The Lord’s Empire - Page 226/726

Chapter 225 – The Emperor Guards the Nation; The King Dies for His State

Translator: Mr Voltaire

Editor: Modlawls123

“A Town?” Zhao Fu was delighted and surprised, and he ordered, “Tell me the details!”

The soldier immediately told him about how they found the town and the details regarding the town.

This time, it wasn’t Great Qin that had discovered them. Instead, they were the ones who had entered Great Qin’s territory. In order to guarantee Great Qin’s safety, Zhao Fu had set up a few lines of defenses.

The first was the outer region of the territory that Great Qin controlled. There was a defensive line for alerts that didn’t have too many people, but it was still tight. It was made up mostly of Ratfolk, and as soon as someone entered Great Qin’s territory, they would immediately report so that Great Qin could quickly make preparations.

This time, it was a team of soldiers who had entered Great Qin’s territory and been discovered by the Ratfolk. However, this team of soldiers had only walked about in Great Qin’s outer region and hadn’t gone deep, so they didn’t discover the existence of the Great Qin Town before returning to their own territory.

By then, they had already given themselves away. The Ratfolk Assassins who had followed them had discovered that they were actually from a Town, so they immediately came back to report.

After listening to the soldier’s detailed report, Zhao Fu thought for a moment and decided to take a look for himself. Right now, most of the soldiers hadn’t returned yet, but Zhao Fu didn’t plan to summon them back – after all, it was much more difficult to conquer Towns than Villages.

Mountain Willow Town was an exception, as he had only been able to defeat Zhang Hong and take Mountain Willow Town so easily by relying on the Liu family’s reputation. This time, it was highly unlikely that something similar would happen again.

Zhao Fu rode on Little Black and brought along Little Sha to find the Ratfolk responsible for finding the Town.

A few hours later, Zhao Fu stood on a hill and looked at the Town in the distance. The Town was situated on an area of very flat ground, and the surrounding area was incredibly fertile, which was planted with various crops.

The Town was slightly bigger than Mountain Willow Town, and it had roughly 30,000 residents with six-meter tall walls. There were serious-looking soldiers stationed on top of it, and all of them were holding weapons and looking around. There were many residents walking in and out of the Town – it seemed that this Town had developed quite well, and it looked quite prosperous.

This sort of Town would be quite difficult to attack, and if Zhao Fu launched a direct assault, he would suffer heavy losses.

Suddenly, Zhao Fu remembered that the Dark Ghost World skill that the Hundred Ghost Illusionists could unleash was an S+ grade skill, and it was a combination skill – the more people there were working together to cast it, the more powerful its effects would be.

If Zhao Fu had 1,000 Hundred Ghost Illusionists, he would be able to create a super illusion that could affect the entire Town, causing the people in the town to be lost within the illusion, allowing Zhao Fu to easily conquer this town.

However, it was a pity that Zhao Fu only had 300 Hundred Ghost Illusionists, so, at most, they could only create a Dark Ghost World that could cover six kilometers.

Zhao Fu thought for a while before deciding to retreat for now. After gathering his military and expanding it, he would once again consider how to take this Town. He stationed a few Assassins here for now to gain intelligence, and it would be best for them to capture someone and gain information about the Town through that person.

After returning to the Great Qin Town, Zhao Fu gave the order to recall all of the soldiers outside. However, it would take some time for the orders to get to them and for them to return, so he would have to wait for a while.

A new Void Beast had spawned, so Zhao Fu went to open up a region for now. After Zhao Fu opened the new region, the soldiers would most likely be back.

The Advanced Teleportation Channels made it much more convenient for Great Qin, and the new region that Zhao Fu wanted to open up this time was a place called Green Apricot. Zhao Fu had known of Green Apricot for a long time because one of the four people who had decided to resist Great Qin by allying together was there – Great Shun.

Great Shun was at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and Li Zicheng overthrew the Great Ming Dynasty and forced the then-Emperor to commit suicide before taking over the capital.

It was a pity that Li Zicheng wasn’t the one to laugh in the end – soon after, Wu Sangui let in the Qing army, which destroyed Li Zicheng’s army. After that, Great Shun’s political control crumbled, and China was taken over by the Qing army.

However, nevertheless, as it had once been a Dynasty, Great Shun still had quite some Fate, and its Legacy was better than those of nations or states.

Since Zhao Fu had come here, he wouldn’t let Great Shun have a good time. Since they had decided to stand against Great Qin, Zhao Fu would act first against them. Even though he wouldn’t be able to destroy Great Shun, he would be able to restrict their development in all sorts of ways. The best thing to do was to weaken them, and after Great Qin grew powerful enough, Great Shun would be its first target. By doing this, Zhao Fu would also be helping Great Ming take revenge.

This was because the Great Ming Dynasty’s hatred towards Great Shun had been passed down, and they had vowed to take Great Shun down. However, it wasn’t convenient for them to act yet.

As for Zhao Fu, he was somewhat appreciative of Great Ming and had a better impression of them than the other Dynasties – they had no connections with Great Han or Great Tang and didn’t humiliate China like the Song Dynasty or Qing Dynasty. Even though they had some muddleheaded Emperors, they were at least unyielding and courageous – they went by the philosophy that ‘the Emperor guards the nation; the King dies for the state.’

However, Zhao Fu was only appreciative of it. That wouldn’t change his plans, nor would he show mercy because of that. After all, in the end, Great Ming was just another powerful enemy.

Green Apricot was mostly filled with forests, and it had many Green Apricot Trees. They grew apricots that were green even after they ripened, and the apricots had a sour taste that was delicious to those who enjoyed eating sour things. It had four main cities, and the one that Great Shun was stationed in was called Apricot City. Great Shun mostly dominated that city, and no other faction dared to try to develop there, as families with empire legacies couldn’t be defined as normal families.

After opening up a path to this region, Zhao Fu stationed some Assassins there to collect information on Great Shun so as to make plans to restrict Great Shun.

However, traces of the School of Vertical and Horizontal were also present, so Zhao Fu had to be wary of their schemes. Right now, all of the regions weren’t connected, so it would be difficult for the School of Vertical and Horizontal to rally many different factions against Zhao Fu. As such, Zhao Fu had to take the initiative by acting against them, as once the regions were all connected, Great Qin would fall into a precarious position.

If he didn’t start dealing with them now, they would restrict Great Qin as much as they could, allowing Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Han to reap the rewards and greatly develop.

The School of Vertical and Horizontal was giving Zhao Fu a headache, and when he thought to them, a cold glint flashed in his eyes.

Afterward, Zhao Fu returned to the Great Qin Town and found that all of the soldiers had also returned. Zhao Fu discussed with Bai Qi and the other leaders about the battle plan and decided to focus on upgrading Great Qin to a City as soon as possible.