Chapter 123: Defense Strategy
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“Your Highness, are you saying you plan to face the barbarians alone?”
Qián Dàfù looked incredulous.
Xiao Ming nodded. “That’s right. This time, I will protect my fiefdom myself. In these times, no one can be relied upon. I can only depend on myself.”
The Wáng family’s schemes, Princess Pingyang’s calculations, and King Wei’s secret plots—each incident reminded Xiao Ming that he was surrounded by wolves. There was no one he could truly trust.
The only person he could rely on was himself.
“Your Highness, this is no trivial matter. Even with the full strength of the Great Yu Empire, we have been ceding territory and paying reparations for years. How can Your Highness expect the six prefectures to stand against the barbarians?” Qián Dàfù continued to persuade.
From the moment he could remember, the name “barbarians” had been synonymous with terror. As a child, the maids in his household would often scare him by saying, “The barbarians will come and take you away.”
This showed how deeply ingrained the fear of the barbarians was in the hearts of the Great Yu Empire’s people.
Qián Dàfù’s reaction was within Xiao Ming’s expectations. The events of three years ago had left an indelible mark of terror on Qián Dàfù.
At that time, when Cāngzhōu fell, the barbarian cavalry surged into the heart of the six prefectures, burning, killing, and looting without restraint. On their way to Cháng’ān, they could see corpses lying in pools of blood.
Many of the bodies were missing their heads, as the barbarians used heads to tally military achievements. To boost their records, many barbarians slaughtered civilians indiscriminately.