Thief Emperor

Chapter 378 Intensifying
Although General Zhou was lustful and even brought several beauties with him to serve him when he went out on this expedition, his thoughts were always quite clear.

For example, this time's Guanzhong War.

Many Jiedushi, including the Shuofang Jiedushi, the Hedong Jiedushi, the Fanyang Jiedushi, and so on, all participated in this chaos to varying degrees, some wanting to fight for control of the Central Plains region, or simply wanting to fight for control of the imperial court.

But Zhou Xu never had this idea.

He knew very well that with the current strength of the Pinglu Army, it was impossible to gain an advantage in this battle.

Therefore, from the very beginning, the Pinglu Jiedushi had always set his sights on the south. He wanted to take the opportunity to seize Huainan Road and Jiangnan East Road!

If there is a chance in the future, he will occupy the western road of Jiangnan. This will not only enable him to quickly obtain the "resource package" of Jiangnan. If he can no longer stay in the north in the future, he can go directly south and rely on the two lines of defense of the Huai River and the Yangtze River to establish a separatist force in Jiangdong. It is not impossible to establish a country in Jiangdong in the future!
Therefore, after he confirmed that the Fanyang Army had begun to move, General Zhou immediately began to take action against Jiangdong.

The previous feigned westward advance was only done for the Fanyang Army to see, mainly to reassure them.

So now, General Zhou’s goal is quite clear and definite!
That is, go south, go south!
Even though Yangzhou is a big city, and even though a forcible attack on Yangzhou would result in the loss of many troops, as long as Yangzhou is captured, it would be equivalent to capturing Huainan Road!
If everything goes well, we can even march directly into Jiangnan!
If this goal can be achieved, it would be worth it even if 20,000 troops were left in Yangzhou.

With the resources from Jiangnan and Huainan, he will be able to recover more troops quickly.

Moreover, there are many more reasons why he went south.

The most important reason is...

Li Yun is developing too fast.

The Pinglu Army has been rooted in Qingzhou for many years and has some spies in various places. Therefore, General Zhou almost saw with his own eyes that Li Yun's power was rising at a speed visible to the naked eye.

A year ago, Li Yun had only a few thousand men under his command, and he had just occupied Nanjing not long ago.

At that time, Zhou Xu never took Li Yun seriously, but today, a year later, the number of soldiers under Li Yun's command has exceeded 10,000, and they are not a ragtag army, and their military quality is at least at the normal level.

This is very scary.

Now, the imperial court has given him three more posts as the commander of the expedition. If they continue to sit back and do nothing, in less than two years, Li Yun's strength will be almost the same as that of the Pinglu Army. At least, if they can defend the city, the Pinglu Army will be helpless against them.

By that time, even without the imperial decree, Li Yun would become the de facto Jiedushi of Jiangnan.

The Pinglu Army will be sandwiched between Li Yun and the Fanyang Army, and at that time they will only have one way to go, which is to the west towards the Central Plains, and it will be difficult to move forward.

This battle must be fought!

General Zhou gave the order, and Zhou Gui quickly trotted down to deliver the message.

Major General Zhou Chang stood beside his father and said with emotion: "Dad, this Li... Li Yun is very smart."

"Put yourself in his shoes. If I were in his position, I would never be able to resist the temptation of Chuzhou. The army might have already arrived at the city of Chuzhou by now."

General Zhou turned around, glanced at him, then looked to the south and said calmly, "That boy is indeed very patient. He doesn't look like a man in his early twenties at all."

"But it's also possible that he got some information from somewhere."

General Zhou stood with his hands behind his back and said with emotion: "No matter what, it is not easy to build such a powerful force from scratch in just two or three years."

At this point, the Shuofang Jiedushi looked far to the south and said slowly, "However, even though you are a natural talent, can three years of hard work match the accumulation of two generations of our Zhou family... for thirty years?"

Major General Zhou Chang chuckled and said, "When I was investigating Li Yun, I found out about his wife. She seems to be extremely beautiful. After the battle, I will capture her and present her to you, father."

General Zhou looked at his son again and frowned, "You have to think about defeat before you fight, only then can you win. Why are you so frivolous?"

After giving a lecture, he added.

"You should learn from Li Yun. The world is changing drastically now. I don't know how many years your father can live. In the future, our Zhou family will still need you to shoulder the family business."

"You must be careful in what you say and do."

The major general responded and nodded obediently: "Kid, I understand."

………………

Near Fanliang Lake, two groups of people were fighting each other. Although it was already dark, the battle was extremely fierce.

Under the light of torches, weapons and blood flew everywhere!

Li Yun had already covered his face with an iron mask, and the spear in his hand was stained with blood. A large amount of blood splashed onto the barrel of his spear, causing the wooden barrel to become somewhat slippery.

He stabbed a Pinglu soldier to death with one shot, then drew the sword from his waist, cut off a large piece of the soldier's clothes, picked it up, put the sword back into the sheath, and carefully wiped the body of his gun.

During the whole process, he did not move, but no Pinglu Army soldier dared to approach within five meters.

This evil star is really scary!

In a mature army, there will be special people responsible for dealing with these fierce generals. Such people are called "Jianshi" in the Pinglu Army. Just now, more than a dozen Jianshi rushed up and surrounded Li Yun and his two guards. Within a few minutes, more than a dozen Jianshi were lying on the ground. Half of them died under Li Yun's gun, and one was injured in the lungs by Li Yun's direct sideways leaning, and fell to the ground and could not get up.

At this time, Li Yun's troops had been fighting with the Pinglu Army for an hour.

Because Li Yun's troops reacted quickly enough, the encirclement of the Pinglu Army was not formed. Even though Li Yun had chosen a direction with more people to break out, the Pinglu Army in this direction only had five or six hundred people.

If the armies were evenly matched, five or six hundred people would be enough to hold back Li Yun's two thousand men until reinforcements arrived and completely surrounded them.

But it was obvious that they couldn't hold Li Yun back.

Li Yun personally led his men to charge several times, and the five or six hundred people were dispersed.

After Li Yun led his soldiers to completely break out of the encirclement, he was still not satisfied. He turned back with his elite troops and killed a lot of people, forcing the Pinglu soldiers to retreat again and again.

There was no encirclement to speak of.

It was not until the late night that Li Yun withdrew his troops back to the camp. At this time, they had already returned to Gaoyou County, Yangzhou.

At this time, bonfires were lit in the camp, and the wounded soldiers were gathered together, with the doctors accompanying the army helping to treat their injuries.

Li Yun also sat by the bonfire. He took the roasted rabbit from Zhao Cheng, took a big bite, and praised, "General Zhao's cooking skills are really good."

Zhao Cheng said, "When I was young, my family suffered a disaster and I was the only one who escaped. Later, I returned to my hometown in Yuezhou and lived at the foot of the mountain. I made a living by hunting in the mountains."

"I learned the skill of roasting rabbit from an old hunter in the mountains at that time."

After saying this, he couldn't help but look at Li Yun again, and said with emotion: "How did you train your skills? You are really fierce."

After complimenting him, he added, "Before I met you, I didn't believe there was anyone in the world who could defeat a hundred men."

As the son of a general, he was influenced by his family since childhood. He mainly learned how to deploy troops and command battles. Although he also learned martial arts, he paid more attention to collective strength.

The appearance of Li Yun almost broke Zhao Cheng's understanding of war.

Because the effect of this kind of enemy force of one hundred people on the local battlefield is far stronger than that of a brigade of one hundred people, especially the morale-boosting effect brought by Li Yun as the commander-in-chief, which cannot be quantified by the number of troops.

“I also grew up in the mountains.”

Li Yun took a bite of the rabbit, thought about it seriously, then shook his head slightly and said, "When I was six or seven years old, I learned the method of breathing and practicing Qi from someone. When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I didn't need to practice deliberately. I breathed naturally like that."

"I thought my strength was getting stronger after practicing this."

At this point, Mr. Li added, "But later, I learned more and read some books. I learned that even if ordinary people achieve some success in practicing the same method, they are only light and healthy. They are far inferior to me."

He smiled and said, "After thinking about it, I can only say that it is a gift of talent."

Zhao Cheng was amazed.

"It seems that the envoy is really gifted. No wonder General Su likes you so much."

He sighed and said, "I'm afraid there is no general who doesn't like you."

Li Yun looked at him strangely.

Zhao Cheng's words made it seem as if Li Yun was his subordinate.

Zhao Cheng waved his hands quickly: "Sir, that's not what I meant. I meant..."

"All right."

Li Shijun smiled cheerfully: "I don't care about these things."

While the two were still chatting, a captain from the scout camp came over hurriedly, half-knelt in front of them, and whispered, "Envoy, Captain."

"The Chuzhou Pinglu Army is still advancing southward."

The roasted rabbit in Li Yun's hand was suspended in the air, while Zhao Cheng looked up at the sky and murmured, "What are you still pushing forward in the middle of the night?"

Mr. Li took a big bite of the rabbit.

"We want to push them to Yangzhou as soon as possible to prevent..."

He sneered.

"In case I send reinforcements from Jiangnan to Yangzhou City!"

(End of this chapter)