, "Don't tell me they really want me to burn incense for those bald donkeys in Huguo Temple? Damn it … "
… He tossed and turned, but he still couldn't find a clue.
However, an indescribable longing cut a bloody path out of these thousands of tangled thoughts and leaped into his heart.
A drop of ink fell from the tip of Gu Yun's pen. He finally came back to his senses. He simply pushed away the pile of official business and took out a piece of paper as if he was secretly enjoying himself. He began to openly occupy his official time to show favoritism.
In April, the fragrant flowers of the land between the two rivers were about to dry up. A long, wet plum rain rose from the rivers and seas.
For more than a month, Chang Geng had been in Jiangbei. First, he single-handedly handled General Chung's funeral. Then, Fang Qin submitted a memorial to suggest that the Emperor Long An keep Yan Wang in place to assist the imperial court's emissaries in negotiating with the westerners.
Although Yan Wang had stepped down from the political arena, Fang Qin still felt that he was a thorn in the side of the capital.
Logically speaking, when dealing with political opponents, one should kill them in one blow. However, the reason for Yan Wang's resignation wasn't planned by Fang Qin himself. The whole thing wasn't under his control. Moreover, Prince Yan's identity was very difficult to deal with. Other than the crime of treason, there really wasn't much that could be done to kill him.
Fang Qin could only think of ways to send him far away.
The word "assist" was very subtle. It meant that this matter wasn't led by Yan Wang. He only had an obligation, but no power. After the matter was settled, it would be the official's credit. However, if something went wrong, there would be a lot of things that could be used to make an issue out of Yan Wang.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. The "trouble" that Fang Qin hoped to see didn't happen. Yan Wang was like a fish in water in Jiangbei Daying. He was very popular. He was very good at making people like him. He had fought side by side with the soldiers, and General Chung and Gu Yun were protecting him.
The emissary sent by the imperial court was very perceptive. After arriving in Jiangbei, he followed Yan Wang's lead. In addition, Gu Yun wrote to him constantly on a daily basis. Every ten days or half a month, he would come over to take a look. The work of bullying the westerners along the two rivers could be said to be very smooth. During this period, they fought three or four small battles on the water. They took advantage of the situation and trained the soldiers. Li Feng couldn't say anything. Instead, he vaguely felt that he had let Yan Wang down.
At the same time, another thing that Fang Qin didn't expect happened. This made him unable to spare the energy to take advantage of the opportunity to plant his forces in the two rivers.
The first batch of Fire Beacon Tickets was due. It was time to pay back the money.
The status of the first batch of Fire Beacon Tickets was very special. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was the medicine that brought the Daliang Dynasty back from the brink of death. At that time, if it weren't for this batch of supplies that supported Gu Yun's victory in the Western Regions, under the heavy pressure of the northern battlefield and the situation of the country running out of Purple Gold, it would only be a matter of time before the westerners besieged the capital again.
The first batch of people who bought the Fire Beacon Tickets was a great kindness to the country. This debt had to be paid back. If the imperial court didn't take out the money, not only would it be a breach of trust, but it would also be certain that the Fire Beacon Tickets wouldn't be issued in the future. The decree that Yan Wang had painstakingly pushed that "Fire Beacon Tickets are equivalent to gold and silver among the people, and merchants are prohibited from refusing to accept them" would also become a piece of paper.
In this way, even if others agreed, those court officials who had reluctantly bought a large number of Fire Beacon Tickets in the early days of the political reform wouldn't agree.
It wasn't until now that Fang Qin had to admit that although Yan Wang's methods were fierce and he had never been lenient in killing his political enemies with a borrowed knife, and he had used the knife of reform to cut off the flesh of whoever he wanted, and even offended a large number of people … in the end, he had planted a seed early on and tied the entire imperial court to his pirate ship, regardless of whether it was friend or foe.
According to the original plan of the Grand Council, when the first batch of Fire Beacon Tickets was sold, there was a follow-up plan: The third batch of Fire Beacon Tickets would be released exactly one month before the due date. According to past experience, they could sell about 70% to 80% of the Fire Beacon Tickets in a month. Part of the money raised this time was reserved for the repayment of the first batch of debts. It was more than enough time and money.
But what no one expected was that after Yan Wang left, the merchants and merchants didn't buy it anymore!
Fang Qin knew that the 13 merchants were secretly on Yan Wang's side, but Daliang was a vast country. Was it possible that other than these ambitious merchants who wanted to participate in politics, the others didn't want to do business? In addition, there were also those officials who wanted to climb up the social ladder. They could easily raise money by filling the quota in the provinces.
But he underestimated the Merchant Alliance Network.
This was pushed forward by Wealth God Du under Yan Wang's instructions during the period after the war. Every industry had its own Chamber of Commerce, and all the Chambers of Commerce had formed a big alliance. Although the members were bound by the Chamber of Commerce, they also enjoyed benefits. Not to mention the discounts they received when importing goods from other members, the main thing was that in this chaotic world where bandits ran rampant, if they had the seal of the Chamber of Commerce, they could ask for the protection of local government troops. This was the privilege that the imperial court had given to the first batch of thirteen magnates who had bought the Fire Beacon Tickets. Du Wanquan generously shared this privilege with them.
Many merchants gradually found that it was not a bad thing to be bound by the Chamber of Commerce. With the seal of the big Chamber of Commerce, the trust of the private buyers increased a lot. They didn't have to fall into the price war with the merchants who sold shoddy goods.
This Merchant Alliance Network soon spread to the whole country. Maybe there would be all kinds of problems after a few decades, but at this time, the loyalty of the members was very high. It was like an iron plate in front of Fang Qin.
The third batch of Fire Beacon Tickets was blocked at the beginning. Except for some officials who were eager for quick success and quick benefits, almost no one pushed it. The Chamber of Commerce's inexplicable unwillingness to cooperate made people have a lot of doubts. The old foxes in the Imperial Court didn't do anything and just followed the trend.
But temptation didn't work, nor did coercion. The new group of nobles promoted by the 13 merchants had already become a force to be reckoned with. It was not so easy to move them.
The Fire Beacon Tickets were pushed by the Grand Council, but the Grand Council was only responsible for pushing the tickets. The money was transferred in and out of the Ministry of Revenue. Fang Qin hated that he couldn't ask his henchmen to pay out of their own pockets. However, it was like a cup of water on a burning cart of firewood. Not to mention whether the aristocratic families were willing to pay, even if they were willing, they wouldn't hesitate to take out such a large sum of money. The poor people in the two courtyards, who could even scold Yan Wang, would definitely rush forward and not give up until they turned the whole thing upside down.
As the day approached, even Li Feng couldn't sit still. He personally asked several times. In three or four days, he called Fang Qin and the people in the Grand Council into the palace and scolded them eight times, if not ten times. Finally, the pressure was so great that the Six Ministries had to jointly write a letter to the Grand Council and ask Yan Wang to return to the Imperial Court.
When the decree arrived in Jiangbei, Changgeng received it very calmly. Then, he methodically arranged the handover of military affairs. His attitude of "indifference" was very stable, as if he wasn't in a hurry to go back. When the second urgent decree arrived, he unhurriedly packed his luggage and prepared to go north.
Just as he was about to leave, the news of the great victory in Beijiang arrived.
For a moment, the whole of Jiangbei was in an uproar. Changgeng listened to the cheers and cries in his ears as he received the letter for him from the messenger.
Some of the letters that Gu Yun sent to Changgeng were purely private messages, while others were to remind Yan Wang of official business. Changgeng was very experienced. Before opening the envelope, he could pinch it with his hand and know whether it was official business or private. Gu Yun's official business was usually only a thin piece of paper and a few words. When he took the letter from the Black Eagle messenger, he was a little disappointed for a moment because he could feel that it was very thin. Presumably, there was no private message.
Changgeng casually told the Black Eagle, "Marshal Gu might not know yet. I'm leaving for the capital today. The handover of the matters in Jiangbei has been completed. I'll have to trouble you to go back and inform him."
After saying that, he opened the letter in front of everyone without any hesitation.
There was indeed only a piece of paper inside. There was a drawing of a hand on it. Gu Yun wrote a line of words, "Attached is a palm to send to Jiangbei. Help me measure whether her belt is wide or not."
Everyone looked at Yan Wang in confusion. They didn't know what he was looking at for so long. Then, his face turned red.
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