The Eldest Daughter Is Beautiful and Saucy
Chapter 983: Save the country
Chapter 983: Preserving the Country
The Ninth Prince of Dayan looked at the first batch of lotus flowers blooming beautifully on the lake, but his peripheral vision was inconspicuously observing Li Zhijie, and he casually played with the tassels on the hidden bag: “Or, is it that this Rongdi was originally trying to conquer Xiliang for the Great Zhou?”
“How can it not be possible? Rongdi saw that both the Great Zhou and the Great Yan wanted to annex the world, but Rongdi is no match for these two countries. So they wanted to swallow up Xiliang and form a three-kingdoms situation with you?” Li Zhijie asked.
The Ninth Prince of Dayan chuckled, “I said the same thing again. Will the Great Zhou sit back and watch its neighbor Xiliang become stronger and form a three-kingdoms situation with it? The Queen of the Great Zhou is ambitious and her goal is to unify the world! The Great Zhou cannot attack the Yan Kingdom at present because the Yan Kingdom is recovering Southern Yan… After destroying the Wei Kingdom, its national strength has greatly increased. The Great Zhou cannot act rashly!”
“And if the Great Zhou attacks the State of Yan, the war will surely be protracted! This… will give the two weak states of Rongdi and Xiliang some breathing time. No one can guarantee that Xiliang or Rongdi will not reverse the situation like the State of Yan.”
“If you want to unify the world, what the Great Zhou should do… is to annex Xiliang, Rongdi, and finally destroy Yan! The same is true for the Yan State. What they need to do is to annex Xiliang and Rongdi, and then destroy the Great Zhou!” The Ninth Prince of Dayan said this very frankly.
Li Zhijie gritted his teeth. A weak country is like fish on the chopping board of a strong country…
“So, the Ninth Prince of Dayan brought me here today, not just to tell you… Dayan, like Dayan, wants to destroy Xiliang, right?” Li Zhijie put down the teacup in his hand, pretended to be relaxed and smiled faintly at the Ninth Prince of Dayan.
“I want to show Xiliang a way out.” The Ninth Prince of Dayan spoke slowly, “Xiliang…becomes a vassal of Dayan and pays tribute, and this way the country can survive.”
Li Zhijie was furious when he heard this. He slammed the table and stood up, with anger on his face: “Ninth Prince, you are so arrogant.”
“Don’t be angry, King Yan. I am not saying this to humiliate Xiliang. After all… this is how the former Yan Kingdom came to be.” The Ninth Prince of Dayan spoke slowly, which calmed Li Zhijie’s anger a lot.
“Only if the country can survive can there be a glimmer of hope! Only in this way… can Xiliang have a future.” The Ninth Prince of Dayan stood up and bowed to Li Zhijie. “Prince Yan, you should think carefully about what I said. Of course… if Xiliang pays tribute to the Great Zhou, it will be the same. However, Yun Poxing of Xiliang has a personal grudge against the Queen of the Great Zhou.”
The Ninth Prince of Dayan bowed to Li Zhijie, walked to Li Zhijie and patted him on the shoulder gently, walked out of the pavilion, put on his shoes, and was about to leave, but stopped as if he remembered something.
He turned around and said through the swaying gauze, “I heard that… the people have given up farming and are now keen on weaving jade brocade and hunting wild animal furs. Xiliang should thank the nobles of the Great Zhou for liking this jade brocade and Xiliang’s animal skins. The Great Zhou does not have the ability to weave jade brocade and does not have Xiliang’s animal skins. This has made Xiliang a fortune!”
When Li Zhijie heard this, he straightened his back and turned to look at the Ninth Prince of Dayan. He felt that there was something else behind the Ninth Prince of Dayan’s words, but before he could ask again… the Ninth Prince of Dayan had already left.
Li Zhijie closed his eyes and heard the sound of tea boiling on the fire. He felt that Xiliang today was just like this teapot, which was literally placed on the fire.
Is that Ghost-faced Prince really… a member of the Bai family? Can this information be used?
Soon, this was denied by Li Zhijie. It was said that Rongdi was now completely controlled by the Ghost-faced Prince. If anyone wanted to see the King of Rongdi, no one could do so without the permission of the Ghost-faced Prince. In name, the Prince was protecting the King of Rongdi, but in fact, he had already sidelined him.
If this ghost-faced prince of Rongdi is really the descendant of the Bai family of the Great Zhou, then… Xiliang is really surrounded by wolves and is in imminent danger.
Although what the Ninth Prince of Dayan said was true, that was how Dayan got here in the first place, and only by preserving the country can there be a future, but the current situation in the world is very different from that of Yan State back then.
When Dayan was weak, there were many countries that checked and constrained each other. But now… all the countries are gone, leaving only Dayan, Dayan and Xiliang, as well as Rongdi, who may already be in Dayan’s pocket. How can Xiliang survive and become strong among two powerful countries that have ambitions to unify the world?
But Li Zhijie did not completely believe what the Ninth Prince of Dayan said. After all… with the current strength of the Great Zhou, if Rongdi was already in the hands of the Great Zhou, the Great Zhou should let Rongdi fight Xiliang first, and after Xiliang’s military strength was weakened, they should destroy Xiliang in one fell swoop.
However, right now, the Queen of the Great Zhou, Bai Qingyan, is helping Xiliang to delay time, which… Li Zhijie cannot understand.
It seems that we have to send someone to check what Bai Qingqi, the third son of the Bai family, was doing in southern Xinjiang. As long as we figure this out… I think things will become clear.
The Ninth Prince of Dayan returned to the courtyard and did not allow anyone to follow him. He pushed the door open and saw Xiao Rongyan standing in front of the table practicing calligraphy. He closed the door, walked to the table and bowed to Xiao Rongyan: “Master, I have said everything I need to say.”
Xiao Rongyan nodded, stood up and glanced at his own writing: “It all depends on whether Li Zhijie wants to understand… The profit-seeking nature of merchants has been properly utilized by the Great Zhou. In the future, it will be easy to destroy Xiliang.”
“If the Queen of Xiliang and the King of Yan are smart enough, they should submit to our Great Yan.”
When Xiao Rongyan heard this, he just smiled and said nothing.
·
On July 29th and 30th of the first year of Yuanhe, Xiao Ruohai and Bai Qingqi arrived in Yunjing respectively.
Xiao Ruohai, who arrived the day before, brought Chen Qingsheng to the inn to meet Bai Qingqi. The situation was unclear at this time, and Bai Qingqi had not yet rashly gone to see the Queen of Xiliang as an envoy of the Great Zhou.
When Chen Qingsheng saw the white hair on Bai Qingqi’s temples, he was stunned at first, and then his eyes filled with tears.
Bai Qingqi sat on the Hu chair, stroking the armrests, and quietly looked at Chen Qingsheng who was still explaining the whole story.
Chen Qingsheng has grown a beard now, and looks much more stable.
“That day, there was no sign. Several big shopkeepers came back and were checking accounts with Master Fengnian. Suddenly, someone from the palace came to my house and said that His Majesty invited Master Fengnian to the palace. But that day was not the day that His Majesty and Master Fengnian had agreed to come to the palace to tell stories. But the person who came had a token from the Xiliang Palace. Master Fengnian asked me to take care of several shopkeepers and preside over the account check. Then he left with the people from the Xiliang Palace!”
Chen Qingsheng spoke calmly and explained the matter of Bai Jintong being imprisoned: “At night, Master Fengnian had not returned yet, so I handed the reconciliation to Manager Fang, and took generous gifts to the Xiliang royal family and nobles who were on good terms with Master Fengnian to inquire about the news, but they were all confused and knew nothing.”