Xie Huizhou had spent five days traveling toward the Borderlands with his men. He looked like a pampered young nobleman, an easy mark ripe for fleecing.
Quite a few groups watched Xie Huizhou in secret, hoping to gain something from him.
With so many guards around him, Xie Huizhou was clearly not someone to trifle with. A few people who tried to make a move against him suffered badly, and soon no one dared target him anymore.
His journey had been fairly peaceful.
Along the way, he saw many scenes of wartime chaos. Displaced people fled everywhere in search of a chance to survive, and some even turned to banditry.
"Things are this chaotic out here, yet the court hasn't sent anyone to deal with it." Looking at the places engulfed in war, so utterly different from the scenes of song, dance, and peace, Xie Huizhou's thoughts were a tangled mess. "No wonder the Northern Border dared march south to harass the people so soon after negotiating peace."
The Northern Border's envoys must have noticed something unusual about Great Xia, and they had dealings with the Fifth Prince as well. As soon as the grasslands fell into Wuzi's hands, that ambitious man began to act.
No wonder the Imperial Preceptor, Zhang Lanhe, had said the dynasty's days were numbered. It was not merely a matter of the romantic disputes in the original novel; behind it all, the people could no longer make a living, and the country was beset by troubles both within and without.
Seeing the growing chaos, with Capital City soon to face unrest as well, Xie Huizhou became all the more determined to quickly find a way for himself and Zhang Lanhe to escape.
As for peace throughout the land and tranquility across the realm afterward, that