Chapter 673 - Chapter 673: Chapter 304: Negotiating Peace and Relocating Seals

Chapter 673: Chapter 304: Negotiating Peace and Relocating Seals

Jinguan City, Royal Palace.

“King of Chu, the Zhou people are coming aggressively, with no less than three hundred thousand soldiers and horses ahead and behind. The commander leading them is Dongfang Wuyun, whose divine power is difficult to resist.

My king has been fighting against them for half a year, and our hundred thousand soldiers and horses have been almost depleted. Our Baishi Royal Capital has fallen into enemy hands.

Now, our country has only thirty thousand remnants left, who have retreated to Jianmen Pass to guard it and barely resist the invasion of the Zhou people.

However, the Zhou people’s strength is immense, and as a great country, they are overwhelming our small country. It is really difficult for Hanzhong to resist.

Previously, my king and his allies launched the Northern Expedition together and fought against the Zhou people when we were in Pre-Yue.

Now our country is in trouble, and we hope that the great king can extend his help and send troops to rescue us.

My king is willing to submit to Great Chu and become a vassal state. From now on, we will serve as subjects for generations and act as a shield for the northern border of the Great Chu.”

Inside the West Pole Hall, a messenger from Hanzhong was kneeling on the ground, tearfully begging and pleading with Lu Yuan.

The Zhou people were coming aggressively, and within half a year, they had broken through the capital of Hanzhong.

At this time, the three prefectures north of Hanzhong had already fallen.

Only the two prefectures of Xichuan and Jianmen Pass in the south were able to resist the invasion from Zhou country.

But given the strength of Zhou and its formidable army, even with Jianmen Pass as a barrier, it would still be difficult for Hanzhong to resist.

If there were no external assistance, Jianmen Pass would not be able to hold against the Zhou army’s overwhelming invasion for even two months.

Without this crucial pass, the Zhou people would be able to march right in, and it was likely that Hanzhong would be destroyed before the end of the year, following the collapse of the Xichuan Kingdom.

Confronted with the possibility of a disastrous defeat, Qiao Kangquan naturally did not want to accept it.

He had left his family behind and traveled thousands of miles to Xichuan, exhausting countless resources and efforts to build up the foundation of Hanzhong.

How could he be willing to give up everything so easily?

However, to keep Hanzhong going, there was no way to rely solely on his own strength.

The only choice was to seek external help and ask for a powerful enemy capable of confronting Zhou directly, to intervene in this war and contain the aggressive invasion of Zhou.

Looking around the surrounding area, the only force that met this requirement was Lu Yuan’s Chu State.

Therefore, after escaping back to Jianmen Pass, Qiao Kangquan gathered the remnants of his forces while recruiting soldiers and horses from the remaining two prefectures in the rear.

He also sent messengers to Jinguan City to seek help from King Lu Yuan of Chu, who was staying there.

Thus, the scene unfolded before him.

“Messenger, please get up first.”

Lu Yuan glanced at the kneeling Hanzhong messenger, who was begging with a stern and solemn tone, “The Zhou people are like wolves on the northern border, always greedy and ambitious.

During the Pre-Yue period, they colluded with Li Xiong of Shu territory to invade Xichuan aggressively, causing Wuan Marquis to lose the battle of Ping Shu where he had no choice but to retreat to Tianmen Prefecture.

If it weren’t for our joint efforts with the King of Hanzhong to fight off the Zhou people, the land of Xichuan would already be in the hands of the northern people at this time.”

But it has been less than ten years since the truce, and the Zhou people have breached the agreement and attacked Hanzhong again.

Such actions are truly brutal and rude.

Messenger, rest assured, as long as I am here, I will not allow the Zhou people to succeed.

You can go back and tell the King of Hanzhong to hold on for a few more days, and then I will arrange for the Xichuan soldiers and horses to go north to Jianmen Pass to help repel the Zhou people.”

As for whether to help Hanzhong, Lu Yuan had no hesitation whatsoever.

The Zhou people had already reached Jianmen Pass.

What kind of place is Jianmen Pass?

It is the first barrier in the northern territory of Xichuan and the gateway to Xichuan Prefecture, as well as the border between Xichuan Prefecture and Hanzhong Prefecture.

If the Zhou people were to seize this pass, Xichuan’s north would be left with no other barriers.

With the Zhou people in control of the pass, they could send troops southward at any time and march straight into Xichuan Prefecture.

At that time, the Zhou people could either attack or defend, solidly seizing the strategic initiative.

To resist the Zhou people, Chu would have to station a large number of troops in Xichuan Prefecture, which would tie down a significant number of soldiers and horses, leaving them immobilized.

With such an important place, Lu Yuan naturally could not bear to see it fall into the hands of the Zhou people.

Moreover, the two remaining prefectures of Hanzhong, Jiange and Tongchuan, were the only ones out of the ten in Xichuan that were not under Chu’s control. Lu Yuan had long considered them his territory and planned to take them back.

Even for the sake of a complete Xichuan, Lu Yuan could not allow the Zhou people to wipe out Hanzhong.

So sending troops to help was already a settled matter.

In fact, even before the arrival of the Hanzhong messenger, Lu Yuan had already ordered the four veterans of the Forbidden Army stationed outside Jinguan City to mobilize and asked the prefectures to prepare food and fodder, ready to head north at any time.

With eighty thousand troops on hand, even if the Zhou people had three hundred thousand, Lu Yuan had no fear and was confident that he could fight them with the elite under his command.

Moreover, it was still a question whether the Zhou people in the north actually had three hundred thousand troops.

Yes, the Hanzhong messenger did say that the Zhou people had three hundred thousand soldiers and horses coming south this time.

However, it was obvious that this was nothing more than an attempt by the other side to inflate their power, intimidate, and scare Chu into sending troops.

As for the number of soldiers and horses coming from Zhou this time, through the investigations of the Imperial City’s External Affairs office and Lu Yuan’s years of leading troops’ experience, a rough estimate was made.

Previously, Zhou had maintained a scale of one hundred thousand soldiers and horses in Hanzhong Prefecture.

This time, taking advantage of the great defeat of the Xichuan Kingdom and the loss of a powerful ally in Hanzhong, the Zhou people had drawn another fifty thousand elite troops from the north.

There were also around twenty-four thousand prefecture and county soldiers in Hanzhong under Zhou’s control, which was also a considerable force.

A total of one hundred and seventy-four thousand soldiers, led by the Southern Pillar State Grand General Dongfang Wuyun of Zhou, made up the main force of the Zhou people’s invasion this time.