At the Imperial Traveling Court, situated between Fallen Dragon Shoal and the Dengzhou main camp, everyone from top to bottom was in utter disarray.
There was no need to say much about those below. They had been fleeing all along the march, and civilian laborers deserted far faster than soldiers, leaving the supply lines increasingly threadbare and everyone's mind overgrown with weeds of anxiety... Everyone knew perfectly well that the camp held enough grain to make three round trips from here to Dengzhou, yet people still went to check the grain stores and horses every day.
As for those above, they had to consider this matter privately while publicly confronting the sudden development at the front.
"It must be a false surrender!"
"How is it a false surrender? Are you questioning His Majesty's virtue and might?"
"Who cares whether it is false? Now that he's walked into our mouths, send out the Crouching Dragon Guard with the Crouching Dragon Seal and bring him back under guard!"
"If the Crouching Dragon Guard moves, how can His Majesty's person remain secure? How do you know this isn't a Dongyi stratagem?"
"This is a once-in-a-thousand-years chance to settle the victory in one stroke... So long as Li Ziqi is taken, Dongyi's surrender will undoubtedly become real!"
"Exactly. He is a Great Grandmaster and Grand Commandant, with greater prestige throughout the Fifty Provinces of Dongyi than their ruler. Take him, and Dongyi will have no path left but complete submission."
"So you do know he's a Great Grandmaster? Then tell me, why could he enter an army of ten thousand alone, yet General Yu could not subdue him?"
"Er..."
"Because he's a Great Grandmaster! General Yu may be a Grandmaster himself, with fifteen thousand elite troops, but he can only fight him and suppress