Chapter 756 – Taking Back Guilin Prefecture
Along with Li Mu ordering his troops to retreat, the Battle of Guiping officially ended.
The first appearance of the Shanhai City Flying Squad had stunned the wilderness, making everyone feel a chill run down their spine.
When Han Xin led the 1st legion into the Guiping Pass, he only found a deserted city. All the buildings inside were buried in an ocean of fire and were in ruins.
Broken walls and leftover buildings were there for everyone to see.
One could occasionally see charred corpses of Alliance Army soldiers who failed to retreat in time. Luckily, there were no commoners living in the pass, or else it would be a total tragedy.
After taking down Guiping Pass, all that stood in front of them was a vast plain.
Military experts and advisors once again concluded that under the cooperation of both the P1 Type Cannon and the Flying Squad, there was no city in the wilderness that could defend against the Shanhai City Army.
The wilderness was totally silent.
Unknowingly, Shanhai City's technology level had reached a step higher than other territories.
"If we do not catch up, we will never be able to lift our heads!" Di Chen tried his best to convince the members of the Yanhuang Alliance to set up a common research fund to share all their technology and data they had.
At the same time, this was the first time Di Chen and the others had turned their eyes to the world outside of China. If they wanted to break the technological bottleneck, without a base of western technology, it was useless no matter how many top scientists they had.
The restriction of the technological tree was like a curse.
During the silence, a technological battle was slowly taking place. In this battle, the people who fell behind would lose their chance to be an overlord of the wilderness.
The butterfly effect caused by Ouyang Shuo was slowly turning into a storm.
...
As the battle came to an end, the ripples continued.
Li Mu led his troops and retreated into Guilin Prefecture. After joining up with the 30 thousand defending forces, he reported the specific details of the battle and awaited further instructions.
The two City-States that had hidden powers lurking, upon learning that Guiping Pass had fallen, ended up in total chaos. Combined with the effects of the two envoys sent out by the Honglu Temple, it caused even more waves.
Persuasion, assassination, betrayal, schemes, and more occurred in the two City-States. Under the night sky, solely the rounds of battle between the Shanhai Guards and Xiao numbered no less than seven.
The Lords of the two City-States were all wrapped up in this chaotic whirlpool, unable to pull themselves out. Between war and peace, between Shanhai City and Pill Sun City, they had to make a choice.
The first to give up was still Chuanbei City-State.
The fall of Guiping Pass meant that they had lost their barrier. Guilin Prefecture was like a defenseless lady that was right there for the taking. It could be invaded at any moment.
What was worse was that the Alliance Army housed in Weiwu Pass could be attacked by the Shanhai City army at any moment. They had already lost 26 thousand troops in the Battle of Xuanwu Pass, and they could not take any more such losses.
11th month, 1st day, without consulting Xiangnan City-State, Chuanbei City-State pulled out their troops housed in Weiwu Pass back into Chuanbei Province.
The army did not even stop in Guilin Prefecture, directly returning to the Chuanbei Province border.
The Guilin Prefecture situation was becoming clearer and clearer.
The retreat of the Alliance Army meant that Chuanbei City-State had totally given up on Guilin Prefecture. The truth was just that. As the army left, the officials in the prefecture belonging to Chuanbei City-State also left.
The relevant personnel and resources were all moved out of Guilin Prefecture in a short time.
Chuanbei City-State did not go too far; they only took the important items and people. They did not burn the land or take all the people.
With that, they did Shanhai City a huge favor in the future running of Guilin Prefecture.
The message sent out by the actions of Chuanbei City-State could not be any clearer. They were not willing to have such a bad relationship with Shanhai City and hoped that they could come to a good trade agreement.
When the news spread, everyone was shocked.
The sudden allegiance of Chuanbei City-State caused the originally unsettled Xiangnan City-State to crack apart.
The Lords who supported Shanhai City had already sent out word that if the City-State did not agree to move out of Guilin Prefecture, they would leave themselves.
The disbandment of the City-State was imminent.
At such a time, Caiyun Zinan, who had been keeping silent, had no choice but to stand out and personally meet the envoy of Shanhai City. He agreed to leave Guilin Prefecture and come to an agreement with Shanhai City.
To protect and maintain a complete City-State was Caiyun Zinan's bottom line.
The moment the City-State fell apart, Xiangnan Province would not have any ability in future wars. They would either be occupied by Shanhai City or become the puppets of Yanhuang Alliance.
With Caiyun Zinan's agreement, combined with the fact that Chuanbei City-State had already retreated, the chess pieces that Chun Shenjun had buried were all rendered useless.
The City-States backing out of Guilin Prefecture was going to happen.
If they tried to hold on or even declare war, it would be like throwing an egg at a stone. Without the support of other allies, they would not be able to stand a chance.
The Honglu Temple, Black Snake Guards, and the Shanhai Guards worked together to utilize all sorts of methods to remove and eradicate the chess pieces buried by Chun Xiao.
In the end, there were only three or four stubborn fellows left who were unable to cause any problems.
The only thing they could do was kill people and sow chaos when they left Guilin Prefecture.
Chun Shenjun's actions were a display of his pettiness. He had already lost and still did such things, becoming a huge joke in the wilderness.
With that, Chun Shenjun grew even more furious.
Pill Sun City, Lord's Manor.
Chun Shenjun pointed at Xiao's nose and asked, "Damn it, who revealed the news?" The prideful Chun Shenjun was furious when he became the joke in the wilderness for no reason.
"I'm checking." Xiao was really calm. This was not the first time that Chun Shenjun had vented his anger.
It was okay once one got used to it.
"Have you found anything?" Chun shenjun's anger still had not passed.
Xiao said, "There are clues to suggest that the intel organizations from Shanhai City have fabricated rumors to spoil our reputation."
"...."
Chun Shenjun was stunned, and his face turned totally red.
What was this called? Carrying a rock and smashing one's own foot.
Chun Shenjun wanted to cry out; he had brought this onto himself. If he knew that this would happen, he would not have tried so hard.
"Ok, ok, go down!"
Looking at Xiao, Chun Shenjun felt annoyed. The thing he found out was totally useless.
"Yes my Lord!"
Like a gust of wind, Xiao disappeared into the shadows.
In the huge trading room, only Chun Shenjun remained. After a short while, he muttered, "Scoff, even if you reconcile with them, Qiyue Wuyi, I will not let you off."
"Didn't you so magnanimously allow Xiangnan City-State to use your ocean trade channel? Then I'll use that shell to sneakily trade. Let's see who wins and who loses."
In terms of business, Chun Shenjun was the true expert. He had been worrying about his products not being sold. With the ocean trading route, he could naturally earn big bucks.
Just thinking about it, Chun Shenjun felt delighted, and the depressed atmosphere was swept aside.
11th month, 5th day, Guilin Prefecture.
On this day, the two City-States had totally left Guilin Prefecture. They returned this strategic zone that they spent so much to build up back to Shanhai City, accepting the olive branch that Shanhai City had handed to them.
Matters regarding the Guilin Prefecture had been totally settled.
A year ago, probably no one would have expected this to happen. The way Shanhai City solved this would become a classic case study in wilderness ruling and became something all experts studied.
Shanhai City had combined military strength, diplomacy, and their technology to take back the prefecture without taking much loses, a truly genius act.
There was so much in it for other Lords to learn from.
Anyone in the inside could understand that the military acts and envoys were all for show.
The true reason was Shanhai City's immense strength. It was because they had enough military strength to settle Guilin Prefecture that gave Honglu Temple a lot of space to work with.
If other Lords tried it, who would care about them?
If not, why would people say that weak countries had no diplomacy?
...
Ouyang Shuo instructed the Leopard Legion Corps to take charge before the officials from Nanjiang Governor-General House arrived.
The deeper layer of meaning was for them to clean out Guilin Prefecture. After all, the two City-States had run it for a year, so who knows how many spies they had hidden.
No one would truly believe that they had pulled everyone out.
Apart from the remnants of the two City-States, Ouyang Shuo did not forget that Guilin Prefecture was the planned escape route of Taiping Country. Hence, there was the hidden evil of that religion to deal with.
How would one be at ease before removing them?
Apart from military operation, the ones in the dark were also really important. The Military Intelligence Division, Shanhai Guards, and the Black Snake Guards worked together once more, targeting different groups to investigate all of them.
In this year, the three intel organizations had not stopped their infiltration of Guilin Prefecture. All the people or groups who were on their blacklist became the target of this operation.
These people were naturally removed before Ouyang Shuo arrived in Guilin Prefecture. When Ouyang Shuo arrived, it would be to bribe and persuade people.