Chapter 487: The Crucial Point! Lion City!
Chapter 487: The Crucial Point! Lion City!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
In the center of the smithy was a massive, windowless room. Its walls were made from iron and were three feet thick. Each of the walls had been inscribed with layers of defensive inscriptions that made them extremely sturdy.
This was where the Zhang Clan stored its weapons.
Wang Chong's Wootz Steel swords were stored inside.
Wang Chong walked in, picked a Wootz Steel sword embryo out of the pile, and began to carefully inspect it. The safehouse had no windows, but it did have several bright pearls embedded in the ceiling to give light.
The warm light of these pearls allowed him to see the fluid lines on the Wootz Steel sword. Although it still had not gone through the quenching and the last few steps, the sword embryo itself was already very aesthetically pleasing.
The smiths of the Zhang Clan truly are excellent!
Though Wang Chong said nothing as he examined the sword embryo, he mentally gave his nod of approval.
A thousand Wootz Steel swords was no minor affair, and he had even required that they be forged in a very short amount of time. His greatest concern was that the Zhang Clan might skimp on their work.
But his inspection revealed that the Zhang Clan truly had treated this matter seriously.
Each of the sword embryos he inspected had gone through countless temperings and taken a great deal of effort to create. The Zhang Clan's smiths had cherished this precious forging material far more than Wang Chong had imagined.
After examining them all, Wang Chong began to get a feel for their weight. Finally, he nodded his head.
"Not bad!"
These Wootz Steel sword embryos felt heavy in his hand, indicating that they were all pure Wootz Steel. Every Wootz Steel sword had to pass through his hands, so he was extremely familiar with the weight of Wootz Steel.
Wootz Steel could not be mixed with other metals. Otherwise, the weapon would be ruined!
"Send these weapons over to my side. And send the rest over once you finish them!" Wang Chong said as he put down a sword embryo.
Wang Chong now felt completely at ease about leaving this matter to the Zhang Clan.
After leaving the Zhang Clan's smithy, Wang Chong rode to the cave outside the city. It didn't take long before a stream of Wootz Steel sword embryos began to be delivered into the cave.
As time slowly passed, Wang Chong completely forgot about the outside world, as all of his focus was placed on forging the Wootz Steel swords.
Batch after batch of Wootz Steel swords passed through Wang Chong's hands and out of the cave. They were sent to Deflecting Blade Mountain, where they were placed together with the Meteoric Metal armor forged by the other clans and distributed to the True Martial realm experts recruited from the great clans.
Quality, and not quantity, was more important in a soldier. Through these armaments, the one-thousand-man division of elite soldiers that Wang Chong anticipated was slowly beginning to take shape.
Time was short, and while Wang Chong was completely cut off from the outside world, his entire being focused on forging Wootz Steel swords, the outside world was being overturned.
The war in the southwest had shaken the entire empire, troubling the minds of millions. Every day, more news was coming from the southwest.
More and more details began to be revealed about the defeat in the southwest, and the more that was known, the more troubled the people were.
And several days later, a letter arrived from the front lines, jolting the entire capital.
More than half a month after Xianyu Zhongtong set off with his 180,000 elites, the Imperial Court finally received a letter from Xianyu Zhongtong.
This was a letter requesting reinforcements!
The letter said that the supplies in 'Lion City' wouldn't be able to last for too long and would be exhausted after a little more time, and so the Imperial Court was being asked to speedily deliver supplies.
Xianyu Zhongtong's seal had been stamped at the end..
This letter let the people know for the first time that 80,000 soldiers from the Annan Protectorate still remained out of the initial 180,000, and that this army was taking shelter in a place called Lion City. After many days and nights of worry, this news was assuredly a great comfort.
But people quickly began to ask, what was Lion City?
Where was that place?
How could it block the assaults from the hundreds and thousands of soldiers from Mengshe Zhao and Ü-Tsang?
Countless questions surged through their minds!
The officials from the Bureau of Revenue and the Bureau of Personnel were quickly summoned to the Imperial Court to be questioned about this Lion City. But to the astonishment of all, none of the officials knew anything about this Lion City. They even had to ask where it was!
Even stranger was that this Lion City was found on no maps of the Great Tang. Even those old ministers of the court who had lived in the southwest for decades and knew Jiannan like the back of their hand had no idea what this Lion City was or where it was located.
So surprising was this conclusion that no one dared to believe it!
A large number of scouts were immediately dispatched to the southwest. No one dared to overlook the lives of these 80,000 elites.
Everyone knew that these 80,000 soldiers were the last barrier to the southwest. Their presence could hold down those two foreign powers and make them act more cautiously.
Without them, Mengshe Zhao and Ü-Tsang would have nothing to fear. Geluofeng, Dalun Ruozan, and Huoshu Huicang would lead their armies deep into Tang territory, sweeping over the southwest until the borders of Longxi.
But just when everyone was fruitlessly seeking clues on this Lion City, a surprising response came from a minor official in the Bureau of Military Personnel, serving under Zhangchou Jianqiong.
He suddenly remembered that when Zhangchou Jianqiong was holding a banquet in the capital, he had invited Wang Gen and his nephew. At that banquet, Wang Chong had mentioned that he wanted to set up a city in the southwest.
And later on, a person at Wang Chong's side had come to consult the minor official on this matter. At the time, that person seemed to vaguely indicate that this city was being established at Lion Mountain.
Everyone was flabbergasted at this news.
And then they received further confirmation that more than half a year ago, the Wang Clan really had dispatched a large number of guards to the southwest, along with a large amount of raw materials. Wang Chong had also sent a million taels of gold to the southwest. All levels of society, from the court down to the common man, were left dumbfounded!
The impact this made on all the officials of the court was difficult to imagine. Even Wang Chong's big uncle, Wang Gen, was stunned speechless.
He knew that Wang Chong had asked for a lot of land from Zhangchou Jianqiong. In fact, he had been sitting at the table at the time. But not even Wang Gen knew that this Lion City that occupied a strategic location in the southwest war had been constructed by Wang Chong, and more than half a year ago at that!
Even the slowest of people were beginning to realize something.
Had that young fellow from the Wang Clan already predicted this war more than half a year ago and even constructed that important and strategic city to prepare for it?
Countless people found this nigh impossible to believe.
"Crazy, crazy! That's completely crazy!"
"How could he know that the Great Tang and Mengshe Zhao would fight there?"
"Impossible! Only a fool would build a city for the sake of a war! And how could he know that Mengshe Zhao and the Great Tang would battle there?"
"How much profit can the Tea Horse Road bring? If not for war, was it for trade? Would you build a city for the sake of trade, investing a million taels of gold?"
"This…"
The person was dumbstruck.
That this war that involved 180,000 Great Tang elites, 300,000 Mengshe Zhao soldiers, and almost a million civilians had been decided by a single teenaged scion in the capital was truly difficult to believe.
In fact, it was completely absurd!
Regardless of the truth, whether it was for trade or war, Wang Chong and that Lion City several thousand li away had garnered the attention of all the officials and military officers.
The Wang Clan began to receive letter after letter, and the Imperial Court even sent a document of inquiry to Wang Chong.
But at this time, Wang Chong couldn't be bothered to get into a debate in the Imperial Court…