The Source of the Turmoil

Si Ming replied, "I understand. Putting myself in their shoes, I wouldn't trust a group of complete strangers either, even if they claimed to be Kongzi resurrected."

The Confucian general was not angered by the teasing of Kongzi. He nodded and said, "It's good that you all understand. If you don't understand, please try to be patient. At least until our operation succeeds or fails, I will not let you leave. From now on, I can only ask you to follow our army. Please forgive me if I have offended you."

Si Ming remained calm and composed. "Very well, I'd also like to try the food of your country's army. We're guests from afar, so please make sure we're well taken care of; I'm quite picky about food."

The scholar-general said, "Please rest assured, I can't guarantee anything else, but at least when it comes to seafood cooking, our army's skills are top-notch. General Ji beside you is the chief instructor of the cooks for the 800,000 Imperial Army Guards."

Chapter 180 The Source of Chaos

Si Ming and his companions were not fooled. The other party's skills were indeed outstanding. They had made very ordinary ingredients into dishes of high-end restaurant quality. In particular, the golden crab meat cake made by the bearded general himself was delicious. One bite filled their mouth with a vegetarian aroma and had a crispy texture, making it impossible to stop eating.

The crispness of the batter, the aroma of the crab meat, and the freshness of the crab roe—these three exquisite textures blend together to create an impact akin to an underwater volcanic eruption, brimming with Primal Qi. Everyone couldn't help but marvel at how the man truly lived up to his title of "Chief Instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Army Guards' Cooks." They imagined that if his soldiers tasted such a delicacy, their morale would soar and their fighting spirit would be high.

After dinner, Murong Qing recalled, "This commander-in-chief should be the Deputy Commander of Dragon City of Li State, concurrently serving as the General Who Conquers the Barbarians, the Commander-in-Chief, and Marshal Mu Wu."

After her father's death, she continued to gather intelligence on the Li State. Although she could only learn about it through official channels such as newspapers, radio, and news, and could not know too much detail, she had some information on important figures and major events.

"There are three pillars supporting the Li State, known as the Grand Tutor and the Marshal. The Grand Tutor is the Grand Tutor of the Li State, who sits in the court as Void Returning Great Grandmaster Realm, maintaining the order of the Li State and supporting half of the country. The two Marshals are Marshal Mu Wu and Marshal Xue Buqi. The former is good at offense, and the latter is good at defense. Under their protection, the Li State will not continue to fall into the hands of the Barbarian Hu."

As a marshal commanding thousands of troops, it seems illogical for him to lead his troops deep into enemy territory in a desperate gamble. After all, a nobleman should not sit under a dangerous roof. Even Zhang Fei, the fierce general in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," would often remain in the rear to plan the overall strategy when leading troops alone later on, rather than personally going to the battlefield as a vanguard. However, this kind of thing is extremely common in the Sea Continent.

Because generals often possess extraordinary martial prowess. For example, Mu Wu is a Spirit Transformation cultivator, truly invincible against ten thousand men. He is like an army, capable of turning the tide of battle at crucial moments, and he has no logistical burdens.

A scholar who is powerless cannot sit on the throne of marshal, because if the enemy wants to defeat his army, they only need to send someone to assassinate him. Even if there are experts protecting him, if he has no skills of his own, he can easily die at the hands of assassins.

For example, if the enemy sends out a Spirit Transformation expert who directly unleashes their ultimate move and smashes down, even if our side also has Spirit Transformation expert to defend, the residual force generated after the collision of the ultimate moves is enough to kill an ordinary person without cultivation.

To become a commander of an army, one does not necessarily need to have the skills of a top expert, but at the very least, one should be able to withstand the residual force generated by a battle between strong individuals.

Si Ming, "The end of the year is just around the corner. Normally, even warring parties would put up a truce and relax for a while during the Spring Festival. It seems that this Marshal Mu wants to take advantage of this and give the Barbarian Hu a surprise attack."

Murong Qing focused his inner strength on his fingertips and carved a map directly on the wall. He frowned and said, "Based on our previous reasoning, with their troop strength, it's impossible for them to outflank the rear of the front-line army. Therefore, we can only attack where the enemy must defend. This place must be extremely important and not too far from the river. Only Qianjin City, which serves as the gateway to the Barbarian State, meets this condition. As long as we capture this city, we can either advance to threaten the capital region or retreat to bypass the river and enter the sea."

Looking at the map, Murong Qing frowned and said, "But here's a problem. The Heavenly Lion King of the Barbarian Hu is in the capital. With him there, even if an army of 100,000 surrounds the capital, there's no chance of it falling. There's no need for the frontline army to come back to reinforce it."

The Heavenly Lion King is also the Barbarian King, and he is Void Returning Great Grandmaster Realm. It was because of his existence that the Grand Tutor of the Li State was restrained, which created an opportunity for the Barbarian Race to go south and occupy half of the Li State. Otherwise, even if every Barbarian Race was a soldier and skilled in archery and horsemanship, without Void Returning expert of the same level, they would at most go south to raid and make a quick buck and leave, and would not dare to occupy even a single piece of the Li State's land.

For hundreds of years, even as the Li State grew increasingly corrupt and its national strength declined, the Barbarian Hu tribes dared not venture south, precisely because they lacked a Void Returning Great Grandmaster.

Whenever a leader with the aura of a king appeared among the Barbarian Hu and was capable of unifying the tribes, the Grand Tutor of the Li State would venture alone into the grasslands and kill him, causing the grassland forces to fall apart once again. This situation continued until the Heavenly Lion King advanced to the Void Returning.

In fact, the fact that the Heavenly Lion King was able to advance to the Void Returning was also related to the Mohist School.

In the past, the Su State promoted a martial arts revolution, which benefited the common people but greatly harmed the interests of aristocratic Aristocratic Clan and sects. However, the Mohist School Grandmaster, wielding the Sacred Sword, forcefully suppressed the resistance of the vested interest classes within the country. In addition, the Mohist School was originally on the side of the common people, so the martial arts revolution was implemented very smoothly in the Su State, but it might not have been so successful in other countries.

Especially in Li State, there are three mountains pressing down on it: powerful Aristocratic Clan, powerful families, and powerful officials. Confucian School itself stands on the side of the ruling class, and its ideology is based on maintaining clan order. How could it tolerate ordinary people jumping over its head? Wouldn't that mean that the ruler and the subject would not be rulers and subjects, fathers and sons would not be fathers and sons?

Therefore, the Li State court promulgated laws prohibiting the circulation of martial arts manuals printed in large quantities in Su State within the country. If any merchant openly sold them, they would be immediately arrested and punished. At the same time, a maritime ban was also promulgated to restrict foreign exchanges and trade, adopting a closed-door policy, showing an attitude of remaining unmoved no matter how great the external floods.

If the Mohist School were a bandit in the guise of gentlemen, they might have followed the example of a certain corrupt country and launched an Opium War to forcibly open the gates of the Li State. Unfortunately, the Mohist School advocated "non-aggression" and were true gentlemen. Since the other party was unwilling to accept their goodwill, they would not force the other party to accept it.

The upper echelons of the Li State grasped this point, which is why they dared to play this game behind closed doors.

But they forgot that while the Mohist School were not bandits, there was a group of bandits next door, eyeing their fertile land with predatory intent.

The Li State was unwilling to promote a martial arts revolution and did not want its people to learn martial arts. However, the barbarians were willing to learn, since the Li State's laws could not govern them. As a result, they purchased large quantities of martial arts manuals published by the Mohist School, and everyone in each tribe, except for slaves, practiced Internal Cultivation.

In order to popularize Internal Cultivation education, the Mohist School simplified the basic Internal Cultivation and explained them in vernacular Chinese, which greatly reduced the conditions for cultivation. Even barbarians could understand them. As a result, the strength of various tribes on the grassland increased significantly, conflicts became more intense, and wars frequently occurred. Wars also meant annexation, and signs of unification gradually emerged.

Among them, the Heavenly Lion King is Barbarian Hu. He advanced to the Nascent Spirit Transformation at the age of thirty-three. This achievement is rare even in the current Su State, and even more so among the barbarian Barbarian Race who lack orthodox Xuanmen Cultivation Method.

However, the Barbarian Race's Cultivation Method is ultimately a heretical path. It can advance to the Nascent Spirit Transformation stage, but it cannot step into the Void Returning Return stage. If there were no unexpected events, the Heavenly Lion King would be stuck at the Spirit Transformation stage for his entire life, just like those brilliant predecessors in the Barbarian Race, and would never be able to advance any further. In fact, he had been in the Spirit Transformation Realm for forty years.

But at this very moment, the Mohist School made its martial arts manuals public, and all sorts of previously secret Secret Method could be bought in bookstores. Among them were many direct Cultivation Method from major sects, which were the orthodox and profound paths to the Great Dao.

Overjoyed, Heavenly Lion King bought a large number of books and practiced day and night, learning from their principles to make up for the deficiencies in his own Cultivation Method. He returned from unorthodox paths to the right path, and after three years of seclusion, he stepped into the Void Returning Realm, achieving a feat that no one before him had ever accomplished.

The Barbarian Race ruled by the strong. The Heavenly Lion King, carrying the power of the Void Returning Realm, quickly unified the grasslands. He then led a group of grassland people who had cultivated basic Internal Cultivation to invade the Li State. They defeated various armies with unstoppable momentum and even took the capital in one fell swoop. In the end, due to the limited population, they could not occupy more land and could only stop at half of the country.

From this perspective, the source of the Li State's descent into war lies with the Mohist School. However, the Mohist School would never admit it was their fault; they would only say that they brought it upon themselves.

Si Ming stared at the map for a while and said, "Conversely, if we lure the Heavenly Lion King out, wouldn't we have a chance to launch a surprise attack on the capital?"

"But how can we ensure that the Heavenly Lion King is lured out..." A flash of inspiration struck Murong Qing, and she exclaimed, "Oh, that's it! It's so simple, the Faming in front of us!"

Just as Si Ming was about to ask, He Qichang couldn't help but interject, "Deducing their actions is pointless. Even if we knew, what could we do? Are we supposed to help them?"

"They'll definitely want us to accompany the army next. Knowing their objectives is equivalent to knowing our current situation, so we can escape in time if we encounter danger," Si Ming explained, then added, "Anyway, we're just idling around."

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

Si Ming was curious; who was being so polite?

His current situation is equivalent to being under house arrest, so he has no right to privacy. Under normal circumstances, the other party should have conducted a surprise inspection instead of knocking on the door to remind him.

Murong Qing had also thought of this question. She and Si Ming exchanged glances. Seeing that the person knocking wasn't just making a perfunctory gesture, but was genuinely knocking, she said, "Please come in."

After the simple wooden door was pushed open, a boy entered. He was about fifteen or sixteen years old, about the same age as the others. He had delicate features and a handsome appearance, and was quite a good-looking young man.

He scratched his head, looking like he wanted to talk but didn't know how to start, and finally asked awkwardly, "How did everyone get some rest?"

Si Ming was a little confused, so he could only say, "It's alright, dinner was quite good, I won't ask for anything else, after all, our situation is rather awkward. Is there anything I can help you with?"

The boy asked with great interest, "I've heard that you are from the Su State and practice the Mohist School's doctrines of non-aggression and universal love. I've never been to the Su State, so I'd like to ask if it's true that all the martial arts manuals in your Su State are publicly available, and that everyone can learn them, even children have to go to school to learn martial arts?"

"Not all of them are made public; there are still restrictions. After all, some martial arts techniques, once learned, are detrimental to social order. However, the Internal Cultivation methods are indeed made public, and teachers in schools will teach students how to practice them," Si Ming.

"That's good too. Our Li State has lost most of its territory and suffered such a great loss, yet there are still people arguing about whether to promote a martial arts revolution." The young man sighed, expressing both pity for their misfortune and anger at their lack of ambition.