Chapter 340
Devil
This year’s dragon boat competition was extremely intense because of the need to show their fervour in front of the Beirong people. After the dragon boat passed, another special flower boat sailed by. The performers on it leaped, swung or danced around, each performance seeming to be more challenging than the next.
There were constant cheers from both sides of the stands. It was originally a very lively scene, but Mu Mingtang still couldn’t get into it.
It wasn’t the fact that the water performance was not exciting enough. Instead, Mu Mingtang felt that these acrobatics have reached their peak. What really complicated her mood was the people in power amongst the stands.
There was nothing wrong with the common folk indulging in entertainment and enjoyment, but the same wasn’t true for those in power.
Jinming Pond was originally a military location for naval exercises, but now, the Emperor took the lead in watching dragon boats and water games, opening it to the public to promote fun and entertainment.
These performances were dazzling, but they also consumed an unknown amount of manpower and material resources. At the same time, Xixia was ambitious, Beirong was actively expanding and the activities of the people in the Northeast were becoming increasingly intensive. Only the Ye Dynasty had continuously reduced its armaments and suppressed their generals for several years. The excerpts for subjugating the Sixteen Prefectures were also kept indefinitely.
Mu Mingtang couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
She hoped that Beirong’s intention to negotiate a peace offering was true. At the very least, it would bring peace to the Ye Dynasty for a few more years.
She had experienced the time of having meaningless life, so she knew how precious it was to have a safe roof over her head and not having to worry about tomorrow before going to bed every night. She really didn’t want the Ye Dynasty to have another war.
After the dragon boat bidding and water performances were over, the Emperor was still unsatisfied, so he changed the venue to continue playing. In the numerous Gobi Grasslands of Beirong, it was rare to see such endless water-based activities as they did in the Ye Dynasty. Ye Luyan also became rather energetic and proposed to play polo.
After hearing Ye Luyan’s words, the Emperor froze for a moment. Playing polo was not difficult as there was a special polo field in the palace; the difficult part was selecting the polo players.
Since Ye Luyan proposed to play polo, the Ye Dynasty would have to inevitably send someone to accompany him to have fun. The Ye Dynasty was the host country, so the ratio of victory and loss must be well grasped. The guests could not afford to lose repeatedly, which would lose their demeanour of being a major country, but it wasn’t ideal to let them win too much either. Hence, everyone in the stands were rather interested to see how this would turn out.
The Emperor even felt that his worries were completely unfounded. After all, he was worried that they couldn’t win at all.
Polo was played on horses, which was the strength of the Beirong people. Now that the peace negotiation had entered a stalemate period, if it was revealed at this time that the Ye Dynasty was not as powerful as Beirong, it might be very detrimental to the subsequent peace talks.
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