I, Altria, only want to rule China.

Let’s discuss this together and see if we can solve the problem of deserters.

After staring at each other for a while, they finally came up with a solution.

That is the system of collective responsibility, from the generals leading the troops to the small leaders below, each level is held collectively responsible, and the consequences of being a deserter are explained to the soldiers.

Before running away, the soldiers would think about the consequences of being a deserter, and the generals and leaders at all levels would also be on guard against their soldiers escaping.

After using this method, no one escaped on the first day of the march. Just when everyone thought it worked, on the morning of the third day, a group of generals woke up and were dumbfounded.

Another 20,000 of the 60,000-man army fled in one night, and this was an organized escape. The officers who led the troops fled with their soldiers!

"Damn it, is there any justice in the world?" After realizing this, Chen Lingjun immediately started cursing on the spot.

Seeing General Chen cursing, the others rolled their eyes. These were all forced conscripts with short training time. Everyone knew that they were going to resist the army from the Wu State. Anyone with a discerning eye knew that they were just cannon fodder.

It would be strange if you didn't run!

To be honest, if their families were not in the city, they would have planned to escape. It would be impossible for them to win against the soldiers of the Wu State.

Moreover, let alone the inability to win, it is estimated that a lot of people here are now looking forward to Wu State coming to liberate Hebei. Under Tuoba Rong's unrestrained rule for half a year, the people of Hebei have long lost their morale.

After thinking it over for a while, a general looked at Chen Lingjun gradually calming down and tentatively proposed a new idea: "Since these soldiers cannot be restrained by military discipline, why not promise them benefits? No one would not like high positions, generous salaries and real money, right?"

Just when the general thought his idea was quite reliable, General Chen laughed out loud: "High positions and generous salaries? No matter how good it is, you have to be alive to enjoy it. Real gold and silver are good, but you have to be alive to spend it."

"Everyone knows what our situation is now. We promised them high positions, generous salaries and real money, and maybe we could get them to follow us to Yizhou, but if the war goes badly, they will be the first to sell us out."

"Since this and that don't work, do you have any other good ideas, Commander Chen?" The others sighed when they heard this.

"What else can we do? We can only take it one step at a time. If it really doesn't work... we will surrender!" After thinking for a while, Commander Chen said harshly.

"Surrendered?!" Upon hearing this, everyone in the tent was immediately frightened, and they looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping.

"Everyone should know what kind of army we are about to face. If we had 2 troops at the beginning, we would not be unable to fight. But you have seen the current situation. When we arrive in Yizhou, I am afraid that our strength will be no more than ."

"The army of Wu State has firearms, which are terrifying and lethal weapons. It is simply impossible for us to rely on the city walls for defense. Do you think that we can be a match for the army of Wu State with only the 10,000 soldiers we brought from the capital?"

"Of course we can't be opponents!" Everyone knew it very well, but it was difficult to disobey the king's orders. If they surrendered directly, what would happen to their families?

Surrender is not something they can just talk about. Once the Emperor knows that they surrender collectively, all the families in the city will be doomed.

"I know what you are worried about, but I am just saying it, don't take it seriously. Let's think about how to solve the problem of soldiers running away. According to reliable information, Wu State has dispatched a total of 2 troops. If we can't keep a close eye on the remaining soldiers, we will be in real trouble."

Seeing that everyone had different expressions, Chen Lingjun quickly laughed and continued to talk about what happened next.

Although Chen Lingjun didn't talk about this matter anymore, it was like a thorn stuck in everyone's neck, making it difficult to swallow.

They want to serve their country, but when they think of the soldiers they currently lead, they feel a headache. With their current combat effectiveness, it is hard to say whether they can hold out for a day.

Looking at this situation, it seems like everything is doomed.

Everyone lowered their heads to think about it and could only sigh helplessly. It seemed that they had no other choice but to die in order to report to the king.

The crowd hurried forward, and after a few days, they arrived in Yizhou, still with 25000 soldiers and horses.

Those who stayed behind were those who were promised high positions and generous salaries. If the promises could not be fulfilled in the future, they might be the ones torn to pieces by the angry soldiers.

Liya was not interested in understanding these people's mental journey. She started from Jinan and passed through Dezhou into Hebei.

Her first goal was to capture Yizhou first, and then she could set out from Yizhou and go straight to the enemy's capital Baoding. As long as she captured the enemy's capital, there would be no enemies in the north, and the only enemy left would be the foreign enemy Rouran.

After Leah arrived in Yizhou, she shouted a few appropriate words to see if the enemy would surrender.

Although these Yizhou soldiers had heard of the fighting power of the Wu Kingdom's soldiers, they did not take it too seriously. After all, they were young and fearless. They had never seen artillery before, so they had no intention of surrendering. Instead, they cursed at Leah's side on the city wall.

Since the other party was so ignorant, Leah would not be polite to them, and soon dozens of cannons were transported out.

Today’s cannons are not as powerful as those in later generations. They can only smash city walls. It is still unrealistic to rely on cannons to kill the enemy.

Under the repeated bombardment of artillery, the enemy dared not show their heads, and soon the entire city wall was broken into pieces, with roads everywhere.

When Leah felt it was about time, she waved her hand.

Her generals immediately shouted "Kill!" and rushed forward with their soldiers.

At this time, the soldiers on Yizhou City heard that the soldiers of Wu State were coming to attack, and the soldiers on the city wall finally reacted and wanted to draw their arrows and shoot.

Chapter 128: Officially Unifying the North

"Boom boom boom!!!" Dozens of artillery fire rang out, and the enemy troops who had just shown their heads were frightened and hid again.

Under the cover of the artillery, Liya's troops quickly rushed to the enemy's city, took out the grenades from their waists, and threw them directly onto the city wall!

As the explosions continued on the city wall, screams were heard.

The soldiers on Leah's side entered through the broken hole in the city wall, and the soldiers of both sides immediately started fighting quickly in the city.

For a while, the shouts and cries of killing continued in the city.

The battle completely disappeared after a few hours, and Leah's army completely controlled the city of Yizhou.

Liya also learned the news about the capital of Wei from Chen Lingjun who was escorted up.

At this moment, the Wei capital Baoding was an empty city. Most of their troops had been sent to Shijiazhuang to resist Pi Baozi.

Now the only force capable of resisting was pulled to Yizhou, but no one expected it to be so useless. In less than half a day, Yizhou was taken by Liya.

If you want to capture a city in a normal siege war, you basically have to sacrifice human lives. Unfortunately, Leah has siege weapons such as cannons, so she is not taking the normal approach at all.

Moreover, she had a grenade with amazing destructive power in her hand. Before the two sides even met, the enemy was half-crippled.

After the formal contact, the combat effectiveness of the soldiers on Leah's side who had received modern training was also amazing.

Often one can defeat five. In addition to the fact that they eat and sleep well, the equipment they have is much stronger than the enemy's. Whether it is armor or weapons, the enemy cannot match them.

Originally, she wanted to rest in Yizhou for a few days, but after learning that there were not enough troops to defend the capital of Wei, Leah quickly took action.

Otherwise, after a few days when Baoding learns of Yizhou’s defeat, they will recruit another wave of able-bodied men, which will be very troublesome.

Compared to Chen Lingjun's 50-mile daily journey, Liya's team was much faster, traveling miles a day, all the way to Baoding.

A few days later, Liya and her men were already at the gates of the city, but Tuoba Rong, who had received the news, had already fled a day earlier with thousands of soldiers and civilian officials.

Tuoba 7 can currently run to a place, and after a little thought, Liya can know where the other party wants to run to.

At present, the Tuoba clan in the north has been almost wiped out by her. At this moment, they have no choice but to flee to Mongolia, which originally belonged to them.

Liya thought for a while, then said to Wang Jiajun beside her: "General Wang, you lead the remaining 10,000 cavalry troops to immediately pursue Tuoba Rong. No matter life or death, we must catch them. We can't let this guy return to Mongolia with the gunpowder technology!"

Because this guy has already mastered the gunpowder technology, if he is not eliminated as soon as possible, gunpowder may spread in Mongolia in the future, and at that time it may pose a threat to the Central Plains.

"I understand!" Wang Jiajun realized the seriousness of the matter after hearing it. Once these nomadic peoples knew how to make gunpowder, the city walls on the border would be in danger.

Although nomadic peoples may not be able to produce very good firearms with their technology, who knows? In short, it is the best option to nip the danger in the bud.

After Wang Jiajun led his troops in pursuit, Leah led the remaining troops into the city.

Faced with the people lining the streets to welcome them, the soldiers also deeply realized that Her Majesty the Queen was so loved by the people, and that Her Majesty the Emperor was the popular choice.

However, looking at the people on both sides, Leah frowned and there was no happiness on her face, because the people on both sides looked too miserable.

They were almost naked, and everyone's face was a yellowish brown without a trace of paleness, which showed that they were badly persecuted by the rulers here.

Leah immediately assured the local people that she would restore Shandong and Hebei to normalcy as soon as possible, and everyone just needed to wait for the imperial court's decree at home.

Of course, it is also necessary to kill those noble families who are causing trouble in daily life. In short, we must first let the people see the determination of the court and let them know that the future days will be better.

After driving Tuoba Rong away, in the following period of time, Liya gradually recovered Hebei, and the fleeing Tuoba Rong was caught by Wang Jiajun and captured directly.

From Tuoba Rong, Liya also got the list of spies who had infiltrated the Wu country. This way, when she returns, she can get rid of these internal pests.

In a word, Leah has now unified the north. Although she has enough ability to move south, there is no rush now. She should recuperate for a while before doing so.

After dealing with the affairs in Shandong and Hebei, Liya returned to Chang'an. She was busy with the next matters.

In the north, under Liya's policy of allowing the people to rest, the land and people persecuted by the Northern Wei Dynasty gradually began to recover, but the situation in the south was a bit chaotic.

Because of the different policies between the North and the South, people in the North now live a very comfortable life. And because of newspapers, people in the South can clearly feel what life is like in the North.

When ordinary people think about their current lives, they won’t accept this.

As a result, uprisings broke out in various places, and nearly a hundred anti-Song forces emerged overnight, mainly in areas far away from the Liu Song regime.

Even in places close to the Liu Song regime, there were signs of unrest.

Under such circumstances, the provincial governors and governors stationed in various places by Liu Song also began to have different ideas.

Anyway, the emperor was far away and rebels were making great trouble everywhere, so these provincial governors and governors still collected the money they were supposed to collect, but they did not pay a single cent of taxes to the Liu Song court.

The result of this was that God was angry and the people were resentful. The common people put all the heavy labor service and taxes on the imperial court, but Liu Yilong felt that he was wronged.

He also wanted to resolve these problems, but now his imperial edicts would become waste paper once they left Jiankang (Nanjing), and it would be useless even if he sent out imperial censors to inspect on behalf of the emperor.

If the attitude was better, these inspectors would be politely sent back, with the reason being that there were rebels in various places and the money collected was not transported to the capital for fear that it would be robbed by the rebels.

If they had a bad attitude, these inspectors might be killed by the provincial governors. Anyway, the world was in chaos, who knew where a rebel might be hiding? And this inspector just happened to be unlucky enough to encounter one?

Chapter 129: Desperate Liu Yilong

What made Liu Yilong even more desperate was that the soldiers and officials stationed in various places were indeed worthy of the title of waste.

When they asked the court for military pay and food, they were more active than each other, and when they plundered the people, they were more ruthless than each other. However, once they heard that they were asked to quell the rebellion, they all started to play deaf and dumb.

From the soldiers at the bottom to the generals at the top, everyone started to feel sick, either with sore nails or itchy scalp. In short, they were unwell and unable to set out immediately.

Liu Yilong was first furious, then furious, and finally wanted to cry.

However, no matter how angry he was or how much he wanted to cry, he still could not change the fact that many regions had already ignored the court's orders.

Although his imperial edict could leave Nanjing City, it could not reach places beyond Yangzhou, and even if it did, no one would pay attention to it.

This made Liu Yilong extremely desperate. What on earth was going on?

It was clearly only a few months, so how come his imperial decrees became ineffective after leaving Jiankang?

After thinking for a long time, Liu Yilong felt that the root of all this lay with the empress of Wu State.

If it weren't for the empress's policy of distributing land, there wouldn't be so many people rising up in rebellion now.

If it weren't for the Wu State Daily that was created by the Wu State and distributed everywhere, the people would still work diligently in the fields like cattle and sheep, and would not dare to have the slightest thought of rebellion.

However, it is impossible to eliminate the Wu State at this stage. The only way is for them to develop the same firearms as the Wu State. Only in this way will they have hope of defeating the Wu State.

But before dealing with the Wu State, he must find a way to resolve domestic affairs. He can ignore those provincial governors and governors for the time being, as long as they do not raise the banner of rebellion.

First, we must deal with those rebellious people. They are no longer common people. We must deal with those rebellious bandits first. Only when those provincial governors and governors see our fists will they not dare to have second thoughts.

In order to prevent the people from continuing to be confused by Wu State’s daily reports, Liu Yilong became ruthless.

Since the Wuguo Daily was so cruel, he would ban this newspaper.

Anyone who dares to spread the Wu State Daily will be executed along with his entire family.

Anyone who dares to secretly keep the Wuguo Daily will be executed along with his entire family.

Now all those traitors who have raised the flag of rebellion will be killed along with their entire clans.

In a nutshell, "it is imperative to carry out severe suppression and killing" and kill these people until they are afraid, and then see if they dare to rebel again.

However, when Liu Yilong made up his mind to "strictly suppress and kill the rebels", his own treasury gave him a hard slap in the face.

The treasury has no money.

As the saying goes, a man with money is a real man, a man without money is a hard man, and a penny can make a hero fall.

Even heroes had to worry about money, let alone Liu Yilong who launched three consecutive Northern Expeditions.

These three northern expeditions had already squandered all the money and grain he had saved.

Otherwise, if there is money in the treasury, the money can be distributed casually, and the people will not be forced to rebel.

So what to do?

Liu Yilong immediately ordered his ministers to raise military funds for him even if it meant losing everything they had.

Isn't he just a tyrant? Liu Yilong is definitely the one!

He simply captured several ministers who opposed him and killed them, and then confiscated their homes, and actually found a lot of money.

When Liu Yilong saw the millions of silver coins, his eyes immediately turned red. He had never thought that these ministers had so much wealth in their homes!

Seeing that Liu Yilong was desperate, the ministers quickly said that they would raise military funds for Liu Yilong even if they had to sell everything they had!

After much persuasion, Liu Yilong was finally stopped from killing people.