Chapter 1906

A few thoughts hadn't finished turning over when several soldiers ran in and said: "The warehouse next door is full of weapons, gleaming knives and spears, all sharpened! The style is also extremely, extremely uniform!"

Yuwen Yong's brain buzzed with a sound, and the first two characters that floated up were:

Not too good.

The supplies in those few warehouses could still barely be called commercial use, but what are these weapons for?

Uniform style indicates this is centralized production, not sporadic private purchases.

Just then, Chengnan and Chengxi of Duocheng lit up one after another, figures poured out of houses, streaming endlessly toward the Beicheng warehouses!

Pressure immediately fell on the Yao people.

Yuwen Yong leaped onto the barrier pole and looked — half the city had lit lamps, and in just ten-odd breaths, at least six or seven hundred people had gathered, every one a prime-age, agile man!

One look at the rough, fierce aura on these people, and Yuwen Yong couldn't help but curse loudly: what are the scouts eating, this is called "only over a hundred guards"?

He simply stabbed into a soldier's nest!

This Duocheng not only hides grain, it hides soldiers!

Yuwen Yong didn't know what Ziwu meant by secretly stationing troops here — could it be they're specifically using grain as bait to lure him in?

Several feathered arrows shot up from below; Yuwen Yong dodged and shouted in a resonant voice:

"Who comes?"

The archer looked up at him: "Taizhou Mountain, Boshi Li! Who lent you the guts to dare attack Duocheng!"

Yuwen Yong jumped down, stepped forward two paces: "My army is just passing through, wanting to borrow some grain and fodder. Don't want to kill, don't want to fight — please let us pass!"

Trouble — the torches outside are growing more numerous, brighter; clearly the gathering forces are also increasing. Does half of Duocheng belong to the other side's guard corps?

His grandma's, where does this look like a guard corps? It's either bandits or a soldier's nest!

Boshi Li laughed: "You think this is a restaurant, come and go as you please? Besides, you haven't paid!"

All around, a burst of raucous laughter: "Capture them, don't let a single one escape!"

Yuwen Yong gathered his qi, suppressing the surrounding laughter: "We are Yao people, and pursuers are behind us. If you don't let us go, you'll be harassed by pursuers."

He also saw this guard corps harbored ulterior motives, and likely didn't want further complications.

Boshi Li turned his head to look at him: "Oh? Who are you, and who are the pursuers?"

"I am Great Yao's General Yuwen Yong; the pursuers are sent by the rebel Bai Tan, chasing relentlessly!" The biggest question: do these guards know who Bai Tan is.

Boshi Li let out a long "oh": "You generals and high officials, usually strutting on the Shanjin Plain, bullying the weak, yet beaten into a rout by a traitor — pfft, cowardly trash who bully the soft and fear the hard!"

He not only knows who Bai Tan is, he also knows who Yuwen Yong is.

"You were defeated by Bai Tan and still fled Yao territory — you pose no threat to him. He's surely rushing to settle scores with Chen Chuohua right now, why would he bother chasing you? Hehe, you're not only isolated and unaided, no one wants you either." Boshi Li waved a hand forward, "Brothers, take down this defeated army!"

Yuwen Yong didn't expect that this mere guard captain actually understood the Yao territory situation so well.

By this point, there was nothing more to say. The two forces collided with a bang and engaged.

Though Yuwen Yong's army were defeated soldiers, they knew they were at a dead end — if they couldn't get out here, they'd never get out — so they fought even more fiercely than before.

But over a dozen men stole a bit of grain and quietly slipped away through the back door.

The Yangshan garrison in Duocheng wanted to lure the Yao people out, but Yuwen Yong saw through it and ordered his men to dead-guard the few warehouse gates.

In the melee, Boshi Li retook two warehouses; Yuwen Yong's subordinate, going all in, turned and threw torches into the warehouse, trying to burn the grain in one fire, but was shot dead by Boshi Li with an arrow.

The grain sacks caught fire, but the flames were feeble and quickly extinguished. This was because Boshi Li activated the warehouse's fire-repelling array, making the materials burn very slowly.

Yuwen Yong also knew he had likely accidentally stumbled onto their secret, and the other side wouldn't easily let him leave, so he fought especially ferociously.

However, he and his men had marched and fought continuously for half a month, mentally exhausted and physically drained, starving, and carrying injuries — even with his full ability, Yuwen Yong now had at most four or five parts out of ten left.

But Boshi Li had his own worries. They had stockpiled soldiers and grain here, planning for a long time — not to deal with these remnant troops.

Must quickly capture Yuwen Yong; otherwise damage to the Chamber of Commerce's prepared materials and manpower would hinder the grand plan.

He also saw the Yao people's fatigue, eyes flickering, a plan forming:

"Hey you, let's not play with lives — how about a duel? You win, I let you go and give you ten days' rations; you lose, the whole army kneels and surrenders!"

Hearing these words, Yuwen Yong instantly felt needles in his back — all his subordinates' gazes.

Now the warehouses were surrounded three layers inside, three layers out; breaking out was extremely hard, and even if they charged out, who knew how many would die. These were already defeated soldiers, having lost several battles already — hearing a chance to avoid exertion and death, where was the morale to fight?

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In this force, the strongest martial power was Yuwen Yong. If he won, everyone would leave happily; if he lost, the others knew they had no hope of breaking out.

So Yuwen Yong nodded readily: "Good, one bout decides victory!"

Both sides withdrew, clearing a large open space before the warehouses.

Yuwen Yong stuffed a few blood-replenishing, qi-boosting pills into his mouth, secretly circulated true power through a full heavenly circuit, and only then recovered a bit of strength.

He gripped his saber and walked into the open space: "Boshi Li, please!"

Boshi Li advanced two steps, then clapped: "Weng Da, Weng Er, your turn to enter!"

Yuwen Yong froze — so he doesn't intend to fight personally?

He saw at a glance that Boshi Li's martial ferocity wasn't his match, so he readily agreed to the duel.

Heh, these country bumpkins have plenty of schemes. Fine — just swapping a batch of people for him to beat; he's confident.

Boshi Li's words barely fell when a dozen round objects were flung in from outside the crowd, rolled two circles on the ground, and splattered blood everywhere.

Everyone fixed their eyes — they were heads.

Earlier, a few deserters who stole grain had slipped away from the rear; Yuwen Yong knew but had no time to deal with them. Unexpectedly, they'd been caught and killed.

"These few stole our grain and tried to run!" The crowd parted as two men strode in, "Guarantee they can't take a single grain out."

These were two big men with dark skin, sturdy and fierce, eyes gleaming with a wild wolf's light.

If He Lingchuan were here, he would recognize at a glance that these were the Weng Su and Weng Xing brothers who once fought alongside him at Little Peach Mountain Villa.