Chapter 613

Although everyone around wanted to oust Ning Zheng, just two months later, they were all glad he was in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠position of Admiral of Tianyue.

This was because they could simply push all the unpleasant, thankless tasks onto him.

Nangong Ao had led his eighty-thousand-strong army south, raising the curtain on a war that would decide the nation's fate.

However, that was only the beginning; increasingly arduous days lay ahead.

They had to prepare for another war—one with the State of Chu to the west.

Whether that war would actually happen remained uncertain, but preparing in advance was the only way to avoid disaster.

Military funds were sufficient for the time being, but a time would come when even gold coins couldn't buy grain, cloth, or medicinal herbs.

Merchants were always thinking of profit, and in such times, they would name their price. Thus, the directly controlled districts around the capital of Yue had to control and manage their grain supply.

If necessary, a grain rationing system would be implemented, prohibiting free trade in the markets, and a massive crackdown would be launched against anyone arbitrarily hoarding grain to drive up prices.

However, the grain merchants and the court officials were entangled in a complex web of relationships, so taking action against them meant earning their enmity.

Therefore, the job had to be given to Ning Zheng.

Regulating how much grain a person could buy per month and issuing grain vouchers were also tasks for Ning Zheng.

The State of Yue lacked the strength to fight two large-scale wars simultaneously, but preparations for the war with Chu had to be thorough, leaving no room for unpreparedness.

The intelligence flowing into Yue indicated that the State of Chu had lost its reason.

After their defeat in the previous battle at the border, the King of Chu was filled with a bitter resentment, consumed by the thought of revenge.

To that end, he had paid a hefty price to sign peace treaties with the new states of Jian and Liang to the west and north.

Then, he began to relentlessly assemble a large army, pushing it steadily toward the border between Chu and Yue.

Ceding twenty *li* of territory at the border, paying eight hundred thousand gold coins in reparations, and publicly admitting fault.

These three things were a great humiliation for the King of Chu, a blood-soaked grudge that could only be settled through war.

The State of Chu had already amassed an army of two hundred thousand.

A fearsome number, two hundred thousand strong.

Despite this massive force, Chu continued to march its troops eastward, endlessly gathering more.

To assemble so many soldiers, it seemed the King of Chu had truly gone mad.

The State of Wu, on the other hand, was quiet.

The King of Wu made no significant moves, nor did he assemble a large army.

However, they too showed one unsettling sign.

It was now the eighth month, and the spring and autumn grain harvests were already complete.

The weather in Wu had been good last year, so there would be no shortage of grain this year, and they had successfully overcome the famine.

But they had secretly borrowed one million three hundred thousand *dan* of grain from the Great Yan Empire.

What could the young King of Wu be planning, stockpiling so much grain?

He certainly wasn't going to sell it for a profit; he must be hoarding it for military provisions when the time came.

Chu made a big move, while Wu made a small one.

The State of Yue, in the eye of the storm, naturally had to act as well.

The grain control system was gradually expanded from the capital to the entire nation, but it was enforced most strictly in only two places in all of Yue.

One was Yan Province, and the other was the capital.

In Yan Province, where trade was highly developed and which had been firmly governed for many years, even with the strict enforcement of the grain control system, the merchants and common people only resented it in their hearts.

But in the capital, the entire populace was rife with complaints.

If the droplets of spittle from their curses had wings, they would have flown to Ning Zheng and drowned him.

A million people hurled curses because the grain and meat control system meant that, in most cases, they couldn't buy goods even if they had the money.

The merchants swore because they were forbidden from selling or brewing alcohol.

Even the women of the brothels cursed Ning Zheng.

A nighttime curfew had been imposed, preventing the brothels from doing business.

That was one thing, but with two great wars looming, the State of Yue was facing a severe shortage of troops and needed to conscript and train soldiers as quickly as possible.

Training soldiers was not under the purview of the Tianyue Admiralty, but conscription was.

There is a saying: "Good men do not become soldiers, just as good iron is not used for nails."

Conscripting soldiers was much easier in poor areas, but recruiting new troops in a place like the capital was the most difficult.

Thus, they had no choice but to resort to forced conscription.

And once again, it was Ning Zheng who took on this thankless task.

In the past, when wars broke out, there had been forced conscriptions, but it was common for families to pay a small sum to have a name removed from the list at the government office.

Now, however, such methods were completely ineffective.

Ning Zheng had sent the capital's guard to oversee the conscription, so not only was bribery useless, but it was also punished.

Throughout the capital's directly controlled districts, Ning Zheng forced the conscription of over fifty thousand men.

This meant that hundreds of thousands of people from over fifty thousand households were cursing him, enough to tear him to shreds, but Ning Zheng endured it all.

Even if he was condemned by the masses and everyone cursed him viciously, he carried out his duties one by one.

He handled every difficult task without a thought for burnishing his own political achievements.

When King Ning Yuanxian received the report of his accomplishments, he was stunned.

He even had the illusion that the State of Yue was far stronger than he thought.

To have produced so much cloth, grain, and manpower from the capital alone?

As an experienced ruler, he could see at a glance that Ning Zheng had pushed things to their absolute limit to achieve such results.

Soon, he broke out in a cold sweat of shame.

If he hadn't spent the last twenty years squandering the nation's wealth, the State of Yue would not have been in such a predicament.

Now, on the brink of a great war, they were frantically overtaxing the people's strength and the nation's resources, having made no preparations in times of peace.

Everyone wants to be the good person; playing the villain is the difficult part.

Now, all the officials at court were watching Ning Zheng play the villain.

After earning the enmity of the officials and merchants, he thoroughly earned the hatred of the common people as well.

Moreover, the conscripted troops did not go to Ning Zheng.

Some were sent to the south, some to Zhong Yao in the west, and half were sent to Ning Qi in the north.

This meant that the troops Ning Zheng had conscripted, earning the hatred of countless people, would ultimately belong to the Crown Prince and the Third Prince.

It was the work of a complete fool, yet Ning Zheng carried it out without the slightest neglect, which was why the king was so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deeply moved.

'Shen Lang's judgment is truly sharp.'

'I see now that what he said was right.'

'For a monarch, intelligence and the means to subdue others are secondary; character and will are the foundation.'

The State of Yue was squeezing its people to their limits to fight two wars.

To the west, like gathering storm clouds, the armies of Zhong Yao and the State of Chu were massing day and night. This time, it would certainly not end as mere play-acting like last year, but would become a terrifying, bloody battle to the death.

So, what was the situation in the Southern Gull Nation?

It was in dire straits.

Nangong Ao's son had already been assigned to Zhu Lin's army and had sent letters clearly describing the unfavorable and difficult situation there.

However, Nangong Ao still believed that with Yue's army of over a hundred thousand, no matter how strong the warriors of the Southern Man tribes were, they were an undisciplined force, unable to unite, like scattered grains of sand.

He was confident that his own army, far superior in equipment and discipline, would win without difficulty.

But only after arriving on the battlefields of the Southern Gull Nation did he realize the gravity of the problem.

The Southern Gull Nation was extremely small, not even half the size of a province in Yue, about the size of several combined commanderies.

There were only three cities of any size in the entire Southern Gull Nation, and Yue already controlled them all. But outside those three cities, everything in sight was the enemy.

The officials of the Southern Gull Nation had almost all become lapdogs of the State of Yue, but King Gun was waging war by mobilizing the common people.

In the battle reports sent by Zhu Lin, he always mentioned that the capital of the Southern Gull Nation was in their hands, along with two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other cities. But the moment one stepped outside the city walls, it was all King Gun's territory.

The Southern Gull Nation had been in rebellion for two years, to the point where all its people had become soldiers.

Yue's army dared not venture outside the cities unless in groups of several hundred, for fear of being ambushed.

Moreover, aside from a few cities, the rest of the Southern Gull Nation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was all vast mountains and forests.

There were countless enemies, large and small, and they were completely submerged in a sea of the Southern Man people, as if trapped in a quagmire.

The army of over one hundred thousand stationed in the three cities was ambushed dozens of times a day. If they dispatched a small number of soldiers, they couldn't annihilate the enemy and would instead be killed themselves.

And even if they dispatched a large number of soldiers, they still couldn't wipe them out.

The enemy would retreat into the great mountains and vanish without a trace.

It had already been three months since Nangong Ao entered the Southern Gull Nation's theater of war.

He had fought dozens of battles, large and small, and won every time, but such victories were all meaningless.

There was no real progress in the war, only the daily consumption of vast amounts of grain and medicinal supplies.

The weather here was oppressively hot, the undergrowth was full of traps, and a miasma hung heavy in the air everywhere.

Furthermore, King Gun was a real piece of work.

Before Nangong Ao's army marched south, he had pressed his advantage relentlessly, acting as if he would unite the Southern Man tribes any day, declare himself overlord, and lead his army to reclaim his homeland.

Seeing this, the State of Yue had hastily assembled an army of nearly a hundred thousand and sent them south.

But once Nangong Ao's army arrived in the Southern Gull Nation, King Gun was suddenly in no hurry, and his pace of uniting the Southern Man tribes slowed to a crawl.

Seeing this, Nangong Ao and Zhu Lin cursed him fiercely.

Now, the two of them had only one thought.

'You damn bastard, King Gun.'

'Hurry up and unite the Southern Man tribes and bring your army to take back the Southern Gull Nation.'

'Let's have our decisive battle already.'

'Dragging this war out is killing us.'

* * *

Then, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the Mid-Autumn Festival, a thunderclap of news came from the south of the Eastern world.

King Gun announced to the world that he had united the Southern Man tribes and officially established the Great Southern Nation.

King Gun ascended the throne as the first king of the Great Southern Nation, which meant the Southern Man tribes, scattered like sand for hundreds of years, were now officially united.

Another great power had risen in the Eastern world.

That's right! In terms of population, the Southern Man tribes numbered only a few million, which would make them a small nation, but in terms of territory, they were undeniably a great power.

The territory of the Southern Man tribes reached the sea to the east and bordered the State of Jiang to the west, with a total land area larger than that of the State of Yue.

Of course, most of it was mountains and primeval forests, and the inhabitants lived in relatively primitive tribal settlements.

It was a nation with only a few cities of any size, and not even many large villages.