It was already midnight when Li Yuntian returned to his residence, and Wu Qian had not fallen asleep at this time, so he blew out the light and sat in the room waiting for him to come back.

After hearing the sound of Li Yuntian walking in the yard, Wu Qian hurriedly got up and came to the window, opened a crack in the window and quietly looked out, and saw Li Yuntian enter the bedroom opposite, and then she closed the window, and the willow eyebrows frowned slightly to guess who Li Yuntian saw tonight, which seemed to be a little mysterious.

Li Yuntian knew that Wu Qian was spying on him, but he pretended to be unaware, as the saying goes, the enemy's enemy is a friend, and he felt that Wu Qian was a spy sent by the Zhancheng State nine times out of ten, so he was a natural ally of the Ming army.

For three days in a row, Li Yuntian stayed at his residence and did not go out a step, he was being patient with Li Li and Ruan Yan, at this time, whoever couldn't hold his breath and saw the other party first would have a disadvantage in the negotiation.

At the same time, Li Yuntian was also waiting for the arrival of a person who would break the deadlock in the negotiations between him and Li Li once he came to Xiaohe Town, and even Ruan Yan would fall into the trap he had already prepared.

Since Li Yuntian was in Xiaohe Town, Li Li temporarily shelved his plan to attack Anliang County, and asked his men to hurry up and go to Sanjiang City and Taiyuan City to collect intelligence in order to make a judgment on the current situation.

Compared with Li Yuntian's low-key, Wu Qian seemed very active, and asked Cai Fu to help her get to know several important generals of the rebels, and gave out a lot of money in the name of friendship.

Since learning that General Dingnan was besieged in Anliang County, not only the rebel soldiers, but even those important generals of the rebel army are now full of confidence, believing that as long as they capture Anliang County and capture General Dingnan, they will force the Ming Dynasty to withdraw its troops from Jiaozhi after successive failures in counterinsurgency.

Therefore, now the generals of the rebel army have begun to plan for the life of Li Li after taking charge of Jiaozhi, most of the generals who followed Li Li's rebellion were born in poverty, and now they are about to lay this country in Jiaozhi, they naturally want to enjoy the days of sitting on the country, this time is the critical period of grabbing the interests of the post-war period, and no one will refuse the refuge of the merchants.

In the process of contacting those rebel generals, Wu Qian visited most of Xiaohe Town, and had a full view of the rebels' equipment and personnel.

The rebels in Xiaohe Town are the elite of the rebels, as long as their information is provided to the Ming army, then the Ming army can be made to take care of it accordingly.

Wu Qian saw that Li Yuntian had come to the gate for three days, and he rarely even came to the courtyard, hiding in the bedroom every day, and was very surprised, in her opinion, if Li Yuntian wanted to do business in Jiaozhi, he had to lay a good foundation with the generals of the rebel army, but Li Yuntian did not do so.

Could it be that Li Yuntian had already come into contact with some high-ranking person in the rebel army, who was enough to provide him with refuge in Jiaozhi?

But Wu Qian felt that something was wrong, if this was the case, then Li Yuntian should have left Xiaohe Town, but he didn't leave.

Moreover, Wu Qian also discovered a strange thing, that is, the entourage brought by Li Yuntian seemed to have a high degree of vigilance, and they were very indifferent to the deliberate approach of Wu Jinghao and others, and they vaguely revealed the aura of the army, like they were born in the army, and they had a completely different temperament from ordinary guards.

This made Wu Qian full of curiosity about Li Yuntian's identity, although she thought that Li Yuntian was a son of a businessman, but Li Yuntian's body did not show the aura of a businessman, and his body seemed to be shrouded in a layer of fog that was difficult to see.

On the evening of the fourth day, several fast horsemen appeared in a hurry at the town entrance south of Xiaohe Town, but were stopped by the soldiers at the town entrance.

"We are the subordinates of General Huang of Fenghua Mansion, and we have an urgent military situation to report to the prince." The leading rebel cavalry took out a military badge from his bosom and handed it to the rebel leader in charge of the inspection.

The small leader of the rebel army checked the military card, dodged a road sideways, and then looked at the few cavalrymen who were galloping into the town with a suspicious expression, now that Fenghua Mansion is calm, what military situation is worth bothering Li Li personally?

A few fast horses galloped along the town, and after crossing two streets, they stopped in front of the house where Li Li lived, dismounted, and hurried to the door.

"What for?" There were a dozen rebels guarding the door, and when they saw this, they blocked their way.

"On the orders of General Huang of Huafu, there is an urgent military situation to be played to the prince." The leading rebel cavalry hurriedly took out his military badge and handed it over.

"Only one person is allowed in." A rebel leader took the badge and examined it, and returned it to the leading rebel cavalry with a blank face.

Hearing this, the leading rebel cavalry turned sideways and looked at a middle-aged man wearing rebel clothes with two mustaches on the corners of his mouth, and the bearded middle-aged man walked towards the rebel leader guarding the door.

The rebel leader was a little surprised when he saw this, but he didn't expect that it was not the leading rebel cavalry who entered the courtyard, so he waved his hand, and several rebel soldiers standing aside stepped forward to search for the bearded middle-aged man.

After making sure that the bearded middle-aged man was not carrying a murder weapon, the rebel leader waved his hand, and the two rebel soldiers immediately took the bearded middle-aged man into the courtyard and asked him to wait in the wing room in the front yard.

Li Li couldn't help but feel a little surprised when he learned that General Huang of Fenghua Mansion had sent someone to deliver urgent military information to him, and he had the impression that the main force of the Ming army in Jianchang Mansion, which was adjacent to Fenghua Mansion, was shrinking in Jianchang City.

Although there is the main force of the Ming army in Jianchang City, the total strength is more than 10,000 and less than 20,000, most of them are civilians who were forcibly recruited, so they could not put pressure on the rebels in Jianchang Mansion at all.

However, since General Huang of Fenghua Mansion hurriedly sent someone to deliver the emergency military information, it meant that something must have happened in Fenghua Mansion, so he groaned for a while and asked the bearded middle-aged man who came to report the news to meet him.

"Lord Wang!" As soon as the bearded middle-aged man entered the door, he knelt down for Li Li, and said loudly while kowtowing, "It is not good to do things in a lowly position, and I did not send the invitation to the Ming court Jingshi, please take responsibility." ”

"Vice Envoy Li, did the people of the Ming Court let you come back?" Li Li was stunned when he saw the middle-aged man with a mustache, and his face showed a look of consternation, looking a little unbelievable.

This mustachioed middle-aged man, surnamed Wang, was the deputy envoy sent by Li Li to Emperor Xuande to "Please Surrender the Table", and was ready to give Emperor Xuande a step down and let Emperor Xuande crown Chen Wei as the king of Annam.

It stands to reason that since Emperor Xuande had sent Li Yuntian to Jiaozhi to quell the rebellion, it meant that he did not accept Li Li's "invitation to surrender", and the envoy sent by Li Li would naturally be detained by the Ming court, but the deputy envoy suddenly appeared in front of Li Li at this time, which had to surprise Li Li.

"Lord Wang, the lowly rank and others were detained by the officials of the Ming Court in the Zhejiang territory of the Ming Court, and later I learned that the emperor of the Ming Court had sent people to Jiaozhi to continue to encircle and suppress our righteous army."

Hearing this, Deputy Envoy Li raised his head and said to Li Li, "It was not easy for the lowly to bribe the Ming court officials who were imprisoned, buy a horse, forge a road guide, and after arriving in Guangxi of the Ming court, take a smuggler's cargo ship to the Feng'an Fu wharf controlled by our righteous army. ”

"It's good to come back, it's good to come back." Li Li found that Deputy Envoy Li had lost a lot of weight than when he left, and his expression was very haggard, knowing that he had suffered a lot of hardships and suffered a lot along the way, so he nodded to Deputy Envoy Li and comforted him, "You go back to rest first, your merits are all remembered in the heart of this king, and when this king wins Jiaozhi, he will definitely be rewarded for his merits." ”

"Thank you, Lord Wang." Deputy Envoy Li couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly thanked Li Li in a deep voice, and then Yu Feng turned around, and said in a mysterious voice, "Lord Wang, on the way here, I heard a news related to the Ming Court Xiaowu Army. ”

"What's the news?" Li Li's eyes showed a look of surprise, but thinking about it, if you calculate the time, when Deputy Envoy Li fled Zhejiang, the counterinsurgency army of the Ming Dynasty happened to arrive in Zhejiang, so he asked quietly.

"Lord Wang, according to many inquiries from the humble position, there are only a few thousand Xiaowu troops from the Ming Tingjing Division this time, not the 100,000 that the Jiaozhi Ming Army has advertised to the outside world!" When Deputy Envoy Li heard this, he looked at Li Li solemnly, "Lord Wang, the Ming army has faked the number of Xiaowu troops!" ”

"What?" Li Li was stunned for a moment, his face full of incredulity.

Under Li Yuntian's covert push, the people of many state capitals in the northern part of Jiaozhi already knew that the 100,000 Xiaowu army was on their way to Jiaozhi, but now that Deputy Envoy Li actually told him that the Xiaowu army was only a few thousand, how could this make him believe that Li Yuntian wanted to fight against the rebels in Jiaozhi just by relying on these thousands of people?

"Lord Wang, I also heard about it on the way to escape, the Xiaowu army only came to Jiaozhi this time, and the rebel general Dingnan also held a bidding in Yangzhou City, the richest city south of the Ming Dynasty, and sold the commercial management rights and mining rights of our Jiaozhi to merchants, and raised a lot of military funds from it."

Deputy Envoy Li knew that Li Li couldn't believe it, so he explained to him in a deep voice, "The Xiaowu army of the Ming court went south to Hangzhou by boat, and inquired about the coolies and fishermen at the wharves along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal of the Ming court, and also quietly approached the military camp of the Xiaowu army, and their number was indeed not much, only thousands. ”

To be honest, Deputy Envoy Li didn't believe it when he first knew about this matter, thinking that it was simply impossible, how could Li Yuntian lead such a small number of people to Jiaozhi, the previous Wang Tong and Liu Shengke both led more than 100,000 people to Jiaozhi to quell the rebellion.

However, because the affairs of the Xiaowu army were closely related to the Jiaozhi rebels, Deputy Envoy Li paid attention to them privately, and the result surprised him.