Chapter 254 Understanding, first win people’s hearts, next step

The fire-condensing oil was distributed in an orderly manner, and among the more than 17,000 people rescued from Hulu Valley, only more than 400 people died in the final dew explosion, and the rest were all successfully rescued.

At the same time, daybreak broke out.

Before dawn, Qiu Peng led people to place the people from the three families in all the houses in Wu Shuang’s base.

Not surprisingly, during this process, all of the 15,000 people in the Hanqiong Camp expressed their intention to join the Daxia Camp;

Among the more than 1,600 diggers in Longshan and Zhaoyang, only a few want to change their allegiance, only more than 20 in total.

When Qiu Peng returned to the main building with this number to report to Xia Hong, there was an unconcealable disappointment in his tone, and it was obvious that he was still a little unwilling.

In the top floor hall of Wushuang main building, Qiu Peng sat down after finishing his report.

On both sides of the hall sat Xia Chuan, Luo Yuan, Hong Guang, Hong Tian, ​​Zhao Long, Zhao Hu, Zhao Bao, Zhu Yuan, Lin Kai, Lu Yang, Hong Gang, Huang Yong and other twelve members of the Great Xia Cold-resistant Class. They all looked up at the leader, waiting for Xia Hong to speak.

Chen Yingyuan, Chen Yingba, Wu Tianxing, and Peng Bo were sitting at the back. They first looked up at Xia Hong above them, then glanced at the people sitting upright on both sides of the hall. Almost all of them had a look of surprise on their faces.

Previously, the four of them had been constantly traveling between Fengchao and Wushuang. This was the first time they had seen so directly that all the cold-resistant masters of Daxia had gathered together.

“There are thirteen here alone. I remember that there is one called Meng Yi in the Hive, and there are also Yuan Cheng and Yu Wentao who are recovering from their injuries. That means there are at least sixteen cold-resistant warriors in Da Xia!”

“It’s impossible that no one was left at the base, so there are definitely more than 1400. There are more than 1000 Diggers here, and 2400 people in the Hive, which adds up to more than 3000. The same goes for the Cold-Resistant Class. There must be some people in their base that haven’t moved. A conservative guess is that the number of Diggers is at least over . Daxia is really too strong!”

“Of course, the most important thing is…his strength!”

Chen Yingyuan sat on the chair, seemingly expressionless, but after carefully calculating the strength of Da Xia, he kept exclaiming in his heart, especially when he looked up at Xia Hong at the last moment, there was a shock in his eyes that was difficult to conceal.

He had just followed Xia Chuan to Hulu Valley to rescue Xia Hong. Although he acted calm and composed the whole time, only he knew how shocked he was in his heart.

Li Xuanling, Li Xuandu, Li Xuanyan, the three great princes of Longshan, Meng Ying and Zhou Yuan, two of the Eight Vajras, plus Yang Fengping, an archer whose strength is second only to Li Tianhua and Li Tiancheng. Excluding Li Tiancheng, these six are almost the strongest cold-resistant level in Longshan at the moment.

In Chen Yingyuan’s opinion, these six people, plus one thousand Longyou soldiers, could kill anyone in Longyou except Li Tianhua. Even if Li Tianhua’s younger brother Li Tiancheng came, he would be dead.

But they failed to kill Xia Hong!

Regardless of whether it was because Xia Chuan and his men arrived in time, the result was that Xia Hong did not die. Not only did he not die, except for the arrow shot in the face by Yang Fengping and the few arrows in his body that did not hurt him, he did not even have any fatal injuries.

Chen Yingyuan was not sure whether Xia Hong was as powerful as Li Tianhua.

But he was sure that he was definitely better than Li Tiancheng and Hou Hu!
A leader who is powerful enough to look down on Longyou; the number of cold-resistant level warriors is at least over 20; the number of digging-earth-level tribesmen is over 3,000…

Leaving aside the Longyou Army and the Blood Guard Army, based on these three items alone, Daxia is not too far behind Longshan and Zhaoyang. Not to mention, these are just my conservative guesses.

“Not only that, I’ve seen before that the pale golden armor worn by the soldiers of Daxia, including the weapons they use, are only of the tenth-forged level, but they are comparable to the hundred-forged level in Longyou. This proves that Daxia’s forging technology is far superior to Longyou; and the clothes they wear, the elixirs they use…”

Seeing the astonishing number of cold-resistant-level warriors in front of Da Xia at this moment, combined with what he had seen and heard in the past few days, Chen Yingyuan felt more and more shocked at Da Xia’s strength. He turned his head to look at Chen Yingba beside him and couldn’t help but sighed slightly.

After all, the beehive was only in name, so he had to start thinking about the future of his two brothers.

“Daxia seems to be a good place to go!”

………………

“There are 23 people who have switched to Daxia, not bad!”

Chen Yingyuan was thinking about joining Da Xia at the moment, which Xia Hong certainly didn’t know. When he heard Qiu Peng say that 23 Digging Realm cultivators were going to join Da Xia, he was obviously surprised and showed an interested look.

But soon, he noticed the unwillingness on the faces of Qiu Peng, Xia Chuan and others, and realized that they still hadn’t figured out his intentions, so he shook his head helplessly.

“Let me ask you a question!”

After thinking for a moment, Xia Hong slowly spoke, attracting everyone’s attention, and continued to ask: “If, if Daxia loses a battle in the future, and you are captured by the enemy, and they ask you to leave Daxia and join their camp, are you willing?”

“Of course not!”

“impossible.”

“I, Luo Yuan, am a Daxia man in life and a Daxia ghost in death. I will never join any other camp.”

………………

Upon hearing this question, except for Chen Yingyuan and the other three, everyone in Da Xia answered without thinking. Many of them even had anger on their faces, obviously thinking that Xia Hong’s question was somewhat humiliating to them.

As for Xia Chuan, he didn’t even open his mouth, but just lowered his brows slightly, thinking about Xia Hong’s intention first.

Xia Hong showed a hint of satisfaction, and continued to ask with a smile: “Since you are not willing, why do you think others will be willing?”

“I understand what the leader means. I didn’t mean to…”

Just as Qiu Peng was about to open his mouth to refute, Xia Hong raised his hand to interrupt him.

“Whether you force them to join Daxia or forcibly take them back to be miners, the final result is nothing more than one, that is, these people will become more and more resistant to Daxia, and they may even find an opportunity to rebel and escape back to their original camps. Do you admit it?”

Seeing that everyone was thinking with their heads down, Xia Hong did not wait for their answer and continued, “You don’t have to think about it. When I sneaked into the Hive Camp before, I stayed in the mining area and interacted with those miners. I know very well that even if you don’t believe me, there is one person you should believe…”

Xia Hong turned his gaze slightly to Chen Yingyuan in the back row on the left below, and said with a smile: “The Beehive has captured miners for so many years. Leader Chen should know the psychology of those miners best. How about you tell us about it?”

Being called out suddenly, Chen Yingyuan was a little flustered. He stood up immediately, bowed to Xia Hong, and then said helplessly: “I don’t dare to be called the leader. If you don’t mind, you can just call me by my name.”

This Chen Yingyuan is quite sensible!

Xia Hong chuckled and nodded. He knew very well that unlike Peng Bo who joined voluntarily, the reason why Chen Yingyuan brothers and Wu Tianxing obeyed Da Xia’s orders was because all their families were in Xiacheng at the moment.

Xia Hong naturally understood that controlling three cold-resistant-level warriors in this way was not a long-term solution, but he could not find any other way to subdue these three people in a short period of time, so this was the only way for the time being.

“Okay, then I won’t be polite. Chen Yingyuan, you tell them!”

After hearing this, Chen Yingyuan’s expression relaxed a lot, and he began to talk to Xia Chuan and others about the honeycomb miners.

“To be honest, all the miners in the Hive were obtained when we destroyed other camps. Therefore, almost all of them hate the Hive to the core. Even if a few of them joined the Hive in the end, they have no feelings for the camp. As long as there are other good ways out, they will leave immediately. This is still better. Before…”

Chen Yingyuan had also been a leader, and he could roughly see Xia Hong’s intentions, so he quickly explained everything about the honeycomb miners.

Just as Xia Hong guessed, all those who were caught and used as mining slaves were mentally twisted and hated the Hive to the core. As Chen Yingyuan said, those who escaped in the end were the best.

There was a riot of miners in the Beehive before, and many people were killed and injured. Since then, the Beehive had to build more iron shackles to control the miners. Chen Yingyuan even had to send a large number of people to guard the mining area and be on guard against another riot at any time. After Chen Yingyuan finished speaking, he said in a deep voice: “Looking back now, this mining slave system is really not good. Even if it is really adopted, the number of miners must be strictly controlled. Once there are too many, it will be a huge hidden danger. Not to mention wasting a lot of iron, coal, and even human resources, there will be no benefit.

Because these people were captured, they didn’t try their best to mine, and just wanted to do it half-heartedly. In the end, the output was not good, and they also caused riots from time to time. In the end, the camp was not worth the loss!”

After he finished speaking, everyone else in the hall fell into deep thought.

Xia Hong looked at Chen Yingyuan with a hint of approval in his eyes. The fact that Chen Yingyuan could say the last words showed that he was not an ignorant person. He had also seriously thought about the system of mining slaves.

After giving everyone some time to think, and seeing that many people had come to their senses, Xia Hong continued, “I said yesterday in the Hulu Valley secret passage that releasing all these people is the first step for Daxia to take over Longyou. It seems that you haven’t figured it out yet. What do you think is the most important thing for us to take over Longyou?”

“Of course it’s strength!”

Luo Yuan’s answer won unanimous approval from everyone.

Xia Hong also nodded and continued to ask: “Do you think Da Xia’s current strength is sufficient?”

Everyone’s faces froze when they heard this, including Xia Chuan, and they all shook their heads at the same time.

Of course not enough!

First of all, when it comes to the number of people at the cold-resistant level, Daxia can at most compete with Longshan and Zhaoyang, and does not have much advantage.

As for the number of people in the Digging Realm, Xia Hong had already told them about the situation in Zhaoyang. There were at least 5,000 of them. Not to mention Longshan, the number of people in the Digging Realm they had was almost no less than that of Zhaoyang.

Finally, leaving these two items aside, before Daxia established a formal army dedicated to attacking, the Longyou Army and the Blood Guard Army were two mountains that they could not cross. Xia Hong felt this particularly deeply after the Hulu Valley was wiped out.

Daxia’s productivity is indeed good, but this productivity is far from making up for the gap between them and the Longshan and Zhaoyang families.

Therefore, it is impossible for Daxia to take over Longyou by relying on its own strength at present!

If you don’t have enough strength, you have to think of other ways.

Of course Xia Hong would not ask this for no reason. Everyone lowered their heads to think, and considering that he was going to let the Digging Realm group from Longshan Zhaoyang go, their expressions suddenly became serious and they soon had the answer in their hearts.

“What the leader means is that if you can’t win by strength, then you have to win people’s hearts first!”

After all, he had been a leader, so Chen Yingyuan immediately revealed Xia Hong’s thoughts.

“Yes, it wins people’s hearts!”

Xia Hong showed a hint of approval and continued, “I have already saved these people’s lives in Hulu Valley. After returning to Wushuang, we saved them again with the fire-condensing oil. The two life-saving graces are enough to make these people feel good about Daxia. Even if they return to their respective camps, they will naturally be humble when fighting with Daxia in the future. And this emotion is very likely to spread to the rest of the people in Longshan and Zhaoyang with their return.”

Hearing these words, Xia Chuan, Luo Yuan and the others immediately looked thoughtful, as if they had also vaguely sensed Xia Hong’s intention.

“To Longyou, Daxia has always been an outsider. We conquered the Fengchao, Wushuang, and Hanqiong families with our own strength, and there are only a few Digging Realms left in the three families. So we don’t have to consider the resistance of these three families, but we can’t consider the other camps!”

Xia Hong paused, turned around and looked around the audience, and continued: “You all have to remember that Daxia is expanding its borders for both territory and population. If everyone in Longyou hates us, then even if we occupy this place, can you live and hunt here peacefully in the future, and can you manage this area well?”

“Moreover, after taking down the Beehive, Wushuang, and Hanqiong families, the camp’s new population has accumulated to nearly 70,000 people. Most of these people are still in Longyou. Bringing them all back to Xiacheng is a huge project, not to mention the subsequent integration, which is another huge project that will consume a lot of manpower and material resources. If more trouble occurs because of these 1,600-plus Digging Realm people, it will be a loss!”

“The biggest difficulty we are facing now is the Longyou Army and the Blood Guard Army. If we really go to war with these two, do you think Daxia can win? Time, we need a lot of time. First, we need to digest all the new population; second, we need to do our best to narrow the gap in strength between us and Longshan and Zhaoyang!”

………………

After Xia Hong finished speaking, everyone, including Xia Chuan, showed a look of guilt on their faces.

In the past few days, Daxia had been on a roll, taking over three camps in succession. Such a smooth progress made them feel a little proud, and they even began to not take Longshan and Zhaoyang seriously.

At this moment, he suddenly woke up and realized that Da Xia’s strength was still inferior to the two families. In an instant, cold sweat broke out on his back.

Seeing the atmosphere in the hall gradually becoming solemn, knowing that everyone had woken up, Xia Hong’s eyes first showed a trace of satisfaction, and then he thought of something, a hint of sadness flashed in his eyes, and he slowly said: “Moreover, these more than 1600 Digging Realm people were all abandoned by Li Xuanling and Hou Tong once. Do you think these people will also have knots in their hearts?”

Xia Chuan and the others’ eyes lit up instantly.

Chen Yingyuan and the other four people at the back of the hall lowered their heads in thought for a while, then looked up at Xia Hong, and a chill inexplicably rose in their hearts.

“Li Xuanling and Hou Tong’s people should all be infected with dewdrops. Both families should have silver, but as far as I know, silver is scarce and cannot be used by everyone. Therefore, the dewdrop plague on many people cannot be cured. Let’s release all these 1600 people and let them take the news of the fire-condensing oil back. Do you think they will come to us when the time comes?”

Having said that, Xia Chuan, Qiu Peng, Luo Yuan and the others finally understood Xia Hong’s intention, and their expressions immediately brightened.

Especially Qiu Peng, who was in charge of the quarters department, was extremely excited when he heard the last words. Thinking of how he had just questioned Xia Hong, his face was full of shame. He walked directly to the middle of the hall and knelt down in front of Xia Hong.

“I was short-sighted and almost ruined your plan. Please forgive me!”

Xia Hong shook his head. Not only did he not blame Qiu Peng, but he admired Qiu Peng for daring to question him. After all, this showed that Qiu Peng had his own cognition and ideas, and was not a subordinate who would only blindly follow him.

It’s worth mentioning that among the current cold-resistant level people in Da Xia, there are not many people who possess this quality. According to Xia Hong’s observation, there are only four such people: Xia Chuan, Yuwen Tao, Yue Feng, and Xu Ning.

With Xia Hong’s current supreme status in the eyes of the people of Daxia, if one really wants to possess this quality, courage, vision, and strength are all indispensable. Therefore, in Xia Hong’s view, people who possess these qualities can stand on their own.

This is the reason why Yue Feng and Xu Ning were able to serve as the garrison commander of Jinggu and Wuyuan respectively.

With Qiu Peng joining us today, Xia Hong is naturally happier. After all, this represents that more and more talents are emerging in Daxia.

Xia Hong smiled, thought of something, and suddenly spoke to the people below:
“As for the 23 people who want to defect to Daxia, you can spend more time to find out what’s going on. Don’t just accept them rashly. We want to find out about the situation in Longshan and Zhaoyang, and those two families may also want to find out about our situation.”

When everyone heard this, they were stunned. After thinking for a moment, they understood what Xia Hong meant, and then they all looked at Qiu Peng.

Qiu Peng, who had just brought the news that 23 people surrendered, suddenly changed his expression after reacting. A trace of fear appeared on his face. He looked up at Xia Hong and was about to speak, but Xia Hong just waved his hand.

“You can handle the specific matters on your own. I’m going to start practicing. If there are any special situations, come to me.”

“Yes, leader!”

Everyone bowed and then respectfully left the hall.

As soon as he left the hall, Qiu Peng immediately followed Xia Chuan.

“Master Si Cheng, what the leader just said is that those 23 people are most likely pretending to surrender and coming here to gather information about Da Xia?”

Xia Chuan, who was walking in front, nodded slightly, with a hint of coldness in his eyes:
“Not all of them, but there’s a high probability that a few are mixed in. That’s why the leader asked us to spend time to investigate. There are still more than two hours before dark. Let’s call the 23 people to talk separately. Coincidentally, I have an idea…”

When Qiu Peng heard what Xia Chuan said next, his eyes became brighter and his face showed a hint of admiration. He didn’t speak until Xia Chuan finished speaking.
“I’ll do it right now!”

(End of this chapter)