Thief Emperor

Chapter 621: Thunder strikes!

General Zhou was watching the Chuzhou battlefield from afar.

He was holding the telescope he got from Zhou Chang, and his palms were slightly sweaty.

This was the largest-scale war he had ever commanded in his life, almost without a doubt!

Whether or not we can capture Chuzhou today is extremely important, and may even affect the entire subsequent battle situation.

This is because if we fail to make a concerted effort, morale will inevitably decline. Even if we are able to launch a fierce attack on Chuzhou later, the cost will certainly be greater!

There are more than 5,000 troops in Chuzhou in Jiangbei. There are probably nearly 10,000 Jiangdong soldiers stationed in Haozhou and Fengyang. Although the garrison in Fengyang is still insufficient and unlikely to come as reinforcements, it will also be an invisible threat to the Pinglu Army.

More importantly, he attacked Jiangbei not only to recapture the territory of Jiangbei, but also to share the pressure of Jingxiang. Li Yun deployed heavy troops in Jingxiang, and it can even be said that he deployed the main force. Jingxiang may not be able to hold out for too long relying solely on the existing Jingnan Army.

Once Jingxiang falls, at least half, or even more than half, of the Jiangdong troops there can be withdrawn, and they will be able to provide support to Jiangbei in ten days or half a month at most.

By then, Jiangdong will not only be able to firmly occupy Jingxiang, but can also easily take back Jiangbei. By then, the Pinglu Army will not only return empty-handed this time.

So far, this incident has created an irreconcilable feud with Li Yun. The one who is in the wrong is the Pinglu Army, and the one who is in the wrong is Zhou Xu who betrayed the Fengyang Alliance. Once Li Yun is able to withdraw his troops, the war with the Pinglu Army will never stop.

By then, Li Yun will have a legitimate reason to come to power.

In this battle, Li Yun must be defeated. It would be best if we could capture Li Yun and drive the Jiangdong soldiers back to the south of the Yangtze River!
Now, this siege has reached the most critical moment. In Zhou Xu's opinion, breaking the city has reached the most critical moment!
Chuzhou is on the verge of being breached!

General Zhou put down the monocular telescope in his hand, wiped the sweat from his palms, and looked down at the telescope in his hand.

This telescope was brought back to Qingzhou by his son Zhou Chang from Fan Yang, and it was the one that Li Yun had used before.

Li Yun promised to give him one, but he didn't have any extra ones at the time, so he just gave him his.

At that time, before Zhou Xu left Qingzhou, Zhou Chang reluctantly gave the telescope to Zhou Xu until the last moment before leaving home.

Thinking of this, General Zhou lowered his head and wiped the sweat from his hands on the telescope with his clothes, then wiped the glass. When he was about to look up and continue observing, he heard a loud noise in the distance.

General Zhou raised his head suddenly and looked forward, only to see fire coming from the direction of Chuzhou!
Moreover, the flames almost never stopped. As the first flame exploded, subsequent flames continued to explode. General Zhou quickly picked up the telescope and looked into the distance.

I saw unidentified objects being thrown down from the city wall by the Jiangdong Army!
Once these things reached the crowd, they exploded immediately, knocking down a large number of people!
Almost in an instant, the formation of the Pinglu Army under the Chuzhou city was in chaos.

General Zhou clenched his fists and shouted, "Messenger, messenger!"

"Pass my order, withdraw first, withdraw first!"

This kind of thing that we don't know what it is can be handled with caution. Of course, we should handle it with caution. At least we have to wait until we figure out what it is, and then we can come up with a way to deal with it.

Just as General Zhou gave the order and looked up at the battlefield, the north gate of Chuzhou City was wide open.

A tall young man in black armor, like a god, holding a spear, rushed out first!
At this time, the thunder bombs on the city wall did not stop, but they were not fools. They all avoided the direction where their own people were and threw thunder bombs to other places.

Li Yun's voice was like thunder: "Let go and kill!"

The Jiangdong Army has extremely strict military discipline. Normally, as long as the enemy lays down their weapons and surrenders, most of the Jiangdong soldiers will not massacre them. But at this time, Li Yun said these four words, which meant that he would not accept small-scale surrender.

Unless a large number of troops surrender together.

But in such a chaotic battlefield, the latter is completely impossible.

What he wanted to do now was to kill the enemy's manpower to the greatest extent possible. Even if he couldn't defeat the Pinglu Army in one fell swoop, at least he wanted them to think twice before attacking the city next time!

The Pinglu Army's formation was in chaos. Although Li Yun only led 500 people, he was like a tiger among a flock of sheep!
As a result, the Pinglu Army's already chaotic formation became even more chaotic. Add to that their large density and the thunderbolt that struck them, and soon a collective stampede occurred!

Most people are retreating in panic.

Only a small number of smart people run in the left and right directions, and the population density is relatively low.

At this moment, there were nearly three thousand Pinglu soldiers at the north gate of Chuzhou. Hundreds of thunder bombs were falling down, and with Li Yun leading the charge, all three thousand people were in chaos!
In just about half an hour, thousands of people died under the city of Chuzhou, and others were still falling one after another. The casualties continued to increase!

General Zhou stood there in a daze, even his hands and feet felt cold!
What is this? What is this?
He kept shouting in his heart. After looking through the telescope again, General Zhou said in a hoarse voice: "What the hell is this..."

Soon, a noun came to his mind.

"gunpowder?"

This was not the first time Zhou Xu had seen gunpowder, and it was not even the first time he had seen gunpowder from Li Yun's place!

Previously, Li Yun had used this thing when he captured Yangzhou, but the gunpowder at that time was still placed in a cloth bag, and the visual effect was far greater than the killing effect.

At that time, although the defenders in Yangzhou City were not the Pinglu Army, this novel thing had already attracted the attention of the Pinglu Army. Later, General Zhou also sent people to study this thing, and finally basically concluded that this thing was gunpowder refined by Taoists.

Zhou Xu even sent people to make a batch of gunpowder and sent it to his general's mansion. However, after studying it for a while, he could not figure out any use for it, so in the end the project was left unresolved.

After all, if we follow the normal process, it will take at least dozens or even hundreds of years to weaponize this thing, which is quite a long time.

And now, this new thing that Li Yun has come up with has pushed the process of gunpowder weaponization into a span of two hundred years, or even longer!
This is, of course, something beyond Zhou Xu's understanding.

What's even worse is that the Pinglu Army was attacking the city from all sides at this time. In other words, it was not just the 3,000 people at the north gate who were attacked by this unidentified object. The tens of thousands of troops besieging Chuzhou were all attacked by the thunder bomb at the same time!

General Zhou took a deep breath and quickly figured out the cause and effect of the incident. He also figured out why Li Yun made these strange moves and why Li Yun, the commander-in-chief of Jiangdong who could obviously stay in a safe place, would risk his life and bring only a few thousand people to defend Chuzhou.

"What a cruel boy..."

General Zhou murmured something, then called the messenger again, his voice hoarse: "Tell Xie Zhao to get out of the battle immediately, no matter the cost!"

"If the Jiangdong soldiers dare to chase us for more than five miles, we will turn around and fight back."

"Tell him that I will personally lead the troops to meet them!"

"Yes!"

The two messengers immediately lowered their heads and replied "yes", then turned around and ran away. General Zhou himself stood where he was, took one last look at the Chuzhou battlefield, then he put on his armor, mounted his mount, and led his troops to the front line to provide support.

At the end of the Wei hour, General Zhou led his troops and joined the battlefield. He first led the soldiers on the front line to retreat, and then led his troops to meet Li Yun's pursuers.

At this time, only more than 300 of the 500 soldiers led by Li Yun were left. When he saw Zhou Xu's reinforcements arrived, he had a blank expression on his face and decisively ordered: "Retreat!"

The three hundred people, who were already exhausted, immediately gathered together and slowly retreated to Chuzhou City.

A soldier from the Pinglu Army came up on horseback, shouting as he approached: "Mr. Li, my general has something to tell you!"

"Mr. Li, my general has something to tell you!"

Li Yun didn't even look at the man, he turned around and began to retreat towards Chuzhou City. One of his personal guards strode forward and shouted to the Pinglu Army knight: "My superior said that we will meet within an arrow's reach!"

Upon hearing this, the knight of the Pinglu Army immediately stopped his horse and turned around to report.

Li Yun also stopped after retreating to a distance of about 100 feet from Chuzhou.

He only kept a dozen personal guards by his side, and the rest of the people retreated back to Chuzhou City one after another.

After about half an hour, General Zhou, who was dressed in armor, ordered the soldiers behind him to stop a hundred feet away from Li Yun. He also brought a dozen or twenty people and came forward to talk.

When the two were still several feet away from each other, Zhou Xu finally saw Li Yun's current appearance clearly.

Li Yun's armor was all stained with blood, and the blood had dried on his armor.

Zhou Xu stepped forward, clasped his fists and bowed, sighing, "Today I finally see your courage."

Li Yun took off his armor and forced a bright smile on his tired face.

"Brother, have you... seen my little gadgets?"

(End of this chapter)