To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 1069: Chapter 436 Digestion and Combing_2 Chapter 1069: Chapter 436 Digestion and Combing_2 “`

Compared to this vast prospect, a few Inborn Grandmasters, mere existences like ants, weren’t worthy of expending Magic Power.

Therefore, rather than opting for the more convenient solution, Lu Yuan still preferred to take a bit more time.

It’s just the death of ten or twenty million people, right?

The Chu State has plenty of people, and even if the number doubled, he would gnash his teeth and bear it.

Especially if he didn’t choose to break the rules.

But engaged in the game of wrestling for supremacy with the Nine Provinces within these rules, then the cost of ten or twenty million lives wouldn’t need to be borne by the Chu State but could be shifted onto other countries.

Just like the use of captives before.

The damage that was supposed to be borne by Chu people was replaced by these captives, right?

The Chu State didn’t only avoid significant losses, but on the contrary, it stabilized the region and gained even more benefits due to the consumption of these captives.

It was with these interests in mind that Lu Yuan was willing to play the game of supremacy with those people.

As long as he didn’t suffer losses and could take advantage, that was all that mattered.

The only loss for him was that instead of possibly unifying the Nine Provinces in one or two years, it now might take three to four, or even five to six years to do so.

A few years’ time is trivial for the immortal Lu Yuan.

Source: .com, updated on Ɲ0νǤᴑ.сο

He could afford to wait.

…

After killing Emperor Liang and eradicating another Inborn within the city, and displaying the corpses of these two core figures of both countries, hanging them on the city walls for a public show,

The remaining resistance in the city from the Liang people crumbled entirely.

For them, the emperor and those top-ranking ministers and nobles represented the last hope of Liang’s rise.

Because these people embodied the Inborn Grandmasters, the world’s utmost combat strength, vast connections, resources, and fame…

When force, power, and knowledge and such factors combined into one, the class monopoly in this world was so tight it was outrageous, making the low-level people even more desperate.

But similarly, when these symbols of power were concentrated in one class, by destroying that class, all resistance was also destroyed.

What Lu Yuan was doing now was exactly this.

Eliminating the imperial family of Liang, wiping out the top nobility of the country, completely severing their Inborn lineage, meant the country lost all hope.

Having seen the terror of the Inborn Grandmasters, the common people still resisting below, upon learning that their own Inborn Grandmasters were eliminated, felt even more powerless and desperate.

Now that there were no more Inborns in the city, continuing their resistance was futile.

Even if they resisted more fiercely and attracted the Inborn Grandmasters of the Chu people, then everyone would have no chance to survive.

Nobody wants to die, especially a meaningless death.

Realizing this, the last bit of resistance inside the city of Daliang quickly dissipated.

The fugitive soldiers either surrendered or stripped off their armor and ran back home, hiding away as good people.

After all, virtually all remnants of the Liang army inside the city were forcibly conscripted from the local populace; they were locals to begin with.

Now that the war was over, making their way home was indeed easy.

Even for the Chu army to pursue them, it was rather easy.

Simply arresting all the manly men who could wield weapons – these were the remnants of the fleeing Liang army.

Count one for each one caught, no mistakes would be made.

The conscription laws of Liang had been made crystal clear to the Chu army through the interrogation of some captives taken from the city over the past few months of war.

In the city, if one was male and could wield a weapon, there were no innocents.

All had military experience, had served as soldiers, and had fought against the Chu army.

Taking them away didn’t wrong anyone.

But regarding this, Lu Yuan didn’t press hard.

Those city-dwellers, who had previously resisted the Chu State, were essentially oppressed by the high-level class to begin with.

If they could live peacefully, who would want to take up arms and desperately fight against the fierce Chu people on the city walls?

Wasn’t it the officials and nobles who forced them?

Moreover,

The Liang army was essentially killing their own people anyway.

During the siege, Lu Yuan used mostly the Liang captive soldiers, and it was the Liang people who were dying.

They were simply killing each other, pure infighting.

The real Chu army, in contrast, suffered hardly any damage and retained over ninety percent of its strength.

In such a situation, there could be no talk of hatred.

If there were any grudges, it was the Liang people hating themselves, what did that have to do with the Chu people?

And those Liang fugitive soldiers who escaped home, most of them were either old men or children; the adult males had already been cleanly wiped out in the countless major battles that happened before.

What use were these old men and children?

They were even considered a waste of grain as cannon fodder.

Furthermore, they weren’t numerous, only about twenty or thirty thousand, and with the Chu army’s usage rate of cannon fodder, they’d be gone in a single siege battle.

The value was indeed not significant.

After considering all these factors, Lu Yuan simply pardoned these fugitives, too lazy to waste time and effort catching them.

It just so happened that he could use this pardon to buy some goodwill.

He had spared the family members of the city-dwellers, allowing their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers to come home.

ƝονǤο.ᴄօ

Wasn’t that a kindness?

Granted, as the escapees were few in number, not everyone could owe him this favor.

But somehow, it would still win over a hundred thousand or so people.

To dispel the intense hostility of a hundred thousand people towards the Chu State, the deal was still very profitable, much better than having an extra twenty or thirty thousand weak cannon fodder.

“`