To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

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Meng Chenglin, followed by five Wei Inborn martial artists, had fought their way out of the battlefield at Blackwater City.

They had managed to contact the rear guard and continued to fight and retreat against the pursuing Huotuluo forces, inflicting heavy casualties on them and successfully retreated back to Wei Country.

However, by the time he returned to Wei Country, most of the inner counties had already been controlled by the Chu Army.

The retreating Wei Army had run headlong into the well-prepared Chu Army and were quickly encircled and crushed without rest.

They ultimately could not escape the fate of being entirely annihilated.

However, Meng Chenglin and the other Inborn Grandmasters once again demonstrated their mobility.

Seeing that things were going south, they abandoned the main army and once more broke through the encirclement to flee.

In the face of Inborn Grandmasters who were prepared and set on fleeing, capturing and killing them indeed was not so simple.

But to this, the Chu Army was indifferent.

Inborn Grandmasters may indeed be strategic nuclear weapons, the most important deterrence force of a nation.

However, as effective a deterrence as they might be, that’s all they can do—deter.

Without the support of an ordinary army, the impact that the Inborn Grandmasters could have was ultimately somewhat limited.

This battle destroyed the last of Wei’s elite forces in the Western Expedition, and the tens of thousands of surviving soldiers had eradicated the last of Wei Country’s main forces.

The remaining Wei Country, even with its millions-strong army, was nothing but a Ragtag Army, capable of little besides guarding the city and hardly useful for anything significant.

Without the backbone of the Western Expeditionary Wei Army, Wei Country was already done for.

As for the biggest contributor to Wei Country’s downfall—the Huotuluo Army, who had been diligently attempting to eradicate them on the plains—their contributions were naturally significant.

Similarly, the price they paid was not small.

More than one million one hundred thousand of the Huotuluo forces were lost in this battle.

Wei Country might have been left crippled, but how much better off were they?

Having lost so many valiant soldiers, for Huotuluo Country with its mere tens of millions in population, the loss was almost catastrophic.

While Wei’s backbone was broken, theirs was drained entirely, making it near impossible for them to stand again.

The Huotuluo Army initially hoped that by annihilating Wei’s main forces, they could then conquer to the east and recoup their losses, but Chu State’s involvement turned that hope into a pipe dream.

In the hands of Chu, a Huotuluo Country that had been beaten down had no chance whatsoever to snatch any prey from the tiger’s mouth.

Their last hope of restoring vitality had thus dissipated.

In the future, let alone continuing to invade and harass Guannei and Shuofang, even maintaining their own existence would be a challenge.

On the plains, people only respect the strong.

Now that Huotuluo Country’s backbone was drained, they certainly could no longer be considered strong.

Therefore, the plains Barbarians who had been enslaved by them, as well as the remnants of the many tribes and nations they had conquered along their migration, were unlikely to continue obediently serving as their slaves and enduring their oppression.

In fact, inside the entire southern plains, the vassal tribes within the Huotuluo Country were already beginning to stir.

And it was not just these vassal tribes.

The neighboring Bahan Na Country and Moro Country to the southern plains, upon seeing the dire state of their neighbor, also began to grow restless, entertaining thoughts of invasion.

The situation in Yongzhou has now become quite clear.

The former overlord Wei Country, under the onslaught of Chu, had declined rapidly and had almost become a marginalized court, no longer posing any threat.

And with Chu, a powerful nation, blocking the east, Bahan Na Country and Moro Country faced greater resistance should they wish to invade eastwards than they ever did with the old Wei Country.

Their hope of continuing their eastward migration had nearly vanished.

In such a situation, with only the strength of one nation and family, it was utterly impossible for them to contest territory vital for survival from the hands of Chu.

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Even with the three families united, the chance was slim given their private interests and disunity.

The only opportunity was probably to integrate the three countries of the Western Regions, to unite the three into an unprecedented major nation.

The combined population of Bahan Na Country, Moro Country, and Huotuluo Country was still about 45 to 50 million, with a foundational potential that was somewhat stronger than that of Wei Country before the war.

If it were truly possible to unify them, then with the might of an entire nation they could contend for Yong State with Chu State, and with the cooperation of other countries in the Nine Provinces, there might just be a glimmer of hope.

No, in the eyes of these foreign Western Regions, it should be said there was much to be done.

Therefore, an opportunity for integration now lay before them, and, naturally, they would not let it pass.

Having lost more than half of its main forces, and occupying the entire southern grasslands, Huotuluo Country had become juicy prey in the eyes of Bahan Na Country and Moro Country.

If things went as expected, for the next several years, or perhaps within a decade, the foreign tribes of Yong West and the southern grassland region would hardly have the energy to worry about the east.

In summary, since last year, the countries of the Nine Provinces have been thrown into a tense and difficult atmosphere.

They began struggling desperately for their survival, barely making it through.

At this time, the longer they persisted, the last one standing would be the ultimate victor.

If Chu State could last until the end, then of course, the Nine Provinces would be united, and the world would be as one.

If the other countries could endure to the end, then with Lu Yuan, this exceptional force not personally intervening, they could maintain their current reigns and continue to wear down Chu State for hundreds of years.

They would continue this attrition until their Inborn vitality withered away and they no longer posed a threat.

This was a contest for survival; once begun, there was no turning back.

...

In the early spring of March,

After recovering during the winter, while other nations were still licking their wounds in secret, with the preliminary integration of the eastern part of Qingzhou,

Lu Yuan dispatched another three million troops, heading north to attack Liang prefecture.

On the day of the troop dispatch, the Nine Provinces, which had just begun to find peace for three to four months, suddenly erupted again, and the calamity of war descended anew.

That same month,

After being busy throughout the last summer and fall, the seven-plus million immigrants who still remained in Jiangnan, having not yet been settled, were under the arrangement of Chu State officials being continuously relocated northward.

According to the plan, by this year’s spring and summer, the last of these first batch of immigrants would be successively filling up the territories of East Sea and Chengyang prefectures.

Also in the same month,

News came from Lingnan and the southwest.

After last year’s probing, the Yi People of the rainforest and Southsea confirmed that Chu State had indeed begun large-scale migration and was abandoning both territories.

They went mad with excitement.

After a winter of preparation, by this spring, as the harsh winter receded slightly, a wave of migrating settlers swarmed in from both regions.

The defense forces Chu State had stationed in Lingnan and the southwest, without the support of the local populace, simply could not hold back the tide.

Front-line officials and commanders began to request permission to gradually withdraw their defenses, retreating to deeper and safer territories with ample support from the local populace.

They proposed treating Lingnan and the southwest as they did the frontier regions of Helong in the northwest, using them purely for military training and as buffer zones.

After Lu Yuan received the request, he gave it some thought and agreed to the proposal.

The calamity of the Four Extremes was escalating.

Even he could not stop this tide of events.

He could only struggle in these turbulent times, searching for a path of salvation for both himself and Chu State.