"Wu Shenghou is dead? Great Xia has retreated? "
Outside Sanxi City, in a huge tent in the Yun Nation's military camp, a middle-aged man cried out after reading the contents of the letter in his hand.
This man was the commander of the Yun Nation's Western Army, Zhu Wuzhen.
The Yun Nation only received the news half a month after Great Xia retreated.
When Wu Shenghou died, the Yun Nation didn't receive the news yet. However, Great Xia's retreat couldn't be kept a secret.
Zhu Wuzhen's expression was uncertain. Now that Great Xia had retreated, it would be troublesome for the Yun Nation to send out their troops.
If the Yun Nation was of one mind and deployed their elite soldiers, Dayao would still stand a chance against them given the current situation.
However, those people in the imperial court made him feel a chill just thinking about it.
Without the skin, where would the hair attach to? They understood this simple logic.
However, to them, internal strife and their own calculations were obviously more important than external threats.
Previously, it was still alright when Great Xia distracted Dayao. Now that Great Xia was gone, he also had the idea of retreating.
Then, he saw the second letter, and his expression changed drastically. First, he was enraged, and he slammed his palm on the table. A palm-shaped hole appeared on the table, and the place where his palm had been had turned into wood dust.
After a while, his anger dissipated, and he smiled bitterly.
In such a situation, they actually told him that they couldn't retreat. Wasn't this clearly making Great Xia a scapegoat?
He wondered which official in the imperial court had received a lot of money from Great Xia to make such a decision.
Did they really think that without Great Xia, the 180,000 soldiers from the Western Army and those miscellaneous soldiers could stop Dayao?
What a joke.
His only hope was that the Chen Nation would send out their troops as soon as possible.
…
Ren Baqian and the empress had just arrived in Liao City when it started to rain. It continued to rain for three days.
During these three days, Ren Baqian and the empress sat in the room, each holding a small wine glass and staring blankly.
"Is the rainy season here?" Ren Baqian asked while playing with the wine glass in his hand.
"Almost," the empress replied casually.
According to the seasons, it would be the rainy season from now until September, and the rest of the time would be the dry season.
There were no four seasons. In Dayao, there were only two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season.
Liao City was located in the north, so the rainy season came slightly later.
Ren Baqian looked at the drizzle outside the window and racked his brains to come up with a poem, "During the yellow plum blossom season, every house is raining.
"Not bad!" the Water Empress said calmly.
She didn't know much about poetry, but it sounded pretty good.
"There are better ones!" Ren Baqian immediately laughed.
"Tell me about it." The empress became interested.
"Heavy rain, you are full of water! A fine horse with four legs! Sea swallows … "Ren Baqian's voice was full of emotion …
Pa!
With a flick of her chopsticks, a piece of meat on the plate landed on Ren Baqian's face.
"Thank you for the reward, Your Majesty!" Ren Baqian chuckled, stuffed the piece of meat into his mouth, and wiped his face with a rag.
The empress ignored him, drank a glass of wine, and threw a piece of chocolate into her mouth.
Using chocolate to go with wine was quite creative.
However, Ren Baqian recalled a type of "wine chocolate" that he had eaten when he was young. He reckoned that the empress would like it very much.
After staying in Liao City for three days, the weather finally cleared up, and everyone set off again.
It had just rained, and the dirt road was uneven, so they couldn't speed up.
Moreover, they encountered heavy rain after just one day of walking.
Ren Baqian sneaked into the empress's carriage to avoid being drenched.
In fact, there were two other oxcarts carrying food and daily necessities, as well as Lin Qiaole, who hadn't woken up since she boarded the carriage. However, the important thing wasn't which carriage, but who was in it.
While listening to the sound of raindrops hitting the carriage, Ren Baqian resumed his old hobby and told the empress a story called "A Chinese Ghost Story."
"The story began with a heavy rain. Ning Caichen, who was on his way to Guobei County to collect debts, encountered a rainstorm and hid in the legendary Lanruo Temple …"
"Ning Caichen? I seem to have heard of him somewhere. "The name sounded familiar to the empress.
"He was there during your birthday celebration … Later on, he came again to deliver a person."
"Oh! I remember now. It's him! Continue! "The empress thought that the story happened to Ning Caichen and didn't think much about it.
"It's just the same name. He didn't experience it personally." Ren Baqian pointed it out. Otherwise, when Yan Chixia, Granny Tree Demon, Old Demon Black Mountain, and the others appeared, the empress would be confused.
Next, everyone walked in the mud while Ren Baqian told the empress about "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."
Sometimes, the wheels of the oxcart got stuck in the mud, but a guard could lift it out with a lift. This didn't delay the journey. However, the speed of the journey was inevitably reduced.
"It's hard to walk!" Ren Baqian, who had just finished telling "The Painted Skin," sighed in the carriage.
This journey was indeed difficult.
It wasn't the rainy season when they came, so it wasn't that troublesome to walk. However, on their way back, this kind of road was simply torture. Every step they took was filled with mud.
The guards outside were like mud balls.
"Can that kind of cement be used to repair roads?" the empress asked as she looked at the muddy road outside.
"If you want to get rich, you have to repair roads first. It's time to repair roads first. Cement will do, "Ren Baqian said as he looked at the road outside.
"That's good."
"Fortunately, Great Xia didn't attack at this time. Otherwise, our marching speed would be greatly reduced." Ren Baqian smiled.
"Great Xia's bowstrings can't be used during the rainy season," the empress explained.
Only then did Ren Baqian realize that the bowstrings were mainly made of animal tendons and would become soft after being soaked in water. Even if they weren't blistered, the bowstrings would become soft after using them for a while in such a humid environment.
It seemed like Great Xia had deliberately attacked a while ago.
"However, repairing roads requires a lot of manpower and material resources. Next, it will depend on the Protectorate of the Northeast," Ren Baqian said after thinking for a while.
There were no machines or cars in this world. Everything depended on manpower. Transportation also depended on fork-horned cows and humans.
The amount of labor needed to repair the road was huge.
In ancient times, people on Earth used laborers. Dayao didn't have laborers, so they had to think of a way to solve the labor problem.
It was impossible to hire laborers as Dayao's imperial court couldn't afford it. Also, there weren't that many aboriginals to do this.
Therefore, they decided to target the Yun Nation.
"When the time comes, I will tell Zi Donglai to capture more people alive." The empress nodded.
"In any case, they have 400,000 soldiers," Ren Baqian reminded the empress.
"The 400,000 soldiers of the Yun Nation can't even compare to the 200,000 soldiers of Great Xia. If there's anything worth praising, it's that the Yun Nation's military equipment is pretty good. However, no matter how good the military equipment is, it still needs people to use it, "the empress said softly.
"According to the schedule, those new soldiers still need another two months, but I will let them set off in another month."
Now that Great Xia was crippled, these 20,000 new soldiers could be transferred to the Protectorate of the Northeast. After that, there would be another batch of 20,000 new soldiers who would be trained and transferred to the Protectorate of the North.
At present, the 180,000 soldiers of Great Xia wouldn't be able to cause too much trouble in a short period of time.
"It's all thanks to those things of yours." The empress glanced at Ren Baqian. If it weren't for those mortars, grenades, binoculars, walkie-talkies, and radios, Great Xia might have been able to win this war.
The mortars and grenades could disrupt the enemy's formation. The binoculars and drones could monitor the enemy's situation at any time. Any movement of the enemy's troops could be detected.
The walkie-talkies and radios were even more useful.
The various armies could directly communicate with each other and be informed of the situation. Orders were transmitted in real time, and the movements of various units in battle were more timely and accurate.
It could be said that the walkie-talkies, radios, binoculars, and drones didn't seem as intuitive as the mortars and grenades, but in reality, they were no less effective than the mortars and grenades.
After traveling on the muddy road for 20 days, this group of people finally saw Lan City in the distance.
"We are finally back!" Ren Baqian alighted from the carriage, stretched his back, and then climbed onto his fork-horned cow.
After traveling for so long, he started to miss his students.
Now that spring break was over, he didn't know how many idiots would be shot because they couldn't hand in their homework.
— — —
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