Lu Kang looked at the letter in his hand and sank into thought.
He was pondering Zhong Hui's intentions.
The letter he had sent to the emperor was easy to understand. It was meant to provoke Sun Xiu into resuming the construction project.
Lu Kang could also understand the emperor's thinking. Who did not care about his posthumous reputation? Losing one's integrity in one's final years was a terrible thing. One would end up like a certain emperor, mocked by his enemies all day long.
But Lu Kang found it harder to understand why Zhong Hui had written to him.
What did this mean?
Was it simply to humiliate him? To make him impatient? Or did he want him to act and intensify their internal conflicts? Or did he want him to send the letter to the emperor, sowing discord that way?
Perhaps it was all of the above.
Lu Kang also began considering countermeasures. In truth, the Wu people were deeply torn over the lake fields.
If they went ahead with construction, everyone knew the Wu Kingdom's current circumstances. But if they abandoned it, could they simply throw away everything they had already poured into it?
Lu Kang's position, however, was perfectly clear: construction absolutely could not resume.
What needed to be abandoned had to be abandoned. If they kept clinging to it, agonizing over it, and repeatedly resuming work, it would only bring greater losses. It might even hasten the kingdom's destruction.
But there was one problem.
Lu Kang and Sun Xiu were bound to view the lake fields from different perspectives.
After all, the resources already spent had not belonged to Lu Kang, but Sun Xiu would certainly consider them his own expenditure.
Family, kingdom, and all under Heaven-emperors often regarded the realm as their private property,