Chapter 2257 - The Countries Surrender!
“Impossible! How can this be?”
“The alliance has an army of millions in the northeast. How could it be so easily defeated!?”
All of the Tibetan generals began to panic.
Their backbone, Imperial Minister Dalon Trinling, had seen something and fainted, and the Tibetan army quickly began to break and verge on collapse. Had the alliance army in Youzhou really been defeated?
Whoosh!
The howling wind blew something out of Dalon Trinling’s hand which slapped Namri Songtian in the face. The latter instinctively reached out and carefully looked at it, upon which he realized that it was the letter Dalon Trinling had received.
Namri Songtian opened the letter, glanced at it, and felt like he was being struck by a lightning bolt.
Namri Songtian was no stranger to the handwriting. Ü-Tsang had received several other letters of this kind before, and he instantly recognized it as from the Great Tang’s King of Foreign Lands. The contents of the letter were very simple.
“An Lushan has been executed! Meeting with the Imperial Minister today!”
At the end was the King of Foreign Lands’ seal, and below it was a small seal that was none other than the private seal An Lushan used in his letters to Ü-Tsang.
An Lushan had a habit that differed from all the other countries.
When other countries sent letters to each other, they would use the seal of their respective countries, but Youzhou was only a protectorate of the Great Tang and did not have the right to sit on the same level as the other countries. Thus, An Lushan had always used his personal seal.
One concern was secrecy, as no one except the target would know what it signified. The second concern was that An Lushan wanted to avoid leaving any clues that could be used against him, so he would use a different personal seal for each country he sent letters to. In this way, no one except the country involved would know that he was the writer of the letter.
Wang Chong had used none other than the personal seal that An Lushan used to communicate with Ü-Tsang, and the implied meaning was obvious.
“How could it be like this?
“Impossible!”
Namri Songtian’s heart trembled, his eyes turning gray and dim. He felt like he had fallen into an ice house.
The northeastern countries had been defeated and the Great Tang had won. All of this had come too suddenly.
The battle of the City of Steel in the northwest wasn’t even over, but that even larger-scale war in the northeast had prematurely ended. This was something that none of the Tibetans had imagined, and it was something that they had never wanted to see.
With the war in the northeast over, the war in the northwest became of dubious worth. The outcome was meaningless, whether it was victory or defeat.
To the east, the Ü-Tsang Empire had no more allies, and to the south, they had to deal with Wang Chong, who might be coming to reinforce the City of Steel. As for the west, the Tibetan Plateau was sealed in ice. They had nowhere to go, and in the vastness of the world, the hundreds of thousands Tibetan soldiers felt like they were all alone and bereft of allies.
The war of the northeast was over, and the Ü-Tsang Empire was now in dire straits.
“It’s over!
“It’s over!”
At this time, Namri Songtian finally understood why Dalon Trinling had fainted almost immediately after glancing at the letter.
The fate of the Ü-Tsang Empire was sealed, and no man or object could change this fact. Even Dalon Trinling was helpless.
“Retreat! Retreat!
“All soldiers, retreat to the west.”
After calling for retreat, Namri Songtian felt somewhat stunned. The only thought in his mind was the order Dalon Trinling had given before fainting.
Gallop!
Following Namri Songtian’s order, the Tibetan army retreated like clouds being swept away by a gale, withdrawing to the northwest together with the uneasy Tibetan commanders.
The army withdrew in disarray, lacking any of their former divine courage.
Bang!
Seeing the Tibetan cavalry withdrawing into the snowstorm in panic, the Tang soldiers within the City of Steel erupted with cheers.
“Kill! Kill them all!”
Some of the cavalry pursued tens of thousands of feet before the horn within the city called them back.
“Have them come back!” Young Master Qingyang ordered from the observation platform in the center of the city. “These Tibetans only fear His Highness. We don’t have the soldiers to defeat them right now!”
It was not wise to pursue a defeated enemy. While the Tibetans had retreated, they still had the strength to fight a battle. Their liege would have to arrive before they could think about taking on the entire Ü-Tsang Empire.
“Order the craftsmen team to begin repairing the walls!
“In addition, Barshad, I must trouble the Western Turks to keep watch over the perimeter and ensure that the Tibetans don’t return!”
Young Master Qingyang issued a string of orders.
They were the defensive side, and simply holding the City of Steel was a victory. They could leave the rest to Wang Chong.
The orders began to be carried out in an orderly manner. Regardless of where the Tibetans ran, their fates were sealed.
Meanwhile, within Youzhou…
In the former protectorate headquarters of Youzhou, An Lushan’s banner had long ago been exchanged for the dragon banner of the Great Tang.
And around the protectorate headquarters, the several hundred thousand Tang soldiers had encamped.
“This is truly the work of the gods. This formation the men in black laid down over Youzhou is truly much stronger than the formation I found in the Formation Divine Treatise!”
At this time, atop a wall of the Andong Protectorate headquarters, the Formation Elder looked up at the sky and sighed.
The cold wave howled, but the Formation Elder could see that tens of thousands of feet above Youzhou was a massive dome that protected the land. Outside the dome, the surging cold wave sounded like a wailing ghost, and all was bleak and somber. In contrast, within the dome, the temperature could even be considered warm.
The Formation Elder knew that his formation was vastly inferior when it came to protecting against the cold.
“Were you able to find the principles behind their formation so that you can replicate it?”
Wang Chong was standing next to the Formation Elder and looking up at the sky with him.
The situation in the Great Tang’s interior was poor, and even though there were cellars and coal briquettes, many people had still frozen to death in the cold night. The first thing Wang Chong did after his army arrived in Youzhou was to help the Formation Elder analyze the formation Genesis Supreme had left behind.
He wanted to replicate the formation in all of the Great Tang’s cities to help the common people resist the cold.
After some thought, the Formation Elder said, “Give me some time. I should be able to finish in about seven days!”
Normally, it would be impossible to analyze this sort of large-scale formation in so little time, but Wang Chong had the True World ability and part of Genesis Supreme’s thoughts that had still remained in his body after the Nightmare Beast had seized it. When paired with the Formation Elder’s mastery of formations, the feat became possible.
Wang Chong nodded and said no more.
After a few moments of silence, Wang Chong condensed the energy flows of the formation he had observed with the True World ability onto a page made of Stellar Energy and sent it into the Formation Elder’s hands.
“This is for you. The energy flows of this formation should be helpful to you.”
Condensing Stellar Energy into tangible form!
This sort of feat had ceased to be a problem for Wang Chong long ago.
What Wang Chong had recorded on this golden page was not words, but a diagram marking out how and where energy flowed through the formation.
“Heh!”
The Formation Elder smiled as he gripped the golden page.
He had always enjoyed himself most in the world of formations.
“Reporting!”
As the two of them spoke, someone rapidly ascended the stairs up the walls.
“Your Highness, we have received a letter from the alliance. Ozmish Khagan, Yeon Gaesomun, and the others have jointly signed a letter seeking an audience with Your Highness!” Zhang Que bowed as he respectfully spoke.
“Didn’t they run away?” he Formation Elder couldn’t help but say, a hint of surprise on his face.
After the explosion of the steel fortress, the alliance army had scattered, vanishing from the northeast.
In this period of time, Zhang Que had wanted to send men to search for them, but Wang Chong had stopped him.
“Hmph, they couldn’t even last a few days?”
Wang Chong casually chuckled.
Wang Chong wasn’t surprised at this request for an audience. Besides the steel fortress before its destruction and the land of Youzhou, there was no place to seek shelter from the cold wave.
Wang Chong’s army had no means of surviving in this fierce cold wave, let alone the alliance countries. Moreover, even if the alliance countries had means of surviving, they had people to feed.
It was precisely because he had recognized this point that Wang Chong was in no rush, calmly waiting in Youzhou and even stopping Zhang Que from sending men to search for them.
“Let them come! I wonder what they plan to do?”
Wang Chong chuckled.
“Yes!”
Zhang Que bowed, but he did not immediately depart, instead hesitantly standing there.
Wang Chong raised an eyebrow and asked, “What? Is there something else?”
“Your Highness, there is one other matter. Besides requesting an audience with Your Highness, the alliance sovereigns also sent over a gift.”
At the mention of a gift, Zhang Que’s face turned somewhat strange.
“Oh?”
After a few moments of silence, Wang Chong waved his hand and said, “Bring it up!”
A few moments later, Wang Chong saw the gift the alliance sovereigns had sent.
At this moment, even Wang Chong couldn’t help but be somewhat taken aback by this gift.
This gift from the alliance sovereigns was Cui Qianyou, Tian Chengsi, and Tian Qianzhen.
These three were An Lushan’s Great Generals, and without their help, An Lushan would never have been able to get this far.
In the war of the northeast, after the explosion of the steel fortress, Wang Chong had been focused entirely on dealing with Genesis Supreme and An Lushan, leaving the others for Zhangchou Jianqiong and the others to deal with. Zhangchou Jianqiong and company had tried their utmost to hold them down, but alas, their martial arts were too potent. At the crucial moment, with their soldiers doing their utmost to shield them, the three of them had managed to break out of the encirclement and escape.
