After a relatively uneventful October, the tense Crescent Continent actually ushered in a brief period of peace.
The long and narrow land terrain from north to south meant that Xinjing finally reacted and mobilized preliminary support forces that did not arrive near Pingzhou until mid-October. On the day this 30,000-strong army arrived, someone who claimed to be an envoy from the domain sent An extremely long volume full of Kazuto style wording came.
Apart from the redundant rhetoric, the focus of the book is only on the two points that the feudal army now has 150,000 people, and that they are required to be sent to Xinjing for the imperial envoy to come for peace talks.
The leader of the urgently mobilized reinforcements was just a regional governor. Such a role was not worthy of talking face to face with the top leader of the domain army who was still the heir of the gods even if he was demoted to the domain king.
The visitor dressed in black seemed to have already grasped their movements, and the content of this letter made the senior officials of the Xinjing reinforcements at a loss.
Peace has lasted for too long. Small-scale bandit suppression and security wars may hone some confidence in fighting, but the regular army's superiority in numbers and equipment has always been enough to defeat bandits head-on.
In a head-to-head battle like this, especially the news coming from the front line, the feudal army is invincible. In fact, this support army.
They were all led by poor people with little background who had no choice but to bite the bullet.
For Pingzhou and the nearby territories, this is a mighty and long-awaited king's division, but even at this critical moment, the political struggle has not stopped. Several major Chinese forces within Xinjing took the opportunity to kill each other, so the commander and the troops they led tried to shirk their duties several times. In the end, nearly 80% of the troops actually sent were farmers who had been trained for less than a week.
When the recruiters went to the countryside and told them that there were vacancies in the Ashigaru quota, these people thought they had finally found an iron job and wanted to join. However, after only a week of training, they forced their way north.
Many of the new ashigaru who were farmers a week ago didn't even know how to wear armor. The armor was askew and the armor was often not fastened. They had to pull it up after a few steps when walking. Because of the fit, it pressed against my collarbone, which made me cry out in pain after a day of marching and at night.
It is said that the state pastor of Pingzhou left early to greet them happily, but the moment he saw this army, even the state pastor who was in his forties and had a wealthy family couldn't help but turn gloomy.
Not wanting to sacrifice better trained ashigaru, samurai, and more capable commanders.
Do the Chinese people in Xinjing know how serious the situation is?
At this juncture, I am still hiding it, not wanting to show off my strength, and I am still on guard against other competitors.
So when the negotiation document for the feudal territory came, the leader of the Xinjing reinforcements - a short man in his late 40s who had been given the title of "General" but had made no achievements was stunned. He didn't know what to do. , because he was sent to fight.
Pingzhou Zhoumu, who knew the situation, let out a sigh of relief, although he also knew that this kind of peace would only last for a very short time.
The four-thousand-year-old empire was vast, old and slow, and the people within it were far from being as unified as external propaganda made them out to be.
The local Chinese are stuck in their old ways, isolated and tend to only keep their own careers and achievements, fearing being blamed. Although there is a royal family in Xinjing, the royal family has been in Xinyue Continent for a long time and is more like a deified symbol.
"Mortals must not look directly at the faces of the royal family, because the brilliance of the children of the Great Moon God is so dazzling that it will burn the eyes of mortals."
--Yes.
What the royal family looks like is the top secret of Crescent Continent.
Unlike those emperors in Rigal who thought of ways to print their faces on coins so that everyone in the world would know what their emperor looked like, the royal family of Crescent Continent can be said to be exactly what they claim to be, the "sons of God" , is an existence that is close to a god.
But this is not a compliment to praise their magical powers, but it means that the emperor's rule over the Moon Kingdom is not direct, and his sense of presence is not strong. Everything related to the royal family is like praying for good weather this year in a temple. .
Gods will not give you direct answers, nor will they directly govern the country, but will only "give inspiration."
The royal family is indirect, vague, ambiguous, and has a weak sense of existence.
So even if one has super power in theory - which is indeed the case - it is bound to be gradually usurped by more down-to-earth "people" during the process of conveying and executing orders.
Therefore, just like any other empire, national capitals like Xinjing are also areas where political struggles are most severe.
The Chinese who controlled different resource sectors opposed each other in order to seek more opportunities to gain favor from the royal family. They formed several major Chinese groups, and the local nobles were either defeated in the struggle and were assigned to the local nobles. Those who are born and raised cannot enter the inner circle.
Any organization that grows to a certain extent will become contrary to the word "efficiency". The Crescent Continent of Thousand Years of Peace has only developed the inner fighting to the extreme in a relatively stable external environment.
If they are unified, or even if they are partially unified and show their strength, the troops that can be pulled out of the barren soil of the vassal territory are completely unstoppable.
But the vassal land is a distant existence, so far away that some southern Chinese people even rumor that the vassal land does not exist at all. Those royal families who were demoted as vassal kings have long since died. This is a euphemistic way of saying that they can still rule the world as kings after death.
The neighbor is not.
The nobles of other factions who have robbed you of the official position that you think should be yours are not far away; those who have conflicts with you, those who have feuds with you, or even those who are only pursuing conflicts with the same woman are all nearby. They are both members of the Chinese ethnic group in the directly-governed states.
If you don’t go outside, your vision will become narrow.
They have always been obsessed with competing for resources with their colleagues and neighbors, so that when the real enemy comes, they think it is just an opportunity to weaken the strength of their old rival, or even everything is just a lie.
"If we can work together, the feudal army will have nothing to fear."
It is with this idea in mind that the Chinese in Xinjing feel they can sit back and relax. Even if they heard that the number of troops in the domain had been soaring, they still felt that their total military strength was still greatly superior based on paper.
But when you ask them if they are willing to work together with the feud, I am afraid that only a very small number of them will look troubled and after thinking hard, they will give an ambiguous answer unique to Kazuto: "Maybe I will if I have to."
Just like the darkest part of a flickering oil lamp is under the lamp, they will not take "whether they are willing to cooperate" into consideration when calculating the total military strength and thinking that they can rest easy.
Why?
——Because of the emperor.
Once the royal family, whose presence is not clear, orders that they absolutely must unite to attack, they will have to do it even if they are unwilling.
So yes.
They control the total force and resources several times that of the vassal territory, but they themselves have no willingness to cooperate and solve problems. As the only being who has the ability to force them to cooperate as the supreme commander, the royal family of New Moon Continent are like ethereal gods, they will not show up, and they will not even give orders easily.
A small number of local nobles like Pingzhou Zhoumu have more or less sobered up after witnessing what this rabble coming from Xinjing is like.
But this sobriety is not a good thing for Xinjing.
Isolated and fearful local officials are conducive to the unification of a huge country. They only need to wait incompetently and fearfully to implement Beijing's instructions honestly. But once local governments start to act independently, they start to follow "what they feel is right". road".
Then whether they have the intention to rebel has become a point that Xinjing needs to focus on.
When loyalty and correctness became opposites, local officials fell into tossing and turning all night long.
Should he shrink down and be a person who has nothing to do but is extremely loyal to Xinjing, or should he take action and do something he thinks is right, such as trying to unite other surrounding Chinese people to fight back against the vassal territory - even if this will lead to being called a traitor?
A peace treaty from the domain gave the local Chinese, who were almost going crazy with anxiety thinking about this issue, a precious respite.
They didn't need to figure out the answer right away.
But people with a discerning eye also know that this peace negotiation will not be the final result.
There is a proverb about a distant foreign land, another ancient empire on the other side of the sea.
"If you desire peace, prepare for war."
Crushing strength will not make opponents give up, but it may make them desperate and take the wrong approach.
Balance often exists between opponents of equal strength. No one can defeat the other in one go, so temporary peace comes.
Because war is never an end in itself, it is a means to achieve an end. If you lose more by going to war than you can gain by winning, then whether to go to war becomes a matter of careful consideration.
Xinjing is huge and internally redundant, and it has no strength but cannot exert it. Although the vassal territory was expanding rapidly, it had bitten off more than it could chew. Many of the so-called 150,000 troops were strong men who wanted to escape at the first opportunity.
So the domain took the initiative to seek peace.
But this is just preparation for the next war.
It took three days after the peace documents were delivered to the leader of the special expedition force in Xinjing to be sent to Xinjing, but this inefficient delay was not a bad thing for both sides.
The capable Chinese people in Xinjing began to act secretly. This expeditionary force in Xinjing greatly disappointed them. The central nobles who still think about preserving their strength and playing football are completely untrustworthy. Maybe they will have to rely on themselves next. Just fine.
The delay of time may also allow the knowledgeable people in Xinjing to realize that this crisis in the vassal territory can no longer be defeated as it was before.
All this takes time, and reaction time is important for Beijing's inexperienced bureaucracy, which is paralyzed by peace and has a large, redundant and overstaffed bureaucracy.
As for the domain.
They need to digest the positions they have taken and consolidate their results.
And I can finally concentrate on removing one of them.
The stable factor that has been a troubling thorn in Northland's side since last winter.
A wonderfully formed team.
The latest news is that they have even joined forces with the remaining witches and ghosts and gods.
