First Secure the Grasslands, Then Settle the Tribes

"Oh? The Fortune swirling over this dossier actually carried a blood-colored scene. This was no small matter; it might even affect the course of the national war."

With a sigh, Qiu Yan accepted the dossier.

Recorded in this dossier were the usual remarks of several captured enemy chieftains.

After Qiu Yan had put forward his suggestion, the enemy chieftains had been placed under house arrest in a city of Hedong, far from the border. The method of confinement was stranger still: apart from being forbidden to leave the city, they were scarcely restricted to the courtyard at all.

At first, those chieftains had remained on guard, suspecting some sort of scheme and watching out at every turn. But as time passed, they discovered that they were merely confined within the city, with nothing else unusual about it.

After several days, their spirits inevitably slackened. In their conversations and conduct, many things they had once been careful about gradually became casual. Moreover, with food and drink in the courtyard and pleasures throughout the city, this life was far superior to enduring wind and sleeping in the open on the Grasslands. The feeling of forgetting Shu in joy slowly rose in their hearts.

Even so, they did not forget their original purpose during their conversations and remained cautious in their dealings. Yet they had, after all, been captured from the battlefield, while their own tribes were still fighting amid the flames of war. It was unrealistic to expect that their conversations would not touch at all upon the Northern Frontier battlefield.

What was more, having experienced the customs along the way and the city's prosperity, they had developed an added yearning and longing for this dazzling world. Naturally, they hoped that one day they could follow the Khan King into the Central