Chapter 438

"Is this what the heartland of the empire looks like now?"

The vast plain was desolate and lonely in winter.

Weiwei stood on the shaft of the sedan chair, looked at the desolate land, and sighed.

Behind her sedan chair was a dilapidated town, but it was also a rare town with a large number of living people gathered on her way south.

The civil war caused by the struggle for the throne has turned the heartland of the empire into a scorched earth.

The various forces heading north to Mengchuan City made the life on the road to the north only one in ten survived.

It was better within the Mengchuan Kingdom. At least there were only a few villages that were slaughtered by the chaotic army. Most of the villages that were not adjacent to the official road were not slaughtered. It was probably because the troops heading north to seize the Gate of Time and Space were in a hurry to leave and were too lazy to take a detour to slaughter.

And it was not good to see after leaving the territory of the Mengchuan Kingdom.

Without her protection, other places in the northern border were also affected by the smoke of civil war.

Many remote towns far from the official roads were also slaughtered.

Bandits pass by like combs, soldiers pass by like combs.

In this era, wars make ordinary people more desperate than encountering groups of bandits.

She couldn't even see a few refugees along the way, and there were countless bodies lying on the roadside. She couldn't remember how many corpses she saw.

The severe winter in the north has arrived. Most of these corpses are refugees who have been homeless due to wars. They are desperate and frozen to death in the severe cold of the north. There are countless corpses.

Weiwei only remembers asking the people accompanying her to bury the bodies on the roadside as she walked, which seriously delayed her speed of going south.

The journey that was originally expected to take about half a month to twenty days to arrive, now more than half a month has passed, and she has only walked halfway, leaving the broad northern border of the empire and officially entering the core area of ​​the empire.

But she didn't expect the situation in the core area to be more severe than the situation encountered along the way in the north.

After all, the real battlefield of her brothers was here.

When the civil war was at its peak, she would read the war reports every day.

It was obviously difficult to understand what kind of harm a war of this scale would cause to ordinary people just by looking at the war reports.

She had not even taken these civil wars seriously before, because compared with the super-large-scale battles she had learned from history books before, the scale of the current civil war in the Chiyang Empire was really not that big.

But after walking this way, she was also enlightened.

It was hard to imagine that such a small-scale war would cause so many ordinary people to die for no reason and countless people to become homeless.

Those super battles recorded in history, where the scale of the troops fighting between the two sides reached millions or tens of millions, and the wars often lasted for several years or even decades, would lead to what kind of scenes of devastation.

After all, these wars were completely different from the wars she had fought with those foreign races in the north.

Mengchuan City was originally a military fortress, and there were not many residents around it. Outside the city was an endless mountain range.

There were not many residents in the area where the two sides fought.

But the war within the empire was different. Once the war started, the people were living in misery.

Ordinary people were both resources and burdens for the army that had already fought red-eyed.

When needed, they would recruit civilians to dig fortifications, defend the city, and fill ditches.

When not needed, they would be dispersed on the spot to avoid wasting food in the camp.

The more ruthless ones would directly slaughter all the ordinary people who were temporarily recruited and no longer needed, so as to avoid being gathered by the enemy after being dismissed and becoming an obstacle to the war.

This cruel and bloody scene was something that the spoiled Weiwei had never seen before.

Her three views were almost shattered along the way.

But apart from burying the unattended corpses and finding a way to settle the living people she met, she had no other way to deal with this scene.

Although several princes had been captured alive by her, this time she took them directly back to the imperial capital, preparing to execute them in front of the whole world in the imperial capital.

Theoretically, the civil war was over.

But the reality was obviously not the case.

The armies under the command of several princes scattered in a hurry, and in an instant they changed from regular armies that "suppressed rebellion", "punished the people", "purged the emperor's side", and "served the king" to bandits, wantonly plundering resources and property throughout the hinterland of the empire.

She had asked Chiyang to order the troops that could still be commanded in the imperial capital to suppress these chaotic armies.

But this is destined to be a long process, and it is probably difficult to restore peace to the hinterland of the empire without a year or two.

......

After going south and seeing almost all the sufferings in the world, Weiwei finally arrived at her loyal imperial capital more than a month after leaving Mengchuan City.

It was different from the chaotic and doomsday scenes she saw along the way.

The imperial capital was still the imperial capital, and there was no difference from what Weiwei remembered when she left a few years ago.

It was still so magnificent and prosperous.

It was as if this place had never experienced any war.

So much so that Weiwei felt as if she was in another world after entering the imperial capital.

If she ignored the countless ragged refugees outside the imperial capital, she would probably think that there had never been a war here.

But reality is often cruel. Under the carefully painted scroll, there are many unusual details that can reveal traces of the war that took place here more than a month ago.

For example, in Weiwei's impression, the imperial capital, as the center of the world, attracted countless people to gather.

In addition to the regular residents of the imperial capital living within the city walls, there is also a huge residential area built outside the imperial capital with its back against the city walls, stretching for dozens of kilometers and housing hundreds of millions of residents.

But now, these people are gone.

Also disappeared are the endless residential buildings outside the imperial capital.

Instead, there is a vibrant green.

There are also a lot of traces of repairs on the magnificent walls of the imperial capital. Although the repairs are very beautiful, there is naturally a color difference between the newly repaired area and the original old city wall that has been weathered for many years. If you take a closer look, you will find it.

The seemingly prosperous and lively interior of the imperial capital is actually far less prosperous than when she left here a few years ago.

Those previously arrogant and confident residents of the imperial capital became timid when they saw the knights and regular troops in her entourage.

All of this shows that not long ago, this place experienced a large-scale war and brutal massacre.

Now, the first thing Weiwei has to do after arriving in the imperial capital is to make the instigator of all this pay the corresponding price!

"Weiwei, Weiwei! Listen to me, my second brother knows he was wrong."

......

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