Dough needs time to rise with yeast, let alone human emotions. Those now desperate to seek fortune were all small tribes who truly could not survive any longer. Large groups of people were crammed into the tiny territory of the Nine Surnames of Zhaowu, filling the place to bursting. The cattle and sheep had eaten all the grass on the pastures, and it was impossible to even rotate to new grazing land. Watching their livestock lose weight during what should have been the fattening season, any herdsman’s heart burned with anxiety like fire.

The men had all gone to war. They had heard that two thousand Tang soldiers were already surrounded and could be completely wiped out at any moment. However, the Turkic people in the rear felt no joy upon hearing this news. The Tang were not a small tribe—killing twenty thousand of their men would not leave them permanently crippled. After killing these twenty thousand, perhaps immediately ten or twenty more groups of twenty thousand would come charging over. Moreover, when the Tang army retaliated, they generally left no survivors.

“Those who believe in the Divine King shall be saved!” A man dressed in white robes held a statue of the Divine King in his hands, piously walking through the streets and alleys. Every ten steps he would inevitably call out this phrase. Upon seeing those starving and on the verge of death, he would silently leave behind a large piece of dried flatbread and continue calling out, “Those who believe in the Divine King shall be saved!”

After eating a bit of flatbread and gaining some strength, those people would struggle to stand up and silently follow the white-robed man out of the city. The Divine King’s messenger did not care whether those following behind were men, women, elderly, or children. He maintained his original pace, calling out “Those who believe in the Divine King shall be saved” every ten steps. At first, only he alone called out, but later it became several people, and gradually the entire procession would cry out in uneven chorus: “Those who believe in the Divine King shall be saved!”

The Elder watched this scene with tears streaming down his face. Han Zhe was stabbing a knife into his heart. He could not allow Han Zhe to continue like this—if he did, sooner or later he would hollow out Suyab City completely.

Both Talas and Almaty had been blockaded by the main army. The situation there would only be worse than in Suyab City. The people of Suyab could at least go to the grasslands to catch marmots, yellow sheep, or wild wolves for food. The people in those two cities did not have such convenience. Military law was always cold and merciless.

Tears flowed out but were quickly dried by the hot winds of the Gobi. The young Helu did not yet understand how vicious Han Zhe’s actions were. He simply felt happy that his tribespeople had food to eat.

Boma’s fist struck the battlements, raising clouds of dust. The tribe had already exhausted all its strength helping their own people. The Great Elder now ate only one meal a day. The gluttonous Helu could now wolf down a piece of dried flatbread the moment he got one. Yesterday Boma had gone to the poplar grove and brought back three yellow sheep. Watching his young master Helu embrace a sheep’s neck and gnaw at it greedily, Boma wanted immediately to mount his warhorse and lead his men to the Kingdom of Shasha for a real hunt.

“Elder, let me go. Just this once. If things continue like this, we’ll have no way to survive,” Boma knelt on one knee before the Great Elder, pleading in a low voice.

“Boma, you are a hero of us Turkic people. Do not kneel lightly. The only one you should bow to is the Turkic King, not an old man like me. A hero’s reputation cannot be tarnished. You are our last hope. Since we have now reached the point of trading reputation for grain, then let my reputation be traded. I am old—it doesn’t matter if my reputation stinks, but your reputation cannot be tarnished,” the Elder said as he slowly descended from the city wall.

“Elder, let me go. I’m a child—no one will care about me. Just say I was too hungry and took my guards to find food on my own. It won’t matter when my uncle returns.”

“Nonsense!” The Elder’s voice suddenly became stern. Pressing down on Helu’s shoulder, he said: “You will certainly become the King of the Turkic people in the future. Everything we do now is so you can become the soul upon that wolf banner. I, even Boma, can be sacrificed—only you cannot! Prepare the army for me. I will lead them to demand some grain from the King of Shasha.”

“Elder, your benevolent appearance and benevolent heart cannot accomplish such a task. Let me, Boma, go instead. The Kingdom of Shasha is now full of beacon fires everywhere. Trying to get grain from their mouths will be very difficult!”

After speaking, Boma strode down from the city wall, mounted his warhorse, and galloped toward the Turkic military camp. The Great Elder let out a long sigh and said to Helu: “Actually, our best option would be to go to Lesser Bolu and attack Anji. But we don’t have enough provisions—we cannot sustain ourselves until reaching Lesser Bolu. Since the Kingdom of Shasha is closest to us, we’ll demand from them instead.”

“As long as we have enough provisions for the march, we’ll immediately go punish Anji. Most of her subordinates are our Turkic people. I believe we can defeat her very quickly. That way we can enjoy the grain of Lesser Bolu with peace of mind, and our cattle and sheep will have new pastures. There we can hold out until the war ends. Whether the Tang win or the allied forces win, we’ll be able to safely strengthen our tribe.”

Helu knew the Elder was certainly right, because the Elder had never been wrong. But thinking of Anji’s dashing heroic figure fighting in all directions on horseback, his heart was always unwilling to meet Anji on the battlefield.

Xiao Miao’s current worry was that her chest could not grow large quickly enough. Liu Fang’s worry was how to successfully expand the flames of war toward the Abbasids. Dan Ying was researching the treatise on health cultivation that Wu She had written for him. The most important focus was studying the relationship between divine light and longevity. Wu She had listed countless possibilities, but as for verification, he had completely left that to Dan Ying. His tendons and bones had already aged—even if there were changes, his perception of them would not be very clear.

Moases was drilling his army. The square formations looked extremely imposing—wearing helmets, dressed in battle skirts, holding large shields, wielding short swords. This was the standard equipment of his army. Only the five javelins on each man’s back were the sharp weapons used to deal with enemy cavalry charges.

Xerxes was training with his cavalry. They did not particularly care about cavalry mobility. He cared more about the suddenness and persistence of cavalry breaking through enemy formations. As a result, his cavalry had become heavy armored cavalry.

Gou Zi seemed destined to be connected with scouts his entire life. As the chief scout of the main army, he could hardly stay in the military camp, always running outside searching everywhere for routes suitable for army assaults.

Qu Zhuo and Abbas had become good friends. The two of them—one from the east, one from the west—engaged in extortion and committed every evil deed. They swept clean the entire noble class of Lesser Bolu. Land was divided, treasures were taken back, cattle and sheep were distributed. The slogan of the Celestial Army became “We fight for the poor!” Thus Lesser Bolu rapidly calmed down. The poor, holding the cattle, sheep, and land of the rich, burst forth with tremendous enthusiasm in an instant.

As vested interest holders, they had spontaneously wanted to protect the wealth they had suddenly obtained. No one understood better than they how precious their own land, cattle, and sheep were. This was worth risking their lives to defend.

Liu Fang had heard Yun Ye speak a term long ago, called “revolution.” When he first did not understand it, Liu Fang dismissed it. But after he carefully studied and analyzed these two characters, he trembled with terror. The Great Tang did not need revolution, nor could the Great Tang have revolution, because this thing was the sum total of military disaster, monetary disaster, and natural disaster.

As a new phenomenon, it always needed to be tested elsewhere. Liu Fang believed Lesser Bolu was an excellent choice. According to Yun Ye, revolution possessed very strong contagiousness. So for the revolution conducted in Lesser Bolu, Liu Fang did not fully release revolutionary methods. He only wanted to verify revolution’s power—he did not want to bring this thing back to the Great Tang.

The calm Lesser Bolu made Liu Fang’s hair stand on end. Simply by agreeing with the people of Lesser Bolu that henceforth there would be no new nobles, nor would there be nobles anymore, only one benevolent armored celestial being ruling Lesser Bolu—this alone made these people completely forget hatred and the pain of dead relatives, willingly living quietly under Xiao Miao’s rule.

Liu Fang knew this was an illusion. As long as desire existed, peaceful life would sooner or later be completely shattered. Newly emerging classes would thoroughly pulverize the currently peaceful life, then the old classes would counterattack. After repeating this several times, without foreign enemies invading, Lesser Bolu would probably have few people left.

He himself was spreading revolutionary culture. Han Zhe was spreading his own extremely selfish religious culture. Even Xi Tong was spreading his own bandit culture into people’s hearts here. Add to this the various existing religions and cultures—good heavens! Liu Fang could not see what hope this land still had that could take root and sprout here.

In the future, this land must absolutely not be taken by the Great Tang. They should not want it even if given for free. This place would become a source of calamity, a wellspring of chaos. Whoever took it in hand would be no different from holding a powder keg.

Good news finally came from Suyab City. Boma had led five thousand troops to sweep through the prosperous eastern region of the Kingdom of Shasha and was now in fierce confrontation with the Shasha Kingdom’s army.

Liu Fang once again summoned everyone for a meeting. Pointing at the Suvastu River, he said to Dan Ying: “After crossing this river, we enter the Kingdom of Gandhara. Their nation’s army has already stationed itself beside the Indus River, constantly guarding against us. We still lack some opportunity to break through. Now the opportunity has come. This old man dares say that once Helu obtains grain supplies, their main army will come rushing toward us. Most of our soldiers are Turkic people—this is very troublesome. We cannot fight with them. Once we start fighting, our army may very likely scatter.”

Dan Ying said impatiently: “Since we never planned to take their country, let’s just keep moving. According to Master Xuanzang, the Tianzhu people’s combat power is terrible. There was once an incident where twenty bandits occupied a city. Defeating them is nothing remarkable. If it really doesn’t work, Xiao Miao and I will lead the army to charge their formation. We can probably rout them in one stroke. I’ve already begun to hate this land.”

He had recently been unable to find any breakthrough studying the subject Wu She had given him, and was currently in an irritable mood.

“Tianzhu is very wealthy, my lord!” Abbas quietly interjected from the side.