"The Heaven Dou Empire has reached a critical moment of survival!"
Ge Long was utterly shocked.
He immediately made a decision, ordering the Northern City Lord to confiscate sixty percent of the grain from the homes of Northland City's commoners to replenish military provisions.
However, once the order was issued, the officials and soldiers carrying it out would hardly stop at sixty percent. Those who took seventy percent were considered conscientious; plenty took eighty percent, and some even seized ninety percent of a family's accumulated grain.
For a time, the city's civilians were filled with fear and unease.
Meanwhile, the prominent Soul Master families, officials, and soldiers in Northland City were exempted from paying a single coin. On the contrary, those families took the lead in making donations to stabilize public sentiment within the city.
As for how much was actually returned afterward—
No one knew.
Afterward, Ge Long left 30,000 infantry and 5,000 heavy cavalry stationed in Northland City. He personally led 20,000 infantry and 5,000 heavy cavalry southwest, intending to retake the one-third of Northern Province occupied by the Red Assembly.
Otherwise!
The Heaven Dou Empire truly would reach a critical moment of survival!
At the same time.
After learning of Ge Long's route, quite a few Red Assembly members wore strange expressions.
Although Zhou Qing had analyzed why Ge Long might choose that route, not many of them had truly believed Ge Long would actually take it.
He was, after all, the marshal of the Heaven Dou Empire!
Yet when Ge Long really took that route, they could not help feeling that the title of Heaven Dou's foremost military strategist seemed—perhaps, probably, maybe—to contain a little exaggeration.
Even Tang San understood that before troops moved, provisions had to go first.
Rather than taking the route through Jialing