Thief Emperor

Chapter 623 Explode again!

Li Yun was really tired.

He didn't even take a shower, he just found a place to stay and fell asleep.

He fell asleep in the late afternoon, and when he woke up again, it was already the next morning. As soon as he woke up, Li Yun felt sore all over and was extremely hungry!
After he stood up, he felt dizzy and sat down again, his voice hoarse: "Su Zhan, Su Zhan!"

Su Zhan, who was already guarding the door, quickly pushed open the door and came in. Hearing Li Yun's urgent shout, Su Zhan was also frightened and hurriedly said, "Sir, what's wrong?"

"hungry."

Li Yun smiled bitterly and said, "Hurry up and get me something to eat, and two bowls of porridge."

Su Zhan responded quickly, turned around and trotted to get two pounds of meat, a pound of cakes, and two large bowls of porridge for Li Yun. Li Yun wolfed them down and ate them all up quickly. After he was full, he stood up, rubbed his belly, and said to Su Zhan with a smile, "It was a close call. I almost starved to death."

Su Zhan was in no mood to laugh, he lowered his head and said, "It's my fault for not thinking it through. I shouldn't have gotten promoted while hungry."

Li Yun waved his hand, very casually: "It's none of your business, none of your business."

He stood up and stretched his muscles. Apart from some pain in his body and a sour and unpleasant smell on his body, he was in good health and became full of energy again.

"Did the Pinglu Army attack?"

Su Zhan quickly shook his head: "No, they must have been frightened by the thunder. After retreating yesterday afternoon, they just surrounded Chuzhou and didn't move again."

Li Yun said "hmm", feeling a little relieved, then said with a smile: "Go get someone to boil some hot water for me so I can take a bath. I'm covered in sweat and blood. If I don't take a bath, I'm going to grow red hair."

Su Zhan nodded quickly, turned around and went back to work.

After half an hour, Li Yun leaned comfortably in the wooden tub for bathing. Su Zhan stood behind him, rubbing his back and reporting what happened during the time Li Yun was asleep, as well as the approximate battle losses in the army.

"Including yesterday, the Pinglu Army has been attacking for almost three days and two nights. In the first two days and two nights, their casualties are estimated to be four to five thousand."

"After using thunder bombs at noon yesterday, the Pinglu Army suffered another setback. In half a day, the casualties may be greater than in the previous two days and two nights."

At this point, Su Zhan whispered, "I asked Captain Feng. Since we can't leave the city, he only has our own casualties. It's hard to calculate the casualties of the Pinglu Army."

"Captain Feng said that up to now, there are only about 3,800 of the 5,000 people guarding Chuzhou left."

Li Yun silently said "hmm", looked back at Su Zhan, and said, "Well done, I asked all the questions that should be asked."

Li Yun sat in the hot water tub, closed his eyes and thought about the battle situation, then said, "Is there no way to communicate with the Nine Divisions?"

"Yes."

Su Zhan said quickly: "Although the Pinglu Army is no longer attacking, they have surrounded Chuzhou with three layers of troops inside and outside. The Nine Departments have left a dove nest in Yangzhou, but not in Chuzhou. Now there is basically no way to contact the people of the Nine Departments."

The Pinglu Army had too many troops and the Chuzhou City was too small.

The way they surrounded him, Li Yun had no way of passing any message out, and people outside had no way of passing any message in.

Su Zhan paused, and continued, "Earlier today, Captain Feng came here to see you, but you were still asleep, so I didn't let him in. Captain Feng asked me to tell you that if you look through the telescope, the Pinglu Army outside the city seems to be splitting up. They may fail to attack Chuzhou and want to cross Chuzhou and head south."

Hearing this, Li Yun's expression finally changed slightly.

To the south of Chuzhou is Yangzhou.

At this time, Yangzhou was the absolute core city of the entire Jiangbei area and the economic center of Jiangbei.

Once the Pinglu Army invades and captures Yangzhou, Li Yun’s operations in Jiangbei over the past few years will probably be destroyed.

More importantly, when he occupied Yangzhou, Li Yun made a boast in Yangzhou City that he would give Yangzhou at least 50 years, or even 200 years of peace.

It has only been a few years since then. If there is another military disaster in Yangzhou, Li Yun will be severely slapped in the face, and he will probably not have the face to go to Yangzhou again in the future.

"Release the pigeon."

Li Yun narrowed his eyes and whispered, "Send a pigeon to Jinling and ask them to support Yangzhou as appropriate. At least Yangzhou City cannot be lost."

Jinling was Li Yun's base camp, and there were people who specialized in training carrier pigeons. They kept many cages of pigeons. Whenever he went out for important matters, he would take a few of them with him and use them to deliver messages in emergencies.

Of course, this means of communication can only be an unconventional means in this era. Firstly, it is unlikely to be deployed on a large scale. More importantly, this means of communication is not accurate and reliable enough.

It can only be used in very special and important situations like this.

Su Zhan responded and said, "I'll go and release the pigeon in a moment, using Jiusi's secret code."

When Jiusi was not yet called Jiusi, Li Yun created a cipher system for them using Arabic numerals to prevent important intelligence from being lost and falling into the hands of the enemy.

The reason why carrier pigeons are difficult to use on a large scale is that they are unstable and prone to problems. If you use them to deliver some important messages, if they fall down along the way and are picked up by the enemy, it will be a huge trouble.

The ciphertext system solves this pain point of the pigeons very well. Now the frequency of using pigeons by the Nine Departments has surpassed their predecessors, the Imperial City Department. After Li Yun explained a few things to Su Zhan, Su Zhan quickly turned around and nodded and left to communicate with several Nine Departments personnel who were with Li Yun, and then released the pigeons.

Li Yun had also finished his bath by now. After standing up from the bucket, he wiped off the water stains on his body and then changed into new clothes.

Although he had a lot of skin injuries on his body, it basically had no effect on him. Soon, he left his residence and came to the top of the Chuzhou city wall, where he saw Feng Qi with red eyes.

Li Yun was startled when he saw him like this, then asked, "You haven't slept yet?"

Feng Qi had an ugly face and looked a little scary, but in front of Li Yun, he was quite honest and obedient. He forced a smile at Li Yun and said, "Master, please take a rest. I am the biggest man in Chuzhou City. How dare I sleep?"

Currently in Chuzhou, apart from Li Yun, he is the only one. The biggest boss is in this Chuzhou city. Surrounded by powerful enemies outside the city, one can imagine the pressure he is under.

There was no way he could go to sleep at this time.

Li patted his shoulder, then looked towards the direction of the Pinglu Army outside the city, with a calm expression: "You go and take a rest, I'll watch over here."

"Chuzhou will probably have to hold out against the Pinglu Army for a long time. You can't fall early."

Feng Qi bowed his head deeply.

"Yes."

After he saluted Li Yun with his fists, he staggered down to rest.

Li Yun stood on the city wall, with his hands behind his back, looking outside the city, and whispered secretly in his heart.

"Let you run rampant for a while, and wait for me to catch my breath."

Mr. Li narrowed his eyes.

"See you in Qingzhou."

…………

Jingxiang battlefield.

The number of troops in Jingnan was not large. They were assigned to Jingzhou and Xiangzhou. The garrisons in the two states were around 10,000.

At this time, these two states had been surrounded by the two armies of the Jiangdong Army.

After the siege, the Jiangdong army only carried out several tentative attacks, then surrounded the city without fighting and began to occupy various counties in Jingzhou and Xiangyangzhou.

While Li Yun was in a stalemate with the Pinglu Army in Jiangbei, the two groups of Jiangdong troops had already occupied the entire Jingxiang area at the fastest speed.

The two generals met at the border of Jingzhou and Xiangzhou.

"Brother Su."

Zhao Cheng clasped his fists towards Su Sheng and said, "The Pinglu Army has crossed the Huai River and headed south, and is now surrounded in Chuzhou."

"Should we be in a hurry here?"

Su Sheng shook his head slightly and said, "When we were in Jinling, the superiors told us that you and I only need to take care of Jingxiang and conquer it. We don't need to worry about the rest."

"At this time, if Jiangbei disrupts the rhythm of Jingxiang, the higher-ups will definitely be surprised."

Zhao Cheng frowned and asked the guard beside him to spread out the map. Then he pointed to the north of the map and said slowly, "The Hedong Army said that reinforcements were coming to support Jingxiang, but they have not arrived yet."

"Otherwise, after we eat up this reinforcement, we can turn around and head to Huainan Road to fight the Pinglu Army again."

The two generals pointed at the map and discussed their next move. While they were discussing, Liu Bo, the chief of the Ninth Department, hurried over. After seeing the two generals in a tent, he breathed a sigh of relief and said, "It's great that you two are here."

He looked at the two people and said, "Chuzhou has already activated the Sky-shaking Thunder. The Supreme Leader asked Jiusi to pass a message to the two generals. The Sky-shaking Thunder in the hands of the two generals can be used, and it is best to use them as soon as possible."

Upon hearing this, Su Sheng and Zhao Cheng looked at each other with some excitement in their eyes.

Su Sheng took a deep breath and looked at Zhao Cheng.

"General Zhao, maybe we can work together to take Xiangzhou first!"

Zhao Cheng nodded slowly.

"Just right, let's try the higher-level Thunder."

"What does it look like on the battlefield?"

(End of this chapter)