Zhu Feng'er touched the backs of the two soldiers and knocked them unconscious with two blows. When the last soldier saw his companion falling, he was about to shout loudly when the wooden stick in Zhu Feng'er's hand swept over like lightning and hit him on the head. The soldier fell to the ground unconscious. Zhu Feng'er threw away the wooden stick, bent down to unlock the key from a soldier, walked to the stable and unlocked the door.
Li Zhiyun was sitting on the ground, drowsy, when he suddenly heard the door knocking. He looked up and saw that the door was pushed open, and a figure came in like a gust of wind. He took a closer look and saw that it was Zhu Feng'er.
Li Zhiyun struggled to get up from the ground, stepped forward and stood in front of Zhu Feng'er, and said excitedly: "Miss Zhu, why are you here?" Zhu Feng'er lowered her voice and said: "There is no time to explain, you guys come with me quickly!" After that, Pulling out the sword, he turned around and cut the binding rope with the sword. Then she cut off the ropes on everyone's hands.
Everyone walked out of the stable and followed Zhu Feng'er to the back door of the yard. Zhu Feng'er used a sword to pry open the door lock, and everyone rushed out. Li Zhiyun breathed a long sigh of relief, feeling relieved that he had stepped out of the quagmire: he finally escaped from this man-eating devil's cave!
Everyone ignored the need to go back to the inn to pick up their luggage and followed Zhu Feng'er to the city gate. The city gate had long been closed, and the city guards saw that Zhu Feng'er was leading the Tang Dynasty's envoy to leave the city late at night, and they didn't know what happened. Although Zhu Feng'er said that they had obeyed his father's order, they were still hesitant because they could not open the city gate. In the end, it was Zhu Feng'er who forced them with a sword and they opened the city gate.
After everyone left the city and walked about two miles, Zhu Feng'er stopped and said to Li Zhiyun: "I will send you here. It will be safe in front." Li Zhiyun looked at her and said: "Miss Zhu, follow Let's go together. If your father knows that you let us go, he will definitely punish you!" Zhu Feng'er smiled and said: "He is my father after all, even if he punishes him, it will only be a scolding and imprisonment for two days. ." After hearing this, Li Zhiyun nodded and said, "Okay, I won't say thank you anymore. We'll see you later!"
"See you later!"
After Li Zhiyun said goodbye to Zhu Feng'er, he led his entourage and walked towards Guantang Town under the dim starlight.
The group walked for more than half an hour and finally returned to the New Army camp. The lights in the military camp have long been turned off, and the soldiers have fallen asleep. The soldiers standing guard at the camp saw a large group of black shadows moving in front of them. They quickly clenched the blunderbuss in their hands and shouted, "Who is that?"
"It's us." One of the attendants replied.
Scarface happened to come over for patrol and heard a familiar voice, so he took a torch from the torch stand next to the gate and went up to him holding the torch. When he saw Li Zhiyun, he quickly said: "King Chu, are you back?" Li Zhiyun agreed. Scarface illuminated it with the torch again and said, "Where's Vice Envoy Duan?" A follower said with a stern face, "He was eaten!"
"Ah?" Scarface opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it for a long time.
Li Zhiyun waved his hand and said: "Go back to the camp and sleep first, and we will talk about the rest tomorrow!"
Zhu Can rebelled, and Li Zhiyun's mission was considered a failure. Logically, he should go back to Chang'an, but he doesn't want to go back yet. He led his men to eliminate 5,000 Turkic troops. My father was very angry and there would be no good fruits for him to go back now. However, if they don't return to Chang'an, where can they go?
The next day, Li Zhiyun summoned two subordinate officers, Scarface and several other generals to discuss together. Li Zhiyun said: "Zhu Can has 200,000 soldiers and horses, and tens of thousands of troops are stationed in Jutan City alone. Guantang Town is close to Jutan." The pond is too close and Zhu Can will attack us at any time, so we must leave here immediately."
Someone suggested returning to Chang'an, and Li Zhiyun explained the reasons why he could not return to Chang'an, which gained everyone's understanding. Scarface thought for a while and said: "I met a merchant in the town two days ago and chatted with him for a few words. He said that there is a Champion City more than a hundred miles away from here, with roads extending in all directions and rich products. , it’s densely populated, so it’s a good thing to go there.” After hearing this, Li Zhiyun nodded and made the final decision: “Okay, then let’s go to Champion City.”
Without further ado, the new army immediately broke camp and set off, leaving Guantang Town and heading towards Champion City (now Deng County, Henan Province). They traveled across mountains and rivers for several days, getting closer and closer to Champion City.
On this day, Li Zhiyun was riding at the front when he suddenly saw a fast horse galloping in front of him. When he got closer, he saw clearly that it was a scout sent out. The scout turned over and dismounted, ran to Li Zhiyun's horse, clasped his fists and said, "To inform the King of Chu, Champion City is still ten miles away from here, and Zhu Can's five thousand soldiers and horses are stationed in the city."
When Li Zhiyun heard this, he couldn't help but frowned: There are five thousand enemy troops in the city, two thousand more than the new army. If we attack by force, we are not sure. It seems that we have to outwit them. Li Zhiyun asked the guards to notify Scarface and ask him to order the team to camp where they were.
After the new army camped in an open space beside the road, Li Zhiyun decided to take people into the city to reconnoiter the enemy's situation. Originally, he could have sent someone else to do this, but since he decided to outwit the Champion City, he had to do it himself. Only after entering the city could he come up with a solution.
Li Zhiyun asked Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu to choose some guards and soldiers, a total of more than a dozen people. They went to the nearby market town to hire two carriages, bought some goods, dressed up as merchants, and set off towards the Champion City.
The group walked for more than half an hour and arrived in front of the city gate. There were soldiers guarding the city gate. The soldiers inspected the goods, collected the city gate tax, and then let them into the city. Everyone found a post station, parked the carriage in the yard, asked the postman for a few rooms, and settled down.
Li Zhiyun called everyone into his room, divided them into groups, and asked them to go to various parts of the city to investigate the situation. He, Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu were in a group. The three of them left the inn and walked east along the street. Li Zhiyun discovered that the scale of Champion City was not small. Judging from the number of buildings in the city, there were at least tens of thousands of residents, but there were very few pedestrians on the streets. The city seemed to be shrouded in a layer of gloom and mist, and the few pedestrians I met occasionally walked with their heads down and in a hurry.
They walked for more than a mile when Li Zhiyun suddenly heard the crying of women and children. The sound came from a nearby courtyard. Li Zhiyun turned around curiously and was about to walk to the entrance of the courtyard to take a look at the excitement when he suddenly saw several soldiers walking out of the courtyard. These soldiers were wearing armor and holding weapons in their hands. They looked ferocious and seemed to be robbing women and children.
The two children they robbed were not very old, one was five or six years old, and the other was only three or four years old. The two children cried and refused to leave their families, and were held by two soldiers each. The woman was tightly grabbed by the arms by two soldiers and dragged outside. Adults and children were crying at the scene.
A moment later, an old woman in her fifties rushed out of the yard. She seemed to want to snatch the robbed child back, but she fell down after running a few steps and collapsed on the ground, screaming loudly and screaming.
After a while, two more soldiers walked out of the yard, and following the soldiers was a young man in his twenties. He seemed to want to chase his wife and children who had been robbed, but two soldiers turned around and pressed the tip of their gun to his chest, preventing him from moving. When the two soldiers saw their companion walking away, they put away their spears and turned to chase their companion.
At this time, several neighbors came over to watch. One of them, an old man wearing a futou on his head, stood two steps away from Li Zhiyun. Li Zhiyun walked over and said: "Old man, I would like to ask this junior, who are those soldiers? Why are they robbing women and children?" The old man glanced at him, then looked around, and lowered his voice and said: "They are Zhu Can The soldiers robbed women and children to make military rations.”
"Making military rations?" Li Zhiyun's eyes widened in horror.
The old man nodded, sighed, and said: "There are thousands of soldiers stationed in the city, and they have to eat ten women and ten children every day. If this continues, in less than half a year, all the women and children in the city will be eaten. They ate them up!”
Li Zhiyun was stunned for a moment, then asked: "Then, where did they keep the women and children they robbed?"
"They are locked up in the Niangniang Temple in the south of the city. Hundreds of women and children have been locked up there."
While the two were talking, they saw the good boy running back into the yard at some point, bringing a big guillotine for cutting livestock fodder, and yelling that he was going to fight with all his strength. When the old woman paralyzed on the ground saw her, she quickly got up from the ground, ran forward and grabbed one of her son's arms, crying: "My son, you can't go. If you die, how can you live as a mother?!"
The old man also stepped forward and persuaded: "Zhuzi, there are so many of them. If you go there, you will die! If you die, your Wang family will really be wiped out!" After listening to the old man's words, Zhuzhu no longer stopped. Trying to break free from her mother's hand. He yelled like a wounded beast, threw the guillotine to the ground, squatted down and held his head, howling. A strong young man cried like a child, making everyone around him cry.
Li Zhiyun couldn't bear to witness it, so he turned around and whispered to Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu: "Let's go to the south of the city."
The three people left the house and came to the south of the city. After asking around, they found the Empress Temple. There were two soldiers standing guard at the entrance of the temple, but they did not dare to approach. Li Zhiyun found an independent hut next to it, located on a hill, and walked up. Standing next to the hut, with a panoramic view of the Empress Temple in the distance, Li Zhiyun took out the telescope from his pocket.
Because they had to be searched when passing through the city gate, none of them brought weapons, but Li Zhiyun brought the binoculars and put them in a sack. When passing the city gate, the soldiers searched for the binoculars. He didn't know what it was, so he asked Li Zhiyun what it was for. Li Zhiyun replied that it was for worshiping gods, and the soldiers really believed it. The ancients were very superstitious and did not dare to offend the gods easily, so the soldier put the telescope back into his bag and returned it to him.
