He had never paid much attention to such matters. After all, Chuzhou was so vast that it was impossible to investigate every damn mess, so he knew little about this one.
This time, it was only through the Floating Fragrance Tower's intelligence network that he unearthed this secret history, deliberately buried from view.
The Eighteen Forts of the Kong Family had indeed once been attacked by troops dispatched by the Imperial Court, but their eventual destruction had not come at the hands of the Imperial Court.
There had been no victor in that battle. Even the Imperial Court had suffered heavy losses. It was said that a founding general who had fought alongside the High Ancestor had sustained serious injuries and died not long afterward when those wounds refused to heal.
"What kind of force could possess such ability?" Chen Duan asked.
At the beginning of the High Ancestor's founding of the nation, the Imperial Court's authority had been at its zenith. Its military might was so formidable that it could be called Great Liang's foremost sect, suppressing all the sects and forces under heaven with its own power.
"It may not have been any one force. Some say it was a strange monster, while others say it was some kind of Evil Spirits. As for the truth, this old man knows nothing either. Nearly a century has passed since then. Times have changed, people have changed, and clues are hard to find.
"However, I heard that some descendants of the Kong Family survived by sheer luck and went into hiding in southern Chuzhou.
"To evade the Imperial Court's reckoning, they attached themselves to the Gu Tribe's forces around Jianggu Mountain. If you can find them, perhaps you can ask them about what you want to know."
Chen Duan gave