Chapter 90: Surrender? It's not about not accepting, it's about...
It’s not that they don’t understand the principle of “lips and teeth are cold”, but they feel that even if they go to support, they cannot defeat Jingchang.
Since failure was inevitable, and Anguo was definitely not going to be saved, why bother wasting time? It would be better to accumulate strength so that when Jingchang hit him later, he could still struggle.
However, this behavior of not saving An Guo at all is essentially digging a hole for themselves. Without An Guo as a barrier, they may become the second An Guo at any time.
It was as if the Northern Kingdom had not been saved back then, and now Anguo had become the target of Jingchang's attack.
The princes were not stupid, they certainly knew this truth, otherwise they would not have gone to save the Northern Kingdom. But the problem was, they failed to save the Northern Kingdom, but now if it was An Kingdom, could they save it?
Their power will only become smaller and smaller, while Jingchang will become stronger and stronger. When one side becomes too powerful, what awaits them is complete failure.
This is an unavoidable fact.
After Anguo sent out a letter for help, only a few powerful vassal states came to the rescue. And they were just showing off. Not even half of their elite troops were sent out. All of them were soldiers captured from somewhere. They were as thin and skinny as monkeys. They were not even qualified to be the vanguard in the battlefield. They probably couldn't even run.
This made Prince An very angry, and he felt that he had been fooled.
If they weren't fighting Jingchang right now, Prince An would have wanted to turn around and attack those vassal states. This is simply a shame!
Prince An hated those princes in his heart. If he could really avoid Jingchang's charge this time, perhaps Shen Zhiwei would see a scene of dogs biting each other, but this was only an if, and Shen Zhiwei did not want this to happen.
The territory of Anguo was eaten away inch by inch. Compared with the Northern Kingdom, Anguo was even easier to conquer because there was no natural barrier in Anguo that could be defended by one man against ten thousand. The only natural barrier was a big river, the An River, which stretched from north to south and ran through Anguo.
For a river as wide as this, other vassal states had very few ways to cross the river. Especially after the summer, the water level of the Anguo River often rose and the current was very turbulent, making it difficult to cross the river by boat.
Every year during the rainiest month of summer, this river in Anguo becomes impassable. Fortunately, some sections of the river are narrow and there are bridges through which the river can pass. Otherwise, the two ends would be completely separated for this month.
Now, in order to effectively block Jingchang's troops, An Guo demolished the bridge.
The bridge that was built with great difficulty was destroyed in an instant. It is unknown how much manpower, material resources and financial resources will be spent to repair it in the future. However, the subsequent losses are much smaller than the threat of being directly destroyed by Jingchang.
Prince An felt that Anguo could hold on, so he destroyed the bridge without hesitation, using the upcoming flood season to create a natural barrier to prevent Jingchang's army from moving south.
He had a good idea, and this method was indeed very good. If the war dragged on for another month, who knows what would happen. Moreover, Jingchang was on an expedition, and the daily loss of food and fodder was a huge number, which Jingchang might not be able to afford.
Unfortunately, this solution came too late.
This method would have been useful if the shipyard had not built huge ships before, or if the number of ships was small. Now the shipyard can build a large ship in a short period of time. The ships needed by the merchant company are limited, and now they are thinking about whether to explore outward and search for new sea routes.
It would be great if the navy could consume some ships.
Therefore, the shipyard began to build a branch factory, and the army's logistics troops began to transport semi-finished materials for ships directly to the front line. It would have taken a month originally, but now it only takes more than half a month for the navy to be launched.
The infrastructure capabilities of large countries that have already established a certain scale are so terrifying. Even in ancient times, Jingchang, which was beginning to show the ambition of a unified country, had a speed that astonished the world.
During this period, An Guo never stopped making small moves. Of course, they could not just sit there and wait for death. No matter what Jing Chang wanted to do, they tried their best to stop him.
But unfortunately, my strength is limited and it is very difficult to stop it. I tried for a long time, but when I looked, it turned out that it was not delayed for a few days at all.
It was also at this time that Prince An finally realized one thing, that is, Jingchang's strength had surpassed that of all the vassal states.
If Shen Zhiwei was a tyrannical monarch, and if the people under her rule lived a life worse than death, then the vassal states might have united to deal with her. However, not only was she not tyrannical, she was also a wise monarch.
Under her rule, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, their days getting better day by day, and the officials were also dedicated to the country. After Shen Zhiwei sorted things out several times, there was no longer a single troublemaker. During the Northern King's reign, she could still stir up a few troublemakers, but during the An King's reign, even if the An King held a large pile of gold, silver, and jewelry, he could not bribe a single senior official.
Senior officials are not fools. They have seen and remembered the fate of their colleagues who were caught in the anti-corruption and treason campaigns. Gold, silver and jewelry are indeed tempting, but one must have a life to spend them.
If An Guo could hold out for a while longer against Jing Chang's army, or if he could fight back and forth, those senior officials could also bet on both sides to pave the way for the future. The key point was that An Guo had no way to resist Jing Chang at all, and was suppressed and beaten by Jing Chang the whole time, without being able to fight back.
Seeing that the big ship of Anguo was about to sink, he still got involved with Prince An. That was pure stupidity. None of the senior officials were stupid.
Therefore, no matter how hard Prince An tried, he could not replicate the actions of Prince Bei at that time and create some chaos in Jingchang.
He couldn't even spread any rumors because Jingchang's mouths were controlled by newspapers, and Gui Yang, who was in charge of public opinion warfare, was also in charge of Jingchang. The rumors were strangled as soon as they were spread. If he didn't run quickly, the Anguo spies who spread the rumors would die with him.
It’s not that King An hasn’t tried hard or struggled, nor is it that Anguo is weak. In fact, the current Anguo is a little stronger than the previous Northern Kingdom, and has a deeper foundation. Unfortunately, Jingchang has begun to accelerate its development in all aspects, and both its social system and overall national strength have leaped to a higher level.
To put it bluntly, Jingchang's attack on the vassal states was not called war, but a dimensionality reduction attack.
Swords and armor made of steel, more sophisticated siege weapons, horseshoes for horses, stirrups for cavalry, An Guo was as fragile as a piece of paper under the scimitars and iron cavalry.
If Anguo were given some time, they might be able to catch up with Jingchang's weaponry, but they didn't have time. Jingchang's development seemed to have accelerated. It took Jingchang only a few years to complete a journey that would take an ordinary country more than ten years. At this moment, the country was united and morale was high. How could the other vassal states compare? What could they compare with?
An Guo’s defeat was well-deserved and left countless people dumbfounded.
Everyone knew that Anguo could not defeat Jingchang, but no one had thought that Anguo would be defeated so quickly and so miserably.
When Jingchang's gaze shifted away from An Guo, letters of surrender flew into Jingchang City like snowflakes. Shen Zhiwei was silent for a long time when he saw the letters of surrender sent by those small princes.
If these princes surrender, she will not be able to kill all the royal families with justification. I don’t know whether their surrender will affect the outcome of the special events in the national war series?
At this moment, Shen Zhiwei really wanted to ask those princes in person what they were thinking. When they became kings one by one, they were so eager to do so, fearing that they would be left behind. They were so impatient that they seemed to be crowned kings today and could unify the world tomorrow.
It's only been a few years! How did it get so bad?! Stop it! Stand up! You can still fight!
Looking at An Guo, which had been defeated, the princes said that they could not fight, they really could not fight, so they might as well surrender. After all, they were originally princes under the rule of Emperor Zhou. Now that they had surrendered voluntarily, Emperor Zhou could not go too far. It was the tradition of Jingchang's army to not kill surrendered soldiers!
Moreover, if the Zhou emperor killed them now, the other princes would definitely not surrender even if they died, and would definitely fight to the end. After all, surrender and failure would have the same outcome, so they would definitely grit their teeth and fight to win.
Relying on the unspoken rules of morality and military, these princes were waiting for the Zhou emperor to surrender to them. Shen Zhiwei had only one word to respond to this - fight.
What a joke! There might not even be any kingdoms out there right now. These princes were the army's last hope for greatness. If they all surrendered, what would happen to the soldiers who wanted to make a name for themselves? The key point was that the royal families of these princes were as numerous as fleas. Shen Zhiwei couldn't possibly raise so many fleas for nothing just because of a letter of surrender.
If you want to surrender, you can, just like the former King Bian, surrender when you are almost dead, and then die quietly in some corner of Jingchang.
It is impossible for Shen Zhiwei to keep a bunch of people who once had the ambition to compete for the world alive. If something goes wrong in the future, these people will be trapped one by one.
Just one lesson that Xiang Yu taught to the Qin State is enough.
It’s not that we don’t accept surrender, but we accept slow, gentle and orderly surrender.
Shen Zhiwei was not a completely unreasonable person, so when the princes united to criticize her and wanted to label her a tyrant, she fought back and directly opened a new section in the newspaper, allowing every prince who shouted that she was inhumane to get a place in the newspaper.
How dare you say that about her? Compared to what those princes did, she was nothing.
Some things are done in private, and few people know about them, so they will not cause anyone to discuss them, and no one will accuse the princes of doing wrong. But once all things are laid out and put in the open, and people are allowed to comment on them, good things can become bad things, not to mention the princes who have not done anything good in the first place.
Now, everything Shen Zhiwei does will become history that will be remembered by millions of people in the future. Congratulations to these princes. The shameful things they have done will now be directly engraved in history books and become their "glorious deeds" that they cannot escape during their lifetime and after their death, and will be judged by generations to come.
Shen Zhiwei didn't know if those princes were crazy with joy, but after the first prince's name appeared in the newspaper, none of them said she was inhumane anymore.
Considering that the remaining princes were relatively sensible, Shen Zhiwei only published a few typical cases and let the rest of the princes go.
Public opinion is a double-edged sword, and Shen Zhiwei knows the principle of knowing when to stop.
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