Quick Wear: Random Cheats

Chapter 218 The Princess Who Was Killed as a Wife in a Peace Marriage (5)

This time, Consort Su did not try to change the subject:
"Just take me."

"The more people you take, the more trouble you'll have. If you take all my personal female officials and maids with you, what about their families? And what about their relatives?"

"The same goes for my family members."

"Why don't we just leave everyone else behind and take me with you? How will you take me? Is there anything I need to do?"

"Okay, is there anything you need to bring?"

Ding Shui continued to ask.

"I heard that the Western Rong lack many things..." This time, Consort Su Gui pondered carefully, thinking about what to bring. The key was that she didn't know much about the extent of the scarcity of resources in the Western Rong.

"We have everything. Even if you want to eat Lingnan lychees in winter, we can provide them. Don't worry about running out of things."

"Then let's pack up our valuables!"

"can!"

After the exchange, Ding Shui directly put the still-sleeping Consort Su, along with all the gold, silver, and valuables belonging to her in her palace, into the Illusionary Realm.

In the middle of the Illusory Realm, a part of the illusion has been transformed into reality, so there is naturally a place to store real objects.

……

The news of Consort Su's sudden disappearance from the palace reached the ears of the Empress Dowager and Emperor Xianghe in the early hours of the following day. They took it very seriously and immediately sent people to investigate.

It's not that they valued Consort Su so much.

The key issue is that the other party suddenly disappeared from the heavily guarded palace, which is terrifying. Whether the person escaped from the inner palace or was murdered and the evidence was disposed of, it's all very frightening. This makes them feel that there is an unknown force within the palace, a force that has broken away from their control. This is something that no one in power wants to see or wants to see. They really can't sleep at night until they find out.

However, they certainly won't find out anything.

At most, they could only guess that Consort Su had left on her own, or that she had been taken away by someone, based on the fact that all the gold, silver and valuables in Consort Su's palace had disappeared.

But who exactly did it, and through what channels did they leave?

No one can tell clearly.

Immediately afterwards, the mother and son conducted a thorough search of the entire palace, because they suspected that there might be some kind of tunnel in the palace that they were unaware of, otherwise people could just disappear into thin air or fly away.

After failing to find the tunnel, they began to suspect the people in the palace.

In the following period, they successively found excuses to dismiss and replace most of the staff in the palace.

The news was also released to the public that Consort Su had passed away.

They quickly got a fake coffin and held a funeral.

As for the situation in Xirongna, it's estimated that it will take at least half a month, or even longer, to reach the capital of the Tianhong Empire. Moreover, even if the news does reach them, whether they will believe it is another question.

Meanwhile, Ding Shui had already settled Consort Su Gui in a proper manner, and after giving her control over dozens of shadow soldiers, he arranged for her to become the head of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Who cares about her daughters and granddaughters?

At the same time, a large number of slaves were also sent over.

The next step was to assign jobs to the slaves while liberating them. Those with skills were given corresponding jobs, while those without skills but with strength were assigned heavy physical labor, and those without strength were assigned light physical labor, jobs that did not require skills or brains.

Those who are not in good health should treat their illness first.

The younger children are given opportunities to study.

After all that commotion, Xiao Hei was the busiest.

Because the Western Rong Empire has many people who can kill, few who can heal, many who can fight, and extremely rare who can teach. In short, talent is extremely scarce, so Little Black has to fill in for now.

Without Xiao Hei, Ding Shui really wouldn't have been confident in making this plan, or rather, even if he had made the plan, he would have had to spend more than ten years cultivating capable personnel.

Unlike now, it doesn't matter if there's a lack of talent.

One small black person can be worth thousands of talents.

It's perfectly acceptable to force growth first, and then address the issue of a weak foundation gradually; there's plenty of time in the future.

With Xiao Hei's help.

Ding Shui's plan quickly got on track.

The various tribes, relying on the large amount of cheap resources they obtained from Ding Shui and the deterrent effect of Ding Shui's previous actions, all remained quite law-abiding. Of course, "law-abiding" here means not openly opposing Ding Shui, but also not particularly adhering to Ding Shui's demands in private.

For example, some tribes still fight and annex each other in private.

For example, after exchanging slaves with Ding Shui, they began to try to plunder slaves from other places, but in reality, they did not perfectly execute or implement Ding Shui's requirements.

But these things really can't be rushed.

When the Great Khan was alive, he wasn't like Ding Shui, meddling in so many details. His only strict requirement for the various tribes was that they all had to send elite soldiers to fight alongside him when war broke out. That was his only requirement; he didn't care about anything else.

Ding Shui considered his requirements to be rather lenient.

Actually, that's already a lot of regulation.

Moreover, Ding Shui himself was aware of this, and had even anticipated it beforehand. After all, if they were all obedient and strictly enforced the abolition of slavery, and did not secretly go out to capture slaves or anything like that.

Where does Dingshui get cheap labor?!

How can industrialization be achieved without a sufficient population?
Therefore, Ding Shui's real purpose in doing this was to hope that they would treat slaves, or rather, captured people, as monetary assets like gold and silver, as valuable beings, and not kill them indiscriminately, but transport them to her for exchange.

In this way, not only can she obtain a large amount of cheap labor, but people who might otherwise be killed by them can also save their lives because of their value.

As for becoming more civilized and ensuring the safety of everyone's lives and property, we still have to take it one step at a time.

……

More than half a month later.

The spies of the Tianhong Empire were completely baffled. After verifying the information countless times and confirming that it was genuine and could not have been fabricated, they submitted the relevant information about the Xirong Empire.

Prior to this, rumors about the situation in the Western Rong Empire had already been circulating widely.

Even Emperor Xianghe had heard of it. However, like ordinary people, including officials and nobles, he thought it was utterly ridiculous and impossible. After all, whether it was a woman ascending the throne or a princess sent for a political marriage, it was an absurd thing, something even fictional novels wouldn't dare to write.

Until the secret agent officially reported it.

Because the matter was truly outrageous, Emperor Xianghe did not specifically mention it during the morning court session. Instead, after the morning court session ended the following day, he summoned some important officials to a side hall next to the Zichen Hall and told them about it.

After hearing this, all the ministers fell silent.

"I know this sounds absurd, but there's no smoke without fire. The Western Rong Empire has no reason to spread such rumors to deceive us. Most importantly, the intelligence from the various spies is basically the same."

We are not sure about the details yet.

But it is certain that Anguo will become the Empress of the Western Rong.

Emperor Xianghe was also incredulous yesterday, but after his spies from different departments all said the same thing, he had no choice but to believe them. After all, the possibility that all the spies were lying to him was extremely slim. Therefore, even if Princess Anguo, who was sent for a marriage alliance, was just a puppet emperor, she was still nominally the legitimate empress of the Western Rong Empire.

It's just outrageous.

The ministers remained silent, genuinely unable to comprehend what had transpired in the Western Rong Empire and why it had acted in this manner. Even if Princess Anguo was merely a puppet emperor, it still seemed highly illogical.

That's not how it's done...

What is the picture?

The royal court of the Western Rong Empire wasn't so easy to infiltrate. Most spies disguised themselves as merchants to try and obtain some relevant information. Even when the sorcerers and priests wanted to burn the original body, considering that the original body was, after all, their Khatun, they certainly wouldn't invite slaves or merchants to watch. Not only would they not invite them, but they would also have to banish them all far away or imprison them. Therefore, the spies didn't know much about the situation.

I didn't even witness Ding Shui unleash his power.

Later, although the tribal leaders did not oppose Ding Shui, they could not specifically promote how powerful she was, and much of the news simply did not get out.

So all the spies knew was that Princess Anguo had inexplicably declared herself empress in the Western Rong Empire, and that none of the tribal chiefs had objected. They also knew that Princess Anguo had somehow acquired a large amount of supplies and was exchanging them for slaves with the tribes, seemingly intending to do something like that!
They didn't know the rest.

They didn't even know where Consort Su was.

Given such limited information, it's understandable that they found it difficult to comprehend. After a long while, the Minister of Rites said hesitantly, "Your Majesty, regardless of how Princess Anguo became the Empress of the Western Rong, this matter shouldn't be a bad thing. Perhaps you could send someone to visit her and ask Princess Anguo directly. You could also inform her of the passing of Consort Su."

He had no idea that Consort Su had gone missing.

Furthermore, they were unaware of the full story.

Therefore, this is the only way to barely break the deadlock.

In his view, it was only natural and expected that the princess would be loyal to her homeland. So since he couldn't figure out why, he might as well send an envoy to ask her directly, since the reason was readily available.

Didn't Consort Su just pass away recently?

Just consider it an announcement of death.

“That makes sense. Even if Princess Anguo is just a puppet empress now, she is still an empress, which should be beneficial to the border relations between the two countries. We can also send more palace maids or eunuchs over, so that we can take better care of Princess Anguo and make her feel like she is still in the palace.”

This can also help to deepen the connection between each other.

It's easier to obtain intelligence.

The meaning of the Minister of War's words was quite clear: to take this opportunity to infiltrate Princess Anguo's inner circle, or rather, to infiltrate the royal court of the Western Rong Empire, so as to more easily obtain confidential information and even remotely guide Princess Anguo.

Even if it can't help the Tianhong Empire.

It's good to hold back the Western Rong Empire.

In short, they naturally assumed that Princess Anguo was still the princess they could manipulate at will, the one they wanted to make do whatever they wanted, and they even wanted to remotely control this princess to do things for them.

To achieve some of their political goals.

Or for other purposes.

Inspired by this, the other high-ranking officials present basically discussed how to maximize their interests and use Princess Anguo to do things, without considering whether Princess Anguo would be obedient.

Even though Emperor Xianghe was somewhat conflicted and worried.

He was worried that the fact that Consort Su was not dead but missing, and that they didn't even know who had her, would become a ticking time bomb, a thorn between them and Princess Anguo, affecting their ability to remotely manipulate Princess Anguo to do things in the future.

A few more days passed, and after obtaining more information through spies, Emperor Xianghe officially formed an envoy. He placed many of his confidants, even spies, within the envoy, and had them carry numerous gifts, funeral supplies, including the memorial tablet of Consort Su, before setting off on a mission to the Western Rong Empire.

Their purpose is perfectly clear to them.

However, this was not the most outrageous part. The most outrageous part was that, as news spread and it was confirmed that Princess Anguo had indeed become the Empress of the Western Rong Empire, the public and gentry groups discussed the matter extensively.

For example, did Princess Anguo commit treason?

For example, the Western Rong Empire is like a hen crowing at dawn; it's probably doomed. We should send troops to attack them as soon as possible.

Another example is getting Princess Anguo to submit to the emperor.

Thus, they directly conquered the Western Rong Empire, and so on.

Naïve innocence, shameless shamelessness.

However, this is all on the surface. In private, Emperor Xianghe is also doing something else: sending people to investigate the flow of supplies along the border in detail. This is because the spies mentioned that Ding Shui had obtained a large amount of supplies from somewhere. Naturally, he also wants to find out which families are secretly transporting supplies to the Western Rong.

He wondered how he got in touch with Princess Anguo, and most importantly, he suspected that Princess Anguo was likely a puppet supported by an unknown force behind the scenes.

Although I don't know exactly what I want to do.

But I have a feeling this isn't a good thing, and I want to figure it out.

At this point, Emperor Xianghe only harbored some conspiracy theories and had no clear understanding of the fact that Princess Anguo, also known as Ding Shui, could provide a large amount of supplies, as mentioned by the spies. So, who were the first forces in the Tianhong Empire to become aware of this? The smuggling merchants!

They quickly realized that the goods were not selling well.

Forget five or ten times the price, we can't even sell them at three times the price.

Recommending brown sugar cubes and the like only earned me ridicule from the barbarians of the Western Rong Empire. Selling such junk to them was also quite difficult. Iron and similar items were equally hard to sell.

Fortunately, the tribal chiefs didn't have much of a sense of secrecy regarding those supplies; in fact, they were quite happy to show them off. So soon, the smugglers, who had previously looked down on the barbarians and thought they wouldn't have bothered traveling such a long way if it weren't for making money, saw the rare and valuable goods that the barbarians had no way of sourcing from or had never even seen before. They were then persuaded to buy these rare items.

Or they could exchange the supplies they brought.

The exchange ratio can be two to one, or even five to one.

Trade demands and surpluses between the two sides are beginning to change!