To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 807: Chapter 348: The North Is Without Worry_3

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However, although Yangguan Road was no longer an option, there were other routes out of Longxi available to Chu State.

Years ago when Lu Yuan began developing Hegu Prefecture, in addition to resolving the problem of the barbarians on the border of Xichuan Prefecture, he had another important objective, which was the little-known trail connecting Hegu and Longxi.

This trail, referred to by Lu Yuan as the Forest Path, had been expanded and solidified over the years after extensive surveying and development.

Compared to the past, when it could only accommodate a few or a dozen people, and where often the way forward was cut off, requiring detours over mountains and ridges, through treacherous cliff paths, the situation had improved significantly.

Now, after construction, there was a path that allowed an army of tens of thousands to march through the forest and arrive in Longxi.

Although a force of merely a few thousand or ten thousand was negligible compared to the grand battles involving hundreds of thousands between Zhou Country and the barbarians, it didn’t amount to much and could hardly stir up any significant trouble.

But for Chu State,

the deployment of several thousand or over ten thousand soldiers was enough to benefit from the chaos and snag some advantages.

At the very least, dispatching over ten thousand soldiers under the command of a competent general would suffice to breach some of the weaker county towns in Longxi and plunder their resources and population.

What Lu Yuan wanted wasn’t the annihilation of Zhou Country, nor the conquest of Longxi, and even less to genuinely assist the barbarians.

What he sought had always been simply the resources and population of Zhou Country.

To achieve that goal was enough.

Sending out a small detached army to penetrate Longxi and capture a few thousand people meant that Chu could establish a new small town.

If they captured tens of thousands, they could build a new county town.

With a hundred thousand people, they could even establish a new prefecture.

In this way, little by little, with several ventures and over several years, perhaps a new prefecture could emerge.

Moreover, this Forest Path led to a part of Longxi that was closer to the front line and an area where the powers of the barbarians and Zhou People overlapped.

Chu State had just reached an agreement with the barbarians to trade population for grain, and at this moment, this path could serve as the trade route to transport people and resources.

Thus, this matter was urgent, and Lu Yuan had to get in touch with Huang Xuan, having his own avatar personally supervise the matter to ensure peace of mind.

…

The connections between the barbarians and Chu State were being carefully and closely prepared.

Meanwhile, in the North, as autumn arrived, Zhou Country, as in previous years, began to mobilize and brace themselves for the barbarians’ annual raids for grain.

Both sides were preparing for war.

However, unexpectedly, the first great battle of the year for Zhou Country was not against the barbarians.

On the 29th day of the eighth month in the tenth year of Shenwu,

the Southern Territory of Wei Country launched an unannounced attack with an army of four hundred thousand, brutally invading Shuofang Prefecture of Zhou Country.

Because a large proportion of the veteran elite troops had been transferred elsewhere, more than half of the soldiers in Shuofang were inexperienced recruits.

Added to the sudden attack by Wei Country, Zhou Country wasn’t well-prepared. Within just a short span of a few days, Shuofang Prefecture had lost more than half of its prefectures and counties, leading to a swift and disastrous collapse of the front.

Only then did the surrounding nations realize that Wei Country had long been preparing for this war.

Not only had they secretly amassed their most elite forces, but they had also gathered eight Inborn Grandmasters, including a World-renowned general who was a Second Inborn, to catch Zhou Country completely unawares.

They had been holding back until this year when they saw that the veteran troops from Zhou’s Northern Border were replaced with a large number of new soldiers, creating an opportunity for attack.

Years of planning culminated in this sudden launch, yielding gratifying results.

With half of Shuofang Prefecture fallen, Zhou People’s defensive system in the North was torn asunder.

The original three hundred thousand-strong garrison of the Northern Border suffered losses exceeding two hundred thousand, and among the new recruits recruited this year, a great number were lost.

Even with several Inborn Grandmasters from Wei Country besieging them, one of Zhou Country’s Inborn Pillar Generals died on the battlefield, life extinguished in Shuofang.

Faced with this formidable unexpected foe, along with the prospect of the Wei people breaking through the Northern Border and reaching Guannei,

the monarchs and ministers in Chang’an City were thrown into a frenzy.

The Heavenly Son of Zhou Country hastily decreed the immediate withdrawal of the one hundred and fifty thousand elite Northern Border troops that had been deployed to Longxi, ordering them to Shuofang to resist the Wei forces.

He also commanded the prefectures of Henan and Nanyang to each send fifty thousand troops back to Guannei to urgently reinforce the Capital.

In addition, two Pillar Generals were summoned from the Helong Prefectures to serve as commanders of the army.

Through these hasty reassignments, a force of two hundred and fifty thousand, along with two Inborn Pillar Generals, was eventually scraped together to march north to Shuofang and confront Wei Country.

However, as a result, with the departure of the one hundred and fifty thousand elite troops and two Pillar Generals from the Helong Prefectures, Zhou Country’s military presence there suddenly became greatly depleted.

Only a little over three hundred thousand troops and three Pillar State Generals were left.

This was the weakest period after years of conflict with the barbarians.

Seeing such an opportunity, the barbarians would naturally not let it slip.

Almost the instant that the Northern Border elite had left, eighty thousand barbarian cavalry charged down from the Snowy Wilderness and stormed into the Helong Prefectures.

Now, with a significant loss of troops, Zhou Country, albeit still capable of resisting and even defeating the barbarians, struggled to dispatch sufficient forces to encircle and pursue the wide-spread invasion of the Snow Plains Nomads.

In an instant, countless barbarians poured into the Helong Prefectures. Every prefecture, county, town, village, and hamlet they passed through became a site of battle and carnage—the Northwest was ablaze with war.

In the turmoil, Huang Xuan too chose his troops, and still personally led them through the Forest Path out from Hegu, plunging once again into Longxi.

Zhou Country, with uprisings in both Shuofang and Helong, a million mighty enemies invading, and hundreds of thousands of troops worn out from relentless pursuits, no longer had any capacity to attend to other matters.

Even the defense along the Han River to the South weakened, as Nanyang Prefecture’s substantial number of troops had been withdrawn to Guannei, resulting in the complete loss of deterrence against Chu State.

At this point, Chu State’s Northern Border was free from any threats.

By this time, Lu Yuan could finally rest easy, turn his full attention to the Southern Expedition, and deal with the Four Kingdoms Alliance spearheaded by Ning Country.

But before that, he still wanted to see Mo Li.

To find out what this Master of Feishuang Tao had to say to him before departing.

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