After resting for a period of time in Anshang, supplies were replenished and some things were experienced. The reduced team set out on its way south again with a full baggage and the experiences and emotions gained by each member.
As the pace and time move forward together, the feeling of heat that heralds the arrival of summer begins to surround everyone.
The beginning of May is the "beginning of summer" solar term in the Kingdom of the Moon. It is the same as countless other related traditions in this country that have been passed down for thousands of years. Just pay a little attention to the vendors running around and the residents preparing to celebrate. You can notice the arrival of the festival.
They are proud of their long tradition and want all travelers to notice the splendor of its scale.
Villages and towns often compete secretly with each other. If the neighboring village was outshined last year in celebration activities such as wrestling, then this year it will be necessary to invite a heavyweight to try to regain the place.
It's just that all this still has little to do with the group of people.
Although after entering Taizhou, it can be said that they have officially entered the territory of Xinjing, but even so, they are still not completely safe. After staying in Anshang for a long time, in addition to Yajiro recuperating and replenishing supplies, Narumi and others also spent some time trying to get information - what they wanted to know specifically was which nobles might be with them on the way. Be an enemy.
However, under the persuasion of our wise man, the intelligence gathering work was also done extremely conservatively.
Any person who can reach the top of any country will not be truly mediocre. Although the nobility is divided by blood rather than ability, they should never forget the huge family property and power they sit on.
The aristocratic forces that exist in the Moon Kingdom, which has been civilized for more than 4,000 years, are like the shrubs that exist in the Nornstein Desert farther south from Abserra. The branches and leaves exposed on the surface are far inferior to the roots that go deep underground to find water sources. huge.
As the Qingtian family was just one of the lowest-class Chinese in the feudal territory, if they wanted to get information about nobles who were much higher than them in a place like Taizhou, which was within Xinjing's sphere of influence, once the news leaked out, it would only arouse the other party's vigilance.
Money is very useful in many cases, but wealth should not be revealed, and most intelligence dealers pay more attention to favors than money.
The source of their livelihood is the network of relationships. Identifying the interests among the messages conveyed by the layered network of relationships, saying what can be said, and asking questions about the things that cannot be said are the keys to saving lives.
There are more than one heavyweight characters on the list that Aya discovered, and any qualified intelligence dealer would be wary of the forces involved in these people.
Unless Narumi can give the intelligence dealer a huge amount of money to leave his job and travel around the world without worries, it is basically impossible for them to offend those big figures in high positions and with dense connections.
But then again, if a stranger who has just arrived suddenly comes up with a huge sum of money, the other party may not be immediately attracted by the money. After all, if he kills you, he can still get the money without offending the big shots.
Never underestimate the reach of those in high positions and think that you are lurking in the shadows.
And definitely don't underestimate the terrifying power of the list that the group now carries.
The northern lords knew very well what they had lost. Miss Doctor or other people who do not know much about politics may not know the importance of this list, but our Mr. Sage - and perhaps Missionary Alfonso Waiting for others - but it is extremely clear.
——This is a certificate of submission.
The nobles who wanted to join the northern lords' camp against Xinjing signed and pledged their signatures on it, but the northern lords kept the document and kept it as a threat.
The best outcome for rebelling against the royal family is to be demoted to the rank of feudal king, but that is also based on a very rare condition——
You are also royalty.
For most Chinese and nobles, resisting the royal family meant being executed.
So when the Chinese people in the south signed this, the princes in the north had a guarantee. As long as they were defeated or encountered any trouble, there was a risk that the declaration of surrender would be leaked. The Chinese people in the south would The tribe will definitely do their best to help solve the problem.
Any alliance that lacks effective countermeasures will always be fragile, no matter how heroic it is when signing the oath. Xinjing's strength is too huge, and there is no guarantee that one day someone will be unable to bear the pressure and plan to abandon the dark side and turn to the bright side. Therefore, this insurance measure must be in place. Only if they are afraid of the consequences of betrayal, and only if the punishment will be greater than the benefit when betraying, will these people do their best to be loyal.
The feudal kings are not stupid.
But fate is so ironic. This list was supposed to be hidden in a shrine near an unknown village in the hinterland of the Northern Domain, hidden from the reach of Shinkyo and kept safely. In the end, it was obtained by a young doctor who wanted to study monsters and several strangers who came all the way not to perform this task.
There is no need to have any doubt, this is a list that is bound to cause a bloody storm on the land of Crescent Continent.
Either during the shipping process or after it is received, opened and confirmed by someone in Xinjing.
As the first discoverer, Aya was probably completely unaware of the consequences of this petition. It was as if Narumi and the others were just samurai, and Aya was just a doctor.
In this prosperous society with a clear division of labor that has been inherited for thousands of years, people focus on matters related to their identity and profession.
People too.
Only focus on things that are relevant to your identity and profession.
Farmers only care about how to cultivate their fields; warriors only care about how to serve their masters.
And even our amiable and lovely doctor lady is single-minded. She just wants to get forgiveness for her maverick behavior and violation of her tutor's orders to go north to do research after turning in the list, return to the college, complete her research, and become famous.
This is a developed society, so people can perform their duties and focus on things that are relevant to them.
But because of this, they lack the ability to discern certain things, so that sometimes they show almost zero alertness to dangerous situations. This makes the Luoan girl from Rigar and our Mr. Sage always have differences. The illusion of babysitting.
In short - even if Aya, Narumi or Yajiro, representatives of Kazuto's upper class, are not good at intelligence work, the great nobles basically have ninja troops dedicated to this aspect.
Most of the northern vassal kings will not send troops to pursue them in depth - they have no need.
The close-knit ghoul infiltration and the movements of the elite troops of shrine maidens and ghosts dispatched by Xinjing prove that some new actions are taking place in the north. And their attention was diverted from the group of people precisely because the princes only needed to reveal the news that the certificate of nomination was lost, and the southern Chinese who left their names on it would immediately be like ants on a hot pot. I got into a mess and started desperately trying to find the list.
On the bright side, no one has yet connected the connection between a small band of warriors setting off from a small town and all of this. Since the matter has not yet broken out and they are worried about being discovered by Xinjing, it is impossible for the Chinese to directly send out troops to guard the pass with great fanfare and conduct body searches on all travelers coming and going.
So as long as they use clever techniques, they have nothing to worry about even if they directly enter the noble territory recorded on the list.
The premise of this is, of course, not to show off your own feet. If they had inquired too deeply during An Shang, and had inquired about several nobles on the list at once, then the other party would have been in contact with each other privately, and they would have understood it immediately with a little association. After that, the inquiring person will be easily connected with the list owner, and then the team will be targeted specifically.
If we use colors such as red, yellow, and green to distinguish the current pursuit situation, it will probably be a slight transition from safe green to yellow, which will attract some attention, but it will not be like shouting: "We are taking the An important piece of evidence that can lead to the execution of many great nobles from the Nine Tribes!" It also attracted all the firepower.
All in all, at this stage, they can move forward at a more leisurely pace, but they should avoid crowded big cities as much as possible. Unless they are supplying supplies, it is better to take mountain roads as much as possible.
Therefore, the various celebration activities during the Beginning of Summer are not that relevant to the group of people.
Under the bright sunshine, everything is green, and the chirping of insects and birds along the trail is accompanied by the sound of horse hooves, while the whole group of people is silent and just moves forward slowly.
After entering the territory of Xinjing, traces representing prosperous civilization appear more often. The first is the various smooth roads that have been built. Although it is only a compacted dirt road, it is often kept open and smooth by workers hired by the Land and Resources Bureau. Therefore, the group also replaced the boxes carried by the oxen with oxcarts with larger cargo capacity but higher requirements on road conditions.
In the mountainous Moon Country, it is possible to build and maintain roads that can be used by oxen and horse-drawn vehicles, and they are almost connected in all directions except for the vassal area. Not to mention anything else, Xinjing has a high degree of control over local areas and the powerful manpower of this four-thousand-year-old empire. The material reserves are far beyond the imagination of Henry and others who were born in Rigar and even the missionaries of the Padrosi Empire.
Yes, Padrosi might also be able to build domestic roads that extend in all directions. However, nobles in the cities and territories along the way will soon quarrel over issues such as who should spend how much money and how many people for maintenance, and who should be responsible for collecting taxes and how much taxes. The country's more prosperous stone roads gradually fell into disuse.
Without strong central governance, this kind of sustainable infrastructure will always be nothing but empty talk.
Therefore, it is no wonder that in the minds of Kazuto commoners and nobles, the royal family of the Kingdom of the Moon is the descendant of gods, as if it is an unshakable truth of heaven and earth.
It is no wonder that they have such unwavering faith in Xinjing and believe that nothing will change under Xinjing's rule.
Everyone has their own thoughts, but they are all silent.
The values and sensitivity to crisis from Rigal collided with the unshakable traditional cultural confidence of the Moon Country. Although there was no loud quarrel, there was a vague estrangement between the already harmonious team, which is also an indisputable fact. .
Many people have noticed these points, but this kind of thing is often like a white paper with ink dripping on it and trying to cover it with another color. It will only get worse and worse.
So silence is the best way to deal with it, let time dilute everything, and it will calm down when each of them has solved the knot in their hearts.
All in all, I lost something and gained something. With all kinds of emotions, the team is in the midsummer sunshine.
Continue south.
