Chapter 2201

Just seven days later, a piece of news burst onto the scene, shocking the four wildernesses:

Mou Kingdom quietly dispatched ships from Yangquan Pass, dividing its forces into three routes: one route attacked the secondary capital, one route attacked the southern troop stockpile camp, and the most important central route struck straight for the Ya Kingdom's capital!

The central route's great army gathered Mou Kingdom's elite soldiers and fierce generals; there were even immortals appearing and disappearing among them!

You must know that for these past few months, Between Between Between Beijia stopped pretending — not only did he openly transport troops, grain, and weapons to Ya Kingdom, but also numerous high-end combat forces; otherwise, how could Ya Kingdom have persisted this long?

Yet in these critical battles, Mou Kingdom's great army suddenly erupted with terrifying combat power; even He Lingchuan, reading the intelligence, felt some heart-palpitating alarm.

This let the world know Mou Kingdom's true strength — it had merely kept its edge hidden before.

By the final battle, there was finally no need for disguise; they could vindicate themselves with a hearty, sweeping great victory!

The central route's great army, in one stroke, captured the Ya capital!

The Ya Kingdom's capital was built on a great plain; its defensive strength was not like Panlong City, that kind of mighty pass, and it also lacked experience in defending a city.

The intelligence on this critical battle had not yet come out, but He Lingchuan, putting himself in their place, surmised that the best attack method must have been internal collusion with external assault.

Ya Kingdom had been tormented by this protracted war for over a year, exhausted in body and spirit, with deep internal resentment; the various clans mutually accused each other, and the Ya King could no longer suppress things internally. Before the final battle, quite a few clans had already broken away from the royal clan, migrating on their own, unwilling to perish together with it.

A country formed by the alliance of multiple clans is, in the end, not as stable as Cangyan or Mou Kingdom. Amidst such internal chaos, planting spies and traitors in the capital could not have been easier.

In this campaign, the capital fell and the Ya King committed suicide by cutting his own throat.

The Ya Kingdom's second prince led the remnant forces to flee toward the eastern mountainous region.

The Ya Kingdom, which once flourished on this land, powerful and unmatched, thus collapsed and disintegrated. From its founding to now, less than thirty years had passed; one wonders whether it caught the curse of its neighbor Shanjin.

Mou Kingdom finally pulled out this thorn in its back.

The world stared wide-eyed, because this war of national destruction launched by Mou Kingdom was too sudden — on the surface, they made a grand show of preparing for peace talks to paralyze Ya Kingdom, while secretly mobilizing a great army, striking straight at the enemy's lair with the force of a thunderbolt, displaying swift and decisive methods.

Even Between Between Between Beijia did not have time to come to the rescue.

After destroying the Ya capital, the Mou army pursued the victory, chasing the Ya Kingdom clans all the way eastward. When this round of land-grabbing ended, Mou Kingdom had seized nearly seventy percent of Ya Kingdom's territory.

Ya Kingdom's territory was not small to begin with; from the gains in the war against Ya, Mou Kingdom acquired territory equivalent to twenty percent of its own land area.

But looking at the price Mou Kingdom paid, He Lingchuan did not envy it in the slightest.

The Ya-Mou war lasted nearly two years, front and back; although both sides tried their utmost to cover up their own wounds and exaggerate the other's losses, He Lingchuan could still roughly infer from the intelligence that Mou Kingdom's casualties exceeded 270,000, while Ya Kingdom's were no fewer than 440,000!

Just at Yangquan Pass and the Battle of the Ya Capital, Ya Kingdom lost 50,000 and 70,000 elite troops respectively.

This war swallowed up nearly 700,000 men, and they were all elites on both sides.

By comparison, the Battle of Baiqiuyuan was really nothing.

He Lingchuan searched his heart: which side's losses could a Cangyan Kingdom, not yet two years old, possibly withstand?

The combined elites of the Black Armor Army and the Dragon God Army totaled less than 400,000. If they were all thrown into a war like this, then Cangyan's combat power level would not merely drop by a single step.

The bloody example is Ya Kingdom: its total population was only twenty percent of Mou Kingdom's; over this year and a half, the originally fine, rampaging proud men of the great steppe have all become sword-under ghosts on the battlefield. Subtracting these 400,000-plus elite casualties, how much combat power could Ya Kingdom have left?

Ya Kingdom's internal conscription had already gone round after round; before the Battle of the Ya Capital, it was said the Kolin clan's charge corps couldn't even muster enough men, so the army openly grabbed people on the capital's main streets in broad daylight, and even some women and children were taken away.

These new recruits entered the great camp, trained with weapons for only two or three days, then had to go to the battlefield — what combat power could they possibly have?

In He Lingchuan's view, the Mou-Ya war was just tigers and wolves contending — one injured, one dead.

Ya Kingdom's end was miserable; Mou Kingdom also suffered heavy damage.

The Yangshan Archipelago provided data: over the past year, the number of Mou Kingdom merchant caravans passing through the Golden Sea Route had decreased by twenty percent.

From this one can see that, although it is precisely the good opportunity of heaven and earth's spiritual Qi reviving and all things growing, when the human world should be prosperous with goods everywhere, Mou Kingdom's civilian economy has actually shrunk considerably.

Countries and regions capable of playing the wartime economy are truly rare.

Regarding this suddenly ended war, the most shocked was none other than Between Between Between Beijia, because it underestimated Mou Kingdom's ambition and also misjudged Mou Kingdom's true strength, thereby producing a major strategic misjudgment.

Ya Kingdom was the most important nail it had driven into Mou Kingdom's eastern flank, often coordinating militarily with Between Between Between Beijia from afar, giving Mou Kingdom the pain of a pincer attack. Now Mou Kingdom, disregarding its own bleeding and injury, forcibly pulled it out. From now on, as long as Cangyan does not fall out with Mou Kingdom, Mou Kingdom's strategic security to the east can obtain considerable guarantee.

Ya Kingdom's demise was also a resounding slap to Between Between Between Beijia's face.

Right under its eyelids, despite its every obstruction, Mou Kingdom still swallowed Ya Kingdom alive, peeling and eating it straight into its belly.

Everyone knows Ya Kingdom had Between Between Between Beijia backing it behind the scenes — money when money was needed, men when men were needed — yet Ya Kingdom still failed to live up to expectations. If Between Between Between Beijia shows no reaction, how will it face the future?

Actually, over the past year and a half, voices in Between Between Between Beijia's court demanding severe punishment of Mou Kingdom and increased aid to Ya Kingdom grew louder and louder; even Frost Leaf National Master came forward to plead.

Behind him stands the war hawk faction, but the Demon Emperor has always been cautious in deploying troops.

Like the Mou Kingdom of old, Between Between Between Beijia cherishes its feathers, likes to stir things up in small countries and small forces, but rarely sends troops against a great power.

This time it committed a major strategic error; over the past year Between Between Between Beijia was played by Mou Kingdom's Chief Minister You Huan, and it painfully lost the most important support point behind enemy lines. The Demon Emperor had no choice but to completely overhaul the think tank, severely punish a batch of intelligence personnel, and simultaneously face the complaints filling the roads from Lingxu City and the vassal demon nations:

"A perfectly good war — how did it end up like this!"

Public opinion was in an uproar; the war hawk faction was furious, and several high officials successively took the initiative to admit fault and request resignation, yet could not quell the public anger.

In Lingxu City's court, there were verbal swords and tongue spears every day.

Precisely at this time, another major event occurred in the south!

In the dead of night, Frost Leaf National Master received a summons and entered the Mount Xushan Heavenly Palace.

Behind the Heavenly Palace stood a massive Flat Peach tree, its age nearly a thousand years, its trunk thick enough for six men to encircle, its branches and leaves luxuriant. A person standing under the tree looking up could not see the starry sky.

【50】 The Capital Lord sat beneath the tree, watching Frost Leaf National Master drift over.

The master of Du Yun sat beneath the tree, seeing the State Preceptor of Shuang Ye arrive in a floating manner.

Between Between Between Beijia once had two National Masters, neither troubled by age. But Azure Yang National Master was still human, merely using a secret art to preserve his youthful appearance; although his face was young, the vicissitudes in his eyes could not be hidden.

Frost Leaf National Master, however, was different.