Zuan was stunned. Was it that serious?

At this time, several more waves of envoys arrived, all of them special envoys sent by the King of Zhi. Each one was more anxious than the last, which showed that the war in the north was already in dire straits.

Pei Mianman then pulled Zu An aside: "Zu, if the Shang Kingdom is destroyed, our trial will probably be over, right?"

“Of course.” Zuan understood her meaning. After all, this trial was established by the Shang people. If he caused the Shang Kingdom to be destroyed by the Tu Fang, then forget about the Zhou people or not, everything would definitely be over.

Left with no other choice, he decided to deal with the earthwork first, and then deal with the Zhou people when he had time.

The courtiers were overjoyed and sang praises of his wisdom.

Zuan was too lazy to waste words with them, so he directly summoned all the ministers to discuss the matter of sending troops. Everything else was easy to talk about, but the key was the generals who would lead the troops.

The court officials all recommended the Queen to lead the troops, because she now had the highest prestige in the army and had proven herself in the battle against the Qiang. She was the only one in the court and among the people who could do it.

Zu An was immediately in a bind. He naturally didn't want to be separated from Pei Mianman, and Pei Mianman didn't want to either.

However, after careful consideration, the two realized that this might be another test, so Pei Mianman volunteered to go into battle.

As for Zaun himself, he could only stay in Yindu to oversee things. Firstly, he had just dealt with the High Priest, and many of his former forces had infiltrated into the shadows. If he left, trouble was likely to break out. Secondly, in war, besides generals and soldiers, the most important thing is logistics. In other words, whether a war can be won largely depends on logistics.

Only if Zu'an handles the logistical work in Yindu can Pei Mianman focus on fighting on the front lines.

Zu An felt a little strange. Everyone said that men should be in charge of external affairs and women should be in charge of internal affairs, but in his case, it was completely reversed. However, he did not refuse, after all, it concerned the important plan of the trial, and he did not want to affect the overall situation because of some men's pride.

Having learned from the experience with the Qiang, both Pei Mianman and Zu An handled their respective tasks with ease this time. About three months later, Pei Mianman returned to the capital victorious.

Zu'an thought he could finally free up his hands to deal with the Zhou people, but soon the ruler of the ancient Tang Kingdom came to ask for help, and the Gongkou Fang north of the Yellow River invaded.

Having finally dealt with the Gongkou Fang matter, they were then faced with an even more powerful invasion from the Gui Fang on the Mongolian Plateau. Zu'an and Pei Mianman were overwhelmed with problems and had no time to worry about the Zhou people in the west.

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P.S. The character Xiao Tuo is based on a historical figure, Fu Tuo, one of Wu Ding's concubines. There were originally several other concubines of higher status who could have been ranked alongside Fu Hao, but unfortunately, their names were too obscure. After searching through the harem for a long time, I chose Fu Tuo because her name sounds more normal...