Thief Emperor

Chapter 216: Clean and neat!

For Li Yun, a county town is basically not a problem.

The walls of the county town are low, so there is basically no major geographical problem. Not to mention that he now has 500 people, even if he brings dozens of people from Cangshan Dazhai, it would not be too difficult to capture an ordinary county town.

Moreover, after being beaten to the point of "near death" last time, Li Yun has become very cautious. No matter whether it is a big battle or a small battle, he basically wears full armor when fighting.

A tall man like him, wearing armor and possessing extraordinary strength, was no different from a bulldozer on the battlefield. In such a small Xiangshan County, the rebels were still commoners and were no more than chickens in front of him!
It took only one hour from the beginning to the complete occupation of Xiangshan County. One hour later, Li Yun personally untied Xu Ang, the magistrate of Xiangshan County, from the pillar on another tower of Xiangshan County. After untied him, Li Yun smiled and said, "You are the magistrate of Xiangshan County, right?"

“What a lucky guy.”

This Magistrate Xu was in his thirties. Because he had been tied up for a long time, he was unable to stand steadily after being untied, and fell to the ground. After a long while, he struggled to get up, and bowed to Li Yun and said, "I am Xu Ang, the Magistrate of Xiangshan. May I ask who the general is?"

"Li Zhao, the Sima of Yuezhou."

Li Yun smiled and said, "I came to Xiangshan to quell the rebellion on the orders of Governor Zhu."

At this point, Li Yun paused and said, "From now on, I will take over Xiangshan County. Is there any problem with County Magistrate Xu?"

Xu Ang had escaped death, so how could he dare to have any opinions? He immediately lowered his head and said, "I will follow Sima Li's arrangements."

Li Yun said "hmm", called Deng Yang over, and said, "Deng Yang."

Deng Yang bowed his head and clasped his fists: "I'm here!"

"The salt fields in Xiangshan County are still occupied by rioters. You take 300 people with you and divide them into two groups. Take control of the salt fields and wait for my arrangements."

Deng Yang quickly nodded his head.

At this point, Li Yun looked at County Magistrate Xu and said calmly, "County Magistrate Xu, please send two guides to take my men to the salt fields in Xiangshan."

Xu Ang gave a bitter smile and said, "Sir Li, I have been tied up here for almost two days. I cannot contact anyone. Please, Sir Li, take me back to the county government office."

He looked gloomy: "My wife and children are still in the county government office. They have also been captured by the thieves. I don't know how they are doing now..."

Li Yun nodded slightly, then looked at Deng Yang and said in a deep voice: "Go and get some help first, I'll arrange for someone to be your guide later."

Deng Yang clasped his fists, said yes, and then went downstairs to prepare.

Li Yun also brought County Magistrate Xu all the way to the Xiangshan County government office. At this time, the county office had been occupied for some time, and there were signs of smashing and looting everywhere. County Magistrate Xu entered the county office tremblingly and looked around, but could not find any trace of his wife and children. He finally found a familiar yamen runner and asked him, only to find out that his wife had been raped for several days and could not bear the humiliation, so she had committed suicide by hitting her head against the wall.

The son was also killed by the mob, and both mother and son were thrown into a mass grave outside the city.

Upon hearing this, County Magistrate Xu let out a loud scream, threw his head back and fell to the ground, unconscious.

Li Yun stepped forward, sighed first, then picked up the poor county magistrate with one hand, handed him to two runners of the county yamen, and said in a deep voice: "Send County Magistrate Xu to the back yamen to rest."

"Then, send two more guides who know the routes to the salt fields to lead the royal army to the various salt fields to quell the rebellion."

Li Yun is now naturally the absolute master in Xiangshan County. After he gave a few orders, people quickly followed his instructions. In this way, Deng Yang took 300 people to various salt fields overnight to control them.

Li Yun, with 200 people, controlled Xiangshan County and captured more than 100 rioters, including Guo Ming, the leader of the riot.

Guo Ming was a man in his forties. After being captured, he still refused to accept the defeat and started cursing at Li Yun and the others. Even when he was brought before Li Yun, he kept calling the government troops "dog soldiers".

Li Yun stepped forward and slapped Guo Ming in the face without hesitation. His hand was so strong that two of Guo Ming's teeth fell out. He immediately shut up and dared not speak again.

Li Yun glanced at his subordinates and cursed, "You guys have such a good temper. How could you resist taking action?"

The few people around Li Yun were all from the anti-theft team. The one who escorted Guo Ming here was a captain named Yang Xi. After being scolded by Li Yun, the captain surnamed Yang felt a little aggrieved and said with his head down: "Boss, we thought you wanted to ask him a question, so we held back and didn't beat him..."

Li Yun curled his lips and said disdainfully: "Questioning is questioning, what does it have to do with beating him or not? I didn't tell you to do that, so you should still be beaten."

"Just don't beat him to death."

This Guo Ming is a big treasure.

Although in Li Yun's opinion, Xiangshan County was only at the level of a riot and the scale was not very large, when reporting it to the higher authorities, he could directly report it as a rebellion. Then Guo Ming, as the leader of the riot, would be identified as a "rebellion leader."

You can even call him Xiao Qiudian.

If this is reported to the court, shouldn't Li be given some credit?
"explain."

Li Yun glanced at Guo Ming and asked, "Who ordered you to do this?"

The corners of Guo Ming's mouth were already covered with blood foam. He looked at Li Yun with some fear, then turned his head away, refusing to answer the question.

Li Yun narrowed his eyes and whispered, "I have already found out that there are five or six families in Xiangshan County, including the Deng family, Zhou family, and Hu family, all of which are wealthy families that made their fortunes in the salt industry. Are they involved with you?"

Guo Ming gritted his teeth and said, "No one ordered me to do it. I did it on my own! The government oppresses the people, and we are not allowed to resist?"

"The winner is the king and the loser is the bandit. There is nothing to say. I am a dead man, so you can kill me if you want!"

Li Yun said "Oh" and said calmly: "That is, each of these families is related to you." "Come here."

Li Yun shouted, and immediately someone from Xiangshan County Government came up to Li Yun carefully, holding a pen, and said with his head down, "Sima Li."

"Draft a confession and have him sign it."

The man was confused: "What confession?"

"The wealthy families in Xiangshan colluded with salt merchant Guo Ming to commit crimes, kill officials and rebel, and commit treason!"

Li Yun frowned and said, "Do you still need me to teach you?"

The clerk was stunned, his mouth trembling: "This... this... this..."

"Coward."

Li Yun cursed and sneered, "Give me the pen, I'll write it myself."

The clerk was scolded by Li Yun and gritted his teeth and said, "Sir Li, I will write it, I will write it..."

Seeing that Li Yun had a bad temper, he was afraid that if he handed over the paper and pen, he would also suffer.

So the clerk quickly wrote a confession, and after he polished it, it became vivid and looked just like the real thing.

Li Yun walked up to Guo Ming and said calmly, "Will you sign the pledge or not?"

Guo Ming stared at Li Yun with wide eyes, horrified.

Li Yun didn't waste any words with him. He took out a dagger from his sleeve, cut his finger, then took his hand, drew a circle on the confession, and waved his hand without saying anything more to Guo Ming.

"Put it down."

After Guo Ming was taken away, Li Yun narrowed his eyes and said lightly: "Yang Xi."

"My subordinate is here."

"Go and check every household on the list. Those who have been robbed by these rebels don't need to be taken care of. Those who have not been robbed by these rebels should be detained on the spot, and all their property should be sealed up."

"All the heads of the families should be brought here to await trial."

Yang Xi smiled happily, patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, boss, I promise to do it for you!"

Born as a bandit, the business he was most familiar with was naturally robbing other people's things, but for Yang Xi, it was the first time to confiscate someone's property.

It was also a novel experience.

As a result, within one day, at least six wealthy families in Xiangshan County were taken into custody by people sent by Li Yun, and all their property was confiscated. At the same time, all the salt fields in Xiangshan County were also taken over by Li Yun.

The next day, when County Magistrate Xu woke up from his coma, his county jail was already full of prisoners.

Magistrate Xu came to the main hall in a daze and saw Li Yun sitting in the lobby of his county government office, writing something with his head down.

Xu Ang stepped forward, bowed, and said weakly: "Sima Li... Sima Li, now... now..."

When Li Yun heard his voice, he looked up and saw this poor man. He quickly put down the brush in his hand, stood up, helped Xu Ang sit down, and said, "Is Magistrate Xu feeling better?"

Xu Ang burst into tears, shook his head repeatedly, and then sighed: "Sima Li, Xiangshan County...how is it now?"

"The rebellion has been quelled, and I am dealing with those wealthy people who colluded with the rebels."

Li Yun sneered, "These people have been making a lot of money from the imperial salt road. Now that the imperial court has run into some difficulties, they don't want to pay the court any more!"

"You've come at the right time, Magistrate Xu. I'm writing a petition to the court. Would you like to take a look?"

At this point, Li Yun shook his head again: "Forget it, you are still weak, eat first, and then talk about it after a few days of recuperation."

Xu Ang shook his head, his voice hoarse: "I...I'll take a look."

Li Yun handed him the memorial. After reading it, County Magistrate Xu exclaimed in surprise.

"He...are these people colluding with the traitor?"

Li Yun nodded, his tone very firm.

"That's right, I have examined it thoroughly!"

Magistrate Xu looked up at Li Yun and muttered to himself.

"Sima Li is really efficient and decisive in his work..."

(End of this chapter)