Thief Emperor

Chapter 116: The Changes at Tianmu Mountain

Tianmu Mountain is located between Ningguo and Qiantang County.

If Qiu Dian's rebels captured Qiantang County and continued to expand westward or northward, they would definitely pass through Tianmu Mountain, or at least pass near Tianmu Mountain.

Li Yun's capture of Tianmu Mountain meant that he had occupied a stronghold in this most important location.

Although he had less than 200 men and seemed vulnerable to Qiu Dian's alleged force of tens of thousands, they were all from wild backgrounds, so the time Qiu Dian had been rebelling was not as long as the time Li had been a bandit.

If they could conjure up tens of thousands of troops out of thin air in just a few months, that would be incredible.

Even if some of the imperial troops surrendered, Li Yun could be certain that the number of troops under Qiu Dian's command was at most a few thousand people.

It is hard to say how many of these thousands of people can fight.

The reason why the commotion was so great was, to put it bluntly, because the local government troops were so rotten that they were just an empty shell. It was just that for so many years, no one dared to expose the tiger skin of the court.

Qiu Dian claimed to have tens of thousands of soldiers, but that was just to support himself. To put it more bluntly, he was trying to give courage to his subordinates who followed him in the rebellion.

Many records in history that were broken by hundreds or even dozens of people, or by thousands or tens of thousands of people, mostly came from this.

If there were really dozens of people chasing and fighting thousands of people, if they just turned around and threw a stone, they could smash dozens of people to death.

With Li Yun present, the anti-theft team had a backbone, so they quickly followed Li Yun's will, left the bandits in other places of Ningguo alone for the time being, and headed straight for Tianmu Mountain.

After arriving at a place thirty or forty miles away from Tianmu Mountain, Li Yun and more than a hundred subordinates lived in a dilapidated temple in the wild. Although the temple was not small, it was not very big either, so it naturally could not accommodate more than a hundred people, so people slept under the walls.

Fortunately, these people were all born bandits and were tough. Besides, Li Yun also slept in the dilapidated temple with them, so no one complained.

On the second day, everyone was on the road again. Near noon, they saw a village not far away. Li Yun waved and called Li Zheng over, saying, "Skinny monkey, go ahead and take a look. We are not far from Tianmu Mountain. You should know something about the bandits there."

Li Zheng responded and rode one of the few horses in the anti-theft team towards the village ahead. Not long after, he disappeared from Li Yun's sight.

Li Dutou looked back at the anti-theft team, then looked up at the sun and said in a casual tone: "Everyone find shade under the trees to avoid the sun and wait for Skinny Monkey to come back. If there is food in the farm ahead, we will go to the village to eat. If not, we will light a fire and cook."

After everyone found a place to rest, Zhou Liang sat next to Li Yun and whispered, "Village leader, sleeping in the open air like this is really not a good idea. Several people are sick. We must find a place to stay tonight."

Li Yun took a bite of dry food and said silently: "I know."

As the two were talking, the sound of horse hooves was heard. Li Zheng ran back and dismounted. He hurriedly came to Li Yun, sat down in front of him, and whispered, "Second brother, there are bandits on horseback who have been to the village ahead."

He swallowed and whispered, "A lot of people died."

Li Yun was stunned, looked up at Li Zheng, frowned and asked: "Did you do anything ruthless?"

Horse bandits are different from mountain bandits.

Mountain bandits have their own lairs, so their range of activities is generally not very large. However, although these horse bandits generally have their own lairs, since almost all of them have horses, their range of activities is much larger.

Moreover, they are relatively more ferocious.

Li Zheng took a sip of water and said silently: "I walked around the village, and I didn't hear any other sounds except crying."

Li Yun frowned slightly and stood up.

"Let's go see it together."

He was a man of action, so without further ado, he pulled Li Zheng onto the horse, and the two of them ran towards the village ahead.

When I arrived at the entrance of the village, I saw the name of the village written on a wooden sign at the door. It was called Xiaao Village.

Before entering the village, a bloody smell hit him in the face. Li Yun frowned, got off the horse, tied up the horse, and entered the village. The door of the first house in front of him was covered with scarlet blood.

After walking a few steps forward, I saw a naked woman abandoned in the yard behind the low wall of a house. Her face was swollen and her arms were chopped off.

Looking further ahead, I saw another naked woman thrown directly on the side of the road.

In the distance, there was a man's head cut off and hung on a tree.

"yesterday…"

Li Yun narrowed his eyes and whispered, "What happened last night."

Li Zheng nodded and clenched his fist, saying, "Probably in the second half of the night."

Mr. Li looked up at the sky and murmured, "I haven't heard of any famous horse bandits. If they are thieves near Tianmu Mountain, it's not surprising that they come to rob things, but they shouldn't do such a thing." The two of them walked around the village. There were only a few people left in this village with only fifty or sixty households.

There were more than 20 to 30 corpses, most of which were women.

It’s not that all the people in the village were killed. I think a large number of them fled the village out of fear and have not returned since then.

The rest were the villagers who were lucky enough to survive that night and some children who were hiding, all of them were crying.

Li Yun saw some children around ten years old sitting at the door of their house, crying.

Li Zheng clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, "Second brother, we are also from the Green Forest. We haven't heard of such a thing in Xuanzhou for many years!"

"This Tianmu Mountain is in Qiantang County. Isn't Qiantang County a prosperous county? How could such a thing happen?"

Li Yun remained silent for a long time before he realized: "It should be that the local government is unable to take care of it, so these horse bandits dare to act so recklessly."

"Go and get all the brothers to come into the village and help bury those who need to be buried."

Li Zheng responded and turned to call someone.

By the afternoon, more than 100 members of the anti-theft team entered Xiaao Village. Even these bandits who often killed people frowned when they saw the tragic situation in the village.

Some of the more irritable ones came over to find Li Yun and shouted, "Captain Li, these beasts are too rude when working. Who did this? You take the lead and our brothers will beat them to death overnight!"

Li Yun looked up at Tianmu Mountain, shook his head slightly, and said, "Those who dare to do such a thing are probably no longer around. We will stay in the village for a day or two, and some people should come back one after another."

"When the time comes, just ask clearly."

More than a hundred people helped with the cleanup, and by the second half of the night, everyone was buried. Li Yun comforted the survivors in several villages, had food sent to them, and then took the anti-theft team to live in the village.

The next day, Li Yun sent people to investigate the situation in Tianmu Mountain, while he, with half of the anti-theft team, still lived in the village.

At this time, someone was peeking around the village. When he saw outsiders in the village, he was so scared that he turned around and ran away, never to return.

Li Yun was also patient. He waited until the third day before he saw a middle-aged man rushing into the village regardless of anything. After rushing into a house, he searched for his family for a long time but couldn't find them. He sat on the ground and burst into tears.

Li Yun heard the noise and came over in person. Before he entered the yard, he saw the middle-aged man rushing out with a kitchen knife in his hand, shouting and rushing towards Li Yun.

Li Dutou frowned slightly, dodged the knife by moving sideways, then reached out and gently pushed him to the ground, and the knife fell to the ground.

The man screamed and then fainted.

On the fourth day, more villagers finally couldn't help but return to the village, and Li Yun also met an old man in the village.

When the old man saw Li Yun, he first looked at the clothes on Li Yun, hesitated for a while, and then asked: "Is it... is it the official of the government?"

Li Yun didn't waste any words and asked directly: "I am a government soldier in Ningguo to suppress bandits. What happened in Xia'ao? Who did it?"

The old man looked at Li Yun timidly, hesitated for a moment, then lowered his head and said, "Your Excellency, please judge for yourself."

"It was those damned bandits on Tianmu Mountain who suddenly went crazy and broke into the village, burning, killing, looting, and even captured many young girls and brought them up the mountain..."

The old man looked at Li Yun's clothes again, sighed, sat down on the ground, and wiped his tears: "My granddaughter was also taken away by them!"

"Suddenly went crazy? That means they didn't do this before."

Li Yun frowned and said silently: "Leaving aside the government, aren't you afraid that there will be nothing to rob in the future?"

The old man sighed and said, "I heard that there was a war in the county. Those bandits must have heard about it too. That night, someone heard them say..."

"say what?"

The old man spoke vaguely, but Li Yun still understood what he was saying.

"I heard from those thieves that they planned to rob everything they could, and then take the things with them to seek refuge with some king..."

Upon hearing this, Li Yun frowned at first, then looked in the direction of Yuezhou.

"The king, the king..."

　I've been climbing mountains all day today and I'm so tired! There's still one chapter to be written before 12 o'clock!!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)