After the order went out to levy troops throughout the country, and the King of Chu conferred with Xiang Cheng, three diplomatic missions left Yingdu at the same time.
The first mission headed to Qin State, inviting Qin to march east and storm the passes. Chu State was willing to strike from the Nanyang Basin, cutting off the Jin forces' retreat and supply routes to assist the Qin people.
The second mission headed to Jin State to denounce the Son of Heaven of Zhou while sounding out Jin's ruler and ministers on their attitude toward a northward advance by the Chu people. If things went smoothly, they could also drive a wedge into the already strained relationship between Jin's ruling house and its High Minister Clans.
The third mission headed to Zheng State to seek an audience with the Son of Heaven of Zhou, deliberately offering remonstrance in biting, caustic language. This was meant to provoke the Son of Heaven of Zhou and make Chu's armed remonstrance seem more justified. If he refused to listen to kind words, then, for the sake of the Zhou State's mandate of heaven and altars of state, its loyal subjects could take up blades to remonstrate with him. There was nothing wrong with that; after all, they were not trying to seize the Son of Heaven's throne.
As Chu made one move after another, its neighbors, Wu State and Ying State of Ying, were the first to notice. Ying was a small state and quickly sent the news to Luo State, while the reaction within Wu was far stronger.
Gusu, Wu State, was the most prosperous city in Jiangdong. Its walls, bearing traces of moss, lent this city of little more than a hundred years an air of antiquity and weight.
Rivers crisscrossed Gusu,