Chapter 5: An Overbearing Method? Part One

As soon as the sun rose, Fangu City became busy. The herdsmen who rushed here from the various tribes on the grassland looked happy.

It was safe doing business in Fangu City since the strict general of Fangu created strict rules, making everything effective and efficient.

Everything could be summarised by two words – fair trade.

The herdsmen traded for salt, tea, and silk with the merchants of Great Sui with their merchandise such as jade and silver.

All trades would be done around noon. Before the sunset and the city gate closed, the herdsmen would rush to the buildings that they wanted to go to and enjoy life, such as going to the tea shop to learn tasting tea and listen to novels, making bets in the gambling house, or going to Beckon of the Red Sleeve to see the beautiful dances.

If they were lucky, they could see the most famous girl of Beckon of the Red Sleeve, Xi Zhuxin, perform the Dance of Flowing Flower and Water Sleeves.

It was heard that the prince of a small tribe saw Xi Zhuxin’s dance and got charmed. He instantly ordered his servants to move a giant chest of gold, silver, and jade into the building to buy Xi Zhuxin. As a result, others laughed at him and called him a bumpkin from a small place.

It was funny how this man wanted to buy the famous Xi Zhuxin with a chest of valuables.

The enraged little prince ordered his guards to kidnap Xi Zhuxin, and dozens of muscular warriors rushed over. In the end, Beckon of the Red Sleeve’s doorman, who was a crippled old man, took down all of them.

From that day onward, people discovered that they couldn’t judge others by their looks. The shivering crippled old man only used his right hand, and he broke at least three bones in each of the muscular warriors. Also, he only punched each warrior once, ending the battle in less than a minute.

The soldiers of the city soon arrived and pulled the troublemakers out of the building, escorted them to Wolf Breast Mountain Range to face the Nirvana City, and executed them. Everyone knew that the wolf cavalrymen on the side of Nirvana City wouldn’t come out and save these warriors. This was the agreement that Great Sui and Mongo-Yuan reached. Any member of Mongo-Yuan who entered Fangu City to do business would be subject to the laws of Great Sui.

After the execution, the wolf cavalrymen came out after the soldiers of Great Sui left and ditched the corpses somewhere in the mountain range for the wild animals to feast.

It was heard that the chief of this small tribe got to the Royal Court of Mongo-Yuan. Since he was a relative of Khagan Mong Ge’s wife, Khatun Huixiu. However, before Khagan Mong Ge could speak, Khatun Huixiu ordered the guards to drag the chief out of the court and whipped him 100 times.

[TL Note: Khatun is the title for khagan’s wife.]

On the way back home, the severely injured chief ran into a group of bandits and disappeared.

Everyone knew what was going on with the bandits.

Khatun Huixiu wouldn’t let anyone ruin her reputation, and she knew what Khagan Mong Ge hated.

…

When it was noon, most of the herdsmen would have went to enjoy themselves. However, it was different today. Many merchants and herdsmen surrounded the market and shivered while watching the stunning scene.

Someone was selling horses at Fangu City!

Since the agreement between Great Sui and Mongo-Yuan was reached, many trades occurred, but two things were forbidden. Anyone who tried to sell them would be executed.

The merchants of Great Sui couldn’t sell iron to the people from the grassland, and the latter couldn’t sell horses, especially war horses, to the former.

Of course, as more trades happened, the soldiers in Fangu City didn’t execute these rules strictly. If merchants of Great Sui sold poor-quality iron pots to the herdsmen, and the latter sold weak horses that could only pull carriages to the former, no punishment would be issued as long as everything was in secret.