Thief Emperor

Chapter 618 Brotherly Love
The Pinglu Army did not cross the river very quickly, but by the next morning, after two days and nights, about 10,000 people had crossed the river.

After reaching this number, Zhou Xu no longer hesitated. He personally led these soldiers to Chuzhou, which at this time had already been completely evacuated.

By the evening of the next day, Zhou Xu led his troops to surround Chuzhou.

General Zhou personally came to the foot of Chuzhou City, stopped within an arrow's reach, then took out Zhou Chang's telescope from his arms and looked at the city wall.

Several messengers strode forward and shouted loudly at the Chuzhou city wall.

"The king's army has put down the rebellion. Open the city and surrender!"

"Surrender without killing, surrender without killing!"

Li Yun was standing on the tower at the moment. He looked at the messengers outside, turned back and smiled at Yang Xi: "Guess what they are doing?"

Yang Xi thought about it, then whispered: "They want to confirm whether the superior is in Chuzhou."

Mr. Li was a little surprised. After looking at Yang Xi, he smiled and said, "Finally, you have followed me for a few years and have become smarter."

Yang Xi lowered his head slightly and said with a smile: "Following the higher-ups, you must improve a lot, right?"

Li Yun looked down at the messengers of the Pinglu Army outside the city, then looked into the distance and said with a smile: "How about we go out of the city and kill them for a while?"

"Sir, the enemies are all over a hundred feet away. If we rush out now, we won't be able to encounter them. Moreover, the enemies are increasing in number. We must not leave Chuzhou City at this time."

Li Yun also used a telescope to observe the situation below, then nodded and said, "You make sense."

Now, he couldn't take any risks. He used himself as bait to lure Zhou Xu here. Now he hadn't reeled in the fishing rod yet. He couldn't let the Pinglu Army eat this bait.

Otherwise, the entire Southeast might collapse.

"Go find a piece of cloth."

Yang Xi immediately turned around, went down the city gate, and found a piece of silk cloth for Li Yun. Yang Xi was very smart. He knew that Li Yun wanted to write, so he took the pen and ink together.

Li Yun spread the silk cloth on the city wall and wrote two lines of large characters with a brush. Then he asked someone to fetch his ox horn bow and tied the silk book to the arrow shaft. As the ox horn bow was fully pulled, the arrow flew out and hit the helmet of a messenger with a loud "clang" sound.

The arrow hit the empty space on the helmet, directly knocking the man's helmet off, scaring him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat.

All the messenger soldiers were startled and scattered after a cry of surprise.

However, someone still discovered the silk book. He held the book in his hands and crawled all the way to General Zhou, where he presented the book to him with both hands.

"General, an arrow was shot down from the city wall and nearly killed one of my soldiers. This book was tied to the arrow."

Zhou Xu reached out to take it, unfolded it and took a look.

There are only two lines on the silk book, with less than ten words.

"Brother, do you still remember the Fengyang Alliance?"

In the Fengyang Alliance, the two sides agreed to be brothers and not to attack each other.

Li Yun's westward advance did not violate the Fengyang Alliance, but the Pinglu Army's southward advance and crossing of the Huai River had already effectively betrayed the Fengyang Alliance.

"Fengyang Alliance..."

General Zhou narrowed his eyes, looked at the Chuzhou tower, and murmured: "The oath of alliance with heaven cannot withstand a hundred years of imperial power. If I don't attack you, you will attack me sooner or later."

"My son is right."

General Zhou whispered to himself, "How can I give up without fighting a good battle?"

After saying this, he looked up at the Chuzhou City in front of him and murmured, "Li Er... actually seems to be in this city."

"Thank you, thank you!"

He raised his voice, and after shouting twice, the deputy general Xie Zhaocai came running over, bowed his head, clasped his fists, and said, "General!"

"Pass my order. After Luo Zhen crosses the river, send another 10,000 troops over!"

"also!"

"For the soldiers crossing the Huai River, tell them to speed up immediately. In three days, at most, all the troops must be outside the city of Chuzhou!"

Xie Zhao was stunned. He looked at General Zhou and whispered, "General, if we send more troops to Chuzhou, I'm afraid there will be more than 30,000 troops outside Chuzhou..."

"This isn't a big city. Fengyang might be more important."

General Zhou smiled and said, "There is at least an 80% chance that Li Yun is in Chuzhou City. As long as we can surround him, it is worth sending as many troops as possible. If we take Chuzhou, we will have won the battle to the south!" Only then did Xie Zhao hurriedly lower his head and turned to pass on the order.

General Zhou looked up at the city in front of him and murmured, "Don't worry, don't worry."

"Just because you call me elder brother, after the city is conquered, I, as your brother, will do my best to spare your life."

People of this era still attach great importance to the relationship between sworn father and son, and sworn brothers.

Even when Zhou Xu and Li Yun became sworn brothers, his intentions were quite pure. He was planning to form an alliance with Jiangdong so that in the future, when the princes were divided, the two families could help each other and cooperate for a long time.

That's why he was a generation younger than Li Yun and became his brother.

But now, Li Yun is developing too fast and has demonstrated strong fighting ability in Fan Yang. Coupled with the instigation of the imperial court, Zhou Xu, as a neighbor of Jiangdong, can no longer sit still.

Especially at this moment, he was even more excited.

If Li Yun can be captured, whether alive or killed on the spot, it will be a heavy blow to Jiangdong. At that time, the Pinglu Army may be able to take the opportunity to move south and take over the three well-organized southeastern routes from the Jiangdong Group!

By that time, the Pinglu Army will not only be able to wipe out the haze that Gu Wenchuan has brought to Qingzhou, but it may even go a step further and compete for the world in the future!

Therefore, under the order of General Zhou, the Pinglu Army began to gather towards Chuzhou frantically. In just three days, more than 30,000 Pinglu Army soldiers had gathered under the city of Chuzhou!

If these 30,000 people are all combat soldiers, that means that basically a small half or even half of the Pinglu Army’s forces are concentrated in Chuzhou!
Li Yun's influence is evident!
On the morning of the third day, when Li Yun stood on the city wall again, the outside of the city was already densely populated with Pinglu troops everywhere.

Although Mr. Li now has 100,000 soldiers and horses under his command, his forces are scattered, and even the troops of a single army rarely act together. In other words, even for him, it is the first time he has seen such a spectacular scene.

Mr. Li made a "tsk" sound, looked at Yang Xi, and said with a smile: "Are you scared?"

Yang Xi looked into the distance, swallowed his saliva, and nodded: "Yes... a little bit."

Any normal person would be scared when seeing a group of enemies outside.

Li smiled and was about to say something to him when Feng Qi strode over and bowed his head to Li Yun and said, "Sir, General Zhou outside the city has sent someone to deliver a letter of persuasion to surrender."

Li Yun stretched out his hand and said with a smile: "Let me see."

Feng Qi handed it over with both hands. Li Yun unfolded the letter of surrender and read it carefully.

This letter of surrender was extremely long, with more than a thousand words. After Li Yun took a quick glance at it, he knew that it must have been written by the clerk.

It was only at the end that he saw a useful sentence.

"At Fengyang, you and I swore an oath of friendship and pledged to be brothers. This is witnessed by heaven and earth, and known by the sun and the moon."

"Since you have burned the book and reported to the heaven, you are like a real son to me. We should stand together in everything. However, my brother has now rebelled against the court and committed treason."

"Brother, I dare not follow you."

"I hope that after reading this letter, you will open the city and surrender, so as to avoid a war. I will give up my position as the Zhou family leader for three generations, and I will certainly ask the emperor to forgive you for your crime."

Seeing this, Li Yun folded the document again, put it in his arms, and said with a smile: "It's well written. I have to keep it. I will read it to him when I have the chance in the future."

"Feng Qi."

Captain Feng immediately stepped forward, bowed his head, clasped his fists and said, "I'm here!"

Li Yun looked outside the city and said slowly, "Looking at the situation outside, the Pinglu Army will start attacking the city today or tomorrow, and it is very likely that they will attack from all sides. From now on, we will deploy 1,000 men on each of the four walls of Chuzhou, and each of them will be in charge of a captain."

"The rest of the troops will serve as backup and will be deployed wherever there is a shortage of people."

At this point, Li Yun thought for a moment and continued, "I will personally guard the northern wall of Chuzhou."

Feng Qi quickly lowered his head and replied yes.

"I'll go and make the arrangements right away!"

Li Yun said, "Hmm," and warned, "Tell the brothers not to be afraid, and not to have too much pressure."

"We have cities to defend."

Mr. Li spoke calmly.

“Nothing will happen to you.”

(End of this chapter)