Thief Emperor

Chapter 257: You visited the wrong mountain!
Acting as governor.

Seeing this position, Li Yun did not say much. Du Qian on the side had already frowned. He looked at Li Yun, then reached out to take the document, read it carefully, and then looked at the back of the King of Chu's carriage, shook his head and said, "This edict does not say that you are dismissed from your position as Sima of Yuezhou. His Highness the King of Chu is talking nonsense."

Just now, Wu Yuanyou got off the car and pretended to be very talkative, but his other words were not too important. Only the sentence to Li Yun, "You are no longer the Sima of Yuezhou", caught the attention of two people.

After all, without the position of Yuezhou Sima, the subsequent operation of the Yuezhou Army would be a lot more troublesome, and perhaps the entire army would have to move to Wuzhou.

However, this sentence was not written in the imperial edict. It is estimated that His Royal Highness the King of Chu felt that Li Yun had been promoted, and saying this to Li Yun would have some pretentious effect.

Li Yun put away the documents, looked at the carriage of the King of Chu, and said with a smile: "This Second Prince really lives up to his name."

He is indeed a bit stupid.

But he is not stupid, it's just because he is born in a royal family and he doesn't see the current situation in the world clearly, so he doesn't put himself in the right position when he acts and speaks.

Du Qian didn't know whether he understood the meaning of Li Yun's words or not. He smiled at Li Yun and said, "I have already sent a letter to Wujun to inform Zheng Fugong. If the King of Chu wants to live in Yuezhou permanently, Zheng Kui will have to come over to take a look after receiving the official documents from Yuezhou."

"Then we can push the matter to him."

Du Qian and Li Yun were almost walking side by side on the official road. After he pondered for a while, he said, "The reason why the King of Chu came to Jiangnan this time is nothing more than to look for money. If it were in the past, with his background and the status of an imperial envoy, the local forces in Jiangnan would definitely give the royal family some face and give him some money when he leaves. But now the local forces in Jiangnan..."

"Maybe they will not be willing to give me this face."

Du Qian put his hands behind his back, squinted his eyes and looked forward, and continued: "Therefore, the subsequent situation in Jiangnan will depend on the subsequent actions of the King of Chu and whether he can grasp the right measure. If he can grasp the right measure, then he can at least take some money away from Jiangnan. If he fails, the prefectures and counties in Jiangnan may not buy into his account, and then there may be chaos."

Having said this, he turned his head and looked at Li Yun. Li Yun was also looking at him. Although he didn't say it explicitly, Li understood.

Once the King of Chu causes chaos in Jiangnan, Li Yun can use the name of this imperial envoy and the Yuezhou Army to pacify the entire Jiangdong!

Even Jiangdong and Jiangxi!
Even after quelling the unrest, Li Yun still could not get the title of controlling Jiangnan, but he might have the actual power to control Jiangnan.

If he has the real power but no title, and the imperial court is unable to send troops to take over Jiangnan, then at that time, Li Yun only needs to tap the imperial court lightly, and the title will come naturally.

However, all of this is just the outline of Du Qian and Li Yun’s plan. Whether it can be realized or not depends on how they proceed step by step.

Man proposes, God disposes. No one knows what will happen tomorrow.

The two men followed the carriage of His Royal Highness the King of Chu for a while, then they mounted their horses and followed the carriage of the King of Chu all the way into Yuezhou City. After arriving in Yuezhou City, it was natural that a welcoming banquet was held to entertain this nobleman.

Almost all the officials of Yuezhou were present to entertain His Royal Highness the King of Chu at the Ningcui Tower in Yuezhou City. Li Yun, as the Sima of Yuezhou and nominally the third most important person in Yuezhou, naturally had to be present as well.

After entering the banquet, Li Yun politely stood up and toasted to His Royal Highness the King of Chu. King Wu Yuanyou of Chu just looked up at him, then turned his head to look at Du Qian. He drank a glass of wine with Li Yun in a very calm manner, then stood up, looked at Du Qian, and said lightly: "Brother Shouyi, I am a little tired after traveling all the way."

Du Qian nodded and said with a smile: "Let's stop here for today. I will arrange for His Majesty to rest immediately."

After saying that, Du Qian turned his head to look at the people in the field and coughed: "Everyone go away."

Li Yun also stood up and walked out. Du Qian followed him to the door. Li Yun turned back and urged Du Qian to say goodbye with a fist, smiling and said, "Envoy, I still have a lot of military affairs to attend to. This is a good opportunity to get away. I will leave this prince to you to receive."

Du Qian looked at him, then turned his head to look at Wu Yuanyou who was still in the room, and said in a low voice: "Just go. If there is anything, I will let Lai An find you."

Li Yun thought for a moment and said, "The imperial envoy has arrived. There must be no unrest in the city. I will arrange two brigades to enter the city and hand them over to the envoy for deployment."

Du Qian nodded, and after saying goodbye to Li Yun, he returned to the room, only to see His Royal Highness the King of Chu sitting back in his seat, picking up food and eating with great pleasure.

Du Qian was startled, then walked over to sit next to him, and smiled bitterly: "Your Highness is not tired at all."

"I slept in the carriage all the way, how tired can I be?"

Wu Yuanyou turned his head to look at Du Qian and said with a smile: "I just don't like talking to these Jiangnan people. They chatter and it's hard to understand."

"Our Beijing accent sounds better."

After he ate a few mouthfuls of food, he turned his head to look at Du Qian and said, "Brother Shouyi, you are always smart, you should be able to see that I was driven out of the capital by my elder brother, and was forced to take the job of inspecting salt in Jiangnan."

Wu Yuanyou shook his head and said, "I have lived in the capital since I was a child. I have never worked for a job, and now..."

He snorted lightly: "That guy surnamed Zheng doesn't cooperate with me very well, and I can't do anything about him. This time I will have to rely on you, Brother Shouyi, to inspect the salt and local areas!"

He put down his chopsticks and said seriously: "After finishing this task, I can return to the capital safely. When you, brother Shouyi, come back, I will invite you to Mingyue Tower and drink for three days and three nights!" Mingyue Tower sounds very serious, but it is a very unserious place in the capital.

Even Du Qian couldn't help but move his eyes slightly when he heard the words "Mingyue Tower". After a long while, he looked at Wu Yuanyou and said with a smile: "How does Your Majesty want me to help you?"

"How else can I help?"

His Royal Highness the King of Chu drank a mouthful of soup with a spoon and said as a matter of course: "Of course, your Yuezhou soldiers were sent to me. I inquired before coming here. Now in the whole of Jiangnan, your Yuezhou soldiers are the most capable."

"You take your soldiers from Yuezhou, um..."

"Send me nine hundred."

The Prince of Chu looked at Du Qian, clenched his fist and said, "I will take these nine hundred soldiers from Yuezhou and patrol the counties in the south of the Yangtze River!"

Du Qian almost spit out his wine.

After a long while, he finally recovered and looked at Wu Yuanyou, smiling bitterly, "Your Highness, do you think I can mobilize the soldiers from Yuezhou?"

"You don't need to adjust it."

His Royal Highness the Prince of Chu smiled and said, "I am the imperial envoy. I will give you the order. Just cooperate with me."

After hearing this, Du Qian looked at Wu Yuanyou with some surprise.

From his words, we can tell that His Royal Highness the King of Chu is not stupid. He knows very well that the imperial court no longer has its majesty. It is not like before when the imperial envoys went to the local areas and were endowed with imperial power, and could take over all local power.

But now, there is no way to mobilize local forces with the power granted by the court alone.

The cooperation of local officials is necessary.

So he found Du Qian, his fellow townsman from Beijing.

However, there was one thing that His Royal Highness the King of Chu did not expect, that is, although the chief official of Yuezhou was indeed Du Qian, the real person in charge was not this Governor Du.

Du Qian looked strange, and it took him a while to return to normal. He reached out to fill Wu Yuanyou's glass with wine and said, "Your Highness, if I can help, I will obey your order. But Your Highness may not know that I may not be able to mobilize the Yuezhou Army right now."

Wu Yuanyou looked puzzled when he heard this. He looked at Du Qian carefully, from head to toe. After making sure that Du Qian was not making excuses, he asked, "What about the Yuezhou Army?"

"Before I arrived in Yuezhou, Yuezhou was taken over by a Duwei Battalion under General Su, which was the Li Sima Your Highness saw earlier. The predecessor of the Yuezhou soldiers was this Duwei Battalion."

He looked at Wu Yuanyou, shook his head slightly and said: "When I arrived in Yuezhou, this Yuezhou army was already formed, and I couldn't mobilize them."

The King of Chu frowned: "Isn't that Li going to Wuzhou? Could it be that he is going to take the Yuezhou soldiers to Wuzhou?"

Du Qian didn't say anything, just toasted him with a glass of wine and blinked.

His Royal Highness the King of Chu was furious. He put down the wine in his cup and shouted angrily, "This is lawless!"

Du Qian looked calm as he handed Wu Yuanyou a handkerchief. Wu Yuanyou wiped the wine stains off his hands, raised his head to drink a glass of wine, and handed the handkerchief back to Du Qian, shaking his head helplessly and saying, "Really..."

"There's nothing we can do to them."

At this point, His Royal Highness the King of Chu sighed, looked at Du Qian, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Just now...should I be more polite to him?"

Du Qian blinked and said with a smile: "That's not a problem. Li Zhao is not that petty."

His Royal Highness the King of Chu shook his head helplessly.

"Brother Shouyi, please invite him over for me in the next two days to have a drink together."

Du Qian nodded quickly.

"Your subordinate... obeys your command."

(End of this chapter)