Having many children brings many blessings; the struggle for power begins with marriage.

After entering the capital of Qi Kingdom, Lu Chen immediately promulgated a series of policies that benefited the people.

Furthermore, the fact that Lu Chen didn't even kill anyone from the Qi Prince's mansion immediately made the people of Qi Kingdom feel that the Northern Prince was a benevolent prince who wouldn't indiscriminately kill innocent people, which to some extent reduced the people of Qi Kingdom's fear of Lu Chen.

However, those aristocratic families who once helped Qi State fight against the Northern Kingdom's army basically did not have a good ending.

After the Qi Kingdom stabilized, Wei Siyuan and Mu Changtian each led an army of 200,000 to launch an attack on the homeland of the Great Xia Kingdom.

Mu Changtian and Wei Siyuan belong to the vanguard. Their army is to annihilate most of the Great Xia army before Lu Chen will head straight for the capital.

Time flies, and half a month later.

Lu Chen's temporary office.

Lu Chen was browsing through some official documents sent from Yancheng when Bai Qingqing's voice rang out from the doorway.

"Commander Qin requests an audience."

Lu Chen said calmly, "Come in."

Qin Yushan then entered the room and said, "Greetings, Your Highness."

Lu Chen nodded and said, "Yes, any recent intelligence?"

Qin Yushan immediately handed the intelligence report to Lu Chen and then reported, "The Crown Prince's men have discovered materials for making gunpowder and have begun to figure out how to manufacture firearms."

"Furthermore, in order to avoid conflict with the Northern Army, the First Prince has already led his troops south."

Hearing this, Lu Chen was taken aback.

So people in this world discovered gunpowder so quickly?

Lu Chen then calmed himself down. Although it had only been a few years, the firearms in the North had already gone through several generations. It wasn't strange that people in this world had discovered gunpowder.

Lu Chen then opened the letter in his hand and read it carefully. The intelligence detailed how Lu Yi discovered gunpowder.

Seeing that Lu Yi discovered gunpowder while the fake Taoist was refining elixirs, Lu Chen thought to himself that if he hadn't appeared, even if they had discovered gunpowder, they probably would have only used it for fireworks. It would probably have taken hundreds of years before gunpowder was used for military purposes.

However, even if Lu Yi and his group discovered gunpowder, the gunpowder they could make would only be black powder at most, and its power would definitely not be as great as the gunpowder from the North. The gunpowder from the North has already been replaced several times.

Of course, this is indeed a huge threat, and he needs to hurry up and seize the throne.

If Lu Yi discovered gunpowder, other forces may have also discovered it, and as time goes on, other dynasties may also possess firearms.

Although their firearms are not as powerful as those of the Northern Kingdom, if other dynasties were to acquire firearms, it would pose a huge threat to the soldiers of the Northern Kingdom. When the Northern Kingdom is preparing to unify the major dynasties in the future, the progress will inevitably be slowed down by the firearms.

Ideally, the major dynasties should be overthrown before the other dynasties invented firearms.

Thinking of this, Lu Chen immediately picked up a pen and began writing military orders.

Soon, new military orders reached Wei Siyuan and Mu Changtian, and in the following period, Mu Changtian and Wei Siyuan accelerated their offensive.

at the same time.

A city in the south.

King Zhao looked at the intelligence report in his hand, frowned, and remained silent for a long time.

At this moment, a dozen or so of his subordinates stood before King Zhao. One of them spoke up, "Your Majesty, while we are away, the Crown Prince has actually colluded with the remnants of those vassal kings to seize the territory we worked so hard to conquer. We cannot let this go!"

No sooner had this subordinate finished speaking than another chimed in, "Yes, Your Majesty, if we don't send someone to keep an eye on things, who knows what the Crown Prince might do!"

King Zhao had his own clear goals, and he didn't care much about the gains or losses of some lands. But his subordinates were different. They had finally managed to destroy those vassal states, but the eldest prince came and occupied those lands as soon as he arrived.

King Zhao put down the intelligence report in his hand, glanced at his subordinates, and then said indifferently, "Qi has been destroyed. The Northern Kingdom has sent a total of 600,000 troops south. It won't be long before the capital falls. If the Northern King can enter the capital in front of me, that position will be his."

"Once the Northern King becomes emperor, all my efforts will have been in vain. If I were to divide my forces now to compete with the First Prince for those few plots of land, how could I possibly contend with the Northern King for the throne?"

Upon hearing King Zhao's words, his subordinates were immediately stunned.

At this moment, one of King Zhao's subordinates said, "Your Majesty has foresight and profound wisdom; we admire you!"

King Zhao continued, "We must hurry north and stop the northern army from reaching the capital!"

"Especially the army that marched east from Heyang County."

At this point, King Zhao looked up into the distance, his heart filled with emotion.

Is this what you wanted?

Even if unification is finally achieved after the war has escalated to this point, and there are no more vassal kings within the Great Xia territory, and the Xia Emperor's power reaches its peak, what ultimately falls into the hands of the Xia Emperor is still a broken Great Xia.

It is unknown how many years it will take for Great Xia to recover to its pre-war level.

King Zhao felt that Emperor Xia had gone too far.

However, since he was on Emperor Xia's side, he couldn't say anything.

Now he can only do as the Xia Emperor said: head south as soon as possible and help the court get rid of the Northern King, the "last vassal king".

Upon receiving Lu Chen's military order, Mu Changtian and Wei Siyuan accelerated their offensive. Emperor Xia initially did not intend to stop them from heading to the capital, so in a very short time, the vast majority of counties in the Great Xia were controlled by the Northern Kingdom.

However, Mu Changtian and Wei Siyuan's advance was too fast; they were almost at the area controlled by the capital.

Emperor Xia discovered that Lu Chen was still in the capital of Qi Kingdom, without making a move. If the two armies of the Northern Kingdom continued to advance, the capital might be captured by these 400,000 troops.

This is definitely not going to work. We must find a way to delay them until Lu Chen heads south before letting them approach the capital. So Emperor Xia began to mobilize troops and secretly sent a letter to Prince Zhao, asking him to find a way to hold off the army led by Mu Changtian.

As for the Great Xia Dynasty, it focused its attention on dealing with the Northern Kingdom's navy in the east.

What started were just minor skirmishes; the real war is about to begin.

After receiving the letter from the Xia Emperor, King Zhao immediately mobilized his troops to move towards Mu Changtian's army.

At this time, Mu Changtian's 200,000-strong army was still stationed in Jingjiang City for rest and recuperation. With the presence of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Mu Changtian knew about Zhao Wang's every move. Mu Changtian also knew that Zhao Wang had led an army of 400,000 to approach Jingjiang City.

Although the King of Zhao's army outnumbered theirs by a factor of two, Mu Changtian remained completely calm.

King Zhao and he were old friends.

They had cooperated many times in order to help Emperor Xia seize the throne, and Mu Changtian knew very well that Prince Zhao was Emperor Xia's man.

Although it appears that King Zhao has rebelled, the fact that he did not directly attack the capital but instead came to intercept the northern army shows that he still stands on the side of Emperor Xia.

At this time, King Zhao did not know who was leading the northern army he was about to fight. After approaching Jingjiang City, he immediately led his army to launch a probing attack to test the fighting strength of the northern army.

Having long heard of the formidable fighting power of the Northern army, coupled with their victories in the north, King Zhao could not help but be cautious.

However, to the King of Zhao's surprise, the Northern Army remained inside Jingjiang City and did not launch an attack, which made the King of Zhao feel that something was wrong.

Just as King Zhao was preparing to order his soldiers to attack, Mu Changtian's appearance on the city wall of Jingjiang City stunned the king into a daze. (End of Chapter)