The capital of the Great Qian Dynasty, the Imperial Palace, the Taiji Hall.
Emperor Tiansheng sat on the dragon throne, feeling his head buzzing.
Below the hall, the civil and military officials were arguing in a chaotic mess.
"Your Majesty! If this continues, the national treasury will truly starve the mice to death! The tax silver from Jiangnan has not arrived yet, and the Ministry of Revenue truly cannot squeeze out a single grain of rice for the military provisions of the Northern Frontier!"
Lord Shang, the Minister of Revenue, knelt on the ground, crying with a face full of snot and tears, even turning his sleeves inside out to show Emperor Tiansheng.
The Minister of War jumped up and down in anxiety, pointing at Lord Shang's nose and cursing.
"Bullshit! The soldiers on the front line are gnawing on tree bark and eating snow in the freezing weather!"
"Your Ministry of Revenue pushes it off today, and pushes it off tomorrow. If the barbarians break through the pass, are you going to use your fat to fill the city walls, Lord Shang?!"
"You are demanding the lives of the soldiers on the front line!"
Lord Shang slumped to the ground, entering a mode of letting things rot.
"I don't have lives, and I don't have money! Why don't you take my old bones and boil them into soup for the soldiers to drink!"
Emperor Tiansheng irritably rubbed his temples.
"Enough!"
"Dignified court officials, arguing and clamoring in this great hall, what kind of decorum is this!"
The great hall instantly quieted down, but the atmosphere remained oppressively suffocating.
Emperor Tiansheng sighed; the battle reports from the Northern Frontier were urging more urgently day by day.
Heavy snow sealed the mountains, provisions could not be transported in, and the outpost camp had been out of food for several days.
If the outpost camp collapsed and the barbarians drove straight in, the northern border of Great Qian would be finished.
Just as the monarch and his ministers were facing each other in silence, a loud shout suddenly came from outside the hall.
Everyone looked towards the outside of the hall.
"Report—"
"A thousand-mile urgent dispatch from the Northern Frontier! Urgent report from the outpost camp!"
A post rider covered in mud, holding high a battle report sealed with wax, stumbled and rushed into the great hall, falling to his knees beneath the jade steps with a thud.
Emperor Tiansheng's heart sank fiercely, his palms instantly covered in cold sweat.
An urgent battle report at this time—could it be that the outpost camp was completely wiped out and the barbarians had broken through the pass?
The Minister of War and the Minister of Revenue were also scared enough to hold their breath, and the great hall was completely silent.
"Quick! Bring it up!"
Emperor Tiansheng's voice was trembling.
The Chief Eunuch Wei Zhong quickly ran down the stairs, took the battle report, and handed it up with both hands to the imperial desk.
Emperor Tiansheng tore open the wax seal and unfolded the battle report.
With just one glance, Emperor Tiansheng's eyes widened.
Then, his breathing became rapid, and his chest heaved violently.
His hands holding the battle report trembled uncontrollably.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, please take care of your dragon body!"
Wei Zhong was so scared his face turned pale, thinking the Emperor was so angry he was going to have a stroke.
"Read!"
Emperor Tiansheng slammed his hand on the imperial desk, his excited voice cracking.
"Wei Zhong! Read it loudly for Zhen! Let all the civil and military officials in the court hear it!"
Wei Zhong trembling took the battle report, cleared his throat, and his voice echoed in the great hall.
"Your subject, Lu Dawei, a chiliarch of the Northern Frontier outpost camp, weeps tears of blood and bows his head..."
Hearing this, the ministers lowered their heads, thinking it was just as they expected, it was all over.
Wei Zhong swallowed his saliva and continued reading:
"However, my sister, Xu Qinghuan, the Princess of Jiangning, holds the soldiers of the world in her heart!"
"She spent her family fortune of fifty thousand taels to transport the peerless military provision, Xu's Meat Bricks, over a thousand miles!"
"These meat bricks contain high salt to solidify the foundation, heavy sugar to generate essence, and are further sealed and soaked in twenty-year-old Nu'er Hong wine to dispel the cold!"
"The jar is an ingenious double-layered object, with quicklime hidden in the interlayer, which boils upon encountering ice and snow, turning a dead end into a chance of survival!"
"Our three thousand remnant soldiers drank this divine soup, their physical strength surged, they felt no severe cold, and their combat power greatly increased!"
"On a snowy night, they launched a surprise attack ten miles away, beheaded two thousand enemies, captured countless spoils, and heavily defeated five thousand barbarian vanguards!"
Wei Zhong's voice grew higher and higher, and by the end, his voice cracked.
The great hall was completely silent, dead quiet.
All the ministers were incredibly astonished.
What the hell?
The Princess of Jiangning spent fifty thousand taels on shipping to send a batch of meat stuffed with quicklime?
After eating it, three thousand remnant soldiers who had starved for three days and three nights ran ten miles in the snowy night and wiped out five thousand barbarian elites?
Was this battle report written by someone hallucinating from extreme hunger?
"Absurd!"
In the dead silence, the Censor-in-Chief Wang Defa jumped out.
This Wang Defa was a collateral branch of the Wang family in Jiangnan, and he gnashed his teeth in hatred whenever he heard Xu Qinghuan's name.
"Your Majesty! This battle report is absurd and ridiculous, it is simply the crime of deceiving the sovereign!"
Wang Defa pointed at the battle report, spitting everywhere.
"Quicklime is a muddy filth used for building houses; it boils in water and can even scald skin and flesh!"
"That Xu Qinghuan actually transported such filth in the same jar as military provisions, even if it was separated into inner and outer layers."
"This is a great insult to the soldiers on the front line!"
"Xu Zhan is even more audacious, actually fabricating a lie of a great victory to cover up his sister's evil deeds!"
"I beseech Your Majesty to issue an edict to immediately apprehend Xu Zhan and bring him back to the capital, strip Xu Qinghuan of her title as Princess, and execute their entire family!"
Several officials of the Wang family faction also knelt down and echoed.
"We second the motion! The Xu family harbors unfathomable motives, using filth to insult the three armies; their crimes are unforgivable!"
Emperor Tiansheng looked coldly at the jumping Wang Defa below and sneered.
"Oh? You say this is falsely reporting military intelligence?"
"Wei Zhong, bring up the item the post rider brought back to open Lord Wang's eyes!"
Wei Zhong immediately waved to the guards outside the hall.
Two imperial guards carefully carried a wooden tray in.
On the wooden tray sat a dirty clay jar.
This was precisely the original-flavor meat brick that Xu Zhan had specially ordered the post rider to bring back with an eight-hundred-mile urgent dispatch to convince the court.
As soon as the clay jar was brought into the great hall, a strong strange smell made people unable to help but cover their noses and mouths.
"Blergh—"
Wang Defa, who was closest, couldn't hold it back and almost vomited right there on the golden floor tiles.
The civil and military officials all covered their noses, their faces turning green.
"Your Majesty! Look!"
Wang Defa covered his nose, tears streaming from the stench.
"How could such foul-smelling filth, which is deadly just to smell, be military provisions for people to eat?"
"This is clearly poison developed by that evil woman Xu Qinghuan!"
"Bullshit!"
The Minister of War, who had been silent all along, was suddenly enraged and jumped out.
He grabbed Wang Defa by the collar and directly lifted the censor up.
"Wang Defa! You useless trash who only knows how to drink tea and listen to music in the capital!"
The Minister of War's eyes were bloodshot as he pointed at the clay jar and roared.
"Do you know how cold the winter in the Northern Frontier is? Taking a piss can instantly freeze into an icicle!"
"Do you know what it feels like when heavy snow seals the mountains, and not even a single stick of firewood can be found, so the brothers can only gnaw on icicles?"
"Although this quicklime is filth, Princess Xu used a double-layered clay jar to completely isolate it! In a desperate situation where a fire cannot be lit, it is a heat source! It is a life-saving divine artifact that allows the soldiers to eat a hot meal!"
"Although this plan is easy to think of, such a depletion of military funds relies entirely on Princess Xu's family wealth!"
The Minister of War pushed Wang Defa away and strode to the clay jar.
Ignoring the smell, he tore off the oiled paper on the clay jar.
Inside, dark and rock-hard chunks of meat were revealed.
"High salt replenishes lost stamina! Heavy sugar provides the warmth needed to survive the snowstorms! Strong liquor drives away the cold and invigorates the blood!"
The Minister of War's voice choked with emotion as he turned to look at Emperor Tiansheng.
"Your Majesty! How could these be considered filthy scraps?"
"This is a military miracle that County Princess Xu racked her brains to create, born of a desperate need to keep our frontline soldiers alive in the direst of circumstances!"
"On behalf of the soldiers of the Northern Frontier, this humble minister thanks County Princess Xu for her life-saving grace!"
With a heavy thud, the Minister of War fell to his knees, weeping uncontrollably.
