579 A Grand Celebration (1/2)
Chapter 579: A Grand Celebration
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
For the ordinary locals and tourists, the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival was undoubtedly a grand celebration as well as the principal theme of this autumn. Though for the bigwigs, the festival was simply a good excuse for them to meet. They just needed to use this opportunity to gather together and discuss about affairs that actually mattered.
Prior to the Yue Laan Festival, the meetings among emissaries from the different countries had already reached their ultimate objectives, and all that was left was approval from their respective governments before being sealed by their kings or emperors to take effect.
All countries in the Central Plains agreed to continue to wage war against the Wilderness next year, and they would greatly increase their army force as well as logistic support. The Tang Empire was even demanded to show their real power instead of remaining as a bystander like it did in the past two years.
The reason for this was that, the situation of the Wilderness had become ever more chaotic, and once the Desolate stabilized their position, it took them only a year of rest and rehabilitation to fiercely rise up again. On the other hand, the Left King's Palace of the barbarians, that was ridiculed by the Central Plains countries during the war finally woke up after paying a bloody price; they began slipping through the Central Plains and the Desolate, while attempting to get some revenge.
The Desolate had left this world for way too long, and the barbarians became masters of the Wilderness in the past millennium. Even though the Left King's Palace endured great losses, their familiarity with the Wilderness meant that they could simply play hide and seek around the Min Mountain whenever they couldn't win against the countries in Central Plains, and the latter wouldn't find a better way to retaliate.
What the countries in Central Plains feared the most was that, under severe losses, the cavalry of the Left King's Palace could really give up the dignity of their palace and turn to the Golden Palace.
The Golden Palace remained very quiet for decades, so much so that most people of the Central Plains forgot about the existence of the fierce beast. Nevertheless, the nobles and officials from these countries knew very well that, despite South Jin Kingdom being generally considered to rank second in the world, the actual second strongest power in this world continued to be the Golden Palace.
The Golden Palace was endowed with the strongest cavalry, the largest number of horses, and the largest number of High Priests. If it wasn't thanks to the resistance of the Min Mountain, the several generations of courageous and powerful Chanyu of the Golden Palace would have conquered and seized the entire Wilderness long ago.
Had the Tang Empire not provided such strong resistance for centuries without ever giving in an inch of their territory, the cavalry of the Golden Palace would have long swept the Central Plains by now, and they might even have reached the Peach-Mountain of West Hill.
In the face of anger and cries of the delegations, the Tang delegation eventually agreed to sign this plan. It was on one hand due to the pressure exerted by the West-Hill Divine Palace, and on the other hand, it was also out of strategic considerations by the Tang Empire.
The Tianqi Mountains and the Min Mountain were actually part of the same mountains, stretching tens of thousands of miles across the north of the continent. It divided the wilderness in two with a really narrow valley in the center, referred to as South Min Mountain and North Min Mountain respectively by the people of the Central Plains, whereas the grassland barbarians were more accustomed to referring the northern region as the Tianqi Mountain.
Should the Left King's Palace wish to make contact with the Golden Palace or even fight alongside each other, their cavalry would need to cross that valley. However, to the west of that valley was a city built by the Tang Empire that cost countless human and material resources.
This was the most distant, yet the most important city for the Tang Empire.
Chang'an would never allow that town to be threatened by anything.
The delegates of the front temple had now completed their mission, and they had either joined the town to enjoy their remaining time with the local folk or chosen to return to their respective cities to report on the outcome of their discussions.
The cultivators from the different sects still remained in the middle temple. Normally, masters of these cultivation sects would have left alongside the bigwigs of their respective countries; considering the presence of the West Hill Divine Palace, they must also obey the orders of the royals of their respective countries. However, it was a different scenario this year, since they must wait for the orders of the bigwigs at the back temple.
Those who were now at the back temple were the true bigwigs. For instance, neither Mr. Cheng of the Sword Garret who had reached the Knowing Destiny State, nor Quni Madi and Lu Chejia need to care about the affairs of their respective countries. Moreover, this year even saw the presence of the President of Commandment Yard of the Xuankong temple as well as representatives of both the Academy and the West-Hill Divine Palace.
The representative of the Academy was obviously Ning Que, and although Sangsang was qualified to represent the Divine Palace, she had only been endowed the title of the Divine Palace without any particular position. And most importantly, the Divine Palace knew very well that the Lady of Light could not be bothered to take care of such matters, so they sent a priest to assist her.
That priest was an acquaintance of Ning Que, the Divine Palace Priest, Cheng Lixue, with silver hair and beard.
Ning Que looked at Cheng Lixue and said, ”How did the Divine Palace think of the term 'assist'? If Sangsang really demanded something, would you actually listen to her? Who would believe that anyway?”
Cheng Lixue smiled and said, ”Should the Lady of Light really raise her opinion, I would definitely respect her. Moreover, I also trust that there is no one from the Divine Palace who would oppose to her opinion.”
”No need to express such formalities anymore, since it is meaningless.”
Ning Que looked at him and said, ”You must have heard rumors about my family background.”
Cheng Lixue remained calm and said, ”I have.”
Ning Que then asked, ”Do you believe them?”
He smiled and said, ”I don't know.”
Ning Que went on to ask, ”Does the Great Divine Priest of Revelation know about it?”
Cheng Lixue shook his head and said, ”He said he didn't know either.”
Ning Que said, ”Then forgive my rudeness if anyone from Haotian Taoism ever talks about me being the Son of Yama ever again.”
Cheng Lixue said, ”Unless you choose to raise the matter, who would dare mention that rumor in front of you?”