Zhou Sui's heart skipped a beat. He had a faint guess, but it felt too bizarre. The princess, she was a woman!
Suppressing his wildly beating heart, he raised a question, "Then why choose Gefeng?"
Jiang Jin organized her thoughts for a moment. "First, with my current strength, I can only occupy that bitter and cold land."
"Second, as long as I conquer the eastern counties, I will occupy half of Fengzhou, allowing me to secure a temporary haven."
Zhou Sui furrowed his brows deeply. "Fengzhou is sparsely populated. Without people, there is no military force and no labor. Has the Princess considered this problem?"
Jiang Jin's eyes grew deep and profound. "In troubled times, human life is the most valuable thing, yet also the most worthless! As long as I have food and money, the population will eventually grow!"
In this world of great division and turmoil, human trafficking was extremely common. Sometimes, a human life was so cheap that it could be bought for a few flatbreads.
Zhou Sui's frown deepened as he pressed, "Where will the Princess's money and food come from?"
Jiang Jin smiled faintly. "General Zhou doesn't think my imperial father and mother left me nothing, does he?"
It was hard to explain the origin of the grain she had stored in her spatial dimension, so she could only push the credit onto the original owner's parents. As the Emperor and Empress of the Yan Kingdom, it was perfectly normal for them to leave some assets for their daughter.
Zhou Sui's eyes lit up. "His Majesty and Her Grace the Empress left things for the Princess?"
After saying this, his eyes reddened slightly. "His Majesty possessed a profound, loving heart for the Princess."
Jiang Jin couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth. Emperor Yan loved her? Nonexistent. Emperor Yan had over three hundred wives, and there were five official empresses alone.
Her mother, Ji Yue, was Emperor Yan's fifth empress. The first four had all passed away; two died in childbirth, one died of illness, and one was a hopeless romantic who ruined herself through constant jealousy and infighting.
His children were so numerous that he couldn't even remember them all himself. Excluding those who died young, there were 39 who lived to adulthood alone.
However, with the fall of the Yan Kingdom, his children either died, fled, or were sent off as playthings to various factions. She didn't know exactly how many were left, but she guessed it wouldn't be many.
While Jiang Jin was wildly criticizing Emperor Yan in her mind...
Zhou Sui and the other three men were filled with myriad thoughts.
Especially Zhou Sui, whose opinion of Emperor Yan improved somewhat. It turned out the usually unreliable emperor was actually so wise and martial. He had deeply misunderstood His Majesty.
His Majesty must have known Princess Jinyang's capabilities all along and paved the way for her, leaving a spark of hope for the Yan Kingdom.
At this moment, he no longer had any doubts. He bowed deeply and said, "This subject is willing to follow the Princess to Gefeng."
Yao Ji also bowed. "If the Princess does not mind, this subject is also willing to follow the Princess to Gefeng."
Chen Xi and Xie Nanxiao bowed as well. "If the Princess does not mind, we subjects are also willing to follow the Princess to Gefeng."
A hint of a smile flashed in Jiang Jin's eyes. From what she could see, these four men had good character and strong abilities. If used well, they would become her right-hand men.
She nodded. "Right now, there is a question that requires everyone's decision. When we leave the city, should we split into three groups or move together?"
Xie Nanxiao was puzzled. "Why split into three groups?"
Zhou Sui, however, already roughly understood why she wanted to split into three groups, and a trace of gratification and appreciation flashed in his eyes.
Being ruthless to enemies to leave no future troubles, while harboring a benevolent heart for the common people. Even if this benevolence required taking some risks, it was worth it.
Ever since the barbarian tribes invaded the Central Plains, countless Han people had been killed or injured.
Although there were no specific statistics, judging by the corpses littering the plains and the desolate lands stretching for thousands of miles without a single rooster crowing, the Han people had lost at least seventy percent of their population.
Yao Ji pondered and said, "Does the Princess want to save the civilians in the city?"
Jiang Jin nodded. "I didn't kill Boren, but Boren died because of me. If I hadn't made a move to kill Jiao Liang, the civilians in the city might have lived."
"Once Jiao Liang is dead, the Jiao tribe will definitely take their anger out on the civilians. After all, to them, the Han people are nothing more than two-legged sheep."
She pointed to the city map Yao Ji had drawn on the ground earlier. "The west gate is remote, and almost no civilians live there anymore, so we can ignore this gate."
"When we leave the city, we will exit through the south, north, and east gates. Along the way, we will loudly announce that Jiao Liang is dead. I believe many civilians will follow us and leave Liang City."
The cruelty of the barbarian tribes was known throughout the Central Plains. Anyone with a bit of sense would know that if Jiao Liang died, it was highly likely that the entire city's population would be massacred to be buried with him.
As for those who held onto illusions about the Jiao tribe and refused to leave, she couldn't do anything about it. She wasn't an overly moral person; she just followed her own heart.
For personal vengeance, she had to kill Jiao Liang; for her own interests, she had to kill Jiao Liang; and for the Yan Kingdom, she also had to kill Jiao Liang.
She couldn't possibly hold back just for the sake of a few thousand Han people in Liang City. On the other hand, the number of Han people Jiao Liang had killed was far more than a few thousand. If this man did not die, he would kill even more Han people in the future.
Moreover, it was nothing new for the barbarians to eat surrendered civilians when they were short on food. How long these civilians in the city could survive was still an unknown.
Opening the city gates was her way of saving their lives; the rest depended on their own choices.
Jiang Jin continued her analysis. "There aren't many soldiers in the city, and they are scattered everywhere, so they don't pose a big threat to us. The real threat to us and the civilians is the military camp outside the city."
She looked at Yao Ji. "According to the information you just provided, the military camp is about a dozen miles away from the city. The roads are hard to travel at night, and even on horseback, the speed won't be fast. By the time someone goes to the camp to report and brings people back, it will take at least an hour."
"As long as we are fast, both we and the civilians can leave the city before reinforcements arrive at Liang City."
Xie Nanxiao suddenly understood. While feeling admiration for Jiang Jin, he also developed a sense of identification and belonging that he didn't even notice himself.
They had few people, and with Yao Ji severely injured, the safest and most secure option would be for them to attack one gate together and charge out of the city.
However, Jiang Jin chose the difficult path, just to fight for a chance of survival for the civilians in the city.
Zhou Sui took the lead in expressing his stance. "I agree with splitting into three groups."
