A little over an hour later, Tang Changsheng saw Emperor Mingde again.
The emperor was not burning with anxiety as Tang Changsheng had imagined. Instead, he seemed even more at ease. He was fishing in the lake, rod in hand.
Behind him stood Fan Wan'er and a refined-looking middle-aged man. If Tang Changsheng's guess was right, the man was Fan Liren, the current Crown Prince of Great Chu.
Emperor Mingde had just caught a fish and dropped it into his basket. When he spotted Tang Changsheng approaching, he smiled. "Changsheng! Come here, come here!"
Tang Changsheng felt a surge of admiration. He remembered that this was the man who had led Great Chu to victory in the Thirty Years' War, crushing every nation that opposed it and laying the foundations for its present strength.
The old man's easygoing manner, even his occasional lack of decorum, almost made people forget that he had served in the army as a young man and won glory on the battlefield.
After ascending the throne, he had stood against the Elder Council when it demanded peace with the Allied Nations, insisting that the war be fought to the bitter end.
Drawing on the enormous influence of Great Chu's Son of Heaven, as well as his own reputation and charisma, he had turned the tide at home and forced a final showdown with the Allied Nations.
By then, the war between the Axis powers led by Great Chu and the Allied Nations led by Lun Kingdom had nearly drained both sides of people and wealth. Neither could hold out much longer!
Yet Emperor Mingde had declared that whoever held on until the end would have the last laugh and emerge victorious. He had even auctioned off imperial property to fund the war...
Six months later, the