The Emperor’s vitality was severely damaged all the way to the south. When he got to his palace of Lin’an, his hanging breath relaxed and his body collapsed rapidly. Xie Xuanji stepped forward along the way. He was a young man who was very decisive. The Empress, Empress Dowager and other women and children ended up relying on him a lot. Even the Emperor gradually delegated power to him and let him arrange the itineraries of events. Towards the end, Xie Xuanji completely replaced the Emperor and became the spiritual leader of the nation. After Lin’an stabilised, Xie Xuanji naturally became the Crown Prince.
Not long after, the Emperor died of illness and passed the throne to Xie Xuanji. After Xie Xuanji ascended the throne, he flexed his muscles, got a large number of women to join the harem and vigorously promoted his cronies. However, despite Xie Xuanji’s ambition, the Ye Dynasty’s road to conquering his homeland had not been smooth.
After the Emperor and others abandoned the city and fled, the capital became a lamb under the iron hooves of the Beirong people. It took Ye Luji only three months to move the treasures captured from the palace. The people were even more brutally slaughtered— young men died with sharp blades, countless young women have been raped and the once bustling capital city that never slept had become a completely empty city that had one room occupied out of every 10.
The royal family fled south and large tracts of land in the north were given away. Many people refused to surrender to the Beirong, struggling to organise resistance armies in various places to survive in the cracks. Many generals who were stranded in the area or simply refused to follow the imperial court to the south had defended the city and resisted the Beirong. Although these cities fought hard against foreign enemies, they were far apart from each other and had no unified leader, so they could only fight independently. They repeatedly requested reinforcements from the court, but none came. They watched helplessly as they became an isolated city. In the end, like a burning spark, they tried their best to pounce, but were eventually extinguished.
Taiyuan, Hejian, Zhongshan, Xiangyang… no one survived. At first, adult men guarded the city. Then, it was young men. And finally, even women went to the city walls to fight.
Looking towards the south year after year, the imperial reinforcements never arrived.
The resistance forces in the north were wiped out one by one and the Ye Dynasty lived in peace. The Northern Expedition gradually became nothing but empty talk. Five or six years after Xie Xuanji ascended the throne, he was confident that he could reclaim the land during his reign. The treasury was abundant and Wan Yanduo was the one who helped him, coming up with the idea of crossing the river. However, until Jiang Mingwei’s death, there wasn’t any news about Xie Xuanji’s success in heading north.
In the past, Jiang Mingwei didn’t pay much attention to these things because she was Ye Luyan’s favourite concubine in her previous life. Later, Ye Luyan successfully fought for the throne and she became the Consort of the Beirong Emperor. Back then, the war in the Ye Dynasty was like a drama to her as there was no difference to how it impacted her life. However, in this life, she switched camps and Jiang Mingwei became the Princess of the Ye Dynasty. She shuddered when she thought back to how the noble female family members of the Ye Dynasty were treated after they were kidnapped by the Beirong.
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