Liu Wenyao dodged the saber by leaning sideways, stretched out his hand to pull open his clothes to expose his neck, and said angrily: "Since I dare to come alone, I am not afraid of death."
"It's easy to kill me, but have you considered the consequences?"
"It's fine if you killed important officials of the imperial court, but do you dare to disobey the imperial order and go against the imperial court?"
After these words were spoken, everyone fell silent.
Putting aside the murder, they did express their dissatisfaction with the court.
He often cursed people in private, cursing the civil officials who seized power in the court, the Ministry of Revenue who withheld military pay, and the nobles who were rich enough to rival a country.
In short, they cursed everyone except the emperor.
But talk is talk, scold is scold.
Complaining does not mean that they want to confront the court.
The government troops were officials after all, but once they opposed the imperial court, they became bandits. From then on, they had no place to live and were displaced.
Unable to protect the home, let alone defend the country.
Seeing that everyone was silent, Liu Wenyao used his trump card: money!
"I have three purposes for this trip. The first is to escort the prince to Nanjing, the second is to execute Liu Zeqing in accordance with the imperial order, and the third is to pay you military pay."
"All the previously overdue military pay will be paid, and each person will be given an additional five taels of silver!"
When they heard about distributing silver, everyone fell silent again.
"Bullshit!" Li Liangcai swung his sword again.
Liu Wenyao neither dodged nor evaded, but raised his neck to face the knife light, looking as if he was ready to die.
With a clang sound!
Li Liangcai's saber was blocked by a cavalryman's weapon!
Li Liangcai was furious and ordered his personal soldiers: "You guys kill Liu Wenyao immediately! Quick!"
"Deputy General Li, it's not too late to take action after you hear what Commander Liu has to say!"
"Yeah, I've heard him out."
"He is alone. Even if you want to kill him, you don't have to rush into it now, right?"
Seven or eight cavalrymen separated Liu Wenyao from Li Liangcai and his personal soldiers.
Seeing that everyone had different opinions, Li Liangcai could only take a deep breath and step back half a step, but his eyes were always fixed on Liu Wenyao.
After a moment of silence, someone asked, "Commander Liu won't lie to us, right?"
"The silver is in the city and can be distributed now! I will shout at the foot of the city and they will throw the silver down from the city wall."
When everyone heard that they could get the money now, they all swallowed their saliva, then looked at each other, and finally turned their eyes to Li Liangcai.
"Deputy General Li, how do you know this imperial edict is fake?" asked a lieutenant general who was usually at odds with Deputy General Li.
"Yeah, how do you know it's fake if you haven't even seen it yet?"
Li Liangcai tightly grasped his saber and angrily said, "General Liu fought bravely for the court and devoted himself to the court. How could he be deceiving the emperor? When has he ever withheld military pay? The fact that he exchanged letters with the bandits is even more absurd!"
"It's obvious that Liu Wenyao is forging an imperial decree in order to seize the military power of the general!"
Liu Wenyao asked expressionlessly, "Your Majesty asked Liu Zeqing to come to the capital to defend the king. I didn't make up the story that he lied about falling off a horse and getting injured, did I? He rode a horse before he came here. You should have seen it, right?"
Everyone looked at Li Liangcai to see how he would refute.
Li Liangcai didn't say anything. Most people saw Liu Zeqing riding a horse, and there was no way to refute the fact that he faked an injury.
"You are all cavalrymen. According to the court rules, ordinary soldiers are paid one tael and six coins of silver per month, and each horse is paid one tael of silver as animal rations per month. How much have you each received?"
"The correspondence between the bandits and Liu Zeqing has been intercepted by the Royal Guards. Do I need to say anything more?"
No one took Li Wenyao's other words to heart, but when the matter of military pay and livestock rations was mentioned, everyone became furious.
According to Liu Wenyao's standards, they could get two taels and six cents of silver every month, but in reality they had less than half!
Being a soldier is a life-threatening job, so delaying military pay would be fine, but I didn't expect Liu Zeqing to withhold military pay and livestock rations.
Everyone couldn't bear it any longer and started cursing at Liu Zeqing.
"It's what you deserve! You deserve to die for eating meat and drinking blood!"
"You dare to deduct money from us brothers before we risk our lives. Now we are done for! We have the life to deduct, but not the life to spend!"
"I trusted you for so long, yet you withheld my military pay. Pah!"
Li Liangcai, the deputy general, suddenly felt something was wrong. The situation changed suddenly in the blink of an eye. Just now they were still pointing fingers at Liu Wenyao, but now their attitude has completely changed, and they seem to want to surrender.
Li Liangcai shouted, "Liu Wenyao is talking nonsense. Kill him to avenge the general!"
After saying that, he raised his saber and chopped it hard at Liu Wenyao's head.
With a puff!
Before he could chop down with the saber in his hand, Li Liangcai was stabbed from behind.
The knife was accurate and fierce, piercing through the dark armor and stabbing into his back. The knife was pulled out quickly without any pause, blood splattered everywhere, and Li Liangcai fell to the ground dead.
Then, a dozen cavalrymen surrounded Li Liangcai's personal guards. There were only four or five of them, and they were quickly annihilated under their siege.
It all happened so quickly that by the time others reacted, Lieutenant General Li Liangcai was already dead.
After dealing with Li Liangcai's personal soldiers, the attacker came to Liu Wenyao and knelt on one knee: "I am Tian Liang, the subordinate, serving as the lieutenant general, and I am here to meet Governor Liu!"
With his lead, everyone knelt on one knee to show that they had no intention of confronting the court.
Liu Wenyao finally felt relieved.
They buried gunpowder in front of the city gate and tricked Liu Zeqing into lighting a torch, so that the sparks from the torch would ignite the gunpowder and explode.
Then he went out of the city and faced five thousand cavalrymen alone.
Every link here cannot be wrong, especially the last one. One wrong move will lead to a complete failure.
Fortunately, he won.
Kill Liu Zeqing and convince these soldiers!
In fact, the key to this matter is Liu Zeqing. Once he dies, the soldiers under his command will lose their backbone.
Liu Zeqing is dead, and they only have two options.
One way is to continue to follow the court, and the other way is to surrender to the bandits.
But the former has a legitimate reason!
He bets that more people will choose the former!
Liu Wenyao didn't dare to show any expression on his face, and said lightly: "General Tian, now I will promote you to deputy general."
"Follow me to the city to collect the salary. Then we will split it into two parts. One part will escort the prince to Nanjing, and the other part will go to Beijing with me to defend the king."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
