Stranger Danger

Chapter 996: Nanjiang Royal Court

August eighth was a good day for marriage, cleaning, moving, and traveling. Taboos: none.

August eighth was undoubtedly a good time of the year, which was why many people chose this day to marry, travel, and visit friends. Temple fairs, festivals, and some holidays happened on this day as well. For example, the Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter God Festival, Mountain God Festival and more all happened on August eighth[1]. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Unfortunately, what should have been a lively, celebratory day turned dark and ominous this year because of a certain news. The entire world shook in shock and fear because of it.

It was because Chu had mobilized a total of two hundred thousand Nanjiang Pacification troops to invade Nanjiang. It was because they had crushed the Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses and annihilated the Nanjiang Royal Court in dominant fashion and announced to the world that, from now on, the One Hundred Thousand Mountains of Nanjiang was now Chu’s territory. The land was categorized as a prefecture.

At the same time, the Chu Emperor issued an imperial edict proclaiming that Chu would be holding a grand ancestral worship ceremony on October tenth. They would be offering sacrifices to the heavens , the earth, and their virtuous ancestors.

From now on, the Nanjiang Royal Court no longer existed. There was only the Nanjiang prefecture of Chu.

For obvious reasons, the news hit the world like an atomic bomb. The Nanjiang Royal Court boasted a storied history longer than even Chu itself. Since ancient times, Nanjiang had always been famous for its tall mountains, thick jungles, dangerous geography and even more dangerous creatures. It was held by many tribes whose culture was fierce and thuggish.

A long time ago when the You Dynasty still existed, the leader of a small tribe had unified the tribes of Nanjiang and built the Nanjiang Royal Court. Calling himself the King of Nanjiang. He had coveted the fertile lands of the Central Plain and waged countless battles against them.

Angry, the You Emperor had raised an army of one million and personally taken command. He had slain the King of Nanjiang at Fusu Mountain, and condemned one hundred thousand Nanjiang citizens to slavery in the Central Plain.

However, the Nanjiang tribes were numerous, and the You Emperor worried that a similar war might start anew in the future. So he conferred his war general, Meng Chang, the new King of Nanjiang and entrusted him with the responsibility of protecting and managing the Nanjiang tribes. He was to prevent the sparks of war from ever rising from the south again.

Since then, the Meng Clan became the King of Nanjiang, and every generation had faithfully protected Nanjiang.

During the final years of the You Dynasty, when Yan, Chu, Qi and Wei were busy dividing You among themselves, the Meng Clan seized the opportunity to break away from You and declare their independence. They called themselves the Nanjiang Royal Court and once stood equal to the four nations.

Unfortunately, the Nanjiang Royal Court was made up of countless tribes, and the amount of internal strifes they had to deal with were innumerable to put it mildly. On top of that, Chu could not tolerate another great power as their neighbor and did everything they could to suppress and divide them. As a result, it wasn't long before the Nanjiang Royal Court fell into decline.

That said, a dead camel was still bigger than a horse, not to mention that the One Hundred Thousand Mountains of Nanjiang were treacherous to navigate to put it mildly. Besides that, the many tribes of Nanjiang were hardly pushovers and constantly harassed, robbed, and attacked the borders of Chu. As a result, Chu was unable to exterminate the Nanjiang Royal Court despite being extremely annoyed by it.

This situation lasted until over a decade ago where dozens of Nanjiang tribes joined hands to start a rebellion, but it was stamped out by Guo Ximian and the Nanjiang Pacification Army in brutal fashion. Even then, Chu still wasn’t able to exterminate the Nanjiang Royal Court and wipe out the hundred tribes of Nanjiang completely. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the two hundred thousand strong Nanjiang Pacification Army lost half of their numbers. It was one of the main reasons Chu was ultimately unable to exterminate the Nanjiang Royal Court once and for all.

That war dealt a huge blow to the Nanjiang Royal Court, so they were forced to rein in their traitorous impulses and recuperate. As a result, the two nations enjoyed an amicable peace for over a decade. Almost no armed conflicts had happened between them during this period.

This was why no one expected Chu to invade the Nanjiang Royal Court so suddenly and without warning. Even worse, Chu had struck decisively and brutally and wiped out the Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses and the Nanjiang Royal Court on the very first strike, uprooting the symbol of Nanjiang and some its greatest forces in an instant.

Although Nanjiang boasted “a hundred tribes”, the Nanjiang Royal Court and Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses were the strongest of them all. To be specific, the Nanjiang Royal Court was the main faction, and the Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses the auxiliary. Almost all other tribes, big or small, were attached to them. Therefore, the destruction of the Nanjiang Royal Court and the Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses was an epic blow to say the least.

What could the smaller tribes do but scatter like monkeys when the two greatest trees of Nanjiang had fallen? One might even say that Nanjiang was already dead, they just didn’t know it yet.

In just one night, the toxic bond Chu and the Nanjiang Royal Court shared had burned into ash. From now on, there was no longer a Nanjiang Royal Court, only the Nanjiang prefecture of Chu. This was something no one—not Yan, not Wei, not Qi, not the jianghu, not the wulin, not even the entire world—had anticipated.

Naturally, the news had spread across the whole world like wildfire—no, like a typhoon. Everyone from the highest ruler to the lowest slave were talking about it. Some people were astonished by Chu’s ruthlessness, some were impressed by their strength, some were admiring their military strength, and some were praising their decisiveness and audacity.

Compared to this, their recent embarrassments seemed almost insignificant.

What was the death of Chu Wangsun and Fang Muyun compared to the conquest of Nanjiang? From a laughingstock to a lauded conqueror of war. That was what Chu was. That was how Chu had perfectly reversed their image in just a matter of days.

“Qingyou, was this what you were referring to yesterday?”

Inside Brushing Moon Inn, Ye Qing was sipping his wine to calm his shock when suddenly, he recalled yesterday’s conversation. “You knew that Chu would attack the Nanjiang Royal Court from the start?”

“From the start? Not at all. I only learned about it two or three days ago,” answered Feng Qingyou while looking out of the window, her face expressionless and calm.

“But how?” Ye Qing couldn’t understand. It was clear that Chu had been plotting for this for many years. The intricacy of their plan, the swiftness of their movement, and the grasp of their timing could only be described as perfect. After all, neither the Nanjiang Royal Court nor the three nations had found out about it until it was too late. And yet, not only did Feng Qingyou know about it, she had learned of it three days prior.

What did three days represent? It meant that Feng Qingyou had found out about their intentions almost immediately after Chu started mobilizing. It meant that Feng Qingyou could have singlehandedly decided whether Chu’s campaign would succeed, and hundreds of thousands of Nanjiang people would live or die.

It sounded like an exaggeration, but that was the truth. If Feng Qingyou had leaked Chu’s activity beforehand, then the Eight Tribes and Nine Fortresses would have been forewarned, and Chu could not have crushed them as easily as they had.

Yan, Qi and Wei would not have just stood by and allowed the conquest to go smoothly as well. For one, the One Hundred Thousand Mountains of Nanjiang was Chu’s neighbor and their greatest threat from the south. Just by existing, they were costing Chu an incredible amount of time, energy, and resources. Therefore, keeping Nanjiang around was beneficial to Yan, Wei and Qi.

Two, if Chu successfully conquered Nanjiang and absorbed its hundreds of thousands of population, then Chu would no longer have any threat from the south. They would have become much stronger and a greater threat to Yan, Wei and Qi.

That was why the three nations absolutely would have interfered if they were forewarned.

If Feng Qingyou wanted, she absolutely could have snatched victory from the jaws of Chu and ruined everything.

“I guessed.”

A smile crept on Feng Qingyou’s lips as she explained, “You killed Chu Wangsun and Fang Muyun and severely damaged Chu’s reputation as a result. Even if they managed to capture you and cut you into a million pieces, they still wouldn’t be able to restore their reputation.”

“So, how could Chu overcome the negative effects of the incident and restore their reputation? By committing something greater, madder, and more terrifying, of course. Only then could they draw the public’s attention elsewhere and rescue their reputation.”

“Besides, it looked like Chu was investing a lot into capturing you dead or alive, but if you really thought about it, the bark was much worse than the bite. Why would they set you aside despite everything? Because they were busy plotting something bigger, of course.”

1. A reminder but this is the Chinese calendar, not the universal calendar. ☜