Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 375 - 235 New Instance Opened_2

Chapter 375: Chapter 235 New Instance Opened_2

This small city had walls with four gates, dividing it into southern, northern, eastern, and western sections, and temples stood in great abundance. Beside the city was also a ferry crossing where merchants and travelers gathered, and various goods were piled up like mountains.

In the city, there were all kinds of businesses, shops, and workshops everywhere; inns and brothels were brilliantly lit, bustling all night long, with a constant flow of visitors coming and going.

However, despite the densely populated and bustling appearance, from its size, the city clearly could not accommodate too many people; at best, it was a strategic point for traffic.

And Li Hongyun was right above the city walls.

Gazing into the distance, he saw a thoroughfare cutting through the city towards the southwest, gradually widening, clearly one of the important official roads at the time; to the north of the city, the thoroughfare gradually split into two, one leading northeast, the other northwest.

Every now and then, fast horses came galloping from afar, entering the post station outside the city without much time to stop, quickly switching horses and setting off towards the southwest once more.

While Li Hongyun was still puzzled about where he was, several calligraphic characters written in the Qi Dynasty style appeared in his field of vision.

"The seventh year of Chonghe, Cen Bridge Inn."

These short seven characters instantly conveyed a lot of information to Li Hongyun.

"The seventh year of Chonghe?

"Doesn’t that mean the shame of Jingping is about to happen?"

Li Hongyun, being a student of history, was not a top scholar like Chu Ge, but he still had a good grasp of quite a few basic historical facts.

The era name Chonghe belonged to Emperor Qihui of the Qi Dynasty.

He and his son, Emperor Yingzong of Qi, can be described as a pair of clueless rulers who, together against all odds, brought about the shame of Jingping—a most hideous national disgrace for Huaxia throughout its five thousand-year history—one that certainly could have been avoided had any one of them possessed common sense.

The temple name "Hui" implied bad governance and a shattered realm, while the posthumous title "Ying" was a backhanded compliment, suggesting an emperor with the ambition to found a dynasty but lacking the ability to do so.

In the seventh year of Chonghe, Jin soldiers marched southward, their blades pointing directly at the then Capital City Da Liang.

Emperor Qihui’s first reaction was to flee. However, since he was in the capital at the time, running away before the battle even started seemed a bit unseemly. But Emperor Qihui’s determination to flee was steadfast; he thought clearly: I can run before the Jin soldiers arrive, but what if they surround the city? Can I still escape then?

But at that time, all the court officials were watching him, so Emperor Qihui came up with a plan—to leave his son as the Crown Prince to oversee Da Liang in his stead while he himself made his escape.

But many senior officials at the time voiced their opposition; their sentiment was clear: Are you trying to fool us?

Leaving the Crown Prince to oversee the country while you run for it—who can’t see through your scheme? With the Jin soldiers so rampant, merely giving your son the title of overseeing the nation isn’t enough to inspire confidence in resisting the Jin soldiers. If you’re going to run, just make it official and abdicate. After you abdicate, as the Supreme Emperor, you can run wherever you want. Only then would your son’s defense of the capital city as the emperor be considered legitimate.

At the time, Emperor Qihui was desperate to escape, feeling that as long as he could get away, everything else would be easy to deal with, so he abdicated the throne.

After Emperor Yingzong came to power, he changed the state title to Jingping, which originally meant peace and tranquility, yet in just two years, this era name became the greatest shame in the five thousand-year history of Huaxia.

As for where Li Hongyun was, it was Cen Bridge Inn.

It was near the Yellow River, with a ferry crossing, and a tributary of the Yellow River flowed through—a small bridge once stood there, long neglected; a wealthy man surnamed Cen funded its repairs, thus the bridge became known as Cen Bridge.

Later, a post station was established here, which was the Cen Bridge Inn.

Cen Bridge Inn itself was a strategic link between the then Capital City Da Liang and the north. Moreover, the founding emperor of the Qi dynasty launched a successful coup d’état right here, so it could also be seen as the auspicious birthplace of the Qi dynasty.

Cen Bridge Inn was forty li northeast of Capital City Da Liang, and generally speaking, if the enemy had reached Cen Bridge Inn, it meant the capital was in grave danger.

Li Hongyun silently analyzed this information, guessing certain aspects of the content of this instance.

"At this time, at this place, does that mean this instance’s primary challenge may revolve around the historical event of the shame of Jingping?

"Yes, that’s possible; after all, it was the greatest disgraceful event of the entire Qi Dynasty, involving many famous historical figures who appeared during that event.

"At the time, General Han Fuyue was only twenty-three years old. His family had been peasants for generations, and although he had been conscripted into the army three years prior, he was still just a common soldier with no influence on the front-line war. At most, seeing the brutality of the Jin soldiers advancing southward, he solidified his resolve to head north to resist the Jin and reclaim the lost land.

"So, what would be the player’s victory goal?

"To prevent the occurrence of the shame of Jingping? Or to band together all the heroic figures available at the time and fight their way into the Jin’s Yellow Dragon Mansion?

"After all, the meaning behind ’eight thousand li of cloud and moon’ is to recover all the lost territories."

Li Hongyun made some guesses, but this was, after all, a vast historical snapshot. It was hard to accurately guess the specific objective of passing the instance without related cues in the game.

After straightening out all the background of the Trial Illusion, Li Hongyun turned his attention to the identity card in front of him.

To his surprise, this time the identity card was directly corresponding to the four basic identities of the players!

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