Chapter 149: News of the Barbarians
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After several days of gloomy rain, the skies suddenly cleared.
The heavens stretched high and blue like sapphire, dotted with soft white clouds drifting gently. The beauty of it all felt like a cleansing of the soul.
Yesterday, after his hands-on demonstration at the Machinery Department, the workshop was finally ready to begin producing cannons in earnest. But with the barbarian invasion looming ever closer, time was running out.
That morning, Li San and Wang Xuan arrived at Prince Qi’s residence together, bringing back the intelligence they had gathered on the grasslands.
“Your Highness, we received word that the barbarians and the Ottoman Empire appear to have reached some sort of truce,” Li San reported. “Three months ago, the barbarians returned to Shengdu with the slaves and craftsmen they had captured from the Ottomans.”
“So the western campaign is over?” Xiao Ming asked.
“It appears so,” Wang Xuan said grimly.
For Xiao Ming, this was terrible news. After unifying the steppe tribes, the barbarians had become the most powerful empire in the north. With Great Yu growing weaker and focused on defense, the barbarians had no threat behind them and turned westward.
After crushing several small kingdoms in the west, they clashed with the powerful Ottoman Empire. After three long years of war, both sides realized the other was too massive to defeat—and finally withdrew.
That meant one thing: the barbarians would now turn back east, and the full pressure would land on Great Yu.
Xiao Ming remembered how, in real-world history, the Mongol Empire had also stopped their western conquests before turning south to easily destroy the Southern Song.