lovenovelstory Chapter 11 Military Orders Are Like Mountains
Chapter 11 Military Orders Are Like Mountains
"But……"
"This is a military order."
Zhao Yun gritted his teeth, finally loosened his grip on the sword hilt, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and said, "Yes, sir!"
Li Zhao led Sun Fu down from the watchtower, onto the oxcart that had been prepared beforehand, and slowly drove towards the county town.
What's meant to come will come.
……
The atmosphere in the main hall of the county temple was extremely solemn.
The person sitting in the main seat was not Li Zhao, but a soldier wearing leather armor with a fierce face.
This person's name is Wang Men.
He was a separate commander under Gongsun Zan, and was notoriously ruthless.
He sat with an air of superiority, one foot propped on a table, toying with a gleaming ring-pommel sword in his hand, his cold gaze occasionally sweeping across the hall below.
Zhang Mao and Zhang He knelt to one side, heads bowed, not daring to breathe, only occasionally revealing a barely perceptible hint of pleasure at the corners of their mouths.
This was the scene that Li Zhao saw when he entered the main hall.
His expression remained unchanged. He stepped forward a few paces, bowed respectfully without being humble or arrogant, and said, "This humble official, Li Zhao, Magistrate of Pingyuan, greets Commander Wang."
"Snapped!"
Wang Men slammed his ring-pommel sword on the table, stood up abruptly, and roared at Li Zhao below the stage:
"Li Zhao! Do you know your crime?!"
This loud shout was like a thunderclap from a clear sky, startling Sun Fu so much that he trembled all over.
Li Zhao straightened up, looked calmly at Wang Men, and said expressionlessly, "This humble official knows not what crime I have committed."
"Don't know?" Wang Men sneered, took out a bamboo scroll from his robes, and threw it hard at Li Zhao's feet.
"Look at this for yourself! What's written here!"
Li Zhao bent down, picked up the bamboo slip, and unfolded it to take a look.
It was indeed Zhang Mao's handwritten letter.
The letter fabricated more charges than he had anticipated: illegally opening the treasury, buying people's hearts, recruiting private soldiers, manufacturing weapons, wantonly killing innocent civilians, and plotting to establish a separatist regime...
Each of these offenses is a capital offense punishable by confiscation of property and extermination of the entire clan.
After reading it, Li Zhao slowly rolled up the bamboo slips and put them back on the table.
"If you want to find fault, you can always find a pretext."
Wang Men narrowed his eyes, a fierce glint in them: "What? You still want to deny it? Lord Zhang is a highly respected figure in Pingyuan County, would he wrong you?"
Zhang Mao, who was kneeling to the side, raised his head and put on a heartbroken expression.
"General Wang, you are wise! I could not bear to see Pingyuan County destroyed, which is why I had to speak out for justice. Li Zhao is a wolf in sheep's clothing; if he is not eliminated soon, he will surely become a great threat!"
Li Zhao didn't even glance at Zhang Mao; he just stared at Wang Men.
"Has Commander Wang come here to interrogate us, or to kill us?"
Wang Men was stunned. He didn't expect that this lowly county magistrate would dare to speak to him like that.
"If it's a matter of accusation, I have my own defense. But if it's murder..." Li Zhao paused, his voice turning colder, "then please, Sima, take action."
Wang Men tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.
He did indeed come with a secret order from Gongsun Zan:
If Li Zhao truly harbors rebellious intentions, he can be executed first and reported later.
But looking at the frail-looking county magistrate before him, he felt a strange sense of apprehension.
This person is too calm, unusually so.
"Argue? Fine, I'll give you a chance." Wang Men sat down again, coldly saying, "You say you're innocent, then what about these 20,000-plus refugees outside the city? Where did you get the food to feed them? And what about the weapons those refugees are carrying?"
Li Zhao said calmly, "The grain was obtained by selling my family property and raising funds from wealthy households in the county. As for the weapons, they were nothing more than farming tools used for clearing land."
"Nonsense!" Zhang Mao couldn't help but interject. "What's your little fortune worth? Which of the wealthy families in the county lent you grain? Those were clearly weapons of murder, how did they become farm tools?"
Li Zhao turned to look at Zhang Mao, his gaze sharp as a knife.
"Master Zhang, didn't your Zhang family just donate five hundred shi of grain and a batch of farm tools to the county temple a few days ago? How come you've already forgotten after only a few days?"
Zhang Mao was choked and turned pale, stammering, "That...that is..."
"That's enough!"
Wang Men impatiently waved his hand to interrupt Zhang Mao, saying irritably, "Talk is cheap. Li Zhao, do you dare take me outside the city to have a look?"
"What is there to be afraid of?"
Li Zhao met Wang Men's gaze calmly and said neither humbly nor arrogantly, "Please, Sima."
……
The group left the county town and headed southeast to the Tuntian District.
The fifty guards brought by Wang Men stood on both sides, each with their hands on their sword hilts, scanning the surroundings with murderous intent.
Zhang Mao and Zhang He followed behind in a carriage, their gazes towards Li Zhao inevitably carrying a hint of schadenfreude.
The further southeast they went, the more solemn Wang Men's expression became.
What unfolded before him was a well-ordered pastoral scene.
Neat rows of fields, clean thatched huts, and busy people.
At first glance, it doesn't feel chaotic at all.
"This..." Wang Men pointed at the young men working in the fields and asked Li Zhao incredulously, "These are your 'private soldiers'?"
Li Zhao nodded: "Exactly."
He beckoned to a man who was sharpening a hoe by the roadside.
"Show Wang Sima what you have in your hand."
The man walked over honestly and handed over the gleaming hoe he was holding.
Wang Men took the hoe and examined it carefully. It was indeed an ordinary farm tool, but the blade was sharpened to an unusually sharp point.
"If Sima thinks this is a weapon, then wouldn't every farmer in the world be a rebel?" Li Zhao said calmly.
Wang Men snorted coldly and threw the hoe back to the man.
He then pointed to the soup kitchen in the distance: "Let's go see what they're serving."
The group arrived at the soup kitchen.
Several large pots were simmering with thick millet porridge, and you could smell the aroma from a distance.
Wang Men peeked out and his face immediately changed color.
When he was on the front lines at Panhe, the soldiers in the army ate no better than this, and sometimes even worse.
"Where did you get so much good food?"
Wang Men asked in a deep voice, his tone revealing an undisguised greed.
"As I said, these were all raised by me."
Li Zhao spoke with an unchanged expression.
"Raise funds? Hmph, besides the Zhang family, who else in Pingyuan County has that much grain?"
Wang Men turned his gaze to Zhang Mao.
Zhang Mao was startled and quickly waved his hands, "General Wang, I'm innocent! My family's surplus grain was donated long ago, this grain really doesn't belong to me!"
Wang Men ignored him and just stared intently at Li Zhao.
He was a rough man who didn't understand any grand principles of governing the country and ensuring the people's well-being.
But he knew that in this chaotic world, food was life itself, more precious than gold.
Having grain in Li Zhao's possession is itself a crime, but it could also be a source of immense value.
"Li Zhao."
Wang Men's tone softened somewhat. "You're a smart man. General Gongsun is currently facing a critical battle at the front, and what he needs most is supplies."
"If you can offer up this grain, I can put in a good word for you with the general and ensure your safety."
Li Zhao sneered inwardly.
Is this how they start openly robbing people?
He feigned a troubled expression: "Sima, this...this grain is the people's lifeline."
"If they were all given away, these 20,000 people would starve to death."
"What does it matter if a few refugees starve to death?" Wang Men said dismissively. "Winning the battle is the most important thing."
"Sima is mistaken."
Li Zhao said solemnly, "The people are the foundation of the nation. Without the people, where will the taxes come from? Where will the soldiers come from? General Gongsun leads a righteous army; how could he do such a short-sighted thing as killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?"