Chapter 529: Progress

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The Emperor had already transferred 200,000 troops from General Yuan and Qi Xiuyuan to resist the West Xia army. Although it was effective, due to the constant rebellions in various places, the cities that were recovered usually were not defended for more than three days. As soon as the troops advanced, the rebel army attacked the counties with very few guards.

West Xia had been dragging it out, unwilling to negotiate, but not completely rejecting it either.

If this continued, Great Zhou would fall into a dead end. The Jin Kingdom had completely restrained Qi Xiuyuan’s troops. Even if the Great Zhou was destroyed, could he ditch the border and come back to fight for the throne?

That would be equivalent to letting the Jin soldiers in. His crime would definitely not be inferior to Li Zhengye’s when he abandoned the pass back then.

Mu Yangling lay on the bed and tossed and turned for the entire night. The next day, she flipped through books for the entire day, but she still had no good leads. She thought with a headache that it would be great if the Jin Kingdom was willing to retreat and not attack Great Zhou. Alas, this would only exist in her dreams.

She scribbled randomly on the paper about the relationship between the Great Zhou, West Xia, and the Jin Kingdom. When she came back to her senses and saw that the paper was filled with ink dots, she crossed out the three kingdoms on it in disdain. Mu Yangling’s hand paused and her eyes lit up. If the Great Zhou and the Jin Kingdom’s West Xia did not have a good relationship, could it be that the Jin Kingdom and West Xia were on good terms?

They had just fought a few years ago, and the defensive map of the entire Jin Kingdom was in their hands. However, the upper echelons of the Jin Kingdom thought that West Xia had taken their map away. No, it was West Xia who had taken it away in the first place. It was just that Qi Haoran had accidentally “taken” it from West Xia.

Mu Yangling’s fingertips trembled as she composed herself and wrote a letter to Qi Xiuyuan.

She felt that it was no longer beneficial for them to continue the stalemate. She suggested that Qi Xiuyuan could use a honey trap on the Jin Kingdom and West Xia to sow discord. In short, he should use whatever strategy that would work. Although Mu Yangling had never fought in a war, her skills of discussing military strategies on paper were not inferior to anyone’s. After all, she had been in the military academy for four years, and had submitted many theses and papers analyzing historical wars every year.

Mu Yangling was very creative. She didn’t know what cards Qi Xiuyuan had to play, so she told him all the ideas she could think of, regardless of how feasible they were. After all, Qi Xiuyuan was a man who could form his own judgment and make his own choice. Then, she handed the secret letter to Zhu Liang the next day.

After handing over the letter, Mu Yangling felt relieved. At night, when she wrote to Qi Haoran about their son, she mentioned the war slightly. She complained, “If the war continues like this, I wonder if you can come back when our son starts schooling. It’s a pity that you don’t have enough troops. Otherwise, you can go from the back to attack West Xia, which has an empty army…”

After receiving the letter, Qi Haoran dazedly touched the imprint of the little foot on the letter. He had only seen his son twice. The first time was when he returned to the capital, and the second time was when he left the capital. Considering children grew up quickly, he wondered what this kid looked like now.

Qi Haoran sighed and was about to put the letter away when he focused on the last sentence. The troops of the Great Zhou were indeed very restrained and could not spare the time to launch a sneak attack, but that did not mean that they could not do it. Wasn’t there still the Jin Kingdom in the north that bordered West Xia on a large scale?

Qi Haoran picked up his pen and wrote a secret letter to his big brother. There were only five words: “Surround Wei and save Zhao.” He had no choice. He really wanted to write more, but this time, he wanted to send the letter openly since it was much faster than sending a secret letter. Naturally, there were many things that he could not explicitly write.

The letter was quickly brought north by the military pigeon. Qi Haoran calculated the time it would take for them to receive the letter and waited patiently.

As soon as Qi Xiuyuan received Mu Yangling’s secret letter, he received Qi Haoran’s openly-sent letter. As he opened the letter, he said with a smile, “They seem to have telepathy.”

After opening the letter, he saw Mu Yangling’s densely-packed words on two pieces of paper. Qi Xiuyuan decisively set it down and first read the note from Qi Haoran. On it were only the words “Surround Wei and save Zhao”.

Qi Xiuyuan frowned slightly. “Surround Wei and save Zhao? Is there a country in this world that is willing to surround West Xia and save Great Zhou?”

Rong Xuan also frowned slightly and pondered over Qi Haoran’s words. As it was an openly-sent letter, they had to consider the possibility that Qi Haoran was writing these words for show.

Qi Xiuyuan picked up Mu Yangling’s secret letter and read it. After reading it, a glint flashed across his eyes. When he picked up Qi Haoran’s note again, he happily said with a smile, “That’s a good idea.”

Qi Xiuyuan passed Mu Yangling’s letter to Rong Xuan and said, “Jinyu, what do you think of us sowing discord between the Jin Kingdom and West Xia? Just as Ah Ling said, be it a honey trap or sowing discord, let the Jin Kingdom step forth and ‘surround Wei and save Zhao’. Otherwise, our troops will be tied up at the border and we won’t be able to do anything.”

As Qi Xiuyuan’s operations in the Jin Kingdom and West Xia were not enough for him to achieve such a feat, he could only look for General Yuan. After looking for General Yuan, he wanted to inform the Emperor of the battle plan, but he was not sure if there were spies around the Emperor at this moment. After thinking about it, he still sent a secret message, but he did not explain in detail. He only mentioned a rough idea, hoping that the Emperor would support him.

As Qi Xiuyuan had only been on the scene for a few years, there were very few people in the Jin Kingdom and West Xia who could be of use. The key was that those people’s statuses were not too high. Meanwhile, since General Yuan had been on the scene for more than 20 years, the spies he controlled must be a considerable number. Still, they could not compare to the resources in the hands of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

This was the difference between an individual and a country.

Fortunately, Emperor Jingyan was not hopelessly stupid. Without knowing that Qi Xiuyuan was inclined to rebel, he immediately agreed after reading his proposal.

Just using some spies and resources in his hands could instigate a war between the Jin Kingdom and West Xia. With Great Zhou about to be destroyed, Emperor Jingyan naturally would not give up this opportunity to catch his breath.

However, he was also careful and did not directly hand these people over to Qi Xiuyuan. He only sent a guy to Qi Xiuyuan, who would carry out Qi Xiuyuan’s instructions should he need something done.

In order to prevent the people below from fighting for power and delaying things, the Emperor specially gave them a talking-to. Now that the country was about to perish, he hoped that they would temporarily give up on those petty thoughts and focus on the country.

However, the Emperor overestimated people’s hearts and underestimated their intelligence. When Qi Xiuyuan deployed these people, it was equivalent to holding a one-meter-long stick to pick up something while blindfolded.

Fortunately, Qi Xiuyuan did not hold high hopes for Emperor Jingyan from the beginning. After instructing the other party a few times and finding that he was only being perfunctory, Qi Xiuyuan decisively turned around and looked for General Yuan. He only handed some unimportant tasks to the Emperor’s commander.

The commander sent by the Emperor originally wanted to force Qi Xiuyuan to lower his head, but he did not expect such an outcome. Though furious, he could not find anything to complain about.

Qi Xiuyuan went to look for General Yuan. Both of them wanted to end the situation at the border of the Jin Kingdom. In addition, they were both generals and could be considered to be on the same side in certain matters. Moreover, General Yuan was a selfless person. Qi Xiuyuan quickly made the upper echelons of the Jin Kingdom notice how empty West Xia was at the moment.

At the same time, a prince of West Xia obtained a secret that the Jin Kingdom and the Great Zhou had reached a secret agreement. The Jin Kingdom would send troops to help the Great Zhou defeat West Xia, while the Great Zhou would give up the area north of the Yangtze River to the Jin Kingdom in return.

It was said that this was a private agreement between the Emperor of Great Zhou and the Jin Kingdom and was not made public.

This news was sent back by the person planted by a West Xia prince in the upper echelons of the Jin Kingdom. There was definitely no mistake. Thinking of the cowardice of the Great Zhou Emperor and his past actions of giving away money, the credibility of this matter increased.

The prince of West Xia was furious. He felt that the Jin Kingdom had broken the contract and that it was unforgivable, so he entered the West Xia palace overnight.

At this moment, the upper echelons of the Jin Kingdom had only set their sights on the back of West Xia and sent people to secretly investigate the problem of their army’s defense. They had yet to confirm that they wanted to take advantage of the situation..