This incident became a joke in Wusel’s high society, but that minor noble also gained something. Taking advantage of this audience opportunity, he married his daughter into a prestigious household, securing a powerful in-law with status and influence.

In fact, after each royal audience, Wusel City would experience a wave of wedding celebrations. For people of this class, these biennial gatherings and social events were incredibly important.

Displaying power, making high-level connections, arranging marriages—which of these didn’t require money?

The vast wealth flowing from them nourished all of New Summer, and under the royal court’s careful allocation, was used for national affairs and people’s livelihood.

With good governance and bountiful harvests in recent years, New Summer’s national power surging upward was only natural.

Yun Ya genuinely admired Feng Miaojun’s methods. Was there any need to rack one’s brains to exploit and squeeze officials and commoners? The nobles lined up to give her money, willingly and even fearing she wouldn’t accept it.

The benefits of this approach were also obvious:

The legitimate descendants of the nobles grew up in Wusel City from childhood, viewing it as their homeland. In the future, even if they were stationed in local areas, how would they be willing to betray and target their homeland?

The power of this edict would only become apparent after one or two decades, but the other two laws showed immediate effects:

With the nobles and wealthy nearly bled dry by the vampire queen, where would they find surplus money to rebel?

Of course, every advantage comes with disadvantages. Feng Miaojun also knew that the policies she had established encouraged exaggeration and extravagance. But in the face of the enormous benefits they brought and the urgent problems New Summer faced, these issues could be temporarily set aside.

Concentrating power to accomplish great things was her single-minded pursuit.

As for the process, she could be unscrupulous.

“What a devious queen, but I like it,” Yun Ya sighed. Other rulers calculated against other countries, but the New Summer sovereign calculated against her people. But even if the nobles saw through it, what could they do? She made the rules, and everyone had to play along. All nobles lived in the same circle and had to follow the rules within it—unless they wanted to be kicked out.

But looking at it from another angle, although they no longer had cash on hand, their assets had expanded. As long as Wusel City and the Golden Trade Route remained prosperous, their mansions and properties represented enormous wealth.

With just a few simple moves, Feng Miaojun had bound all the nobles to her chariot, making them rise and fall with New Summer. No wonder the Yan King’s secret machinations in recent years had been ineffective.

“I wonder when I’ll be able to marry you openly.”

Feng Miaojun couldn’t help but laugh. “If you dare marry me, I fear the people of New Summer would immediately turn against us.” Over these years, through her deliberate guidance, relations between New Summer and the Wei Kingdom had greatly improved. Wei’s silk and lacquerware were widely used in New Summer, and products from New Summer and Yao territory were transported to the Wei Kingdom via the Golden Trade Route. Both sides took what they needed, and in fact, had already become interdependent.

They even jointly developed several spirit stone veins.

But this didn’t mean there was no gap between the two countries, allowing their queen to marry the other’s State Preceptor. Hatred could be temporarily set aside, but the wounds left in people’s hearts from countless years of war were far from healed.

“We still need the right opportunity.” Yun Ya suddenly had an idea. “Why don’t we have a child? You can toss the throne to it, and we can roam the world freely.”

Feng Miaojun poked his forehead firmly. “What a beautiful dream! How would I explain the child’s father to my subjects?” She was twenty-five this year and still unmarried, making the elderly ministers in court nearly anxious to the point of their hair turning white. If an illegitimate child were to appear now, it would be a royal scandal that would frighten the old scholars to the point of collapse.

Alas, other young couples could drink the water of love to fullness, at worst abandoning everything to elope. But what about her?

Though the world was vast, there was no place for her and Yun Ya.

Even Yun Ya had no good solution for this dilemma and could only grasp her slender waist stubbornly. “I don’t care, in the end, you must marry me!”

Thinking of the smoke of war rising again and not knowing when they would next meet, Feng Miaojun’s heart softened. She allowed him to press her down, indulging his desires.

With separation imminent, how to relieve the anxiety? Only with…

That night, the peach blossom tree rustled, countless petals falling.

Three days later, the New Summer royal court indeed received war reports from the Yan-Wei front.

This earth-shaking great war finally fired its first shot. The Yan army boldly crossed the border under the cover of night during the Fire Blessing Festival, advancing twenty li in one night and capturing three frontier posts.

Then, they encountered the true front line of the two armies’ battle—the mighty Tongming Pass.

Yan Kingdom’s inherited border from former Xi was on the land bridge connecting the northern and southern continents. The terrain of this land bridge resembled a half-eaten apple core, thin and elongated, separating two oceans. On its two sides, the West Narrow Bay faced the Endless Sea, while the East Narrow Bay faced the Forbidden Sea.

But no matter how thin and long the land bridge was, its area was still as large as three Wusel cities. Therefore, it was impossible to cut it off like Yu Haizhen once blew up the land bridge outside Yinggong City.

Fortunately, mountain ranges were rising on this bridge of land. Between the cliffs, there was only one road truly passable for people, no more than a hundred zhang wide, easy to defend but difficult to attack.

The Wei Kingdom established Tongming Pass here. The wall thickness was originally three zhang. After the Yan Kingdom annexed Xi Kingdom, this area was reinforced three more times and protected by formation arrays. Now it had become a fortress armed to the teeth, truly deserving the description “iron pass.”

Half a month later, new war reports arrived, sinking the hearts of the New Summer court ministers.

To attack Tongming Pass head-on, even if the Yan army could eventually succeed, they would have to pay a heavy price. Not to mention the impact on morale if they lost their first battle. So the Yan army also dispatched several other teams to invade from the Drifting Sand Islands on the eastern side of the land bridge, hoping to use a circuitous approach to encircle Tongming Pass from the rear and make it lose its defensive power.

Naturally, the Wei people weren’t fools and had foreseen this. The coastline of East Narrow Bay was full of steep, strange cliffs, with only a few gentle beaches suitable for landing, all heavily guarded by the defenders.

The brutality of the beach landing battle was no less than that at Tongming Pass, with corpses strewn everywhere as soon as the fighting began.

Theoretically, in beach landing battles, the defenders usually held the advantage. Moreover, both Yan and Wei were powerful nations of the age, with little difference in the quality of their cultivators and ordinary soldiers. However, no one expected the Yan army to deploy their secret weapon in this battle—

The Sea Demon Army.

It was unknown how the Yan Kingdom persuaded the demon army leaders to assist, but this force of several thousand sea demons attacked the Drifting Sand Islands front line, tearing open a gap for the Yan army and reversing the situation in one stroke.

Soon after, East Narrow Bay fell, and the Yan army launched a surprise attack on Tongming Pass from behind, achieving a great victory.