Thief Emperor

Chapter 98 Where are you talking about?

The difficulty of doing his old job this time was far lower than Li Yun had expected.

After the two sides came into contact, the Xuanzhou soldiers only lost four or five people before they retreated directly.

Since all the soldiers had left, the coachmen naturally would not stay either, and soon followed them all away.

Liu Bo wiped the sweat from his forehead, trotted over to Li Yun, looked at the 20 or 30 carts of food, and asked, "Second brother, what should we do with these? Can they be transported away?"

“Why can’t it be transported away?”

Li Yun took off his mask and said with a smile: "Drive now and transport all the grain to the mountains."

Liu Bo scratched his head and looked towards the direction of Xuanzhou City: "Second brother, it's only about 30 to 40 miles from here to Xuanzhou. The grain carts can't go fast. The Xuanzhou soldiers will be back soon after they report the news."

Li Yun narrowed his eyes and smiled: "I don't think they will come back soon."

"Stop talking nonsense. Drive to Lingyang Mountain right now and send a message to the brothers in Lingyang Mountain to ask them to send someone down the mountain to pick us up."

“Everyone who can go down the mountain can go down.”

Chief Li glanced in the direction of Xuanzhou City and said calmly, "Let's not talk about whether the government troops will catch up with us. With the current behavior of the Xuanzhou soldiers, even if all the soldiers left by Cao Rong come over, we don't necessarily need to be afraid of them, not to mention that guy surnamed Cui..."

At this point, Li Yun curled his lips and said, "He has only been here for a few days. The Xuanzhou soldiers may not be willing to work for him."

When doing things at the local level, the most important thing is to involve interests. The former Sima of Xuanzhou, Cao Rong, got to this position through nepotism, and although his personal ability was not very good, he had been in the position of Sima of Xuanzhou for five years and had already established interest connections among the Xuanzhou soldiers.

No matter what, he was able to mobilize the Xuanzhou soldiers, and the brigade commanders under his command were all obedient. When he asked them to go to Lingyang Mountain to suppress the bandits, they went with gritted teeth.

Now, the post of Sima of Xuanzhou is still vacant. It is Master Cui who ordered them to do the job in his capacity as the governor. To be honest, it is already a great respect to Governor Cui that these Xuanzhou soldiers can escort the grain honestly instead of selling the grain after leaving the city.

Liu Bo thought about it and seemed to understand. He smiled and said, "Second brother is right. It seems that we don't need to be afraid of them anymore."

They were from Cangshan Dazhai. After all, Cangshan Dazhai was just a village with only more than 20 combat forces. They might even tremble when encountering government troops.

And now, Li Yun has more than a hundred combat forces in the village alone. If you count the villagers he recruited with money, he can mobilize more than two hundred people!
This number is not much different from the number of Xuanzhou soldiers, and the Xuanzhou soldiers have now lost their backbone and are worse than before.

To be frank,

If the timing was not immature, it would not be too difficult for Li to find an opportunity to break into Xuanzhou City, occupy Xuanzhou City and raise the flag of rebellion!

But if that happens, he will have to fight against the younger ones as well as the older ones. Mr. Li currently does not have the ability to face the regular army head-on.

"Okay, stop talking nonsense."

Mr. Li put on his mask and said in a deep voice, "Let's go, drive back to Lingyang Mountain!"

…………

"Envoy... Envoy!"

In Cangzhou City, Cui Shao, who was drinking tea with his eyes closed, opened his eyes and looked at his panicked subordinates kneeling on the ground, frowning slightly: "What happened?"

"This afternoon..."

The clerk swallowed his saliva and said, "The 28 carts of grain we sent out this morning had just…had just left Xuanzhou City not long ago. In the afternoon, we encountered bandits on the road..."

"We were robbed by bandits!"

"What did you say?"

Cui Shao's face changed. He slammed the table hard, causing the tea on the table to splash out.

"What did you say!"

The clerk lowered his head and said, "The soldiers who came to the government office to report said that they encountered bandits on the road, there were sixty or seventy of them, and after a fierce battle, more than ten people were killed or injured. They were forced to give up the grain carts and retreat."

Governor Cui was furious and shouted, "Let Yang Heng come to see me!"

After Sima Cao left Xuanzhou, as there was no new Sima, the Xuanzhou soldiers were temporarily commanded by several brigade commanders, among whom Yang Heng had the longest seniority and his words were the most effective.

The clerk responded and quickly invited the brigade commander Yang Heng in. After seeing Cui Shao, Yang Heng knelt on one knee and saluted with his fists: "I am Yang Heng, the humble servant, and I pay my respects to you, Your Excellency."

"what happened?"

Governor Cui didn't even bother to drink his tea. He slammed the table and said, "In broad daylight, the government's grain cart was robbed by a group of bandits?!"

"What do you guys do for a living?"

Yang Heng lowered his head and was scolded by Governor Cui, but he remained calm and said nothing.

When Governor Cui was thirsty, Yang Heng looked up at Cui Shao and sighed, "You have just arrived in Xuanzhou, so you may not know much. Xuanzhou is mountainous, and in recent decades, it has indeed been flooded with bandits."

"They are numerous and agile..." At this point, Commander Yang bowed his head and said, "You, my lord, have divided the money and food into so many batches, and each batch needs to be escorted. We are really short of manpower in Xuanzhou, so it is inevitable that the bandits will find an opportunity."

"I don't want to hear your explanation now!"

Governor Cui slammed the table and gritted his teeth and said, "The grain carts are heavy, and those bandits can't go far. You take your men and catch up with them immediately, and bring them all back to Xuanzhou City!"

"I will skin them alive and tear their bones apart!"

Yang Heng said silently: "Sir, according to your order, many brothers have gone out to supervise the grain. There are only more than a hundred people in Xuanzhou City. If those bandits enter the mountains again, we have these people."

“I can’t even come back.”

Cui Shaodu was stunned.

"The military strength of a state should be at least 500, if not thousands. Where are the soldiers of Xuanzhou?"

Yang Heng sighed and said, "You should ask Sima Cao Rong about this."

When Brigade Commander Yang said this, he felt a little guilty, because although it was Cao Rong who drank the soldiers' blood, they, the officers, also shared the benefits, otherwise they would not have kept the matter secret, and would not have obeyed Sima Cao so much.

Governor Cui took several deep breaths and said, "You mean, the government's money and grain have been robbed and there is nothing we can do about it?"

"Of course there is a way."

Yang Heng lowered his head and said, "You are the governor of Xuanzhou. As long as you give the order, we will immediately recruit young and strong men to fill the troop quota of Xuanzhou. When we have enough manpower, we will lead enough Xuanzhou soldiers to escort money and food along the way."

"No matter which bandit they are, we will make sure they never come back!"

Governor Cui felt a headache.

This brigade commander, whose surname is Yang, said he was recruiting soldiers, but in fact he was just asking for money.

After all, without money, it is impossible to complete conscription, let alone train them.

Besides, it will take at least several months for the new recruits to be trained, and by that time the war in Yuezhou will probably be over!

Governor Cui's face was gloomy and uncertain. After a long time, he looked up at Yang Heng and spoke slowly.

"Is there no one available in Xuanzhou?"

Yang Heng bowed his head and said, "There is really no way to pursue the bandits. If I were to pursue all the bandits along the way, I'm afraid you wouldn't have any manpower to transport money and food."

Governor Cui had a gloomy expression on his face.

After a long while, he finally said, "Let's stop the transportation of money and grain for a while."

"In the past few days, I have reported to my superiors that some officers and soldiers have been transferred from Linzhou."

At this point, he could not help but curse: "Incompetent officials ruin the country. Xuanzhou has been ruined by Tian Jing!"

Yang Heng heard that Cui Shao did not need them to chase the bandits, so he breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Sir, if there is nothing else, I will take my leave."

"slow."

Cui Shao called him, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Before I came to Xuanzhou, I saw a lot of reports from the court saying that Xuanzhou had achieved great results in suppressing bandits. Why are there still so many bandits?"

"Tian Jing lied about his achievements?"

"what?"

Commander Yang looked up at Cui Shao and scratched his head, "Did...was it Inspector Tian who reported it?"

"if not?"

Cui Shao looked unhappy: "Could I have remembered it wrongly?"

Yang Heng lowered his head and thought seriously for a long time, then suddenly remembered and said, "I know that Governor Tian did not lie. In the second half of last year, he did suppress a lot of bandits."

"But it's not near Xuanzhou City, but in Qingyang."

"In the past six months, Qingyang County has suppressed many bandits, and the area has been very peaceful until now."

Cui Shao frowned: "Where?"

"Qingyang County."

Yang Heng replied.

"It's not far from our Xuanzhou City."

(End of this chapter)