Chapter 2434: I Want to Go Take a Look

When Zhao Yun arrived at the Political Office, the elders of the Civil Official faction were dealing with the problems left behind by Lul Jun. This matter was rather troublesome; just the list of people involved in such a short time was enough to give everyone a headache—too many people were implicated.

More importantly, elders like Sunx Qian and Liu Yan, who only ever got involved in practical affairs, had unexpectedly been dragged into the mess as well. Sunx Qian’s daughter, Liu Yan’s Lady—though they had merely invested money—sometimes, in some matters, it isn’t simply about money, it’s about attitude.

If you add Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping, those two old men who represent Liu Bei, plus Liuu Luo, who clearly has a Chen Xi background, there were already a lot of elders present who had gotten involved in this matter without knowing it. More crucially, they themselves were unaware.

“Zilong, you’re here. How did it go?” Chen Xi saw Zhao Yun hurrying over, was taken aback at first, then asked with a smile.

“Judging from that look of yours, you must have won. Congratulations, congratulations.” Guo Jia said with a grin. “Remember to treat me to a drink later; I’ve been reciting blessings for you for a long time.”

Zhao Yun laughed and glossed over the previous battle with Lyu Bu, then went to the main topic. “Here’s the situation: earlier, Marquis Wenn descended to Western Asia with a Will Body, then shattered the Void and traded blows with the Romans in Western Asia.”

Everyone present was stunned as they listened, but none of them spoke. They all had a prejudgment of just how strong Lyu Bu was. Simply shattering the Void was already something no normal person could do, yet Lyu Bu could accomplish it with ease.

“How did it end?” Chen Xi motioned for Zhao Yun to continue. The other details weren’t important; this point was crucial.

“Roughly speaking, Marquis Wenn won, but he didn’t truly take the opponent down. Marquis Wenn asked me to inform you all that the arrangements we’ve made in Western Asia are completely incapable of dealing with the Romans.” Zhao Yun did not tell the others about Lyu Bu’s injuries; instead, he kindly concealed that part.

“Rome has fully invaded Parthia?” Chen Xi asked with a frown. He had little reason to doubt it. In proper history, it seemed this happened even earlier than now; under Severus’s command, the Romans attacked Parthia, and not long afterward they captured the Parthian Capital City Taysi Sealed, destroying the Parthian Empire.

Though later there was still a Vologases VI or whatever, in truth those could only be called regional regimes. But as far as he remembered, world history from that point on entered a mode that no longer cared about plausibility—namely Ardashir, who rose from nothing to found Sasanian Persia.

Rome emptied out all of Parthia’s Essence Zones, even dragging off many adult males as slaves and such. Yet under those circumstances, Ardashir, currently twenty and ten years later thirty, successfully embarked on a defiant journey against the heavens.

Just how defiant was this journey? Put simply, at the start he barely had any troops, but sixteen years later Ardashir possessed all the territory of the Parthian Empire at its height.

Then he kept campaigning north and south, even beating Kushan to its knees. The Kushan King declared himself a vassal to Ardashir. Though at the time part of the reason was that after Vasu Deva I died, the Second Generation couldn’t keep a grip on domestic affairs, and Kushan split into a Central Asia and South Asia section.

In all of this, it can be said that if there had been a single battle that defeated Ardashir, it would have been impossible for him to go that far, and the so‑called Sasanian Persian Dynasty wouldn’t have needed to be established.

Having crushed Kushan, Ardashir was hailed as King of Kings. What followed was when the real god‑tier operations began: Sasanian Persia started counterattacking Rome, invading Mesopotamia, and succeeded. After that, the dynasty’s record of victories went wild. By then Ardashir had already changed his title to the King of Kings!

Of course, those later episodes—sacking Rome, capturing the Roman Emperor, and cycling through all sorts of methods that Parthia would have considered fancy ways of courting death—had already happened after Ardashir himself died.

But regardless, twenty‑two years of campaigning north and south, going from nothing to building a vast Empire of five to six million square kilometers with more than ten million of the ethnic core population, was indeed so shocking as to leave one speechless.

All in all, when Chen Xi thought about the next hundred years of world history, he had only one feeling: the main thread was basically overturning defeat and defying the heavens without any concern for plausibility.

In proper history the Third Century opens from the year 200: in the Central Plains, the Battle of Guandu is overturned, the Battle of Red Cliff is overturned, the Battle of Yiling is overturned; in world history, Sevi steamrolls the Parthian Empire and turns Parthia to ruins; Ardashir regathers it all and reestablishes the cosmos; the Sasanian Empire rises again and stands proudly for four hundred years.

If you think about the Third Century in world history, aside from the chaos in the Central Plains, there are probably only these few items worth telling: the first thirty‑five years narrate the rise of the Sasanian Persian Dynasty; from year thirty‑five to eighty‑five describe how Rome managed to have twenty‑six emperors die within fifty years; after year eighty‑five you can start talking about the causes of the Western Jin Eight Kings Rebellion and the course of that chaos.

“I don’t know if they have fully invaded Parthia, but Marquis Wenn told me that the enemy’s military lineup is roughly six Breakthrough Level experts, more than forty Inner Qi Manifestation, over two hundred thousand Mighty Army troops, and among them there are certainly Military Spirit Legions.” Zhao Yun solemnly laid out the figures that chilled everyone present. The reason Lyu Bu knew there were Military Spirit Legions was that Gao Shun had retreated!

“Pa, pa, pa.” Chen Xi clapped his hands to draw everyone’s attention. “No need to be like this. We don’t have six Breakthroughs, but we’ll soon have more than forty Inner Qi Manifestation, and moreover war isn’t something that can be decided by a handful of experts. They have two hundred thousand Mighty Army; we have four hundred thousand Armored Soldiers, and if necessary we can field a million Armored Soldiers.”

“That sounds right, but we can’t project our forces that far.” Jia Xu tapped lightly on the desk and spoke. “If Rome is preparing to use such strength to crush Parthia, then for Parthia to hold, its main battle strength cannot be less than half of that.”

“As for Parthia, I actually lean toward the Romans’ proposal. The Roman Envoy’s attitude was very clear last time he came: join hands with us to carve up Parthia.” Li Youu spoke slowly; he had never wavered from this idea.

“Impossible. With the strength we have stationed there, we simply have no qualification to share Parthia with Rome.” Lub Su, bundled up like a ball and only showing his head as he puffed out white breath, said.

As the three spoke, Guo Jia and Fa Zheng each expressed their own views.

“Zilong, you’ve been staying in Ye City lately; you won’t have any more clashes with Marquis Wenn, right?” Chen Xi asked.

“No, but I’ll still try not to show up in front of Marquis Wenn.” Zhao Yun shook his head.

“I’m considering something: would you be willing to go to Western Asia to lie low for a while? For you, that distance really isn’t that far, and with the White Horse Cavalry you could be there in a month.” Chen Xi slowly made the suggestion.

“You mean to give Parthia some psychological support, so they can hold out longer?” Guo Jia asked, brows knitting. “That’s not impossible either—if they can last a year, then we’ll have the qualification to share Parthia with the other side.”

“It has to be absolute strength support.” Chen Xi shook his head and explained. At this point, psychological support was useless. With Rome fielding such a force, Parthia might as well wash up and go to bed; there was simply no way they could win. Although he hadn’t seen Parthia with his own eyes, Chen Xi roughly knew the situation.

Thus, Chen Xi didn’t hold much hope for Parthia. Severus was a warmonger who squandered the legacy of the Five Wise Emperors without a second thought; to say nothing else, even though the Empire’s military strength had not yet reached its peak, it was already beyond what Parthia could contend with.

“You’re saying that no matter what, the Parthians definitely can’t beat the Romans?” Fa Zheng asked slowly, his brows furrowed. “But if that’s the case, what was the point of your earlier suggestion to Kongming, Zhongda, and even General Gao and General Zhang to go to the Western Regions, and your hint that they should get involved in Parthia’s war against Rome?”

“Parthia absolutely cannot beat Rome.” Chen Xi nodded. “The gap between the two sides is too large. My original intention in having them take part in Parthia’s war against Rome was to buy more time, to make the Romans hesitate a bit before striking. It’s just that…”

Rome’s stance of “no matter who you are, this time we’re going to wipe out Parthia even if it kills us” left the Han Dynasty rather vexed. After all, the route wasn’t open yet; for the Han to go there and truly fight back, they’d need at least two hundred thousand troops, and the deployment of such a force—leaving aside other supplies and equipment—would probably take half a year just in transport.

“The situation needn’t be that dire. If Parthia truly is an Empire, then at the very least they won’t be lacking in One Talent Elite troops.” Jia Xu shook his head, cutting Chen Xi off. “What Marquis Wenn saw may not be the final battlefield at all—it might only have been an ordinary retreating battle.”

“We’ve already provided very ample support.” Li Youu spoke as well. “When the fundamentals are not lacking, the influence of peak combat power on national strength is very clear. If under such conditions Parthia still can’t hold, then sending more peak combat power will be useless.”

Li Youu understood well that Basic Combat Power is what gets fed into wars of attrition; the role of peak combat power is to lead the basic forces in breaking open the situation.

In any case, after committing peak forces such as Trap Formation, Iron Cavalry, Wolf Cavalry, and Danyang, if Parthia still can’t stabilize the situation, then the problem definitely lies with Parthia itself—in other words, even its Basic Combat Power is already failing.

“But in Zilong’s case, we can indeed give it some consideration.” After a brief silence, Li Youu continued. “On open plains, the White Horse Cavalry can do a lot, and with six Breakthrough Level experts on the enemy side, we really do need to think this through.”

“Uh, speaking of it, I really do want to make a trip to Western Asia.” Zhao Yun thought for a moment and said. “I want to see Sulinarari for myself.”

In fact, Zhao Yun didn’t just want to see Sulinarari. More importantly, he wanted to kill him!