Tibet.

Chapter 1277 Thunderbolt Attack
Ten thousand cavalrymen and five thousand internal guards arrived at Sizhuyuan in Huxian County before dark. Instead of rushing to approach the target, they first stationed in an air force camp in Huxian County and patiently waited for the time to attack.

The 10,000 cavalrymen were led by Zhuge Qingyun, a general under Xi Wanli. He was a skilled martial artist and had led the cavalry to numerous military exploits.

The 5,000 inner guards were led by another deputy commander-in-chief of the inner guards, Zhao Jingnian. The two deputy commanders-in-chief of the inner guards, Xie Sen, led 3,000 men and 10,000 cavalry to Fengxian County, while Zhao Jingnian was in charge of Huxian County.

Li Chenghua would command the entire army in Chang'an. Once Huxian County eliminated 8,000 rebels, she would immediately capture Li Lin's entire family.

As the time gradually approached four o'clock in the morning, ten thousand cavalrymen and five thousand internal guards surrounded the manor.

The reason for choosing the fourth watch is that the enemy's training ended at the third watch and the soldiers were very tired, so the fourth watch was the time when they were sleeping the soundest, and it was the perfect time to take action.

In the cover of night, more than twenty men in black climbed over the wall, and immediately a dozen mastiffs rushed over with roars. The men in black were well prepared, they raised their crossbows and shot, and the short crossbow arrows tempered with poison instantly pierced through the bodies of the mastiffs. In just a moment, all the dozen mastiffs were shot to death.

A dozen men in black jumped into the manor and ran towards the tent in the distance. Each of them was highly skilled in martial arts and accurate in archery, and they quickly killed all eight sentinels.

Without sentries, the manor became an undefended military zone. The gate opened and five thousand guards rushed in, running towards the camp area two miles away.

At this time, the tents caught fire. The men in black used torches to light one tent after another. The wind fueled the fire, and the fire burned rapidly.

The sleeping soldiers were awakened one after another, frightened and fled from the tent.

At this moment, Li Zhen led hundreds of people to attack. He was seriously injured when the Helong Army attacked Bashu that year, and everyone thought he was dead for a while.

This time he became the commander of 8,000 men and became even more ferocious.

He brandished a 60-jin iron stick and led 300 soldiers into the group of inner guards. Dozens of inner guards were caught off guard and knocked down by his iron stick.

Li Zhen shouted, "Everyone pick up your weapons and fight them!"

The warriors who had come to their senses ran back to get their weapons. At this moment, ten thousand cavalrymen came charging from three directions.

Li Zhen was shocked. He immediately realized that the situation was hopeless, so he turned his horse around and fled. He happened to meet Zhuge Qingyun, a general of the Tiger Guards. Zhuge Qingyun used a 40-jin goose-feather broadsword, but he was also good at using hidden weapons such as meteor hammers, and he never missed his target. Therefore, he was also called Meteor General by the soldiers.

Li Zhen roared and swung the iron rod towards Zhuge Qingyun with great ferocity. Zhuge Qingyun dodged by turning his horse sideways. The two horses passed each other. Zhuge Qingyun waved his hand and a meteor chain the size of a child's fist was hammered out at an incomparable speed.

Li Zhen was completely unprepared. "Drop!" The chain hammer hit him on the back of the head. Li Zhen screamed, tumbled to the ground, and fainted immediately.

Zhuge Qingyun raised his sword and chopped off Li Zhen's head.

At this time, the ten thousand cavalrymen were divided into one hundred teams, interspersed and divided in the chaotic warrior team. Most of the warriors did not carry weapons and were so scared that they knelt on the ground and begged for mercy. Only Li Zhen's three hundred soldiers were still fighting desperately, but soon, they were also killed by the cavalry.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the fierce battle was over. Although these farmhands seemed to be well-trained, they had actually never been to the battlefield. They were frightened by the bloody killing and fell to the ground, shouting for surrender.

Li Ye had issued an order that these farmhands should not be killed but captured alive and made to confess one by one which farm they were transferred from, as they would be the best witnesses.

A team of inner guard cavalry rushed to Chang'an with Li Zhen's head.

Li Ye rested at home for only one day before returning to the official office. There were not many memorials left for him, as most of them were reviewed and processed by his wife Dugu Xinyue.

There were only a dozen or so relatively important memorials on the desk, which had to be approved by Li Ye.

The first one is the budget for the construction of the new city, which involves a cost of 400,000 strings of cash. The previous estimate was around 300,000 strings of cash, but it has now increased by 100,000 strings of cash, mainly because there are many additional projects.

The second one is Tangzhidao, which is also the project that Li Ye pays most attention to.

A straight road from Chang'an to Beiting and Anxi, with a total length of nearly 3,000 li, four times the length of the Qin Straight Road, is expected to cost two million strings of cash and take five years to build. This is a huge project that Li Ye had begun to consider when he was appointed as the governor of Helong. The project is not difficult, but it mainly requires too much manpower.

But this is not the same as the construction of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall during the Sui Dynasty. Not only did the Sui Dynasty not pay any wages for the construction of the Grand Canal, but also required people to bring their own dry food and endure extraordinary labor. The people's physical strength could not withstand such intensity of labor, so many people died.

Li Ye's Tangzhi Road was built for a fee, and laborers were hired with money. A large amount of animal power was also used, and even tens of thousands of elephants were involved, which greatly reduced the intensity of human labor.

The key is that it is of great significance. Once the Tangzhi Road is completed, the journey that originally took two or three months can be reached in Anxi in just one month. This will of course greatly enhance the court's control over Anxi and Beiting.

So after Li Ye proposed the idea of ​​Tangzhi Road last October, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War jointly sent people to investigate along the way and negotiate with the government offices along the way. It took more than half a year to finally complete the investigation and come up with a complete plan.

Li Ye read the memorial carefully. The proposal in the memorial was that the court would unify the design, and each state would construct in sections, with supervision by the court. The biggest expense here was labor wages. Calculated at 50 wen per day for ordinary workers and 100 wen per day for craftsmen, if 20 people were hired, it would cost 1.2 million guan a year, and there would also be hundreds of thousands of shi of grain supply.

If we calculate it this way, two million strings of cash for five years is not enough. We need at least five million strings of cash.

Li Ye paced back and forth in the official residence with his hands behind his back. He spent five million strings of cash to build the Tang Straight Road just to reduce the journey time from two months to one month. Was it cost-effective?

But then again, the Qin Straight Road back then was not a dedicated military road. In fact, it was more of a commercial and civilian road, and the same was true for the Tang Straight Road later.

Moreover, the Tangzhi Road is not just a road from Chang'an to Anxi, it is also a local road, such as Lanzhou to Weizhou, Liangzhou to Ganzhou, etc. Such short trips of one or two days will be used more frequently, and the original two or three days journey can be compressed to one day.

In addition, this high-level road will greatly promote the development of small towns and counties along the way. No checkpoints or tax offices are allowed to be built along the way, which is simply the greatest blessing for caravans.

'If you want to be rich, build roads first!'

At this moment Li Ye made up his mind to build the expressway. In order to ensure the court's control over the Western Regions in the future, this expressway must be built and put into operation as soon as possible.

At this moment, the staff at the door reported: "Your Highness, Internal Guard Li Dutong urgently wants to see you!"

"I guess the news from Huxian has arrived!"

"Send her in!"

After a moment, Li Chenghua hurried in and bowed, "I pay my respects to Your Highness!"

"Tell me! What's the news?"

"I have received news from Huxian County that 8,000 village guards have been completely wiped out, and most of them were captured alive. In addition, the enemy leader Li Zhen was killed in the fierce battle, and his head has been sent to the inner guards!"

Li Ye nodded, "What else? News from Fengxian County."

"Your Highness is right. Their target is indeed the Qiao Mausoleum. The officials guarding the Qiao Mausoleum have been bribed by them. Hundreds of people have broken through the passage inside the Qiao Mausoleum. Our men are already keeping a close watch. If they succeed, we will go out and arrest them."

Li Ye said slowly: "Li Yu must have an army, that's why he is so eager to get money. The people of Qiaoling want to capture him alive, they must know where the army is?"

"I humbly obey my orders!"

Li Ye hesitated for a moment and said, "We can take action on Li Lin, but we should only move him and leave the other clan members alone, as if nothing happened."

Li Chenghua nodded, "Are you going to arrest Li Lin?"

Li Ye shook his head. "Just use poisoned wine to send him to death, along with all his descendants!"

(End of this chapter)