Facing Kong Donglai's somewhat exasperated and impolite question, Guo Hongyan sighed in the depths of his eyes, but on the surface he still spoke his suggestions calmly. "I think we have three choices now. First, completely surrender to the State of Jin; Your Excellency give up everything now..."
"No! Next one!" Kong Donglai interrupted Guo Hongyan's first suggestion in a stern and frustrated tone.
Guo Hongyan paused for a moment and reorganized his words. "Second, unite with the Yuan family of Dongyuan County to face the threat from Anyang. But... But this can only temporarily block the threat from Anyang."
"How can we completely stop Anyang's threat and counterattack Anyang? I need such a strategy! Without such a strategy, what's the point of it!"
Kong Donglai became increasingly anxious and exasperated. Seeing Anyang growing stronger day by day, seeing his trump cards disappearing bit by bit, and seeing the Kong family's decades-long plan gradually falling into a desperate situation, it was impossible not to be annoyed. Faced with this desperate situation, Kong Donglai tried his best, but was still powerless, and despair began to grow.
Even Kong Donglai didn't know where he had gone wrong.
Compared to Kong Donglai's exasperation, Guo Hongyan was much calmer and slowly gave the third suggestion, "Third, unite with the Tang Kingdom and form an alliance with Li Yulong. In this way, Li Xian will definitely stop. After uniting with the Tang Kingdom, we can also work with Li Yulong to destroy Songzhou County and expand our influence. Only in this way can we win opportunities for development, which can at least win us a year of development opportunities; after a year, we should have developed basic industry and commerce, and then we can become strong again. In addition, there is also an underground turbid gas in our Nanyang County, perhaps we can try to separate fuel oil from it."
After hearing this suggestion, Kong Donglai was delighted at first, but then he frowned again: "Will Li Yulong agree to our alliance?"
"So we need to pay a heavy price. But no matter how much it costs, as long as we can get a chance to breathe, it will be enough."
"The price?" Kong Donglai sneered, "Li Yulong is no pushover either. I'm afraid that after joining forces with Li Yulong, we will have even less hope!"
Guo Hongyan lowered his eyes and sighed inwardly - in fact, Nanyang County was now stuck in a quagmire because of several wrong moves. Completely turning to Jin State was the only way out for Nanyang County.
Cooperating with Dongyuan County only changed the "immediate execution" into "suspended death sentence", and in the end they still could not escape the fate of destruction. Sandwiched between Anyang and Jin, Dongyuan County and Nanyang County were like beans in a millstone, and sooner or later they would turn into tofu pudding.
And cooperating with Li Yulong is a typical case of drinking poison to quench thirst.
As for cooperating with Songzhou County or Guangling County, it was like walking into a tiger's mouth. After continuous battles and failures, plus the compensation paid to Anyang, Nanyang County was now deserted. Forget about fighting for hegemony, even self-preservation was a problem.
And secretly, the outflow of wealth caused by trade with Anyang gradually drained the blood of Nanyang County.
After a short pause, Kong Donglai suddenly shouted angrily: "Don't we have any other way to survive except by cooperating with others? I have decided to kill all the mercenary groups in the name of invaders; and arrest all the surrendered city officials and generals in the name of rebellion! I still have 40,000 Shenlong troops and 200,000 elite soldiers in Nanyang County, which is enough to wipe out all the mercenary groups!"