"Alas, it still can't hold me!"
In the darkness, a dazzling light flashed through Wang Chong's eyes like a sharp saber. Clang! With a clear hum, Wang Chong unsheathed the WuZi Steel sword at his waist and swiftly attacked.
Bang!
After what seemed like both a second and countless eons, a dazzling beam of light shot out of the darkness. With a single slash, Hulayeg's cage, which had been forged from the finest Arabian steel, was torn to shreds.
Wang Chong's body trembled as he broke through the wall of the cage. Without pausing, he stepped on the cage with his right foot, and Wang Chong soared into the air like a hawk.
After ten-some zhang, Wang Chong stepped on the wall to his right and once more shot upward. After repeating this process, a few moments later, the pitch-black space above Wang Chong began to glow and rapidly expand.
"The entrance!"
Wang Chong raised his head, an idea flashing through his mind.
The cage was extremely heavy, so he had fallen extremely quickly. In just a few seconds, he had fallen seventy to eighty meters.
To an ordinary person, this sort of situation was certain death, but to an Imperial Martial expert like Wang Chong, this sort of height wasn't even worth mentioning.
Whoosh! At the last moment, Wang Chong's sleeve shook, and like a sharp sword, he flew through the hole and out of the ground, somersaulting as he lightly landed on the ground.
"Ah! Ah! "
Wang Chong heard cries of alarm, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that many Hu bodyguards had appeared in the underground chamber, all of them either dead or injured, their bodies drenched in blood.
And in the center of these Hu bodyguards was a mysterious man dressed in black and wearing a white mask. He was covered in dust and had a dagger in his hand that was pressed tightly against Hulayeg's neck.
"Back off, back off quickly …"
Hulayeg's face was covered in panic, and when he saw Wang Chong, his eyes went wide, the fear in them intensifying.
"Impossible! You … how did you get up here? "
Wang Chong grinned as he slowly walked over under everyone's shocked gazes.
"Solitary Wolf, release him."
Wang Chong gestured with his right hand to the mysterious man behind Hulayeg.
"Yes, Marquis!"
Lone Wolf's figure moved, leaving behind afterimages as he quickly retreated.
"You're together?!"
Hulayeg's face was filled with shock.
Wang Chong silently smiled.
He had sent Solitary Wolf out long ago, and his footprints covered the Western Regions. Solitary Wolf had lived here for so long that he had taken root, mingling with the locals and even learning quite a bit of the Hu language.
The first time Wang Chong had met him, he had almost failed to recognize him. The first thing Wang Chong had done on such an important mission to find Hulayeg was to summon Solitary Wolf back.
Hulayeg had believed that tricking him into his residence, trapping him in a cage, and then sinking him into the ground would be enough. One could only say that this was far too childish.
Without thorough preparations, how could Wang Chong have so recklessly entered the Western Regions?
"Hulayeg, what do you think of our deal?"
Wang Chong walked over, pulled out the only chair in the room, and sat down.
"Three hundred thousand warhorses. As long as you can help me get them, our deal is still valid."
Hulayeg was stunned, clearly not expecting Wang Chong to not kill him.
"Are you serious? Three hundred thousand warhorses isn't a small number. "
At the mention of money, Hulayeg immediately regained his composure, the shrewdness of a merchant appearing in his eyes. Business was business. Since he couldn't beat his opponent or kill him, he could consider doing business with him.
This was the instinct of a merchant. Everything had to be done with profit in mind.
"Since you know that I'm the Young Marquis of the Tang Dynasty, does the mighty Central Plains lack money for a few hundred thousand warhorses?"
Wang Chong smirked. Hulayeg was a meticulous and paranoid person, and persuading him would not be easy.
Hulayeg's eyes widened as he fell silent.
It was true that Hulayeg rarely interacted with strangers, as it wasn't safe. It was precisely because he had recognized Wang Chong's identity as the Young Marquis of the Tang Dynasty that he had planned to frame him.
But it was also for this reason that once he confirmed Wang Chong's identity as the Young Marquis, Hulayeg felt that he was even more trustworthy than the average person.
At the very least, a person of status and status, as well as a Han marquis, would not easily go back on his word. Moreover, he had the backing of the entire Tang Dynasty.
In terms of trustworthiness and ability to pay, Wang Chong far surpassed any faction he had ever interacted with.
And three hundred thousand warhorses … this truly was an enormous sum of wealth!
At this moment, Hulayeg suddenly felt a little moved.
"I'll believe you for now, but what's the price?"
Hulayeg said, a crafty look in his eyes. Business was business, and since the other party had the backing of the entire Tang Dynasty, if he didn't ruthlessly extort him, he wouldn't be worthy of being called the 'Turkic Fox' of the horse merchants.
Wang Chong smiled at these words. At the start, he had been cautious, suspicious, and plotting against him, but now, he was greedy. Hulayeg had undergone a massive transformation.
But to Wang Chong, what he feared the most was not Hulayeg's greed, but his lack of greed. As for money …
When the great calamity arrived and all the monetary systems collapsed, gold would be useless.
If he could buy enough warhorses and change the fate of the Tang Dynasty, from a certain perspective, Wang Chong was even willing to give him all the gold of the Tang Dynasty.
In any case, gold would be no different from stone by then.
"A high-quality warhorse on the market is eighty taels of gold. I'll give you one hundred!"
Wang Chong extended a finger, his expression confident and relaxed.
"But I only want high-quality warhorses!"
"Good, good, no problem!"
At these words, Hulayeg's eyes immediately brightened. Truly high-quality warhorses were bought and sold in large quantities, but they didn't even sell for eighty taels of gold, only seventy-five.
Wang Chong's price of one hundred taels of gold per horse was a full quarter higher. To a haggling merchant like Hulayeg, this was an irresistible temptation.
It had to be said that in the past, when negotiating with Ouzan, Mengshe Zhao, Goguryeo, and the other kingdoms of the Western Regions, even at the price of seventy-five a horse, they would still haggle with him for a long time.
To a horse merchant like Hulayeg, encountering such a straightforward customer was a dream come true.
"But do you really only want high-quality warhorses? What about the other warhorses? "
Hulayeg asked, quickly realizing the strangeness of the situation.
"Mm, I don't want anything else. I just want the best warhorses."
Wang Chong said.
Ordinary warhorses and high-quality warhorses weren't very different, and both seemed like they could fight on the battlefield, but at crucial moments, when they were engaged in a thousand-li maneuver or charging on the battlefield, the difference between the two would immediately become apparent.
Ordinary warhorses could only move in a straight line, but high-quality warhorses could communicate with their riders and become one with them. Moreover, high-quality warhorses had much stronger bones and muscles than ordinary warhorses.
Since Wang Chong had recruited Wushang's men, he naturally had to provide them with the best warhorses. After all, in Wang Chong's plan, his Wushang Cavalry would be facing Arab cavalry in the future. Only the high-quality warhorses of the Turkic steppe could compete with those tall and sturdy Arab warhorses.
"No problem! Leave this matter to me. "
Patting his chest, he agreed very readily this time.
"As long as it's a warhorse, there's nothing on the steppe that I can't do. But … in terms of money? "
As Hulayeg spoke, he rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together, making a gesture that everyone in the world could understand.
"No problem. For the first transaction, I need one hundred thousand warhorses. In order to show our sincerity, we'll first conduct a transaction of ten thousand warhorses. In one month, I want to see ten thousand high-quality warhorses in my City of Steel, and at that time, I will give you the first batch of ten thousand taels of gold."
"A trifling ten thousand high-quality warhorses shouldn't be much of a problem for the mighty number one horse merchant of the Turks, right?"
Wang Chong said as he glanced at Hulayeg.
"Haha, what are you saying? It's just ten thousand high-quality warhorses. In twenty days, I can help you get to Wushang."
Hulayeg patted his chest and heroically declared.
If Wang Chong wanted one hundred thousand high-quality warhorses in one month, Hulayeg truly wouldn't have been able to do it. After all, this sort of thing required time and needed to be collected from the various tribes.
But ten thousand high-quality warhorses, coupled with Hulayeg's connections with the chiefs of the various Turkic tribes, wasn't much of a problem.
Moreover, ten thousand excellent warhorses were equivalent to a million taels of gold. It was enough for him to bribe his subordinates and prepare for this unprecedented transaction.
The two sides quickly came to an agreement, and in accordance with the customs of the Hu merchants of the Western Regions, they signed a contract. Both sides bit their thumbs and used their blood to leave fingerprints.
"That's right, Hulayeg, I heard that you have a steward called Yalug?"
Wang Chong suddenly raised his head, a smirk on his face.
"What's wrong?"
Hulayeg said, his heart thumping in his chest.
Hulayeg truly had found several stewards to manage his finances, but very few outsiders knew of this matter other than the people at his side.
Moreover, Hulayeg would never bring them along when he went out to discuss business, and these stewards would never show themselves in public.
Hulayeg was very apprehensive about this, so he had intentionally concealed it.
Not even his old friends of several decades had ever seen them, much less outsiders.
Hulayeg simply couldn't understand. This was clearly Wang Chong's first time in the Western Regions, his first time meeting him, so how did he know that he had stewards at his side, even that he knew the name 'Yalug'?
"Haha, it's nothing. I was just asking. But it's impossible to know a man's heart, so Sir Hulayeg should keep an eye out. "
Wang Chong smiled and turned to leave.
Hulayeg was confused at the start, but when he saw the three fingers sticking up behind Wang Chong, he instantly paled and understood.
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