Heirs of the Seven Swords of the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 1969: The Seven Constellations of the Azure Dragon (Sixteen)
"There is another most important restriction." Ah Yan continued, "What they want is revenge and the destruction of the empire, so if Hall Master Chen Sheng eases relations with the empire after achieving certain results and deliberately slows down the offensive, they may terminate the cooperation at any time."

"We can't even rule out the possibility of retaliation."

"Besides that, there are some minor issues that I think are insignificant. I will give you a detailed list later, Master Zhu, and you can study it slowly."

Zhu Jia listened to these conditions, stroked his beard and nodded slightly.

These restrictions sound complicated, but they are actually not that harsh. After adding them, Liusha seems less like a sucker.

The only condition worth considering is the most important one mentioned by Tian Yan.

For so many years, overthrowing the empire has always been a slogan on the lips of major anti-Qin forces, but basically no one thinks that this slogan can be realized in the short term.

It took Qin Shi Huang ten years to conquer the six kingdoms and unify the world, but the anti-Qin forces did not have the confidence that they could overthrow the empire in ten years.

Fighting a war for a day is easy, a month is okay, a year, two years, or even three to five years is barely acceptable, but it is impossible to fight for more than ten years or even longer.

Unless Chen Sheng is like a god descending from heaven and directly overthrows the entire empire, or he is wiped out by the empire, the war between the two sides will always be suspended and eased one day.

Liusha wants to act as a supervisory team and does not allow the farmers to rest for a moment. It is inevitable that the two sides will have a disagreement.

However, after some consideration, the Zhu family felt that this condition was acceptable.

If Chen Sheng could stabilize the situation and develop it to the point where he could maintain a stalemate with the empire, it seems that they would not have to worry about falling out with Liusha at all, nor would they need Liusha's support.

We had a falling out...and that was it.

There will be some losses, but not to the point where they are unacceptable.

As for the other conditions, they are all minor issues that are not very important. I don’t say whether they can be accepted directly, but at least they can be discussed.

If we can talk, we can at least reach a result that both parties can accept.

The Zhu family's only concern now is whether Liusha can be trusted.

It sounds like it's back to the issue of trust, but in fact it has little to do with the concerns raised by the Zhu family at the beginning.

According to the conditions that Tian Yan has stated now, it is indeed difficult for Liusha to directly interfere in the affairs of the farmers.

In other words, the Zhu family doesn't need to play tricks with the people from Liusha, as he still only needs to face Tian Yan.

That was enough for him.

What he needs to confirm is whether Liusha really intends to support an uprising army of sufficient strength?

What if this was purely a trick by Tian Yan to deceive him, just to trick him and Chen Sheng into being the first to challenge the empire?
Even if Tian Yan didn't lie to him, it doesn't mean that what Liusha said was all true.

Theoretically, it is reasonable for Han Fei and Zhang Liang to seek revenge on the empire for the extermination of their family, but who can say for sure?

Wasn’t Li Si, the left prime minister of the empire, a direct disciple of Xunzi? Even after his teacher died, he didn’t say a word and continued to work honestly and hard under Ying Zheng?

In addition, the Zhu family is also worried about Gu Xun.

The events at Xiaoshengxianzhuang attracted worldwide attention. Even ordinary people who didn't pay much attention to the affairs of the world had been talking about it for a long time. The subsequent turmoil in all parties has not yet been completely settled.

The hostility of Han Fei and Zhang Liang towards the empire caused by this was obvious. Did Gu Xun have no defense against this?

In the past twenty years, Gu Xun was nominally the leader of Liusha, but the real leader was Han Fei, who faked his own death and disappeared from public view. However, no one had ever questioned Gu Xun's identity as the leader of Liusha.

The biggest contributors to the development of Liusha to its current scale are people like Han Fei.

But the biggest and only foundation that has allowed Liusha to exist and develop steadily to this day is Gu Xun.

Do Han Fei and Zhang Liang really have the ability to go against Gu Xun's will and use the quicksand to become enemies of the empire?
Or did Gu Xun acquiesce to the development of all this?

Or maybe Gu Xun had already made preparations and even took the opportunity to dig a hole and wait for others to jump in?

The Zhu family couldn't guess the answer, so naturally they didn't dare to take any risks.

However, there was no need to discuss these concerns with Tian Yan - it was impossible for her to make any effective guarantees or promises on behalf of Liusha.

Asking her would only yield some worthless evasive answers.

The Zhu family had to find a way to investigate and verify this matter on their own.

So the Zhu family just left, saying that they needed to think about it.

A Yan didn't care about it.

She had already guessed what the Zhu family would do, so there was nothing to say.

She was not afraid that the Zhu family would investigate the situation of Liusha - this matter was genuine.

Liusha does have to hide behind the scenes and support a large-scale uprising army against the empire to test the waters for his own rebellion. He does not expect to gain any benefits from it. He would consider it a success if he can avoid wasting too many resources.

As for whether Han Fei and Zhang Liang really want to take this opportunity to seek revenge, that is their business.

A Yan was only responsible for adding fuel to the fire for the farmers and letting Chen Sheng be the first to get hurt. As for other things, she didn't care.

Even this matter was kept secret from Gu Xun and his actual consent was not obtained.

The company commander, Prince Fusu, was kept in the dark.

The Zhu family could only find information that was exactly the same as what A Yan said.

………………

While Liusha was fanning the flames of the peasants and pushing them to be the first to rebel, he himself also suffered a wave of "sanctions".

After the Eastern Tour convoy took the Emperor on a journey for half a year, it finally returned to Xianyang at the beginning of the imperial calendar new year (October).

However, the emperor had just returned to the imperial capital and had not been at peace for two months, and winter had not even passed, when news spread within the court that the emperor was going to go on a tour.

Of course, this time it’s not an eastern tour—the mobile court doesn’t move in this way.

This time the tour plan is more complicated.

First, you have to go west to inspect Longxi County, then go north to Beidi County, pass Jitou Mountain, go south to Qishan area, and then return to Xianyang.

This western tour is not only to stabilize the northwest border, but also to retrace the eastward journey of the Qin ancestors of the Ying clan for hundreds of years. During the journey, they will also pass through ancestral homes such as Tianshui and Lixian.

After paying tribute to his ancestors, the emperor would set out from Xianyang again and head north to the border areas.

First it went east to Hedong County, Shangdang County, and Handan County, then from Handan it went north through Julu County and arrived at Dongyuan County of Handan County (formerly the county seat of Hengshan County, now Shijiazhuang, and later Hengshan County was merged into Handan County).

Then he went west from Dongyuan to Jinyang in Taiyuan County, then north to Shanwu in Yanmen County, then west to Jiuyuan County in Yunzhong County, and finally from Jiuyuan City (now Baotou), the seat of Jiuyuan County, he went straight south along the eastern part of Henan Province to Shangjun and returned to Xianyang.

It is very complicated to describe this long list of places, but it can be simply summarized in six words - first tour west, then tour north.

There is nothing much to say about the former, it is just that Ying Zheng wanted to admire the arduous journey of his ancestors and show off his own achievements to them. As for the latter, many people have to imagine it.

Ying Zheng's previous tour to the east was, firstly, to search for immortals at sea in Mirage, and secondly, to suppress unrest in Qi, Lu, Jingchu and other places and consolidate the rule of the empire.

The latter is the key point. If it was just for the former, Ying Zheng would not have to go through so much trouble and spend half a year.

But the Empire's rule in the North is now secure.

Meng Tian had just defeated hundreds of thousands of elite main forces of the Wolf Tribe. No one dared to go to the north at this time to offend this imperial general - no matter if they were people within the empire or the nomadic tribes in the north.

Each one is more honest than the other!

In fact, even if there had been no Meng Tian incident, the North had always been the most stable region under the empire's rule, in a sense even more stable than Guanzhong.

The only source of unrest in this hellhole is the many nomadic tribes further north. Any area with a concentrated population belongs to the sphere of influence of Liusha, so there is almost no anti-Qin force developing here.

Although Liusha is the uncrowned king of the north, he never interferes with the rule of the empire, and has even been cooperating with the official administration of the sparsely populated and resource-poor "Great Northern Wilderness".

It was obvious that Ying Zheng could not solve the threat posed by nomadic tribes through touring, so the purpose of his touring the north seemed very clear.

He went there for the quicksand!

Therefore, as the news of the Northern Tour spread, it immediately became more popular than the Lingnan War which was in full swing, and became the most watched event in the world.

However, this time is different from many previous hot events. Most of the people paying attention to this matter are anti-Qin forces, and they basically have no intention of benefiting from this incident.

They have only one purpose - to watch the fun!

They were all very curious, if there was really a conflict between the Emperor and Liusha, what would be the outcome of this chaos?
Especially when the national teacher Gu Xun disappeared for several months.

In the past, they were chased, intercepted and wiped out by the people of the empire. This time, let’s see what kind of mess the internal fighting in the empire will be like!
At the thought of watching the fun of the empire, they all became excited as if their blood was injected into chickens, and the whole martial arts world was boiling.

Although winter is not over yet, people no longer feel cold all of a sudden!

Of course, the happiest person was not these anti-Qin forces, but the person inside the empire - Zhao Gao.

He was crazy with joy!
If it wasn't really inconvenient, he would have wanted to grant amnesty to the entire Luowang and grant them three days of vacation, and then hold a three-day and three-night buffet to entertain his guests.

But no matter what other people think, the emperor has made up his mind about this matter.

After the rumor had been circulating for half a month, the central court in Xianyang officially finalized the emperor's western and northern tours, and the time was set in the first or second month of spring, depending on the temperature rise.

………………

In the north, the county seat of Shangjun is Fushi, the residence of the eldest prince.

Meng Tian hurried into Fusu's study, without even bothering to say hello, and started reporting directly:

"Your Highness, Your Highness!"

"Xianyang has sent an official letter to inform the northern counties that His Majesty the Emperor will be touring the north after the spring begins, and the counties are required to prepare in advance!"

Meng Tian's tone of voice was not particularly urgent, because the news was not sudden, and there had been rumors about it a long time ago.

But after this matter was settled, he still cared about it very much, otherwise he would not have come to report to Fusu so soon.

Fusu was very calm. He waved to Meng Tian to sit down, and then replied calmly:

"Since we have been ordered to prepare early, then let's prepare."

"The population of the North is sparse, and we have to take care of two important projects, the Great Wall and the Straight Road. We can't squeeze in more manpower to build a palace for His Majesty the Emperor in a short time. So please renovate my mansion to welcome the Emperor."

With just one sentence, Fusu arranged all the preparations they needed to make - even though it was just one thing.

Generally speaking, the preparations for welcoming the emperor were face-saving projects, including preparing a suitable residence, expelling refugees from the city, cleaning up the streets, eliminating bandits, rectifying the administration of officials (for face), etc.

Apart from preparing the mansion, everything else is not difficult. After all, it is not necessary to make fundamental changes. It is just a matter of applying some paint to make it look good and it will be fine if it can fool people for a few days.

But these are completely unnecessary for the north, at least for the area that Fusu once governed - it has nothing to do with difficulty, it is simply not necessary.

There are few people in the north, and commerce is not well developed. Most of the cities are very "deserted" and there is nothing to clean up.

The bandits and robbers outside the city had been wiped out eight hundred years ago, and newcomers who wanted to work in this industry basically had to go out of town and beg for food.

As for the administration of officials, although they were all incorruptible and capable, they were at least above average and the emperor could not find any fault with them.

When you count them carefully, the only thing that needs to be prepared is the emperor's residence.

Theoretically, a dignified emperor should live in a palace.

But reality simply does not allow this.

Ying Zheng had no shortage of palaces. The area of ​​Xianyang was full of palaces and halls built by him, numbering hundreds, not including the super project Afang Palace which was under construction.

But this is limited to the Guanzhong region.

Outside Guanzhong, or even outside Xianyang, there is basically nothing there.

There are many reasons for this. For example, there are no relevant regulations in the system, and there was no demand in the past.

Another reason was that the empire had limited power outside Guanzhong.

In Xianyang, a palace with sufficient specifications might take one or two years to build; in places like Qi, Lu, Jing, and Chu, it might take ten years to complete.

For a major national project like the construction of the Lingqu Canal, Ying Zheng was able to mobilize enough manpower and invest enough manpower to ensure the smooth progress of the project.

But he couldn't possibly go through so much trouble to build a palace.

Of course, it’s not that it can’t be built, it’s mainly because it’s troublesome, plus there are many other reasons.

After comprehensive consideration, no palaces were built for Ying Zheng outside Guanzhong - but he did erect quite a few monuments along the way during his eastern tour.

Therefore, when Ying Zheng was on his eastern tour, localities tried their best to find a suitable place for him to stay.

Ying Zheng himself knew very well that in many places he would just stay in the carriage and not enter the city.

This northern tour is similar.

With several months of preparation time, there is not enough time to build a palace, let alone a large house of decent size. What's more, the population and finances in many places do not allow for a project of this scale to be launched.

Fushi was relatively prosperous under Fusu's governance, but Fusu did not intend to waste extra manpower and resources, so he just made some improvements to his own Prince's Mansion to make up for it.

At worst, I can find another place to stay for a few days.

If it weren't for the fact that he was a prince, Ying Zheng would not only be the emperor but also a father to him, so he would have to be more sincere. He wouldn't even need to rebuild his Prince's Mansion and could just use it as it is.

Even so, it is enough to do this.