eurekapd Chapter 303 Bloody Battle
Chapter 303 Bloody Battle
In the first year, everyone was cautious and acted with great restraint. Most of the skirmishes between the parties were small-scale and did not escalate into large-scale battles.
The main force was the alliance of the independent cultivators' mutual aid society led by Wei Ying and the reformist faction led by the four families of Wen, Lan, Nie, and Lin, which together suppressed the old forces. Meanwhile, the mortal forces led by the Chen Dynasty, which had already been exposed by their trip to the Burial Mound of Yiling, watched coldly from the sidelines and did not easily express their stance on which side they were on!
Although the current situation suggests that Wei Ying's side has the advantage, both sides are very clear-headed and do not believe that this is the final outcome.
Everyone knows that both sides still have many trump cards up their sleeves that have not been revealed. At the very least, the elders of each family who have long since retired and gone into seclusion have not yet shown themselves, not to mention other hidden forces and intricate personal connections!
Even on Wei Ying's side, only the Loose Cultivator Mutual Aid Association appeared, while the existence of much larger and more deceptive minor families and the business empire controlled by Qingyan was not revealed to the world at all.
In the second year, the Hundred Families were suppressed by Wei Ying and Lan Wenjing's camp. The top first and second-tier families within the Hundred Families did not suffer too serious losses. After all, they were long-established and powerful forces with a long history, and they still had a high degree of control over their respective territories.
Therefore, the first wave of impact did not cause them much damage.
For a small, insignificant family with only a dozen or so cultivators at the bottom of the hierarchy, that was undoubtedly a devastating blow!
After all, the family has few members, and there are only one or two highly skilled cultivators, whose foundation is extremely shallow, so their control over the area under the family's jurisdiction is very limited.
The family's rise to power was too short, their family discipline was lax, and their relationship with the local people, independent cultivators, and mortal forces was particularly strained!
Due to a combination of factors, over the past year, more than a dozen of the weakest families in terms of power have been defeated and dispersed by a coalition of forces!
Not only were the territory and property divided up, but even the most wicked family members were publicly executed after their numerous crimes were exposed. The rest, whose crimes did not warrant death, received appropriate punishments according to the severity of their offenses!
As a result, amidst the shared sense of loss and fear, the last-ranked families of the old power faction lived in constant anxiety, dreading that one morning they would wake up to find their families following the same path as those who had gone before them.
Thus, the terrified patriarchs ruthlessly revealed all their family's trump cards and used every means at their disposal to leverage their connections and influence, uniting with the vast majority of other aristocratic families who shared the same anxieties, and collectively placing pressure on a few core families within their own camp—
The Jin clan of Lanling in the area east of Qilu, the Jiang clan of Yunmeng, the Xia clan of Huangzhou, the Yu clan of Shangyong and other small groups of families that were declining in the Jingchu region, the Qi clan of Heyuan in the Lingnan region, and the Mei clan of Leshan in the Bashu region.
The four core families, who were also deeply saddened by the fate of the dozen or so families that had fallen to their rivals, were alarmed and dared not allow the reformists to continue their actions.
As a result, the situation in the New Territories became increasingly volatile as they gradually escalated their actions. At least by the end of the year, several small and medium-sized battles had broken out between the two sides, including eleven brawls involving more than fifty people and twenty-two fierce battles involving more than one hundred people, with both sides suffering losses and casualties!
In the third year, the war escalated further, and the Chen Dynasty, which had been observing from the sidelines, also took the opportunity to join the fray!
Although the members of the old forces camp were quite estranged from the mortal forces represented by the Chen Dynasty, the principles upheld and promoted by Wei Ying's side were even more unfriendly to their interests. After weighing the two, the Chen Dynasty still chose to stand with the old forces camp!
At the same time, the elders and clan leaders of the major families in the old forces camp who had been in seclusion for a long time also appeared one after another, and they also brought many powerful rogue cultivators who had close ties with each family into the other camp.
After the increase and decrease of forces, the old forces gradually began to reduce the tendency to be suppressed by the other side during the war, and even showed a tendency to fight head-on without being at a disadvantage!
In the fourth and fifth years, the whole world was like a pot of boiling porridge, with all kinds of forces with their own demands caught up in it, struggling and unable to extricate themselves!
It was the sixth year.
The old forces frantically mobilized their own covert forces and spies planted within various factions of the reform camp, sowing discord and infiltrating people at all levels of the reform camp through coercion and enticement, while also inciting rebellion among those within the camp who were unwilling to see the reform succeed and thus risk harming their own interests.
In the middle of the sixth year, Wei Ying's side suffered heavy losses due to being caught off guard!
Qinghengjun Lan Wenjing was trapped, Wen Ruohan and Nie Changfeng were seriously injured, and 67 people, including the Wen Clan's Supreme Elder, who were at the late stage of pseudo-Golden Core, died in battle. 30% of the important mid-to-high-level commanders at the early stage of pseudo-Golden Core died in battle, and more than 7,000 other cultivators were killed or wounded. As many as 100,000 ordinary people were affected, and a total of 17 medium-sized towns were lost!
This time, Wei Ying's camp really suffered a terrible defeat. Who could have predicted that the old forces would be so despicable and ruthless, using countless innocent civilians as bait?
The sudden betrayal by deeply entrenched internal spies, traitors who had been turned against them, and stubborn opposition forces led to such a significant loss!