Cheng Jing lowered his eyes and gave it some thought. He analyzed his train of thought with clarity. "If it wasn't Xu Bei, then it must be Xu Fei. No one else could have achieved this. They brought the most soldiers with them, a total of 100,000 elite troops who were far better than the laid-back, incompetent alliance army. If neither of them emerges as the alliance chief, I'm afraid neither will accept it. Moreover, if they leave in angst, the alliance army's will be nothing more than an empty shell... If that happens, we will fall right into our enemy's hands."
An alliance army of 40,000 men was ready to protect the emperor. It sounded awe-inspiring and grand. In reality, half of the soldiers were novices who were there purely to make up the numbers.
As for the second half of the elite troops, the brothers in the Xu family made up 60% of the headcount.
If they left, the mission to defend the Emperor would be meaningless.