Five days after Nie Zeng sent his message, definite news finally arrived. Little Yanzhi had not yet joined the Central Plains' main army, but she had already sent envoys to negotiate her surrender. It was said that she had put forward a great many conditions.
Little Yanzhi had chosen an extremely sensitive moment to surrender to the Central Plains. King Xiao and his political rival, Great General Pang Ning, were locked in fierce disagreement over the Northern Court and the Western Regions. The former hoped to stabilize the Western Regions through diplomatic maneuvering and force the Northern Court's people to flee far away, while the latter insisted on a decisive battle with the Northern Court, then riding the momentum to bring the Western Regions under the Central Plains' direct rule.
No matter which faction prevailed, military achievements would be of enormous benefit. King Xiao and the Dragon King had "joined forces to defeat" the Northern Court's mighty army, proving the effectiveness of forming alliances across the divides. Little Yanzhi, however, could easily ruin it all.
She had been on the battlefield and knew what this so-called "alliance between the Central Plains and the Western Regions" really involved. As King Xiao's greatest political rival, Pang Ning would certainly be eager to learn the truth.
King Xiao realized he had taken too great a risk. Though he was the emperor's own uncle, falsely claiming military credit was still a grave crime that could not be pardoned. He had left in such a hurry that he had not even had time to ask the Dragon King a very important question: why had Little Yanzhi chosen to surrender to Great General Pang Ning, far away in the east, rather than to the Central Plains army in the Western Regions?
Gu Shenwei did not think