Chapter 625

"Your Majesty is wise!"

Upon hearing this, Shi Xie's son immediately offered praise and then added, "Then I shall go and make the arrangements now!"

"Hmm! Go ahead!"

Shi Xie nodded in satisfaction and waved his hand to signal him to leave.

Soon, under the manipulation of Shi Xie and his son, the troops of Jiaozhou began to concentrate toward the city where they were located to contend with the First Navy. For a time, it seemed they had truly blocked the First Navy's offensive.

Not only did they use their own troops, but they also contacted the barbarian tribes within Jiaozhou, persuading them to join the ranks of those resisting Su Xuan's navy.

A considerable portion of them agreed without much hesitation.

This was because they were very clear about Su Xuan's policy for dealing with barbarian tribes in Jingzhou.

For those barbarian people at the bottom, this might be a tremendous blessing.

But for the upper echelons of the tribes, it was not necessarily so.

These high-ranking individuals had long been accustomed to sucking the blood of the barbarian people at the bottom and lived very comfortable lives. At the same time, holding the power of life and death over their tribes, they had long been corrupted by power. If Jiaozhou were occupied by Su Xuan, the power in their hands would be gone.

Their good days would likely be gone forever.

Furthermore, if they had done anything unclean in the past, they would face reckoning once it was dug up.

Among those who could become high-ranking, how many were actually clean?

Not every tribal leader or high-ranking official was a good person.

On the contrary, such good high-ranking officials were extremely rare.

Precisely because they feared losing the power in their hands and feared being held to account,

more than half of the barbarian tribes within Jiaozhou chose to send men to participate in the war to resist Su Xuan's troops.

Only a few barbarian tribes chose to wait and see or refused.

And all of this was clearly observed by the Secret Guards within Jiaozhou through their beast-taming insights.

They quickly organized all the information on these tribes and sent it to Jingzhou to be handled by Su Xuan and his team.

In Xiangyang City, within the Prince Qian's Mansion,

Su Xuan received the intelligence on the barbarian tribes sent by the Secret Guards in Jiaozhou that very day.

"As expected! Even within tribes, internal power struggles and those with unclean hands behind the scenes account for the majority!"

After reading it, Su Xuan sighed while handing the intelligence to Guo Jia.

This time, the person overseeing the overall situation in Jiaozhou was Guo Jia.

As for Xun You?

He still had to control the proxy plan, and there were many matters within Jingzhou that required his handling; he was busy!

Guo Jia was the most idle!

He was directly pressed into service by Su Xuan.

It wouldn't do for Su Xuan to handle everything personally, would it?

Coordinating the war in a province, the subsequent reform and governance, and so on—there were simply too many things to do.

Better to let this kid Guo Jia suffer a bit!

"It's something that can't be helped!"

Guo Jia shook his head while reading: "The baser nature of humanity is just there! This isn't a problem that can be eliminated by higher or lower social status!"

"Even in the ancient times, such as the eras of Yao, Shun, and Yu, I believe such problems existed just the same, perhaps even more viciously."

"Oh?"

Su Xuan looked at Guo Jia with some surprise: "Listening to you, Fengxiao, it seems you don't believe in the moral standards of the rulers under the ancient sages Yao, Shun, and Yu?"

"You must know they are recognized as great sages! They completed the transfer of power through abdication; the people under such great sages should have had relatively noble character, right!"

"Are you serious, my Lord?"

Guo Jia looked at Su Xuan speechlessly: "Such things, listening to them is enough; you actually believed them, my Lord?"

"In any case, I don't believe that a truly peaceful abdication ever occurred;"

"Power is like a monster; anyone who controls it will gradually be turned into a monster by that power!"

"Few people can escape it!"

"In my view, the so-called abdication of the ancient sages likely hid some unavoidable truths behind the scenes;"

"Perhaps, this transfer of power was even bloodier than we imagine;"

"It's just that it was whitewashed by later generations, deceiving us descendants!"