Chapter 39 The enemy counterattacks
"What do you mean he burned himself to death?"

In the tent, Ye Mingsheng frowned and looked at Chen Yannian in front of him, and asked in surprise:
Under Ye Mingsheng's gaze, Chen Yannian said awkwardly, "It's like this. After we captured the royal city, the brothers immediately looked for the trace of the old man Li Zaiyuan in the royal city, but... by the time we found him, he had already burned himself in Deshan Hall."

"At present, the remains of Li Zaiyuan have been handed over to the people of the Supervisory Office. After being identified by the captured palace maids and servants, it has been confirmed that the remains are Li Zaiyuan himself."

After saying this, Chen Yannian looked at the commander in front of him who was almost the same age as his son with some trepidation in his heart.

Even though Ye Mingsheng was also a seventh-rank commander under his command before, to be honest, Chen Yannian looked down on this incompetent man who only relied on the name of Zhaowu Camp but had no real talent or knowledge.

It was only because he had been worn down by the various things in officialdom that he had no choice but to maintain respect for Ye Mingsheng.

However, after the recent contact, Chen Yannian was surprised to find that this incompetent man in his eyes had become very ruthless and decisive in his style of doing things. This made Ye Mingsheng re-establish some of his authority as a commander in Chen Yannian's heart.

Under Chen Yannian's gaze, Ye Mingsheng pondered for a while, then slowly said: "Since Li Zaiyuan has been accepted by the Supervisory Department, let's leave it at that!"

After saying that, Ye Mingsheng thought for a moment and continued, "Master Chen, although we have completely captured Liujing, we will still face many difficulties in the future. You need to pay more attention!"

"I understand. I will convey the commander's intention right away. Tell the brothers not to slack off." After understanding the meaning of Ye Mingsheng's words, Chen Yannian immediately took the initiative to say:

Ye Mingsheng nodded slightly, and Chen Yannian immediately said goodbye and left. After thinking for a while, Ye Mingsheng asked Ye Tie to bring the map of Gongdu. His eyes were focused on a location called Zhushan Port on the east coast of Gongdu on the map.

According to Liu Shilin's plan, he has now completed 50% of his tasks. What he has to do next is to defend Liujing City against the counterattack of the Gongdu army and wait for General Xu Zhaojie to lead the main force to join them and completely stabilize the situation. According to Liu Shilin's plan, this process will take only five days at the fastest.

In other words, Ye Mingsheng has to rely on the more than 2,000 people under his command to defend Liujing City for at least five days!

Almost two days have passed since the attack on the palace on the 25th. This means that under the most ideal circumstances, Ye Mingsheng still needs to hold on to Liujing for three days before he can wait for Xu Zhaojie's reinforcements.

As the strongest city in the imperial capital and the center of the country's politics, economy and culture, Liujing City is an absolutely powerful city. From the perspective of defending the city, it will be very difficult to defend this city with more than 2,000 people.

Although the situation was not particularly good, the only thing that made Ye Mingsheng feel fortunate was that the opponent he would face next was not very strong!

Theoretically, there should be three groups of Gongdu troops that can counterattack Liujing. The first group is the Gongdu troops in and around Luochuan Road Granary, which is about 8,000 people. However, Wang Kangxin and Li Wanshun, who didn't know that they had been tricked by Ye Mingsheng at this time, had secretly attacked Luochuan Road Granary.

Therefore, the Gongdu army in Luochuan Road is unable to take care of itself and its attention is all on Li Wanshun and Wang Kangxin. In all likelihood, they will not counterattack Liujing.

Secondly, the second group of palace troops that can counterattack Liujing are the palace troops of the counties around Liujing that Ye Mingsheng has already experienced.

Although the total number of the imperial army was 5,000, it would be good to have 3,000 people if those who were not paid for their services were excluded. Although their number was not small, their combat effectiveness was very low. Ye Mingsheng did not take them seriously at all.
As for the third and most troublesome Gongdu army, it was the Gongdu Japanese soldiers stationed at Zhushan Port. This Gongdu army was used to prevent the landing of the East Island Ronin across the sea. Although the number of people was small and the equipment was very simple,

However, because they have been fighting against ronin and pirates who came from Dongdao across the ocean for many years, they have rich combat experience. In addition, General Jiang Shouye of the Japanese Preparations is a rare and skilled general in the palace army. Therefore, this group of Japanese Preparations can be said to be very effective.

Seriously speaking, if these soldiers prepared for the Japanese invasion were deployed, and together with the palace troops coming to support from other places, they joined forces to counterattack Liujing City, Ye Mingsheng asked himself if he really had any good way to resist them and defend the huge Liujing City with only the two thousand men in his hands.

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The only thing that could make Ye Mingsheng feel a little comforted was that although the distance from Wanfeng Prefecture to Liujing was one hundred miles more than the distance from Zhushan Port to Liujing, the road from Zhushan Port to Liujing was all rugged mountain roads, which were very difficult to walk on, while the road from Wanfeng Prefecture to Liujing was relatively flat, allowing the elite cavalry of the Iron Cavalry Army to pass quickly.

In addition, since the beginning of the operation, the Supervisory Office had already informed Xu Zhaojie of the matter. Therefore, as long as Lord Xu did not harbor any evil intentions, the Great Zhou army would definitely act earlier than the people in the palace.

Therefore, purely from a probabilistic perspective, the probability that Ye Mingsheng's reinforcements will arrive before the counterattacking Miyato's Japanese troops is still very high.

Of course, although this is true in theory, the situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, and no one knows what will happen in the next moment. Ye Mingsheng has also made plans for the worst. If it really doesn't work, he plans to abandon the outer city of Liujing and retreat to the royal city to defend it. As long as there is enough food and grass, Ye Mingsheng has enough confidence that the people of Gongdu cannot capture his city!
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"Kill!"

"Take back the granary!"

"Kill all the Zhou dogs!"

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In the heart of the palace, under the granary on Luochuan Road, thick smoke billowed and the shouts of killing were deafening. Large groups of palace soldiers in blue military uniforms, under the cover of artillery, catapults, and arrows, carried ladders, battering rams and other heavy weapons and charged towards the scarred city before them.

People were crawling everywhere on the high city walls. Every moment, several soldiers screamed and lost their lives. However, under the scolding of the military officers and the machetes of the military law team, the soldiers of the palace continued to rush forward, stepping on the corpses of their predecessors.

(End of this chapter)