The Covenant of the Wei River had spared the Tang dynasty from fighting under unfavorable conditions, successfully stabilizing the situation and buying time to develop the economy and build up its strength.
Song Confucian scholars had praised the Chanyuan Covenant to the skies, calling it a victory. It had ended twenty-five years of war between Song and Liao, promoted economic and cultural exchange between them, and benefited the Chinese nation's economic development, cultural prosperity, and ethnic integration.
The Covenant of Chaoge...
This covenant could not be made. Making it would spell trouble. Those fiercely loyal ministers would surely keep their mouths shut about its negative effects and instead loudly proclaim that the Covenant of Chaoge both allowed them to build up their strength and promoted peace.
Then the losses would outweigh the gains.
So Zi Shou decisively broke the covenant.
Unilaterally breaking a covenant was certain to draw condemnation. Worse still, he had cut down the other side's leader right in the middle of making it. Where was heavenly justice? Where was righteousness?
Zi Shou did not believe in such things, but there was no stopping everyone else from believing. Whenever he left the palace to shop, people were bound to point fingers at him.
At that moment, both the Tu Fang cavalry and the Shang Army inside and outside the city stared blankly as the Wuti Marquis's headless body collapsed limply.
No one could believe what had happened.
The Wuti Marquis, who had led Tu Fang's rise and forced the King of Shang to submit, had died just like that, during the making of a covenant?
How could King Zhou do such a thing?
They had already slaughtered a white horse and sworn their oaths. Was he not afraid of punishment from Heaven?
That thought rose numbly in every