Chapter 1002: Kingdom To Kingdom (3)
Gong Zhiyu’s words stunned everyone.
Nonetheless, Chi Tong, who was the first to react, said calmly, “I think there might be some truth to Zhiyu’s words.”
Hypocrisy. Gong Zhiyu had seen the evil side of human nature more times than anyone in this crowd.
From Mai Ya’s description of the Fu Xiang Emperor, he appeared to be a rare ruler who was benevolent, fair and magnanimous. And Fu Xiang had always appeared normal all these while. But Ji Fengyan’s advisors were all men with extensive experience. Better than anyone else, they could detect the flaws hidden within things that appeared perfect on the surface.
“If the Fu Xiang Emperor is really as Mai Ya described, he would not have been so blind to the enmity the neighboring princess held against Mai Ya. Mai Ya grew up under his eye, if he was just, how could he have just believed the neighboring princess’ claims that his own daughter wanted to poison him? Yu’s notion is not far-fetched. Instead, I don’t think highly at all of that Fu Xiang Emperor.” Ji Fengyan shrugged. There were some things that were not convenient to be spoken in front of Mai Ya, but she had also long had her suspicions about that father of hers.
On the surface, the Fu Xiang Emperor was accepting the neighboring princess on the urgings of his Empress, but… Ji Fengyan didn’t believe that anyone could be coerced into anything they really didn’t want to do. Whether the Emperor was just too obedient towards the Empress’ advice or he already knew her so well that he manipulated the entire situation. No one could be sure.
“Then we will go ahead with our original plan?” Gong Zhiyu looked at Ji Fengyan.
Mai Ya already had her hopes up towards the Kingdom of Fu Xiang, but Ji Fengyan and company were not her. Apart from Mai Ya’s matter, they could never tolerate Fu Xiang plotting to lord over Hua Xia.
According to news from the Thorn Birds, the entire Kingdom of Fu Xiang had already vilified the Free Valley, so as to incite the wrath and hatred of the citizens against the valley.
At that, the group hid everything from Mai Ya for the time being, and continued their preparations for war.
They entrusted the job of persuading Mai Ya to Gong Zhiyu. Under his art of verbal seduction, Mai Ya would not even realize she had been swayed.
Chi Tong and Linghe started the military preparations. In the Kingdom of Hua Xia, it could be said that every citizen was also a soldier. The original residents here were all wanted fugitives and highly skilled. After the necessary basic military training, the combat skills of these people would probably be even better than your usual army forces.
More importantly, Ji Fengyan had limitless financial resources.
To wage a major battle, apart from the size of the troops, the most important factor was money. Only with adequate financial power could a nation support the huge drain in resources during a war.
Piles of rocks were imported into Heavenly Courts to be transformed into trunk loads of gold. Yang Jian’s team then transported the gold out of the Free Valley to exchange for a ma.s.sive amount of resources.
Ji Fengyan’s ability to transform rock into gold was enough to arm her Heavenly soldiers to the teeth!
Following that, Ji Fengyan even visited the Forest of Freedom several times to obtain some alternative jade rocks from the rhinoceros beast. Those jade rocks were forged into pieces of Taiji jade, which were then used to awaken a giant soldier G.o.d.
As power ama.s.sed in the secretive valley, the Kingdom of Fu Xiang had also prepped a 150,000-powerful army, ready to march towards the Free Valley!