Chapter 213: Horror in the Mountain Temple

Baolin Temple was built during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At its peak, it had over 2,000 monks. Three enormous iron pots testified to the temple’s former glory. Today, there are still more than 300 monks, sustained by 20 hectares of temple farmland at the foot of the mountain. The drought that has struck since the beginning of the year has also affected this temple, rendering harvests impossible. The tenant farmers have gone to the provincial capital in search of work, and the monks have had to beg for alms to survive. Now, only a few dozen elderly monks remain in the vast temple, relying on the meager remaining food supplies.

With numerous monk quarters, Li Qing’an’s 300 bodyguards had enough places to stay. Everyone brought their own food. A spring at the foothill of the mountain had not yet dried up completely. A few bodyguards, led by a monk, went to fetch water.

In the monk’s quarters, Li Qing’an stood before a small sand table, gazing at it in silence for a long time. The sand table was a map of Lingxi, made of clay. It was usually broken into eight pieces and stored in a box, to be reassembled when needed.

Although Beiting and Suiye were far away from him, his roots remained there—his relatives, his followers, and his unfinished endeavors were all in Beiting. It was his homeland, dear to his heart.

When leaving Xiangyang, he received a letter from Li Linfu. Gao Xianzhi was ready to attack Toharistan and had received approval from the imperial court. Li Linfu asked in the letter what the outcome of this campaign would be.

These past two days, Li Qing’an had been pondering this question. According to historical records, Gao Xianzhi should have encountered envoys from Ningyuan on his way back after winning at Qishi Country. Ningyuan reported that Shi Country had colluded with the Arabs to seize Suiye, which enraged Gao Xianzhi. He then turned his route toward Shi Country, slaughtered and plundered its capital, before returning to Chang’an to report.

Afterward, the Anxi Army attacked Suiye in an attempt to restore it as a military stronghold, but this triggered an advance by the Arab forces, leading to the Battle of Talas.

But history had changed. Suiye had already been seized by him. So, to compete with him for glory, Gao Xianzhi chose to attack Toharistan. Toharistan was also the northern part of what would become Afghanistan. To the northwest lay the River Regions, and directly to the west of Toharistan was the Wu Hu River, which was the Amu Darya in later times. Beyond the Wu Hu River lay Khorasan, the stronghold of the Arab forces. The information brought to him by Li Huichun said that the Abbasids had stationed heavy troops there. The question was: it was now the ninth year of Tianbao, 750 AD—had the civil war among the Arabs ended?

Li Qing’an wasn’t entirely sure about this, but once the civil war in the Abbasid Caliphate ended and Gao Xianzhi swept through Bactria, it would inevitably trigger a counterattack from the Abbasids. This wouldn’t change just because of Li Qing’an’s time travel—it was an inevitable clash between the Eastern and Western empires over Central Asia. So what would be the consequences of this battle in Bactria?

Li Qing’an gently tapped the sand table with a small stick. If he were Gao Xianzhi, he would first transfer the heavy troops from Beiting to Suiye to prevent the Abbasids from invading Suiye from the north. The troops from Beiting and Anxi could guard Suiye while fighting Bactria—he had the means to do so, as he also served as the governor of Beiting.

The key was how aware Gao Xianzhi was of this battle. Would he, like Yang Guozhong, focus only on Tubo and ignore the Abbasids? Had he sent spies to gather information from the Abbasids? Was he prepared for a two-front war? All these things worried Li Qing’an greatly. Historically, Gao Xianzhi lost to the Abbasids largely because of his insufficient understanding of them. Could history repeat itself? Li Qing’an was deeply conflicted—he hoped the Tang army would win this battle, yet he also wished Gao Xianzhi would lose to the Abbasids once again.

Just as Li Qing’an was lost in thought, suddenly, “Assassins!” A shout came from afar, clearly audible in the silent night. Li Qing’an was shocked. He turned his head and heard a whooshing sound. His body instinctively tilted slightly to the left—a reflex formed through countless battles, activated in a life-or-death moment. “Whoosh!” A dark shadow flashed past his face—it was a powerful arrow that struck the wall.

If we slowed down the action, at the moment Li Qing’an heard the whooshing sound, his right foot instinctively pushed off the ground, causing his body to tilt left. At that exact moment, the window paper was torn, and a blue poisonous arrow pierced through it, aiming straight at his head. His face had tilted just two inches to the left, so the arrow missed him by a hair’s breadth. All this happened in half a second.

Li Qing’an rolled on the ground, dodging another arrow. Outside, the shouts of his bodyguards could be heard, followed by the sound of swords clashing. It seemed there were more than one assassin.

Li Qing’an grabbed the bow and arrows from the bedside, rushed to the outer room, slung the quiver on his back, drew an arrow, nocked it, and hid in a dark corner. From his vantage point, through a broken window, he could unfortunately see the courtyard clearly.

The courtyard where Li Qingan was staying was the largest monastic complex in Baolin Temple, capable of accommodating over five hundred people. Inside, two groups were fighting—both made up of men in black. The only difference was that the opponents had white cloth wrapped around their arms and were masked. There were about forty assassins, each highly skilled in martial arts. Although Li Qingan’s personal guards outnumbered them by many times, they still had no advantage. In one-on-one fights, they were no match for the assassins, but with their rich battlefield experience and seamless coordination, they acted like an impenetrable wall, blocking the assassins from breaking through to the inner rooms.

Li Qingan flew into a rage. Narrowing his eyes, he drew his bow and shot an arrow that flashed like lightning toward one of the most ferocious attackers. Two of his brothers had already fallen under his sword.

It was a thin man with a sharp swordsmanship, as agile as a monkey. With a somersault, he leaped into the air, ready to climb over the wall formed by Li Qingan’s guards. Just then, a powerful iron arrow whistled through the air, piercing his head and entering his neck. The man screamed in agony and fell to his death. At that moment, Li Qingan’s second arrow arrived, striking a female assassin in the forehead and pinning her to the ground. The third arrow pinned another assassin who had just jumped down from the wall, piercing his mouth. The fourth arrow went through the heart of a tall assassin. The fifth arrow brought a piercing scream from atop the wall.

Li Qingan’s iron arrows came one after another, each deadly and swift. No one could dodge them. In just a short while, twenty-eight assassins had died under his arrows. The remaining assassins were terrified and tried to flee, but Li Qingan’s three hundred guards had surrounded them from all sides. A barrage of arrows followed, and the last dozen assassins fell in pools of blood.

Fifteen minutes later, the sudden assassination attempt was over. The guards were busy cleaning up the bodies and searching the area. Jiang Xiaonian, the commander of the guards, reported the final situation to Li Qingan.

“Your Excellency, forty-five assassins have been killed, with two still alive.”

“How many of our men are dead or injured?”

“Two dead—Chen Biao and Lou Balang. Three seriously injured, and fourteen lightly injured.”

Li Qingan nodded and sighed. “According to tradition, after cremation, their ashes should be sent back to their families, who should be properly compensated.”

At that moment, another guard rushed over and said, “Your Excellency, those two have confessed. There were fifty of them in total, and five didn’t enter. They all came from Prince Qing’s residence in Luoyang.”

“Prince Qing?”

Li Qing’an couldn’t help but sneer. He could guess without saying it that they were sent by Prince Qing—trying to eliminate him, a surviving member of theCrown Prince faction, to prevent Li Heng from restoring his rule.
“So what were these two people originally?”
“They were both notorious bandits, imprisoned in Chang’an. Later, Prince Qing paid a heavy sum to free them and kept them in Luoyang.”
At that moment, Zhao Yansi, the deputy commander of the troops sent to search, returned. He bowed and reported, “Sir, we’ve discovered something very strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“We’ve checked everyone. The first cry of an assassin wasn’t from any of our men or the monks in the temple. Even more bizarrely, we found five bodies in the woods—probably the five assassins who didn’t make it in. On one of them, we found this.”
Zhao Yansi handed Li Qing’an a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it, Li saw two words written on it: ‘Prince Qing’.
Li Qing’an slowly crumpled the paper into a ball. This seemingly unnecessary note made him doubt suddenly—“Were these assassins really sent by Prince Qing?”
The wind kept blowing despite the desire for calm. It seemed this trip to Henan Province wouldn’t be so simple.
“Sir, what should we do with those two survivors? Kill them?”
“No! Treat their wounds and send them to Gao Lishi’s residence in Chang’an. Also send over the heads of those fifty assassins.”
Li Qing’an snorted. Whoever had paid a heavy sum to free them from prison would be revealed once investigated.
……
Kaifeng County covered a vast area, with city walls stretching over sixty li in circumference and a population of over two hundred thousand. Thirty percent of them relied on river transport for their livelihoods. But months of drought had reduced the water level of the Bian River to its lowest point, making it impossible to sail. River transport had been halted for four months, causing a severe impact on the lives of the people in Bianzhou.
In Kaifeng County, besides the county government office, the provincial government office, and the transportation administration office, there was also the official office of the Henan Province inspectorate. The number of staff in this office wasn’t large—just over twenty clerks, one judge, and four inspectors.
That morning, Li Qing’an arrived in Kaifeng County. But instead of the civil and military officials from Henan Province, what greeted him was a large-scale sit-in protest by more than twenty thousand river transport laborers along the Bian River.
The main road in Kaifeng County was called Baishui Street. At that moment, the street was packed with these laborers. Each wore a white headband, had their upper bodies bare, and their skin was dark and shiny. Their eyes were filled with anger and determination. They weren’t all from Bianzhou; some came from Songzhou, Bozhou, and even Xuzhou.

At the city gate, Li Qingan met Liu Sisong, the judge from the Observation Commissioner’s office who had come to welcome him. He was a shrewd and capable man, dark-skinned and thin, in his early thirties, and had been in this position for six years, knowing the local situation well.
“Sir, I don’t know who leaked the news of your arrival. These porters have been coming from all directions in recent days, and now they’re blocking the city to put pressure on you!”
“Put pressure on me?” Li Qingan was puzzled and laughed, “What pressure? I’m not the Dragon King.”
Judge Liu Sisong smiled bitterly and said, “Henan Province is suffering from drought. The grain transport from the capital now takes the Yangtze River and then the Han River northward. The porters are worried that if the route changes, they will lose their livelihoods, so they’ve united to pressure you not to let the court change the route.”
“I see!”
Li Qingan looked around. Aside from a few officials brought by Liu Sisong, there were no others. He asked, “Where are the prefect and the county magistrate? Why aren’t they here?”
“Sir Li, I’m here!”
A dozen officials rushed over from afar, all sweating profusely. Leading them was a middle-aged man in his fifties—Wu Qing, the prefect of Bianzhou.
He stepped forward, bowed, and said with a smile, “I am Wu Qing, prefect of Bianzhou. Welcome, Sir Li.”
There was no hint of hierarchy in his tone. It wasn’t surprising—Li Qingan’s title as Duke of Tingguo was merely a noble rank, indicating status rather than actual office. His title as Champion General was also a honorary one; without corresponding real power, it meant nothing.
Li Qingan’s current position was Grand Censor, a third-rank official, and he didn’t even hold the real power of the Censor-in-Chief, who was merely a nominal position. Bianzhou was a high-ranking province, and its prefect also held a third-rank position. In terms of rank, they were equal, but the prefect had more actual power.
In the Tang Dynasty, the administrative hierarchy consisted of counties, provinces, and circuits. A “province” referred to the Central Secretariat, while a “circuit” was not an administrative rank. The Observation Commissioner was not the prefect’s direct superior but rather an imperial envoy tasked with overseeing criminal cases and monitoring officials. He had the power to impeach, recommend, and handle judicial matters but could not interfere in local governance.
For this reason, Wu Qing treated him with respect but not deference. Sighing, he added with a bitter smile, “These porters have come from all directions, insisting on meeting you. We dare not force them away for fear of causing riots. You’ve faced such a tricky situation as soon as you arrived. I truly feel guilty.”

Although he said he felt sorry verbally, an almost imperceptible hint of pride flashed in his eyes. Li Qing’an also smiled in return and said, “I come from a military background and have no experience in local affairs. The emperor has asked me to minimize the losses caused by the drought, and he hopes Governor Wu will cooperate fully.”
“Of course! Definitely!”
Wu Qing smiled sincerely and quickly said, “The envoy might as well enter the city through the East Gate; there are no transport workers blocking the road there.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Li Qing’an’s 300 bodyguards suddenly moved. Their warhorses rushed forward, swords drawn, bows strung, as they shouted loudly, “Who dares to charge forward recklessly?”
It was then that Li Qing’an realized the transport workers were surging forward. Someone must have told them that the envoy had arrived, and they were all coming forward to lodge their complaints.
“We want to see the envoy! We want to see Envoy Li!”
The transport workers were packed tightly together, stretching as far as the eye could see. Filled with anger, they roared like thunder and pushed forward desperately. The 300 bodyguards could hardly hold them back, and their warhorses kept retreating.
Li Qing’an glanced at Wu Qing, who silently stepped back a few steps. These transport workers were here to see Li Qing’an; they had nothing to do with him.
Li Qing’an couldn’t help but sneer—what a way to assert dominance right from the start!
“Everyone, listen to me!” Li Qing’an shouted twice, but his voice was immediately drowned out by the tidal waves of cries. At that moment, the voices of tens of thousands of transport workers grew louder and more intense. They roared angrily, pushing and shoving, and the situation began to spiral out of control. Neither the officials nor the leaders of the transport workers could bring order to the chaos. If they weren’t calmed down soon, trouble would break out.
Wu Qing hadn’t expected the momentum of tens of thousands of people to be so terrifying. Sweat streamed down his forehead as he felt at a loss. All the officials looked at him in panic—what should they do now?
Just then, Li Qing’an gave a signal to Zhao Yansi, the deputy commander of his bodyguards. A strong-bodied soldier lit a small gunpowder packet and threw it high into the air, reaching a height of twenty zhang.
The small gunpowder packet exploded violently in midair, like a thunderclap, sending up thick smoke. Tens of thousands of transport workers instantly fell silent, stunned by the shock.
In that moment of silence, Li Qing’an shouted loudly, “I am Envoy Li Qing’an! Everyone, listen to me!”
Riding on his horse, his voice strong and clear, it carried far and wide. More than 20,000 transport workers were shocked, staring at him in awe. Even Governor Wu Qing was frozen in terror, unable to speak for a long time.

“I will surely protect the grain transport along the Bian River for everyone. The Emperor has ordered me to ensure that everyone safely gets through the drought. I, Li Qing’an, promise to prevent even one person from starving or forcing you to leave your homes. Please trust me!”
Someone started clapping first, then dozens, hundreds, thousands joined in, until the applause was thunderous and cheers filled the sky.
…
A potential riot among the grain transport workers was temporarily quelled, but things didn’t end there. Tens of thousands of workers still gathered at the Bianzhou grain transport docks. Li Qing’an’s promises could only ease their immediate anger, but the pressure of supporting their families left these men, who worked hard on grain transport year-round, anxious and waiting for food to survive.
Inside the observation office, judge Liu Sisong and several officials were reporting to Li Qing’an about the situation of the people amid the drought. The price of rice in Kaifeng County had risen to 700 wen per dou, and it was increasing by 50 wen per day. Hoarding continued despite repeated bans. With the river dried up, grain from Jianghuai could not be transported, and bandits abounded on land routes. Many merchants traveling to Jianghuai to deliver rice died en route, losing all their possessions. The government’s grain reserves were running low, and aid could stop at any moment.
Now, local governments everywhere were waiting for orders from the imperial court, which had sent Li Qing’an to Henan Province to investigate the situation.
A myriad of issues arose simultaneously, each urgent. But what worried Li Qing’an the most were the 20,000 workers gathered at the grain transport docks. If they caused trouble again, it could lead to chaos in Bianzhou.
Just as he was about to get up to discuss a plan with Wu Qing, Liu Sisong told him something unexpected.