Zhu Feng'er touched the backs of the two soldiers, and knocked the two unconscious. In the end, when the soldier saw his companion fall, he was about to shout loudly, when the wooden stick in Zhu Feng'er's hand swept over like lightning and hit him on the head, and the soldier fell to the ground, unconscious. Zhu Feng'er threw away the wooden stick, bent down to untie the key from a soldier, and walked to the stable to unlock the door.

Li Zhiyun was sitting on the ground, drowsy, when he suddenly heard the door ring, looked up, the door was pushed open, and a figure blew in like a gust of wind. He took a look at it, and it turned out to be Zhu Feng'er.

Li Zhiyun struggled to get up from the ground, stepped forward and stood in front of Zhu Feng'er, and excitedly said, "Miss Zhu, why are you here?" Zhu Feng'er lowered her voice and said, "I don't have time to explain, you guys come with me!" Then he drew his sword, made him turn around, and cut the rope with his sword. Then she cut the ropes from everyone's hands.

Everyone walked out of the stable, and with Zhu Feng'er to the back door of the yard, Zhu Feng'er used a sword to pry open the door lock, and everyone rushed out. Li Zhiyun breathed a long sigh of relief, and there was a sense of relief in his heart that he had come out of the quagmire: he had finally escaped from this man-eating demon cave!

Everyone didn't bother to go back to the post station to get their luggage, and followed Zhu Feng'er to the city gate. The city gate had long been closed, and the city guards saw that Zhu Feng'er was leading the envoys of the Tang Dynasty to go out of the city late at night, and they didn't know what was going on. Although Zhu Feng'er said that she had been ordered by her father, they still hesitated if they couldn't open the city gate. In the end, it was Zhu Feng'er who forced them with a sword to open the city gate.

After everyone left the city and walked about two miles, Zhu Feng'er stopped and said to Li Zhiyun: "I'll send you here, and the front will be safe." Li Zhiyun looked at her and said, "Miss Zhu, come with us, if your father knows that you let us go, he will definitely punish you!" Zhu Feng'er smiled and said, "After all, he is my father, even if he is punished, he will only be scolded and imprisoned for two days." Li Zhiyun listened, nodded, and said, "Okay, I won't say thank you, we'll have a date later!" ”

"There will be a date later!"

After Li Zhiyun said goodbye to Zhu Feng'er, he took his entourage and walked towards Guantang Town under the dim starlight.

The group walked for more than half an hour and finally returned to the camp of the New Army. The lights had long since been turned off in the barracks, and the soldiers had fallen asleep. The soldier standing guard at Yuanmen saw a large number of black shadows shaking in front of him, and hurriedly clenched the firearm in his hand and asked loudly: "Who is it?" ”

"It's us." One of the attendants replied.

Scarface happened to come to patrol the sentry, and when he heard a familiar voice, he took a torch from the torch stand next to the gate and greeted him with it. When he saw Li Zhiyun, he hurriedly said, "King Chu, are you back?" Li Zhiyun agreed. Scarface shone it with a torch again, and said, "What about Deputy Envoy Duan?" One of the attendants said with a calm face: "He was eaten!" ”

"Huh?" Scarface's mouth was wide open, and he couldn't close it for a long time.

Li Zhiyun waved his hand and said, "Go back to the camp to sleep first, and talk about the rest tomorrow!" ”

Zhu Cang rebelled, and Li Zhiyun's mission was a failure. It stands to reason that he should go back to Chang'an, but he doesn't want to go back now. He led people to destroy the 5,000 Turkic centaurs, and Abba was angry, and now he will not have any good fruit to eat when he returns. However, if they don't return to Chang'an, where can they go?

The next day, Li Zhiyun summoned two subordinate officials, Scarface and several other generals to discuss together, Li Zhiyun said: "Zhu Cang has 200,000 soldiers and horses, and tens of thousands of troops are stationed in Jutan City alone. Guantang Town is too close to Jutan, and Zhu Cang will come to attack us at any time, so we must leave here immediately. ”

Someone proposed to go back to Chang'an, but Li Zhiyun said the reason why he couldn't go back to Chang'an, and won everyone's understanding. Scarface thought for a moment and said, "I met a merchant in the town two days ago and had a few conversations with him. He said that more than a hundred miles from here, there was a city of champions, where the roads were extensive, the products were rich, and the people were densely populated, which was a good thing to go. Li Zhiyun listened, nodded, and made a final decision: "Okay, then let's go to Champion City." ”

Without further ado, the new army immediately set out of camp, leaving Guantang Town and heading towards the city of Champion (present-day Deng County, Henan). They trekked through mountains and rivers for several days, and they got closer and closer to the City of Champions.

On this day, Li Zhiyun rode a horse to the front, and saw a fast horse galloping in front of him, and when he got closer, he saw clearly that it was a scout sent out. The scout turned over and dismounted, ran to Li Zhiyun's horse, hugged his fists and said: "King Qichu, the Champion City is still ten miles away from here, and there are 5,000 soldiers and horses of Zhu Cang stationed in the city. ”

When Li Zhiyun heard this, he couldn't help frowning: There are 5,000 enemy troops in the city, 2,000 more than the new army, if you attack strongly, you are not sure, it seems that you can only outwit it. Li Zhiyun asked the guards to inform Scarface and ask him to order the team to camp in place.

After the new army camped in a clearing on the side of the road, Li Zhiyun decided to take people into the city to reconnoiter the enemy. Originally, this matter could have been sent to others, but since he had decided to outwit Champion City, he had to go there himself. Only once in the city can he figure it out.

Li Zhiyun asked Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu to pick some guards and soldiers, a total of more than a dozen people. They went to a nearby market town, hired two wagons, bought some goods, disguised themselves as merchants, and set out for the City of Champions.

The group walked for more than half an hour and came to the city gate. The gates were guarded by soldiers, who inspected the goods, collected the gate tax, and let them into the city. They found a inn, parked the carriage in the courtyard, asked the postman for a few rooms, and settled down.

Li Zhiyun called everyone to his room, divided everyone into groups, and asked them to go to various places in the city to reconnoiter the situation. He and Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu were in a group, and the three of them left the post station and walked east along the street. Li Zhiyun found that the scale of Champion City is not small, judging from the number of houses in the city, there are at least tens of thousands of residents, but there are very few pedestrians on the street. The city seemed to be shrouded in a layer of gloomy fog, and the few pedestrians I occasionally met also walked with their heads bowed and hurried steps.

They walked more than a mile when Li Zhiyun suddenly heard the cries of women and children. The sound came from a courtyard next to him, Li Zhiyun turned around curiously, and was about to walk to the gate of the courtyard to take a look at the excitement, when he suddenly saw several soldiers coming out of the courtyard. The soldiers, dressed in armor and armed with weapons, looked vicious and appeared to be looting women and children.

The two children they looted were not very old, one was five or six years old, the other was only three or four years old, and the two children cried and refused to leave their families, and were carried by two soldiers. The woman was dragged out by two soldiers by the arm, and the adults and children at the scene cried.

A moment later, an old woman in her fifties rushed out of the courtyard, she seemed to want to snatch back the robbed child, but she didn't run a few steps before she fell, slumped on the ground, screaming for the sky and the ground, and screaming in grief.

After a while, two more soldiers came out of the courtyard, and behind the soldiers was a young man in his twenties. He seemed to want to chase after his wife and children, who had been robbed, but two soldiers turned around and held the tip of their guns to his chest, unable to move. When the two soldiers saw that their companion was far away, they put away their spears and turned to chase after them.

At this time, several neighbors came over to watch, and one of them, an old man with a hood on his head, stood two steps away from Li Zhiyun. Li Zhiyun walked over and said, "Uncle, let me inquire about the juniors, who are those soldiers?" Why do they rob women and children? The old man glanced at him, looked around again, and said in a low voice: "They are Zhu Cang's soldiers, and they rob women and children to make military rations." ”

"Make military rations?" Li Zhiyun's eyes widened in horror.

The old man nodded, sighed, and said, "There are thousands of garrisons in the city, and they have to eat ten women and ten children every day. If this continues, in less than half a year, the women and children in the city will be eaten up by them! ”

Li Zhiyun was stunned for a moment, and then asked, "Then, where did they keep the women and children they robbed?" ”

"Locked up in the Niangniang Temple in the south of the city, where hundreds of women and children are already imprisoned."

While the two were talking, they saw the stick boy running back to the yard at some point, bringing a large guillotine knife for livestock fodder, and shouting that he was going to fight hard. When the old woman who was paralyzed on the ground saw it, she quickly got up from the ground, ran forward and grabbed one of her son's arms, and cried: "Baby, you can't go, if you die, how can you live for your mother?!" ”

The old man also stepped forward and persuaded, "Pillar, there are many of them, and if you go, you will die!" If you die, your royal family will really be wiped out! Listening to the old man's words, the pillar no longer tried to break free from his mother's hand. He screamed like a wounded beast, threw his guillotine on the ground, crouched down and cried over his head. A sturdy young man, crying like a child, saw that everyone around him wept.

Li Zhiyun couldn't bear to see it, turned around, and whispered to Zhang Zheng and Cai Hu: "Let's go, let's go to the south of the city." ”

The three of them left the house and came to the south of the city, and after inquiry, they found the Niangniang Temple. There were two soldiers standing guard at the entrance of the temple, but they did not dare to approach. Li Zhiyun found an independent hut next to it, located on a small hill, so he walked up. Standing next to the hut, with a panoramic view of the Niangniang Temple in the distance, Li Zhiyun took out a telescope from his arms.

Because they had to search their bodies when they crossed the city gate, none of them brought weapons, but Li Zhiyun brought the binoculars and put them in a blanket. As they crossed the city gates, the soldiers searched for binoculars. He didn't know what this thing was, so he asked Li Zhiyun what it was for? Li Zhiyun replied that it was for the gods, and the soldiers really believed it. The ancients were very superstitious and did not dare to offend the gods, so the soldiers put the binoculars back in their blankets and gave them back to him.