Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 387: I made dumplings just for this dish of vinegar

"Your Majesty, here's the battle report from Shuozhou. After receiving reinforcements of 5,000 soldiers and food, ahem... they were able to gain a firm foothold and continuously repel Li Nijing's attacks."

"Your Majesty... The battle line in the south of Jinyang City is solid, and the enemy cannot advance... cough cough!"

"Ahem! Well, as I expected... ahem... compared to troops, the northern front needs food and fodder more... ahem... to be provided. Ashina She'er and... ahem... Cheng Zhijie have made great contributions, but they fought too fiercely, as if every battle was the final one... We need to make them pay attention to the casualties of the soldiers and not to kill them all... Li Shiji has been defending very well recently, ahem... impeccable, and the mistakes in the past were not his fault... ahem! ahem! Damn it, what is Li Ming doing?!"

Li Shimin was so angry that he swore and slammed the table.

He was holding a combat meeting with his subordinates as usual, but smoke billowed in from the window, making the room look like a barbecue shop and causing everyone to cough.

"Your Majesty, it's the Ming army that's burning the mountain again... ahem! That's it!" The subordinate answered while wiping his face with his sleeve.

They were all choked by the thick smoke and were crying and snotting, looking in a miserable state.

The Ming Dynasty laborers burned fires to open up wasteland in various counties in southern Shanxi, and the smoke blew all the way into Bingzhou along the summer southeast wind.

The wind that wanted to choke you finally blew to Jinyang Prefecture.

"You son of a bitch! You said you were building bridges and paving roads on the battlefield, but you're just clearing wasteland and setting fire to the mountains. Are you a wild man from Lingnan... cough cough!"

Li Shimin coughed and shouted angrily at his unfilial son.

Li Ming opened champagne in the first half, carried out large-scale infrastructure construction on the battlefield, and acted as if the Tang army did not exist, so Li Shimin endured it.

But he really couldn't tolerate Li Ming's unscrupulous fanning of the flames (literally) and polluting the atmosphere.

Food and meals can be specially provided, housing security can be specially provided, but air cannot be specially provided. Even His Majesty the Emperor has to breathe Li Ming’s exhaust fumes together with the common people!

This is really not environmentally friendly, how dare that guy! Oyster oil!

"Your Majesty, ahem! Is there some other conspiracy behind their actions... ahem!" the subordinate reminded.

Maybe even the worms in Li Ming's stomach don't know what that little head with bigger imagination than its substance is thinking about.

But as victims for many years, you all know that the guy must have had some bad luck.

"Ahem, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, our ancestors did not burn the mountains when they were reclaiming wasteland. That fellow Li Ming definitely has no good intentions. Do you need to tell me this? Ahem, ahem, ahem!"

Li Shimin coughed so hard that he could hardly breathe and could only wave his hands.

The servants quickly closed the doors and windows.

Jinyang Prefecture is, after all, only the capital of a state. Now that the beginning of summer has passed, with so many people crowded in, and the doors and windows closed like this, it's inevitable that it'll feel stuffy.

However, the smoke was finally blocked outside the doors and windows, and everyone could finally breathe easier.

"Damn it, why doesn't he just burn Jinyang to the ground..."

Li Shimin was muttering angrily, when suddenly an idea came to him.

"Burn... Is that guy planning to attack with fire?"

It has been hot and rainy since the beginning of summer this year, so burning Jinyang is not a crazy idea.

Compared with shooting bunkers all the way to Li Shimin's face, it can even be considered a good value for money, with a very high cost-effective option.

"Could it be that Li Ming brought in millions of civilians from all over the country to stage a scene of setting fire to open up wasteland in front of me, just to cover up his plan of fire attack?"

"But if he wanted to attack with fire, he could just send spies to set a fire under the city. Why would he go to so much trouble?"

Li Shimin thought that his son might try to use fire attack, but it was unlikely that his son would do so.

After all, the strategy of fire attack may be a surprising way to achieve victory for an ordinary general.

But to Li Ming, it was so normal that it seemed out of place when placed next to that guy's other weird actions.

Could it be that I was overthinking it, and setting fire was just a way for the civilians to quickly clear the land because they didn't want to bother with it, and it had no direct connection with siege?

If this speculation is true, then the Ming Dynasty did a really rude job. Wasn't it afraid of burning down its own town?

If this speculation is not true, and Li Ming really wants to stage a drama of burning Jinyang, shouldn't he just quietly set fire and rob? Why is he doing it in such a high-profile manner?
"I don't know, I don't know. I really want to pry open that little head and see what's inside!"

Li Shimin had a headache.

He despairedly discovered that even if he really had a cerebral thrombosis, he still couldn't keep up with Li Ming's imagination...

“Your Majesty, although we don’t know whether the Ming army has plans for a fire attack, as the saying goes, it is better to believe it than not.

"To be on the safe side, our army has to be on guard as well."

The generals under him made suggestions.

Li Shimin calmed down a little, curled his lips and said:
"What you said makes sense. We should always be on guard against others.

"Pass on my order, find some laborers, and have them cut down all the trees within a two-li radius around Jinyang City and remove all the dry grass."

Since you have soldiers to work with, you have started using cheaper civilians instead. You are really learning bad habits... No, your Majesty has a really strong learning ability!

All the generals received the order:

"Yes."

No one knows when and where Li Ming will show his fangs, so we should not hesitate to treat him with the greatest malice.

Your Majesty's precautionary measures have been well handled.

"As long as we lose the fuel, the Ming army won't be able to burn us even if they choke themselves to death. Let's see how they can use fire to attack us!"

Li Shimin silently clenched his teeth in his heart.

He didn't know what Li Ming was planning, and he didn't even know whether that guy was thinking hard or not.

This made Admiral Tian Ce feel very annoyed and...uneasy.

Knowing yourself and your enemy, you can fight a hundred battles without danger. In other words, when several parties know nothing about each other, the situation becomes extremely dangerous.

Li Shimin suddenly realized that he still didn't know his youngest son well enough after all.

He couldn't help but feel a little regretful that he should have given him more care and attention during that critical period of the child's growth.

That guy wouldn't have grown into what he is now, anti-human, anti-society, and anti-Earth...

…………

"Extinguish hahaha! Let the fire burn even more fiercely!"

A certain anti-human, anti-society, and anti-earth founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty stood on the top of the mountain, laughing loudly towards the northern front.

In front of him was a raging wildfire and billowing smoke, which seemed to be about to swallow up the enemy's lair, Jinyang City.

Unexpectedly, the strong south wind suddenly stopped and the smoke began to drift towards Li Ming.

"Cough cough cough!..."

The choking smoke made Li Ming and his servants cough continuously.

Qibi Heli coughed and advised:

"Your Majesty... cough cough cough, please go back to the barracks for shelter. The thick smoke outside is not good for the dragon's body..."

"Hey, brother Qibi, look, what is that?"

Li Ming interrupted Qibi Heli's chanting and pointed to the distant north.

Qibi Heli squinted his eyes and saw vaguely through the billowing smoke.

On the other side of the horizon, in the Tang army's defense zone, some kind lights also flashed.

"Why is the hill opposite on fire? Could it be that the flames here have spread there?" Qibi Heli was surprised.

Li Ming looked carefully for a while and waved his hand:

"There was not even a spark for such a long distance, but how come it caught fire when we got to the Tang Army defense zone ten miles away?

"I think they are the ones burning the mountain themselves."

Qibi Heli was stunned:
"They are burning too? Why?"

"Maybe they thought I was going to attack the city with fire, so they cleared a buffer zone in advance." Li Ming shrugged.

Yuchi Xunyu on the side couldn't help but smile:

"It's all in vain. How can they, mortals, guess Ming Ge's true intention?"

"..." Li Ming always felt that his friend was euphemistically saying that he was not a human being, but he had no evidence.

To be honest, Li Shimin actually wronged him.

Li Ming has essentially stopped the practice of burning fires to open up wasteland in various parts of Shanxi, and is only lighting fires near the front lines.

It was only because the smoke drifted to Jinyang City that it choked His Majesty Li Shimin, giving the people of the Tang Dynasty the illusion that "Li Ming was making the fire burn more and more vigorously."

And Li Ming went through so much trouble and put on such a big show just for this day——

Burn down this hill closest to the Jinyang front line!

In order to prevent the burning of "this" mountain from arousing suspicion or even obstruction from the other party, he deliberately set fire to the mountain elsewhere to paralyze the other party and conceal his true purpose.

The bad news is that the strategy of paralyzing the opponent failed. Li Shimin was worthy of being Li Shimin, and he did not relax his vigilance because of Li Ming's series of fancy tricks. The good news is that his real purpose is still well concealed.

Old Li seemed to have misunderstood, thinking that Li Ming was preparing to launch a fire attack, and he made some preparations in advance, even burning the grass and trees in front of his house.

Unfortunately, this not only failed to thwart the Ming army's real strategic plan, but instead opened the door for the Ming army!
Li Shimin, a great leader of his time, was not creative enough after all!
If he knew his son's true intentions, he would surely regret it so much that he would slap his thighs.

"His Majesty."

Soon, a general came to report.

His eye sockets were sunken, his eyes were lifeless, his lips were pale, he walked with dragging feet and spoke weakly, as if his body had been hollowed out.

Only the owl feather on his helmet could prove his identity.

"You are...Xue Wanche?!"

Qibi Heli rubbed his eyes and almost didn't dare to recognize his old friend.

The worker in front of him who has lost all hope in life is indeed Xue Wanche, the model worker of the Ming Dynasty.

During this period, although he was not mentioned anywhere, he was everywhere.

He commanded millions of civilians and was present during the attack on Jinyang.

Because Qibi Heli gave up, he had to do the work of two people.

The battle is his, and the ashes are his.

His work in both literature and sports finally squeezed every drop out of this naturally gifted ox and horse with both civil and wood spiritual roots.

"Your Majesty." Old Xue had no energy to respond to Brother Qibi's greeting. He simply relied on his body's inertia to mechanically report to Li Ming:

"The mountain is already burning. When will we fight?"

If something can be explained clearly in one word, Lao Xue will never say an extra word, which is a complete way of saving energy.

This half-dead look made Li Ming sigh.

It is hard to imagine that this dull walking corpse is actually the one with the loud voice Xue Wanche. They are completely different people.

However, no matter how much we sigh, we still have to use our soldiers for a thousand days and only deploy them for a moment, so the cattle and horses still have to be used.

Li Ming nodded and said in a businesslike manner:

“The first phase was successfully completed. The Tang army did not discover our true intentions, which is good.

“The next stage is even more critical, and we need to continue to vigorously contain the Tang army to provide continuous cover for our operations.

“Wan Che, you will lead the main force of our army on land to attack the defense line guarded by Li Shiji, leaving them no time to look south.

"I will write to Li Jing and ask them to launch a full-scale attack from the north to relieve you of some of the pressure."

It’s time to work again... Xue Wanche didn’t even have the time to complain. He nodded numbly, turned around and left without saying a word.

Qibi Heli lowered his head and said nothing.

Yuchi Xunyu looked at him and said loudly:

"General Xue is not very energetic, and the one he faces is a famous general, Li Shiji. This battle may be risky."

The corners of Qibi Heli's mouth twitched, but he still said nothing.

Indirect attacks were not Black Charcoal's strong point, so he couldn't help himself and went straight to the microphone:
"As a general of the Ming Dynasty, you have been receiving a salary from the Ming Dynasty for generations. Why don't you fight for your country, but hide in the back and live a miserable life?"

"I have only eaten Minglu for a few months, and I was abducted by force. Before that, I had eaten Tanglu for most of my life."

Qibi Heli retorted coldly, with a hint of resentment in his tone.

"Uh..." Yuchi Xunyu paused, then changed the topic and played the emotional card:

"What about Xue Wanche? What about your good brother Xue Wanche? You've seen it too. Because of your inaction, he's been split into two and is almost exhausted!

"Are you just watching with such complacency?"

Qibi Heli was somewhat touched, his eyes twitched slightly, and he sighed:
"Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety cannot be achieved at the same time. Since I have sworn allegiance to the Tang Dynasty, I cannot resort to war against His Majesty the Khan.

"If the world blames me for being heartless, then let them blame me."

These words made Black Charcoal Head very anxious.

No... First of all, the phrase "You can't have both loyalty and filial piety" is not used like this, right? Is Xue Wanche your father?
"Oh, forget it, Xun Yu."

This young man was not good at speaking, so Li Ming could only smooth things over for him:

"In the Ming Dynasty, people are free to choose their careers. Since General Qibi is unwilling to go to the battlefield again, we cannot force him."

Qibi Heli quickly corrected:

"Your Majesty, I am no longer a general..."

"Oh, I know. Xunyu, don't be anxious and don't force General Qibi to go to the battlefield." Li Ming waved his hand lightly.

"There is an old saying in the Ming Dynasty. Do you know what it is?"

Qibi Heli raised his eyebrows and asked:
"What is it?"

A teasing smile appeared on Li Ming's lips:

"If you can't go, don't go."

"?!" The Hu man immediately frowned and breathed heavily.

…………

"Charge forward and charge the enemy lines...

"Hey, don't rush so fast. I can't keep up with you guys... Well, forget it."

On the battlefield, Xue Wanche commanded weakly, having difficulty concentrating and clearly lacking energy.

Under his influence, the Ming army's charge became weak and sluggish, like sleepwalking.

On the other side of the battlefield, Li Shiji was observing the battle and couldn't help wondering:
"What are the Ming troops doing? Do they want to fight or not?"

The attack was clearly initiated by the opponent, but why does Li Shiji always have a negative feeling of "that's it after the fight"?

The deputy general suggested:
"General Manager, the opponent has many flaws. This is a good time to counterattack!"

Li Shiji pondered for a long time and shook his head:
"Observe for a while longer."

He was very familiar with the enemy's main general Xue Wanche.

After all, he was a brave man who dared to charge at Dou Jiande's 200,000-strong army with only a few hundred men.

You can say that he is usually stupid and has very low emotional intelligence.

But when it comes to his main business of "war", Lao Xue can definitely be considered in the first echelon.

"But how could such a powerful general lead the team so disorganized and out of touch, as if he didn't get enough sleep? Didn't he act like this when we fought before?"

Li Shiji felt that the other party might be cheating, so he observed carefully for a while.

Very good, under his observation, the Ming army indeed solved the problem of disconnection between the front and the back.

Because the front army also slowed down the pace of the charge and moved slowly along with the main force!

Isn't this clearly sticking the words "Come and fuck me" on your forehead?
Is there really something wrong with the Ming army's command?
Did they change the generals at the last minute?
Li Shiji couldn't care less about these things.

His heart was pounding, knowing that the opportunity was fleeting!
"The front army will stand firm on the defense line and pretend to be friendly with the enemy. The main force will prepare to outflank and annihilate them!" Li Shiji acted decisively and issued the order.

But before he could finish his words, new changes occurred on the battlefield.

Suddenly, a light cavalry unit rushed out from the Ming army.

Although there are not many people, they are full of murderous intent and have extraordinary momentum.

"and many more!"

Li Shiji immediately stopped the messenger, thought about it again and again, and said:

"The other party may be deceiving us. We must not attack without authorization. We should just strengthen our defense."

…………

On the Ming army side, Xue Wanche heard the noise behind him and slowly turned his head.

I saw a cavalry group stepping out of the billowing dust and rushing forward to provide support.

At the forefront of the billowing smoke and dust was a Hu general, who was shouting "It's not that I'm afraid to go into battle!" while rushing forward with a saber in his hand.

Old Xue smiled with relief and waved to his old friend:
"Don't rush too fast..."

"Shut up! If His Majesty dares to suspect me of being a coward, I will rush forward to show him!"

Qibi Heli screamed and ran past Xue Wanche's large army without stopping, like a gust of wind.

(End of this chapter)