Munitions Empire-Chapter 1001 - : 923 Shanping Incident

Chapter 1001: 923 Shanping Incident

The battle at Shanping was raging fiercely, with the Feng River Troops holding a numerical advantage. Zhao Zheng, who couldn’t get much reinforcement, was beginning to feel that he was barely hanging on.

He sent telegrams frequently in the direction of the Imperial Capital, Hezhe, and Guiguang, hoping to get more support.

But apart from Zhao Chen promising to help by doing his best, the telegrams sent to the other two places disappeared without a trace, without any news coming back.

For the situation at hand, Zhao Chen was truly risking his life: He continued to send urgent telegrams to the Imperial Capital, requesting rapid support for Shanping City, while at the same time, regardless of the losses, he forcefully commanded his troops to attack Fengjiang, trying to use a fierce offensive against Fengjiang as a way to alleviate the pressure on Shanping.

Even a fool should realize by now: What’s stopping the troops from moving north to support him is certainly not the Dahua Empire’s slow mobilization speed, but that these troops have received orders—to not leave Guiguang to support Shanping.

Zhao Zheng is of course not a fool; on the contrary, he is quite clever to have reached his position. He quickly figured out most of the reasons, at least he understood that the troops hoarding in Guiguang and not coming to his aid was very likely due to the Dahua Emperor’s instructions.

In other words, the Emperor of the Dahua Empire was setting him up—regardless of the reasons, Shanping was a fishhook thrown out by the Emperor. And he, Zhao Zheng, was the bait hanging on that hook!

What Zhao Zheng hated the most was that Zhao Kai hadn’t even told him the full plan, even letting him pledge a “to the death” defense of Shanping at the start of the war.

What he didn’t know was that Zhao Kai in fact didn’t intend that; he wasn’t planning to deal with Zhao Zheng after the potential loss of Shanping City, nor was he planning to set Zhao Zheng up from the start.

The actual situation was, over a month ago, the plan by Zhao Jie had been presented to Zhao Kai. Upon seeing the plan, Zhao Kai was very fond of it—a plan that could ensnare almost all the rebels in one fell swoop.

So, Zhao Kai immediately adopted the plan and in order to make the act convincing at Shanping, he did not inform Zhao Zheng: Zhao Kai was afraid that once Zhao Zheng saw the plan, he would give up on Shanping and not fight to the death there.

His thought was to have Zhao Zheng fight in the dark until the last moment at Shanping, and then order Zhao Zheng to abandon Shanping and retreat, while giving commendations to Zhao Zheng, so that his bitter struggle at Shanping would be rewarded as it deserved.

But all these were just what Zhao Kai wished for, Zhao Zheng was completely unaware. Fuming with anger and feeling that the Emperor was setting him up with no way out, Zhao Zheng suddenly felt that he might be able to talk with Zhao Yu from the opposing side.

Zhao Zheng was not a member of the core Royal Family circle anyway: He didn’t have the status of Zhao Chen or Zhao Jie, nor was he one of the Princes like Zhao Yu or Zhao Ji; in fact, he had already reached his peak as a subject with hardly any prospects.

If he had come to prominence in this civil war, there would seemingly be a bright ending, and at the very least, he could mix in a title like a prince for his descendants to secure a future.

But now, he felt that he was already a discarded piece, with no future of granting titles and providing shade for his wife and children, it might be better to take advantage of the bargaining chips in his hands and defect to Zhao Yu’s side.

It’s obvious to anyone with clear eyesight that behind Zhao Yu is the support of the Great Tang Empire, even if defeated, it’s just fleeing to the Tang Country at worst—eating and drinking well in the Tang Country might not be much worse than living an abject life in the Dahua Empire.

But if—and there’s a good chance that this “if” will become reality—if Zhao Yu wins, then he, Zhao Zheng, will be a heroic figure who has turned from the darkness to the light!

What people fear most is having thoughts, because once you have them, pondering over and over, you tend to believe that what you think is flawless and perfect.

The more he pondered in his mind, the more Zhao Zheng felt he was right, believing that with just a little maneuvering, and moving his wife and children to the Tang Empire, the outcome of the war seemed to have nothing to do with him anymore.

Thinking of this, he immediately summoned his confidants and instructed one of them to find a way to go over to the other side, to inform them of his willingness to switch sides, hindered only because his wife and children were being held hostage in the Imperial Capital.

In fact, at this time, Zhao Zheng was still clinging to delusional hopes: For someone like him to make a direct choice was not an easy thing.

Zhao Zheng thought it through: Announcing his readiness to switch sides, the offensive from Fengjiang Troops would surely slow down, and naturally his defensive pressure would also diminish. To hold out for a few more days would be a few more days.

And for his family in the distant Imperial Capital, rescuing them would be extremely difficult; even the Great Tang Empire would have to prepare for a while, with ten days’ time the battle with Fengjiang might come to an end—by then, he could observe the situation and make a choice, which would be absolutely safe.

Even if the matter was exposed, it wouldn’t matter—he could just claim he had devised a feint surrender in desperation, although it would look somewhat ugly, but in the end wouldn’t he be on the side of the victor.

But who would have thought, just a short while after his confidant had managed to go over to the other side and explain his intentions, a Tang Empire intelligence agent, who had been hiding in Shanping, found him and met with Zhao Zheng.

The intelligence agent was very straightforward, stating his purpose clearly, indicating that it was very simple to take Zhao Zheng’s family away from the Imperial Capital; all Zhao Zheng needed to do was to find a way to make his family trust the person they sent to negotiate with them.

Such a highly efficient course of action left Zhao Zheng dumbfounded… He really hadn’t anticipated that the Great Tang Empire wouldn’t give him time to continue sitting on the fence.

Having no other choice, Zhao Zheng was forced to make a final decision. He handed over the secret signal he had left when he departed to the Great Tang Empire’s intelligence agents.

As a result, that very night, the merchant Pan Yiping from the Dahua Empire Imperial Capital arrived at Zhao Zheng’s home. After verifying the secret signal, he paid a large sum of cash to buy up everything in Zhao Zheng’s mansion.

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That’s right, there was no need to pack anything, everyone had to leave immediately! These people fled the city heading west through the night, and by the time Zhao Kai got the news and reacted, that family’s airplanes had already passed the Great Western Pass and were fast approaching Shahun City.

Further west lies Qin Country, so although Zhao Kai ordered planes to take off for interception, due to various reasons mentioned earlier, locating these planes was as difficult as ascending to heaven.

The Dahua Empire had no way to force Qin Country to hand over the people — during these days, Qin Country had been restless, constantly causing troubles on the border. It was clear to any observant person that Qin Country was harboring thoughts of taking advantage of the situation.

At this juncture, to still carry the Empire’s hauteur and ask Qin Country to hand over the people could very likely put them in a passive position diplomatically. If the Tang Country supported Qin Country in declaring war, it’s possible those fools in Qin Territory would really act.

A furious Zhao Kai could only vent his anger on the Imperial Army who was responsible for guarding Zhao Zheng’s family and the General Li Mingshun in charge of the city defense: he reprimanded Li Mingshun and penalized him with one year’s salary. Then he pulled out 30 members of the City Defense Army and 50 members of the Imperial Army, and had them all executed.

What no one knew was that there had been a switcheroo; those executed were death row prisoners from the prison, and the people they were replaced with continued to live on under different identities in the cells.

As the saying goes, money talks. Pan Yiping spent the money, and naturally, it had its effect: the families of the executed prisoners were overjoyed to see the reward, and the prison guards who saw their own benefit were moved to tears.

The soldiers who were replaced naturally received compensations as well. Those who temporarily escaped death, unless something unexpected occurred, were definitely out of harm’s way — although they had to assume new identities, the sum of money their families received made them feel grateful even in death…

The handling of the aftermath was very thorough. The DC-3 aircraft arrived safely in Qin Country. There, Zhao Zheng’s wife and over twenty of his family members were to take an even safer train route around Shu Country and Chu Country before finally reaching Tang Country.

So the next afternoon, that intelligence officer from the Great Tang Empire, who had been waiting in Zhao Zheng’s command post and never left, finally received the news he was waiting for.

“General Zhao Zheng, your family is safe. They are now in Qin Country territory and will soon reach Tang Country,” said the Great Tang Empire’s intelligence agent to a stunned Zhao Zheng, smiling as he spoke. “Your family asked me to bring you a message; ‘Under the walnut tree, the nanmu rocking chair.'”

Hearing this phrase, Zhao Zheng could confirm that everything the other party said was true. This was a secret code known only to himself and his mother in their family, to be used only in the most critical moment.

“Sigh…” With a deep breath and no longer resisting, Zhao Zheng finally made up his mind: “I will now give the order for my troops to stop resisting… please, Great Tang… please, the Feng River Righteous Army, enter the city.”

The whole transfer process was actually very smooth: Shanping City was already supportive of Zhao Yu, and its civilians and bureaucrats had long since stopped wanting to fight.

Some of the troops, especially the local troops from Shanping, also didn’t want to fight anymore, it was just that Zhao Zheng’s large army was pressing down on them, preventing any disorder.

Now everything was good, one command was issued, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The peaceful handover of Shanping City saw nearly 200,000 Feng River defenders enter the city, along with the 100,000 troops of Zhao Zheng who had defected, swiftly occupying a large area north of Guiguang.

These regions were already inclined towards Zhao Yu. With this, it was as if with a single command order, the allegiance was decided. The hundred thousand feudal troops advanced to about 50 kilometers north of Guiguang before they encountered the Guiguang defense forces and stopped in their tracks.

It wasn’t until this moment that Zhao Kai, far away in the Imperial Capital, finally confirmed that Zhao Zheng had surrendered and Shanping City had fallen into Zhao Yu’s hands.

Zhao Kai, who was thrown into disarray, immediately ordered Zhao Jie to head to Guiguang to take charge of the situation — in his plans, this role was actually intended for Zhao Zheng.

The civil war in Fengjiang, which originally seemed to be entirely in Dahua Empire’s favor, suddenly took a drastic downturn. The news of Shanping City changing hands was like the detonation of a nuclear bomb within the Dahua Empire.

The 400,000-strong Dahua Empire army stationed near Guiguang City suddenly began infighting overnight… Before Zhao Jie could even reach Guiguang, the city fell into chaos and was occupied by the Feng River troops advancing from the south.

The connection between Sword Pavilion and the Dahua Empire was completely severed!

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The time zones are flipped again… The second update will be provided tomorrow morning, so don’t wait up.