Tang Dynasty: Father, if you don't rebel, I will!

Taiyuan Prefecture, the Imperial Prison of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Songtsen Gampo and Gar Tongtsen, along with several other Tibetan rulers and ministers.

They never expected that the Tang Dynasty would arrange for them to come here right away.

Shouldn't they go and meet with the Crown Prince of Tang, give them a chance to explain, and then decide whether to kill them or punish them?

Songtsen Gampo tried to remain calm.

"And this gentleman is...?"

He looked at Ashina Quli, who clearly had the appearance of a Turk, outside the prison door, and asked with a furrowed brow.

Before Ashina Quli could speak, Sujiga, the Xuanwei Lang of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Ministry of Rites, snorted coldly.

"Standing before you is the Duke of Du, of the Great Tang Dynasty!"

Ashina Quli nodded in satisfaction, but added with a proud expression.

"The daughter of this Duke, and also the adopted daughter of the current Crown Prince!"

Songtsen Gampo: "..."

What kind of weird introduction is this?

However, Galdontsen, who was standing to the side, immediately recognized the identity of the person in front of him upon hearing the name of the Duke of Du. He whispered a few words of advice to Songtsen Gampo.

Upon hearing this, they discovered that the other party was none other than the former Left Wing Khan of the Western Turks, Moheduo.

Songtsen Gampo's pupils contracted slightly.

Then I had to take a deep breath and ask the question the other person had asked earlier.

"Your Excellency said that I can buy my life. What does that mean?"

Ashina Quli crossed his arms over his chest.

"literal meaning!"

"You used the pretext of avenging His Highness the Crown Prince of the Great Tang Dynasty to launch an attack on Xiangxiong, wasn't it just to take the opportunity to annex Xiangxiong? Since you like land so much, then the Great Tang Dynasty happens to have a vast piece of land that we can sell to you!"

Upon hearing that the Tang Dynasty was going to sell out its territory, Songtsen Gampo's mind went completely blank.

Even the Tibetan officials behind him were all astonished, their mouths agape.

"Wh-what? Your Excellency, could you please repeat that?" Songtsen Gampo said in disbelief.

Ashina Quli sneered.

"Your native Tang language should be quite standard, right? Is it not clear? My Great Tang has a piece of land that I can sell to your Tibet!"

The Tibetan king and his ministers: "..."

On their way here, they never imagined things would turn out this way.

However, Galdontsen, with his keen mind and deep understanding of the almost pathological obsession with land among the people of the Tang Dynasty, realized that there must be a big problem.

He asked carefully.

"I wonder which territory the Tang Dynasty plans to sell to Tibet? Is it Jiannan Circuit?"

Upon hearing this, Sujiga, who was standing next to Ashina Quli, frowned and immediately rebuked him.

"How about His Highness the Crown Prince of our Great Tang Dynasty sells Chang'an to you?!"

The cold, menacing gazes of the Imperial Guards around them frightened Songtsen Gampo and the others in the prison, who hurriedly shook their heads and waved their hands.

Gardonzan hurriedly bowed apologetically.

"I misspoke, I misspoke, please forgive me, sir..."

As he spoke, he slapped himself hard across the face several times.

Sujiga snorted coldly.

Although he had only been with the Tang Dynasty for a year, he had already received great respect and attention in the Tang Dynasty, both for the food and his skills.

All of this made him, from the bottom of his heart, regard himself as a complete citizen of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang Dynasty was Sujiga's motherland!

His Highness the Crown Prince is Sujiga's heaven!

With a cold face, he took out a geomantic map that he had prepared beforehand and unfolded it in front of Songtsen Gampo and his men through the prison door.

"This is......"

Songtsen Gampo frowned.

The outline above was very large, but after thinking for a long time, he still couldn't figure out which part of the Tang Dynasty this was.

However, Thonmi Sambhota's expression changed.

"This is not Tang Dynasty land, this is Tuyuhun land, this..."

"King Murong Fuyun of Tuyuhun has died of illness. The newly enthroned crown prince of Tuyuhun has requested to submit to our Great Tang. From now on, all the people of Tuyuhun are the people of our Great Tang."

Ashina Quli explained with a half-smile.

However, upon hearing these words, the expressions on Songtsen Gampo and the others gradually turned ugly.

They looked at the marked area on the geomantic map.

This is clearly the vast Gobi Desert within the territory of Tuyuhun!

It's a barren place, a place where one wrong step could mean certain death!

"Is the Tang Dynasty going to sell this land to Tibet?"

When Songtsen Gampo said this, he tried his best to remain calm, but the anger that was squeezed out from between his teeth was clear to everyone present.

Ashina Quli nodded, a smile on his face.

“That’s right! This land happens to border your Tibet. Since the Zanpu (Tibetan king) likes expansion so much, isn’t this vast and fertile land the best gift?”

Wotu Nima!

Gifts, damn it!!!

If this weren't the Tang Dynasty, and if they weren't currently imprisoned in the imperial prison...

Ashina Quli's head will definitely be chopped off by the angry Tibetan king and his ministers today and used as a football!

Songtsen Gampo suppressed the urge to roar in anger, and his lips twitched twice.

"This land has nothing. What can my Tubo do here?"

Ashina Quli was not surprised at all.

Nodding regretfully, he told Sujiga to put the drawing away and sighed.

"In that case, I have no choice but to return and report... Guards! Escort the Tibetan king and his ministers on their way!"

As he spoke, there was a loud bang.

The prison door was immediately rammed open by several Imperial Guards.

Before Songtsen Gampo and his companions could even resist, they were immediately subdued and their hands and feet were bound.

"What are you doing? What do you want to do?!"

"We want to see His Highness the Crown Prince! Release me! You mustn't torture us!"

"Bastard! Aaaaaah!"

Songtsen Gampo, Gar Tongtsen, Thonmi Sambhota, and four or five other high-ranking Tibetan officials were all tied to racks in the prison by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

A figure wearing a white coat and a white face mask carried a small box into the cell.

then.

Under the horrified gazes of Songtsen Gampo and the others, he slowly approached one of them.

The Imperial Guards dislocated the man's jaw joint.

Then the man took out a bottle of strange liquid from the small box and poured it into the mouth of the Tibetan minister whose head was fixed and unable to struggle.

The somewhat strange accent of Tang dialect reached the ears of everyone present.

"This is new medicine, don't waste it. With this, you can rest assured. Even if one of your eyeballs were gouged out and shown to your other eye, you wouldn't feel any pain..."

Under the chilling gazes of the crowd, a member of the Imperial Guard carried in a huge silver mirror.

It was placed there, staring straight at the man who had been given the drug.

Songtsen Gampo and his entourage were greatly alarmed.

As if realizing something, it struggled even more fiercely, but it was completely useless.

Another person carrying a small box walked in. He was an old man with a hunched back and a cold demeanor, who seemed to be possessed by a ghost.

He was dressed in the flying fish uniform of the Imperial Guard, but he wore it as if it were a funeral shroud.

"Hehehe... Tibetans are rare guests here."

Her sharp, piercing voice, as if stabbed by a knife, made one's nerves twitch and feel uncomfortable just from speaking.

The old man spoke with his head down, but his hands moved with surprising speed.

Opening the box revealed a roll of cowhide covering something. Unfolding the package, one could see a bunch of small knives or steel needles of different sizes.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"

The Tibetan man shook his head in terror, his limp jaw rendering him unable to speak.

however.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards' methods went far beyond this; his head was once again bound, rendering him completely immobile.

The old man stood on a platform that was the same height as his execution rack.

He held a small knife that reflected a cold light in his hand, and the blade slowly extended towards his eyes.

"Hehehe, don't move, the old man's knife is very steady..."

"Well!"

"Well!!"

"Uh huh!!!"

In the silver mirror, he could clearly see his eyelids being cut off, revealing his wide-open eyeballs.

The Tibetan minister being executed, along with the other figures on the execution racks, all cried out in terror.

However, just as the old man said.

His hands are really steady.

The man's eyelids were completely removed and thrown into a small pot to the side.

Then the old man changed his tools and had someone strip the man naked. He then used his hands to compare proportions, gesturing at the man's chest and other areas to indicate the length of his clothes.

The knife carefully cut into the skin tissue, then into the muscle tissue...

Ashina Quli and Sujiga had already gone out.

The methods used by the Embroidered Uniform Guard in the Imperial Prison are so sophisticated that even just seeing them would give you nightmares.

Such a crime can be borne by Songtsen Gampo and his Tibetan followers.

While Ashina Quli and his entourage were taking a break from their business trip, they found a nearby restaurant and had a hearty meal, and then went to a nearby teahouse to drink a pot of tea.

I heard the teahouse bell ring at six o'clock in the afternoon.

When Songtsen Gampo and his companions strolled back to the imperial prison, they were overjoyed to see Ashina Quli and his companion again, as if they had seen their second parents.

With its mouth gagged, it made excited whimpering sounds.

Ashina Quli glanced indifferently at the empty but blood-soaked execution rack.

He stepped forward with a smile and pulled the strip of cloth out of Songtsen Gampo's mouth.

"Songtsen Gampo, have you made up your mind?"

"Will you buy this land or not?"

"Buy! We Tibetans will buy it! This kind of Gobi Desert is what we Tibetans love most! Please, Your Excellency, we are willing to buy it..."

Ashina Quli smiled slightly and asked another question that plunged the already devastated Songtsen Gampo into another internal struggle.

"How much money is Tibet willing to offer?"

Ashina Quli did not urge him, his voice carrying a gentle tone as if coaxing a child.

He was counting on his fingers as if he were helping the other person with the calculations.

“Nowadays, even the cheapest wasteland in our Great Tang costs 10 guan per mu. After all, it’s the Gobi Desert. Although you Tibetan kings like the Gobi Desert, our Great Tang will not do such evil things as bullying others. I will give you a 50% discount!”

"Five strings of cash per mu, so one qing would be 500 strings of cash."

"That vast Gobi Desert is truly enormous. I estimate it to be around 30 million hectares, but since our Crown Prince is so kind, I'll just give you 20 million hectares..."

"Twenty million hectares, at five hundred strings of cash per hectare, that's a million strings of cash! In the units of our Great Tang Dynasty, that's 100 billion strings of cash!"

Songtsen Gampo: "..."

He looked at this treacherous, despicable, shameless, and barbaric bastard as if he were looking at a devil.

His breathing became heavy and trembling.

"This, Your Excellency, I... my Tibetan people cannot come up with that much money, I..."

Ashina Quli's smile widened, and he magically produced a document from his robes.

"No money? No problem! Our Great Tang accepts installment payments. Who taught our Crown Prince to be so kind... Zanpu, say thank you."

"Your Highness, I am deeply grateful for your assistance. If it weren't for your divine decree, my Xiangxiong Kingdom would likely already be... *sobs*"

In the Shougong Hall, the grand and majestic sounds of musicians filled the air.

The king of Xiangxiong raised his wine cup, weeping uncontrollably, and bowed in gratitude to Li Chengqian, the crown prince of the Tang Dynasty who was hosting the banquet for them.

Li Chengqian waved his hand modestly, indicating that the other party did not need to be so polite.

Beside him, Li Gang, the Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince, who was also attending the banquet, stroked his beard with a smile.

"Hahaha... King of Xiangxiong, there's no need for this. It's all because that Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo was so audacious that he tried to commit wicked deeds by using the name of my Tang Dynasty's crown prince. My Tang Dynasty will definitely stand up for you and help you recover your losses this time!"

Li Chengqian smiled and nodded, looking at the envoys from other plateau powers such as the Nipo Kingdom, Yangtong, and Supi.

"Rest assured, the Great Tang will help you recover the losses you suffered at the hands of the Tibetans. However, the plateau is the land where you have lived for generations, and the Great Tang really does not want to send a large army there unless absolutely necessary."

"There are some things that will require your cooperation in the future for our Great Tang Dynasty..."

Everyone was overjoyed instantly, as if they had rehearsed the whole thing.

He rose from his seat, stepped forward, and bowed to Li Chengqian.

"Your humble servant bows in gratitude to Your Majesty the True Khan! We are now willing to acknowledge Your Majesty the True Khan as the common ruler of our plateau!"