Ming Dynasty: I am truly not the Emperor of Longevity

Pingding Prefecture.

Standing on horseback at the crossroads of the official road outside the town, Zhao Xixian looked westward.

Heading west along the official road, it's about 80 or 90 kilometers to Taiyuan City. If you don't mind traveling at full speed, you can get there in a day.

Do we really want to go?

If he went to Taiyuan, neither Zhang Yin, the leader of the sect, nor Li Dali, the left protector, would be there. As the right protector of the Maitreya sect, he could rightfully take over the command of the Taiyuan Left Guard.

As for Li Dali's good-for-nothing son, Li Tong, he can be kept as a mascot.

However, the situation of the Maitreya sect has now taken a sharp turn for the worse!

Five thousand Ming troops from Zhen Ding Wei, Ding Zhou Wei, and Baoding Right Wei have already set up camp near Xingxingtan.

These garrison troops besieged Blackwood Cliff for a day, suffering three to four hundred casualties, while the Maitreya sect suffered only a few dozen casualties, resulting in a five-to-five exchange ratio.

There are several thousand able-bodied men and women who have received military training on Blackwood Cliff, plus more than ten thousand elderly, weak, women and children. Even if they were to fight head-on on flat ground, they might not lose to these five thousand garrison soldiers.

Relying on the treacherous terrain of Blackwood Cliff, even if there were 50,000 or 50,000 Ming troops, they would not be able to take it by frontal assault.

However, the Ming army did not need to launch a full-scale attack!

Before long, more Ming troops will arrive, and they can simply besiege the city for a long time!

There are many deep wells and several reservoirs on the top of Black Cliff Mountain. Water is plentiful and food reserves are enough to feed the people on the mountain for two or three years. But one day, they will run out of resources.

Once surrounded by the Ming army, holding out in the mountain stronghold would only be a matter of prolonging life, and in the end, there would only be defeat and death.

Moreover, I don't think Blackwood Cliff can hold out until the food runs out.

Throughout history, there have been many seemingly impregnable fortified cities with well-trained troops and ample supplies, which quickly fell after being heavily besieged by enemy forces.

Because if a defender is trapped in an isolated city without any support, the morale of the defending troops will suffer a devastating blow.

Even the most fortified city can be easily breached from within.

Trapped on Blackwood Cliff, there is only one way out: death!

The only way to break the deadlock is to take advantage of the fact that only 5,000 garrison soldiers are currently surrounding Blackwood Cliff, start an uprising in Taiyuan, and quickly take control of the city.

Then, a large army was mobilized to Gorilla Beach to attack from both sides with the garrison on Blackwood Cliff, annihilating the five thousand Ming soldiers and opening up a new situation.

However, this path may no longer be viable!

The day before the Ming army's night raid on Blackwood Cliff, Zhang Yin had already set off from Taiyuan for Shuozhou.

Clearly, the siege of Black Cliff was not a private operation by the three guards' out-of-town troops, but rather an order from Fan Jizu, the governor of Xuanda and Shanxi.

Since they had already lured Zhang Yin away from his mountain stronghold, tricking him into going to Shuozhou alone, and at the same time made a move against Blackwood Cliff, how could Fan Jizu not take action against Taiyuan Left Guard?

If I go to Taiyuan now, who knows what I might encounter?

Even if he successfully led the Taiyuan Left Guard to start an uprising and control Taiyuan City, he would have already lost the initiative.

Fan Jizu was already prepared. Tens of thousands of Ming troops from Xuanfu, Datong, and the three towns of Shanxi would soon gather from various places and head to Taiyuan Prefecture to quell the rebellion.

The combined forces of Taiyuan Left Guard and the troops on Black Cliff numbered only a little over 10,000 with military training. Without seizing the initiative, they had virtually no chance of winning against a Ming army ten times their size.

Going to Taiyuan City is too risky for me.

My main purpose in joining the Maitreya Cult was to learn advanced martial arts, and now I have achieved that goal.

The second objective was to seize the legacy of the Li family and use it as a foundation to dominate the world.

It's not about sharing the fate of the Maitreya sect!

Zhao Xixian looked west towards Taiyuan City, then east towards the mountains where Blackwood Cliff was located.

This mountain stronghold, which Zhang Yin and his son had built up for more than ten years and was easy to defend but difficult to attack, now had to be abandoned!

Fortunately, I still have a way out!

Zhao Xixian pulled on the reins, and his mount turned north.

The Maitreya sect's foothold in Taiyuan Prefecture is definitely doomed.

The only remaining intact force was the 30,000 followers who had just been taken to Tumet by Anda!

Zhang Yin was a seasoned rebel, a man who fought on despite repeated defeats. He escaped death twice after his army was wiped out, and managed to rise again.

It remains to be seen whether Zhang Yin and his son will escape with their lives this time.

If they were truly lucky enough, they would surely flee beyond the Great Wall.

Those 30,000 followers were originally prepared as a backup plan.

The most important thing to do now is to get to Tumet ahead of them, take control of the 30,000 followers as the Right Protector, and establish his own foundation!

As for the mess in Taiyuan Prefecture, let Zhang Yin and his son clean it up themselves!

. . .

West Garden, Renshou Palace, East Side Hall.

"Your Highness, I have carefully compared the list of medicinal herbs sent to the Imperial Stables for storage with the list of medicinal herbs received by the Imperial Pharmacy, and there is indeed one item missing."

Tang Zhe hurriedly entered the hall and reported to Lu Chen.

"Because this thing is worthless, and it's not even registered."

"What exactly is missing?"

Lu Chen's heart skipped a beat.

"It was a small packet of alum, packaged in a mulberry bark paper bag, weighing about five ounces."

Tang Zhe quickly replied,

"According to the people from the Imperial Horse Administration, when the medicinal herbs were being inventoried, Chen Furong opened the paper bag containing alum to check it. After learning that it contained alum, she threw it back into the pile of medicinal herbs."

When it was time for the alum to be stored in the Imperial Pharmacy, the packet of alum could no longer be found.

Alum costs only twenty or thirty coins per pound on the market, so this bag is worth at most ten copper coins.

They assumed it had simply fallen somewhere on the road.

"If I hadn't specifically gone to ask, no one would have cared at all."

alum!

Lu Chen laughed.

Before his transmigration, Lu Chen had heard that in a certain place in Sichuan, there was a ruthless person who openly sold "ice" online.

This guy's sales volume was astonishing. After receiving a tip that such a big drug lord was hiding in their jurisdiction, the local police acted decisively and arrested him.

As a result, this guy was ultimately only sentenced to ten months for fraud.

Because all the "ice" he sold was fake; it was rock sugar in the early days and alum in the later days!

This also shows that real "ice" does indeed look very much like alum to the naked eye.

Why throw away such a valuable medicinal herb when they could just throw away a packet of alum worth only ten copper coins?!

Sure enough it was her!

Chen Furong made up an excuse to go to the Imperial Pharmacy, but her real purpose was to steal that packet of "alum" on the way!

Hahaha!

The natives of this plane would never know what that thing is or what it's used for!

This Chen Furong is undoubtedly an accomplice of Duan Chaoyong and his apprentice, a mole planted in the palace by the transmigrator from Blackwood Cliff!

To be fair, her move to retrieve "ice" was originally flawless.

Neither the people from the Imperial Stables nor the Imperial Pharmacy would bother with a mere ten coins' worth of "alum." If it was lost, it was lost; no one would investigate.

But she never expected that she, like her master, knew about this thing!

Chen Furong entered the palace in the eighth year of the Jiajing reign.

That mysterious time traveler is really patient; he's been planning this for so long!