Chapter 106 It Snowed
Emperor Ji Bai completely became a mascot, and everyone rallied around Luo Zhi.
"Gentlemen, this is an unprecedented war."
Luo Zhi said in a clear voice: "After more than a hundred years of growth, the population of the various countries in the Xia Dynasty has more than doubled.
When Qi became the overlord, its military force was only a few hundred thousand, and it was the only country in the world with ten thousand chariots.
But what about now?
There are countless countries with tens of thousands of chariots.
Chu had 500,000 soldiers, Qin had 300,000 soldiers, Zhao, Wei and Han had more than 300,000 soldiers, Qi had more than 300,000 soldiers, Luo had more than 200,000 soldiers, and Wu had 200,000 soldiers. No one knew what the consequences of a fight between two million people would be."
Listening to this long list of numbers, many people even felt suffocated.
"In the battle between Wu and Chu, there were 400,000 people in total. Wu took the food, armor, and weapons from Song, and with a little help, it was enough to cope with it."
The war between Wu and Chu was more like a fight for strategic points to prevent Chu from attacking the flank of the Central Plains coalition forces from Xu and Huai.
Luo Zhi pointed to the geomancy map and said, "The three nobles of Qin and Jin are confronting each other. Qin and Wei have a total of 400,000 people, Chu still has 100,000 people in the south of the royal capital, and Han and Zhao currently only have 250,000 people.
The State of Jin was in chaos, and much of the military power was in the hands of small and medium-sized noble families.
Inform Han and Zhao that I will send 200,000 troops from Qi and Luo to support them, and at the same time ask them to withdraw all the young and strong men in the fiefdoms and the troops scattered in Jin State, so as not to let the Wei family's strength continue to grow."
As both sides increased their troops, this place had actually become the main battlefield. In the war centered on Wangji and Jin State, more than one million troops fought for the dangerous mountain passes here.
"If Han and Zhao can achieve great success on the battlefield and defeat Qin and Wei, I will ask the emperor to confer them the title of marquis, allowing them to completely turn their families into their country."
Everyone was shocked when they heard this. In the end, it had come to this point. They had to divide the royal family into fiefs. But on second thought, in order to save the life of King Bang Zhou, this was already the last resort.
If Han and Zhao are pushed towards Qin and Wei, unless King Su comes to the world, everyone present will just surrender.
Seeing that everyone was losing their morale, Luo Zhi said loudly: "Everyone!
The spirit of King Su is in heaven, and the destiny of Bang Zhou has not yet ended, so Haotian will protect it.
In the past, when Duke Xuan was in power, the four barbarians invaded the Chinese nation, and the destiny of China was in danger.
Could it be more dangerous now than it was then?"
…
Luoyi, the royal capital of Bangzhou, is the center of the current conflict. Millions of troops are surrounding Luoyi for hundreds of miles. The bloody murderous aura rising into the sky makes birds, beasts, flowers and insects dare not make a sound.
Having never experienced a war with such a large number of participants, both sides were very cautious, but soon began to improve the current war mode.
The intensity of the war instantly rose to a higher level. In other words, the number of casualties began to surge.
The war completely turned into a game of exchanging pieces. Even victory at the tactical level would be futile in such a large-scale battle.
Even if a surprise attack cut off a food supply route, the food supply routes are interconnected and no one would store food in one place.
Luo Zhi himself was not a powerful general. He received news from all directions, most of which were about casualties and shortage of food and fodder.
Luo Zhi saw a deeper worry from this, "The young and strong men of the whole country are gathered here, and the farming season in the country will definitely be delayed.
But now everyone is holding their breath, and no one dares to stop the war."
This is the most terrifying thing right now. Both sides are thinking about defeating the other side and then eating their fill on the other side's corpse. It is actually inappropriate to describe it this way.
Because there will be no winner in this war, the losing side will surely be exhausted, and the winner will not get any benefits at all.
Luo Zhi couldn't help but recall what his great-aunt had said to him, "Wars between nations are caused by irreconcilable contradictions between them, so there are bloody battles.
In a bloody battle, if one side fails directly, then everything will be over.
But if they fall into constant chaos and stalemate, they will head towards another outcome - both sides will bleed to the last drop and both will suffer losses!
Military victory can never make up for the hardships of the people's lives, and the monarch's grand ambitions cannot make the people bleed forever. If the low-level nobles and the people who support the country hate war, the war will fail.
If that day really comes, you can try to drag it out. The Luo Kingdom royal family has been practicing the kingly way for seven hundred years and will definitely be the final winner. "
Luo Zhi looked at the bloody numbers in his hand. In fact, there were many people of Luo State. These men came to the battlefield with high aspirations, saying that they wanted to repay the great kindness of the royal family.
Luo Zhi once saw with his own eyes a man from Luo State who was about to die due to inadequate treatment. He could still smile and say, "I have received great favors from the royal family since I was young. Today I repay them with my life. The Su King above the Nine Heavens will surely praise my loyalty."
When he died singing hymns, Luo Zhi understood why his great-aunt had that meaningful look in her eyes. How could a monarch who followed the kingly way use the blood of his people as consumables to pave his own way?
"Boom boom boom."
This was a sound only made by soldiers wearing heavy armor. Luo Zhi looked up and saw that it was his younger brother Luo You. There was a long scar on his heroic face, and now his face was full of sadness. Luo Zhi's heart skipped a beat.
Luo ignored the others in the hall and walked in and knelt in front of Luo Zhi, crying bitterly: "Brother, I am sorry for you again. My son is dead, and he died in the hands of the Qin people."
All the busy people in the hall froze in place in an instant, and everyone looked at each other in disbelief.
Luo Ci, the crown prince of Luo State.
Countless members of the Luo state's royal family and people shed blood on the battlefield, so Luo Zhi's son naturally could not sit still in Zhaocheng.
Luo Zhi's hand trembled and his eyes became moist. He looked at the casualty list in his hand again, as if he saw his son, the handsome young man, smiling at him.
He suppressed his grief and said, "Many nobles and people of Luo Country died in this war. Brother, this is the list of beneficiaries. I'll leave this to you."
Luo knelt heavily on the ground again and burst into tears. Everyone in the hall knelt on the ground one after another. Luo stood up and walked out of the hall with a heavy figure.
The news that the crown prince of Luo died on the battlefield soon spread throughout the nations. The King of Chu and Xiang Cheng were silent for a long time. After a long while, Xiang Cheng said slowly: "Your Majesty, Xiang will accompany you to the end and will serve the future king of Chu until the destiny of the Chu people arrives."
Qin Ren didn't expect that he would kill the prince of Luo State with his own hands, which made Qin Bo's face look a little bad. Although he wanted to attack Luo State, he had not thought about openly killing the direct descendants of Luo State, or even the prince of Luo State.
Many soldiers of Luo State cried bitterly. The special system of the royal family of Luo State made the prestige of every royal family member very high. Many of the soldiers were even royal family members who had received favors from Luo Ci personally.
Countless people joined the army eagerly just to repay the kindness of Luo Zhi and Luo Ci, but they didn't expect that such noble people would leave before them.
Ji Zhao looked silently at a newly added statue in Valhalla. This was the youngest person to enter Valhalla, and it was Luo Ci. On the base of his statue were countless figures wielding weapons.
"Lingjun's evaluation of your father is indeed correct. The Heavenly Fate Artifact must be used. Seeing you so grief-stricken and angry, I cannot bear it."
Ji Zhao walked out of the Hall of Heroes with his hands behind his back, looking at the dark clouds in the sky, which had dissipated a little. "It is indeed so. The origin of all the nobility of the Luo family is because of my bloodline, which was bestowed by King Wu. As a noble of bloodline, I will repay with blood.
But this is not the right time, the Mandate of Bang Zhou still exists."
Luo Ci's death made the war situation even more tense, especially the soldiers of Luo State seemed to have taken medicine, and their morale became increasingly strong.
Time passed like this, one year, two years, three years.
Both sides seemed to be tired of fighting. Over the years, the State of Chu had defeated the State of Wu, but was immediately pushed back by the army of Luo Qi. Apart from countless corpses left behind by both sides, there was no progress at all.
The frontal battlefield was so terrible that more than 300,000 people died here in three years!
When the outcome was still undecided, the death toll was extremely shocking, as these were the people who died in head-on fighting.
By the fourth year, the war situation had changed dramatically. The number of deaths on the battlefield was no longer a big deal. After three years of bloody fighting without a moment's pause, the nations were almost unable to hold on.
In order to strengthen the determination of the two clans of Han and Zhao to continue the war, Luo Zhi appointed Han Cheng and Zhao Yong as princes.
However, among all the countries, South Korea is the weakest. As the armaments of all the countries are tight, they are powerless to help South Korea.
Although Qi and Luo were wealthy, it was already quite difficult for them to support Wu. Qi even had to rely on Yan to defend the north before it could mobilize the entire country to fight.
Under such circumstances, Han unsurprisingly became a breakthrough point for the three kingdoms of Qin, Wei and Chu. If it had not been for the timely rescue from Zhao and Luo, the newly appointed Marquis of Han would probably have been captured directly.
But it is an indisputable fact that South Korea has been breached. In this kind of confrontation, if any node is defeated, it will cause a chain reaction.
Everyone looked unhappy. The extremely cruel war lasted for four years, but ended up with such an outcome. Who could accept it?
South Korea’s defeat is like a balance scale from which a small weight is suddenly removed. Although tiny, the balance irreversibly tilts in the other direction.
Qin Chu saw the dawn of victory and went completely crazy. The battlefield, which had long been routine, was once again covered with flying blood and splattered flesh.
Countless broken limbs, chopped-off heads, arrows stuck through pupils, and countless corpses lying in the wilderness.
As Qin and Chu were advancing, Qi and Luo tried to fill the gap created by Han and give the Han army time to reorganize, but Chu immediately launched a fierce attack from another direction.
As for the Wu State, once Qi and Luo stopped their assistance, they would be immediately oppressed by the Chu State.
When the armies of Qi and Zhao were surrounded, with nearly half of Zhao's soldiers killed or wounded and most of Qi's soldiers injured or killed, everyone knew that the game was over.
The Chu army once again defeated the Wu army, and the Wu, Qi and Luo armies retreated from Zheng towards the royal capital.
Wei Qing laughed wildly, "Winning first does not count as winning. Among the three ministers of Jin, I am the one who has the last laugh."
The Duke of Qin and the King of Chu smiled at each other and said, "We will step on the royal territory and enter Luoyi!"
That night, an envoy from the Luo family came to the camps of Qin and Chu respectively. The faces of the kings of Qin and Chu changed from gloomy to uncertain.
In Luoyi City, Luo Zhi sat on the altar, offering sacrifices to Haotian Suwang under the gaze of countless people.
"The spirit of the Su King is in heaven, and the destiny of Bang Zhou will last forever!"
Countless people knelt on the ground like a tide with their last hope, hoping that King Su would have mercy on them and protect them.
The sky was clear and the air was fresh, and thousands of people in Luoyi City praised the emperor.
Snow fell.
Fall to the ground.
Mixed with bright red blood.
Very dazzling.
…
The war among the Xia states lasted for five years. The Ji-Jiang alliance led by Qi and Luo and the Qin-Chu alliance fought a desperate battle on three battlefields. The Qin-Chu alliance won a decisive victory and completely destroyed the foundation on which the Zhou Dynasty depended for its survival.
This war brought great disaster to the participating countries, causing the death of no less than six million people. The population growth in the past hundred years almost dropped off, especially the loss of young and strong labor, which caused great damage to social productivity. - "The Rise and Fall of the Zhou Dynasty"
(End of this chapter)
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