Chapter 448 – You've Crossed the Line, Bitch
Zhuge Liang almost could not hide his laughter. He had to cover his face with his long sleeve clothes and pretended to cough.
'Dear lord. You all are about to fight an impossible opponent, but you can't even abandon your selfishness. Can't you see that without fighting together as one, you won't have a chance at all? This is one of the reasons why Zhang Tong thrives, but you suck!'
Zhuge Liang had studied how Tong climbed up his ranks from being a son of a Taoist priest to an emperor.
Tong's biography and achievements revealed that he always exploited the discord or infighting of his opponents.
The Battle of Anping, when Tong participated in a war for the first time, Tong manipulated Yuan Shao's men into supporting them indirectly, was proof.
The overturn in Ye, where Zhang He betrayed Han Fu, was a proof.
The constraint conflicts between Tong and Yuan Shao, yet the latter always failed to finish off the weaker forces due to the infighting between Tian Feng and Feng Ji, was a proof.
After the collapse of the Anti-Xiongnu Coalition, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao could have cooperated and killed Tong, yet they did not, was a proof.
The uprising of Gongsun Du, which could have destroyed Tong's foundation, failed because the warlord and the Xianbei did not unite as one, was a proof.
There were many occasions that either Cao Cao or Yuan Shao could have killed Tong, but they all failed because they were too half-hearted in dealing the finishing blow as they looked too far ahead. Moreover, none of them let go of their façade and wanted to keep the righteous image to manipulate citizens.
These were the flaws that allowed Tong to survive this far!
Zhuge Liang doubted why Tong was doing the same and allowing these people to grow. Now that he witnessed the disharmony between forces, the strategist understood.
'Did he know that these guys will end up like this? Trying to fight each other and acting like hyenas? Much wow.'
Meanwhile, Tong also suffered from infighting incidents, such as the duel against Lu Bu in Jinyang, the second meeting with Lu Bu at Anping, the complication of Liu Xie and the throne, and currently, the assassination attempts by Guo Jia, which might create friction in Tong's forces. Yet, his empire was majorly united.
One of the reasons for that was Tong's absolute rule that disallowed all nobles from possessing a private army, which prevented all evildoers from causing mischievous deeds. Moreover, he had the power to suppress all monstrous generals from rebelling.
Zhuge Liang saw Tong as a combination of Xiang Yu, the god of war during the late warring state era, and emperor Wudi, who had established a foundation for the Han Dynasty and later generations.
Funny enough, the emperor Wudi's style name was also [Tong].
From Zhuge Liang's superstitious point of view, this Zhang Tong might be the reincarnation of the emperor Wudi!
'Kekeke! They're doomed. Your majesty, you are so wicked that I like you too much. Can't you be a bit more stupid, so I can be more useful to you?'
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The meeting concluded after a few hours of useless bickering and bargaining for Cao Cao's supplies and weaponry.
In the end, Cao Cao had to pay for Sun Ce and Liu Bei for their cooperation. All subordinates of the two forces were angry and disgusted by their ally's greediness, but they did not have a choice as their armies got to protect their cities while the others had to work to earn their keep.
After everyone had left to rest, Guo Jia, Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, and Cheng Yu gathered to brainstorm about their next moves.
"Any news about the assassins?" Cao Cao referred to their assassins, whom Cao Cao had sent to kill the first princess, Zhang Min, to stir the instability of Tong's royal harem.
Guo Jia shook his head, "They stopped sending intel since last week. I think they might have been found."
"Then, has Zhang Tong moved against his concubines?"
"No. He took the first princess to live with her grandfather and sent two of his consorts and 50,000 men from Ye to Julu. Other than that, we found nothing."
"What about our contact with Liu Xie? He should have become more active since Zhang Tong has two new sons."
"He killed our messengers."
Cao Cao sighed, "Never mind, then. What a waste."
The incident was Guo Jia's doing. As they were not Tong's match in terms of the military, they attempted to weaken him by creating friction and factions among Tong's subordinates.
Unfortunately, their plan bore no fruit.
Cheng Yu raised his hand to share his ideas, "If internal discord doesn't work, how about we drag our neighbor countries into the fight?"
Zhuge Liang was amused, "Which country are you referring to? Goguryeo? Xianbei? Xiongnu?"
Cheng Yu snickered and placed the odd coins on the table.
They were two types of coins.
One was a silver coin with a carving of a Caucasian man with curry short hair and a sharp nose. The other was an uneven silver coin with a full-beard man with a war helmet.
They were Roman's coin and Parthia's coin!
"From my investigation, these empires have a high demand for our gold nuggets, and they have been smuggling our gold for years. Also, the Kushan Empire is overly relying on the Silk Road trade route. We can exploit their economy by stopping the trade and entice their local military to join us with gold and wealth."
Not only Cheng Yu was eyeing the Roman and the Parthian, but he also wanted to involve the weak Kushan Empire, which had been neutral to all conflicts among the neighboring countries.
Guo Jia nodded as he added, "I see. Since Zhang Tong doesn't dare to declare war on us despite our movements, we will hire more soldiers from the west while we entice them to plunder the north for us."
"That's correct. Our investigation on the western kingdoms shows that we are not the only ones with immortals. They also have angels and demons of their own, so we should bring them to our war."
Zhuge Liang gulped. This was getting out of hand.
"Don't you guys afraid that they will invade us after they are done with Zhang Tong?"
Cheng Yu and Guo Jia laughed, "They aren't that capable. Those western barbarians have fewer troops and less organized than us. An upstart like you might probably don't know about this, but their professional army only numbers less than 10,000 men. What kind of threat can they pose to us, the only civilized country?"
Zhuge Liang wanted to retort, but he held back his words.
'Well, fine. I don't need to protect you lots if things go south. I'll just use my messenger birds to inform Lu Bu and Zhang He about this, then.'
Cao Cao agreed to Cheng Yu and Guo Jia's plan by dragging the Romans and Parthians into their wars.
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A month later, after the grand meeting, all troops departed from Xuchang and headed toward their designated deployment location.
As everyone was busy with the dispatch, Cao Cao's servants were in a panic and asked to see their lord.
A new incident had occurred, which was the turning point of Cao Cao's forces.
"MY LORD!! IT'S EMERGENCY!!"
Cao Cao frowned, "What's wrong?"
"T-THE LADIES, THE PRINCESSES, AND THE YOUNG MASTERS!! T-THEY …."
Despite how the servant wanted to report the news, he could not bear to say it.
The gesture alarmed Cao Cao that something wrong might have happened to them. He rushed to his inner palace to check on his wives and his children.
Upon arrival, he saw the corpses of his inner palace guards, which comprised of female soldiers. Their bodies were cut by one single slash, which either severed their heads or torsos.
Cao Cao ran toward his main wife's room, lady Liu. As soon as he entered, he found nobody.
He ran toward other rooms, where his consorts slept, such as Lady Bian and Lady Huan, but he also found no one.
After 30 minutes of searching for his wives and children, Cao Cao could not find anybody.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"
He went ballistic as his family was missing.
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A day later, when he calmed down, he finally noticed a golden scroll in his chamber.
It was something that Cao Cao recognized, an edict of the emperor!
Shocked by the scroll, he slowly walked toward it and spread it.
[Cao Mengde, you've crossed the line, bitch! I'm fine with you conspiring behind my back and improving your military power, but I won't tolerate if you employ underhanded tactics like assassination on someone unrelated to our fight!]
[Since you're so desperate to the point you went on and tried to kill my daughter, I'll be taking your entire family here in Ye! If you still want to rebel against me that much, you can say goodbye to them and find yourself a new wife because I won't leave anyone alive!]
[You have two options. One, evict yourself from your forces and surrender to me unconditionally. Then, you can retire from the politic world and reunite with your family.]
[Or two, take this the hard way and continue what you're doing. If you make this choice, forget about them since they will no longer exist in this world!]
[Also, you should have noticed by now. I came here personally and strolled in your goddamn palace, unhindered. I can claim your neck any day I want to.]
[Savor your life and pick the right choice. You have been warned, and this is my last warning.]
From the tone, Tong was infuriated, and Cao Cao could sense the threatening force within the scroll.
Cao Cao was angry, yet terrified by Tong's abilities.
He was a mere mortal while Tong had almost reached the threshold of a god, who could come and go at any time.
From the beginning, he was powerless!
It was his first time in two worlds that he faced despair.
'Am I fighting against a god? Why am I fighting him!?'
Cao Cao recalled that Pu Jing manipulated him into fighting Tong when he had planning to merge his forces with this emperor.
He was angry, yet he was helpless.
Although he had many theories that Tong might have bluffed by sending a group of spies to kidnap his family, Cao Cao believed that Tong had come here personally to take them away.
The proof was clean-cut, and the swiftness of the operation. Had mortals taken this job, they would have alerted the guards and caused a lot of commotion during the process. In this case, no trace was left behind. Only someone who could fly could accomplish this kind of feat.
Without a way out, he called his cousins and relatives.
Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan, Cao Hong, Cao Xiu, and Cao Ren rushed to see Cao Cao in secret.
"Mengde, I heard what had happened with the guards. Do you know really happened?"
Cao Cao tossed Tong's scroll at Xiahou Dun, "Read it yourself."
After Xiahou Dun read all the messages, he was shocked, "This… Will you surrender to Zhang Tong?"
Cao Cao shrugged, "Well, Zhang Tong was supposed to do this ages ago, but he purposely allows us to grow for some reason. It's a matter of time that we merge with them and let him absorb our forces."
"Then, what about the coalition?"
"I have an idea," Cao Cao's eyes revealed determination. Even the situation was hopeless, he never gave up.
