The Emperor Reigns Them All

Chapter 205 Kill the General

Chapter 205 Kill the General

He knew Wang Shu was slack, but he didn’t expect that he would be that slack. If Wang Shu arranged the defence better and the cavalrymen responded in a timelier manner, it would be impossible for the other side to show off like this.

“D*mn it!” Li Ye cussed and rushed over directly on the horse. Zhou Ji followed closely and at the same time, he asked someone to pass a message to Yang Fuguang to tell him to come quickly.

Li Ye arrived at Wang Shu’s camp and looked around. The other armies’ camps were almost set up, but it was still in a mess here. Reining in his horse, he asked angrily, “Where is Wang Shu?!”

After a long time, Wang Shu appeared. He didn’t run over here but came on the horse with more than a hundred trusted soldiers behind him.

Stopping the horse about ten steps away, Wang Shu folded his hands slightly towards Li Ye and said unhappily, “Commander-in-chief, my camp was attacked just now. Why didn’t I see any elite cavalrymen coming to support me? The rebels went on a rampage, so I suffered heavy losses!”

Hearing Wang Shu’s words, Li Ye felt as disgusted as if he had eaten a fly. Getting furious, he laughed. “You mean to say I have to give you additional soldiers?”

Wang Shu stuck out his neck and said, “It would be better if you did. We, Caizhou soldiers, haven’t enough military pay and food, so our morale is low. If you can allot us some food and wine, our soldiers will be glad to fight.”

Li Ye was amused by Wang Shu. “Then I will give you money and food. So how about your army, as the vanguard, attack the city first tomorrow?”

Wang Shu’s expression changed. He suddenly smiled for an inexplicable reason. “My army doesn’t have enough soldiers, so if we go first, we will die, but all your troops are elites. Do my soldiers really need to die in vain?”

He was slack when facing the battle and fobbed his responsibilities. He asked for money and food but refused to accomplish missions. What was worse, Wang Shu was very obstinate and unruly.

When Wang Shu finished speaking, the Caizhou soldiers were resentful. If they attacked the city first, it would be possible to gain the first victory. Instead most of them would die or get injured. Therefore, the people, who weren’t brave, were unwilling to be the vanguards.

“I have no interest in Caizhou soldiers’ lives, but I will take your life.” Li Ye was no longer interested in talking with Wang Shu.

“Commander-in-chief, you dare...” Wang Shu’s expression changed. He was about to say something, but Li Ye had already disappeared.

Li Ye appeared in front of Wang Shu suddenly. Stretching out his hand, he grabbed Wang Shu’s head and took it off directly.

Wang Shu’s angry expression was still frozen on his face.

He never had the chance to dodge, to say nothing of fighting back.

Carrying Wang Shu’s head, Li Ye kicked his body down. He stood on the horse and looked around with cold eyes. “Caizhou soldiers, listen to me. Tomorrow, you will attack the city first. Whoever dares disobey my order will be punished by the military law!”

The Caizhou soldiers’ expressions changed greatly as they helplessly watched Wang Shu being beheaded. Li Ye’s way of removing the head was too bloody and domineering, and many of them retreated a few steps in fear.

But when they heard Li Ye’s words, some of them were resentful. They were used to being arrogant and they never took Zhou Ji seriously under Qin Zongquan’s command. Now they were unwilling to listen to the command of an outsider like Li Ye. Moreover, he was asking them to die.

“Commander-in-chief, why did you kill General Wang?”

“We don’t want to be vanguards!”

“We want to go back to Caizhou!”

“F*ck, I’ve had it! I will go back!”

The soldiers, who were ferocious and hot-tempered, were shouting now. After Li Ye killed Wang Shu, they were frightened and furious. They couldn’t control their bad tempers as they heard they were to be the vanguards.

Moreover, they didn’t believe that Li Ye would dare kill them all. It was unfavorable to kill the general before a battle. Did he also want to cause in-fighting?

Li Ye sneered. Holding the Luke Sword, he chopped out several Sword Qis in succession. The soldiers, who just spoken, together with their comrades, burst under the Sword Qis, broken limbs flying everywhere.

This time, Li Ye directly killed dozens of people.

“Who else dares to disobey the military order?” Li Ye looked down at them.

No one expected Li Ye to be so brutal and that he would kill them neatly without saying more. Among those killed by Li Ye just now, there were cultivators in Qi-refining Stage and two of them were in middle-level Qi-refining.

If they didn’t have high cultivation, they wouldn’t dare to be obstinate and unruly. But now, they were all dead without a whole body without deflecting even one of Li Ye’s strike.

Everyone was appalled. They hung their heads in fear and dared not speak, but not all of them were so gutless. Some were hot-headed and not clear about the situation and wanted to challenge Li Ye. Gnashing his teeth, a general growled, “You killed my Caizhou comrades without a reason. Did you intend to take the opportunity to exclude outsiders and let us...”

His demagogic words were supposed to rouse the Caizhou soldiers’ hatred. But before he could finish, his head flew into the air under the Sword Qi. Behind him, several cultivators who were ready to pull out their knives were cut in two under the sword.

Li Ye looked around the crowd, expressionless, and asked indifferently, “Who else is unconvinced?”

All soldiers retreated in succession and shook their heads for fear of being killed by Li Ye.

Li Ye’s cultivation strength was too powerful. That general had Level 5 of Qi-refining cultivation. However, everyone thought, Li Ye could kill even Wang Shu who was in Level 6 of Qi-refining so easily, to say nothing of Level 5 of Qi-refining.

It was very easy for Li Ye to kill people, even easier than slicing melons. Now all soldiers understood that they would die at any time as long as Li Ye wanted to kill them and that Li Ye really didn’t mind their resistance.

Among the over a hundred thousand troops, there were only 15 thousand Caizhou soldiers. If they were led by someone and encountered the less powerful commander-in-chief, they would be obstinate and unruly and protect themselves by not working in earnest. But when they encountered Li Ye, all these were a delusion.

“If no one rebels, then all kneel down!” Li Ye shouted suddenly.

The Caizhou soldiers all looked at each other. Finally, no one dared to say a word. Gnashing their teeth, one by one, they all began to kneel. In an instant, over ten thousand people in the whole camp were kneeling.

When Yang Fuguang arrived, he saw over ten thousand soldiers kneeling down before the commander-in-chief.

He saw the head in Li Ye’s hand and recognized Wang Shu, but he didn’t think it wrong. Wang Shu had always been passive and slack, so Yang Fuguang had wanted to kill him from long ago, but he endured him because he took the Caizhou soldiers into account. Li Ye had done what he wanted but dared not do.

Yang Fuguang looked at Li Ye in awe. He thought, “Previously, I only knew that Prince An had outstanding cultivation and that he could map out a strategy as well as fight on the battlefield, but I didn’t know that Prince An would be so decisive. He is really outstanding!”

Li Ye glanced at Yang Fuguang, and then he turned around and said, “Liu Dazheng!”

Liu Dazheng arrived, and at this moment, he quickly bowed while cupping his fist. “Commander-in-chief!”

Li Ye ordered, “Now, you are the chief general of the Caizhou Army and I will temporarily lend you the Wolf Tooth Army. Clean up the military discipline of the Caizhou Army. Remember, you only have one night. Tomorrow, I need to see the Caizhou Army being the first to attack the city!”

Liu Dazheng responded seriously, “Yes, commander-in-chief!”

Li Ye finally glanced at the Caizhou Army. “Rewards and punishment of tomorrow’s battle are in accordance with the military law. If you can capture the city, you can rest for three days!”

After he finished speaking, Li Ye no longer stayed. He threw Wang Shu’s head to Liu Dazheng and said to Yang Fuguang before leaving, “Inspector, please supervise the clean up of the military discipline of the Caizhou Army.”

Yang Fuguang said with folded hands, “I will be responsible for it. Commander-in-chief, please don’t worry!”

On the top of Dengzhou city wall, Zhu Wen’s face was as dark as ink as he witnessed Li Ye punishing the Caizhou Army. He endured it for quite a while, and then he sighed. “Li Ye is too aggressive!”

After he finished, he glanced at Zhu Zhen with a mysterious expression. Meeting Zhu Wen’s eyes, Zhu Zhen shivered immediately. In their view, for punishing the Caizhou Army, Li Ye not only killed the generals without saying a word but also carried out bloody suppression to the soldiers’ turmoil. Finally, he arranged another chief general for them and cleaned up their military discipline.

All this was because the Caizhou Army failed to defeat Huo Cun and less than two hundred people were killed and injured.

If Li Ye killed the soldiers because of this, then why did Zhu Wen not kill Zhu Zhen?

Of course, Zhu Wen wouldn’t kill Zhu Zhen because there was a difference between the two sides. Although Zhu Zhen was defeated, he tried his best, while Wang Shu fought passively.

In any case, after this chaos, whether Zhu Wen and the other generals or the ordinary soldiers at the top of Dengzhou city wall knew about Li Ye’s domineering means. They figured out that Li Ye was determined to occupy Dengzhou.

The Caizhou Army was reorganized just because they didn’t try their best to fight against Huo Cun. Needless to say, the other armies of the official troops would definitely spare no effort to attack the city tomorrow and wouldn’t dare to slack off. In this case, they would face great pressure to hold Dengzhou.

It would be very difficult for them to win this battle.

Aware of this, the Dengzhou defending soldiers, whose fighting spirit was boiling over because of Huo Cun’s victory, felt great pressure now. Their high morale became low again.

Their future was bleak.

The battle had not yet begun and the two troops had not yet fought each other, but their commanders had fought a few rounds, and had experienced victories and defeats.

Facing Li Ye’s aggression, not only the Dengzhou defending soldiers felt great pressure, but the Zhongwu Army also felt overwhelmed. Even the Pinglu Army kept up their highest spirit. It was as if someone was ready to beat them with a whip behind them, so they didn’t dare to be careless.

In this case, Zhu Wen had to put aside the tempting thought of making chaos for the official troops by attacking their camps at night because the official troops had strict precautions and high spirit. If they attacked the camps rashly, they wouldn’t gain any advantage and maybe they would suffer a counterattack.

At dawn the next day, Li Ye had his breakfast and was listening to Liu Dazheng’s report.

He had given military orders last night, cooked meals at midnight and went out to fight before dawn.

It was June, so dawn came early.

Liu Dazheng had already reorganized the Caizhou Army. With 3,000 Wolf Tooth Army who just won a victory as a deterrent and 150,000 troops on the side, the reorganization went well. At least, they could be the first to attack the city today.

Although a big part of the Dengzhou city defense was repaired, Zhu Wen had a strict arrangement on guards, so the first to attack the city would have a lot of casualties. Originally, Li Ye didn’t intend to use the cannon fodder tactics, but since Wang Shu was looking for death, he didn’t mind driving the Caizhou Army to be the vanguard. Anyway, it was Qin Zongquan’s power that was weakened.

At sunrise, Li Ye climbed up the 30-meter high watchtower with a group of advisors.