CHAPTER 1496: CHAPTER 1413: DIRE STRAITS

The imperial palace of Qin Country itself is quite shabby, and it has no advantage when compared to the palaces of other empires. The King of Qin Country is also unwilling to build a larger palace, for a simple reason: there’s no money.

Qin Country has never been wealthy, so it can only spend money where it’s necessary. The kings throughout the generations have all been this way, and it was no different even with Ying Duo.

Even when Ying Duo became Emperor, he was not in a hurry to renovate his palace. Instead, he invested funds in military development and revitalizing national strength.

However, as Qin Country became increasingly powerful and its national strength grew, Ying Duo finally ordered a small expansion of his palace. But, this one and only expansion was still quite modest in scale.

At this moment, Emperor Qin Ying Duo lay on his bed, sighing repeatedly as he looked at the reports. The national situation was difficult. Although he was recovering from illness, he still couldn’t rest easy.

Despite Prime Minister Ying Ke doing a fine job, and the system of Qin Country making it unlikely for a minister to seize power, Ying Duo still insisted on looking at the reports every day to see what the situation had become.

Wangdu has been lost... this was the first piece of news he saw. Chen Li was organizing defenses at the West Gate, a gap in the mountains, which was a pass in ancient times. It could be said to be easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The Qin Army concentrated forces here to set up defenses, gaining some geographical advantage. They should be able to hold on for a while.

But... Wangdu was lost, and so Xiqing and Bingshuo were certainly indefensible. Under such circumstances, how much longer can Qin Country hold on?

The once vast territory now only retained the part handed down from the ancestors, and further fighting brings into question whether even this part can be held.

He has already ordered to reduce the court’s expenses. Even he himself only eats one meat and one vegetable dish at each meal.

The consorts of the harem have been ordered not to waste, and the Empress has even called on all women to donate their gold and silver jewelry, as well as their collections of rare treasures, to help His Majesty the Emperor.

Although millions of funds have been raised, this money now has no significant impact on the situation: Qin Country has severed ties with other countries, unable to purchase anything.

Internal production has become increasingly difficult, with shortages of raw materials, factory workers, and mechanical equipment. Almost everything is lacking, and no amount of funds can increase production.

After closing the report on the loss of Wangdu, Ying Duo picked up a new report, and upon reading it, his mood worsened.

This was a report from the Southern Region of Qin Country, advising Emperor Qin Ying Duo to quickly seek peace in order to preserve the foundational heritage left by the former kings of Qin Country.

"Alas..." sighed Ying Duo. He knew people below were discussing endlessly, unsure of the purpose of continuing this war.

But he had no way to end the war. Even though he was already willing to bow and submit, the Great Tang Empire still showed no intention of negotiation. Recently, even the envoys sent to the Great Tang Empire couldn’t meet any proper Tang Empire diplomats.

At first, the special envoys of Qin Country would bribe the nobility of Tang Country, like the Duke of Egret, who claimed to have influence everywhere. However, they later found that even after bribing officials, they couldn’t accomplish anything, so they saved this money.

They had no way out, and they couldn’t finance their enemies, but without money, the other side wouldn’t even agree to meet.

The current Ying Duo genuinely wanted to end this war. He was willing to pay prices he had never even considered before to achieve that end.

But the attitude of the Great Tang Empire was clear: they also wanted to end the war while simultaneously putting an end to the divided state of the Western Continent.

Indeed, anyone with sense could see that Tang Country was ready to wipe out Qin Country. However, some naive or foolish nobles of Qin still fantasized about cessation of war through ceding territory and making reparations.

These people naively believed that by bowing down, ceding land, offering beautiful women, and paying huge reparations, they could satisfy the Tang people and allow Qin Country to continue existing as a vassal state.

Every time Ying Duo thought of these fools, his mood sank further. He threw the report on the ground, as if discarding a piece of waste paper.

The third report concerned production. Around Wuyang City, Qin Country’s factories began to experience shortages of raw materials. Due to the lack of skilled workers and equipment, the quantity and quality of various weapons and equipment produced by Qin Country were drastically reduced.

To ensure production, rifle manufacturing had been simplified to the extent that precision was affected. As for tanks and cars, it was even worse; some tanks had even lowered their protection level to barely equal that of armored vehicles.

Since there was no opportunity to fire artillery, no need for charging into battle, they might as well save some materials to boost numbers.

Due to insufficient raw materials, newly produced tanks in Qin Country had even reduced the caliber of cannons to accommodate the vehicle’s weight.

This meant that since the tank’s armor was cut down, the vehicle was too light to bear large-caliber artillery, unable to handle the recoil of large-caliber guns.

Thus, the original 90mm or 100mm caliber guns were reduced to 75mm, or even down to 50mm... ensuring at least that the vehicle would not be damaged or overturn when firing.

These products, which outwardly appeared unchanged but were no longer real tanks, were named "Qin6 Tanks" by Qin Country.

The purpose of such tanks was nothing more than to waste Tang Country’s ammunition, boost the morale of Qin soldiers, and maintain the number of Qin Armored Troops.

As for actually utilizing them as an armored corps, that was out of the question. Great Tang Empire’s individual anti-tank weapons could easily penetrate these "cut-corner" products, without even needing to get close.

From over a hundred meters away, Tang Army’s rocket launchers could penetrate the front armor of these Qin Country tanks, and Qin Country would not use such makeshift tanks in counterattack operations.

Reading the report, which mentioned using wood for some less important parts of aircraft bodies, and for truck cabins and doors, Ying Duo couldn’t help but start coughing.

His empire was falling apart, and he could feel it through these words. But he could do nothing... he could only watch as the only option remaining was surrender.