Chapter 392: The Situation of Yue
Daxia.
Ruizhou.
Cang County.
Ruizhou is located in the southwestern border of Daxia, bordering the State of Yue. It has a population of no more than one million. There are more mountains than plains in the state. Although it is located in a remote area, there are many merchants from other places. Especially in summer and autumn, countless caravans gather here.
This is because the mountains of Ruizhou are rich in mushrooms.
The terrain here is complex, with unique climatic conditions, and the vast forests are home to rich fungal resources.
These mushrooms are very popular among wealthy families. Every year when the mushrooms are ripe, a large number of caravans will come here to buy mushrooms from local people at low prices. When they arrive in Chang'an or Jinyang, they will resell them at dozens of times the price.
There are also some special mushrooms which are not suitable for consumption, but after being processed by doctors with special techniques, taking them can make people feel euphoric and can easily make people intoxicated.
This kind of mushroom is more expensive. In order to reap huge profits, many people still flock to it even though mushroom picking is extremely dangerous and there is a certain possibility of losing one's life in the mountains.
In a restaurant in Cang County, a young man said gratefully: "Brother Huang, thank you for bringing me here to make money and taking me to eat such delicious meals. When I make money, I will definitely repay you!"
Another person put his arm around his shoulders and said with a smile, "You and I are brothers, why are you being so polite? Come, have some soup. The mushrooms here are extremely delicious. You can't have that in Chang'an..."
The young man drank several bowls of mushroom soup until the bottom of the pot was empty. He wiped his mouth and said with satisfaction, "It's really delicious. Do those rich masters drink this every day?"
The man smiled and said, "You are wrong. If we bring this mushroom to Chang'an, the price will increase by more than a hundred times. Those rich masters can't drink it every day. If we can pick a whole truckload, dry it and ship it back, you and I will be rich..."
Half a day later.
The young man followed several figures on the dark mountain path and asked in confusion, "Brother Huang, didn't we say we were in Ruizhou? It seems like we are about to leave Ruizhou... Is the Kingdom of Yue ahead?"
The man waved his hand and said, "So many people are picking mushrooms in the mountains of Ruizhou. How can there be so many mushrooms to pick? Fortune and wealth are sought in danger. You can only pick more in Yue State. Do you still want to buy a house and get married? If you do, come with me..."
After hearing this, the young man didn't ask any more questions.
A few days later.
Somewhere in Yue State, inside a dungeon.
The young man looked at this elder brother who he had known for a long time and treated him very well, and asked in confusion: "Brother Huang, what do you mean by this?"
The man put a knife on his neck and sneered, "Write a letter to your family and send five hundred taels of silver, and I'll let you go back..."
The young man was shocked and angry, and shouted: "You, you, you are kidnapping, aren't you afraid of the government?"
The man surnamed Huang curled his lips and said, "Government, you're talking to me about government?"
After a while, the young man squatted on the ground holding his head, begging: "Stop hitting me, stop hitting me. You know my family's situation. Where can I get so much money..."
The man stepped on his face and said, "It's okay if you don't have money. Write to your relatives and friends and tell them that there is a lot of money to be made by picking mushrooms here. If you can call ten people over, I can let you go back..."
The young man asked in a trembling voice: "What if I can't get so many people?"
The man said with a half-smile, "I can't raise the money, and I can't call anyone. There's no point in keeping this kind of trash. I have no choice but to tear you apart and sell you."
"Tear it apart and sell it?"
"Although your life is not worth much, if you take it apart and sell it, you can still get a lot of money. Your heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and your blood can save many people, which can be regarded as a merit of yours..."
"No, please, don't do this to me, I'll write it now, and I'll help you get more people here!"
…
Soon, the man led a few people out of the dungeon and walked through a long and narrow passage.
On both sides of the passage were some small cells, each containing one or more figures, who were either clinging to the bars of the cell, begging desperately, or curled up in the corner of the cell, wailing in pain...
As soon as the man surnamed Huang walked out of the dungeon, a man came towards him and raised his hand and said, "You are back just in time. Go to the prison and pick ten people. They will be of great use to you..."
Hearing the word "Young Master", the expression on Huang's face immediately became much more serious, and he nodded immediately and said, "Got it, I'll go right away."
He walked back into the dungeon and selected ten people from a row of cells.
These ten men looked dying, and they were either sick or injured. It was impossible to get new heads for them. Even if they were sold as slaves, no one would want them. It would be a waste of food if they were kept alive.
Ten people were taken outside, and the man surnamed Huang picked two of them and said, "You two, follow me."
He led the two of them through several corridors and came into a room.
Two young men in elegant clothes were sitting inside. The man surnamed Huang bowed to them and said respectfully, "Sir, Your Highness, the person is here."
In the middle of the room, there was a table with two wine glasses on it, filled with light green wine.
A nobleman walked to the table with his hands behind his back, pointed at two wine glasses, and said to the two men, "Each of you choose a glass and drink them."
The two looked at each other. Although they didn't know what had happened so far, their intuition told them that they couldn't drink this glass of wine.
However, the current situation does not allow them to have any choice.
The man surnamed Huang kicked them twice and said, "Why are you still standing there? Didn't you hear what His Highness said? Drink!"
The nobleman did not hide anything. He looked at the two of them and said frankly, "Among these two cups of wine, one is poisoned and the other is not poisonous. If you drink the poisoned wine, you will die within a quarter of an hour. If you choose the non-poisonous cup, you will be lucky and can leave here..."
The two men looked pale as they looked at the two identical glasses of wine on the table. They knew they had no choice and could only observe the wine in the glasses carefully.
After observing for a few moments, one of them quickly reached out and picked up one of the cups. When the other person reached out, it was too late. He could only pick up the remaining cup tremblingly, his face even paler than before.
Seeing their hesitation, the man surnamed Huang urged them, "What are you standing there for? Drink!"
If you don't drink it, you will die. If you drink it, you still have a half chance of survival.
The two men gritted their teeth, raised their glasses at the same time, and drank the wine in the glasses.
The nobleman walked over to another young man who was sitting and drinking tea, and asked with a smile, "Brother Ximen, who of them drank the poisoned wine?"
Although he was the one who prepared the two glasses of wine, he had had the order mixed up, so he himself didn't know which one was poisonous and which one was not.
The young man put down the teacup in his hand, flicked his fingers quickly, glanced at the man who first picked up the wine glass, and said calmly: "You look dead, your life is about to end..."
The man shuddered and forced himself to suppress the panic in his heart.
The man surnamed Huang glanced at the two of them and said, "You two, go wait outside and don't dirty this place later."
The two men walked outside with great trepidation. The man who had just stood in the yard and was told by the young man that his life was coming to an end suddenly trembled and collapsed to the ground. His body kept twitching, and blood spurted out of his mouth. Soon he became motionless...
When a person next to him saw this scene, although his legs were shaking violently, his heart was filled with joy of surviving a disaster.
Fortunately, he was slow and didn't grab the cup of poisoned wine...
He looked at the man surnamed Huang tremblingly and asked, "Manager Huang, can I go home now?"
The man surnamed Huang nodded and said, "Don't worry, Your Highness is a man of his word. If he says you should leave here, he will let you leave here..."
The man knelt on the ground, kowtowed several times, and thanked him profusely: "Thank you, Manager Huang, thank you, Your Highness!"
The man surnamed Huang smiled and didn't say much.
Of course he would keep his promise and let him leave, but he didn't say where to send him.
Now that you're here, do you want to go back?
With this man's body and appearance, although he couldn't be sold to others as a male prostitute at a high price, he could still be sold to the Chu and Wei states as a slave. As for Daxia, he would never be able to return...
The nobleman walked outside, looked at the body on the ground, waved his hand, and said, "Carry it out and bury it, then go call two more people over..."
After saying that, he walked into the room again and exclaimed: "As expected of you, Brother Ximen. The next Half-Saint of the Ximen family must be you..."
The young man closed his eyes and said nothing, but the slightly raised corners of his mouth showed that he enjoyed the words very much.
At this time, the noble young man asked again: "I wonder if Brother Ximen can help me calculate my fortune?"
The young man opened his eyes and asked, "What do you want to calculate?"
The nobleman smiled and said, "I want to calculate how long I can live..."
The young man shook his head and said, "With my current cultivation level, I can't calculate other people's life spans. If you want to know, give me your birth date and I'll ask my grandfather to calculate it for you next time..."
The nobleman was pleasantly surprised and said, "Thank you, Brother Ximen..."
He found a pen and paper in the room and had just finished writing down his birth date when the man surnamed Huang came here with two other people...
…
Yue State.
Although the Kingdom of Yue was called a country, unlike the five dynasties, the central court of the Kingdom of Yue did not have complete control over the entire territory of Yue. The country had a total of ten states, and only half of them were controlled by the court of Yue.
The other five states were occupied by two major separatist forces within the territory of Yue State.
These two major forces, claiming to be the White Wolf Army and the Black Tiger Army, occupy two and three states respectively. There are frictions between the three major forces, and the actual control range often changes, but generally they always present a three-way balance of power.
In Qinzhou, Yue State, deep in a heavily guarded mountain.
Loud slogans echoed in the mountains. High in the sky, one could vaguely see a number of soldiers training on the flat areas of the mountains.
This is the base camp of the White Wolf Army.
The White Wolf Army and the Black Tiger Army are known as the forces of the State of Yue, but many people know that the State of Wei is behind the court of the State of Yue, the White Wolf Army is secretly supported by the Great Xia, and the shadow of the State of Chu is behind the Black Tiger Army.
In front of the camp built with high walls, two figures suddenly fell from the sky.
The two people who came were an old man and a young boy. The guards of the village felt dizzy before their eyes. After they reacted, they immediately pointed the spear in their hands at the two people and shouted sternly: "Who are you?"
This is the base camp of the White Wolf Army. There are patrols here all the time. Soon, the two men were surrounded by a team of guards.
"Who is it?"
"What are you doing here!?"
Facing the sharp weapons around him, the young man looked calm, threw something out and said, "Li Nuo, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Justice of Daxia, where is the general of the White Wolf Army?"
A captain reached out to take the thing he threw out, took a look at it, and immediately became serious. He said in a deep voice: "You wait here!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he hurried into the camp.
In a barracks somewhere, a middle-aged man in armor put two military tokens together. The joints fit together tightly without any gap, and the patterns on them also matched perfectly.
A moment later, as two figures walked into the barracks, the middle-aged man bowed to Li Nuo and said, "Hello, Lord Li."
Li Nuo also clasped his fists and said in return, "General Bai, you're welcome."
After greeting each other, both of them looked at each other.
There is a rare aura about this middle-aged general. Li Nuo had felt this aura in Lanzhou when he and Yi Ren first returned to Daxia from Zhao State. This is the aura of a military strategist.
However, the feeling of oppression from the person on the opposite side was stronger than the general he met last time.
His military skills should have reached the fifth level.
Military strategists need to grow in war, and the chaos in Yue State is just right for training military strategists.
Li Nuo felt the military aura from many people here.
In addition to being a military strategist, this general also has a very friendly aura.
In addition to being a military strategist, he is also a Confucian disciple. Although his Confucian cultivation is not as good as that of the military strategists, he has also reached the second level.
Li Nuo released a Confucian aura at the right time. The next moment, the expression on the middle-aged general's face changed significantly. He stretched out his hand and said enthusiastically: "Master Li, please sit down..."
The military token in hand meant that he had obtained permission from the court. After Li Nuo sat down, General Bai asked directly, "What instructions do you have for Lord Li?"
Li Nuo said: "Many people in Daxia were kidnapped and taken to Yue State. This time I went to Yue State to rescue them."
Upon hearing this, General Bai's face became slightly gloomy. He said, "Lord Li has just arrived in Yue State and doesn't know much about the situation. This matter involves a wide range of people. Not only is the Yue royal family involved, but people from Wei State are also involved. With the power of the White Wolf Army, it is almost impossible to rescue them, unless the court is willing to reinforce..."
Before Li Nuo came, the three provinces had already expressed their stance.
Yue was an independent country, and the imperial court could not openly send troops unless it wanted to destroy Yue.
There is almost no possibility of secret reinforcements.
Daxia's external environment was extremely harsh. In addition to Wei, Chu also had a tendency to transfer troops to the border. Daxia could not defeat either of these two countries, let alone two. Almost all the troops that could be mobilized were used to defend against these two countries, and it could not be distracted at all.
Li Nuo could only find a way to deal with the affairs of Yue State on his own.
General Bai said helplessly: "Among the Yue Kingdom's court, the Black Tiger Army, and the White Wolf Army, we are the weakest. I am the only one in the Fifth Realm of the White Wolf Army, and there are about a hundred people in the Fourth Realm. The Black Tiger Army has two people in the Fifth Realm and about a hundred and fifty people in the Fourth Realm. The Yue Kingdom's Central Army is supported by the Wei Kingdom behind the scenes and has three people in the Fifth Realm. Their military strength is several times that of ours. It is said that there is also a person in the Sixth Realm of the Wei Kingdom among them..."
Listening to General Bai's analysis of the strength of several major forces, Li Nuo had a very strange feeling.
This was the first time he felt the gap between small countries and big countries.
When the martial arts conference was held, dozens of masters lived in a small martial arts village. As a country, Yue had only three people in the fifth realm, and their top combat power was similar to that of the Li family.
Of course, this does not mean that the Li family can single-handedly challenge the Yue State’s central army.
A Grandmaster at the third realm can defeat a hundred enemies at once, but he is still not at the level of a saint. Facing an endless army, his true energy will always run out.
When the army has more than 10,000 people and is led by a military strategist, even if these people are of low level, a semi-saint would have to temporarily avoid them when seeing them.
Li Nuo learned from General Bai that the White Wolf Army had about 20,000 low-level soldiers, the Black Tiger Army had 30,000, and the Yue Central Army had more than 50,000. In a head-on confrontation, the White Wolf Army would never be able to win.
Originally, if the Yue court was willing to cooperate and release the people, it would never have come to the point of war.
But they are unwilling to cooperate, so this is the only way out.
It is impossible for Li Nuo and Dongfang Xuan alone to bring so many people back from Yue State. Only by completely clearing all obstacles along the way can the purpose of this trip be achieved.
Although Li Nuo is quite powerful, he cannot match the army.
Senior Dongfang cannot act rashly either.
Being in the sixth realm, compared with warriors and semi-saints from other families, the Yin-Yang family can only be used as a back-up deterrent.
When facing opponents of the same level, their strategy is to die together.
Before the opponent makes a move, sacrifice your own life, deprive the opponent of his life, injure the enemy by 800 and lose 800 of your own life.
He follows Li Nuo and serves as more of a deterrent.
The current situation is that we have to fight, but we can't.
If the imperial court cannot provide help, Li Nuo can only mobilize people on his own...
(End of this chapter)
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