TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY, I CULTIVATE USING QI LUCK

Chapter 963: Chapter 401: The Arrow is on the String Chapter 963: Chapter 401: The Arrow is on the String From the twenty-fifth year of Shenwu, the golden age that had lasted for more than a decade seemed to be showing signs of trouble.

Firstly, there were incessant incursions from Barbarian tribes from the north and west into Hanzhong Prefecture.

To ensure the security of the borders, the court had no choice but to dispatch an army of two to three hundred thousand annually, to regularly sweep through the regions of Longxi and Helong, which bordered Hanzhong.

Hundreds of thousands of troops and even greater numbers of migrating Barbarians nearly turned the entire Yong West into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Each year, millions of Barbarians were killed, but the court fared no better.

Tens of thousands of soldiers died in the northwestern frontier over the years, with the injured surpassing one hundred thousand.

The losses could only be described as devastating.

Yet, these steppe Barbarians and foreign tribes from the Western Regions seemed unending, as if they could never be completely eliminated.

With each year, a new wave would arrive on the lands of Yong West, and then repeat what the previous group had done, engaging in a fight to the death with Chu State.

That unwavering will to survive, to find a way of life, was fundamentally indestructible.

For it was an instinct embedded in the marrow of their bones, carved into the culture of a people.

To survive, even knowing that today’s Yong West was a deadly meat grinder for all who entered, vast numbers still rushed in to fight for the existence of their tribes, seeking a chance in this hunting ground of life.

Chu State could only passively join this war, battling for survival alongside those Barbarian tribes.

It was much like Zhou Country in the past, bogged down by the affairs in Helong, hamstrung by the countless tribes fighting for life, consistently weakened in this alien land stained with blood.

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However, Chu State was at a slight advantage over Zhou Country—Chu was larger in size, and faced fewer and weaker enemies.

So, even as it bled continuously, its capacity to regenerate was stronger.

The loss of blood was quickly replenished by fresh blood, leaving the body even stronger than before, without allowing any significant damage to occur.

Perhaps that’s why Chu State managed to persevere through the cruel northwestern conflicts, despite such heavy casualties, instead of opting for a defensive contraction.

If the death toll in the northwestern Helong could be considered a painful but bearable injury for Chu State,

then the pirate chaos that began in the twenty-fifth year of Shenwu, originating from the South Sea, was a chronic itch that seemed impossible to cure.

As the subterranean fires in the South Pole began erupting, many island nations in the Southern Sea Island Domain had no choice but to take to the seas, searching for land in the North, undisturbed by volcanic activity, to find a place to settle.

Thus, although constrained by a lack of ships, these southern island nations, unlike the steppe Barbarians and the Western region foreign tribes, couldn’t migrate en masse.

But given the environment of the South Sea, with countless islands, these island nations were accustomed to traveling by boat and favored building large ships, with navigation mainly reliant on vessels.

If the foundation of the nations in the Nine Provinces were primarily their armies, then for the nations of the South Sea, naval forces took precedence.

Consequently, even a small country in the South Sea could dispatch thousands of ships, with dozens capable of navigating open seas.

Some of the larger South Sea nations had fleets of tens of thousands of boats, thousands of sea-worthy ships that covered the sky and the sea like locusts.

With these island nations swarming toward the North like this, it almost guaranteed the deterioration of the sea borders.

In comparison to the other states of the Nine Provinces, Chu State was considered a major maritime power.

Yet, even Chu State’s naval fleet did not exceed one hundred thousand ships, and among them, those that could be considered large, seaworthy vessels would not surpass three thousand.

With this strength, facing the overwhelming number of South Sea naval forces, which amounted to tens to hundreds of thousands, was akin to a pebble in the raging waves—sure to be engulfed upon impact.

Hence, aside from initially insisting on patrolling the sea areas to suppress the pirates, Chu State eventually retreated to its ports after sustaining losses of more than half its fleet and chose to conserve its strength.

Apart from guarding certain key regions, they no longer ventured out.

As a result, Chu State’s vast maritime borders became a paradise for the South Sea pirates—flares of conflict erupted everywhere.

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Tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands of pirates roamed the coastal areas, occasionally raiding inland, so severe that some even attacked towns and openly established their own enclaves.

After all, these sea pirates who came across the seas essentially sought a land for their nations and tribes—a marked distinction from ordinary pirates driven solely by the desire to plunder.

Naturally, such attempts at claiming territory were met with severe retribution from Chu State.

At sea, limited by a weaker naval presence, Chu State was forced to concede.

But once those South Sea pirates landed, without their ships to rely on, Chu’s military felt no fear.

It didn’t even require Chu’s forces to act; the coastal vassal states in Lingnan themselves mobilized and chased off any pirates attempting to encroach on their land straight back into the sea.

One side desperately trying to land, the other suffering from coastal pirate plagues, the struggle continued.

Even Chu State’s coastal prefectures of Linhai, Guangling, and Jianan were forced, due to the pirate troubles, to abandon many small towns along the coast.

Except for a few heavily guarded large towns, many people were relocated to the safer inland.

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