Fortunately, Lou Yue was fast in deploying his troops. In half an hour, the whole of Lin’an was tightly surrounded.
Amidst the chaos, he even detained Pang Shao’s carriage. Although Pang Shao brought a lot of dead soldiers and subordinates with excellent martial arts skills, a lot of his henchmen still died against him. Finally, he detained Pang Shao, together with his wife and young son, and locked them up securely.
Presently, Lou Wanjun, who had missed her target, returned without delay.
“And now, we need to send a message to the palace,” Lou Yue frowned and said.
Lou Wanjun stood beside him with her arms crossed. When she heard this, she kicked Pang Shao, who was tied tightly beside her.
“What’s so hard about it?” she said. “Just cut one of his fingers and send it to the palace. Won’t His Majesty understand everything?”
Lou Yue gritted his teeth.
“Aren’t you afraid that he will cut a finger of His Highness Jingwang as well?” he retorted angrily.
Lou Wanjun frowned: “Then what should we do?”
Lou Yue surveyed the few people bundled in the barracks. After a moment, he glanced at Pang Shao’s five-year-old young son who was wailing and crying, and Pang Shao’s wife next to him.
“Write a letter and teach someone how to deliver it at the entrance of the palace along with the letter and this young son of his.” Lou Yue instructed, “Just say that what I did today was all because Pang Shao has taken over my army of 300,000 in Lingnan, and I want an explanation. Pang Shao, his wife, and son are now in my hands. As long as someone brings back the head of the rebel general in Lingnan, I will let him go. But Jingwang is my benefactor. If Jingwang dies, I don’t mind killing Pang Shao this time.”
Lou Wanjun quickly responded, picked up Pang Shao’s young son with one hand, and turned to leave.
However, she heard Lou Yue shout at her again.
“Don’t forget to tell him that Pang Shao has already spoken about Huo Wujiu.” He added, “Let him rest assured that as long as the 300,000 troops are returned to the rightful owner, he can hand Huo Wujiu to me. There’s no need for His Majesty to worry about it.”
As expected, within half a day, someone threw out a letter between the cracks of the city gate.
It was a handwritten letter from the Hou Zhu.
The handwriting was all scribbles, showing how irritated the person who wrote the letter was.
“Rest assured that Jiang Suizhou is still alive. Quickly send a number of people to south to deploy the army. Bring the heads of whomever you want, but the army must be transferred without delay.”
Lou Yue finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He had successfully tricked the Hou Zhu. This way, Jiang Suizhou would be temporarily safe in the palace.
However, a day later, his nerves tensed up again.
The new magistrate of Suzhou was a member of Pang Shao’s party. Because the city was very close to Lin’an, he immediately sent a message to Pang Wei in Lingnan and also led 30,000 soldiers from Suzhou. They escorted him to the north. In the evening of the next day, the Suzhou soldiers arrived.
Lou Yue and his party were guarding the city gates at this time. Nobody could infiltrate the city, yet an enemy army arrived outside the city. For a time, Lou Yue was unable to take care of himself. With several generals under his command, each guarded a place and defended against the reinforcements from Suzhou.
Fortunately, one side guarded the city gates, while the other side was cautious and trying to explore. The leader of the army was a civil servant who had never fought a war. He never got to touch within an inch of the city gates all day, and Lou Wanjun even chased a troop twenty miles away.
But that night, a scout delivered news.
When Pang Wei in Lingnan heard that Lin’an was under siege and his father was captured, he gathered 300,000 soldiers overnight and marched to Lin’an.
The distance between Lingnan and Lin’an was short, and the advance troops would be able to arrive at most three days.
Lou Yue led his generals to get together and calculate to determine whether Pang Wei would arrive faster than Huo Wujiu. As a result, everyone’s hearts sank to the bottom. After their discussion, no one said a word and, instead, quietly returned to the gates where they were guarding. They just have to wait for a few more days with their negligible number as support until Huo Wujiu’s reinforcements arrived.
Such a gloomy pressure permeated outside the city for the entire day.
This lasted until the next day.
Early in the morning, the sunrise broke through the sky, shining brightly on the ancient and dull city walls.
The general guarding the northern part of the city had not slept all night. His heartstrings had been high strung the entire time, so he was a little bleary-eyed. He stood on the city wall and was about to go down for some breakfast when he heard a sudden cry of alarm from the soldier standing guard beside him.
“General!” he exclaimed, “Someone’s coming!”
The general was startled and promptly looked toward a distance as far as the eye could see.
Then he saw dust rising on the distant horizon, trodden out by soldiers and horses. A mighty army, with no end in sight, was approaching Lin’an City.
It had only been two days since they learned that Pang Wei had moved. He was quite swift!
General instructed double quick, “Go, go inform General Lou! They’re here!”
The soldier answered promptly. But after running a few steps, he then turned back and asked, “General, who is here?”
The general wished he could kick him in the face.
“Who else could they be? Can you get here from the Chang River so fast?!”
After saying that, he looked in the direction of the city outside.
With just one glance, he froze.
He was guarding the northern city gate… This seemed to be facing the Chang River.
As for the soldiers and horses that were getting closer, the man at the lead did resemble Huo Wujiu.
The general stumbled and ran all the way down from the city wall, straight to the outside of the city to welcome the mighty army, and then met up with Huo Wujiu who came galloping on horseback.
The cavalry behind him alone was tens of thousands, but the rest of the army had to be ten times more than that.
How could this be!
The general was so excited that he almost broke into tears.
The Chang River was so far away from here, and he was leading an army from Jiangbei (south of the river) to the north. How could they be so fast? But the one on the black horse at the lead was indeed Huo Wujiu.
In a blink, Huo Wujiu raised his hand, and the cavalry behind him stopped on the spot. He rushed to the general with his whip, pulled the reins with one hand, and stopped the war horse in place.
The war horse raised its front hooves and stopped.
The general knelt on one knee in excitement and cupped his fist towards Huo Wujiu, “General Huo!”
Huo Wujiu gave him a hum, and with a tug on the reins, he marched towards the city gate.
“I didn’t expect the General to be so swift. We were so worried!”
The general quickly chased after him.
However, Huo Wujiu glanced back at him, answered lightly, and then asked, “Where is Jingwang?”
The general was stunned, wondering what General Huo wanted with Jingwang.
“His Highness Jingwang is in the palace, no?” he answered.
Huo Wujiu’s grip tightened, and the warhorse hissed and stopped in place.
General Huo turned his head.
He remained expressionless, but his eyes instantly turned cold, so sinister that the tall general couldn’t help but shiver.
“Say what?”
Huo Wujiu’s voice was squeezed out in between his clenched teeth.
