Shen Tang awkwardly remembered that matter.
"Ahem, this is only a ruse. Besides, the marriage arrangements of great noble houses are complicated. They usually start preparing one or two years after the man's Coming-of-Age Ceremony and the woman's hairpin ceremony. We can think of ways to delay things in the meantime. At most, we'll have Southwest in our hands within three years."
Shen Tang wasn't some deranged boss.
How could she sacrifice her subordinates' marriages for her own grand ambitions?
Unless both parties were willing.
Miao Ne raised her head in surprise. "Three years?"
She looked at Shen Tang a little differently than before, as though she were looking at a miracle. If someone else had said they could conquer the Southwest Continent in three years, Miao Ne would have thought they were arrogant and all bluster, with no real ability. Reality would teach them a lesson.
But the one who had said it was Shen Youli.
In a little over ten years, she had gone from having nothing to uniting the Northwest forces, while also turning the Ten Crows and Northern Desert, two festering tumors, into her own backyard. Every beginning was hard, but once the initial accumulation was behind you, everything else would fall into place.
"Why not? Saying three years is already giving those Southwest countries face. They're not on the same scale as the current Kang Country, whether in territory, population, or national strength. Sending you and Ke Wu here to work together, one openly and one in secret, wasn't just about Mei Jinghe. Dealing with her is incidental. The real aim is to slow Qi Country's expansion over these three years and plunge it into a mire of mutual suspicion between ruler and ministers... to put a stop to the trend of the Southwest countries