Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 498 - 449 War

Chapter 498: Chapter 449 War
Feilian raised his eyebrows. He had received an invitation from Jun Qianzi and, being in the Zhou Kingdom already, decided to attend the meeting. He hadn’t expected so many people.
Besides Yuan Sou, Ghost Shovel, and Yu Shi, there was also:
A middle-aged man with a corpulent body, dressed in brocade robes, wearing a smile like a retired wealthy man—Shangyang.
A woman dressed in a beautiful red dress, adorned with gold hairpins and a jade bracelet, holding a folding fan over half of her face, her eyes smiling—Lady Zhu.
A figure clad in heavy, pitch-black armor and wearing a black-and-gold mask, revealing no hint of skin—Ping He.
Feilian knew these three. The only one he didn’t recognize, who appeared after them, was a Monk in monastic robes. The left side of this Monk’s head was indented and filled with gold.
"Is this Shixing?" Feilian scrutinized the Monk, incredulous.
The Monk brought his palms together, shaking his head slowly. "Shixing is just a dream of the past. Now, this humble Monk is known by the Dharma name Harvard."
"Harvard, Weeping Buddha... whatever." Feilian showed little interest in the Monk’s title and looked around.
Jun Qianzi, Yuan Sou, Ghost Shovel, Shangyang, Lady Zhu, Ping He, Shixing, and himself—altogether, eight Candle Cloud Cultivators were gathered on the Viewing Tower. The lineup was luxurious to an extreme.
(Ya Jiu was still a High-level Cloud Patrol, while Situ Zhi’s Disciple, Yu Shi, was only at the Cloud Patrol Early Stage.)
"Hey, such a grand assembly! Who are we preparing to kill?" Feilian rubbed his palms together, saying eagerly, "Kill the newly crowned Emperor of Zhou? Or kill those two cardinals and frame the Yu Country or the Zhou Kingdom?"
With eight Candle Cloud Cultivators, they could go anywhere in the world, even force their way into the Zhou Kingdom Imperial Palace.
"Neither." Jun Qianzi shook his head. "The crowning of Emperor Zhou is also part of my plan."
Feilian asked, surprised, "Your plan?"
"The more one has experienced the torment of illness and recovered from a grave condition, the more they cherish the feeling of being alive—or rather, the more they fear death." Jun Qianzi smiled. "Emperor Zhou has been ill for many years, and his mindset has long since changed. Beyond an emperor’s desire for power, he now harbors an added yearning for immortality, for eternal life.
"He heard rumors about the Jianquan Six Paths Reincarnation Technique. Thinking it also a method for eternal life, he outwardly supported the Yu Country and Taihao Mountain by suppressing news of the Six Paths Reincarnation Technique. Yet, he couldn’t resist secretly dispatching spies to investigate.
"He desires to monopolize the Six Paths of Reincarnation Illusion, to forever wield authority within that illusion, or at the very least, to have the Zhou Kingdom’s own Cultivators create a new Illusion Realm."
"By leaking this information to Taihao Mountain, it will naturally provoke a fierce reaction from the Haotian Taoist Sect," Ya Jiu interjected. "The Zhou Kingdom is very submissive to Taihao Mountain, but the Six Paths of Reincarnation Illusion is tantamount to snatching souls directly from Haotian’s hands. Even the most worldly Haotian Disciples wouldn’t permit it. Moreover, the one interested is the sovereign of a nation. Therefore, Taihao Mountain will surely act, replacing the emperor with someone more to their liking—someone more obedient and with even fewer moral baselines."
Shangyang, resembling a wealthy retiree, rubbed his goatee and said with a smile, "Killing two birds with one stone?"
"One stone, three birds," Ya Jiu said indifferently. "With Jianquan dead, the Yu Country has lost another Candle Cloud Cultivator. This Imperial Uncle of the Zhou Kingdom firmly believes that once the Yu Country completes its railways, the disparity in national strength between the two countries will only widen. He has always advocated for an early military campaign against the Yu Country. Upon receiving news of the Zhou Kingdom’s great upheaval, the Yu Country will also grow tense, readying its troops and horses, prepared to go to war at any moment. And all this originated merely from a copy of the *Sarnath Notes* sent by Harvard."
To stir up such turmoil and manipulate the situation with just a single book—it indeed sounded like Jun Qianzi’s style.
Feilian smacked his lips. "So, what do we need to do?"
"Add fuel to an already tense situation that’s on the brink of igniting." Jun Qianzi tapped the table lightly with his fingertips. From his sleeves, nine paper cranes flew out, landing in everyone’s hands and unfolding themselves.
Each paper crane bore names and locations: perhaps a Natural Science scholar from the Yu Country, a border town General from the Jing Country, the head of a noble family in the Zhou Kingdom, a bank owner, or an Eternal Life Saint Tablet in some Turkic territory, ports and shipyards in the Zhou Kingdom, or Spiritual Energy Locomotive stations in the Yu Country.
"In the second-year Military Studies textbooks at the Academic Palace, the relationship between Cultivators and mortal armies has been clearly discussed," Jun Qianzi smiled. "A Martial Arts Grandmaster hones his body to perfection, possessing abundant vital energy; his skin and bones become tougher than steel, impervious to swords and spears. Clad in armor, he can single-handedly penetrate military formations as easily as a tiger among sheep.
"A Candle Cloud Mage can summon a hurricane with a mere flick of his wrist. His Magic can alter the very terrain of a battlefield, burying an army of ten thousand in mudslides or blizzards.
"The power gap between a Great Practitioner and a mortal army is immense. However, mortal armies, by utilizing special talismans and Mutated Objects, can still pose a threat to Cultivators, even kill them. High-level Cultivators are exceptionally rare and extremely difficult to nurture; no country can afford to lose even one.
"Thus, the most strategically sound and efficient use of Cultivators is to assassinate key figures in an enemy state, destroy its farmlands, contaminate its water sources, cripple its transportation routes, and sever all connections between the imperial court and its localities. This would render the high officials in the court as helpless as blind men, their decrees unable to extend beyond the Imperial City.
"A Martial Arts Grandmaster can travel a thousand li in a day and night, crossing three or four State Mansions in a single day to annihilate all officials left in charge. Or they can attack supply convoys, burning the grain and grass essential for large armies. And a Grandmaster specializing in assassination, like Ping He, can completely conceal his presence, infiltrate the Imperial City, effortlessly assassinate General- or Prime Minister-level figures, and then retreat unscathed. Lacking command, coordination, and logistics, wars between empires become untenable.
"However, this approach is only effective when one side possesses high-level Cultivators and the other does not. If both sides have a comparable number and quality of Cultivators, it will devolve into a cycle of mutual assassinations and reciprocal retaliation, ceasing only when one side’s deployed assassins are entirely wiped out.
"Prominent figures always cherish their lives. No Prime Minister or Prince wishes to awaken one day to find the severed heads of his wife and children neatly arranged at his bedside, their eyes wide in an eternal stare. Thus, the major powers only employ this method to bully smaller states; they will not proactively initiate mutual assassinations. Unless, of course, a third party intervenes."
Jun Qianzi pointed to himself and smiled. "It’s like a heavily laden cart parked at a mountain’s peak. We merely need to kick its rear, and this cart, named Total War, will careen uncontrollably down the mountainside. It will pick up speed, faster and faster, until it finally plunges into a bottomless abyss. This entire process unfolds irrespective of human will."