While Luoyang City was in an uproar over the search for the real culprit, a sudden piece of news shocked everyone.
At this moment, the Wang Clan had recalled all the men under the age of 30 who had served in the military from their strongholds. Then they suddenly launched an all-out war against the Kong Clan and the Pyro Company.
The Kong Clan only existed in name. The bureaucrats and big shots of the Kong Clan's consortiums had already retreated to the easternmost coastal strongholds and even abandoned the dozen or so strongholds they controlled.
In the past few months, those strongholds had been left unmanaged. A large number of residents fled south, while lawbreakers ran amok in the strongholds. Whoever had a gun had the right to speak.
At this time, it was not difficult for the Wang Clan to take over most of the Kong Clan's strongholds.
Meanwhile, on the Pyro Company's side, only two of the original 12 main forces were left due to the war with the expeditionary army in the north.
If the Wang Clan had planned to unify the entire Barrier Alliance a long time ago, then this would probably be the best time for them to swallow up the other consortiums.
Moreover, the Wang Clan's policy of universal military service played a great role at this time.
Like the Pyro Company, the Wang Clan could also quickly replenish their troops with new blood as they fought against the northern expeditionary army.
However, the focus of the ordinary people's discussion of this war was more on whether they should take advantage of the situation and strike them while they were down now that they had just repelled the foreign enemies.
After all, the Pyro Company had put in a lot of effort to fight against the expeditionary army. If the Wang Clan were to rush into action now, wouldn't that be a little too unkind?
But they also knew their discussions could not change the will of the consortiums. The Wang Clan did not care what they thought of them at all.
As the saying went, the winner takes all. If the Wang Clan could really unify the Barrier Alliance one day, they would also be the ones to write history.
Everyone knew the Pyro Company and the Kong Clan no longer had the strength to resist the Wang Clan. After this war, only the Zhou Clan could compete with the Wang Clan in the Central Plains.
However, only the upper echelons of the Wang Clan knew that the Zhou Clan, which they originally had to worry about, was now too busy to take care of themselves.
While the Wang Clan was dispatching their troops against the Kong Clan and the Pyro Company, the Zhou Clan suddenly started mobilizing their main forces on a large scale.
When the outside world learned of this news, they initially thought that the Zhou Clan wanted to guard against the Wang Clan's troops going south. After all, the movement of the main force this time was huge, and it seemed that they were going to deal with an all-out war.
Among them, the Zhou Clan's First and Third Divisions headed north. They had originally been stationed in the south.
But after two days, everyone realized the Zhou Clan's main forces did not seem to be heading to the northern front lines. Judging from their movements, they were headed to Stronghold 73, the political center of the Zhou Clan.
This confused many of the people who wanted to sell information. Why were so many of the main forces heading to Stronghold 73?
As a matter of fact, Stronghold 73 was located in the central area of the Zhou Clan's territory. Even if the Wang Clan were to invade, they would not be able to reach here in one go, right?
Could the Zhou Clan be planning to give up on the six strongholds north of Stronghold 73?!
At this moment, an article titled "Interrogation Record" was published in Hope Media's newspaper.
It detailed how the Western Kyung Clan and the Northwest Army besieged the assassins in Luoyang City, how they investigated the spies, how they analyzed the surveillance footage, how they caught corrupt officials, and how they caught the mastermind, Luo Zongren (whose real name was Yang Yanbang).
This interrogation record clearly recorded the entire process of Jiang Xu's assassination. It was obvious that Hope Media had obtained authorization from Ren Xiaosu, and they even had someone specially provide them with the information to write the article.
The interrogation record even included the process of torture. Although a lot of the bloody details were omitted, the process of how Luo Zongren pointed the finger at the Wang Clan in the end and how he was exposed was also recorded in the article.
This was the first time Hope Media had published such an article. When the readers of Hope Media saw the article, they all got excited.
This was probably the first time the readers had witnessed a real espionage struggle.
In the past, no newspapers had ever dared to report on something like this because it would involve a bloody struggle between the organizations. No organizations would allow such an article to be published.
Moreover, although there had been literary works related to espionage struggles in the past, those were mostly the fantasies of the directors and authors themselves. They were not as realistic as this interrogation record.
However, the real focus of this interrogation record was that it identified the real culprit behind Jiang Xu's murder: the Zhou Clan.
Just when everyone thought the Wang Clan had killed Jiang Xu, Hope Media announced the identity of the real culprit with a front-page headline. The Zhou Clan's goal was to make everyone angry at the Wang Clan and even divide the Wang Clan's internal power.
Immediately, many young people in the Zhou Clan's stronghold took to the streets to protest. Before this, the Zhou Clan's spokesperson even held a press conference to condemn the Wang Clan's murder of Jiang Xu.
At that time, many young people supported the Zhou Clan's unyielding attitude and admired the Zhou Clan for daring to criticize the Wang Clan at a time like this.
But now they realized they had been deceived. So it turned out the Zhou Clan was behind this.
There was no doubt about the reputation of Hope Media. The trust that the reporters and editors had accumulated over the years from generation to generation ensured that no one who read the newspaper doubted its authenticity.
At this moment, many of the intelligence peddlers realized the Zhou Clan had not mobilized their troops to defend against the Wang Clan, but to prevent a certain someone's revenge!
The intelligence peddlers knew very well who this certain someone was.
But they could not understand why the Zhou Clan would mobilize such a large force. Was it really necessary?
The Northwest was so far away from the Zhou Clan. From the previous search in Luoyang City, it could be seen that there were not many intelligence agents lurking in the Central Plains in the Northwest.
Moreover, Luo Zongren was beaten to death on the spot by the residents of Luoyang City during the demonstration. After that, all the intelligence agents in the Northwest had left.
So no matter how powerful the Young Marshal was, it was impossible for him to single-handedly contend against the Zhou Clan's main forces.
The intelligence peddlers had a feeling that the Zhou Clan was making a big deal out of nothing. After all, the Zhou Clan was a consortium, and it seemed like the other party was just one person.
However, they quickly rushed over to Stronghold 73. Everyone felt that the Young Marshal would definitely go there. They might not even get to see a single person going against an entire consortium once in their lives.
While everyone's attention was on the Zhou Clan, a group of more than 2,000 people was advancing into the Sacred Mountains in the north that had been abandoned by the Pyro Company.
After the battle in the Sacred Mountains, this place had become barren, and even the Pyro Company's own troops had withdrawn.
At this moment, no one knew why this group had come to the Sacred Mountains.
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