I Rely on Beauty to Stabilize the Country Chapter 52.2

Published at 13th of July 2023 08:14:00 AM

Chapter 52 Part 2 

No matter how many calculations were made, no one could have predicted that Xue Yuan would act this way.

Gu Yuanbai sighed silently. Xue Yuan tied the horse's reins to a tree, stretching his shoulders and flexing the muscles on his back. He remained gloomy, resembling the fiercest bandit leader on a bandit-infested mountain, devoid of any official demeanor.

Xue Yuan turned around and reached out his hand towards Gu Yuanbai, who said, "I can get down by myself."

However, Xue Yuan approached silently, treating Gu Yuanbai as if he were a precious treasure that had nearly been lost, and lifted him down.

Once he held Gu Yuanbai, he didn't let go, and some of the fresh blood on him smeared onto Gu Yuanbai's body. Gu Yuanbai said, "Put me down."

Xue Yuan's brows furrowed, his face impassive and silent.

Gu Yuanbai repeated one last time, "Xue Yuan."

"Your Majesty," Xue Yuan finally parted his lips. His lips had already become cracked and scabbed, his voice hoarse and parched. "Didn't you notice, Your Majesty? You frightened this humble servant."

Gu Yuanbai paused, remaining silent for a moment, then said, "There's no need for that."

Xue Yuan wanted to laugh, so he did.

What's the point of saying there's no need?

Who the hell could know?

Xue Yuan placed Gu Yuanbai on a clean rock and went to inspect the things hastily brought on the horse. He had a large knife and a dagger on him, and the horse carried a bag of water pouches. Other than that, there was nothing else.

Gu Yuanbai stood up and looked around. In the deep forest, trees covered the sky, and the sound of birds and insects filled the air. He glanced around and fixed his gaze on an old tree, walking up to it and pulling off the clinging Usnea.

Xue Yuan followed, lifting his eyelids to take a glance. "What's this?"

"Usnea," Gu Yuanbai replied in a flat tone, continuing to gather the moss. "It can stop bleeding and detoxify. It's a useful thing."

There were only the two of them here, so it was evident who it was for. Xue Yuan's tense body relaxed slightly. He looked at the side profile of Gu Yuanbai, his mind still filled with the image of the large blade coming towards Gu Yuanbai just moments ago.

The sharp blade, about to strike Gu Yuanbai.

A piercing sound reached his ears, and Gu Yuanbai followed the source. It turned out to be Xue Yuan's hand inadvertently pressing down on the knife handle, causing it to scrape against the scabbard, creating a continuous sharp noise.

"Xue Yuan?"

Xue Yuan stared at Gu Yuanbai absentmindedly, not hearing him.

Gu Yuanbai removed his hand from the knife handle.

Xue Yuan snapped out of his thoughts and took off his blood-stained outer garment, revealing several knife wounds that were still bleeding. Gu Yuanbai placed the usnea on his wounds, and the light green usnea became stained with red blood. Xue Yuan remained silent as Gu Yuanbai treated the prominent wounds on his body. Gu Yuanbai asked, "Are there any more?"

Xue Yuan lifted his inner garment, revealing another bloody wound on his side.

Compared to him, Gu Yuanbai only had some of Xue Yuan's blood on him.

Gu Yuanbai personally applied medicine to Xue Yuan, sighing inwardly.

The antagonist's army sent someone to assassinate him, and he used the assassination attempt to his advantage, but he couldn't tell Xue Yuan about it.

Except for his trusted confidants, no one else could know.

Because behind this assassination attempt was Gu Yuanbai's plan to force those people to rebel and target the powerful Lords.

The situation within the Jiashen Society was currently in chaos. They had few troops and limited food supply. Their leader, Xu Xiongyuan, lacked strategic acumen but was extremely arrogant. Although he could put on a show of appearing respectful and deferential, his inherent greed made him prioritize personal interests above all else.

The reason he followed Lu Feng was that Lu Feng provided him with a lot of gold and silver. Now, as long as there was money and food, he dared to crush the powerful landlords for these things.

In ancient times, there was a term called "military disaster."

A military disaster was a calamity akin to locusts. This was a disaster initiated by Liu Bang, the founder of the Han Dynasty. When Liu Bang was conquering the world, he was extremely impoverished, and his peasant army was a group of rogues. In order to obtain military pay and rewards for his soldiers, every time he captured a city, he would let his soldiers plunder everything in the city.

The lands, crops, gold and silver of the powerful landlords, as well as the women and food of ordinary families, were looted. Some soldiers, driven by rage, would even kill ordinary people to vent their frustrations.

That was a military disaster.

If you wanted to maintain strict discipline in the army, ancient soldiers could only rely on military pay to establish a complete system of discipline and create a well-trained army. But without military pay, why would soldiers risk their lives for you?

The Jiashen Society, which lacked military pay, would also act in the same way. In the chaos of the South Jinghu region, the powerful landlords were never their partners. They would directly seize everything from the landlords. If they were already planning to rebel and didn't care about the emperor, why would they care about the landlords? They would seize the wealth of the landlords, continue to expand their troops, conquer one city after another, and ideally trample all the powerful landlords. This way, the new dynasty would be clean and free from the control of powerful landlords and aristocratic clans, just like Liu Bang's situation.

The imperial troops were the royal army, an army of benevolence and righteousness. They couldn't resort to the robbery and banditry of rebellious forces. Some things required using others as a tool to achieve the desired results.

And if the Jiashen Society didn't rebel, the powerful landlords would become local overlords. They enslaved the tenants in their lands, collected taxes for their own use, controlled the government, and built their own little kingdoms. Over time, the imperial court would weaken, the country would crumble, uprisings would occur everywhere, and more importantly, there were hostile foreign powers eyeing their country.

After being the emperor for three and a half years and holding power for half a year, Gu Yuanbai clearly saw the flaws in the Daheng Dynasty. He truly wanted to be a good emperor and genuinely wanted to create a prosperous and peaceful era.

But here's the problem.

Is it better to promote the rebellion of the antagonist's army now, causing the people of two provinces to suffer from military disaster in order to uproot the powerful landlords and curb their momentum? Or is it better to let the entire Da Heng Dynasty fall into turmoil in the next twenty or thirty years?

Neither option was good.

Between controllable disasters in two provinces versus future chaos throughout the entire Da Heng Dynasty, Gu Yuanbai didn't know how others would choose, but he had chosen to secretly promote the development of the rebel forces. Before making this decision, he had doubted and hesitated, feeling that he was too cold and ruthless. But indecisiveness was not in Gu Yuanbai's character.

He had made this decision half a year ago, so now he would make the greatest effort and plan meticulously to protect the people of these two provinces, but that was all he could do.

The situation of a country does not tolerate an emperor's indecisiveness. The conscience of a modern person must be suppressed to match the conscience of an ancient emperor at this time.

Perhaps the protagonist and the antagonist in the original text also made the same choice.

But this kind of matter couldn't be discussed with a minister. Regardless of whether Xue Yuan had genuine loyalty to the emperor or whether he would remain loyal to Gu Yuanbai in the future, Gu Yuanbai would never disclose such matters to him.

After a while, the bleeding stopped. Gu Yuanbai felt a bit heavy-hearted. He casually sat down, and after Xue Yuan put on his clothes, he approached and asked in a hoarse voice, "Are you uncomfortable?"

Gu Yuanbai casually replied, "No."

Xue Yuan leaned closer, chuckling softly, "I don't believe you, Your Majesty."

Gu Yuanbai glanced at him lightly, and Xue Yuan sat down beside him, saying, "Since Your Majesty is not in a good mood, let me tell you an amusing story."

Even with his own injuries, he still wanted to cheer up Gu Yuanbai. Gu Yuanbai felt like he was oppressing his ministers, so he touched his nose and smiled helplessly, saying, "Just take care of yourself."

Seeing him smile, Xue Yuan suggested, "Your Majesty, the sun is setting, and it might be nightfall on the way back. It's not safe to ride in the woods at night. How about finding a cave nearby and spending the night here?"

Gu Yuanbai nodded and stood up, saying, "Let's go."

The luck of the two was good. After riding for a while, they found a dry cave not far from a stream. Inside the cave, there was a grass bed and a dirty blanket, probably a cave where a hunter occasionally rested.

Xue Yuan went to find some firewood and looked at the nearby flowing stream. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind. "Your Majesty, would you like to wash your face?"

Gu Yuanbai replied, "No need."

At this point, he didn't care about anything anymore and added, "You are injured, so you shouldn't wash either."

Xue Yuan obediently replied, "Yes."

After tidying up the cave, Gu Yuanbai and Xue Yuan strolled through the jungle to find some wild fruits to eat. Gu Yuanbai came across several snake berries and picked a few, but when he looked up, he saw Xue Yuan jumping down from a tall tree with a bunch of wild fruits in his arms. With a casual glance, Gu Yuanbai suddenly froze, his tone stern, "Don't move!"

Xue Yuan immediately stopped in his tracks, furrowing his brow and speaking calmly, "Snake?"

A slender snake was sticking its head out from behind the branches, staring intently at Xue Yuan's neck.

Short and thin tail, colorful patterns on its body, triangular-shaped head—it was a venomous snake!

Gu Yuanbai dropped the snake berries from his hand, took out a small crossbow from his sleeve, loaded it with a good arrow, and raised his arm, aiming at the venomous snake.

Xue Yuan still had the leisure to laugh and said, "Your Majesty, please don't shoot me."

"Shut up," Gu Yuanbai's eyes were sharp, and he slowly approached, "Don't speak."

The sound of the whooshing arrow would startle the venomous snake, so it was best to get closer and deliver a fatal blow before it could react. Squinting his eyes, Gu Yuanbai aimed three short arrows at the snake's head, seven inches down its body, and its tail.

Xue Yuan appeared relaxed, but his entire body was already tense. One of his hands moved towards his dagger. Just as the two of them held their breath and focused, a rabbit suddenly darted through the grass!

Gu Yuanbai thought to himself, "This is bad," and almost in the next second, he activated the crossbow. The three arrows flew through the air towards the venomous snake. However, the snake was startled by the rabbit's movement and lunged towards Xue Yuan's neck.

Almost simultaneously, Xue Yuan turned around and swung his dagger. At the moment the arrows hit the snake, he had already cut it in half.

The snake convulsed on the ground and died completely. Gu Yuanbai breathed a sigh of relief, his features relaxed. He asked, "Are you injured?"

Xue Yuan lowered his head and glanced at his forearm, sighing.

Just as Gu Yuanbai approached him, his eyelid suddenly twitched.

"Your Majesty, I've been bitten," Xue Yuan said, "It tore my clothes."

Veins bulged on Gu Yuanbai's forehead. He endured it, but couldn't hold back and angrily shouted, "Why the fuck didn't you say so earlier?"

Chapter end