Chapter 3 The Apple of My Eye
Tang Ying has been taking care of her father and brother since she was a child. As Tang Yao is the commander-in-chief, his chance of getting injured is relatively small. Her brother Tang Jue has been thrown into the military camp by Marshal Tang since he was a child for training. He often comes home with injuries. This has made her, who rarely went to the hospital in her previous life, become an experienced nurse. She changed the medicine on Marshal Tang's shoulder and back wounds in a few seconds and re-bandaged them.
Tang Yao put on his outer robe and looked at his daughter who was neatly packing up the blood-stained fine cloth. He couldn't help but say, "If I had known, I would have sent someone to send you back to Bingzhou."
Bingzhou is the ancestral home of the Tang family. When Tang Ying was six or seven years old, she followed her father and brothers back to worship their ancestors. She saw that several cousins in the clan behaved in a well-behaved and cautious manner. Her widowed aunt in the next room was extremely strict and disliked her behavior of climbing trees and walls. She once scolded her to her face for not acting like a lady. She was unwilling to stay and learn to be a lady no matter what.
Unexpectedly, after so many years, Tang Yao would bring up the old matter again. Who knows if it is not the crisis of the Baicheng war? Even he himself is unsure.
"If my daughter goes to Bingzhou, who will take care of my father and brother?" Tang Ying showed a well-behaved and caring smile to comfort her old father.
Tang Yao touched the top of her hair, his face full of shame: "...In short, it is father who has let you and your daughter down." His wife died in childbirth, and his daughter has been with him since she was a child. She has suffered a lot in the harsh north wind at the border, and now she has to stay with him, suffering from the war and living in fear.
"Dad, don't worry too much. Our family will always be together, no matter life or death." She said this softly, as if she was saying that the family was going out for an outing, but Tang Yao understood the meaning of her words from her firm eyes - she was willing to advance and retreat with her father and brother.
He was overwhelmed with emotions and before he could say anything, someone rushed in and said with a smile, "You are so old, yet you still pester your father and act like a spoiled child." It was the eldest son, Tang Jue.
"What do you care?" Tang Ying made a face and went over to pull her brother to sit down: "Let me see the wound."
The father and son were injured while defending the city a few days ago, but neither of them could rest and they continued to work around the clock. Tang Ying could only take care of her father and brother's injuries every day.
The battle to defend the city was fierce, and most of Tang Yao's guards went up to the city walls to defend against the enemy. Tang Ying originally worked as a part-time guard in order to take care of her father nearby, but now she has to do the work of three people. Not only does she have to run errands for Tang Yao and pass on orders everywhere, but she also compiles the statistics and reports on military intelligence, food, and weapons. Therefore, she understands the seriousness of the war better than Yu An.
The Tang family has been stationed on the northern border for generations. In addition to Baicheng, there are six or seven other important towns, all of which were originally under the jurisdiction of the Tang family army. There are more than 100,000 garrisons, which means that all the heavy troops on the northern border defense line are in Tang Yao's hands.
But since last autumn, transfer orders have been coming down from the capital one after another. First, the Tang army, except for Baicheng, was transferred away from the northern border in the name of rotation of defense, and the Central Army was dispatched to garrison there. Secondly, military pay, food, fodder, and weapons were delayed and withheld for no reason. Tang Yao submitted several memorials to report this matter one after another, but received no response.
Tang Yao, who was famous in the northern border, gradually felt that he was being sidelined by the court. However, he had been in the borderland for a long time and had not been involved in court affairs for many years. He could only pin his hopes on the emperor's vague trust in the Tang family, which had been loyal for generations.
When Baicheng was besieged at the beginning, people were sent out of the city to ask for help, but now it has been more than a month, and there is still no sign of reinforcement. All these things make Tang Yao secretly alarmed, but he cannot show any clues for fear of shaking the morale of the army.
Tang Jue came here to request to go out of the city for a night attack.
Baicheng had been besieged for a long time. After discussion with several generals, Tang Yao planned to send another team of troops to break out and rescue the nearest garrison, but the rescue troops had to be protected by several teams of soldiers.
After the news spread, many soldiers volunteered to go out of the city to fight, including Tang Jue.
Everyone knew that this trip was dangerous, like a sheep in a tiger's mouth, there was no return. Tang Yao only had this one son. Looking at his son's resolute face, he felt very reluctant, but he still patted his shoulder and warned him: "Be careful!"
Tang Ying silently sent him to the door, her nose was sour, and thousands of words were stuck in her throat. She could only say: "Brother——"
The heroic young man turned around and said with a smile, just like every time he went to the battlefield, "Be good at home and wait for me to return victoriously. I will take you hunting."
That was the last time Tang Ying spoke to Tang Jue face to face in her life. He had a faint smile on his face, as if he was just going out for a trip and would be back home soon.
That night, she followed her father to stand on the city wall to see off the soldiers. She will always remember Tang Jue standing straight on his back, riding on his horse and rushing out of the city gate first, fearless.
Without looking back, he led a group of men and horses straight into the enemy camp, tearing through the thick night like a sharp knife, tearing open the continuous camps of the Northern Barbarians who were trapped in Baicheng...
As daybreak approached, the Northern Barbarians' camp finally returned to peace and order, and they began to clean up the battlefield and sort out the bodies of the dead from both armies.
Tang Yao stood on the top of the city wall for most of the night. When he moved again, his legs felt stiff and heavy as if they were filled with lead, and his whole body shook.
Soon someone reached out and supported him.
Tang Yao lowered his head and looked at a tearful face. He stretched out his rough thumb to wipe away the tears on her face: "Don't cry!"
"I didn't cry." Tang Ying wiped her face with her backhand, but found that her hands were covered with water stains.
She stood with Tang Yao until dawn. The glimmer of hope in her heart gradually disappeared with the fighting in the Northern Barbarians' camp, and many years passed by in a flash.
She could remember things from a very early age, and it seemed that there was an adult soul in her chest. She never forgot even when she could not see clearly and could only hear the little child quietly guarding her and crying for his sister.
Tang Yao always felt guilty towards his daughter and blamed himself for not taking good care of her. He even didn't see his wife for the last time, causing his daughter to be motherless at a young age. However, he was very strict with his son, and never slacked off in his studies and martial arts practice. However, he didn't know that his son was only a four-year-old child after losing his mother.
Only Tang Ying knew that in the first year after losing her mother, the little girl often sneaked into her room in the middle of the night, holding her sister's little hand and sobbing softly amid the wet nurse's deafening snoring.
Later, he grew up quickly, determined to take on the responsibility of an older brother and protect his younger sister, and had long forgotten the little child crying because of missing his mother...
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After the siege of Baicheng, there were soldiers dying every day and women crying sadly every day.
After they finished crying, they wiped their tears and continued to run into the wounded camp to take care of the injured soldiers, cook soup, medicine, porridge and rice, help collect weapons, and each family collected oil and transported it to the city... There were always countless things to do and no time to grieve and cry.
The night attack made the northern barbarians even more crazy, and they started a new round of siege.
Late in the night five days later, Luan Hong, the defender of Baicheng City, secretly opened the north gate and defected to the enemy.
Tang Ying had just fallen asleep for a short while when she was woken up by the panicked maid A Lian : "Miss, the city has been breached, get up quickly!"
Behind A Lian was Tang Ying, the daughter of the general Tang Shu. She knelt down in front of her bed with tears on her face and said, "Sister Xiaoying, my father died in the war..."
She came to Baicheng with her father at the age of seven, and was about the same age as Tang Ying. She had liked Yu An since she was a child, but unlike Tang Ying, she was not good at wielding knives and sticks. Instead, she specialized in needlework and cooking. From time to time, she would give the two of them some small items like purses, or newly learned snacks. She was an extremely gentle girl.
Tang Shu died in the battle and the servants in the house scattered in panic. She rushed into the Marshal's Mansion and asked Tang Ying for help.
"Where's the Marshal?" She hadn't had a good rest for several days and was forced by Tang Yao to go home and sleep. She didn't expect that such a thing would happen within an hour of her closing her eyes.
"The Marshal has led his men to meet the enemy and has opened the South Gate. Let everyone escape."
She was originally lying in bed with her clothes on. After tidying herself up a bit, she went out with a long knife in hand. The yard was already full of servants, including the housekeeper Uncle Zhao, the long-time servant Zhang Qing, the lame gardener Uncle Ou in the back garden, and others. There were six or seven faces, all holding knives and sticks, waiting for her order.
Zhang Qing said: "Miss, the major general has been killed, and the commander... will definitely not leave Baicheng. We will definitely escort you out of the city at the risk of our lives!"
Tang Ying felt hesitant and pulled Tang Ying and A Lian behind her: "Baicheng has been broken, I want to go find my father, please take them and escape." She jumped on the horse and was about to rush out.
Zhang Qing grabbed her reins with red eyes and refused to let her go: "Miss, you are the last flesh and blood of the Marshal. We can't watch you die. The Major General is gone..." The seven-foot tall man almost cried out.
Tang Ying was so anxious that she didn't care about all these things and could only agree casually: "You let go of the reins first, I'll go with you!" But she secretly made up her mind to wait until she got out and wait for an opportunity to find Tang Yao.
The group of people protected A Lian and Tang Ying in the middle. When they left the Marshal's Mansion, they found that Baicheng was in chaos. The streets were full of fleeing civilians and soldiers fighting desperately with the Northern Barbarians. Some people were stabbed in the abdomen and fell to the ground, but they still held up their Mo Dao and maintained a fighting posture; others hugged the Northern Barbarians and rolled on the ground, throwing away their machetes when the blades were bent, and biting the Northern Barbarians' ears with their teeth when their fists were exhausted...
People around him kept getting injured, and Zhang Qing ran very fast, as if he would never get tired. The lame Uncle Ou couldn't run that fast, so he stayed behind to resist the Northern barbarians who were chasing him.
When she looked back again, she watched Uncle Ou's arm being chopped off and he fell to the ground, but he kept smiling and facing the direction she left...
The breakout battle was extremely brutal. People around him kept falling down. Tang Ying was almost bloodthirsty. There were people fighting all around him, broken limbs and body parts everywhere, as well as the cries of women and children.
She protected Tang Ying and A Lian, as well as many common people, women and children they met along the way, and covered their retreat. She looked back countless times, hoping that a miracle would happen and she could see the upright and serious face of her biological father.
However, fate seemed to be displeased with her again and again, always adding many problems to her life. In her previous life, she was hated by her father and despised by her mother. She was abandoned by her divorced parents at a very young age and left to live in her grandfather's home in the countryside where boys were favored over girls. She gritted her teeth and studied hard, getting first place every year. She finished high school in a remote town in the northwest with poverty relief funds and entered a higher education institution.
While her college classmates were enjoying campus life, she was already burdened with student loans and had to work part-time to support herself. When she entered the society, there were still countless hard days waiting for her to grit her teeth and persevere.
I finally paid off my student loan, but then I got into a car accident. When I opened my eyes, the world was completely different.
What does it mean to be a jewel in the palm of one's hand? Only when she became Tang Yao's daughter did she understand.
