Thief Emperor

Chapter 236 I wish him promotion and wealth!

There were only a dozen people left around Zhao Cheng. Of course, there was no room for resistance at this time, especially Zhao Cheng himself. Li Yun was directly approaching him. He wanted to resist, but he was not as strong as Li Yun. He was soon knocked to the ground, tied up tightly, and his mouth was gagged with a cloth strip. He was put into a sack.

Zhao Cheng was quickly carried by Li Yun with a sack on the carriage nearby. He was annoyed and angry at the moment, but he couldn't move, feeling extremely frustrated.

At this moment, Zhao Cheng in the sack heard Li Yun cursing.

"Damn it! This is fake!"

"That damn Zhao Cheng is indeed cunning. Keep chasing him! No matter what, we must bring the thief Zhao Cheng to justice today!"

A group of Yuezhou soldiers rushed away, while Li Yun stayed with a few people. After a long while, Li Zheng finally caught up. He looked at Li Yun, then at the sack beside Li Yun, and then looked around, and whispered, "Second brother, is it done?"

Li Yun smiled and nodded. He pulled Li Zheng aside and lowered his voice, saying, "You don't have to stay in Wuzhou anymore. Take him back to Yuezhou overnight and put him in the farm next to Yuezhou Camp. Tell Uncle San to take good care of him. Don't let him see anyone before I go back."

Li Zheng had been following Li Yun all this time, so he certainly understood Li Yun's intentions. He thought about it and continued, "Second brother, how can we cover this up?"

"You don't have to worry about that."

Li Yun said calmly: "We will catch up with Zhao Cheng if we continue to chase him for a while. We can just find someone who is similar. Anyway, starting from today, Zhao Cheng will not show up for a long time. It's no different from being dead."

Mr. Li patted Li Zheng on the shoulder and laughed: "Everyone is looking forward to his death. There is no difference between dead and alive."

As for the Jiangdong Rebellion, everyone, from Zheng Wei to the imperial court, hoped that it would be quelled as soon as possible. At this time, no one would bother with Li Yun.

At this point, Li Yun asked Li Zheng and his subordinates to walk away. He came to the sack alone, untied the sack, and pulled out the shocked Zhao Cheng. Li Yun cut the rope with a dagger, then untied the cloth from around his mouth, and said with a smile, "General Zhao, take off your clothes."

Zhao Cheng looked up at Li Yun, took a deep breath, and then whispered, "Li... Did General Su ask you to rescue me?"

"No."

Li Yun said with a smile: "If General Su were here, he would immediately take you to the court for questioning. He is a man of iron-faced and impartial character."

At this point, Li Yun said calmly: "Take off your clothes quickly. There are a lot of things to do tonight. If we don't do things cleanly, you and I will be in trouble in the future."

Zhao Cheng knew that Li Yun was planning to use a person as a substitute for a zombie, and to capture the leader of the bandits, it was impossible to just randomly point out a person and say that he was the bandit leader. Only after the captives identified him could it be confirmed and the achievement could be reported to the court.

Zhao Cheng hesitated for a while, but finally took off his coat. Li Yun packed the coat and Zhao Cheng's sword into a bundle, then tied Zhao Cheng up again with a rope and said calmly, "I'm sorry, General Zhao."

This time, Zhao Cheng did not resist too much, because he was very clear about the difference in strength between the two men. If both sides had weapons in their hands, he would still have a chance to kill Li Yun. If he was unarmed, he would be in Li Yun's hands and probably would not be able to escape.

No matter what the result is, it is much better than being taken to the capital and executed by slow slicing.

Zhao Cheng was put into a sack again. Li Yun handed him to Li Zheng to take him back to Yuezhou, while Li Yun himself carried the bag and continued to chase forward.

When it was almost dawn, Li Yun chased the bandit to a dilapidated temple and finally found the bandit leader "Zhao Cheng". "Zhao Cheng" set the dilapidated temple on fire. Li Yun and others risked their lives to rush into the fire scene. "Zhao Cheng" resisted fiercely, and they had no choice but to kill the bandit leader on the spot.

Afterwards, Li Yun asked several subordinates to carry Zhao Cheng's body back to the military camp.

This Zhao Cheng was of similar build and appearance to the real Zhao Cheng. Because this kind of bandit leader had to be sent to the capital, and the weather was getting hot, Li Yun ordered his men to cut off the bandit leader's head, put it in a box, and pickle it with lime.

The corpse had been burned, and because it had lost its blood color, it now looked pale and blue. Even people around Zhao Cheng would find it difficult to notice anything wrong.

Moreover, even if something was really wrong, no one dared to say anything.

After capturing the leader of the rebels, the remaining rebels in Wuzhou City quickly left the city to surrender. Li Yun personally accepted the surrender and ordered his men to put them under custody and await further action.

Li Yun would naturally not kill these people, but he still needed to slowly study how to deal with them. Maybe he could bring them back to Yuezhou and use them as laborers to help with some tasks such as repairing the city and transporting grain.

You have to know that these are all criminals of the imperial court. To use them to do the work of laborers, we only need to provide them with food, and we don't have to spend any money. And absolutely no one will have any complaints. They are truly high-quality workers.

After accepting the surrender of the Wuzhou rebels, the Jiangdong Rebellion started by Zhao Cheng came to an end. Li Yun did not let the Jiangdong troops enter the city. Instead, he spent a lot of money to buy a large number of pigs, cattle and sheep in Wuzhou, and brought them into the army to reward the three armies.

At the same time, the prohibition on alcohol was lifted, and the army was allowed to drink for three days. For a while, the military camp outside the city was filled with the aroma of wine and meat, and the soldiers were very happy for several days.

It was not until the third day of the reward ceremony that the governor of Yuezhou, Du Qian, arrived in Wuzhou.

When he was led by Deng Yang to the camp outside Wuzhou City, Li Yun was lying on the table writing and drawing. When he saw Du Qian coming, Li Yun stood up, clasped his fists and said with a smile: "The envoy is here."

Du Qian returned the greeting with a bow and said with emotion: "The Wuzhou rebellion was quelled so quickly. I originally thought that it would take another ten days or half a month to see results."

Mr. Li smiled and said, "It's already mid-April, and I'm getting married next month. The riot in Wuzhou can't delay my marriage." Du Qian smiled and replied, then glanced at the paper on Li Yun's desk. He saw squares drawn on the paper, and the squares were divided into small squares. The leftmost square was filled with a person's name, followed by age, number of enemies killed, and other words.

Du Qian took a quick glance and saw some strange symbols in these blocks, which he did not recognize at all.

Governor Du thought he had read a lot, from childhood to adulthood, whether it was formal books or miscellaneous books, he had read them all, but he did not recognize these symbols, and was immediately attracted, and asked, "What is Li Sima writing?"

"We are counting military merits."

Li Yun shook his head and said helplessly: "There are really no qualified clerks in our army, and there are few scholars. I can only do these things by myself. The battle of Dongyang and the battle of Wuzhou in the past few days all have military merits that need to be counted."

Du Qian asked, "Can I take a look?"

"Just look at it, sir."

Du Qian then picked up a piece of paper, looked at it carefully, pointed at the strange characters, thought for a moment, and asked, "These seem to be numbers?"

"Your Excellency is really smart."

Li Yun looked at the Arabic numerals on the paper and said with a smile: "When I was a child, a Taoist priest passed by Qingyang and taught me these numbers. It is said that they are written in foreign lands, but they are very easy to write, so I wrote them down."

"Look, sir. This is one, and this is two."

Li Yun pointed them out to him one by one, and then said seriously: "The most interesting thing is that when the one and eight are written together, there is no need to add a cross, and it is read as eighteen."

"It's much simpler than our Chinese characters."

Du Qian's eyes lit up, and he moved a small stool and sat down. He was a smart man. After Li Yun told him once, he wrote it down. Then he picked up a pen and wrote and drew on the paper. He felt amazing and shook his head with emotion, "It is really much more convenient. If this thing can be promoted to the whole world, it can at least save a lot of ink and paper."

Li Yun smiled and said, "It's not just about saving ink and paper."

He thought about it and continued, "When I have the ability in the future, I will promote it to the whole world."

Arabic numerals have many natural advantages in calculations and can even be said to be the foundation of many disciplines. In the future, Li Yun will naturally promote this thing throughout the world.

Du Qian flipped through a few more papers on Li Yun's desk, then looked up at Li Yun and said, "Sima Li should have only counted the military merits of the Yuezhou Army."

"This is natural."

Li Yun said calmly: "The other friendly forces didn't actually contribute much, and they are not under our control."

Du Qian said with emotion: "I'm afraid that after hearing about this incident, these friendly troops will never forget Sima Li."

Li Yun laughed and did not answer. Instead, he said: "The battle of Wuzhou is basically over. I would like to ask you to write a letter to the court, asking the court to appropriately pardon the crimes of these rebels. Many of them..."

"I was also coerced by Qiu Dian at the beginning."

Du Qian looked up at Li Yun and frowned, saying, "Sima Li, it is true that they coerced him, but the people who killed people in Wuzhou, Qiantang, and Yuezhou were also these people."

"They are all guilty."

"Of course they are guilty, but when I attacked Wuzhou, I promised not to kill those who surrendered. At least those who surrendered voluntarily should not all be killed."

"As long as the court can pardon their death penalty, that will be enough."

Li Yun smiled and said, "You can exile him."

Du Qian nodded and said, "I will talk to the court about this matter."

Having said that, he looked up at Li Yun and paused.

"Mr. Zheng is already on his way. I'm afraid that Sima Li will give him a lot of credit for Wuzhou."

"Just let him come."

Li Yun looked calm and said with a smile.

"It would be best if Zheng Guancha could get promoted and become a prime minister."

(End of this chapter)