Sun Zheng gritted his teeth. “I knew Princess Jinyang had an ulterior motive in coming to provide disaster relief. So her real target was our people. Shameless and despicable!”
Jiang Chun asked urgently, “How have the people in the two commanderies reacted?”
Mentioning this only made Sun Zheng angrier. “The Jinyang Army lured them with the promise of wages. Those wretched commoners are practically all willing to go to Keyuan Island. They began transporting them yesterday.”
“The Jinyang Army brought a great many ships this time, including quite a few medium and large vessels. They can transport more than a hundred thousand people at once.”
Jiang Chun felt his vision go dark. In other words, at least a hundred thousand people from Sizhou were already being taken to Keyuan Island.
“Quick, stop them!” he ordered loudly.
Hua Yuanyi frowned. “Your Majesty, shall we send out the navy to intercept them? The Jinyang Army has long-range repeating crossbows. At sea, they’re practically invincible.”
“Besides, if the Jinyang Army set out yesterday, they should be nearly at Keyuan Island by now. It’ll be difficult for us to catch up!”
Jiang Chun nearly spat blood. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
Everyone fell silent. Stopping that fleet was nearly an impossible task.
By the time Sizhou’s ships caught up, the commoners would already have landed on the island. They couldn’t exactly go to the island and arrest them, could they?
Jiang Chun clenched his fists, his voice seeming to force its way out between his gritted teeth. “My good imperial sister certainly knows how to scheme!”
Not only had she seized nearly a million taels of silver from Tao Commandery and Shankang Commandery, but she also intended to trick away all his people.
She hadn’t come to provide disaster relief at all. She had come to rob him of both money and people!
No—that wasn’t all. She had also won the people’s hearts!
He issued orders swiftly. “Send carrier pigeons to the two commanderies. They must stop the remaining people from leaving! We’ll send more troops there as well.”
The message was written clearly: because the people were firmly on their side, the soldiers stationed in the two commanderies were incapable of dealing with several hundred thousand refugees at once.
Therefore, if they wanted to stop them, they would have to send in more troops and suppress them by force.
Sun Zheng’s face paled. “Your Majesty, how many soldiers are we supposed to send? There are several hundred thousand refugees!”
If they only mobilized tens of thousands of soldiers, it would be of little use. After all, apart from the refugees, there were also ten to twenty thousand Jinyang troops.
But if they mobilized more than a hundred thousand soldiers, Sizhou simply couldn’t spare that many.
Now that the Jiao Army had taken Ying Commandery, its next target would certainly be either Qingsong Commandery or Deyang Commandery. Most of their troops had already been sent to defend those two commanderies.
As for the troops stationed in Shankang and Tao Commanderies, there were actually quite a lot of them—around a hundred thousand in total. However, the two commanderies bordered the states of Jiayu and Louhai, so their border defenses could not be weakened.
On top of that, the floods were raging. It wasn’t only the commoners who had suffered; the military camps in low-lying areas had also been damaged, and many of the soldiers were still struggling to save themselves.
Jiang Chun was at a loss for words. Indeed, how many troops could he actually mobilize?
He pressed his thin lips together. “Have Luo Dezhong and Ji Wangfei come here.”
Luo Dezhong was the commander of the Sizhou Navy and spent most of his time at the naval docks.
A flicker of understanding passed through Hua Yuanyi’s eyes. Was His Majesty planning to send out the navy to intercept them?
By the time Luo Dezhong and Ji Wangfei rode at full speed to Jiu’an City, Jiang Chun had already grown impatient waiting for them.
The two men hurriedly saluted. “Greetings, Your Majesty.”
“Do you know that the Jinyang Army is transporting the people of Tao Commandery and Shankang Commandery to Keyuan Island?” Jiang Chun’s expression was cold and severe.
Surprise flashed through Luo Dezhong’s eyes. “I was unaware of this. Why are they doing so?”
He genuinely hadn’t known. Since the Jiao Army had seized Ying Commandery, most of the Sizhou Navy had been patrolling the coast between Jiu’an and Ying Commanderies.
Jiang Chun’s expression turned grim. “The Jinyang Army wants to turn the people of Sizhou into indentured laborers and transport them to Keyuan Island to work.”
He spoke with righteous indignation. “The people of those two commanderies are all citizens of Sizhou. We absolutely cannot allow outsiders to take them. Find a way to intercept them with the navy.”
Luo Dezhong’s eyes grew thoughtful. After a moment, he said, “Your Majesty, Ying Commandery has already been taken by the Jiao Army, and they are sending naval forces to the docks there. Our navy must patrol the coast to guard against a surprise attack by water.”
He looked troubled. “We have no troops to spare for intercepting the Jinyang Army’s ships.”
The Sizhou Navy was not very powerful. Back then, the entire Yan Kingdom had only had a few tens of thousands of naval troops.
The navy of Daqing Commandery had gone over to Jiang Jin.
Zhu Guan and the others, who had fled Xianglu County, had joined Sizhou. Together with Sizhou’s original naval forces, followed by the troops recruited over time, they now had no more than thirty thousand men.
The coastline between Ying Commandery and Jiu’an was not short, and they had to remain constantly on guard against the Jiao naval forces.
Ji Wangfei added, “The Jinyang Army’s repeating crossbows are extremely powerful and have a long range. If we engage them, there’s a very good chance we won’t be their match.”
He had already put it rather tactfully. Although he was reluctant to admit it, after witnessing the move Princess Jinyang had displayed through the ‘Salted Fish Turns the Tables’ incident, he knew that the Jinyang Navy was extremely powerful.
With equal numbers on both sides, the Sizhou Navy had no chance of defeating the Jinyang Navy.
The muscles in Jiang Chun’s face twitched. “So we’re just going to let the Jinyang Army transport all our people away?”
Luo Dezhong pondered for a moment before saying, “Your Majesty, do we have any disaster-relief plans for the affected regions of Tao Commandery and Shankang Commandery?”
A dark glint flashed through Jiang Chun’s eyes as he fixed Luo Dezhong with a hard stare.
What did he mean by that?
Was he questioning Jiang Chun and implying that he was incapable of providing for the people?
Jiang Chun felt humiliated and stifled.
Seeing the ink-dark expression on Jiang Chun’s face, Dong Cheng couldn’t help but rebuke Luo Dezhong coldly.
“They are citizens of Sizhou. In the past, it was Sizhou that provided them with farmland, giving them land to cultivate and food to eat.”
“Now that disaster has struck and the nation is in difficulty, can they simply abandon their country?”
Under Jiang Chun’s murderous glare, Luo Dezhong sighed.
“It’s only September. If we have no disaster-relief plan, fewer than one in ten of these hundreds of thousands of people will survive. If that’s the case, why not give them a chance to live?”
“Princess Jinyang is also a descendant of the late emperor and His Majesty’s imperial sister. The people of these two commanderies cannot be considered traitors for following her.”
Ji Wangfei nodded. “Exactly. If these two commanderies’ refugees are handled improperly, they could easily turn into mobs and endanger public order. It would be better to let them go to Keyuan Island.”
Jiang Chun nearly vomited blood. He had summoned Luo Dezhong and Ji Wangfei to discuss how to intercept the refugees, not to listen to them lecture him!
What did they mean by saying that the refugees couldn’t be considered traitors? Were they placing Jiang Jin on an equal footing with him?
Yet he couldn’t refute them at that moment. Otherwise, he would appear to be an emperor without a sense of the bigger picture.
Hua Yuanyi lowered his head, but the corners of his lips lifted slightly.
Lord’s efforts had been witnessed by all beneath the heavens. In the Sizhou court, people had already begun speaking up for her.
And he believed that this voice would only grow louder.
Dong Cheng frowned. “Forget the refugees for now. What about Keyuan Island? Although the island has never officially been included in the territory of our Yan Kingdom, we have always considered it ours. Now that the Sixth Princess has occupied it, how are we supposed to deal with this?”
Luo Dezhong shook his head. “Now that Ying Commandery has been taken by the Jiao Army, we don’t have enough naval forces to spare. The fact that the island has been occupied by the Sixth Princess may not be a bad thing.”
“If the Jiao Army wants to reach our side, they must pass near Keyuan Island. With the Jinyang Army there, we will have an additional line of defense.”
Sun Zheng snorted coldly. “By that logic, wouldn’t it be better for us to station our own troops on Keyuan Island?”
Dong Cheng nodded. “Exactly. Even if the Jinyang Army spots the Jiao Army, they won’t intercept their fleet for our sake. What use is that?”
Luo Dezhong shook his head. “If we want to station troops on Keyuan Island, we’ll have to build barracks and a military dock. I wonder how much silver Your Majesty can allocate, and how many troops you can send?”
Jiang Chun’s expression darkened. If he had the money, wouldn’t he have built it long ago?
Luo Dezhong spread his hands helplessly. “Therefore, I believe our Sizhou Navy should cooperate with the Jinyang forces, share resources, and jointly prepare for the Jiao Navy.”
Jiang Chun’s expression grew even darker. He looked around at everyone before finally turning to Hua Yuanyi. “Minister Hua, what do you think?”
Hua Yuanyi pondered for a moment before replying, “Keyuan Island is close to Ying Commandery. If any dispute truly arises, it should be the Jiao forces and the Jinyang forces that clash first. Therefore, I believe General Luo’s proposal is sound.”
