Chapter 702 A Dream of Youth 234
In particular, your collusion with the Great Zhou army has deepened Xili's hatred towards you.
Lingzhou has always been a strategic location fought over by military strategists. Today it is in the hands of the Great Zhou, but tomorrow it may fall into the hands of the Western Li. Therefore, I suggest that you withdraw from Lingzhou and go to the interior.
If anything goes wrong, you can come to the capital to find me. Although I am of low rank and little power, I will do my best to protect you.
Yan Rujing accepted the warm and smooth jade pendant, looked up to meet Xie Ning's clear gaze, and nodded gently. But she would not leave; she wanted to stay here and watch Lingzhou City get better and better.
After leaving the Yan residence, Xie Ning headed towards the governor's mansion, where Fu Yao and other generals, as well as Li Yu and others who had arrived the previous morning, now lived.
While Xie Ning and the others were outside the council hall, a fierce argument was raging inside. They should have been happy to have captured Lingzhou City, but Li Yu was just too infuriating.
The night before last, they were attacking the city when Li Yu led his army over and encountered Xi Li's army thirty miles from Lingzhou City, and then the two sides started fighting.
During this time, Li Yu sent someone to ask Fu Yao for help, and Fu Yao then sent Liu Yuanchang with 5,000 elite troops to provide support, and assigned the task of pursuing Tu Si to him.
However, after beating up Li Yu, he turned around and stripped Liu Yuanchang of his military power on the grounds of slow support. He originally wanted to kill him, but his subordinates persuaded him to stop.
After all, Fu Yao is still there.
Fu Yao was also furious when he learned of this, because Li Yu not only did not cheer for their capture of Lingzhou, but also stripped Liu Yuanchang of his military power on trumped-up charges, effectively crippling him.
Then he scolded them for not waiting for him to join in the encirclement.
He was the commander-in-chief, and they had to obey whatever he said. But just because they couldn't disobey orders to his face didn't mean Fu Yao wouldn't badmouth them behind their backs. After all, they had captured Lingzhou City and won the first merit, so the emperor was probably very happy.
Even if Li Yu was the emperor's uncle, he could not be so indiscriminately accused.
The strategist glanced at Fu Yao's expression and advised, "Grand Steward, we should be more cautious. Today, Deputy Chief Steward Liu said he saw murderous intent in the commander-in-chief's eyes. He might kill us and claim credit for the victory."
Don't say it's impossible with so many people watching; we'll just kill them until they shut up.
Fu Yao gasped, "He wouldn't be that crazy, would he?"
But he knew in his heart that it wasn't impossible.
Indeed, Li Yu was already plotting how to seize credit in his tent, but his advisors strongly opposed it, believing it to be a terrible idea.
Now that Lingzhou has been captured, we can head straight for Xingzhou. Rather than trying to gain some pre-existing merit here, we should lead our troops to attack Xingzhou and at least achieve some more success.
After all, the credit for the campaign against Xili had already been taken by Jin'an, who is now establishing his headquarters in Lanzhou.
Li Yu was seething with anger. Did they think Xingzhou was so easy to conquer? Use your brains, will you?!
Not to mention it's the dead of winter, and we're fighting on someone else's territory. With our supply lines stretched thin, it's hard for them to get enough food. Even if they capture Lingzhou, it won't be easy for them to move on to other places.
Although, as Xu Linyang said, the young emperor of Xili was mainly a woman in charge of governance after his ascension to the throne, they also had many capable veterans. He was not as arrogant as Xu Linyang.
Thinking of Xu Linyang, Li Yu asked him where he was now. His men just shook their heads. They had not received any military reports, so they did not know where Xu Linyang was.
Li Yu snorted coldly, then asked about the support from Jin'an and Tubo. After receiving a vague answer, he slammed his hand on the table.
"If we had waited for their reinforcements, we would have been dead long ago!" Although he didn't conquer Lingzhou, Fu Yao and Liu Yuanchang were both his subordinates, and while they weren't the ones who made the greatest contribution, they did.
Therefore, he was very resentful of the other generals who stubbornly refused to come to the aid, especially Qingya of Tibet, a small vassal state, who was so treacherous. On the surface, he solemnly vowed to fight against Xili with the Great Zhou, but when it came to the battle, he shrank back.
And then there's Jin'an. That old codger is incredibly cunning. Seeing how deeply they've advanced, he certainly won't dare to easily send grain to support them.
After thinking it over, Li Yu still sent someone to send a military report to Xu Linyang. This guy only thinks about the front and not the back when he fights. He needs to know that Lingzhou has been captured. If he is short of food, he can come here for temporary supplies.
Otherwise, if he attacks too deep and supplies run out, the army will inevitably collapse.
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