Chapter 843: Food and Grass Before the Troops Move

Chapter 843: Food and Grass Before the Troops Move

Chapter 843: Food and Grass Before the Troops Move
Above the Lingxiao Palace, all the immortals gathered.

The number of immortal officials present at this small Ganzhi court meeting was greater than that of the previous Jiazi large court meeting. It was the court meeting with the highest attendance rate of immortal officials since the court meeting for the conferring of gods.

Many gods who were on duty in the mortal world returned to heaven because of the fall of the mortal world.

These gods were very concerned about when the Heavenly Court would retake the mortal world, so even though they were not notified that they had to attend the meeting, they all took the initiative to sit in as observers.

Almost ten years have passed since Wen Rui led the reorganized heavenly army to inflict heavy damage on the Blood Sea Demon Mosquito Army in Shravasti. The Heavenly Court has not sent troops to the mortal world again, and the demon mosquito army occupying the mortal world has also become dormant, and has not launched a new round of invasions on the Western Church's territory.

Obviously, Wen Rui's disruption had seriously intimidated the Blood Sea Demon Clan. Taoist Mosquito did not dare to mobilize the army rashly until she could figure out how Wen Rui planned to cheat her after selling her another lake of water.

He was afraid of falling into a trap again, not only wasting the lake water he had just obtained, but also losing a lot of blood sea water.

This time when he attended court, Wen Rui's position had changed. He now had his own jade table and cushion on the left side below the Jade Emperor's throne, so he could sit down to attend court.

In the heavenly court, there are not many gods who can have seats at the court meeting. There are only the Three Pure Ones and the Four Imperial Gods. The Three Pure Ones are Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun, and Daode Tianzun; the Four Imperial Gods are the Jade Emperor, Ziwei Emperor, Gou Chen Emperor, and Hou Tu Huang Diji.

The Three Pure Ones generally do not participate in court meetings, and only have vacant seats for them.

In addition, Leisheng Puhua Tianzun Tianzun and Dou Mu Yuanjun are also qualified to attend the meeting, but these two gods who came from the Jiejiao sect, for various reasons, do not often attend the court meetings, never express their opinions on the affairs of the heavenly court, and only send their subordinate immortal officials to attend on their behalf.

Therefore, there were only the Four Imperial Emperors sitting in the hall at this time.

Apart from the Four Imperial Gods, there is only the newly promoted Lord of Creation.

Although he is a newly promoted junior, Wen Rui has attracted much attention due to his key role in this demonic calamity. Before the court meeting officially began, many gods had already focused their attention on him.

Many immortal officials who were familiar with him came over to say hello, and their words were all intended to inquire about the Heavenly Army's next plan for recovery.

Now that the gods in heaven have lost the incense and offerings from the mortal world, their lives are not very comfortable. In the past, they were slacking off, which at least allowed them to maintain a stable merit. But now, their merit is decreasing instead of increasing, and the decline is increasing day by day.

If this continues, his merits will fall below the passing line for the priesthood he holds, and heaven will bring about a calamity.

The court meeting proceeded as usual. According to convention, Yin Jiao, the Tai Sui of the Tai Sui Department, would report on all the divine work in the Heavenly Court over the past twelve years.

Unlike the previous praises, the twelve years after the demonic catastrophe were truly lackluster. Even the clichés of good weather and good harvests that were a must in every report could not be mentioned - apart from bloody rain, not a single drop of rain had fallen in the mortal world in the past decade or so.

The only bright spot in the report was that the Heavenly Army came to the aid of the Western Church allies, killing one billion demon mosquitoes and dealing a heavy blow to the demon mosquitoes' invasion plan.

After Yin Jiao finished his report, he returned to the Tai Sui Department. The Jade Emperor tried to pull up the corners of his mouth and showed an extremely warm smile to Wen Rui who was sitting below him. He said in a friendly tone: "It is all thanks to your efforts. Now the offensive and defensive positions of the gods and demons have changed. Hundreds of millions of demon troops have retreated underground and dare not rashly send troops to attack Xiniu Hezhou."

"However, even though the Demon Ancestor Mosquito Taoist suffered such a heavy blow, his demon heart and demon nature remained unchanged. He refused to return to the underworld and still stayed in the mortal world looking for opportunities."

"Please continue your efforts, my dear minister. Lead the army to march forward again, sweep away all the enemies, resist the mortal world, and drive the Blood Sea Demons back to hell."

After a lot of roundabout ways, the Jade Emperor's core request was that he wanted Wen Rui to be the one to be borne in this demonic calamity, to take the initiative to shoulder the heavy responsibility of exterminating the Blood Sea Demon Clan, and to lead the army to retake the mortal world.

So that the gods can live their past lives as gods. Wen Rui replied indifferently, "Your Majesty, my title also includes the word 'demon conqueror'. It is my duty to exterminate the demons, and I have already made plans to send troops to the mortal world again."

"Really?" The Jade Emperor said in a pleasant tone, "Then I will immediately issue an edict to punish the demon..."

"Hey, wait a minute! Don't be impatient."

Wen Rui interrupted him with a wave of his hand. This action was quite disrespectful, but the Jade Emperor didn't care. The gods who were listening attentively to the news also chose to ignore it. No loyal minister like Taibai Jinxing jumped out to accuse Wen Rui of misbehavior in front of the palace.

"I lost my composure when I heard the good news. Please speak freely, my dear minister. If you have any requests, please feel free to raise them."

"As the saying goes, food and fodder must be prepared before troops move. In the last war, although we killed countless enemies, we also used up all the military funds allocated by the Ministry of Finance. I even spent all the donations raised from Dou Mansion and Lei Mansion."

Wen Rui spread his hands and said, "You want the horse to run, but you don't feed it grass. This war can't be won."

He scolded in an unhappy tone: "I have submitted funding applications to His Majesty and the Ministry of Finance every year, but they have never been approved. Otherwise, I wouldn't have sent troops only once in twelve years. Do you really want me to lead the troops to retake the mortal world?"

"The war funds are fully allocated. Tomorrow I will review the troops and lead them to capture the Taishan insect nest. This will be the first and final battle, and the outcome will be decided in one battle."

At this point, he stretched out his hand and made a gesture to ask for money from the Jade Emperor: "If you don't have money, what's the point of beating the staff? The soldiers don't even have enough elixirs to restore their immortal power. They will use up their immortal energy after using a basic magical power. Do you expect them to kill billions of demon insects with close combat?"

"Whether it's the physical qualities or the melee abilities of the Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals, they are no match for the specially trained Demonic Mosquito Soldiers."

"The reorganized Heavenly Army is the last trump card of Heaven. You have pushed less than 200,000 combat-ready soldiers to the front line with insufficient supplies. Aren't you afraid that Heaven will have no chance of turning the tables after you send them all away?"

"Then you will have to fight in person..."

……

These words were spoken in front of the Jade Emperor, making him look embarrassed.

If the Jade Emperor hadn't wanted to stir up trouble for Wen Rui at this critical moment, it would have been a bad year and the Heavenly Court had no more food left.

Since the outbreak of the demonic calamity, the Heavenly Court has fought a series of battles. One was to form an alliance with the Western Religion to expedition to the Sea of ​​Blood, the other was to stop the demons from breaking the seal at Mount Tai, and the other was to rush to the aid of the Western Religion in Hezhou, Xiniu.

Among the three battles, only the last one could be considered a victory, the remaining two were both crushing defeats.

The sound of a cannon costs a fortune, and the cost of sending out the Heavenly Army far exceeds that of an ordinary army.

The heavenly soldiers and generals who went to the battle ate golden elixirs as if they were candy beans and burned fairy jades as if they were coal.

In just a few decades, three wars were fought. The treasury of Heaven was already empty, Laojun's alchemy furnace was burning with sparks, and there was no time to produce elixirs to supply another war.

(End of this chapter)