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Chapter 777: Break Through and the Beautiful Lobbyist (I)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The alliance army was made up of a total of 23 separate forces. The number of combat horses they had varied, meaning each force had different levels of strength.

However, they each had a rightful place in the alliance and could maintain their position. As such, the troops they’d brought with them were clearly not weak.

The alliance army that was currently the target of Prince Changshou’s ambush belonged to the Chief of Wolong from Haozhou.

Jiang Pengji sneered coldly. “So this old thing is waiting over here. Huh... Is he planning on taking us all down in one hit?”

It was one thing for him to claim the title of the emperor during the seventh day of the empty crown, but it was another thing for him to refuse to retreat with his troops and wait around the border of Chenzhou to ambush the separated alliance forces.

The Chief of Wolong was an impatient man who wanted to return to Haozhou as fast as he could after looting the glory of bringing down the late emperor. Little did he know that he was risking his life.

Jiang Pengji’s vanguard forces were the first to discover the survivors of Haozhou’s Wolong County and find out about the ambush through the stories of the few survivors.

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The situation was serious, and Jiang Pengji didn’t rush to return. Instead, she chose to reorganize on the spot and summon forces to combat this problem.

Everyone’s face turned blue as they listened to the words of the survivors of the Wolong ambush.

It had been over half a month since Prince Changshou claimed the title of emperor. Since then, he’d remained inactive and quiet as a lifeless animal.

The alliance troops remained stationed for a while outside of Chenzhou. They’d originally claimed to protect the imperial palace.

To put it bluntly, from the top governors of each county down to the district magistrates, there were a total of 23 groups with over 400,000 alliance troops between them. These 400,000 soldiers had been stationed long-term outside of Haozhou’s imperial palace. They looked like a bunch of ants with their individual camps barely connected and their flags thrown together without very much authority.

However, the imperial palace did not feel safe when they saw this. These 400,000 troops wouldn’t listen to their orders.

Ever since Prince Changshou had claimed the crown, he hadn’t targeted the palace in Chenzhou. He also hadn’t shown any intention of rallying his troops for an invasion.

Therefore, some people began to have a bold thought. Perhaps Prince Changshou was satisfied with just claiming the title. Perhaps he was planning on retreating with his army to Zhangzhou to claim his territory!

If that was the case, then the alliance troops who claimed to be protecting the palace against Prince Changshou seemed a little excessive and pointless.

The empress dowager wasn’t a strong woman with much foresight. She was simply a lady from the boudoir who was worth praising for being well-versed in makeup, clothing, and accessories. How could she have any sort of political knowledge? Her biggest skill was that her private life was messy and that she had managed to cheat on her late husband multiple times already.

Her family and cousins had urged her multiple times under the table to bother the alliance troops and force them out.

If they wanted to withdraw, then so be it. This empress dowager was still planning on retrieving the scattered military autonomy that the allied troops had taken away.

In the eyes of the empress dowager, she was living inside the palace with her young emperor son while over 400,000 troops of questionable loyalty stood impatiently outside. How could she rest peacefully at night?

What did the Dongqing imperial palace even stand for? What kind of authority did they have to retrieve their military autonomy?

Who gave them this power?

More recently, many generals of the alliance had quickly gathered up their belongings and war prizes to prepare for the journey home.

Haozhou wasn’t too far from Chenzhou, and because the Chief of Wolong was such an impatient man, he left angry about the empress dowager’s pushy attitude.

But nobody expected that the Chief of Wolong, who’d left days earlier, would lose his life just like that.

Jiang Pengji scanned the crowd and squeezed the bamboo slip in her hands. “The troops were made up of elite forces. Even if Prince Changshou set up an ambush beforehand and launched a surprise attack, it shouldn’t have been able to be defeated so easily! One night of battle only left a few dozen soldiers alive?”

Even though a few dozen survivors had managed to escape, they were all battered and traumatized. Numerous men had been badly hurt.

If not for the fact that they were holding onto their last breaths, these people may have already joined their comrades in heaven.

Even then, over half the survivors would be left with incurable amputations for the rest of their lives.

As for the Chief of Wolong, he’d died on the battlefield and been left without a corpse.

He left his only descendant, the 11-year-old Cai Xiang, to his right-hand man. The right-hand man carried the child out of danger.

Jiang Pengji assigned the logistics group to take care of the injured soldiers. She waited for the less injured ones to wake up so she could get more information from first-hand sources.

Everyone’s hearts grew heavy as they listened to the stories.

Li Yun pondered for a bit and said, “It looks like Prince Changshou was planning on breaking into the palace while the alliances’ troops disbanded. My lord, should we dispatch a patrol to follow other friendly alliances forces? Or at least not let them become isolated and allow the enemy to strike?”

The Wolong force that left first had been eliminated. Only the 11-year-old Cai Xiang had survived. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this incident had been the tragic extermination of an entire family.

Considering the complicated relationship between his own master and Prince Changshou’s forces, it was only a matter of time before they were targeted for an ambush.

Even though the combined forces of Jiang Pengji and Liu She only consisted of about 30,000 men, they had considerably better security. That said, it was still hard to predict how they would do in real life.

Who knew how many men Prince Changshou would dispatch to ambush them?

Aside from Yang Si and Feng Zhen, even the newly admitted technical personnel, Qi Kuang and Shao Guang, didn’t find this opinion particularly great.

“The alliance is made up of forces from all over the continent. Each group has different ways of eating things. Dongqing’s most powerful forces in the north are our lord and our lord’s father. If we want to add in another person, we should also consider Haozhou’s Maode County Chief Huang Song. However, who knows where Huang Song is right now?”

The alliance troops hadn’t departed at the same time, so each group was a day or two apart from the others.

The communication technology in ancient times wasn’t too good, so communicating within the alliance was not easy.

Li Yun’s expression darkened as he said, “That is true...”

Self-help was better than asking others. Who knew what other people might think if they tried to get in contact with the other troops?

When Li Yun brought up the other troops of the alliances, Jiang Pengji thought of Yang Jian.

Yang Jian was the military chief of Dongmen County in Zhangzhou, and Zhangzhou was the former territory of Prince Changshou. Yang Jian was able to obtain his position today because of Prince Changshou’s referral...Normally, Yang Jian would have sided with Prince Changshou, but he’d instead chosen to join the alliance forces.

With Prince Changshou’s careful and manipulative nature, how would he let Yang Jian go out on his own?

However, he also remembered that Yang Jiang had Yan Lin with him, a young man who was always very alert. Perhaps he could save them from total disaster.

As they were talking about all of this, a messenger arrived and reported that someone from the Wolong army was awake. The person in question was a high-ranking official.

“I thank you for saving my life!”

The person was covered in blood-soaked white cloth. Despite having many injuries on him, none of them were fatal, allowing him to regain consciousness sooner.

Two female medics helped him onto a stretcher and carried him in. This person leaned against it and bowed sincerely towards Jiang Pengji.

“No need for formalities.” Jiang Pengji waved off the pointless greeting phase and got straight to the point. “What did the Chief of Wolong run into? Why did you all fall victim like this? When and where did that traitor ambush you all? How many troops did they have?”

The middle-aged man covered in blood thought about it for a bit as he attempted to find his words. Finally, he said, “My lord was ambushed inside the Jiamen Gate about twenty kilometers past a hill. It was already late in the night. It was too dark to accurately estimate how many people there were, but I’m guessing there were about 10,000 troops.”