Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 1768: Chapter 563: River Valley Council, Alliance with Cai to Govern Chen

Given Xia Hong’s current status, getting an audience with him really isn’t easy.

It’s not that the people below are acting on their own initiative; the key thing is that, as Lord, he simply has far too much to deal with. Especially right after a large-scale campaign like this ends, the people who want to see him come one wave after another.

Yuwen Dao needs to report last night’s battle results to him, and while he’s at it the two of them have to sit down and review the gains and losses from the Great Xia Army’s great battle;

Yuan Cheng has brought Xia Chuan’s verbal message, to brief him on the overall situation in the entire Five Towns of South Ridge, and to discuss how to handle the Five Towns next;

Qiu Peng has drawn up a full inventory of the materials in the Five Towns Treasury—what needs to be transported back to Xia City, what should be left in the Town as reserve—he has gone through all of it with him one by one;

Lin Kai, right after yesterday’s great battle ended, gathered the scouts Yuwen Dao had sent earlier, collated the intelligence they had gathered, reported the important parts to him, then personally led a team north to begin surveying the entire Evergreen Valley boundary, with reports coming back from time to time;

………

There are too many matters waiting for his decisions, so ever since the daytime of the fourth day, once the battle ended, he basically has not had a single moment of free time. It was not until the daytime of the fifth that he finally had a bit of breathing room and could begin discussing the Great Xia Army’s follow-up plans with Yuwen Dao and the others.

Though the main force of the Great Xia Army has entered River Valley Village, it has yet to be decided whether they will take the initiative to march out and engage Cai Qiu’s army on Guangning Mountain, or instead control movement with stillness and wait for Cai Qiu’s seventy-thousand strong army to make the first move before responding. No one has yet given a definite answer.

“Lord, according to the news Lu Yang brought back last night, Cai Qiu no longer has the time or energy to mind Evergreen Valley. Why not seize the opportunity to advance, wipe out Cai Yunzhou’s seventy-thousand army outright, swallow the entire Evergreen Valley, and then even push on to take Qinghua City? That wouldn’t be…….”

In the main building’s central hall, there are six people at the moment. Xia Hong sits firmly in the chief seat at the top; below, Yuwen Dao, Yuan Cheng, Qiu Peng, Lin Kai, and Xu Ning stand in two rows on either side.

The one currently speaking is Yuan Cheng.

Yuan Cheng has a fiery temper and is relatively impatient by nature. The moment last night’s battle ended, he requested to be sent out again. Xia Hong refused him and even sent him back to the Southern Slope to inform Xia Chuan of the outcome of the battle. That is how he came to be carrying Xia Chuan’s verbal message back.

Now that he sees Xia Hong has finished with his immediate business and intends to discuss the Great Xia Army’s next arrangements, he naturally cannot wait and is requesting to fight for a second time.

And to be fair, once he spoke up, the others all felt a stir of excitement.

“Lord, your calculations are divine. Before the battle you sent Lu Yang far to Wei Bo to inform them of the fighting in Lin Chu County. That Li Gangfeng is truly decisive—he actually brought more than a dozen Tribulation Body Realm experts and forced his way into Lin Chu County City to rescue the doomed Cai Qianshan. With that, although Cai Qiu has suffered a loss of vitality, he will not be wiped out outright by Chen Cang.

Wei Bo’s rescue will certainly come at a price; Chen Cang swallowed more than half of Lin Chu County’s territory and still wasn’t satisfied, continuing to advance east. It looks like they intend to swallow the whole county. Hezang may appear quiet, but based on the information Jiang Xinfan gathered from Chen Cang, in foreign affairs over the past years they’ve practically been wearing the same pair of pants as Wei Bo, so Wei Bo’s stance represents theirs as well.

Right now it looks like all Three Vassals want to carve flesh off Cai Qiu!”

After hearing the first sentence out of Yuwen Dao’s mouth, a smile immediately surfaces on Xia Hong’s face. Great Xia’s footprint truly is getting broader and broader—someone as cool and severe as Yuwen Dao has even learned to flatter.

That said, sending Lu Yang to Wei Bo with advance notice before the battle was indeed his handiwork.

Xia Chuan represented Great Xia in partnering with Chu Tianming; Xia Hong was naturally in the loop. Chen Cang’s hundred-thousand army sat idle in East River City, then troops sallied out from Heyang County to launch a surprise attack on Cai Qiu’s Lin Chu. Great Xia neither wished nor was able to go to war with two Vassals at once, and the war with Cai Qiu was already an arrow on the string that had to be loosed. Agreeing to Chu Tianming’s proposal was essentially just going with the flow.

This cooperation could originally be called a win-win for both sides, with the only injured party being Cai Qiu.

But as things have developed to where they are now, Xia Hong is feeling rather uncomfortable.

He had originally thought Chen Cang would stop after taking part of Lin Chu County’s territory, but who could have expected Cai Qiu to be this incompetent—he actually failed to hold even Lin Chu County City.

The four counties are Cai Qiu’s fundamental base of power, and the importance of Lin Chu County City goes without saying. Xia Hong had even lived in Lin Chu County City for a period; he knows full well how solid that city’s defenses are.

For Chen Cang to have actually taken it!

Thinking about it that way, even if Great Xia captured the whole of Evergreen Valley, and even if they managed to seize Qinghua City as well, the biggest beneficiary in this three-way clash would still be Chen Cang.

Moreover, once Chen Cang takes all of Lin Chu, with Cai Qiu having suffered such a loss, will that hundred-thousand army in South Slope Dongchuan City still remain idle?

Their next target will inevitably be Great Xia.

Even though they have defeated Cai Qiu’s twenty-five-thousand strong army, in front of the Three Vassals of the Moao River Great Xia as a whole is still in a weak position; Xia Hong has never forgotten that.

Which is why he must prepare in advance.

“Lord Yuwen is right. Since all Three Vassals are carving flesh, our Great Xia naturally cannot fall behind. We should first take Evergreen Valley; once reinforcements arrive, we can press the advantage in one go and seize Qinghua City. Perhaps we might even take Bai Shui County as well, and we could…….”

Yuan Cheng has more or less seen what’s on his mind and once again petitions Xia Hong for battle.

Yuwen Dao and the other four—Qiu Peng, Lin Kai, Xu Ning—show some eagerness on their faces at his words, but when they turn and see Xia Hong’s brows faintly knotted, they all guess what this implies and choose to hold their tongues.