"Setting aside everything else, Northern Chu had only just been founded. The people's registration issues, their food issues, their problems surviving the winter... Before my king left the Yellow River, he had just fought a great battle against his elder brother, the King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu. Though he won, he was still gravely wounded and unconscious for several days. He needed to remain bedridden for a long time afterward. Yet even under those circumstances, he did everything he could to ensure the people had a way to survive the winter."
"That wasn't Chu territory, either. Though the nation was called Northern Chu, my king's lands had once belonged to Qi and Yan. In the bitter cold of deep winter, countless people wept in misery. If my king hadn't exhausted every possible means to procure food, I fear half of Northern Chu's population wouldn't have survived that first winter."
Liao Ye looked at the rice ball in his hand and murmured to himself.
"When I say my king was great, I don't mean that his martial prowess was unmatched. He once told me that even if one had the strength to split mountains and shatter rocks, if one could not shelter the people, then it was nothing more than crude skill with fists and feet."
"What made him great was never his personal strength, but his wish to make the world cease its wars and bring peace to the Central Plains."
Cursed Arm Hassan sat down beside Liao Ye and said nothing more, merely listening quietly to his account.
"I'm just an ordinary roughneck, a discarded soldier of old Chu who spent his days drifting around Kuaiji City. My king, when he was young, knocked some sense into me. From then on, I followed at his side, serving him