340 Bribery (2/2)
The wealth competition had overtaken the kung fu competition as the most closely watched round in the consort selection process.
The few sons of the tribal chiefs soon conceded defeat after the Dragon King had done so; even the richest of them could only fill half a dipper.
The competition waged most intensely amongst three people: Shangguan Fei, as well as the princes from the Kang and Loulan Kingdoms.
Carriage after carriage carrying gold was shipped from Golden Roc Fort, and as the competition continued into the evening of the second day, the amount of gold from Shangguan Fei had already filled up five dippers and weighed tens of thousands of catties heavy. He had finally defeated the other two worthy opponents and won a unanimous victory, gaining an important point for himself.
All of the gold was kept sealed. If the contestant became the prince consort, the gold that he presented during the competition would serve as a betrothal gift while everybody else's gold would be returned as it was.
It was an arrangement that everyone agreed to readily, simply because it was common knowledge that the consort of the princess would become King of the Stone Kingdom sooner or later, therefore the 'betrothal gift' would eventually fall back into his hands.
There were four winners from the previous rounds of the competition: Prince of the Kang Kingdom with the best lineage, Prince of the Loulan Kingdom who possessed good literary talent, Dragon King who won in kungfu, and Shangguan Fei, who had the most wealth overall.
They were now left with the last segment of the competition - Character. This was also the hardest to judge out of the rest. Yang Dou came up with a splendid idea: All of the 11 suitors, along with the King of the Stone Kingdom himself, would have to cast a vote each for the person they deemed to have the best character amongst all the contestants. The person with the most votes would be declared the winner of the character contest.
His reason was very simple - the person who could win the approval from his competitors would definitely have the best character amongst them.
If the winner of this round was also one of the winners from the previous four rounds, then he would be declared the prince consort. If not, Yang Dou would have to come up with another competition until a suitor won two rounds of the event.
The brilliant part about the plan was that in the quest to become the prince consort, the four previous winners who had the best hope of becoming the prince consort would be forced to use all sorts of means to bribe the other seven competitors. In this way, almost everyone had something to gain from and Stone Kingdom would not have to spend a single tael of silver at all.
Yang Dou gave everyone three days to think about who they should vote for. As such, the open competition had turned into people pitting against each other in secret. The special envoys from Norland and the Central Plain no longer concealed their motives and personally visited each suitor as they attempted to entice or force the voters into voting for the candidate that they supported.
As an onlooker, Gu Shenwei gained the trust of both parties on the surface. As a result, he already knew about the vote count for each candidate after the end of the first day.
Surprisingly, both Shangguan Fei and the Prince of Loulan Kingdom each claimed to be equal with eight votes each; however, this didn't add up because that would mean the total votes were more than the highest possible count of 12 votes if this was true.
Gu Shenwei knew that if this were the case, that means there were three other people, aside from himself, who double promised their votes to both Norland and the Central Plain.
The conflicting counts were soon discovered by both parties and therefore a new round of alliance-making began. This time, the lobbying became even bolder.
The Special Envoy from the Central Plain summoned Dragon King for another meeting and made an exception as he did not beat around the bush this time. He went straight to the point and said, ”I suppose you should know how important the support of the Central Plain means to the Great Snowmountain, Dragon King.”
Gu Shenwei nodded.
”Does that mean I can place my complete faith in you, is it right to say that? You've been very close with Shangguan Fei lately, Dragon King. You wouldn't change your mind at the very last minute and vote for him, would you?”
”The Great Snowmountain knows its place and would never go against our promise to the Central Plain. Furthermore, Golden Roc Fort will always be our enemy. I will never help Shangguan Fei,” lied Gu Shenwei, naturally because he knew that the Special Envoy from the Central Plains was lying as well.
Maid Lotus had been observing Lin Tao's guard troops in secret and noticed that they were all kung fu experts with extraordinary skills who were purposely dressed as normal guards. They completely matched the list provided by Zhong Heng and they rarely ventured out, neither did they try to start fights with anyone, but there were visible traces of their skills reflected in their behavior. It would be extremely hard for commoners to notice it - but not for Maid Lotus.
These 10 kung fu experts were the assassins sent by Wei Song to murder Dragon King and Zhong Heng. Gu Shenwei knew very well that they both kept secrets from each other, but he pretended that he knew nothing about the assassins.
”Someone is trying to double-cross me,” said Lin Tao as he squinted and looked sullen, no longer as composed as before. ”I will not show that person any mercy when I find out who he is,” he continued.
”It's a crucial period for all of us and you shouldn't overreact about it, Mr. Lin. Focus on finding out who these double-crossers are and try to persuade them.”
Lin Tao nodded in agreement; however, he was extremely cautious and still refused to give out the specific list of names.
In comparison, Shangguan Fei had much less trust in the Dragon King. He thought that he would be able to win the competition easily and did not expect to encounter such a huge obstacle in the process. He asked, ”Be honest with me, Dragon King. You made a promise to both parties to vote for them, am I right?”
”No,” Gu Shenwei continued to lie. ”Why should I vote for the Central Plain after they had cast us away? Furthermore, if the Prince of Loulan Kingdom was to become the prince consort, he would definitely accept the throne of the Stone Kingdom and become a willing puppet of the Central Plain. This does not bode well for Great Snowmountain.”
”Do you really have a way to prevent the King of the Stone Kingdom from abdicating his throne?” asked Shangguan Fei anxiously; he was confused by the Dragon King's standing as well.
”Yes, but I would need your cooperation. You will be the prince consort and I will help the Stone Kingdom to maintain its political independence - this is our deal.”
”Yes, yes. Sigh, it's not easy to be the prince consort as well. The Lord apparently said that everything had already been arranged, so why is it still turning out this way?”
The first person to be revealed as a swing voter was the Prince of the Kang Kingdom. He had spent a considerable amount of effort to lobby for himself but was enraged when he realized no one was going to support him. Therefore, he decided to benefit at the expense of both parties at play; by getting a large enough monetary reward if he was going to lose. Even when he was exposed, he was not embarrassed about it and announced publicly that he would vote for the party who offered more money.
The entire second day was spent in open struggles and covert maneuvering to get the support of the Prince of the Kang Kingdom. First, threats were issued followed by the increased number of bribes. The servants who were responsible for passing messages between the involved parties were as busy as ants scurrying around different locations.
As it drew closer to midnight, Norland and Golden Roc Fort won the decisive victory. Shangguan Fei won the vote of the Prince of the Kang Kingdom with a promise of an unknown monetary reward. He was ahead of the Prince of Loulan Kingdom by seven to eight votes.
Gu Shenwei felt that this was an unwise move on the Prince of the Kang Kingdom's part as it would invite unrest to his kingdom, but his actions had also drawn everyone's attention and this, in turn, brought Dragon King some valuable time to prepare for the final battle.