Thief Emperor

Chapter 412 Because it’s the New Year!
Battle reports from Luzhou were sent to Nanjing one after another.

Although Li Yun had just had a son and a banquet was being held in Jinling City to celebrate, Li Yun never delayed even a moment regarding the documents from Luzhou. As long as they were delivered, he would open them and read them as soon as they were delivered.

Even because he was drinking, Zhou Bi failed to deliver a document from Luzhou in time. Afterwards, he was scolded by him and almost drove Zhou Bi back to his father Zhou Liang.

When the news that Meng Qing was injured and unconscious and Luzhou was captured reached Jinling, Li Yun was processing documents in Li Yuan's study. When he saw the battle report, he couldn't help but frowning.

The army under his command can now be called the Jiangdong Army.

The earliest generals of the Jiangdong Army, such as Deng Yang, Qian Zhong, Yang Xi, and even Zhou Liang, Li Zheng and others, were not considered top generals.

After all, the reason why these people were able to stand out from so many people was that some of them had a relationship with Li Yun, and some of them had followed Li Yun earlier and were directly appointed by Li Yun.

Simply put, among the middle and senior generals of the Jiangdong Army, except for Su Sheng and Zhao Cheng, who are relatively experienced, the other generals are still in the...improvement stage.

Among them, some were able to keep up with Li Yun.

But everyone has different talents, and some people have limited gifts after all. It is impossible for Li Yun to have such incredible luck that he can guarantee that all those who followed him in the early days would be talented generals.

Among the current high-level generals in the Jiangdong Army, there will definitely be some who will be slowly eliminated by time. This elimination does not mean that Li Yun will remove them from their posts. In a stage where a team is advancing and expanding at a high speed, as long as these people do not make progress and are not promoted, they have actually been put down and eliminated.

Therefore, Li Yun must now start to train some new players with potential to serve as substitutes, and Meng Qing is one of the new players that Li Yun values ​​very much.

This time, Meng Qing's performance in Luzhou also proved that Li Yun was not wrong before.

In this battle, Meng Qing could be said to be both brave and resourceful, and perhaps because he had followed Li Yun for a while, his fighting style had a distinct "Li Yun style", but Meng Qing's personal combat capability was far inferior to Li Yun's, so it was difficult for him to achieve the same effect as if Li Yun were personally on the battlefield.

After reading the document, Li Yun immediately sent a letter to Luzhou, asking Su Sheng to take good care of Meng Qing. At the same time, he also wrote a private letter to Meng Qing, ordering him not to be so reckless in the future when facing a battle.

After writing the two reply letters, Li Yun asked Zhou Bi to deliver them. At the same time, he left Li Garden and went all the way to the Jinling government office, where he found Du Qian.

At this time, Du Qian was still handling official business. After seeing Li Yun, he stood up and smiled in surprise: "Erlang's family has a new baby, and he should be very busy these days. Why did he come to me?"

Li Yun also looked at the documents piled on Du Qian's desk and said with a smile, "Isn't it a day off now? Why is Brother Shouyi still busy?"

"no way."

Du Qian shook his head slightly and said, "There are too many things."

He pulled out a chair and asked Li Yun to sit down, then said with emotion: "There are more and more prefectures and counties under my jurisdiction, and more and more things to deal with. After the end of the year, there will be many vacancies and people need to be considered. I will sort them out and hand them over to Erlang."

“And in many other places, we need to find and fill in the gaps.”

Li Yun sat down, a little curious: "Didn't we leave the officials of those prefectures and counties untouched? How come there are still vacancies? Are there still people in this world who don't want to be officials?"

Du Qian poured a cup of tea for Li Yun and said with a smile: "Those people are naturally willing to be officials, but they prefer to be officials of the court, not yours, Erlang. Last year, the court was hiding in Xichuan, and the future was uncertain. Many people were able to stay in their original positions and serve as officials in the Zhaotaoshi Yamen."

"Now that the news of the capital's recovery has spread far and wide, these people are no longer willing to "compromise" in Jiangdong, so many of them have resigned from their posts and left Jiangdong. It is estimated that they will all go to the capital to report to the Ministry of Personnel..."

He paused and looked at Li Yun.

"By the way, I'll sue you, Jilang."

At this point, Du Qian continued, "I was going to tell Erlang about this in the past two days, but Erlang's family had a new baby, so I didn't have time to tell him."

Li Yun smiled dumbly: "You don't want to be an official in my office, but want to go to the capital to be an official in one of those Jiedushi."

"It's good to go, it's good to go."

Li Yun clapped his hands and said, "When they left, they left a lot of vacancies. In the second half of this year, we can start to arrange our own people to do these things."

Because his power expanded too quickly, Li Yun's intelligence agencies are now mostly located in Jiangbei, with some located near Luzhou in the west. In other words, almost all of them are invested in the military.

He really didn't know much about the movements of the subordinate states and counties.

At present, these local political affairs are almost all handled by Du Qian, who will summarize them and then hand them over to Li Yun for the final decision.

Of course, Li is not completely blind. If there is something wrong, Xu Ang, Zhuo Guangrui and others would not remain silent.

This year, Li Yun’s two brothers-in-law will arrive in Jiangdong soon. Together with his father-in-law, he will have a lot more people at his disposal.

"That's the truth."

Du Qian handed a list to Li Yun and said softly, "These are the vacancies and the names I sorted out. The rest can be sorted out in the next few days."

Li Yun took the list, stuffed it into his sleeve, and said with a smile: "Li Zheng wrote to me before the New Year, saying that there are at least three more states in the south that can be brought under our jurisdiction this year. Brother Shouyi will be busy for a while then."

Du Qian was startled, then he sighed softly: "It's okay for me to be busy, but this situation can't last long, Jinling Recruiting Envoy's Office is here."

"We need more civil servants, the more the better."

He thought for a moment and said, "It will take at least twenty or thirty people." He was reminding Li Yun that he could not focus all his energy on the military, and that he must also start building a civil service system.

Li Yun did not answer, but lowered his head to drink tea, and smiled softly: "Brother Shouyi, Luzhou... I have already occupied it."

Hearing this, Du Qian couldn't help but exclaimed: "So fast?"

He knew that Luzhou was now in the hands of the Pinglu Army, and he also knew that Li Yun had sent troops to conquer Luzhou. However, this kind of siege war is often protracted and difficult to achieve success.

In Du Qian's opinion, even if Luzhou could be taken, it might take half a year or even longer.

But now, it seemed that Luzhou was easily captured in just half a month!

Too simple, too dreamy!
"I'm a little surprised too."

Li Yun put down his teacup and said, "Brother Su's battle report said that he got help from some local people in Luzhou. It should be that I planted some good karma when I was in Luzhou."

"Or rather, I gained some fame."

At this point, Li Yun grinned: "But no matter what, Luzhou is definitely in our hands!"

At this moment, Li Yun was of course in a very good mood, even a little excited.

That's why he couldn't wait to find Du Qian. At this moment, only Du Qian could understand his excitement.

Luzhou can be said to be the gateway to the south of the Yangtze River. With this prefecture, he will be able to attack and defend with ease in the future.

In other words, taking the initiative.

Du Qian reached out and poured Li Yun a cup of tea. Then he looked at Li Yun and said slowly, "Now, the only thing left is Jiangbei."

The area further south of Jiangnan East Road is still not very developed, and it can even be said to be a place waiting to be developed. There is unlikely to be any major chaos, as there is the sea to the east.

Now that we have controlled Luzhou, there won't be too many problems in the west, so the only thing left is the north.

As long as he can use Yangzhou as a base and occupy the entire north of the Yangtze River, Li Yun's power will be independent from then on.

To put it more bluntly, by that time, Li Yun already had the foundation and qualifications to establish an independent country and build a separatist dynasty.

"If we want to take over Jiangbei, we have to fight the Pinglu Army fiercely."

Li Yun said softly: "Besides, we have to defeat them by a big margin."

He lowered his head to drink tea, paused, and suddenly smiled: "Now the father and son of the Zhou family of Pinglu Army should..."

"I'm really angry."

…………

In a blink of an eye, nearly ten days passed and it was the Lantern Festival in the second year of Zhaoding.

In the city of Jinling, there are lanterns everywhere on the Qinhuai River, and many vendors hang up lantern riddles, making it very lively.

Even the Jinling government office paid for hanging up lantern riddles and prepared a lot of prize money.

The prosperous scene in Jinling City seemed like two completely different worlds compared to the miserable situation in the Central Plains and Guanzhong.

And in this seemingly ordinary bustling and prosperous situation, Li Yun's status and prestige in Jiangdong are growing steadily and continuously day by day.

After all, although the news was not well-informed in this era, by this time, there were countless refugees from the Central Plains in the entire Jiangdong area, and the people of Jiangdong could more or less know what the Central Plains and Guanzhong were like.

But in Jiangdong, everything is normal under Li Yun's rule!
In fact, it seems to be more prosperous than before. The gap is obvious in this comparison.

Now, even if the imperial court fought outside the city of Nanjing and wanted to replace Li Yun, the people of Jiangdong might not agree.

The morale of the Jiangdong army is still in the process of being gathered, but the people of Jiangdong are already quietly moving towards Li Yun.

While the people of Jiangdong and Jinling were celebrating the Lantern Festival with great enthusiasm, an acquaintance of Li Yun came to the Li Garden in Jinling.

General Zhou's family member, Zhou Gui, was standing in front of Li Yun, Li Shijun. He was so angry that his face turned red and he shouted angrily, "Li Shijun, you don't keep your word!"

"Earlier, my general promised you that Yangzhou would be left to you, and our two families would not offend each other!"

"Why are you attacking us now? Why are you attacking us in Luzhou?"

Mr. Li lowered his head to drink tea and glanced at him slowly.

"Because it's Chinese New Year."

(End of this chapter)