The Emperor lay back in the bath again. His voice was ominous: "The signs of this matter appeared at the end of that great war forty years ago. The Barbarian Race's combat power during the war was obvious to all; when we hunted them down in desperation afterward, they must have fiercely resisted. Yet the army Yang Yansi dispatched to wipe out the remnants returned with few casualties. I suspected something was amiss back then, but did not investigate, merely assuming those below were lax and wishing to preserve the lives of soldiers."
"But now it seems all his calculations began from that very moment. Yang Yansi truly lives up to the fame of 'God's Ingenious Stratagems'; as for laying plans, few in this world can match him..."
The Emperor's information was prompt—even the frontline news reached him within less than an hour, near real-time. Thus he was already clear on the whole course and now relayed it briefly to Yang Xiusheng.
