The World Online

Chapter 1207 – Savior or Fiend

Handan City, imperial city south city wall.

Looking at the King legion corps that was slowly disappearing into the teleportation formation, Di Chen let out an indiscernible smile, “If the King legion corps go down south, they might face the strong attacks of the Great Xia Army and might not be able to hold on.”

“Once Xiong Ba requests for help from the Imperial Court, the Imperial Court will totally take control of Jiangnan Province.”

Di Chen’s plot was really deep.

The reason why Di Chen made the King legion corps return late was not only to take advantage of the Ming Dynasty troops. In fact, it was also to use the chance give the King legion corps a blow to achieve a goal that he could not tell others.

Crushing Xiong Ba was something only Di Chen could do in the entire Great Zhou.

“Xiong Ba ah, Xiong Ba, you lost to me in the end.” Di Chen’s heart was filled with delight.

Since Great Zhou Dynasty’s establishment and when Di Chen was supported to become the king, he had held absolute supremacy in his battle against Xiong Ba and the others; this was supported by reason.

On this day, Di Chen would turn this supremacy into actual power.

“I have waited for the taste of victory for a long time.”

At this moment, Di Chen was drunk in his victory. Ever since Ouyang Shuo had appeared, Di Chen rarely felt the sense of achievement from beating his enemies one by one.

Apart from the King legion corps, the Pill Sun and Blood Red legion corps left Handan City after a huge piece of their flesh was cleaved off.

The Pill Sun legion corps directly went down south and entered Ludong Province, replenishing their shortfall of soldiers as fast as they could. The Blood Red legion corps directly teleported to Blood Red City and proceeded to move toward Wannan Province to reduce their journey length.

As for the handover of Donghai Province, they had to wait for the Blood Red legion corps to leave.

…

9th month, 1st day, morning, King legion corps returned to King City.

The 300 thousand troops did not remain in the city. Instead, under the instructions of Wuqi, they set up camp outside of the city. Looking at the situation, they were prepared to replace the Ming army to take over the defenses of the Jiangnan border.

In the afternoon, Wu Marquis and Jiangnan Provincial Governor Xiong Ba especially invited Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, and the others for a meeting in the city. They were going to discuss how to have an orderly and complete takeover under the aggressive attacks of the Great Xia Army.

Xu Da and the other generals naturally accepted the matter graciously.

In the recent week, the Great Xia’s offensive was like fire, using their familiarity with the border defenses to take down cities. Recently, the two wings had started to siege the border cities and reduce their defensive space.

Four out of the 15 cities had already fallen.

If this continued, Xu Da’s goal of training his troops would be met, but they would have to suffer heavy casualties.

They had waited for the King legion corps to return with much difficulty, so Xu Da was naturally delighted. As for how the King legion corps would defend against Great Xia’s attacks after they took over, that was outside of his concern.

At 3 PM, Xu Da and Chang Yuchun entered the city.

Along with the return of the King legion corps, the originally down and dead King City instantly became bustling with excitement. The civilians had great confidence in the King legion corps and its God General Wuqi.

That was not surprising.

During these few years, under the leadership of Wuqi, Jiangnan Province had always remained solid and had not faced any invasions from the Great Xia Tiger Legion Corps. Hence, even when Great Xia initiated the attack, the Jiangnan people still believed their army.

Xu Da, who was walking on the streets, was deep in thought.

At the gate of the Provincial Governor office, Xiong Ba was warmly received. He discussed the details with Wuqi. As the border line was really long and there were special circumstances, this meeting lasted for three hours.

In the end, Xiong Ba smiled and said, “The Ming Dynasty army is righteous, defending the Jiangnan border for so long. I thank you on behalf of the Jiangnan people. The night is late, and we have prepared some wine. I hope you can all show me some face.”

“Thank you, marquis!”

Xu Da nodded since he had no reason to reject the invitation.

Following the plan discussed in the afternoon, the two armies would swap over city by city starting from tomorrow. Thinking about being able to return to Jianye soon, Xu Da’s heart that had been hanging in his mouth was slightly placed down.

Who knew that an abrupt change was about to occur?

The scheme was really old and was not worth mentioning, but it was exceedingly practical.

Just as both parties were happily drinking, Xiong Ba smashed his glass as a signal, and a group of armored men rushed in and swiftly took down Xu Da and Chang Yuchun.

Logically speaking, Chang Yuchun was a great general. Helplessly, he was already half drunk and did not have any weapons on him. Being surrounded by elite armored soldiers, his fists were not enough, and he was captured.

Seeing the situation change, Chang Yuchun naturally did not scold out. On the contrary, he remained really calm. Looking at Xiong Ba, he said in a low tone, “Is the marquis representing Great Zhou to declare war on Great Ming?”

“Great Zhou?’

Xiong Ba gave out a relishing smile, “To say the truth, Jiangnan Province has decided to join Great Xia.”

“What?”

When Xu Da heard that, he was astonished and lost his cool.

It was no wonder he would panic, as if this matter was started by Great Zhou, Great Ming could still do something with the presence of the five country alliance, and there would be chances to negotiate.

However, if this was started by Great Xia, there would be no hope.

The truth was at the start of the 7th month, Ouyang Shuo had sent people to contact Xiong Ba to discuss him joining them. Along with the loss in the Battle of Great Jin, Xiong Ba finally made up his mind, proactively handing over the Jiangnan border defense layout as a show of his loyalty.

During the Battle of Great Jin, at the most crucial moment, Ouyang Shuo had considered letting the King legion corps switch sides to change the situation. However, thinking about how Xiong Ba was not amongst the troops, the risk was too huge, and he decided against it.

As expected from Xiong Ba, since he made up his mind, he would not play both sides. To give Great Xia a huge gift and give himself a stable foundation in Great Xia in the future, he set his eyes on the Ming army.

Ouyang Shuo and Xiong Ba clicked immediately, which was why Sun Bin led the troops to attack Jiangnan.

Not long ago, when Di Chen was grabbing power with no restraint in Handan City, the last bit of guilt in Xiong Ba’s heart disappeared.

Xiong Ba obviously knew that the moment Chun Shenjun and Zhan Lang fell, he would be next. “Since Di Chen is showing no brotherhood, he should not blame me for doing so either.”

The moment the King legion corps returned, Xiong Ba immediately acted without dragging matters on.

After a short while, Xu Da said in a gloomy manner, “So since the start, when Great Xia attacked Jiangnan Province border, it had already been a plot. I was wondering how they were so familiar with our defenses.”

As he said that, Xu Da’s face turned bitter.

Jiangnan Province and Great Xia joining hands was something no one had expected. Moreover, things had happened so quickly and suddenly that there were no chances of them turning the tides. With how careful they both were, they would not give the Ming army a chance.

Xu Da looked around and realized that Wuqi had disappeared and asked, “Has our troops outside of the city been acted upon?”

As the Ming army headquarters, since the frontline matters were intense, there were only 30 thousand troops there. These 30 thousand were the final reserve forces in Xu Da’s hands to be thrown into the battlefield.

Thinking about the 300 thousand King legion corps troops housed outside of the city, his heart turned cold.

Xiong Ba smiled, “Do not worry, general. As long as they do not fight to the death, we will not do anything to them.”

Xu Da nodded in silence.

Those housed at the command headquarters were his most trusted troops. He understood their characters, and he knew that while they were uncertain about the safety of their commander, they would not go away silently.

Xiong Ba saw through what was on his mind, “To prevent unneeded casualties, general, you should write a letter to them.”

“No way.”

Xiong Ba did not care and continued, “General, do not say it like that. I will not hide it from you, the Xia king has always admired you, and if you are willing to join Great Xia, you will definitely become a marshal.”

‘Scoff!’ Xu Da did not bother replying.

“I know that general and Ming Taizu are brothers, but do you not know how you died in history?”

Based on Wang Wenlong’s Longxing Ciji, as Xu Da got back gangrenes when he defended Beiping, he could not eat pigeon. Zhu Yuanzhang gave him steamed pigeon, and Xu Da died after eating it.

When he heard those words, Xu Da’s face changed. This was a sore spot in his heart, and he did not like to think about it.

Xiong Ba was not going to let him off, “Li Shanchang, Li Wenzhong, Feng Sheng, Liu Bowen, and the others; do you not know how they all died?”

Not only Xu Da, but even Chang Yuchun who was scolding out at the side became silent.

“General, you should be clear that in this wilderness, there is not a stage for Great Ming. Not only Great Ming, QIn, but Tang, Song, and the like are destined to be side characters. Do you believe that if your 400 thousand troops were unable to return to Jianye, Great Zhou would not hesitate to turn around to take down Great Ming?”

Xu Da naturally believed that.

The wilderness was a place where power spoke. A Great Ming that was weak would not be suitable for surviving in the wilderness.

“Even if general is not thinking for himself, think for the 30 thousand soldiers outside. Joining Great Xia has a bright future, while fighting to the death will only cause you to end up as ashes. That’s all I will say; I hope general will think about it.”

Xu Da did not say a word, which meant that he did not surrender.

When Xiong Ba saw that, he sighed. He knew that convincing Xu Da to surrender was not something that could be accomplished with a few words, so he said, “Since that’s the case, I can only wrong you two. Men, lock them up.”

“Yes, marquis!”

That night, under Wuqi’s leadership, the King legion corps suddenly sneak attacked the Ming army command headquarters.

The Ming army was caught off guard, and they were outnumbered. The two sides fought to the dead of night. The Ming army suffered five thousand casualties before they surrendered. If it were not for Wuqi purposely wanting to reduce the casualties, the 30 thousand Ming troops would not even be able to hold on till late in the night. After all, the difference in numbers was simply too huge.

This night battle naturally could not be hidden from the eyes of DIfeng.

When Di Chen got the report, he questioned Xiong Ba through the night. However, Xiong Ba did not bother about him, even closing the teleportation formation in king city. That was when Di Chen noticed that things were bad and gathered the officials for a meeting.

A huge storm suddenly descended on the Great Zhou Dynasty.