Chapter 448 Youve Crossed the Line, Bitch! (1/2)
Chapter 448 – You've Crossed the Line, Bitch
Zhuge Liang almost could not hide his laughter. He had to cover his face with his long sleeve clothes and pretended to cough.
'Dear lord. You all are about to fight an impossible opponent, but you can't even abandon your selfishness. Can't you see that without fighting together as one, you won't have a chance at all? This is one of the reasons why Zhang Tong thrives, but you suck!'
Zhuge Liang had studied how Tong climbed up his ranks from being a son of a Taoist priest to an emperor.
Tong's biography and achievements revealed that he always exploited the discord or infighting of his opponents.
The Battle of Anping, when Tong participated in a war for the first time, Tong manipulated Yuan Shao's men into supporting them indirectly, was proof.
The overturn in Ye, where Zhang He betrayed Han Fu, was a proof.
The constraint conflicts between Tong and Yuan Shao, yet the latter always failed to finish off the weaker forces due to the infighting between Tian Feng and Feng Ji, was a proof.
After the collapse of the Anti-Xiongnu Coalition, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao could have cooperated and killed Tong, yet they did not, was a proof.
The uprising of Gongsun Du, which could have destroyed Tong's foundation, failed because the warlord and the Xianbei did not unite as one, was a proof.
There were many occasions that either Cao Cao or Yuan Shao could have killed Tong, but they all failed because they were too half-hearted in dealing the finishing blow as they looked too far ahead. Moreover, none of them let go of their façade and wanted to keep the righteous image to manipulate citizens.
These were the flaws that allowed Tong to survive this far!
Zhuge Liang doubted why Tong was doing the same and allowing these people to grow. Now that he witnessed the disharmony between forces, the strategist understood.
'Did he know that these guys will end up like this? Trying to fight each other and acting like hyenas? Much wow.'
Meanwhile, Tong also suffered from infighting incidents, such as the duel against Lu Bu in Jinyang, the second meeting with Lu Bu at Anping, the complication of Liu Xie and the throne, and currently, the assassination attempts by Guo Jia, which might create friction in Tong's forces. Yet, his empire was majorly united.
One of the reasons for that was Tong's absolute rule that disallowed all nobles from possessing a private army, which prevented all evildoers from causing mischievous deeds. Moreover, he had the power to suppress all monstrous generals from rebelling.
Zhuge Liang saw Tong as a combination of Xiang Yu, the god of war during the late warring state era, and emperor Wudi, who had established a foundation for the Han Dynasty and later generations.
Funny enough, the emperor Wudi's style name was also [Tong].
From Zhuge Liang's superstitious point of view, this Zhang Tong might be the reincarnation of the emperor Wudi!
'Kekeke! They're doomed. Your majesty, you are so wicked that I like you too much. Can't you be a bit more stupid, so I can be more useful to you?'
.
The meeting concluded after a few hours of useless bickering and bargaining for Cao Cao's supplies and weaponry.
In the end, Cao Cao had to pay for Sun Ce and Liu Bei for their cooperation. All subordinates of the two forces were angry and disgusted by their ally's greediness, but they did not have a choice as their armies got to protect their cities while the others had to work to earn their keep.
After everyone had left to rest, Guo Jia, Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, and Cheng Yu gathered to brainstorm about their next moves.
”Any news about the assassins?” Cao Cao referred to their assassins, whom Cao Cao had sent to kill the first princess, Zhang Min, to stir the instability of Tong's royal harem.
Guo Jia shook his head, ”They stopped sending intel since last week. I think they might have been found.”
”Then, has Zhang Tong moved against his concubines?”
”No. He took the first princess to live with her grandfather and sent two of his consorts and 50,000 men from Ye to Julu. Other than that, we found nothing.”
”What about our contact with Liu Xie? He should have become more active since Zhang Tong has two new sons.”
”He killed our messengers.”
Cao Cao sighed, ”Never mind, then. What a waste.”
The incident was Guo Jia's doing. As they were not Tong's match in terms of the military, they attempted to weaken him by creating friction and factions among Tong's subordinates.
Unfortunately, their plan bore no fruit.
Cheng Yu raised his hand to share his ideas, ”If internal discord doesn't work, how about we drag our neighbor countries into the fight?”
Zhuge Liang was amused, ”Which country are you referring to? Goguryeo? Xianbei? Xiongnu?”
Cheng Yu snickered and placed the odd coins on the table.
They were two types of coins.
One was a silver coin with a carving of a Caucasian man with curry short hair and a sharp nose. The other was an uneven silver coin with a full-beard man with a war helmet.
They were Roman's coin and Parthia's coin!
”From my investigation, these empires have a high demand for our gold nuggets, and they have been smuggling our gold for years. Also, the Kushan Empire is overly relying on the Silk Road trade route. We can exploit their economy by stopping the trade and entice their local military to join us with gold and wealth.”
Not only Cheng Yu was eyeing the Roman and the Parthian, but he also wanted to involve the weak Kushan Empire, which had been neutral to all conflicts among the neighboring countries.
Guo Jia nodded as he added, ”I see. Since Zhang Tong doesn't dare to declare war on us despite our movements, we will hire more soldiers from the west while we entice them to plunder the north for us.”
”That's correct. Our investigation on the western kingdoms shows that we are not the only ones with immortals. They also have angels and demons of their own, so we should bring them to our war.”
Zhuge Liang gulped. This was getting out of hand.
”Don't you guys afraid that they will invade us after they are done with Zhang Tong?”
Cheng Yu and Guo Jia laughed, ”They aren't that capable. Those western barbarians have fewer troops and less organized than us. An upstart like you might probably don't know about this, but their professional army only numbers less than 10,000 men. What kind of threat can they pose to us, the only civilized country?”