The eighty-fourth section is troublesome to pull

  The recent carefree days of the poor Tao were disturbed by a group of rascals, and he was extremely depressed!

  It all started with the Seventh Princess! With her and Nicolas Cage's leadership, the Vana Kingdom spent nearly two years clearing out the beastman threat, but at a great cost! The victory was painful! After this battle, the national treasury was depleted to an extreme degree. Poor them, they were once a mighty kingdom, but now their gold coins numbered less than 100,000. The nobles of the kingdom finally showed some enthusiasm and were found guilty by the king of hoarding wealth, fortunately, the king was still sane and only targeted those with no power or influence but had money, so much so that the king of Vana Kingdom was once called 'The Plundering King'. After the great war, the kingdom's upper and lower classes discovered an awkward problem - their national resources were fundamentally insufficient to support their massive army, especially the beastmen who ate a shocking amount. No one could afford to feed tens of millions of mouths like this. In order not to starve to death, the Vana Kingdom had only one way out - external expansion!

  The southern part of the Wana Kingdom is the sea, and not far from the coast is a group of islands with a country called Wa, whose people are extremely shameless, eating in the wild like they're having a meal, their shamelessness is even more extreme than that of beasts. Ironically, this country produces beautiful women, it's truly a wonderful combination of beauty and beast! However, expanding there is still unrealistic, the sea is always dangerous, and the shipbuilding industry hasn't reached the point where it can transport tens of thousands of troops!

  The other three sides of the Wana Kingdom have three major neighboring countries. The beastmen in the east are too poor, and even if they occupy them, it's just a waste of food, not worth taking! To the west is Kasia, where General Baladon and his Rock Legion have been stationed at Starro Fortress for decades without being able to take it down! This has brought them too many terrible memories. This time, they face a dire situation where defeat would be disastrous. Obviously, Starro Fortress is not a good choice either! So in the end, only the Great Han Kingdom can be made the sacrificial lamb!

  The relationship between the Vana Kingdom and the Great Han Kingdom is not good, my father's famous battle also had the cannon fodder of the Vana Kingdom as a paving stone! However, the national strength of the Great Han Kingdom is much stronger than that of the Vana Kingdom, and the White Tiger Army Corps, which has been stationed on the border between the two countries for many years, is not vegetarian. Generally speaking, they are more willing to provoke Kasia, so even if they lose, they will not face retaliation. But once they provoke the Great Han Kingdom, they may have to face a pincer attack from both the beastmen and the Great Han. However, this time the situation is different, although the beastmen were not completely annihilated, at least for several decades, they would not be able to make any major moves, and Kasia's Starlight Fortress was really too hard to chew. After removing the worries behind them, the Vana Kingdom undoubtedly had a better target than Starlight Fortress - the White Tiger Army Corps' hometown, White Tiger City.

  The Wana Kingdom mobilized over 100,000 troops this time, led by Nicolas Cage, and marched straight to the Great Han Empire. Nicolas Cage first took command of the 1 million-strong Lancer Corps as the vanguard, showing off his military prowess in front of the White Tiger Corps' base. The commander of the White Tiger Corps, Rick Kors, bravely launched a counterattack but was defeated three times and no longer dared to challenge the authority of the continent's number one general, hiding in the White Tiger City and not coming out.

  As he watched, Nicolas Cage's army of over 100 million surrounded him like a flood. However, it was now Nicolas Cage who was frustrated. His troops were numerous, but trying to launch a direct assault on the White Tiger City was just a dream. The city walls were 12 meters high, and the defensive measures had been strengthened year after year. As the Kors family's stronghold, they had put their heart into building it, and it was not an exaggeration to say that it was like a turtle shell.

  Inside, there were 500,000 regular troops and over 1 million civilians, with abundant food supplies that could last for several years. Nicolas Cage's original intention was not to capture the city but to surround it and wait for reinforcements. He wanted to defeat the relief army and then send troops into the Great Han Empire to plunder and solve their domestic grain and financial problems.

  After winning, he could also use diplomatic means to force the Great Han Empire to pay a large sum of military expenses. Unfortunately, his plan was not hidden from my grandfather. When the Ministry of War discussed sending reinforcements, my grandfather stopped them and pointed out that as long as the White Tiger City could hold on for three months, Nicolas Cage would definitely withdraw; otherwise, he would starve to death.

  If they sent troops to reinforce, my grandfather said: "Looking at the entire Great Han Empire, there is no general who can match Nicolas Cage. Whoever goes will die! Absolutely!" Although my father was not very convinced, my grandfather successfully blocked the plan to send direct reinforcements with his prestige and instead ordered the deployment of 300,000 troops from the Zhuque Corps to guard the Fei Ge Fortress behind the White Tiger City.

  The Fei Ge Fortress was 400 miles away from the White Tiger City and was the second line of defense for the imperial capital. This way, Nicolas Cage's original plan fell through, and with 300,000 troops stationed in the interior, he did not dare to divide his forces to plunder lightly! At least, he would not dare before defeating this 300,000-strong army!

  Originally, I was concerned about these national affairs, but not to the point of being depressed. They were fighting and it had nothing to do with me, right? But the problem lies in that small road I secretly discovered, which connects the Spirit Forest to the Warna Kingdom and my territory. There used to be no roads here, neither kingdom paid attention to this place, so there were no checkpoints or border troops, completely unguarded.

  It's all because of my greed, I shouldn't have sent those merchant teams to smuggle goods and sell the specialties of my domain to the Vana Kingdom. The Vana Kingdom has been at war for years and needs various materials, especially weapons and armor, which are specialties of mine. And we have dwarf tribes! Although I made a big profit, it also attracted attention from people with ulterior motives and exposed this secret passage. Fortunately, I was vigilant after the war began, and when one of the merchant teams that should have returned didn't come back, I immediately sent out winged troops to investigate. The report they brought back made me so depressed that I wanted to vomit blood! In Minda Town, the smallest town in Vana Kingdom closest to my domain, 200,000 elite cavalrymen from the Lanzhou Thunderbolt Army have gathered, and it's no surprise that their leader is Nicolas Kaito, that idiot! What makes me angry, depressed, and regretful is that many of the weapons and armor they're using are ones I sold to them, and the merchant team they intercepted was just delivering a large batch of military supplies, enough to arm 1,000 people! Damn it! Isn't this just shooting myself in the foot?!

  I had to call in my trusted advisors for an emergency meeting, which included Carlo, Old Man Ma, Mr. Wang, Mohan Patel the dwarf elder and Elven Auntie Kaylin, who was Mother's good friend and now the leader of the Elves here, as well as Papara the representative of the Winged people.

  After the situation was explained, Old Ma couldn't help but scold first: "Young Master, I told you before not to smuggle military equipment. After all, they might still be enemies of the Great Han Empire. Now look what's happened? Not only did you bring in Nicholas Cage, but you also armed their troops! Aren't you just asking for trouble?"

  "Haha! I'm not just thinking about everyone being human, but also can't bear to see innocent lives suffer, so I'm willing to risk the world's greatest danger to help them with some military equipment to resist the brutal beastmen! I am a young man who is wholeheartedly serving the people! Although that damned Vana Kingdom has disappointed my good intentions, as long as I think about how my sacrifices have saved countless human lives, I don't regret it at all!" The poor monk's words were righteous and stern.

  "Hahaha~~~~" Everyone laughed uncontrollably, and some even covered their stomachs and crawled under the table!

  "What's so funny? What's laughable about it?" The poor Taoist was enraged with shame.

  "Cut! I'm starting to doubt whether your bloodline is truly descended from the illustrious Dragon family?" The elf, Kaitlyn, was as always not giving me any face. She laughed and said: "If you were really that great, you wouldn't have sold military equipment at five times the price to people who couldn't afford it. You even forced them to use royal collection's precious magical artifacts as collateral, and of course, they only accepted after being pressed down to a third of the original value!"

  "Our military equipment is of good quality, so it's naturally more expensive. The price has to be higher, doesn't it?" The poor monk retorted disdainfully.

  "When they set a low price for second-rate goods, why didn't you disagree?" Aunt Kaylin asked.

  "Isn't that ruining the dwarves' master craftsmanship signboard!" I said solemnly, "We can't force the dwarves to produce inferior goods, can we?"

  "Excuse! There are also dwarven blacksmiths in your territory! You..."

  "Hola! Querida Aunt Kaylin, we are here to discuss how to deal with Nicolas Cage, not to criticize me as the leader!" The poor Taoist couldn't resist and had to change the subject!

  "Haha! Nicolas Cage is quite something among humans, but if he's up against us elves, he's still far off. Don't you have the usage rights for 10,000 elven warriors for a decade? Can't you just summon them and solve everything?"

  "No way!" The poor Dao refused, "Firstly, I couldn't bear to waste such precious resources just to deal with a crisis! Nicholas Cage isn't even in my eyes, he doesn't deserve such treatment! Secondly, what's the point of coming? In the Spirit Forest, the bursting magical elements might attract high-level magic beasts. What if a level 9 beast comes? How many of the 1,000 spirit mages will die? My grandma would kill me! But if we let them out to fight, Nicholas Cage isn't a vegetarian either. He has the most elite cavalry in his hands. The 1,000 spirit mages aren't necessarily guaranteed to win. What's more, he has 200,000 troops! Even if I support and we win, how many will we lose to take down Nicholas Cage's 200,000 troops? I don't want to sacrifice myself for the king's sake and suffer such a huge loss!"

  "Cut! You want to win the battle without taking any losses, you're thinking too beautifully!" Kelly Auntie laughed and said: "Do you think they should all be eaten by monsters?"

  "What's a demon beast?" The poor Taoist suddenly enlightened: "Right! It's a demon beast!"