Thief Emperor

Chapter 614: Take Yangzhou directly!

Li Yun’s flag was hoisted high on the top of Chuzhou City.

This is a square flag with a black background and a big golden word "Li" embroidered in the middle. It flutters in the wind, looking very majestic.

Although many of the troops sent out from Jiangdong at this time were flying flags with the word "Li" on them, the styles of those flags were different from Li Yun's flag. This was the only flag with the golden word "Li" on it.

Although this is the internal system of Jiangdong, it is no secret that various forces have infiltrated each other in recent years. The Pinglu Army could not be unaware of the flag system within Jiangdong.

Hanging the general flag high means telling everyone that he, Li, has come here in person.

Li Yun also wanted to use this signal to tell the Pinglu Army and his "brother" that he was in Chuzhou.

At this moment, all the movements in Jiangbei were being watched by many people. On the day when General Li Yun's flag was hung up, spies from Qingzhou discovered the flag.

Although there was the Huai River in between, these spies had various ways of delivering messages. On the night when the general's flag was hoisted, someone delivered the message to General Zhou in Suyu County, Huaibei.

At this time, the two deputy generals of the Pinglu Army, Luo Zhen and Gongsun Hao, had already arrived in Su Yu. In addition to these two veteran deputy generals, there was also a deputy general, Xie Zhao, who was recently promoted by General Zhou.

The reason why Deputy General Xie was able to come to power was not only because he had made some contributions during the expansion of the Pinglu Army, but the more important reason was that General Zhou had lost trust in Gongsun Hao.

Gongsun Hao had been captured, and there were many prisoners from the Pinglu Army in the prisoner camp at that time, who saw that Gongsun Hao had had a "secret conversation" with Li Yun.

This incident eventually led to Gongsun Hao completely losing Zhou Xu's trust even after returning to Qingzhou. Although Zhou Xu did not deprive him of his position as deputy general, Gongsun Hao no longer commanded troops from that time on.

In fact, because Gongsun Hao was captured, after he returned, some changes were made to the deployment of the entire Pinglu Army, in order to prevent Gongsun Hao from handing over the Pinglu Army's defense map to Li Yun.

Up to now, although Gongsun Hao still holds the title of deputy general, he actually plays a role similar to that of a staff officer in the Pinglu Army.

The three deputy generals filed into the study where General Zhou temporarily worked. As soon as they came in, they were all a little surprised.

Because there is no scent of makeup in this room.

At first glance, there was no woman in sight.

Seeing this situation, the three of them frowned slightly.

They knew very well the character of their general. No matter what time, the general was always accompanied by women. More than ten or twenty years ago, when the general was still young, even when he was ordered by the court to go to war, he would bring several women with him in his tent.

And now, there is no woman around the general, which means that the situation has become so difficult that the general has no interest in women.

Luo Zhen sat in the front row and bowed to Zhou Xu: "General!"

The remaining two people also bowed their heads and saluted: "General!"

Zhou Xu was in a daze at the moment. He came back to his senses when he heard the three people's voices. After looking up at the three subordinates, General Zhou said silently: "Sit down and talk."

After the three of them were seated, Zhou Xu handed the information to them.

The intelligence was very short. Luo Zhen was the first to finish reading it. He handed it to Xie Zhao, then looked up at Zhou Xu, his tone full of shock: "General, this Li Yun is really brave. This should be the largest-scale rebellion in recent years, except for Wang Junping's rebellion."

Zhou Xu shook his head slightly and hummed, "What is Wang Junping? Wang Junping is just a bandit who robs people as he walks."

"Compared to Li Yun, it's far behind."

General Zhou narrowed his eyes and said softly, "This may be the most threatening rebellion to the imperial court in the past two hundred years."

At this time, Gongsun Hao had also finished reading. He handed the document to Deputy General Xie, then lowered his head slightly without saying a word.

Zhou Xu looked at him and asked, "Gongsun, you have dealt with Li Yun before, what do you think?"

Gongsun Hao stood up and was about to reply, but he stumbled and almost fell again.

The last time he was in Jiangbei, when he was fighting with Li Yun, an arrow shot through his thigh. Although he was not killed, he was left with a disease and has difficulty walking ever since.

Zhou Xu frowned slightly.

He knew that Gongsun Hao had an injury on his leg, but it would seem too deliberate to act like this at this time. However, at this moment, he did not care about anything and just looked at Gongsun Hao quietly.

Gongsun Hao looked up at Zhou Xu, then bowed his head and said, "General, Li Yun is extremely scheming and has many tricks up his sleeve. I think this matter is not as simple as it seems."

"We should be careful."

Zhou Xu did not get a satisfactory answer. He frowned slightly and asked, "You mean, the information is wrong?"

"That's not what I meant." Gongsun Hao said in a deep voice: "What I meant is that Li Yun has never been a particularly flamboyant person. This matter is very likely Li Yun..."

Before he could finish his words, Xie Zhao, who had just finished reading the intelligence, interrupted him and bowed his head to Zhou Xu and said, "General, I think this is a rare opportunity."

He lowered his head and said in a deep voice: "Now we can basically conclude that most of Jiangdong's troops have gone to Jingxiang, and the number of people Li Yun brought to Jiangbei is less than 15,000."

"Last time, the general's intelligence said that there should be only 4,000 to 5,000 Jiangdong soldiers stationed in Chuzhou."

At this point, he looked at Gongsun Hao, then lowered his head and continued, "General, since we have decided to attack Jiangbei, we must attack Chuzhou. Regardless of whether that thief Li is in Chuzhou or not, it will not be wrong to attack Chuzhou, which only has four or five thousand people."

"As long as we can successfully cross the Huai River, I can easily lead the people to besiege Chuzhou City. Even if it is not easy to break the city in a short period of time, it will naturally break the city after a few months of siege."

"By then, if Li is in the city, the general will have accomplished his mission. If Li is not in Chuzhou City, or if he escapes by chance, we can still take Chuzhou without any loss."

What he said makes sense.

Because with Chuzhou's existing military strength, theoretically speaking, it is unlikely to pose any major threat to the Pinglu Army.

Zhou Xu glanced at Gongsun Hao, who lowered his head and said nothing.

There was nothing to refute about Xie Zhao's words; every word was reasonable.

If Gongsun Hao was not facing Li Yun, he would have analyzed the situation in the same way.

However, he had dealt with Li Yun before, and he always felt that Li Yun was not as simple as he seemed. Moreover, Jiangdong had dealt with the Pinglu Army several times and had never suffered a loss.

"Okay, that's settled then."

General Zhou knocked on the table lightly and said, "The war between Jing and Xiang has begun. Whether Li Yun is in Chuzhou or not, we must fight this battle and compete with the Jiangdong Army. Otherwise, according to the current trend, in a few years, we may not even be qualified to fight with Jiangdong."

"Follow orders."

After he said this lightly, the three deputy generals immediately stood up and bowed their heads and said, "Your subordinates are here!"

"The Huai River is a natural barrier. If they block us on the south bank of the Huai River, we will suffer heavy losses even if we cross the river."

"Fortunately, I have prepared a lot of ships during this period. Listen carefully."

Zhou Xu tapped the table lightly and said, "Tomorrow or the night after tomorrow, we will disperse the boats and cross the river at night. They won't be able to stop us."

"After crossing the Huai River, anyone who reaches the south bank must gather together immediately, and then build a defense line on the south bank of the Huai River. Before dawn, stay on the south bank of the Huai River and do not move."

"When daybreak comes, we will have a position south of the Huai River. We will then hold the position and calmly guide the follow-up troops across the river."

"I plan to transport the troops to Jiangbei in two to three days."

Having said this, he looked at the three generals under his command and said, "Luo Zhen."

"My subordinate is here!"

General Zhou said slowly: "You lead the troops to attack Fengyang in Haozhou."

"I obey my orders!"

"Thank you, Zhao."

"You lead the troops to attack Chuzhou."

Deputy General Xie Zhao also quickly nodded his head in response.

General Zhou finally looked at Gongsun Hao and patted him on the shoulder: "Gongsun, just follow me and be my advisor."

Gongsun Hao had some disability in his legs, which made it difficult for him to lead troops. After hearing Zhou Xu's arrangement, he had no complaints and immediately bowed his head and saluted: "I obey your command!"

General Zhou nodded, then took out a map and spread it on the table. He pointed to Haozhou and Chuzhou on the map and said slowly, "If the Jiangdong soldiers in these two places rely on the cities to hold on, we will leave some troops to watch over the Jiangdong soldiers in these two cities."

"I will lead the troops and take Yangzhou directly."

General Zhou looked at the map, his voice calm.

"By then, not only will the entire Jiangbei region be in chaos, but we can also approach Jinling and see how Li Yun can advance westward!"

(End of this chapter)