Chapter 711: Coercion

"Ah!" Caught completely off guard, Jia Wuqun cried out in pain.

The retainer cultivators outside the hall reacted at once, but Myriad Beasts Sect disciples decisively blocked them. More disciples surged in from both sides and surrounded the retainers outright.

The men could not simply stand by while Jia Wuqun was harmed, yet neither did they dare act rashly inside the Myriad Beasts Sect.

But if anything truly happened to Jia Wuqun here, they would have no way to answer for it when they returned. They were caught in an impossible position.

In the end, it was Jia Wuqun who gave them a way out. He quickly gestured toward the doorway, signaling for them not to act recklessly.

Xi Haitang casually tossed aside the beard he had ripped free and stared coldly at Jia Wuqun.

Every senior member of the Myriad Beasts Sect present was looking at Jia Wuqun with open hostility as well.

Jia Wuqun raised a hand to touch his chin, glanced at the dark-red blood staining his fingers, and grimaced. Then he smiled and shook his head ruefully.

Ignoring the hostile stares surrounding him, he looked around, walked away from Xi Haitang, and crossed to one side of the hall.

With a hiss of steel, he drew a fine sword from a rack along the wall. He ran his thumb lightly along the edge, testing its sharpness.

Everyone thought he meant to take up the sword and fight desperately or something of the sort. Instead, he walked over to a polished bronze pillar bright enough to reflect a man's image, used it as a mirror, took hold of the mustache above his lip, and cut it off with the sword.

More outrageously still, he then held the sword before the bronze pillar and began shaving in full view of everyone, all while muttering, "Under ordinary circumstances, the Chancellor would never dare provoke the Myriad Beasts Sect. But if he is truly driven into a dead end, then for the sake of preserving himself, I fear he will no longer be able to care about so much."

He blew the whiskers from the blade. "Of course, the Chancellor has no ability to confront the Myriad Beasts Sect head-on. He may lack hard power, but he still possesses soft power. If the Chancellor falls, he will not be the only one affected. There is an entire group of people beneath him. To protect their own interests, they cannot allow the great tree sheltering them to fall. They will inevitably think of every method they can."

"For example, the vegetation around the Myriad Beasts Sect is lush. Local troops may come through now and then chasing bandits, and an accidental mountain fire would be easy enough to start. Roaming bandits would probably find it easy to flee in this direction too, and the local forces would naturally have to come here in the faithful discharge of their duties. If that causes any disturbance, I hope the Myriad Beasts Sect will not take offense. I imagine the Myriad Beasts Sect would not stand by while lawlessness runs rampant throughout Great Song either. Otherwise, one sect would effectively be setting itself against the court and against every cultivation sect in Song."

"In short, local affairs have endless ways of becoming troublesome. So long as the Chancellor still has prestige at court, he can keep the people below him restrained. If that prestige disappears, who knows what sort of chaotic nonsense they might start doing? When the time comes, the Myriad Beasts Sect will face endless disturbances. Some people will keep making trouble, and they will keep making trouble until the three major sects are satisfied—or until the Myriad Beasts Sect can no longer remain in Song. And if the Myriad Beasts Sect leaves Song, where can it go? What state would willingly allow a colossus like the Myriad Beasts Sect to plant a foot inside its territory?"

"The Myriad Beasts Sect does business with people beneath Heaven and worries about offending Yan. Why does it not worry about offending Song? I will say it again: even if Song loses this war, Song will not be destroyed. The Myriad Beasts Sect has remained in Song for many years without possessing its own sphere of influence, yet you have still been able to enjoy peace without disturbance. The Song court has shown the Myriad Beasts Sect every consideration, and the Chancellor has done the same. Now Song is in peril and the Chancellor himself has been forced into difficulty, yet the Myriad Beasts Sect refuses to lend a hand. No matter where you take that argument, it does not stand. If that is truly your position, then neither the court nor the Chancellor seems to have any reason to continue maintaining this friendship."

"His Majesty is ruler of an entire state. For the sake of the greater situation, there are things he must be wary of. He does not want to throw his own house into chaos. But the Chancellor is different. If everyone can live in peace, all is well. If he is truly driven until there is nowhere left to go, then he can only preserve what is before his eyes. He will hardly care how the Myriad Beasts Sect might retaliate later. If he cannot even survive the present, why should he care whether the flood comes afterward?"

The bronze pillar's reflection was limited, and shaving with a sword was hardly convenient. Jia Wuqun scraped at his face a few times, ran a hand over the remaining stubble, wiped the blade on his sleeve, then returned the sword to its sheath on the rack.

Turning back, he used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his upper lip and walked over to Xi Haitang again. "A beard is a small matter. If it is gone, it can grow again. Sect Leader was right to administer a small punishment. Jia Wuqun was discourteous, after all. But I truly have no choice. I will not hide it from you: the Chancellor gave me an absolute order. I must bring back a definite answer today. If the Myriad Beasts Sect is willing to help the Chancellor, everything can be discussed. If the Myriad Beasts Sect insists on tearing all face with him, then the relationships you have cultivated at court may stop others, but they cannot stop the Chancellor's fury. The Myriad Beasts Sect can begin looking for another home and preparing to relocate right now. At the very least, there will no longer be room for you anywhere within Song. Urgh..."

Xi Haitang, eyes blazing with anger, suddenly seized him by the throat.

A mere mortal had dared come into the main hall of the Myriad Beasts Sect and behave this arrogantly. Xi Haitang was furious beyond measure.

Jia Wuqun's face rapidly turned crimson. His eyes rolled upward as he was choked nearly unconscious. Two Elders stepped out from either side and grabbed Xi Haitang, afraid he might truly kill the man and leave no room for reconciliation between the Myriad Beasts Sect and Zi Pingxiu. Until they had made their final decision, there was no need to kill one of Zi Pingxiu's people, especially someone with such an extraordinary relationship to him.

Xi Haitang finally released his grip.

Jia Wuqun collapsed to the floor, clutching his throat, coughing repeatedly as he gulped great breaths of air.

Once his breathing steadied somewhat, Jia Wuqun remained half-reclined on the floor and said, "This is also a good opportunity for the Myriad Beasts Sect. Ordinarily, the three major sects deliberately suppress you and refuse to give the Myriad Beasts Sect a sphere of influence. Under the present circumstances, however, the three major sects are themselves in danger. If the Chancellor also has the court apply pressure to them, they will certainly loosen their grip. The Myriad Beasts Sect can seize the opportunity to bring this entire region under its control and truly possess a sphere of influence of its own. If bandits cause trouble here after that, the Myriad Beasts Sect can investigate matters itself. Outsiders will find it difficult to interfere again."

"Throw him out!" Xi Haitang shouted furiously.

Two disciples immediately came forward, seized Jia Wuqun just as he was getting to his feet, and quite literally dragged him away.

The several retainers outside the hall were driven out with him, all the way beyond the sect gates.

Even after being thrown out in such sorry condition, Jia Wuqun showed no intention of leaving. He found a rock, sat down on it, and waited.

Inside the main hall of the Myriad Beasts Sect, discussion broke out everywhere. They had no choice but to debate Zi Pingxiu's intentions as conveyed by Jia Wuqun. This was already Zi Pingxiu's final ultimatum to the Myriad Beasts Sect.

Help him, or they would become enemies. Zi Pingxiu's meaning was that simple.

Under ordinary circumstances, the Myriad Beasts Sect would never have believed Zi Pingxiu possessed such courage. Was the Myriad Beasts Sect so easy to provoke? But this time was different. Zi Pingxiu appeared to have been driven into such a desperate corner that even a dog would leap the wall.

Elder Chao Jing entered from outside the hall and asked, "I heard Zi Pingxiu sent someone here to threaten us?"

Xi Haitang asked in return, "Did you get anything else out of Chao Shenghuai?"

The very mention of this angered Chao Jing. His own grandson had become involved, causing him endless worry. "I questioned him repeatedly. As for the assassination of the Song envoy, he insists that he personally saw people from the Yan delegation carry it out. It should not be false."

No matter what, Chao Shenghuai would never dare admit there had been something suspicious behind the incident. He clung to that version without yielding an inch.

Xi Haitang sneered. "The people of Yan are not fools. How could they have done something so stupid? Song must have manipulated something behind the scenes. The situation is obvious. Song wanted to provoke this war from the beginning. They simply never expected to lift a rock only to smash their own feet and end up thrown into chaos by Yan instead. Now they are desperately trying any remedy they can find and actually want to drag my Myriad Beasts Sect into the water. A pack of bastards!"

The others nodded. The matter truly was obvious. Nothing else even needed to be mentioned. The rebellion led by Wu Gongling in Yan's Cangzhou had clearly not been conceived on a whim; it had plainly been prepared in secret for a long time. It would be stranger if Song had not been behind it.

By now, Chao Shenghuai's matter was no longer important. The discussion quickly returned to Zi Pingxiu's ultimatum. Some were furious enough to suggest sending men directly to the Song capital and killing Zi Pingxiu.

But that was merely angry talk. The Chancellor of a state was not someone one could simply kill on a whim. He was protected by experts to begin with, so whether an assassination would even succeed was uncertain. More importantly, if they truly did such a thing, it would no longer be Zi Pingxiu alone making trouble for the Myriad Beasts Sect.

...

First came the live burial of six hundred thousand prisoners, then the massacres of cities. The Yan army's brutality was horrifying, yet no one at the Song court could stop them. Every force that resisted saw its city broken, its people killed, and slaughter follow. As the Yan army's advance spread across a broader and broader region, enormous panic swept through Song's population.

Along the directions in which the Yan forces advanced, people from city after city and place after place helped the elderly and carried the young, wiping away tears as they fled their homes. Those willing to resist were a minority after all.

Gradually, as the number of refugees grew and the area affected by them expanded, the displacement finally began to strike at the state's basic order. Song's balance of supply and distribution was thrown into chaos, and the waste and destruction were immense.

The simple fact that large numbers of people had abandoned vast areas of farmland created a break in Song's own internal production and supply. The strain would soon tighten across the entire state.

From top to bottom, the whole country was gripped by fear. Without victories to show them, there was no way to reassure the people.

...

Inside the central command tent, Jin Jue stood before a map and said slowly, "Song's internal order is becoming unbalanced and its national strength is being consumed at a terrifying rate. This is exactly what Meng Shanming wants to see."

A general standing to his left said, "The Song court keeps pressing our court to have us send troops against Yan as soon as possible."

The general on his right pointed at the map. "The Grand Marshal is right. Meng Shanming wants to redirect the disaster eastward and induce our State of Han to attack Song."

"I know that," the general on the left said. "But Meng Shanming will never let us pick up the advantage so easily. Once Song has been beaten badly enough, Song and Yan will ally against us next, and then we will gain nothing. So I still think we should take advantage of Yan's internal emptiness and invade."

Jin Jue folded his arms across his chest and stared at the map, shaking his head. "How can you say we gain nothing? With Song and Yan fighting like this, both states are consuming their national strength at a tremendous rate. Han is already gaining an enormous advantage. They simply have not exhausted themselves enough yet. Song still has strength left, and Meng Shanming's little calculation... let Meng Shanming keep tormenting Song. Once Song has been worn down far enough, even if we never send a single soldier, neither state will have the strength to provoke Han for a long time afterward. Instead, they will have to behave obediently toward us. How is that not an advantage? No hurry. Better to play it safe. Playing it safe is still best."

The general on the left said, "Grand Marshal, you cannot keep bearing the pressure from court forever."

Jin Jue tipped his chin toward the State of Zhao on the map. "Zhao is too quiet. Until I am certain Zhao will not act, I will not rashly send troops. If we invade Yan and become bogged down there, then Zhao suddenly attacks while Han's interior is empty, what are we supposed to do?"

The general on the left gave a helpless laugh. "But what if Zhao truly has been restrained by Qi and Wei all this time and that is why it has not acted? If we just keep waiting like this, won't we sit by and miss the opportunity?"

"That talk of joining forces to attack Yan was merely something I used to fool those idiots in Song!" Jin Jue said. "I may as well tell you plainly: no matter how tempting the fat meat in front of us is, so long as there is still a threat beside us, I will not send troops. Only after Zhao moves against Yan will I move. I will not gamble Han's national fortune on any risk, nor will I send our soldiers to die for nothing. When it comes to war, better to play it safe. Playing it safe is still best."

The general on the right asked, "Are we really going to stand by until Song and Yan have fought themselves nearly empty and then let them negotiate peace?"

"Wait a little longer," Jin Jue said. "Once the fire is almost hot enough, have the court approach Zhao. Zhao attacks Yan, and we attack Song. Only after Zhao has been dragged in and we have no worries behind us will it be time for us to move. Do not be too greedy. Giving some of the meal to others is no great matter. We only need to have something to eat ourselves. The key is making sure we can actually swallow it."

"If Zhao refuses to attack, then we do not move. With Han pressing on them, Zhao can do nothing but stare helplessly. They can forget about picking up an easy advantage. In short, better to play it safe. Playing it safe is still best! Don't be like that foolish boy Luo Zhao, making a long-distance dash all the way to attack Yanjing. Tsk, tsk. I truly don't know what he was thinking."

[End of Chapter 711]