TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY, I CULTIVATE USING QI LUCK

Chapter 1053: Chapter 431: Xu State Enters the Arena Chapter 1053: Chapter 431: Xu State Enters the Arena The siege of the great Liang city turned out to be even more difficult than anticipated.

On one hand, there was the tenacious will of the Liang people to resist.

On the other hand, there was the help from Xu State.

In fact, by the end of June, after losing all peripheral strongholds and cutting off contact with the outside world, the completely isolated Great Liang City was battered to the point its fortifications wavered and it was on the verge of not holding out any longer.

It was exactly at this time the Liang people noticed something was amiss and, taking advantage of the Chu army’s lack of vigilance, immediately sent an Inborn Grandmaster to break through the encirclement.

This Inborn Grandmaster, acting as a messenger, did not head for the heartland still under Liang’s control but went directly north to Xu State.

The situation in the heartland of Liang State was already dire.

Although Liang still controlled the land of six or seven prefectures, with a population that was roughly around twenty million,

these twenty million people were all but devoid of able-bodied men, leaving only the old and the young behind.

In such circumstances, squeezing out another force from the remaining aged and youth might yield another army of a million or two.

But this new army would consist of children under fifteen and old men over seventy.

Such an army, with a composition worse off than civilian workers, would be unqualified even as cannon fodder on the battlefield—what use could they serve?

Thus, drafting another large army from the rear might be feasible, but it would not break the siege of Great Liang City.

While there were also two or three million troops in Liang’s southern and eastern flanks, those directions were crowded with a great number of Chu troops, and even Tang Kingdom mixed in as a spanner in the works.

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Though the troops on both fronts could be mobilized, if the men left, the Chu and Tang forces would move in.

The six or seven prefectures’ hinterland would no longer belong to Liang.

Given the choice, it would be better to let Great Liang fall than that.

Without Great Liang, Liang State could still survive.

But without the land of those few prefectures in the rear, Liang State would instantly collapse.

Between the two, which was more severe and which was lighter, was clear to the Monarch and Ministers within Great Liang City.

Therefore, relying on themselves, they could not save Great Liang, nor could they let Liang State weather this disaster.

To preserve Great Liang and ensure Liang State suffers the least loss after its fall,

The last resort was to seek external assistance.

Looking around at the neighbors, the only one capable of helping Liang State now was Xu State, which not only bordered Liang, but was also adjacent to Chu State, facing the same threat from Chu people.

Therefore, the messenger sent by Great Liang city had a clear goal after breaking out: to run to Xu State for military aid.

As to whether Xu State would be willing to help them, the people of Liang State were quite confident.

Because by now, the situation had become quite clear.

Great Liang was on the verge of falling.

Once Great Liang is lost, all of Liang Prefecture would fall to the enemy.

Once the Chu people captured Liang Prefecture, together with Jiying Prefecture that had already been occupied last year, they would form a pincer attack from the south and west against Dongping Prefecture in Qingzhou, which is under Xu’s control.

Dongping Prefecture would face the assault of Chu State from two sides, and the border situation would become extremely adverse in an instant.

For Xu State to hold onto that territory, it would also become increasingly difficult, with the risk of losing it at any moment.

But could Xu afford to lose Dongping Prefecture?

Dongping Prefecture was one of only two Central State prefectures that Xu held in Henan.

It was also the territory that Xu seized last year, taking advantage of Liang’s weakened state.

It was a carefully selected piece of land.

Why did Xu only grab Dongping Prefecture last year when Liang State was so vulnerable and its hinterland so empty?

The biggest reason was that Dongping Prefecture is situated to the south of Xu State, and also to the east of another prefecture under Xu’s Qingzhou control, Le’an Prefecture.

Indeed, the greatest value of Dongping Prefecture was to act as the eastern barrier for Le’an Prefecture, blocking the penetration of Chu State towards Le’an.

Le’an Prefecture’s status was roughly equivalent to that of Zhao’s Dong Prefecture.

Not only did it hold half of Xu State’s population, with 12 million people in the prefecture, but it was also the current Imperial Capital, where all the nation’s elite resided.

Indeed, starting from last year, it seemed that Chu State’s unstoppable momentum in Central State became increasingly apparent.

Combined with the severe effects of the cold wave from the North,

due to the influence of containing a great enemy and the pressure to survive, Xu finally decided to move its capital.

In September of last year, Emperor Xu led the court officials, nobles, royal clan members, and a large army, relocating to the South Capital Le Ling.

This migration brought along a multitude of elites and was accompanied by millions of citizens from the northern capital.

Such a large number of people moving south naturally caused Le’an Prefecture to become increasingly crowded, gradually making it difficult to accommodate everyone.

In the Xuzhou region, Xu State still controlled three prefectures, with 11 to 12 million people living across them.

But the cold wave in the North had already approached the Northern Border of Xu last year.

It was estimated that those three prefectures wouldn’t last many more years.

The remaining tens of millions in Hebei Xuzhou would also need to hasten their migration south in the next few years.

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In other words, Xu State had more than ten million people who urgently needed resettlement.

But the current Le’an Prefecture was already overly congested, so where else could these people be accommodated?

The newly acquired Dongping Prefecture in the east, though, was spacious enough, and with some development, it could house millions.

But it faced Chu State directly and had already become the forefront of Zhao’s defenses; no one knew when the flames of war would ignite there.

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