Chapter 1156

Deng Zhao seemed to hold a deep grudge against Fu Jiuyou; mentioning him instantly stirred his emotions.

"Your Highness, this man is the greatest thief in the world, this bastard..." Deng Zhao waved his finger, spittle flying as he shouted, "He has exhausted heavenly principle, knows no bounds. When the court order still existed, he roamed everywhere plundering the people, burning, killing, looting, committing every evil, throwing Bai Sha Jun's people into misery."

"After the realm fell into chaos, this scoundrel completely lost all restraint; his men slaughtered the people of the commandery at will, ruling through terror—any slight defiance meant extermination of family and clan, razing villages and forts."

"The entire Bai Sha Jun was thrown into utter chaos by him, corpses littering the wilds; Eyun Commandery received many fleeing refugees, though I never saw Bai Sha's ruin firsthand, I saw countless ragged refugees, missing arms and legs."

"The officials Fu Jiuyou sent down punished the people most lightly by breaking arms and legs; they didn't even deem the ancient punishments of cutting noses and ears worthy of their attention."

"I've wanted to beat this bastard for a long time, but unfortunately Sun Zhengyi got in the way—this fellow is a real nuisance, playing both sides, one moment giving me benefits, the next cozying up to Fu Jiuyou."

"I fought Sun Zhengyi twice at year's end, seized a bit of his territory, then he called in Fu Jiuyou's reinforcements; seeing the situation turn against me, I could only temporarily cease hostilities."

Chen Wuji listened attentively, his gaze occasionally falling on the few dishes on Deng Zhao's table; given his spittle-flying intensity, the flavor of these dishes would surely turn out strong later.

Fortunately we eat separately; if we sat together, everyone would likely find it hard to lift their chopsticks.

"The Uyghurs are pacified, and for now I have no intention of meddling in that messy Zhongyuan situation; heading southeast is the prevailing trend—I wonder if General Deng would be willing to serve as vanguard?" Chen Wuji asked.

Deng Zhao, who had just sat down, jumped up again at once, "Your Highness, are you serious?"

"There is no joking in the army!"

"This Deputy General is willing to go; I want to personally twist off Fu Jiuyou's dirty head and see what filth lies inside. War has already made the people's lives hard enough; as a local lord, he still pours oil on the fire—truly heinous!" Deng Zhao roared angrily.

Chen Wuji could see that he was now genuinely expressing his true feelings.

A man who cares for the people, even if he disguises himself in these words, could not be truly bad; empathy should count as a major standard of good and evil.

"I'll give you two months to familiarize yourself with your troops, drill the forces, and two months later the army will march out." Chen Wuji said, "As for the drilling site, let it be Eyun Commandery."

"In a few days I will send troops to return with you to Eyun; as for what comes next, you should already know how to handle it."

The places under Deng Zhao's governance will certainly need to be reclaimed, with personnel dispatched to administer them.

But right now manpower is scarce—truly a tremendous headache.

"Deputy General understands!"

……

Because of the Uyghur War, Chen Wuji's power formally entered a stage of rapid development.

In just over a month, the various large and small forces originally scattered across the southeastern commanderies either voluntarily went to Hezhou to discuss surrender with Chen Wuji, or quickly became vassals of Fu Jiuyou and Shi Shi.

In short, during this little over a month, the entire southern Dayu landscape underwent a great change, swiftly completing the stage where big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp.

What remains now can basically all be counted as big fish.

In this little over a month, Chen Wuji inexplicably gained control of three full commanderies.

His forces rapidly expanded by a full eighty thousand troops.

He truly did not want to expand the army further.

But those people came with surrendering troops, and the lower-ranking officers, following procedure, would review them once over.

The elderly, weak, sick, and disabled were given travel expenses and sent home; the remainder underwent further testing of strength, ability, etc.

After this test, no one wanted to let go.

Elite troops are hard to sustain, and elite troops with combat experience are even harder to find.

When the subordinates urged him, Chen Wuji also felt moved.

Anyway, we recently acquired not much territory, the treasury is also fairly full, adding another twenty or thirty thousand is fine—we can afford it. After doing this two or three times, we somehow gained eighty thousand troops out of nowhere.

Speaking of this matter, we must also mention Yang Yu, Yang Jinglve.

Of these eighty thousand newly added troops, thirty thousand are from Yang Yu's command.

This old fox who has been Chen Wuji's good neighbor for so long finally began to act.

He proactively went to Nan Jun, personally met Chen Bushi and Qin Feng, and proposed surrender.

I don't know how they initially discussed it; Chen Wuji is unaware, Qin Feng and Chen Bushi gave no details, only reported a result to Chen Wuji: Yang Yu surrendered.

A few days after this matter was settled, Yang Yu dispatched a force of thirty thousand elite troops, led by Chen Wuji's old acquaintance Tang Yu, marching toward Hezhou.

According to Chen Bushi, this is the elite force he and Yang Yu personally selected; martial artists make up over half of them—yes, this old fox Yang Yu has quietly also been building up a martial army.

However, possibly because he started a bit late, he has not yet produced anything of note.

Yang Yu's military strength is not small; his total forces number one hundred ten thousand.

After Yang Yu coordinated with Chen Bushi and Qin Feng to reorganize, he retained fifty thousand, sending the rest back to their hometowns.

Of these fifty thousand, thirty thousand are led by Tang Yu northward to Hezhou to meet Chen Wuji; Chen Bushi retained twenty thousand, he decided, while passing through, to also wipe out the remaining small forces of Shendu and Lingnan.

It is absurd that in the Lingnan Six Commanderies, where Chen Wuji and Yang Yu stand as two great deities, those small forces have remained silent, stubbornly resisting in desperation.

Chen Wuji and Yang Yu tacitly allowed these small forces to linger, like raising fish, yet these small forces seem to believe they too can grow into great fish like Chen Wuji and Yang Yu, stubbornly refusing to utter the two words "surrender."

But their good days are now nearly over.

As for Shendu, this former self-proclaimed empire, which looked down on Dayu's southern neighbors from every angle, was already beaten by Chen Wuji and Yang Yu into a divided land over a year ago.

No matter how one twists the words "empire," they can no longer serve as their fig leaf.

Chen Bushi's memorial on this matter, Chen Wuji replied, "Let San Shu handle it."

He did not think much to ask or urge, instead adopting an attitude of doing as one pleases, letting you operate however you wish, fully delegating authority.

Plus Yang Yu's contribution of twenty thousand elite troops, Nan Jun now garrisons nearly sixty thousand elite troops; with the Tuntian Wei cooperating, a Shendu that was nearly toppled by Hu Bugui—Chen Wuji does not believe it could become a headache for Chen Bushi and Yang Yu.

These two, frankly speaking, are both old foxes.

Just these two, leading sixty thousand elite troops, if they still cannot match Hu Bugui's irresistible momentum and fail in Shendu, their reputations will be utterly ruined; thereafter they can probably only go to retire.