Chapter 116 - We will help

The pigeons dispatched by Feng Long arrived at their destinations at almost the same time. The fair weather helped the birds to reach their destinations very quickly compared to the estimated time of arrival.
Feng Long sent identical letters to Huangshan and Jiangxi, just to bring the other emperors up to speed about what was going on. Ding Qi already knew that a new disease was spreading through Anhui, but was surprised to know that Feng Long was willing to help. In Jiangxi, Meng Zhang has also shown some surprise. But the bit that really matters was if Xia Chunyu would help his enemy this time. 
By that time, Xia Chunyu and Ouyang were sitting outside, playing the guqin together. The pigeon lands on the table, looking at Xia Chunyu. Ouyang smiles:

-Someone sent us a letter, let me open it.
-As you wish.

Ouyang takes the pigeon and gently opens the letter. As he glimpses over the letter, he noticed the name Bai Chongye written on it, and immediately became afraid of showing it to Xia Chunyu. Ouyang freezes:

-How... How could I tell Xia Chunyu about the content of this letter?

Ouyang crumples the letter, smiling:

-Majesty... It is just... It is just something not important, you know... Some sort of...
-Sort of?

Xia Chunyu gets up, moving closer to Ouyang. He looks at Xia Chunyu's curious eyes:

-Well... I think someone sent it to us by mistake... There was a lot of gibberish written there that is not really important...

Xia Chunyu raises an eyebrow:

-Well, I hope so. Anyway, let's move back to our activity.
-As you wish!

Ouyang and Xia Chunyu resume their activity, but Xia Chunyu notices that Ouyang was nervous. He proceeds for a few minutes, noticing that Ouyang was getting progressively calmer as time went by.
In Anhui, the pigeon delivered the letter Feng Long sent to Bai Chongye. At his side, Yu Qing sees everything:

-Good, Feng Long will help us this time. - Bai Chongye calms down.
-Are you crazy? We are humiliating ourselves just to fight a disease!!!

Bai Chongye gets up, and walks towards the window, looking at the city below:

-I do not care. This is a tool that I have, and I'll use it. Our prediction was wrong the first time, we paid a fairly high price for our mistake, and we cannot do the same thing again.
-Wrong??? I told you that letting it rip through would have ended this long ago. I have demonstrated that my zinc treatment was effective.

Bai Chongye laughs:

-Hahaha, effective? It may have saved a bunch of people, but not nearly as much as the medicines from Zhejiang and our own recipes based on it. 

Yu Qing moves closer to Bai Chongye, facing him directly:

-Let's face it: Fuyang is fine now, yes, a lot of people died, but the city is nonetheless fine by now. Their wave lasted only a few days. If we try it in Hefei, this is going to solve itself!

Bai Chongye laughs again:

-It will cost millions of lives in Hefei alone, and even if we don't bother about having hundreds of corpses lying around, how about the economy? Our market will shrink and cause a massive recession that may take decades to recover from. 
-But how about Zhejiang?
-I don't care, saying we are weak is a cheap shot. We can take Zhejiang overnight, and jail or kill Feng Long and everyone close to him ten times over. Let's just perform the logical step. Feng Long is nowhere near an issue right now.
-This will destroy our morale... It will give the impression that we are weak.

Bai Chongye stops, then turns and faces Yu Qing:

-How about losing three-quarters of our forces because we were too entitled to give our soldiers something to keep them alive? Can you see it now?

Yu Qing thinks for a moment, then turns and walks away from Bai Chongye, letting him alone:

-What an unruly prince! This is such an obvious situation, why should I provide him with an outlook of a situation he must automatically recognize as a zero-gain game?

Bai Chongye take provisions to build a factory in Maanshan, just about halfway from Hefei and Wuxi. Maanshan is located right on the banks of the Yangtze River, which will make shipment of medicines easier and allow raw materials from Zhejiang to arrive by boat if road conditions deteriorate due to rain. 

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