Chapter 3693: The Good Opportunity to Set a Trap

Lin Waner's speculation about the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office was very accurate.

In fact, although the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office are all of the Wu family bloodline, they are just like the Emperor's five sons, each having their own vast families and territories, and their loyalty to the Emperor is even less than that of those foreign-surname ministers.

In the environment of a feudal imperial family, it is extremely rare to have filial and affectionate sons; sons are forever in the strongest competitive relationship with each other, and the relationship between sons and father is forever such that the son only gets a chance to rise to heaven in one step after the father dies, just like the Rothschild family—Steve's feelings for his biological father certainly cannot compare to those of his father's senior executives, because the executives rely on his father for their livelihood, while he hopes his father will kick the bucket soon.

The commandants of the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office and their families are actually the same in this logic.

Wu Feiyan's lifespan is less than a hundred years left, and each commandant of the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office must consider a question: what to do after Wu Feiyan dies?

This question has two solutions, which can be divided into A and B.

Solution A is that Wu Feiyan appoints an heir to inherit her position, and this person has the ability to lead the entire Poqinghui.

This situation will lead to two possibilities: the first possibility is A1, where the commandants of the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office remain hereditary and unchanged, each properly fulfilling their role as enfeoffed great lords; the second possibility is A2, where the new lord, to increase control, directly replaces the entire Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office.

If it is A1, then all is peaceful; but if it is A2, the current commandants must either honestly step down or fight their way out in a bloodbath, but the chances of winning in such a fight are very low unless the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Offices cooperate together; otherwise, any mutiny will be crushed into dust by the other four.

Besides the two possibilities under Solution A, there is also Solution B.

Solution B is that the heir appointed by Wu Feiyan lacks the ability to lead the entire Poqinghui, or is not formidable to the commandants of the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office.

In that case, there are again two possible branches: B1, where someone emerges from the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office to achieve unification; B2, where the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office directly secedes from the Poqinghui—whoever becomes the wise lord, I don't care; from now on, everything on my territory belongs to me, and the wise lord's words are just farts.

Among these four possibilities—A1, A2, B1, B2—only A1, which remains unchanged, occupies a 25% probability, while the remaining 75% will bring great uncertainty to them.

Therefore, the future situation has a 75% chance of undergoing major upheaval.

To cope with this upheaval, the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office are actually secretly plotting their own little schemes behind the scenes, the simplest and most direct of which is internal corruption.

They try every means to accumulate, within the next hundred years, enormous wealth entirely belonging to their families, so that no matter what happens in the future, they will have the ability to cope.

If they are forced to relinquish the Five Armies Grand Commandant's Office, they also have vast amounts of money to provide their descendants with a worry-free life; if they must fight to the death against opponents, the more money they have, the greater their chances of victory.

In short, it is still the ancestral nine-character maxim: dig deep tunnels, stockpile grain abundantly, delay proclaiming oneself king.

The Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office has many of its own businesses behind Wu Feiyan's back, and shale oil is only one of them.

However, this also gives Ye Chen a great opportunity.

Ye Chen frowned and said: "Recently, the Strait of Hormuz has been unstable, oil prices have surged so sharply; if I were someone from the Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office and had stockpiled goods, I would also look for an opportunity to act at this time—this is a good moment to set a trap."

Having said that, he looked at Rachel and reminded her: "I can get the Rothschild family to try to manipulate the domestic oil prices in the United States, creating a short-term sharp rise; if nothing unexpected happens, the Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office should seize this opportunity to release another batch of crude oil, and then you these two days should first take Robert back home, saying you are bringing Robert to visit, and incidentally meet your parents; once an official from the Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office comes knocking, tell me immediately."

Rachel said somewhat anxiously: "Mr. Chen, if I become your insider, once the Poqinghui finds out, our family across three generations will almost certainly face certain death..."

Ye Chen looked at her and countered: "If you don't cooperate with me, can your three generations still survive?"

Rachel flusteredly shook her head and said: "I... I don't mean that... I'm afraid that after you strike against the Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office, when the Poqinghui investigates, they will trace it back to us."

Ye Chen looked at her and said very seriously: "I can have Steve Rothschild provide you with many conveniences in the future, granting you many BUFFs you might never even dream of obtaining, so that you will become a hot new star in the Poqinghui, and also improve your and your family's situation greatly; moreover, by cooperating with me, you need not worry at all about leaking information, for I always act cautiously and will leave no clues; what's more, even if I use you to wipe out the entire Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office, Wu Feiyan will not think it was you or your family who leaked the secret."

Rachel suddenly froze, then realized Ye Chen was speaking the plain truth.

The Scholar Family's status in the Poqinghui is very low.

They are forever isolated from the core circle, forever just a pawn.

The Left Armies Grand Commandant's Office originally would not have any substantive contact with their own family, at most issuing orders through one-way channels; now they are violating regulations by contacting Rachel's family, also for shady purposes, so they themselves will clean up any traces spotlessly; to Ye Chen, this is the best situation—equivalent to the person to be killed having prepared their own shroud, evaded surveillance, erased all clues, and personally delivered themselves to their death.

What else do I have to say? Of course, I gladly accept it!

After Rachel understood this, she immediately realized that Ye Chen is not only her only way out, but will even become a great help to her; once she obtains various resources and recognition from the Rothschild family, her status in the Poqinghui will rise like water lifting a boat, and her whole family will benefit greatly.

She had always worried about Robert before, and the reason she kept unwilling to give her body to Robert was precisely because she feared that once Robert obtained her, he would no longer want to marry her, in which case she would become a complete discard.

Even if she could be certain that Robert now truly likes her, she cannot guarantee that his family will like her, nor can she guarantee that if Robert's family opposes, Robert will defy the opposition and marry her.

Moreover, there is something she cannot determine: if Robert defies his family's wishes and insists on marrying her, will his family then abandon him, just like the British prince who was cast aside and stripped of royal status, reduced to a commoner, in which case his wife naturally could not become a princess?

She wants to increase her own worth, not only by marrying Robert, but also by marrying into his family—both are indispensable, so the variables are extremely great.

But if Ye Chen helps, this matter will surely be as easy as turning over one's hand.

After all, even Steve treats Ye Chen with such respect; as long as Ye Chen supports her, Robert's parents will probably demand that she marry into the family!