“My lord, Li Jun is different from the Zhu family. You previously turned your back on the Zhu family and chose Li Jun, which can be described as abandoning darkness for light. Now you are abandoning Li Jun and plotting rebellion, which is like casting pearls before swine…”
"Wait a minute, who said I was going to abandon Li Jun and rebel? I raised troops this time precisely to save Li Jun's life and eliminate the villains around him."
"Sir, your words may fool outsiders for a while, but how can they deceive your own wife? If your purpose in raising troops this time is to rescue Li Jun, your target should be Jiang Runqun and others who cut off Commander Li's connection with Yuzhou. Why then is it Leiming City?"
Peng Yuancheng's heart trembled slightly. All his arrangements had indeed been exposed by the lady's words. Anyone with a bit of sense in Yuzhou could probably figure this out. The only difference was that only the lady dared to voice this suspicion to him.
"So what if it is? How can my talent and wisdom be inferior to that of a lowly soldier?" Peng Yuancheng glared at his wife's face. "You also hope that I will stand tall and make a name for myself for our children, don't you?"
"I hope my husband is a true man, and my children hope their father is an unparalleled hero." Madam Peng stared into her husband's eyes, a look she had never shown before, a stark contrast to her usual submissive nature. "But my lord, if you betray Li Jun, have you considered whether you are truly his match? If the uprising fails, what will become of me and my children? My lord, I urge you to reconsider your actions..."
"There's no need to worry about such trivial matters. Since I dare to do this, I have my reasons."
Seeing that she couldn't persuade Peng Yuancheng with the argument of self-interest, Madam Peng had no choice but to take a desperate gamble: "My lord, even if you succeed in your rebellion, aren't you afraid that people will say you are a traitor who has betrayed his master and killed his father?"
"Shut up!" Peng Yuancheng slapped his wife across the face and shouted angrily, "You wretch, how dare you be so rude!" Ignoring the blood trickling from the corner of his wife's mouth, he left the back room.
"My lord... my lord..." Madam Peng's tearful cries failed to bring him back. Even after he had left the backyard, Madam Peng's mournful voice still echoed in his ears: "My lord, I cannot bear to see you seek your own doom, I cannot bear to see you ruined and disgraced..."
"What does a woman know?" Peng Yuancheng shook his head in frustration, ignoring his wife's sobs. His eyes gleamed as he envisioned himself dominating Yuzhou and establishing himself as the ruler.
When extreme ambition burns, even the wisest can be blinded by illusions.
Section 3
As the weather gradually warms up, the ice and snow that have covered the winter begin to melt. Streams everywhere are filled with melting snow from the mountains, flowing into rivers and eventually rushing to the sea.
But the chill had not yet dissipated. Li Jun stood atop Huai'en City, gazing at the vast expanse of sky and earth. The cold wind made the Peace Army's battle flag beside him flutter wildly, and the morning bugle calls sounded everywhere, making the impending battlefield seem exceptionally desolate.
As if in response to the bugle call of the Peace Army, a mournful bugle call also came from the distant camp of the Lotus Army. A large contingent of Lotus Army soldiers, their heads wrapped in red silk, filed out of the camp and formed ranks in front of Huai'en City.
"Is it just like yesterday, just out for drills?" Wei Zhan, wearing a thick fox fur coat, paced back and forth on the city wall a few times, and asked hesitantly.
"Please take another look, sir." Li Jun raised his eyebrows slightly. Although a heavy weight seemed to be pressing on his heart, he still appeared confident. A Peace Army soldier, barely eighteen or nineteen years old, looked at him with admiration. Only Li Jun could remain so calm in the face of 100,000 enemy soldiers.
The Lianfa Sect soldiers formed two square formations, each with tens of thousands of men. From the top of Huai'en City, the view below was a sea of red, like countless red flowers blooming on the yellow earth. The two formations approached Huai'en City at an extremely fast speed, making the Peace Army soldiers on the city wall hold their breath. But when they were far from the city, Lianfa suddenly stopped, and the Peace Army soldiers relaxed.
Immediately afterwards, the two formations of the Lianfa army began to change, advancing and retreating simultaneously, their formations shifting from squares to wedges and geese. One side seemed to be trying to break through the enemy's defenses, while the other side rapidly maneuvered from both flanks to the enemy's rear. The side that broke through seemed about to be surrounded, but they suddenly accelerated, shaking off the enemy flanking from the rear, and successfully broke into the enemy's weak center.
"The offense and defense are well-organized, indeed quite different from Xue Qian's." Wei Zhan nodded. Most of the Lianfa Army were civilians, and to train the troops to this extent in such a short time, the commander of this Lianfa Army must be familiar with military strategy.
"If it were you, sir, how would you counter this?" Li Jun chuckled softly. To him, the enemy's tricks were nothing more than child's play, and he was also fairly clear about their intentions.
Wei Zhan stared at the ever-changing formation of the Lianfa Sect. The thunderous shouts of tens of thousands of people shook the surrounding area. After a moment's thought, he said with a look of joy, "I understand. Although the Lianfa army is well-trained, they are all infantrymen, which are very easy to defeat. With five thousand cavalrymen, we can wipe out these twenty thousand Lianfa soldiers."
“Indeed, Chen does not produce horses; its horses all come from Lan or the Qionglu Grassland. Now that Chen and Lan are at odds, and the Rong people of the Qionglu Grassland have raised the price of horses, even the government army is short of horses, let alone the Lianfa army. An army of this size, without the coordination of cavalry, infantry, and archers, is nothing but a rabble. It is not difficult to defeat them.” Li Jun said slowly, but he had no intention of going out of the city to fight the Lianfa army.
"What is the commander worried about?" Wei Zhan couldn't help but ask. Ordinary soldiers couldn't see the worry in Li Jun's eyes, but he could. Given Li Jun's personality, how could he not fight when there was a chance to win? Besides, Li Jun's strength was in attacking the enemy with ingenious tactics in open field battles. He didn't fight many battles in defending cities.
"Nothing." Li Jun turned his gaze to the other side, not wanting Wei Zhan to see into his thoughts through his eyes. On that side was a Lotus Law Army from Ningwang City, numbering about 20,000 men. With such a large force, it was no wonder that Ningwang City had fallen.
"What exactly is Peng Yuancheng doing?" Li Jun wondered to himself. He had been trapped in Huai'en City for three days. According to his initial calculations, Peng Yuancheng should already be preparing to attack Ning Wang, thus relieving the pressure on him. The reason he dared not order his cavalry to launch a surprise attack was because he feared that the Lianfa army would retreat while simultaneously cutting off the cavalry's return route from both flanks. If Peng Yuancheng could defeat Ning Wang's Lianfa army, or at least draw them away, then he could free up his forces to lift the siege of Huai'en.
What puzzled him most was that the Lianfa army abandoned its infantry and numerical advantage, merely besieging Huai'en City without launching an attack. Was the siege without attack intended to wait for the city's food supplies to run out? The city's remaining food supplies could last for a year, while the Lianfa army, numbering over 100,000, relied entirely on supplies transported from Shita City. They could sustain themselves for a short time, but in the long run, the Lianfa army itself would inevitably be the first to run out of food.
Based on Li Jun's impression of Cheng Tian, the commander of this Lotus Army, he is not the kind of person who would resort to such a drastic measure. So, does that mean he has another scheme? The longer the siege is prolonged without an attack, the lower the morale will be, as the city will be unable to contact the outside world. Does this mean he wants the Peace Army to collapse on its own?
If that's the case, then Cheng Tian has seriously underestimated the Peace Army. The Peace Army's morale is high, and it cannot be extinguished by a siege of one or two months. Cheng Tian must think of another way, but it's unknown what method he will come up with.
Li Jun pondered for a long time, but ultimately found it difficult to predict. Just as he was about to leave the city and return to his camp, the drums of the Lianfa army suddenly sounded. He turned around in surprise and saw that the Lianfa army, which had been training, had split up to the left and right and began to approach Huai'en City.
Beyond the range of their bows and crossbows, the Lianfa army halted. A troop of cavalry emerged from the ranks, standing out among the mostly infantry. Li Jun looked closely and saw that the one riding the white horse at the head was none other than Cheng Tian.
"Please come down and speak with Commander Li!" someone in the Lianfa army shouted. Li Jun quickly descended from the city wall, leading his thousand-strong guard, and rode out of the city at full speed.