Thief Emperor

Chapter 211 Come to the door!

"Your Majesty."

Li Yun sat opposite Du Qian, coughed, and said, "In order to prevent any more trouble in Yuezhou, please send a letter to each county, asking them to recruit a group of militiamen and train them temporarily."

Li Yun paused, thought for a while, and said, "Even if each county only trains a hundred people, it will be useful in the end."

Du Qian looked at Li Yun and said with a smile, "So, these people will be transferred by Sima Li in the end?"

"It doesn't matter who is in charge, what matters is protecting the land and keeping the people safe."

Li Yun looked at Du Qian and said, "Sir, these militiamen have not been trained, and they have no additional weapons and armor. When the real battle comes, they will not be the main force, or even the fighting force."

"Calling up the local militia, firstly, to have more available manpower, and secondly..."

Li Yun paused for a moment and continued, "Serve as a reserve team."

"If you are unwilling to issue this order, I will issue it in the name of the Sima of Yuezhou and call on the local militia."

Du Qian didn't think for too long, and said, "Let me do it."

"When the time comes, it will be handed over to Sima Li to take charge."

Li Yun nodded.

Du Qian rubbed his temple and said, "Besides this, is there anything else you need me to do?"

"Not for now. After all, Yuezhou and Jiangdong haven't gotten into chaos yet."

Li Yun smiled and said, "However, you can send letters to the neighboring prefectures and counties, such as Mingzhou and Qiantang County, to communicate with each other and ensure mutual contact. If there is any problem in the neighboring prefectures and counties, our Yuezhou Army should go there to support them."

Du Qian frowned: "We are few in number and can barely take care of ourselves, why should we go to other states?"

"Your Excellency probably doesn't know how the Qiudian Rebellion started."

Li Yun smiled and said, "Qiu Dian's rebellion started in Shan County. Initially, only the county town was in chaos. At that time, Qiu Dian had only a few hundred people. If the state and neighboring states and counties could provide timely support, Qiu Dian would not have had a chance to grow, let alone develop to the level of tens of thousands of people later."

"It is precisely because we are few in number that we have to extinguish the hidden danger before it becomes a fire. If another big commotion like Qiu Dian occurs in Jiangdong, we in Yuezhou will not be able to suppress it."

Du Qian lowered his head and thought for a while, then nodded and said, "Okay, I will contact the nearby states and counties, just to exchange what we have."

Afterwards, Li Yun and Du Qian discussed the details for a while before getting up to say goodbye and leaving: "Then it's settled. Leave Yuezhou's military affairs to me, and the other matters will be handled by the envoy."

Upon hearing this, Du Qian looked up at Li Yun and felt speechless.

At this critical juncture, apart from military affairs, are other things important?

When the world is in chaos, all affairs are dominated by military affairs, and the "chief" mentioned by Li Yun sounds good, but in fact it just means helping out.

Although he thought so in his heart, Envoy Du showed no emotion on his face. He just sighed and said, "Sima Li has already done most of the important things in Yuezhou City last year. Now I am just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of his labor. It's a pity that I don't know anything about military affairs, otherwise I could help Sima Li a little."

As he said this, he took a step back, bowed to Li Yun and said: "The affairs of Yuezhou will be entrusted to Sima."

Li Yun returned the greeting with a fist, his face serious: "I will definitely live up to your trust."

After saying that, Li Yun turned around and strode away. When passing by Du Laian, he stopped for two steps, glanced at Du Shijun's follower with a faint smile on his face.

Du Laian was so frightened by his stare that his voice trembled: "Li... Li Sima..."

Li Yun reached out his hand, patted his shoulder, and said with a smile: "As a man, don't go home all the time. Go out and explore more."

At this point, Li Yun looked back at Du Qian who was still standing under the pavilion, and said with a smile: "Learn some skills from your young master."

After saying that, Li Yun put his hands behind his back and strode away.

After Li Yun walked away, Du Laian swallowed his saliva, trotted to Du Qian, pulled Du Qian's sleeve, and said, "Sir, he has been fooled by you! Let's go!"

Du Qian glanced at him and said unhappily, "Where are you going?"

"Go back... go back to the capital."

Du Laian scratched his head and said, "Sir, didn't you say yesterday that the court's rules can no longer restrain Li Yun? You also said that we should make plans early and prepare a retreat in advance..."

He reached out and touched Du Qian's forehead, wondering, "Sir, don't you remember what you said?"

Because the news of the imperial army's defeat spread so quickly, Du Qian actually knew about it only one day earlier than Li Yun.

And yesterday, after he learned about this, his first reaction was that the court's deterrence against Li Yun had completely disappeared!

In other words, Li Yun, the ambitious Sima of Yuezhou in his eyes, was no longer under the control of the court from now on.

So yesterday, Du Qian really wanted to run away.

After all, an ambitious person who is completely out of control is very dangerous. Du Qian has no way of being sure whether the out-of-control Li Yun will still be as gentle as before.

Will he suddenly become a tyrannical warlord, or even another Qiu Dian? After all, the evil in human nature exists in an extreme way. If a person holds the power of life and death, no one knows what he will become.

And now, it is obvious that Li Yun has completely grasped the power of Yuezhou.

Fortunately, after today's contact, Li Yun seems... no different from before.

Thinking of this, Du Qian took a deep breath and his eyes became a little solemn.

Until now, he couldn't be sure whether Li Yun was a decent person or... he hadn't reacted to the change in his identity.

After thinking for a while, he looked at his followers and sighed slightly: "Laian, everyone in Yuezhou is his people. If he doesn't want us to leave, I'm afraid we can't leave."

"Let's wait for a while and find out what the court is doing next."

With his hands behind his back, Du looked up at the western sky and murmured, "As long as Tongguan is still there, the capital will not be in danger. At most... at most we can dispatch border troops to quell the rebellion. As long as the rebellion in the Central Plains is quelled and the imperial court restores its dignity... Yuezhou will still be Yuezhou."

At this point, he himself was a little unconvinced. He smiled bitterly, shook his head and sighed.

He knew that from then on, even if the court could continue to exist, the so-called majesty of the court would have disappeared.

There was chaos ahead. Du Shouyi, who was born in the capital and was known as the Du family's talented child, could no longer see clearly the direction ahead.

…………

Outside the city, in Yuezhou camp.

Li Yun took Li Zheng to inspect the camp, especially the new recruits. After a month, although these new recruits were still immature, they had already taken on some shape after being led by veterans.

Li Yun was very satisfied with the progress. It was not easy to achieve this level in one month.

After inspecting the area and returning to the central army tent, Li Zheng sat down on a small stool, looked at Li Yun mysteriously, and said, "Second brother, I heard something about Luoyang today. It is said that Wang Junping in Luoyang already has 200,000 troops under his command. After defeating the imperial guards, he is preparing to enter Tongguan and attack the capital."

At this point, Li Zheng couldn't help but show some envy in his eyes: "That Wang guy, it's only been a year since he started the rebellion, but he has become so powerful. He is really amazing. We are nothing like him. We have worked hard for a year or two, and we only have a few thousand people under us."

Hearing this, Li Yun threw a piece of rice cake to Li Zheng and said with a smile: "I don't envy this. Expanding too quickly may not be a good thing."

Historically, these large-scale peasant uprisings often rise and fall quickly. Ultimately, in addition to some objective reasons, such as the commander's lack of knowledge and short-sightedness, Li Yun believes that there is another more important reason.

There is no way to organize it.

Within a year, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of subordinates were developed. It seemed very powerful, but if you think about it carefully, you can understand that there is no time to establish an organizational structure.

Li Yun was asked to manage more than 100,000 people at once, and he had to recruit them and fight at the same time. He did not have the ability to organize these people systematically, let alone manage them.

Often they could only appoint generals at random, or let them choose themselves.

Take Wang Junping for example, he might not even be able to recognize all of his generals who command thousands of men.

How to manage such an organizational structure?

Once you capture a city and allow them to rob, kill, rape, drink and eat meat, they will follow you. But one day you tell them that from now on they are not allowed to do this or that.

What you may get in response is a pair of red eyes.

This is the biggest drawback. In many cases, this kind of army burns, kills and loots everywhere, which is no longer based on the personal will of the commander.

But Li Yun is different.

He spent a lot of time building the grassroots. He might not recognize the new recruits who had just joined the Yuezhou Camp, but he recognized almost all of those who were originally from the anti-theft team.

Most of the people in the anti-theft team have become generals.

Now the people in Yuezhou Camp are getting more and more familiar with Li Yun. If Li's power expands further in the future, even exponentially, with these people as the backbone, Li Yun will still be able to control the entire army well.

Instead, Li Yun was controlled by the army and was swept away by the army's will.

Li Zheng scratched his head, not knowing how to understand.

Li Yun didn't explain much, he just glanced at him, smiled and said: "Only if you have a solid foundation can you go far in the future. Otherwise, no matter how big you are, it's all in vain."

Just as he was about to say something else, Zhou Liang lifted the curtain of the tent and strode in. After he approached, he bowed his head and clasped his fists towards Li Yun and said, "General, we caught a few sneaky people outside our Yuezhou camp. They have been spying on our camp. Now they have all been captured by my subordinates and tied up outside the camp. They are waiting for their punishment!"

The smile on Li Yun's face faded. He stood up and looked at Zhou Liang: "Leave the man to me and bring him in."

Zhou Liang nodded his head and turned to go out and lead his people.

“See…”

Li Yun patted Li Zheng on the shoulder and also let out a breath.

"He came to my door."

(End of this chapter)