Chapter 54: The Whereabouts of the Princess, Sweet Potatoes as Medicine

Chapter 54: The Princess's Whereabouts, Sweet Potatoes as Medicine

In Ctesiphon, the bright morning sunshine heralded the promise of a wonderful day.

The people of Parthia had also risen early. The men were already toiling in the fields, while the women and children carried prepared breakfasts to their husbands and fathers.

Zhang Hu and his soldiers finished their morning ablutions early and began their daily drills on the open ground near their quarters. Once the drills concluded, Zhang Hu led his men to the royal palace to pay their respects to the King of Parthia.

Upon hearing that the envoy from Great Qin had come to pay a visit, Arsaces I did not dare to delay. Having learned of Great Qin's formidable military might yesterday, Arsaces and his imperial civil and military ministers had spent a sleepless night.

During the banquet yesterday, Zhang Hu had deliberately brought up the war between Great Qin and the Xiongnu. Hearing that over three hundred thousand elite cavalry from the Xiongnu and numerous allied nations had been slaughtered or captured by Great Qin, and that the entire Xiongnu tribe had been utterly exterminated, the King of Parthia and his ministers had nearly cried out in shock, repeatedly warning themselves never to provoke Great Qin.

"This envoy from Great Qin pays his respects to Your Majesty the King!" Zhang Hu and his subordinates offered a slight bow.

"Envoy, please rise and be seated!" Arsaces I said with a smiling face, making it seem to an outsider as though the two nations were on the warmest of terms.

"I wonder if there is anything Your Majesty can do for me with my visit today?" Arsaces asked with a smile, conveying to Zhang Hu that whatever the matter might be, he only needed to give the word and His Majesty would surely see it done.

"Many thanks, Your Majesty. Today, Zhang Hu has come to discuss a few important matters with the King," Zhang Hu said neither servilely nor overbearingly.

"Please speak, Envoy!"

"Her Royal Highness, the Princess of your esteemed country, led her retinue of knightly orders and willfully joined the Xiongnu side during the war between the Xiongnu and Great Qin, assisting the Xiongnu in opposing our Great Qin Empire. She harmed quite a few of our Great Qin soldiers and committed an unforgivable crime against our empire. She has now been captured by Great Qin. We wonder how Your Majesty intends to handle this matter." Having finished, Zhang Hu fixed his eagle-like gaze directly upon Arsaces.

"Your country has captured our Parthian princess, yet you are not afraid of failing to walk out of the Parthian Empire alive?" blurted out the commander of the Parthian noble Heavy Lance Knights in a threatening tone. The members of the Heavy Lance Knights were all loyal admirers of Princess Vivian. Hearing now that she had actually been captured, anger instantly welled up within them, and they longed to immediately march to Great Qin and rescue the princess.

"You are welcome to try! When this envoy came to Parthia, I never intended to return alive. Besides, do you dare to kill me, Knight?" Zhang Hu retorted without the slightest politeness, as if to say he wasn't frightened by such empty threats.

"That is enough, Gerard," Arsaces called out, stopping the enraged commander of the knightly order.

"Vivian is young, unable to distinguish right from wrong, and mistakenly injured the brave warriors of Great Qin. I offer my apologies here and now!" Arsaces said sincerely to Zhang Hu.

"May I ask if the Princess is well?"

"She is doing fine, but her subordinates are not faring quite as well, are they? The State Preceptor of my Great Qin instructed me to ask Your Majesty the King: for these Parthian captives, is the King prepared to abandon them to live as slaves in Qin, or will you redeem them?" Recalling Yang Zimo's instructions, Zhang Hu promptly posed the question.

"Thank you for taking such good care of my daughter, and I will certainly not mistreat your esteemed country. How does one go about ransoming these people?" Arsaces had never actually intended to redeem the others; as long as his daughter was safe, nothing else mattered.

If not for Zhang Hu bringing the matter up in front of the ministers and the presence of the members of the knightly order—since anyone who could join the knightly orders in Parthia belonged to the imperial nobility, and Arsaces would never have bothered ransoming them otherwise, just to keep those nobles from causing an uproar—he wouldn't have cared. Still, he could take this opportunity to extract a fortune from those nobles.

"Since the King agrees to the ransom, I will dispatch men to negotiate the details with you thoroughly." Arsaces's decisiveness caught Zhang Hu somewhat off guard. However, the final matter was the most crucial of all.

"There is one final, minor matter for which I must ask the King's assistance," Zhang Hu said, stepping forward.

"Please go on, Envoy!"

"My Great Qin State Preceptor has heard that Parthia possesses a certain edible plant whose fruit grows underground in the shape of oval or spindle-shaped tuberous roots. It can be planted using its leaves and yields a white sap. It can be eaten raw, tastes sweet, and has a crisp texture. It seems to be called something like the sweet potato.

The State Preceptor mentioned that this item is medicinal, and its quantity within our Great Qin territory is scarce. Having inadvertently heard from your esteemed country's princess that it is abundant in your land and consumed by your common people as wild vegetables, the Preceptor has privately entrusted me to procure some."

"The State Preceptor of Great Qin?" Arsaces looked slightly puzzled.

"The State Preceptor is the most powerful person in Great Qin, and also the minister most favored and trusted by His Majesty the Emperor of Great Qin," Zhang Hu explained.

"If that is the case, this favor I shall grant. I wonder how much your State Preceptor desires?"

"The more, the better. The Preceptor will certainly not treat Your Majesty the King unfairly," Zhang Hu said with a smile.

"Haha! Very well!"

Half a month later, in the banquet hall.

Over the past few days, Arsaces had been hosting banquets daily, all for the purpose of fostering closer ties with the envoy of Great Qin and extracting more information about the empire.

*Thud!* The sound of a sack hitting the ground interrupted the conversation among the guests.

"Envoy, see if this is the item!" Arsaces said, handing a sack to Zhang Hu.

The sack contained the exact plant described by the State Preceptor, with its roots, stems, and leaves still intact. Zhang Hu picked one up, compared its appearance, snapped off a section, and took a large bite to taste it.

Ah, the flavor was sweet, matching the description precisely.

"If you hadn't mentioned it, Envoy, I never would have known that such a thing existed in the world. Beneath such humble vines, it grows such enormous and numerous fruits, and it turns out to be a medicinal herb."

"Indeed, I find it strange myself. What on earth does the State Preceptor want these medicinal herbs for?" Zhang Hu asked, looking equally perplexed.

"Over the past half month, I expended a great deal of effort to mobilize the common folk to search for this medicinal herb. I have dug up every single one of these medicinal plants called sweet potatoes from all the city-states closest to Ctesiphon in the whole of Parthia. Right now, you couldn't find even a single leaf left. There are several full carriage loads of them—definitely enough for your country's State Preceptor to use." Arsaces said cheerfully to Zhang Hu.

"Then I must thank Your Majesty the King profusely," Zhang Hu said with excitement.

"Men!" Zhang Hu suddenly shouted.

Soldiers of Great Qin carried several chests forward and placed them before Arsaces.

"Envoy, these are?" Arsaces asked, feigning ignorance.

Regardless of whether Arsaces truly did not know or was merely putting on an act—

Zhang Hu forcefully flung open the chests: "Your Majesty the King, these chests are filled with tokens of gratitude from the State Preceptor of Great Qin! You might as well take a look!"

Arsaces, who had long since known what was inside, suppressed his racing heart and began to pick up the items in the chests to admire them.

"This is the fine wine 'Drunken Immortal' personally brewed by the State Preceptor, the favorite wine of His Majesty the Emperor of Great Qin. This blade is a precious sword that can cut through metal as if through mud; this is refined salt; this is a pearl from the Eastern Sea; this is a jade bi disc; this is a deep-sea coral; this is..." As Arsaces picked up each item, Zhang Hu stood beside him providing introductions, describing each piece as exceedingly precious. If not for the special training Yang Zimo had put him through before setting out, how could a mere centurion like Zhang Hu have spoken so eloquently, sounding almost like a man of letters?

"Hahaha! I love all the gifts sent by the State Preceptor. If the Preceptor needs more medicinal herbs in the future, he need only say the word!" Looking at the several chests of treasures, Arsaces laughed heartily.

(End of this chapter)