Chapter 102

It was Azula's last day in Ba Sing Se. Her duty as Colonial Minister could not be put off any further, no matter how good it was to share a bed with Xing for so many nights. As annoyed as she felt, the princess consoled herself knowing that she'd be back here again in a few months' time.

She'll be missing the Avatar's arrival, but that bit was for the best, considering the optics of such a meeting. Xing had enough to deal with trying to hide his schemes from unwanted eyes, having Azula around would only draw further unneeded attention to the necessary but unapproved good he had planned.

As a small consolation for missing out on the potential fun, Azula sat in the shade, ringed by her bodyguards and 11th honor guards as she overlooked the largest plaza just outside of the palace. Not wanting a repeat of the surprise attack, the 11th Royal Regiment had already nearby buildings swept clean, and the tanks were out in full force this time.

Xing stood in the middle of the plaza, the fearful but intrigued crowd keeping to the borders of the square by the rest of the regiment. With him was the broken form of Long Feng, kept up on his knees only by Xing grabbing onto his collar. After yesterday's public lynchings throughout the city, it was time to put a cap to the whole Dai Li affair.

They'd squeezed out everything of value from Long Feng, from his organization's recruitment and asset ledgers, and the list of compromised nobles throughout the Earth Kingdom's states. Scribes were already making copies of the latter for dissemination, to hopefully ruin the Earth Kingdom's morale further. Beyond the wealth of information he provided, Long Feng was of no further use. Like the rest of the Dai Li, they simply could not be trusted, and the nature of Xing's capture of Ba Sing Se meant that Long Feng automatically became a symbol of the old, despised regime.

A symbol that had to be burnt away.

Xing gave no speech, merely making a show of sweeping his gaze across the crowd kept at a distance. Then he grabbed Long Feng by the shoulders, forcing the man onto his shattered knees. Even from where she sat, Azula could see the leader of the Dai Li shaking his head desperately and pleading in some way or another for Xing to spare him.

She idly wondered what angle he was using this time. Azula had read the transcripts from the interrogations; Long Feng was very creative with begging and bargaining for his life. Maybe he's promising some last minute information, or making up new stories about King Kuei's nonexistent siblings (General Yama checked on that one thoroughly - apparently Kuei's father did spawn some bastards, but the Dai Li had conveniently disposed of them years ago to cement Kuei's reign).

Regardless, Xing wasn't swayed, and the new Prince of Ba Sing Se opened his mouth. Azula could barely see the wisps of smoke escaping from his maw before she had to turn away as a blinding burst of white fire tore through Long Feng. It took barely a couple of seconds, and after annoyingly blinking away the afterimages, Azula found her prince holding onto two cauterized near-halves of the former Dai Li head. Long Feng's head and everything directly below it, right down to his groin, was burnt away. A small pile of ash collected on the smoking and glowing crater beneath the bisected corpse.

Xing raised up both pieces of his victim like a prize fighter showing his winnings. "By my flames, Long Feng is dead!" he finally declared. "The head of the Dai Li is no more, and along with the justice meted out by the citizens of Ba Sing Se, the Dai Li have been purged from Ba Sing Se!"

It still surprised Azula that the claim was practically true. As far as the exhaustive ledgers and missives were concerned, the only Dai Li left were those beyond the city, sent to infiltrate and observe Ba Sing Se's vassals. Long Feng's little plan to gather his organization's whole strength to either repulse or impress Xing had allowed for the near total capture of every detestable member.

Not so surprisingly, after some silence at Xing's declaration, Azula heard muted cheers break out among the crowd. Of course, it started from the liberated victims of Lake Laogai and their families. They were scattered at first, but then the cheering grew and merged into a single cohesive applause.

"Damn Kuei and Long Feng! Damn the Dai Li and Earth Kingdom!"

Huh, Azula didn't expect that level of resentment. But then again, considering that the crowd were mostly made up of the people from the Middle and Lower Rings, it made sense. The middle and lower classes of Ba Sing Se had felt the significant effects of Xing's gentler hand, especially with how many restrictions he had removed from the old regime. The movement of people into the abandoned noble housing would drain away the overpopulation from the slums in the Lower Ring, while goods could now be freely traded instead of being regulated and hoarded by the Dai Li.

It was goodwill that didn't take as much effort to cultivate compared to the conquered northern territories. If Long Feng had even some modicum of competence, he'd try to instill as much love for his puppet regime instead of relying purely on fear to prop his rule up. With hindsight, the princess understood that the whole shadowy policing force was but one possible option in maintaining one's rule, and it was an impractical one at that in the long term. It needed a counterbalance, a carrot to the stick.

Fortunately for her, the colonies were orderly enough to not require exploring that avenue any time soon. The Dai Li would serve as an important note on what not to do, but for now Azula was content to sit back and enjoy seeing her fiance being lavished with praise.

It wouldn't last after all.

Xing eventually got the crowd to calm down after tossing aside the remains of Long Feng. Azula gripped her seat's armrests as she subconsciously braced herself for the ugly part of this whole show.

The crowd's mood plummeted when General Fong and his accomplices were led out, all chained together and dragging themselves on swollen and badly healed legs. As expected, nearly the entirety of Fong's army were part of the insurgency, but it was only the largest part of it. The rest were comprised from some of the remaining nobles and their retainers, as well as some refugees lured from the Lower Ring.

Like that girl that dared wound her Xing. Azula was glad that Xing had granted her the privilege of incinerating that assassin and her friends. Other than the concerns of negative impressions from publicly executing refugees, Azula enjoyed the instant gratification of torching the little clique for their involvement in the surprise attack. The boy with the hook blades, according to several testimonies including his own, contributed the idea of sneaking blasting jelly in the abandoned residences. The bowman of the group had been the one to launch the arrows coated in blasting jelly.

Their expressions of terror were brief, but enough to sate the princess' wrath as she personally burned them to ash.

"As many of you might know, days ago, one of your generals, General Fong, who had agreed to work with me in keeping your city's peace, turned on me."

The prisoners were made to kneel behind Xing.

"He mustered his army to join in his mad plan, as well as conspired with various nobles for their knowledge of the Inner Ring."

Good, no mention of the lower classes. Azula hid a grin. If Xing could successfully villainize the Ba Sing Se nobility, he'd have an easier time claiming the holdings within the Inner Ring for his civil projects. The abandoned wealth he'd garner from them would also go a long way towards paying off the massive city state's expenditure without resorting to raising taxes.

Xing kept an even composure as he kept talking, unmoved by the worried expressions blooming among the crowd. It was likely that Fong's soldiers had family in there, after all. "Whether or not General Fong conspired with the Dai Li or acted on his own impulse-" It didn't matter, because now that notion will take root in the public's mind. "-the result remained the same; the restoration of the Dai Li's victims were put in danger, and the Dai Li themselves might have escaped."

Azula nodded firmly at the delivery. Whether or not people were aware of the rather hamfisted emphasis was unimportant, such folks in her experience tended to be rare among a mob. So long as Xing kept to the truth, however technically, the skeptics would have little to no influence on how public opinion was steered.

"As much as it pains me to do so, I have to punish not only General Fong, but those who followed him as well."

The crowd understandably tensed, probably remembering Xing's fire breath just moments ago.

"Earth Kingdom laws demand that I not only execute these rebels, but purge four generations of their relatives as well. Fire Nation laws ask for similar justice to be meted out."

And there was the sour, fearful mood bubbling among the spectators. The guards around Azula shifted slightly, just in case things veered off the margins.

"However!" Xing snapped, refocusing the crowd's attention away from their worries and onto him. "The Fire Lord has been generous to grant me free hand in ruling this city! As such, it is within my rights to lighten the sentence. As such, I will only execute these men who stand behind me." Xing swept his gaze across the crowd. "Does anyone wish me to do otherwise? Do I have to send my soldiers out to drag over the rebels' families?"

Obviously, nobody objected, not when Xing reframed the whole thing as a binary option. The majority of the populace can now ignorantly wash away their guilt by convincing themselves that Xing was being merciful, while those whose brothers and fathers were involved in the insurgency should be smart enough to shut up.

Xing gave the silence a few seconds before he nodded to the troops. Orders were curtly barked out, and the soldiers gently pushed the crowd several steps away from the square, while the other infantry and tanks also cleared away. The prisoners were prodded towards the center of the square, with General Fong kneeling right behind Xing, who promptly turned towards him with a theatrical flourish.

"General Fong. For your insincere pledge, for your attempt at destabilizing my rule over this city and the containment of the Dai Li… I, Xing, Prince of Ba Sing Se on behalf of Fire Lord Ozai, hereby sentence you and your conspirators to death."

Fong could only shake bodily, as his weakened state didn't allow him much beyond a rasp through his gag.

Xing gave it a second (to make sure the crowd got a decent look at the scene) and then shot up into the skies with a burst of fire. Azula craned her neck up to see the shrinking speck that was her fiance hovering in the air for a moment, and then once more the princess had to snap her gaze away as a pillar of blinding white fire shot down towards the ground. The group of prisoners behind General Fong vanished under the retina-burning flamestrike.

Smoke quickly began to sizzle out from between the square's neat tiles and then the ground gave way, most of the square swallowed up by a massive, glowing void that was prepared by Yama and his earthbenders just the night before. Fong fell into the hole flailing his broken limbs. Those prisoners that didn't immediately get claimed by the hole like him were dragged along by the fellows they were chained with.

The luckier ones were thrown closer to Xing's column of fire and were instantly incinerated. Azula heard brief but anguished screams of the unluckier ones as they fell into the pool of molten earth.

Xing's fires went out after just four seconds, but the hole that swallowed the prisoners did not stop glowing. He landed at the edge closest to the crowd, and even through the churning flames and agonized screams Azula could hear her Xing's declaration.

"Let it be known that this is the extent of my mercy and patience."

If it weren't for propriety and the public setting, Azula would've been running to tackle her fiance right now.

*****

Iroh could only sigh heavily as he witnessed Xing's execution. The boy had tailored the whole thing with Azula's help to tip the approval of Ba Sing Se closer to his favor. While the old prince couldn't fully condone the theatrical violence being used, from a politician's standpoint, it was an artfully brutal performance. Xing had not only shown his willingness to crush any opposition, but also emphasized the restraint he was acting with. With further editing of the news as it was disseminated, the young prince would be seen as a stern but fair ruler. The people of Ba Sing Se now had their expectations of their new overlord lifted considerably, so long as Xing didn't veer too far into harsh tactics.

It was the sort of display that, in hindsight, Iroh wished his father and grandfather had exercised a bit more. Spirits knows how many conquered towns the Fire Nation might still have under their control if they took a softer approach, and how many lives on both sides of the war that could've been saved.

And Xing once more proved his almost mercurial extremes by deeming Generals Yiu and Sung and their forces innocent. The Earth Kingdom collaborator armies were relegated down to enforcing peace throughout the Middle and Lower Rings though, and they would operate with far lighter equipment as Xing had nearly every military materiel, short of clubs and the common spear, transferred to the 11th's care.

Despite the not-so-public humiliation, both Yiu and Sung agreed that being defanged was a small price to pay compared to the deaths of thousands of their men.

Xing, for his part, needed peace in Ba Sing Se to enact the changes he had in mind. Ambitious changes that Iroh only reluctantly agreed with, considering the alternatives. The massive city state required a stable foundation built on trust, patience and goodwill for the social changes its new prince had in store for it.

Iroh contributed towards that peace as well, quietly reaching out to the members of the White Lotus within the city to gain their assistance. He had Xing's approval to reveal some of the long term goals, which would go a long way in assuring the members of the order.

As he watched the Xing leave and the crowd disperse from the crater that used to be a city square, Iroh told himself to follow up on his contacts soon. The last thing anyone needed was for another insurgency to sprout while the Avatar was visiting, which might further strain his impressions of the Fire Nation, or force Xing to ruin that impression altogether.