Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 196 - 180: I Have to Bite the Bullet Sooner or Later_1

Chapter 196: Chapter 180: I Have to Bite the Bullet Sooner or Later_1

Upon reaching Zhenjiang, Li Xuan didn’t recklessly approach but ultimately chose to observe the battlefield distantly from a small hill nearby.

"Indeed, it’s worthy of Master Feng, Lin Ziyang." Jiang Hanyun looked from afar, her voice heavy: "He has successfully embodied the power of thunder through wind, which is already comparable to the strength of a Thunder Wu cultivator. His strong martial intent has already penetrated his soul. Even if it were my father dealing with this kind of ability, it would take considerable work."

Li Xuan was made worried by her words: "Will my older brother and the others be alright?"

"Master Feng, Lin Ziyang, is indeed powerful, but the problem shouldn’t be too serious." Xue Yunrou shook her head and comforted: "The extraordinary ability of ’Chunyang Immortal’ Su Zhaojun is not only in her fire-thunder skill, but also in her postnatal cultivated ’Chunyang Body’. So, although she only has the strength of the eighth house level, she stands at the top in the Third Door."

"In addition, as far as I know, they as a couple possess a formidable combined attack technique. Once they join hands, many of those from the Fourth Gate would not be their match. Critically, this is Zhenjiang, a strategically important location of south Zhili, and they should be able to hold off for about half an hour."

"And there’s me!" Jiang Hanyun clenched her fists, and surges of explosive sounds came from her body: "I won’t let him wreak havoc unchecked."

She began to rise in the air, ready to fly towards the battlefield, but then she seemed to remember something, and turned to look at Xue Yunrou, who was already grinning, "Yunrou, you come with me! You are only a step away from entering the Third Door with your technique cultivation and you would be of help."

Xue Yunrou’s face stiffened slightly, somewhat unwilling. However, she still followed Jiang Hanyun and departed. But as she left, she looked back at Li Xuan a few times with reluctance.

However, by the time the two women arrived, the battle was already over, and Master Feng, Lin Ziyang, had voluntarily retreated, leaving Li Yan and his wounded wife.

Since Li Xuan was close, he shortly arrived driving Thunder Wu into a flurry.

Then he saw a large area of Li Yan’s armor dyed red; several deep wounds were visible on his body. His sister-in-law, Su Zhaojun, was also injured on her arm and thigh as they gazed coldly in the direction of Zhenjiang’s administration and Dantu County.

"It was not us who repulsed Lin Ziyang, but he voluntarily retreated."

Having swallowed his wound-healing elixir, Li Yan was dressing his own wounds while trying to stay upbeat, "That old bastard, fighting desperately, was so powerful that even Zhaojun and I combined couldn’t defeat him. Without external support, we would both be dead within a quarter of an hour. The main problem was that I spent too much Zhenyuan and felt light-headed."

Li Xuan looked at him carefully, then put down his worries. The Li Yan he saw had mainly external injuries, but his internal organs were also somewhat damaged. With good elixir and rest, he should recover soon.

"But the upcoming situation is the most difficult." Li Yan’s face was solemn: "Earlier, I not only burned down his warehouse and naval base outside the city, but also seized his Taichang shop during the chaos. Elder Xing just sent a flying letter back, they obtained the accounts of Taichang Shop."

Li Xuan knew that Elder Xing, mentioned by Li Yan, was one of the few guests respected by the Earl’s mansion and a high-level expert who had opened the Third Door in the Seventh House Level.

"Taichang Shop?" Jiang Hanyun pondered: "I recall that it seems to be a business under Lin Ziyang. What have they done?"

Li Yan sneered coldly, "Tung oil, iron ingots, sulfur, saltpeter, all military supplies collected from the north and the south, can confirm his treason."

Jiang Hanyun didn’t react immediately, but Xue Yunrou couldn’t help but twitch, "Does the Princely Heir mean that Lin Ziyang is likely to start a rebellion immediately?"

"He’s as good as dead if he doesn’t revolt now."

Li Yan was pouring a cup of strong wine onto his own wound, causing his facial muscles to twitch: "If he doesn’t rebel, the Dudu’s mansion and Zhenshou eunuch in Nanjing can arrest him today. Even if Nanjing was hesitant, by the time the Dudu’s mansion has gathered heavy troops around Zhenjiang, he won’t have a chance. So, the only choice for him is now—"

Li Yan paused, looking at both shores of the Yangtze River: "Under the command of Lin Ziyang, there are more than 10,000 elite soldiers, and the thousands of private soldiers cultivated by him can engulf thousands of government granaries on both shores of the canal. With the official grain and the hundreds of thousands of famished water transport workers, he has enough power. With the help of the Maitreya Teaching, it’s not a problem for his troops to sweep through Jiangsu and Zhejiang, even threatening Nanjing."

Jiang Hanyun and Li Xuan looked at each other, their faces extremely grave: "I’ll notify the general manager and vice lord Qiu as soon as possible."

"It’ll be too late by the time they arrive! As the second-rank official, Lin Ziyang is already beyond the authority of the Liudao Division. By the time you go through all the necessary procedures, Lin Ziyang will be ready."

Li Yan shook his head: "The Lin Ziyang who sits in the army is not the same as he was. By charging fearlessly with tens of thousands, his power could be more than tenfold."

Li Xuan thought to himself that the situation was indeed difficult. According to his understanding of the world’s martial arts chains, Lin Ziyang, who commands tens of thousands of soldiers, would be terrifyingly powerful, and his overall strength would certainly not be weaker than the ’heavenly level’.

This involves the use of ’shi’ by martial arts chains. To a proficient chain, climate, geography, army, power, and so on can all be input into ’shi’, and then transformed into the chain’s own power.

And the ’shi’ brought by tens of thousands of troops, isn’t it something to underestimate? As a master who has opened the Fourth Door, Lin Ziyang’s use of ’shi’ must be superb.

Once he gains an advantage and sweeps both shores of the canal, the entire area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang is likely to be in chaos.

After that, he felt Li Yan’s gaze firmly fixated on him: "Little brother, do you have the guts to take a chance with your older brother?"

"Take a chance?" Upon hearing these words, Li Xuan felt uneasy, and he looked at Li Yan warily: "What are you up to, Li Yan? What do you mean, ’take a chance’?"

"We’re going to seize Beigu Mountain and Ganlu Port!"

Li Yan’s eyes sparkled with excitement: "I have eight-hundred navy veterans at Dongshui Pass on the canal, who were sent there by Lin Ziyang. Then, I have a close friend, the current commander of Zhenjiang’s Danyang Guard. I know him, he would definitely not want to follow Lin Ziyang’s rebellion. With just one flying letter from me, he could at least pull out two-thousand people. We could completely seize Beigu Mountain first, leaving Lin Ziyang in a difficult position."

Li Xuan carefully thought and then remembered where these two place names were located.

Beigu Mountain and Ganlu Port are two neighboring areas, both in the east of Dantu County, located at the mouth of the canal in Jiangnan. Among them, the terrain of Beigu Mountain is perilous, surrounded by water on both sides.

The strategic location of Tieweng City on the front of the mountain is superb, and the Ganlu Temple on the back of the mountain is a natural fortress.

Ganlu Port is at the foot of Beigu Mountain, which is the distribution and transfer center for goods for the entire south Zhili. This vast river port is within the arrow coverage of ’Tieweng City’.

These are pieces of knowledge in the memory of Li Xuan’s original body, this guy is lazy in practicing martial arts, but dreamed of being a great general and becoming a ’wanrendi’ at some stage in his life, so he put a lot of hard work into military geography.

At that time, Li Chengji also happened to be at home and taught him with a lot of dedication.

Moreover, Li Xuan recalled that in the world he came from, Liu Bei and Sun Quan seemed to have formed an alliance here. Sun Quan had built a fortress-shaped royal city here to defend against the Wei state.

This royal city was initially called ’Tieweng City’, but was later renamed Jingkou.

In an instant, he realized the strategic value of Beigu Mountain. It would be a thorn in the back of Lin Ziyang, a gun pointed at his throat.

This place can threaten the flanks of Lin Ziyang’s army, making it incapable of moving. After the war started, it could accept troops from all over Jianghuai, landing from Ganlu Port.

There, countless food supplies are stockpiled, enough to sustain tens of thousands of troops.

In short, this is a menace that he must deal with no matter what before Lin Ziyang sends his army to sweep through the canal.

Sweat broke out on Li Xuan’s forehead, thinking that this is really going to be a battle.

Seizing Beigu Mountain means that they must hold this mountain with three thousand troops before the Court decides to end the rebellion, facing the furious onslaught of at least twenty thousand troops of Lin Ziyang.

Xue Yunrou instinctively felt the danger and was a bit concerned: "Mobilizing troops privately, I’m afraid it is not in line with the laws of the Court. And I’ve been to Tieweng City, it’s been neglected for many years and it’s not capable of good defense."

Li Yan’s face stiffened slightly, and then he cornered his lips, "What’s there to fear? Are we just going to sit by and watch Jiangsu and Zhejiang be ruined? In fact, I have carefully thought about it, worst case scenario, we may get criticized by those civil officials, perhaps our merits and demerits could offset each other, or we might lose our offices. But as long as Shaobao Yu is still in power, he’ll ultimately give me an explanation. I’m still young, I can wait."

Li Xuan suddenly felt that his ’Biting the Bullet’ suit from head to toe was shining. On the one side, he couldn’t help thinking, ’Who else can make such a heroic sacrifice if not me?’ While on the other side, he was cursing that he would sooner or later be killed by this suit. He thought for a moment, then resignedly asked, "What’s your plan exactly? What do you need me to do? Based on your plan, it seems I wouldn’t be needed."

"Do you think Lin Ziyang isn’t prepared at Beigu Mountain? He has two thousand elite soldiers stationed there. Three thousand troops won’t be enough."

Li Yan spoke with a cheerful smile, "I need little brother you to borrow Yangzhou Longjun’s troops, and it’s best if Dragon King would take action personally. I can’t borrow troops now that I hold no official post. Don’t worry, if the Court wants to blame, I’ll shoulder the responsibility."

"If that’s the case, you won’t need to shoulder the responsibility." Li Xuan took out an object from his sleeve with a strange look, "Just today I happened to meet the Second Prince, he gave me this. He asked me to take advantage of my investigation of the military supplies embezzlement case and borrow no more than a thousand troops from the local area to assist in the investigation."

Li Yan snatched it over with one hand, took a close look and then burst into joy, "Second prince’s decree? Interesting, it even has the seals of the Nanjing Zhenshou eunuch and the Nanjing Ministry of War? That old eunuch Qin Mingyu actually agreed?"

His eyes shone brightly, majestically announcing, "With this, we won’t even have to worry about any repercussions afterwards. With unity between you and me, let’s do something big today and make that thief Lin Ziyang bite off more than he can chew!"

Li Xuan felt that his courage had grown a lot since he had crossed over. He knew there might be the risk of losing his head, but he hardly had any emotional turbulence inside, and he had no fear.

He thought that this was probably because of the influence of the ’Biting the Bullet’ suit, or perhaps he was not afraid because he knew he only had three months left to live.

These thoughts flashed by in an instant, and there was no hesitation on Li Xuan’s face as he nodded heavily, "Okay, let’s stick with this plan!"

However, Li Xuan didn’t realize that Jiang Hanyun, who was behind him at the moment, was intently looking at him, her beautiful eyes flashing with a hint of unusual colour.

She only felt a surge of emotion rising in her chest, deeply moved by a brother’s words.

Jiang Hanyun thought that the present Li Xuan, even though his cultivation was still fairly weak, was completely deserving of the word ’hero’.

"Couldn’t your conversation wait until your injury has been treated?"

By this time, Su Zhaojun had already bandaged her own wound. Seeing that Li Yan was still bleeding, she couldn’t help but frown slightly. She walked straight over to him and snatched the medicine bottle from Li Yan’s hand: "I’ll do it!"

"My wife cares about me."

Li Yan replied with eyes half-closed, a face full of bliss. But his expression soon turned weird, "What is this smell? It’s fragrant but with a hint of fishiness, it’s so unpleasant. Ugh~"

Su Zhaojun was completely frozen, her face dark as the bottom of a pan.