Ya Kingdom, Capital City, the Chancellor's Residence.
The Chancellor's Residence stood outside the imperial city. Vast in scale, it was the Administrative Center of the Ya Kingdom. As the kingdom's chancellor, Cui Qiezhe spent at least eight of the year's twelve months there, longer than he spent at his own Cui Residence.
His gaze deep, Cui Qiezhe studied the maps of the various kingdoms spread across the desk before him, then took up his brush and marked a red cross over Mount Junya in the Ya Kingdom.
Mount Junya, a treasure mountain renowned throughout the Azure Firmament Dust-Dyed Realm, had ceased to belong to the Ya Kingdom three months earlier. The sovereign, Jiang Lingche, was heartsick over it, sighing repeatedly whenever it came up and wanting to discuss whether Cui Qiezhe could get Mount Junya back.
Yet relinquishing Mount Junya had been his own proposal. How could he possibly take it back now?
"An otherwise useless mountain in exchange for several years of peace, allowing the common people to live and work in contentment, sparing young men from conscription and old mothers the grief of losing their sons. How worthwhile," Cui Qiezhe murmured to himself.
Since all the kingdoms and clans were interested in Mount Junya, rather than exhausting the people and draining the treasury to defend it, he might as well sell it for a good price. That would benefit the people of the Ya Kingdom most.
"The Deng Clan and the Li Clan have fought until their anger truly blazed, bringing the war to a halt for a few months. But in the end, fighting will resume..."
Cui Qiezhe was somewhat worried.
Although he had used Mount Junya to extricate the Ya Kingdom from the war between the four kingdoms, and the incessant clashes between the Jingyang Li