Thief Emperor

Chapter 502 Jiangdong Envoy

When he achieves success in the future, Li Yun will most likely return to Xuanzhou to take a look and live there for a while.

After all, this is where the previous Li Yun was born and grew up. It is also the place where the current Li Yun was born into this world and where he started his career.

However, now is not the time to reminisce about the past, because there are still many things waiting for Li Yun to do.

He only stayed in Qingyang County for one night, and the next day he led his group to continue upstream along the Yangtze River.

Soon, they went from Qingyang County to Zhide County in Xuanzhou, and then to Jiangzhou. After two days of running in Jiangzhou, they finally arrived at Yongxing County in Ezhou.

At present, Su Sheng’s troops are temporarily stationed in Yongxing, confronting the garrisons in Ezhou and Wuchang.

Not long after arriving in Yongxing, Su Sheng brought his subordinates to greet Li Yun on the official road. There were 20 to 30 generals standing on both sides. After seeing the horses of Li Yun and others, they all half-knelt down and bowed their heads in salute, saying in unison: "Greetings, Lord!"

Even Su Sheng, Li Yun's elder brother, knelt down without any hesitation.

Jiangdong at this time is very different from before.

Previously, it was more like a makeshift troupe, or a group of soldiers led by a military leader.

And now, everything is moving towards formalization.

Li Yun, Zhou Bi and others jumped off their horses. He personally helped Su Sheng up and said with a smile, "Thank you for your courtesy, brother."

Su Sheng stood up, shook his head, and smiled, "It's my duty."

At present, these "old subordinates" under Li Yun, from Du Qian to Zhou Liang, and then to Su Sheng and Zhao Cheng, are actually intentionally or unintentionally raising Li Yun's status and putting Li Yun in a respected position.

Moreover, this was their spontaneous behavior. At least Li Yun did not find that they had any collusion in private.

In fact, the reason is not difficult to guess. After the Battle of Jiangbei, they all realized that Jiangbei already had the foundation for establishing a country, so they naturally wanted to determine the positions of the monarch and his subjects, firstly to avoid any trouble in the future, and secondly to prepare for future great undertakings.

After Li Yun stood up, he turned around and pointed at Liu Su who had followed him, and said with a smile: "My secretary also came with me to help me sort out the documents."

Su Sheng and his people were frequent visitors to Li Garden, and had heard of the term "secretary" long ago, and had even seen Liu Su. He had not noticed the thin Liu Su accompanying him, but only recognized him after hearing what Li Yun said, and quickly said, "If the mansion master hadn't told me, I would have almost missed him."

He took the initiative to clasp his fists towards Liu Su and said with a smile, "Meet the Second Madam."

In fact, she shouldn't have called him that. After all, Li Yuan had only one legitimate wife, and the others were concubines. However, Su Sheng knew that this Miss Liu had a very good relationship with Madam Xue.

In addition, he and Li Yun had a good relationship and could joke with each other, so he called out the Second Madam half-jokingly.

Liu Su's face turned red after hearing his words, and she bowed quickly and said, "General, you are making fun of me."

Su Sheng looked at Li Yun and said with a smile: "I'm not kidding, I'm not kidding, Miss Liu is from a famous family, I think..."

He looked at Li Yun, wanting to see Li Yun's reaction.

Li Yun's ideas were different from most people of this era. He did not have a strict distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children in his mind. In his eyes, concubines, who had a very low status in this era, were just family members slightly inferior to Xue Yun'er, with not much difference.

If it was someone from a famous family, they would probably correct Su Sheng seriously, but Li Yun didn't take it to heart. He just smiled and said, "We are all familiar with each other, you can call me whatever you want. It's deserted on this official road, don't stand here for long. Brother Su, where is the camp? Should we go to the city or the camp?"

If Li Yun came alone, Su Sheng would probably take Li Yun to the camp to discuss the next move. However, since Li Yun brought a family with him, Su Sheng naturally had to pay attention to some social etiquette. He smiled and said, "We have occupied Yongxing County now. We have soldiers inside and outside the city. Since the Duke of Fu is here, we should stay in the city to welcome him."

As he spoke, he bowed his head and clasped his fists, saying, "Master, please mount your horse. We will speak for you."

As soon as he said this, all the generals beside him bowed their heads and clasped their fists and said, "Please mount your horse, sir."

Among the four armies in Jiangdong today, Su Sheng's army has the fewest generals who came from the anti-theft team. After all, Li Yun had received a lot of General Su's defeated troops, and most of these generals were assigned to Su Sheng.

But even so, a small number of generals under Su Sheng's command came from the anti-theft team, almost half.

At this moment, all the generals looked up at Li Yun with eager eyes.

The anti-theft team that Li led in Xuanzhou originally had less than two hundred people in total, and there are probably only one hundred and twenty to thirty people who have remained with them until now.

But almost every one of these one hundred and twenty or thirty people respected Li Yun as if he were a god.

After all, most of them had been beaten by Li Yun himself, and almost all of them had witnessed Li Yun's style on the battlefield.

Most people will never forget Li Yun, who is like a god of war on the battlefield.

Under the leadership of Su Sheng, the group quickly arrived at Yongxing County. Su Sheng had people prepare wine and food. Not long after entering the city, he had already pulled Li Yun to sit down.

Su Sheng poured a glass of wine for Li Yun. The two clinked their glasses and drank it all in one gulp. Then Li Yun looked at him and asked, "Brother, how many troops have the Qiantang Army sent to Ezhou now?"

"half."

Su Sheng said quickly, "If we count the civilians who help carry the logistical supplies, there will be a lot of people." He thought for a moment and continued, "Now, the number of troops near Yongxing is about 9,000. I have also asked the rest of the troops to move over here. As long as the governor needs them, they can rush here in three or four days."

Li Yun nodded and asked, "Did the man surnamed Lu send anyone to communicate with us?"

"Yes, I came the day before yesterday."

Su Sheng looked at Li Yun and said, "The people over there said that this is the territory of the Wuchang Army. No matter where we are from, we must withdraw from Ezhou immediately."

"He gave us a deadline of ten days, requiring us to leave Ezhou within ten days, otherwise he would send troops to retaliate."

"Ten days..."

Mr. Li took a sip of wine and said with a smile, "That's quite generous. Normally, we only give three days."

"Because they sent someone to Jinling to see the governor."

Su Sheng smiled and said, "They still want to meet the Duke in person. Considering the round trip time from here to Jinling, ten days is not a long time."

Mr. Li touched his chin and said with a smile, "I have been on the road these days, and I am afraid I have missed their envoy."

Su Sheng poured more wine for Li Yun and continued, "That Lu guy sent someone to say that he has written to the court to impeach the Duke. If my army does not withdraw, the royal army of the court will come to attack Jiangdong and investigate the Duke's crimes."

"Put my guilt on me..."

Li Yun smiled dumbly, raised his head and drank the wine in the glass, then said with a smile: "I haven't heard such words for a long time. I wonder who the court can send to investigate my crime now."

Su Sheng chuckled, then looked at Li Yun and said, "Master, what do you say?"

"To fight or not to fight?"

"Of course I have to fight."

Li Yun also picked up the wine pot and filled himself and Su Sheng's glasses with wine, then said with a smile: "Otherwise, I have two new beautiful wives, why would I come all the way here?"

Su Sheng laughed: "I knew that the Lord would definitely beat me."

"Ezhou is located in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It is very important to Jiangdong. I was planning to start it in the next two days, but I heard that the Duke of Fu was coming, so I waited."

"Damn it."

Su Sheng groaned and cursed, "Some time ago, our army had just left Yongxing and had not yet approached Wuchang when they were ambushed. After the battle, dozens of our brothers were injured."

"Sir, please tell me."

Su Sheng rubbed his hands and said, "How should we fight?"

He was indeed a little impatient.

Since he joined Li Yun, he has indeed fought many battles, but none of them were major battles, especially those that were particularly crucial.

If there were any, they were the two battles of attacking Luzhou and defending Chuzhou.

Although the results were good, not many enemies were killed or wounded.

Right now, his Qiantang Army is expanding again. The battle of Ezhou is a great opportunity for him to show his skills!

"I have only two requests for this battle."

Li Yun held up two fingers and said, "First, we need to take Ezhou."

"Second...be quick."

Su Sheng was startled and asked, "How fast?"

"The sooner the better. Ten days or half a month is the shortest, and no more than a month is the longest. If it exceeds a month, I'm afraid we'll need reinforcements."

At this point, Li Yun took out a letter from his sleeve, turned around to look at Meng Hai and Zhou Bi who were not far behind him, and said with a smile: "Who of you is willing to go to the Wuchang Army and be my messenger to scare the Wuchang Army Jiedushi."

"I go!"

"I go!"

The two men stepped forward at the same time, but Zhou Bi took the lead and walked in front of Li Yun. He took the letter directly, then took a step back and lowered his head.

"Master, I'll go."

(End of this chapter)