Chapter 604: Difficulties, the Chu Clan’s choice (1/2)
Chapter 604: Difficulties, the Chu Clan’s choice
Long Feiye and Han Yunxi were waiting for the Chu Clan to make a decision. Currently, Chu Yunyi and General Chu had just gotten news from their agents in Western Liang and found out that Chu Qingge had teamed up with Ning Cheng to betray their clan!
The news sent their fury soaring to the skies. If Chu Qingge was here this moment, they wouldn’t be satisfied even if they shot her to death 100 times over!
“That treacherous demoness!”dis
“She ruined all of Tianyin’s painstaking hard work! Completely destroyed it!”
“This old man’s going to kill her with my own hands!”
“I never knew our Nether Clan’s Chu Family would give birth to such a traitor. Her crimes are unforgiveable!”
The two of them paced back and forth in their tent, unable to calm down for ages. After all, the only reason they’d exposed themselves at Thousand Buddha Cave and deployed troops to cause chaos was because they’d discussed everything with Ning Cheng ahead of time! Everything they did was because they could rely on the support of their two mountains, Ning Cheng and Tianning Country! Otherwise, the Chu Clan would never be impulsive enough to engage in a last-ditch battle when none of their preparations or plans had been complete. Now Ning Cheng hadn’t sent any reinforcements, nor did they gain Tianning Country. They only had their own soldiers on hand and the three eastern prefectures, but Youyun and Yaoshui were about to be overwhelmed.
What were they supposed to use to fight against the Duke of Qin and Emperor Kang Cheng?!
Ning Cheng had tricked them tragically, while Long Feiye was pressuring them bitterly!
“I’ve long said it, that Ning Cheng fellow is unreliable! But you insisted…aye, if you hadn’t handed Gu Beiyue to him, we would still have a counter in our hands! But now…” General Chu couldn’t hide his discontent.
Chu Yunyi was still incredulous that he’d miscalculated at all. “Ning Cheng…Ning Cheng…”
“Big bro, can’t you see that Ning Cheng fellow’s ambitious heart yet? We wanted to borrow the West Qin Dynasty’s name to aim for a kingdom. Why wouldn’t Ning Cheng want the same thing? Don’t forget that his Di Clan has ample means to vye for the world! His Di Clan’s wealthy and military resources is rich enough to contend with any country on Cloud Realm Continent! Heheh, all of our hard work in Tianning is now his successes and achievements!” General Chu said angrily.
Hearing this, Chu Yunyi finally came to his senses. The Chu Clan’s ultimate goal from the start had always been to make Tianning their stronghold while searching for the West Qin heir and pulling other noble clans to their cause. They never planned to expose themselves as the Nether Clan this early in the game. However, Long Feiye had forced them until they had no other choice. Once the fighting started, the control over the chessboard had long escaped their grasp, and all their decisions went counter to their initial goals! Chu Yunyi quietly thought back to everything that had happened and realized that they’d been driven along by circumstances ever since Long Feiye made his trip to Western Zhou. All of their decisions had been on impulse rather than reason.
He couldn’t help but ask himself, “How can this be?!”
But such knowledge through hindsight was already too late…
“In the end, it was all Long Feiye and Han Yunxi who forced us!” General Chu was so angry that he was panting for breath.
Chu Yunyi kept all his rage bottled up in his heart, but he added in a heavy tone, “It’s useless to say such things now. Think up a counter strategy instead!”
At this moment, military missives from Youyun and Yaoshui both arrived. General Chu knew that they had no hopes of keeping either prefecture, but seeing the actual facts in print still made his heart lurch. He tossed the reports to Chu Yunyi. “Counter strategy? Heheh, we’re surrounded in the north, south, east, and west. Aside from abandoning this city, what else can we use as a strategy?”
When it rains, it pours. Just as Chu Yunyi and General Chu were realizing they had reached a dead end, both Ning Cheng and Long Feiye’s letters arrived. The two brothers read them together and ended up with black faces after the contents!
With Chu Tianyin as his hostage, Long Feiye had given them a 10-day deadline to consider their options. It was as much a threat as a call to surrender. Meanwhile, Ning Cheng had also given them the same 10-day deadline to give up. But he added that if they did, he’d be willing to trade Gu Beiyue to Long Feiye’s faction in exchange for Chu TIanyin. This too, was a call to surrender as much as a threat. Though Ning Cheng didn’t put it in such precise words, his meaning was clear to them all.
Now was the time to make a choice.
With a decision hanging in the balance, both Chu Yunyi and General Chu calmed down. They exchanged glances, but neither of them spoke. Both Long Feiye and Ning Cheng had given them 10 days. Without a doubt, many events would happen during the interim.
After a long time had passed, Chu Yunyi finally intoned, “Think it over carefully!” Then he left the tent, leaving General Chu to press against his aching arm as he fell into deep thought.
The 10 days passed by very quickly.
By Day 3, the armies who had won at Youyun and Yaoshui began moving south and north respectively to join with Long Feiye’s forces and surround Fenglin Prefecture from the north, south, and west.
By Day 5, Ning Cheng’s soldiers had arrived as well with three regiments of crack troops in charge of defending Tianning’s western border. They hemmed in Fenglin’s eastern borders.
Day 7 marked the first seven days since Emperor Tianhui’s death.
Day 8 saw Chu Qingge carry her baby the crown prince, who was still less than a month old, up the steps to the throne where he was crown. His title was given as Guangyong, or ‘Eternal Light,’ while Empress Chu herself became Empress Dowager Chu to hold court from behind the curtain. Ning Cheng was conferred to the title of Prince Regent and kept ‘Ning’ as his new title. He was to assist the court in affairs of state.