Thief Emperor

Chapter 351: The Beautiful Battle

Since arriving in Jiangdong.

In other words, the toughest battle Li Yun had ever fought since his debut was blocking Zhao Cheng's troops outside Qiantang City.

In that battle, we were outnumbered against the larger force.

The fight was very difficult, even Li Yun himself was exhausted.

Since then, there have been few difficult battles. In most cases, Li Yun could easily defeat the local government troops in Jiangdong with just a few subordinates.

However, Li Yun knew very well that a big reason for this situation was that the local army in Jiangdong was too weak.

He had no idea what level his subordinates had reached.

The only reference is the 20,000 to 30,000 Jiangnan soldiers led by General Su.

Li Yun can be sure that now, except for the new recruits in the recruit camp, the overall quality of his subordinates, as long as they have received proper training, is much better than that of the army under General Su.

But there has been no real combat experience yet.

In the following few days, Li Yun dealt with most of the important matters in Jinling City, and then asked Master Xue to help look after the family.

On the fourth day, he took Meng Hai and left Li Garden.

When leaving home, Li Yuan's family naturally came out to see him off. Li Yun held his wife's hand and said with a smile: "Don't worry, Madam, I will be away for two or three months at the fastest, and half a year at the slowest."

"Then I came back."

The two of them slept in the same bed, so Xue Yun'er naturally knew where he was going this time. However, she knew her husband's temper and did not dissuade him. She just pulled Li Yun aside, then took his hand, put it on her belly, and whispered, "My husband is outside, please be careful."

"It's for this child."

"Come back safely too."

Li Yun was startled, then his eyes widened and he asked in surprise, "Madam?"

Xue Yun'er snorted lightly, glanced at him, and then said, "You're busy with your official duties all day long, and you don't even look at your wife. She's been vomiting a lot these past two days, so I asked a doctor to take her pulse yesterday..."

Li Shijun smiled happily and asked, "Why didn't you tell me yesterday?"

"Did you go home yesterday?"

Xue Yun'er was even more annoyed, and turned away and said, "You didn't come back until midnight, and I don't know where you went. Did you keep a vixen outside?"

Li Yun felt that he was in the wrong.

In order to arrange things in Jinling, he really hasn't been home much these days.

He then took Xue Yun'er's hand and said with a smile, "Madam, please be careful in your actions from now on."

"If there's anything, let Dong'er do it."

Xue Yuner looked at Li Yun, sighed and said, "Don't be too hard on yourself. If it really doesn't work out, our family can find a place where no one can find us and live a quiet life."

"What are you busy doing all day long?"

She held Li Yun's hand and whispered, "Don't live your life so hard. It's better to live happily on Cangshan Mountain."

Li Yun took her hand and smiled, "Madam, I don't have big ambitions. I just want to earn a few days of good life."

"But having come this far, there is no turning back."

"You can only grit your teeth and move forward. If you look back, you will see the abyss."

He took a deep breath and said silently, "If we really have to go back, it's easy for our family to find a way to survive, but where can we let so many people follow us go?"

"Don't worry, madam."

Li Yun said softly, "Be busy for another two or three years, and when there are people to take care of all kinds of things, I won't have to be as busy as I am now."

Creating something from nothing is always the hardest.

Now Li Yun has passed the most difficult stage and has established a certain foundation. When this foundation grows stronger and gets on track, he, the backbone of the team, will be able to "relax".

At that time, if he wanted to get involved in every aspect, I'm afraid someone would be unhappy.

Because Xue Yun'er was pregnant, Li Yun took a little longer to say goodbye to his wife. It was not until almost noon that he led his men to leave Jinling City.

Outside the city of Jinling, Yang Xi had already been waiting on horseback, and he brought nearly two hundred men, all on horseback.

These people make up the current size of Li Yun’s guard.

It is one of the few brigades in the whole of Jiangdong that is equipped entirely with horses.

It’s not that Li Yun treats the people around him well, but because his territory is getting bigger and bigger, and he needs to run around to many places. If the guards around him are not equipped with horses, then Li Yun can only take two or three people on the road.

It's too inconsistent with my identity.

After seeing Li Yun, Yang Xi and the others immediately dismounted, bowed their heads and clasped their fists, and said respectfully, "Envoy!"

Li Yun was on his horse, he just said "hmm", raised his hand and said: "Everyone get on the horse, let's go!"

Everyone responded in unison, jumped on their horses, and followed Li Yun to the north.

Because the destination was within the territory of Jinling Prefecture and the distance was not far, they set out at noon and arrived at the camp of Zhao Cheng's troops located to the north of Jinling Prefecture, which is on the bank of the Yangtze River, at night.

According to Li Yun's previous arrangement, Zhao Cheng was supposed to be stationed in Changzhou, but he was transferred here before he had time to go to Changzhou. Outside the camp, Zhao Cheng received the news early and waited outside in advance. After seeing Li Yun from afar, he immediately stepped forward, bowed his head and saluted: "Envoy!"

Li Yun turned over and dismounted, shaking his head and saying, "No need to be so polite."

"Let's talk in the big tent."

Zhao Cheng immediately responded with a "yes", and then led Li Yun all the way to the big tent. After the two sat down, Li Yun lowered his head to drink a sip of water, wiped the dust on the way with a towel, and then looked at Zhao Cheng: "I wrote to you a few days ago, tell me what you think."

Zhao Cheng's face was full of smiles: "Sir, I will tell you the truth."

"If you don't fight any more, I will think you have too much money and are just raising an army for fun!"

This is true.

The treatment of Li Yun's subordinates now is the best among all the armies Zhao Cheng has ever experienced or heard of.

Other armies, if given this kind of treatment, generally...

Just let them die.

And Li Yun has been maintaining so many troops for more than a year, but apart from some minor riots, there have been almost no major battles!

Zhao Cheng wet a new towel, handed it to Li Yun, and said with a smile: "If we don't fight again, my brothers will be embarrassed to receive their salaries!"

Li Yun was stunned at first, then he smiled silently.

This is the inertia of thinking.

In his eyes, the army should be like this, whether in wartime or peacetime, they all receive money and food.

However, in this era, most armies will only feed you when you are fighting desperately.

Extremely cruel.

Zhao Cheng took a map of Huainan Road from the side, spread it on the table, then pointed at Yangzhou City and said to Li Yun: "Sir, I have already arranged the boats to cross the river in the past few days. Yangzhou City is on the north side of the river. After crossing the river, we can camp outside Yangzhou City in half a day at most."

"As for the Pinglu Army in Chuzhou."

Zhao Cheng pointed at the location of Chuzhou and said slowly, "They should still be in Chuzhou now. Even if the Pinglu Army is well-informed, they will find us as soon as we cross the river. They will not be able to rush to Yangzhou so quickly and block us south of the river."

The two generations of people who have run the Pinglu Army are very sharp-eyed and sharp-eared.

As long as Li Yun started crossing the river, he would not be able to hide it from them.

Mr. Li's eyes also fell on the map. He looked towards Yangzhou City and said slowly, "The Pinglu Army is heading south, probably for Yangzhou. After we cross the river, we may run into them soon."

He looked up at Zhao Cheng and asked, "The Pinglu Army should have about 5,000 men, including our Duwei Battalion and my guards."

"No more than three thousand."

"This battle..."

Li Yun asked softly, "Does General Zhao have confidence?"

"If I didn't have confidence, I would have written to the envoy long ago."

Zhao Cheng pointed at Yangzhou and said slowly: "Sir, they don't take us seriously."

"After learning that our troops have arrived in Yangzhou, and that there are only two to three thousand of them, I'm afraid the generals of the Pinglu Army will be so happy that they will rush directly to Yangzhou."

"The enemy's contempt is one of our advantages, and besides..."

Zhao Cheng said slowly: "The governors of two generations may not be more powerful than those of one generation. That General Zhou Xu is not the General Zhou from decades ago."

"Although I have never seen what the Pinglu Army looks like, I feel that we will not suffer any loss, at least not a big loss."

Li Yun tapped the table lightly and said, "We will cross the river in three days. The Pinglu Army should not be able to reach Yangzhou in time, right?"

"Three days?"

Zhao Cheng scratched his head and asked, "Sir, we can cross the river tomorrow."

"I want to send some armor and weapons over."

"As the saying goes, poor at home, rich on the road."

Mr. Li looked at Zhao Cheng standing aside and said calmly, "I'll ask Li Zheng to free up some armor and send it to us."

"At least make sure that all of our soldiers heading north this time have armor to wear. Even if it's leather armor, it's much better than flesh and blood."

Zhao Cheng was stunned when he heard this, then he stood up, bowed his head and clasped his fists towards Li Yun and said, "Envoy!"

"This time, I will definitely fight a good battle for you!"

Li Yun looked up at him, smiled, and then corrected him: "I crossed the river with you and went north, so I should say..."

"It's me, Li Yun. I'm going to fight a good battle."

Mr. Li's eyes fell on Yangzhou on the map.

"It's settled. We'll cross the river in three days!"

(End of this chapter)