"What? All one hundred men that Hu Jun brought are dead?" Li Hu asked incredulously.
"Yes, General!" The man's voice was hoarse with exhaustion. "Lord Hu, he was stabbed seven times, but he didn't make it!"
"How is that possible?" Li Hu roared. "That kid only has a dozen or so men under his command. How could he possibly defeat a hundred of my elite troops!"
"Hu Jun, Hu Jun! You idiot!"
At that moment, he felt a chill run down his spine.
He did ask the Empress for permission to intercept Lin Mo, but she only acquiesced. To put it bluntly, it was a shady deal that couldn't be discussed openly.
He had assumed that Lin Mo, that coward, would obediently submit and allow his men to detain his servants.
Even if they resisted, they could not possibly defeat their own subordinates.
When the time comes, once Lin Mo is captured, he will turn around and accuse the other party of disobeying the imperial decree first (didn't Lin Mo say he was traveling alone for a thousand miles?), and then it will be Lin Mo who attacked his own subordinates first.
Even if other ministers in the court have objections, they can simply release Lin Mo; they can't do anything to him.
He did this for one purpose only: to prevent Lin Mo from taking away a single soldier or commander.
But he never expected things to turn out this way.
All one hundred elite troops that Hu Jun brought are dead!
With things escalating to this point, and reaching the Empress's ears, how will this be resolved?
The Empress wouldn't contradict herself, announcing the conferment of a title of kingship one minute and then sending people to intercept it the next.
Therefore, he can only swallow the bitter pill now.
Not long after, another subordinate rushed over: "General, His Majesty summons you for an immediate audience!"
Upon hearing this, Li Hu's expression darkened further.
"Prepare the horses, let's go to the palace!"
Inside the Imperial Study of the Great Xia Imperial Palace.
After Li Hu entered, he knelt down and bowed, saying, "Your humble servant greets Your Majesty!"
The Empress sat upright on the dragon throne, slightly raising her head to glance at Li Hu.
Li Hu instinctively stood up, about to speak, but was angrily rebuked by the Empress. "Did I tell you to get up?"
Upon hearing this, Li Hu was so frightened that he knelt down again with a thud. "Your Majesty, please forgive me! I deserve to die!"
"Hmph!" The Empress said in a chilling tone, her gaze falling on Li Hu with such coldness that it sent shivers down one's spine. "How dare you order your men to attack the King of Shu!"
"Your Majesty, I am innocent! It was the Prince of Shu's men who struck first; my men were merely acting in self-defense!"
"Go and explain these things to the court officials!" the Empress said.
"Your Majesty, I will provide an explanation!" Li Hu said tremblingly, "But Your Majesty, that Prince of Shu, he..."
"What's wrong with him?"
"My hundred elite soldiers and trusted subordinates were completely annihilated by the King of Shu!" Li Hu hinted. "According to the information I've gathered, the King of Shu has over a thousand men..."
Li Hu deliberately embellished the story, exaggerating the number from over four hundred to a thousand, in order to intensify the Empress's suspicions!
"Over a thousand subordinates?" The Empress narrowed her eyes slightly. "Where did these people come from?"
"This..." Li Hu was speechless for a moment, "This humble subject does not know!"
"You don't know? Do you still want to be the Great General?" the Empress said angrily.
"Your Majesty has already sent people to investigate, but it will take some time!"
Li Hu was indeed very distressed, as Lin Wenzhong's former subordinates had already been planned to be incorporated into the military camps of various prefectures.
The sudden appearance of hundreds of people gave him a huge headache.
"Don't come back if you can't find out!" the Empress threatened.
"Your Majesty, I obey!" Li Hu kowtowed again. "Your Majesty, there is something else I must speak out."
"Speak!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!" Li Hu adjusted his breathing. "Regardless of where those soldiers came from, whether they can deal with Lin Mo or not..."
Before he could finish speaking, the Empress angrily rebuked him, "Can't you use your pig brain before you speak! Get out of here, I don't want to see you!"
The Empress is indeed quite angry. How do you intend to punish Lin Mo?
You don't even know where his "thousands" of men came from; they could easily claim to be ordinary people wanting to explore the Shu region. Lin Mo was about to set off for Shu, so it was a good opportunity to travel with them.
What, does the Great Xia law forbid leaving the capital?
Are we not allowed to travel in groups?
After Li Hu left in a disheveled state, the Empress's face darkened, and she muttered to herself, "Lin Mo, Lin Mo! You really surprised me!"
~~~
On the way to Sichuan.
"Only one set of equipment is given as a reward for the first four hundred soldiers who exchange? After that, you have to exchange for it with points or craft it yourself!" Lin Mo muttered to himself as he looked at the system notification.
No wonder the eighty soldiers who were exchanged at the end appeared empty-handed, which really startled Lin Mo.
However, the soldiers brought by Li Hu solved this problem perfectly, and the armor and weapons scattered all over the ground were more than enough to arm them.
Of the servants who had followed him, only two survived: Qiao Shan, who was seriously injured and in a coma, and the other old steward.
Jiang Wan was suspicious of the more than four hundred people of unknown origin, but Lin Mo casually made up an excuse, so she didn't ask any more questions.
As the pillar behind the Grand Marshal of Great Xia, she knew what she should ask and what she shouldn't ask.
"Li Hu, Wei Maozhen, and these dozen or so men—I won't let them die in vain!" Lin Mo thought to himself. "One day, I will avenge them!"
However, at this moment, the priority is to arrive in Shu as soon as possible and use the points to train the troops.
The system will set the combat strength of the first 400 soldiers. After that, the soldiers will be treated like ordinary people, requiring training, armor allocation, food supplies, and so on.
Therefore, he dared not delay along the way, and marched at full speed every day.
A dozen days later, the group arrived at Jianping Pass in Shu.
Like the Shu region on Earth, the pass was built amidst towering mountains.
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