Zhong Heng felt that the heavens were not fair to him. Everytime they gave him some benefits, before he could truly enjoy them, they would be cruelly taken away from him.
Back in the Central Plains, his official career had been full of frustrations. When he noticed that he did not have any achievements after joining the military for many years, he spent a large amount of money to earn a small official post in the Ministry of Defence. However, after only one month into the job, he got posted to Western Region on the pretext that it was for him to undergo a few years of training and that he would have a post waiting for him upon return to the Central Plains. In reality, it was more like exile.
In name, he had been promoted from a sixth to fifth-grade official, but in a convoluted and dangerous environment such as Jade City where the bad mixed with the good, the post of commandant was without actual authority. The nucleus of his job was to ensure the personal safety of the Governor; it was not much different from being a butler.
Different from the Governor, who could easily obtain a ‘Protective Talisman’, namely a large amount of money, at the end of his term, Zhong Heng did not even have many chances to be bribed.
As he saw for himself how there were rich people all over North City and countless pleasures to be indulged in South City, he realized that it was extremely painful to be poor. It was like forcing an extremely hungry beggar watching the guests in the opposite inn gorge themselves of food through his window.
Living under such torment that he could feel all the time made him develop a nihilistic attitude towards life. “Should I be loyal to the Emperor? But I’ve never even seen the ground he walked on before. Should I love my country? The Central Plains is hundreds of miles away and every benefit I fight for here in Jade City will somehow wind its way into the hands of the Governor—it’ll have nothing to do with my nation. Should I work towards my ideals? My only wish is to be covered with riches, even at the expense of 10 years of my own life,” he thought.
Then, a weird youth called Slave Huan appeared in his life.
The first time they met, the both of them rarely spoke to each other. Even so, the experienced Zhong Heng could immediately spot the uniqueness in the youth. He was known as a ‘slave’ but there was still a residual aura of pride carried over from his days being well-off.
It was common in the Western Region for someone to become from poor to rich and vice versa; there were instances of royalty becoming slaves. However, it was not usual for someone who had undergone the tough, inhuman training of the Golden Roc Fort to not entirely accept the role of a slave.
When Slave Huan accepted the commandant’s advice that ‘discovering the truth and solving the issue are two entirely different things’ and successfully extricated himself and the Xu siblings from the homicide case, Zhong Heng felt that the youth was not an ordinary person. That said, it was just a thought he had at that point in time.
What Slave Huan did not know was that his actions at that time gave the commandant much encouragement. It was the first time anyone had valued the insight of this lowly fifth-rank official. Zhong Heng was a man of usual literary talent and his kung fu was average; the only things he prided himself in having been his vision and accurate judgement. However, in the eyes of his superiors, they were not merits but flaws that made them afraid. As a result, they did not trust him and kept finding excuses to exclude him from the inner circle.
One was a commandant who was middle-aged and still unaccomplished, while the other was a youth who was keeping his hatred in check and biding his time for revenge. Their fates were intertwined from that moment onwards, although sometimes they were on the same path and other times on separate ones.
Many years later, Slave Huan became the Dragon King, and Zhong Heng became Prime Minister of the Stone Kingdom in one swoop with his help. Even though it was such a weak nation, it could also be considered a big transition in his life.
The heavens were still unfair to him. Before Zhong Heng could have a real taste of being Prime Minister, the Stone Kingdom was invaded and more than half of its lands had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Only the capital was left, barely managing to keep the enemy at bay.
This time, Zhong Heng did not plan to give in; he did not know if he would have a similar opportunity in the future. No matter what, he wanted to keep it within his grasp and he had no plans to let go.
When the Dragon King had left the Stone Kingdom to rescue the army of the Great Snowmountain, he had promised that he would have come back with reinforcements two months later. Even so, Zhong Heng’s judgement told him that even if the Dragon King came back within the promised time, the small Stone Kingdom would still be unable to hold off a huge enemy. As such, he had to carefully plan for the future.
The Stone Kingdom now was extremely chaotic and lacking in cohesion. The former Prime Minister, Yang Dou, was exiled, and there were only a few hundred people left in its army. Its people were in fright and distrustful of their new Prime Minister, while their king was sickly and simple-minded; his only passion was receiving the carefully orchestrated worship of the eunuchs every morning.
The only force he could rely on was those led by the macheteman, Lin Xiaoshan. This forced consisted of dozens of swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain, more than 200 bandits who were unclear which side they stood on as well as four to five hundred soldiers of the Stone Kingdom itself.
The coalition forces of the other four kingdoms surrounding the Xiaoyao Lake were already closing on the Stone Kingdom’s borders, which left the newly appointed Prime Minister not much time to act. Zhong Heng immediately began acting on a few things.
He abandoned the tactic of waging war all over the country and sent out messengers to summon all of the soldiers stationed at the border posts back to the capital. In this way, he managed to squeeze out a little more than 200 soldiers.
His next move was to request all of the citizens of the Stone Kingdom to relocate to the capital within three days, and they were only allowed to bring along provisions, money and various jewelry along with them. The Prime Minister promised his people that after the war, their lands and houses would be returned to their original owners and all damages to their property would be borne by the treasury. This last statement caused many citizens who were hesitant to make up their mind to swarm into the capital.
Zhong Heng even made time to make friends with the group of bandits according to jianghu rules and not as the Prime Minister of the Stone Kingdom. Very quickly, he found out the truth that the person they turned to, or rather feared, was not the Dragon King, but his female guard, Maid Lotus. Their fear of her was so great that it was enough to garner some degree of loyalty.
The very day of the Dragon King’s departure, Zhong Heng had confiscated the assets of his predecessor, Yang Dou; they amounted to such a high value that it even exceeded that of the national reserves. Zhong Heng did not report the assets but used them to hire craftsmen to patch up the castle walls and also to attract the youthful farmers who were entering the city into joining the army.
The most important supply he had to secure was still provisions, for without food, no matter how strong his army was, it would be unable to guard the city for long.
War was suddenly upon the Stone Kingdom and its official reserve of provisions was extremely small. As such, Zhong Heng used both force and tact to bolster the country’s supply of provisions. On one hand, he purchased provisions from the common folk at exorbitant prices while he forced the wealthy and nobles to give up their personal supplies on the other.
It was one of the most important reasons as to why the Stone Kingdom managed to hold on to its capital. After only three months, the price of provisions shot up so much that even an offer of 10 times the original price of rice would not be enough to purchase any from its citizens.
The confiscated money from the Yang Family was soon drying up and Zhong Heng held two discussions with the king before realizing that he was unable to persuade the latter. As such, he decided to bypass the incompetent king and took control of the national reserves as well as the royal treasury. He also sent out his people to take over the shops and banks in the kingdom which were owned by the Meng family by force. In this way, he managed to gather another sum of money.
Even so, it was an impossible mission trying to secure the capital with barely 1000 soldiers. After all the hard work Zhong Heng put in, he would need to rely on the wrong strategy used by his enemies to barely hang on to the small kingdom that he just got to govern.
The other four nations surrounding the Xiaoyao Lake, namely the Kang, An, Sha and Hui Kingdoms, had formed a coalition army of about 2,000 soldiers. The Kang Kingdom was the strongest of them and sent a general to marshal its troops while its prince remained with the other soldiers. Before they even reached the border of the Stone Kingdom, they met with its exiled ex-Prime Minister, Yang Dou, who wanted to defect.
It just happened that the three of them had a major disagreement on military strategy.
The general felt that he had too few soldiers and that did not suit his troops to take the capital of the Stone Kingdom by force. He wished to entice the enemy to engage at their border in usual battle formations and to spread the news that the coalition forces would give the king of the Stone Kingdom special treatment and allow him to keep his crown, thereby hastening the surrender of their enemy.
Yang Dou, on the other hand, was extremely vengeful. He felt that the Stone Kingdom did not belong to the royal family but was the private property of the Yang clan. Now that it was forcibly taken away from him, he wanted to use all means necessary to seize it back—even if it came at the cost of countless lives. He made several tempting promises to his newfound allies, claiming that the citizens of the Stone Kingdom had long lost their sense of loyalty toward the royal family and that there were still many supporters of the Yang clan in the city; if the coalition forces attacked quickly enough, they would be able to seize the capital without even fighting, as the city gates would be opened for them to walk into.
The Prince of the Kang Kingdom, however, was still reminiscing about the Princess of the Stone Kingdom. As such, he did not wish to transfer rulership of the Stone Kingdom back to Yang Dou. Also, both their kingdoms shared a common border, and seizing more land would not only force the Stone Kingdom to change its mind and allow him to wed its Princess, it would also expand the might of the Kang Kingdom.
The three of them debated for many days, thereby missing the prime opportunity to attack. They finally came to a conclusion that they would divide the army into two: one half of it would attack the capital while the other seize the other towns and settlements of the Stone Kingdom.
It was a strategy that was eventually proven to be completely wrong.
When the first half of the army advanced to a spot about more than 15 kilometers away from the capital of the Stone Kingdom, they received unexpected news that not only were the city gates not opened to welcome the arrival of the coalition forces, the defenders were standing guard over the city walls and their strength increasing everyday. As of now, they numbered to more than a thousand soldiers, matching that of the invaders.
Yang Dou was extremely disappointed at the turn of events and therefore personally wrote dozens of letters urging the supporters of the Yang clan to make their move before getting archers to attach them to their arrows and shoot them into the city in the night.
He got his answer the next morning when dozens of heads were flung out of the city; the victims included descendants of the Yang clan as well as people who were known publicly to be its supporters.
After that incident, Yang Dou’s standing in the coalition army diminished to ‘dispensible’.
The other half of the coalition army was seizing territory within the borders of the Stone Kingdom and noticed that all the towns were uninhabited; the citizens only left their houses and bulky items behind. When the invading soldiers realized that there were no riches for them to loot, they were enraged and began to burn down all the infrastructure they encountered.
News of the invaders’ actions spread to the capital and gave Zhong Heng’s cause a huge boost as the citizens of the Stone Kingdom, who up till now were adopting a wait and see attitude, developed a common hatred of their enemy overnight. Soon, no one brought up the idea of surrender again.
As both sides were evenly matched, many of the defenders even wished to engage their enemy in a decisive battle outside the castle walls, in the hope that they could crush the invaders in one blow.
Zhong Heng managed to keep a clear head. Even though the army of the Stone Kingdom had grown in numbers, he knew that their combat power was not that high and there was a low possibility of them winning if they engaged their enemy brashly. If they lost the battle, the morale that was built up overnight would immediately come crashing down. As such, he stood his ground and ordered his troops to maintain their defensive posture.
It took an entire month before the coalition forces managed to meet up. By that time, they had finally come to realize that the Stone Kingdom did not have any plans to surrender to them and it was only then did they begin to attack the city.
The siege lasted for more than half a year.
Once news of the demise of the Dragon King and the entire army of the Great Snowmountain spreaded to the Stone Kingdom, it nearly crushed its people but Zhong Heng did not allow himself to believe that. He decided to place all his stakes on his hunch and miraculously, his resoluteness moved many people. The citizens of this small piece of land were the only ones in the entire Western Region to firmly believe that the Dragon King was still not dead and that he was gathering more troops before coming back to rescue their nation.
During the siege, there were many instances whereby the coalition forces had the intention to retreat, but the Golden Roc Fort was on an unstoppable rampage throughout Western Region and the speed of its expansion caught everyone by surprise. As such, the other four kingdoms surrounding the Xiaoyao Lake knew that their status as the Supreme King’s allies would soon be diminished to vassals before eventually becoming his slaves; even their eventual sovereignty, albeit in name only, was standing on shaky ground.
The fact that the coalition forces were no longer fighting to get more benefits for their respective nations but on behalf of the Supreme King kept lowering the morale of the besiegers, but it was also for this reason that they did not dare to surrender for no good reason.
Life was not rosy inside the city as well. As the war dragged on, the supplies of the defenders grew lesser and provisions had to be rationed out everyday. Even so, it only kept them half full and their morale had also hit rock bottom. It was only because of their Prime Minister’s iron fist that none of them dared to surrender.
After a few months, the Supreme King sent a new Commander to take over the siege. He summoned more soldiers from the four nations and started huge waves of attacks.
It got harder trying to defend the capital and even Zhong Heng began to doubt that the Stone Kingdom could keep the defense up for much longer. He began to think that the Dragon King was either dead or never returning back to the Western Region again.
It was at this moment that the new Commander of the coalition forces sent a messenger bearing a letter. It was written with unprecedented civility and friendliness towards the defenders, praising the tenacity of Prime Minister Zhong and the citizens of the Stone Kingdom before offering very generous terms of surrender: if the defenders were to open the city gates and surrender now, the Stone Kingdom would be able to maintain its sovereignty and Zhong Heng would also be guaranteed to remain in his current post by the Golden Roc Fort. As for the citizens of the Stone Kingdom, they would be allowed to return to their old lodgings and not receive any punishment.
These were incredible terms of surrender for everyone in the Stone Kingdom, including the King and the Prime Minister. Once the contents of the letter were ‘unintentionally’ made public by the messenger from the coalition forces, support for immediate surrender skyrocketed and it gave Zhong Heng immense pressure, eventually forcing him to agree to formal negotiations.
Meanwhile, news that the Dragon King was leading his army across Wushan into the Xiaoyao Lake region was kept under a strict gag order by the coalition forces outside the city walls.