Chapter 77: An Unexpected Collaboration
The girl suddenly turned her head, looking at Iron Dragon City with a sharp gaze like a sword and cold as ice. However, as the thoughtful expression in her eyes deepened, this sharpness slowly disappeared bit by bit.
"Eight years ago, Your Majesty was suddenly shot by a poisonous arrow and his life hung in the balance. The Crown Prince was still young at that time, only ten years old. Although he was clever beyond his age, he couldn't command the respect of the people. The entire Iron Cloud Kingdom was on the verge of collapse, with various high-ranking officials having their own agendas, the situation was precarious and could change in an instant."
Tielong City slowly said. And Chuyang had a feeling: he seemed to be explaining.
Chu Yang thought that when he first met him, it wasn't a question of whether he was qualified or not, but even if he was qualified, there was no need for him to explain himself. He couldn't help but feel suspicious.
Tielong City continued: "Then, the fifth lightness on the battlefield suddenly made several completely unnecessary and incomprehensible mistakes, sending several veteran generals of the Great Zhao Empire to their graves. Those battles were losses that the Great Zhao Empire should not have had and could not have afforded!"
"At that time, as long as they launched a full-scale attack, the entire Iron Cloud would have been annihilated within half a year! Our Iron Cloud was already powerless to turn the tide! But at that critical moment, several high-ranking generals suddenly charged into a dead end due to incorrect intelligence. Allowing us to annihilate them at leisure! That was the decisive three great battles that gave Iron Cloud a chance to breathe!"
"After the event, we gathered from all sides and looked back at those three battles. However, we found that we didn't make any effort to lead them into a trap! In other words, they were seeking their own death. This fact left us all astonished."
"Afterwards, the Zhao Empire gave their army a month's rest. And that one month was not even necessary for rest; it seemed like they were intentionally leaving us time to catch our breath and think... Iron Dragon City took a deep breath and said: 'Until we analyzed the intelligence from Zhao Guo several times, only then did we discover that this is the fifth gentle plot!'"
"But this conspiracy makes us have no choice but to cooperate! We can't help but be led by the nose."
"The Fifth Gentleman needs a protracted war to continuously accumulate military achievements, eliminate dissidents, promote his confidants, and grasp the entire military and political power in his own hands. And we, Iron Cloud, at that time, need such a period of time even more than the Fifth Gentleman, need to condense the domestic military and politics into a fist. Because at that time, survival is already hanging by a thread!"
"If we don't go along with it, the Iron Cloud Nation will be destroyed within a few months. But even if we don't cooperate, Fifth Gentle still has other opportunities. For example, the Wuji Nation! So, we have no choice. Even though it's humiliating, we can only pinch our noses and swallow it!"
Tielong City sighed and said up to here, a long breath.
Although he didn't continue speaking, Chu Yang and the others already understood.
At that time, the commanders of the two countries, under this tacit understanding, uniformly carried out their own methods of eliminating dissent and unifying their respective countries! In an invisible way, they coordinated with each other: you fought for your military achievements, I seized my territory; you eliminated your dissidents, I killed my enemies!
In short, both of their goals are the same: to gather all the power of the entire country into a single fist that they can wield with all their might!
If the fifth gentle had been at that time, the decisive battle would have won naturally, and it was a matter of course. However, after winning the war, what needs to be faced is the achievement of shaking the lord, the suspicion of the monarch, and the worst result at that time is death without burial! Even if he can keep his life, he can also keep a certain position, but he has lost the opportunity to compete for the power peak forever.
With his fifth gentle and ambitious, and also in a good situation, how can he give up?
So he can't.
At that time, the entire country of Tieyun was in the hands of Tielong City. The situation was precarious, and it seemed that even without the enemy's attack, it could collapse on its own! Tielong City naturally did not want to engage in a decisive battle.
The commanders of the two countries, who had never met each other, carried out a tacit cooperation to an astonishing degree across thousands of miles. The two men restrained and balanced each other, today you win one battle, beheading my enemy general; tomorrow I win one battle, eliminating your obstacle...
Millions of troops clashed between the borders of two countries, and during that time, it became a game manipulated by two people behind the scenes! The hundreds of millions of lost souls on one side created the legendary name of Fifth Gentle. The hundreds of millions of lost souls on the other side, however, condensed into Iron Cloud!
But... this game, although both sides are fighting for time and qualifications, has a completely different starting point.
The fifth gentle is for the great Zhao, but also for himself. However, Tielong City, in such a humiliating and continuous war, dispersed the entire Iron Cloud, re-condensed it, from the original scattered sand, to become the current iron country's mighty city that can fight a battle!
If it weren't for the precise coordination between Tielong City and Fifth Light, Ti Yun Guo would have absolutely collapsed by now. Not to mention waiting for the Crown Prince of Butian to regain power and share power with Fifth Light.
The various changes in this are really mind-boggling and unbelievable. Moreover, every step of the way, both commanders must give each other a hint that only the other can understand, before they can get what they need. However, such hints cannot be seen by others.
The mental effort required to be in this situation is simply unimaginable! Chu didn't think that the Iron Dragon City could achieve this.
Under the complete dominance of the fifth gentle, he cooperated with one force, but did not allow the opponent to completely achieve their goal. Instead, under the opponent's heavenly net, he gradually established an iron cloud resistance force, until now, becoming a solid iron wall and copper wall on the border!
This person's computational power, commanding power, controlling power, military power and even political power are not much different from the fifth lightness!
Two sworn enemies, yet in their battles with each other, they both managed to maintain their own strong rear and were seamless. These two people are really terrifying!
But there was one thing that made Chu Yang feel a chill: the battles of Tielong City and Diwu Xingyue were equivalent to treating hundreds of millions of soldiers on both sides as chess pieces without lives, discarding them at will, but they were actually hundreds of millions of vibrant lives!
Never has there been a moment that made Chu Yang understand the meaning of "one general's achievement is built on the bones of ten thousand" like now!
"Are you regretful?" The one who said this was Gu Du Xing. His two eyes, like cold swords, stared at the Iron Dragon City: "Several million soldiers, just in the cooperation between your two commanders, died on the battlefield, their corpses gone!"
"Not millions, the exact number is twenty-seven million three thousand seven hundred and ninety-six!" The face of Tielong City was like a sculpture, without any expression: "As of now, this is the number of martyred soldiers. This number does not include the wounded, does not include disabled veterans who cannot fight, does not include missing persons! This is the huge price we Iron Cloud paid for today's situation!"
