On the Hezong Alliance side, Su Xuange was stimulated by Zhou Qing's innate breakthrough and accelerated Su's preparations for the conquest of the southwestern barbarians.
In addition, after receiving the news, Xichuan State and Song State also felt pressured and could not help but step up their preparations.
It turned out that when they saw Chu State attacking Southwest Yi in advance, they were confused and thought of taking this opportunity to let the opponent test Southwest Yi's strength first and use up the strength of the He Zongchang.
But now that the Jinliang of Southwest Yi has been tested, the Jinliang of Chu has also been tested.
The King of Chu was still the King of Chu, leading troops in battles, and he was still so invincible and invincible.
After only half a year of dispatching troops, he had already defeated hundreds of thousands of thieves, occupied thousands of miles of territory, and conquered almost half of the Great Changhe Kingdom. He was worthy of the title of Military God.
But the above, if everyone can still expect it.
Chu State Zhou Qing's breakthrough to Xiantian was a surprise.
The King of Chu was already so good at fighting, and his intimidation alone was enough to make other countries fearful and afraid to offend.
Originally, the countries were still thinking that although the King of Chu could fight, he only had two innates in the country. It was barely enough to hold on to the current territory, and there should not be much spare power for external expansion.
So although I am wary of the other party, I am not too afraid.
But now the Chu State has another innate, and there are masters in the north and south of the Yangtze River, which directly liberates Lu Yuan, a powerful weapon, and can fight foreign wars without any scruples.
Chu State's external deterrence and threat instantly rose to a higher level.
This also caused the pressure on the countries adjacent to Chu to rise suddenly.
Therefore, in order to protect themselves and improve their strength, the Xichuan and Song states also followed the footsteps of the Su state and made preparations to conquer the southwestern barbarians.
The two countries are equally determined to advance the time and strive to send troops to the southwestern barbarians by the end of the year.
A sense of urgency spread throughout Hezong.
…
In fact, not only the Hezong Alliance, but also other countries close to Chu State also responded one after another.
Qiao Kangquan, the leader of Han Dynasty, immediately ordered the training of 10,000 more new soldiers after the news came, which expanded the country's military strength to as many as 40,000.
The two counties of Hanzhong and Xiangyang in the Zhou Dynasty also increased their troops by 20,000, bringing the number of troops garrisoned in the two counties to 80,000 and 50,000 respectively.
Liang Guo's Jiangxia County added another 30,000 troops, bringing the garrison here to 100,000.
Nanhai Kingdom...well, there is still no movement in Nanhai Kingdom. I just heard that the king of the country, Yan Wangqiu, was getting worse and worse. He was bedridden all day long and could not go to court once a month. He didn't know when he would die in bed.
At this time, the whole country in the South China Sea was in chaos, and there was no time to care about foreign affairs.
Of course, compared to the above countries, the one with the biggest reaction was naturally Ning State, which had always regarded Chu State as a serious concern.
Ningguo, Jinling City.
After these years of governance, as the place gradually stabilized and the complicated labor and military service gradually eased, the four Jiangdong counties of Ningguo also gradually regained their vitality under the governance of the new Emperor Jianwu.
Nowadays, business travelers from all over the world are constantly coming to Jinling City along the trade routes, and they are constantly bringing all kinds of goods here.
Various shops and businesses in the city have gradually returned to prosperity, and the beautiful scenery of Qinhuai with lights around the clock has returned to the past. …
Shen Qiu stood on the Mingsheng Tower built in the palace, looking through the window at the prosperous Jinling City in the distance, and felt a sense of pride in his heart.
This prosperous and prosperous land in the south of the Yangtze River has become more and more prosperous under his own governance.
And this phenomenon all shows that Ning Guo now replaces the mediocre and incompetent Qian Yue, which is the destiny and the will of the people.
'Six years, and in another six years, I can make Ningguo more prosperous, raise its national power to a higher level than it is now, and completely restore it to the prosperous days of Kangning, Yue. , Shen Qiu thought in his heart.
The prosperous age of Kangning was the last prosperous age in the Qianyue period. Eighty years have passed since then.
At that time, it was Shen Qiu's most prosperous time.
As a young man, it was in this prosperous age that he grew up step by step, and then watched this prosperous age end with his own eyes.
The most beautiful time in life is spent in the prosperous age, which naturally makes Shen Qiu full of great feelings and love for that prosperous age.
Therefore, after replacing Qian Yue and establishing a new dynasty, his biggest vision is to rebuild the country that is now full of problems, rotten and dilapidated, back to the prosperous age.
Now it has been four years since he ascended the throne. After continuous reforms, lax corvee service, and rectification of officialdom, most of the various maladministrations of the previous dynasty have been eliminated.
There are still some stubborn problems that are still there, and we are trying to slowly improve them.
With the support of a group of wise ministers, the entire Ning State is showing a vigorous and vigorous situation, and everything is developing in a good direction.
Especially this year, with the continuous improvement of local officials and the further strengthening of local control, a large number of hidden households have been reorganized into all households. The country has completed the first population count. By the end of the fourth year of Jianwu, the number of local residents in the country has been calculated. Household registration.
The number of household registrations found this time surprised Shen Qiu even more.
In Linhai County, the number of registered households is 1.03 million, with a population of 5.37 million. Yuzhang County has 1.12 million households and 6.01 million people. The seven prefectures of Guangling County have 620,000 households and 3.23 million people. Jian'an County has 410,000 households and 2.02 million people. The three prefectures of Xiangyang County have 180,000 households and 910,000 people.
In this way, there are five counties and 48 prefectures in the country, with a total of 3.36 million households and 17.54 million people.
Not only that.
The annual revenue at the end of this year has also been calculated.
During the entire four years of Jianwu, the five counties across the country collected a total of 51.2 million taels of silver. After all expenditures were eliminated, there was still a balance of 10 million taels of silver.
And according to statistics from the Ministry of Household Affairs, with further local governance, in six years' time, the tax revenue will be further increased, and will eventually reach an annual income of 70 million taels.
A population of nearly 20 million and a tax revenue of 70 million taels gave Shen Qiu great confidence.
Because this means that as long as he follows the steps and continues to accumulate money in six years, he can reach the limit of 70 million yuan in the country's finances.
By then, relying on this money, Ning Guo could afford to support an army of 800,000.
At that time, with this powerful army, we will march up the Shuo River and march westward. If the Chu thieves rebel, why not just capture them?
A beautiful and bright future is coming, and Daning will prosper and be glorious in his own hands. Shen Qiu is naturally very happy. …
"Hmph, that Chu thief Lu Yuan has gathered a bunch of rebels and wants to disobey the destiny, disrespect the emperor, and break away from the control of our country, Ning.
Little did they know that in front of me, I was nothing more than a clown, trying to block a car with my hands.
Now, in this rare moment of respite, I don’t know how to recuperate, but I still dare to lead a group of rebellious officials and traitors to attack the southwestern barbarians.
Let you fight.
Do you really think those barbarians are so easy to fight?
Throughout the dynasties, didn’t they want to explore the southwest?
Let those barbarians drag your rebellious feet, shed their blood, and consume your strength for me, Daning.
Now I will let you wait for a few years. When the ten-year rest period is over, I will personally lead the army to destroy the traitor Chu.
He personally beheaded the thief king Lu Yuan on the Yangtze River to frighten the world. "
Shen Qiu thought this in his heart, and the smile on his face grew stronger.
Naturally, he also knew that Lu Yuan sent troops to the southwestern Yi this year.
But Shen Qiu was not in a hurry about this important matter.
For more than a thousand years, the development of the entire land south of the Yangzhou Yangtze River has been led by families like them.
But in the past two thousand years, they had only developed eight counties in the entire Jiangnan.
Oh, no, maybe there is also the Jiuzhen County that has just been defeated.
In two thousand years, nine counties were developed. On average, it would take almost two hundred years to develop one county.
There is certainly a reason why the efficiency is so slow.
Those barbarians might be easy to defeat.
After all, barbarians are extremely ignorant and no different from savages. No matter in terms of military strength, economy, or even political system, they are far inferior to the orthodox dynasty of Jinling. It is easy to defeat them.
But it is easy to defeat the barbarians, and it is easy to destroy their country. But it is not that easy to destroy their race and culture.
Those barbarian countries more or less have one or two innates, or even three or four innates.
The barbarians also gathered in the mountains. If they couldn't be defeated, they retreated into the mountains. It was extremely difficult to clear them out.
So when you defeat those barbarians on the frontal battlefield and seize their land and city.
What you have to face is those innate masters rushing into the mountains, and then leading the mountain people to fight a continuous guerrilla against you.
They won't confront you at all.
Just attack your town today and destroy your village tomorrow. I will kill dozens of you today, and hundreds of you tomorrow.
Harassed every day and attacked every year, it is simply a continuous process of bloodletting for countries that want to rule these newly occupied lands.
Unfortunately, the innate master cannot defeat you head-on, but thanks to his familiarity with the terrain and the support of various mountain people, it is extremely easy to hide.
You will never find a chance to surround and kill them.
In the end, the only option was to survive and survive the innate masters of the barbarians. At that time, there was no place to support the barbarians and they could not train the next generation of innate masters, so naturally they could not endure the hardships.
Only in this way can a county be effectively digested.
The previous imperial courts of Jinling had the entire dynasty on their backs, so they could naturally spend more than a hundred years slowly fighting off the barbarians.
Even if he continues to bleed, he can quickly mobilize manpower and materials from all counties in the world to repair the wounds and regain his strength. …
But what is the situation in Chu State today?
Looking up, we see enemy countries all around us.
What is the national power of Chu State?
It is said that it is a country with three counties, but in fact, it is only a land of two counties, and it is still a sparsely populated small county.
With such little strength, who gave him the courage and the confidence to do the kind of pioneering work that only a state overlord can do?
I really thought that everyone was a person like the Five Poison Sect who sold their girls for glory. They rushed to marry the Xiantian Grandmaster to Lu Yuan, so that this kid could easily control Dongting County and eliminate the biggest hidden danger.
Or are they all timid little people like Li Xiong of Xiqiang, who would run away at the slightest hint of the wind and go somewhere unknown.
A normal innate grandmaster, especially an innate grandmaster from a foreign race, is supported by the same clan and has an honorable status, almost like a patron saint.
You destroy other people's clans, seize their land, and destroy their wealth inherited from generation to generation. How tolerant and timid must you be to forgive such a thing?
If I don't bother you to the death, I will be called an innate master in vain.
Therefore, Shen Qiu was not optimistic about the battle of the Four Kingdoms to conquer the barbarians, and he did not think that Lu Yuan and the others could gain much.
Perhaps without external interference, relying on the current national strength of the Chu State, they could take advantage of one or two counties in the hands of the southwestern barbarians for a hundred years.
But will he watch the other party and slowly increase his strength?
joke.
How stupid must Shen Qiu be to give up this opportunity and let Chu State continue to expand its strength.
At this time, he had already begun to plan. Six years later, when the Chu State was dragged into the southwestern Yi and was bleeding continuously, he would use the power of thunder to attack the opponent, directly regain the three counties of the Chu State, and take over the army. The other party has achieved the results of developing the southwestern Yi.
With the size of the Chu State, it was very difficult to open up the southwestern Yi.
But with the size of Ning State, which destroyed Chu State, it would be much easier to expand.
'At that time, I will not only destroy the Chu State, but also imitate the previous dynasties and open up one or two counties in the southwest for the descendants of our three emperors.
This kind of achievements can be ranked among the top three among the founding kings of the past dynasties.
In the future, when you enter the underworld and see the ancestors of various dynasties, you can hold your head high and look at them with pride. ,
When Shen Qiu thought of this, the pride in his heart couldn't help but grow deeper.
However, at this moment, footsteps hurriedly came from the foot of the tower, and a eunuch's attendant came over with a secret memorandum.
"Your Majesty, there is a secret report from Chu State."
"Chu State?" Shen Qiu frowned when he heard the name. He took the secret note and looked at it, and his face instantly darkened.
Because there are five words written on it, Zhou Qingcheng is born.
After seeing this content clearly, Shen Qiu's original pride instantly dissipated. Instead, a surge of anger surged up in his head.
"How can a small country be so capable of raising a master?"
He crumpled the secret music into a ball, threw it directly on the ground, and shouted filial piety loudly.
Just like Su Xuange.
After learning the news that Zhou Qing had become an innate, Shen Qiu immediately understood what this meant to Ning Guo.
An innate master is as valuable to a country as one hundred thousand soldiers.
This is an artifact-level figure from the Zhu Kingdom.
Sometimes, a hundred thousand soldiers are not as important as an innate master. …
Because the value of a hundred thousand soldiers can sometimes be replaced by ordinary civilians and warriors. But the value of an innate master cannot be replaced by quantity for those first- and second-rate martial arts masters.
A country without a hundred thousand soldiers will not necessarily be destroyed.
But if there is no innate master, it will definitely be destroyed.
But for such an important figure, Chu State actually has one more person.
Chu State actually has one more person!
Thinking of this, Shen Qiu was so angry that he gritted his teeth, and at the same time, there was a trace of imperceptible fear in his heart.
You must know that on Ningguo's side, with the death of Wu'an Hou and Wuping Hou Xie Ning taking Jiuzhen County away from Jianguo, they have lost two innate masters one after another.
Without these two, the only people left in the country are Yang Jing, the Marquis of Wu Xuan, who is stationed in Xiangyang County, Shangguan Ming, the Marquis of Wucheng, who is commanding the navy, and Mu Changqing, the Marquis of Wu Ming, who is stationed in Guangling County, as well as the emperor. There are only four people in total.
Originally there were two Xiantian Grandmasters from the Chu State, but there were four from the Ning State. Four against two, twice the strength gap. In addition, he was a master at the second level of Xiantian Realm, so he didn't panic at all.
But now, with Zhou Qing's breakthrough, the originally huge advantage of four versus two has instantly turned into a weak advantage of four versus three.
[Given the general environment, the gap between the two countries’ top-level combat capabilities has narrowed sharply.
Said it before.
The value of an innate master is no less than a hundred thousand soldiers, and it is irreplaceable.
The Chu State has three innate masters who have this power at the top level, so even though the number of soldiers at the bottom level is still not as good as that of the Ning State.
But these low-level soldiers are not irreplaceable.
Relying on the militia system of Chu State, hundreds of thousands of militiamen could be mobilized at any time to help defend the city against Ning State's attack.
If they are just defending the city, it doesn't really matter whether they are elite soldiers. Anyway, they can pour boiling water and throw stones.
Therefore, six years later, even if the Ning State was able to dispatch an army of five to six million people, it would not be that easy to defeat the Chu State with its superior military strength.
Originally, Shen Qiu wanted to achieve a breakthrough by relying on the gap in top-level combat power and the advantage of military strength.
But now, the gap in top-level combat power has been quickly smoothed out with the emergence of Zhou Qing.
Because Ning Guo went on an expedition, he had to leave at least two innate masters in the country.
Guangling County needs one to defend against Liang Guo. As the capital, Jinling City also needs one.
Then Ning Guo can only send two innate masters.
But over in Chu State, there is an innate grandmaster in Jiangnan and Jiangbei, and eventually there will be one more to support other aspects.
Although judging from the current situation, the Chu State's extra innate grandmaster, Lu Yuan, was dragged into Southwest Yi and might not be able to escape for decades.
But if the Ning State launches a large-scale attack on the Chu State and faces the danger of Sheji, who knows whether the other party will reluctantly give up the southwestern barbarian land it has conquered and return to the country to support the front line.
After all, compared to the southwestern barbarians, which have not yet been fully developed, the three counties of Chu State, which are already mature areas, are the real foundation. …
It is easy to make a decision on which of the two sides is more important.
Then the problem arises.
The Chu State's military disadvantage can be offset by the help of the militia and local bravery to help defend the city.
There are two innate masters on both sides of the top level, and Chu State also has a defensive advantage. In this way, even if Lu Yuan's strength is not as good as Shen Qiu's, relying on the city's defense, he will not be unable to withstand it.
The advantages of the top and bottom layers are gone. Faced with a turtle shell like Chu State, how should Ning State bite it?
When he thought about this situation and how he might be unable to do anything to the Chu State in the future, Shen Qiu, who was still immersed in the great cause of creating a prosperous age, suddenly felt a little dizzy.
'No, we must not let this happen. ,
Realizing that his great achievements might be lost, Shen Qiu suddenly became anxious and immediately ordered: "Pass on my order to have Marquis Wucheng lead the navy to station in Chaisang to intimidate the Chu State.
Tell Shangguan Ming to hold back the Chu State and let them gather their troops in Baling. I will never allow them to easily attack the southwestern Yi. "
The accompanying ministers obeyed the order and hurried down to deliver the order.
After saying this order, Shen Qiu thought about it again and said: "In addition, he will be passed on to me as the Duke of the country. I will hold a banquet for him in the palace."
The current Duke Cheng Guo of Daning is named Bai Yi'an. As you can tell by his name, he comes from the family of the late Bai Mengyang, Marquis of Wu'an, and is the direct grandson of the military god.
Now the entire Bai family, after Bai Mengyang passed away, has lost its innate master.
But this does not mean that this family will decline. In fact, Bai Yi'an, who is now forty years old, is the next generation heir carefully cultivated by the Bai family. He is now at the peak of first-class strength and is not far from innate.
The reason why the innate breakthrough has not yet occurred at this time is simply because the Bai family has not accumulated enough, and they have not been able to collect enough divine blood elixir to help the opponent purify the internal energy, nourish the soul, and accumulate the conditions to break through the innate.
It turned out that Shen Qiu didn't want to get involved in this matter. He just wanted the Bai family to accumulate slowly and find enough elixir by themselves.
But now, with the news that Zhou Qing has broken through Xiantian and the Chu Kingdom has gained another grandmaster, the strength gap between the two countries has further narrowed, and the Emperor Jianwu can't sit still.
'The accumulation of my Shen family is relatively sufficient, and there is no suitable successor in the clan. I can use some of it first to help the younger generation of Yi'an break through the innate.
In this way, he can sell the Bai family's favor and gain the loyalty of Ngee'an. It can also add an innate talent to Daning, and make up for the gap widened by Chu State.
However, there is only one person in Yi'an, and the number of innate masters seems to be insufficient.
The boy from the Li family has almost reached the level of an innate master in terms of strength. How about pulling him up this time and training two innates at once? ,
Shen Qiu looked out the window, frowning, and thinking in confusion.
The oppressive feeling of the Chu State pressing forward step by step made Emperor Jianwu feel a little confused.
