Chapter 819 Shadow of the red maple empire (6)

Chapter 819 Shadow of the red maple empire (6)

"Was this something they decided on in the spur of the moment or was it something that had been stirring in them, specifically her?" Yang Qing muttered as his gaze lingered on the name Duan Qui.

"How did they manage to acquire the cooperation of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion? Though the coffers of the red maple spirit were likely to be substantial be it in terms of quality or quantity, could it be enough to draw the attention of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion or was there something else?" mused Yang Qing as he thought of a few possibilities.

There were a lot of questions surrounding the Red Maple Empire, especially when it concerned its formation during the early days.

When Yang Qing read through it, no matter how many accounts he read through, he always felt like the story had a lot of relevant missing gaps, and he didn't know whether that was deliberate or accidental.

After firmly establishing themselves as an empire, it wasn't long before the population problem resolved itself. They used the resources they got from the red maple spirit to quickly develop the territories they had swallowed up.

In a short two hundred years, it was finally worthy of its title as the Red Maple Empire with Duan Qui as the revered empress and Mo Li, Chen Fu, Gui Ling, Zhang Ren, and Gong Zhi rose alongside her as the heads of the five founding great clans of the Red Maple Empire. With the growing territory, more noble families were created but none could match up to the six families, something that continues to persist to the present.

But, even with the continued hegemony of the five noble families, from what Yang Qing read, back then they were all similar in foundations. When it came to power and accumulations there was not much distinction to one another, especially when they were starting up. Back then, so they were not swallowed up by the 'new nobles' they constantly supported one another as the founders of the Empire.

Their interests were intertwined with one another, and unlike Duan Qui who was a middle-stage palace realm expert and had nothing to worry about because of her strength, the same couldn't be said of the other five clan heads. They were still in the early stages of the palace realm, and while that put them ahead of the rest, who knew how long it would take for the new nobles of the empire to catch up to them.

They therefore constantly built one another, supporting one another and ensuring not one family was left behind as they put up a united front, but somewhere along the way in their long history that camaraderie disappeared and it wasn't long before they bared their fangs against one another. VIsit n0(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

The reports gathered by the two roaming inquisitors and even the Yellow Plains County branch showed the constant power struggle between those families which even seemed to have extended to the royal family. They were constantly trying to undermine one another at every turn with both overt and covert schemes which were as bloody as it could get where greed and power were involved.

The scenes happening in Purple City were the clearest indication of it. Those families had gone to the extent of starting up gangs and even getting in bed with blood cultivators in their pursuits to either try and dominate, eliminate, or weaken the other party.

The feud among those families grew out of that ambition, the race to produce the first blue-grade alchemist, whoever did, would be the winner, and the price, it didn't take a genius to figure it was the entirety of the Red Maple Empire as for the loser, considering the vicious lengths that each of those families went to, it wouldn't be a stretch to think that the victor would seek the annihilation of the rest.

"Maybe this is the real reason they have not amounted to much in these 75,000 years, who knows in the next 1,000 years the Five Clovers Kingdom may completely overtake them, and then eventually there may not be a Red Maple Empire.." said Yang Qing with a sigh.

The Five Clovers Kingdom already had six palace realm experts while the Red Maple Empire had five. Despite the Five Clovers Kingdom having an extra palace realm expert when compared to the Red Maple Empire, as things stood the latter had an advantage over the former despite having fewer palace realm experts, and the reason for that was four of the palace realm experts of the Five Clovers Kingdom were all in the first stage of the palace realm and the one with the highest cultivation base only being in the second stage of the palace realm.

On the Red Maple Empire's side on the other hand, only one of their five palace realm experts was in the first stage of the palace stage while the highest had reached the third stage of the palace realm which gave them an advantage over the Five Clovers Kingdom.

But how long would that advantage last given how fragmented they were? of the five palace realm experts they had, three were from the royal family while the remaining two, one was from the Mo family and the remaining one, who was the weakest, was from the Zhang family.

If push really came to shove where they had to lay everything down on the line, could the royal family trust those two palace realm experts from the two families to have their backs? Or would they sooner drive a knife in their backs to give themselves an advantage?

The Five Clovers Kingdom on the other hand, didn't have such problems. They were united, fueled by the righteous ambition of reclaiming what they had lost which was why they worked tirelessly to achieve it and luck seemed to be on their side. They gained the attention of the Zou family, a rank two family, who supported them purely to spite the Golden Bamboo Pavilion that they had a feud with, but even still, whatever the reasons may be, the support they provided coupled with the efforts of the kingdom, they managed to catapult to where they are today.

A kingdom that didn't have a single palace realm expert now had six, and who knew what the situation would be in the next one thousand years?

Yang Qing may not know what will happen with the Five Clovers Kingdom in the future, but Yang Qing knew for a fact that the Red Maple Empire would be marginally weaker after the next few days.

"The Chen family it is.." Yang Qing said as he put one of the jade slips to the side, taking out his communication talisman to call Yu Gen to inform him of his choice on the first case to settle.

There were about twenty minutes before the appointed time which Yang Qing used to meditate slightly as he waited for Yu Gen to gather all the respected parties in his courtroom.