Daqin arrests alchemists, what does it matter to me as a qi refiner?

Zhao Guili shouted and kicked hard. The man in black screamed and fell to the ground. He twitched twice and died.

Yang Ling was well prepared. He grabbed the corpse on the ground with his right hand and held it in front of him, then chopped it diagonally with his left hand. With a "puff" sound, blood splattered and the man in black was cut in half. His intestines and internal organs spilled out. The scene was extremely bloody.

These men in black were strong and skilled in martial arts, most of them were able-bodied men, some of them were even young men who had passed the military examinations. Under normal circumstances, it would not be difficult for Yang Ling to eliminate them, but now they were facing elite reserve officers. Even the strongest men seemed pale and powerless in front of well-trained soldiers, not to mention soldiers who were famous for their bravery.

“Kill!” Zhao Gui roared and rushed forward. He grabbed the living man in black with his left hand, swung his right arm and hit him hard. In an instant, he vomited blood and fell unconscious.

Yang Ling ran to the side. He just saw two men in black looking down from the roof.

Sure enough, at this moment, two figures suddenly jumped down from the roof and rushed towards Zhao Gui with weapons in hand.

Yang Ling quickly drew out his sword, took two steps forward, held the sword with both hands, and walked forward shouting.

"Dangclang! Dangclang!" Yang Ling's sword collided with the black-clothed man's weapon, making bursts of golden sounds. Both of them had good martial arts skills, and after a brief confrontation, they were both shocked and their knuckles were painful.

The two men in black looked at each other with shock. They originally thought that Yang Ling was just an ordinary country bumpkin and a petty official who was not worth training, but they did not expect that Yang Ling's martial arts were as powerful as those of a martial arts master.

Before the two men in black could recover, Yang Ling's legs had already kicked out, and the two men in black were immediately knocked to the ground.

"Catch them!" Yang Ling shouted, and two guards rushed forward and pulled the two men in black in front of them.

Yang Ling squatted down and looked at the two of them carefully.

The tall, bearded man was obviously the leader of the men in black. Yang Ling poked the man's temple with his thumb, trying to force him to tell him who he was. But the man was a tough guy who would rather die than surrender, and he didn't even hum.

Yang Ling sighed and shook his head, then stood up and walked to the other men in black. He first knocked out three of them, and then tied up the others.

After doing all this, Yang Ling instructed the guard leader Zhao Gui: "Go and tell Liu Zhi that I have found a clue. Ask him to bring his men to Chenjiawu immediately."

Zhao Gui agreed and turned to leave, while Yang Ling returned to Jizhou Bridge and continued to attack Chenjiawu according to the established action strategy.

At this moment, several lights suddenly lit up in the city, and then someone was heard shouting, "There's an assassin!"

The city suddenly became boiling, and the originally quiet Jeju City became noisy.

"Damn it! I've been found out!"

Yang Ling cursed inwardly and hurriedly ordered everyone to speed up their actions.

Everyone took advantage of the chaos and rushed to the west gate. In less than a moment, they saw a large number of guards outside the west gate. Although these soldiers were panicked, they still held their posts and prevented the enemy from approaching the west gate.

"Fire arrows!"

Following the defenders' command, dense rain of arrows poured down. Yang Ling led his troops to fight hard and finally broke out of the encirclement and escaped.

"Kill!"

Behind Yang Ling, he heard the shouts of the pursuers, and the troops quickly fled to the north.

When they were still 20 miles away from Jeju Bridge, Yang Ling's troops were ambushed again and fought a fierce battle with the pursuers. Finally, after paying a heavy price in casualties, they finally escaped from danger.

The ones chasing Yang Ling this time were the bandits from Chenjiawu, a total of more than 800 riders, led by Chenjiawu's bandit chief Chen Yongfu, who was also the leader of the Chenjiawu bandits.

Chen Yongfu led more than 800 cavalrymen to chase Yang Ling's troops. He thought he could easily catch up with Yang Ling, but he didn't expect that after chasing for five or six miles, the enemy ran farther and farther and soon disappeared into the night.

Chen Yongfu knew that he would not be able to catch up with Yang Ling's troops in this way, so he stopped his horse and sent people to gather information along the way.

Not long after, the scouts sent by Chen Yongfu returned and reported that patrol soldiers from nearby villages had discovered Yang Ling's troops outside the west gate of Chenjiawu.

Chen Yongfu was furious when he got the exact news. He immediately ordered his men to open the gate of Chenjiawu and dispatched thousands of bandits out of the village to search for Yang Ling's troops.

Although Yang Ling's team evacuated in a hurry, they still left many traces. He did not take the captives with him because he was worried about being ambushed. He knew very well that even if he took the captives to the county government for interrogation, he would not be able to get anything useful out of them. After all, this group of people were just bandits from Chenjiawu and knew nothing about the imperial court and the Jinyiwei.

Yang Ling's troops galloped in the night. They did not go east or north because that was too risky. Instead, they chose to bypass the eastern suburbs and prepare to cross the mountains and enter the sea into the Yellow River.

"Marshal, there is a fork in the road ahead, what should we do?" Zhao Gui asked anxiously.

Yang Ling looked at the dark woods, frowning as he pondered. He suddenly realized that there might be a trap in the woods ahead, because it was more than 30 miles from Jeju City to the woods. The grain carts and mules and horses pulling the cargo were not light, and they would definitely leave footprints when running on the rugged hillside.

"Take the small path and go around!" Yang Ling said in a deep voice.

Everyone immediately dispersed. Yang Ling and several personal soldiers led two horses and, led by Zhao Gui, ran towards the path ahead. The rest of the people led the animals and trudged along the mountain path.

"Whoa!" Zhao Gui pulled the reins to slow down, and said in a low voice with an unpleasant expression: "General, there is a cliff ahead."

Yang Ling looked up and saw that the mountain in front of him was straight and steep, towering into the clouds like a giant pillar, with jagged rocks and towering trees, looking like a work of nature.

Yang Ling took a few deep breaths and gritted his teeth and said, "Jump off the cliff!"

This canyon is located halfway up the mountain, and the river below is turbulent. If you want to cross the mountain, you can only climb up the cliff, otherwise you will be buried in the ravine.

Everyone jumped off the cliff in tacit understanding and fell into the rushing river. The cold water submerged their whole bodies. Fortunately, Yang Ling and several of his personal soldiers were accustomed to swimming, so they did not drown.

Yang Ling came out of the water and gasped for air, feeling a dull pain in his lungs. He wiped the water off his face and dived down. They were now inside the mountain, and the river below was flowing slowly, so they could barely save their lives.

Yang Ling paddled with his hands and feet, and quietly floated up with the help of water plants. Suddenly, Yang Ling saw a cave on the left. He was very excited and paddled to the left quickly, and soon got into the cave.

The cave was dark, and the air was hot and humid. Yang Ling groped his way to the top of the mountain, holding up a fire starter to light a bonfire.

"Marshal, you're finally back!" Zhou Tieniu shouted excitedly.

Yang Ling looked around and saw that the area near the cave entrance was full of mud and debris, as well as some dry straw. It looked like a temporary camp that had just been dug out.

"Where is this place?" Yang Ling asked with a frown.

Zhou Tieniu replied with a smile: "We just arrived here and were planning to rest. Marshal, why are you in such a mess? Did you run into government troops?"

"Well, the government's pursuers were very powerful, and my troops were almost wiped out!" Yang Ling's expression was gloomy, and his tone was helpless. "What? The whole army was wiped out? So you didn't grab any food?" Zhou Tieniu was already eating.

"We definitely didn't get any food, but among the bandits we captured, three leaders revealed that the mastermind was Chen Yongfu, the bandit leader of Chenjiawu."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Tieniu cursed angrily: "Damn Chen Yongfu is really tired of living. He actually dared to rob our Marshal Yang's food and money. Isn't this deliberately seeking death?"

"Stop talking nonsense, gather the brothers immediately, and we will continue to harass Chenjiawu tonight!" Yang Ling ordered.

"Yes!" Zhou Tieniu immediately ran in and called the brothers to gather.

"Marshal, your leg is seriously injured, let me go." Zhou Tieniu turned his head and suggested to Yang Ling.

"No, I'm not that weak. I can still handle the sword."

After Yang Ling refused, he reminded: "Remember, our mission this time is to try our best to eliminate the banditry in Chenjiawu, don't create any unnecessary troubles."

"My subordinate understands!"

Soon, Yang Ling and others gathered together.

"Dear brothers, thank you for your hard work. Let's set out again to harass Chenjiawu!"

Yang Ling led his subordinates on horseback and galloped towards Jizhou County.

The night in Jeju County seems particularly quiet and peaceful, but tonight Jeju City is on high alert, with many houses and residential buildings with their doors and windows closed, and patrolling soldiers can occasionally be seen walking back and forth on the streets.

Chen Yongfu, the bandit leader of Chenjiawu, was sitting in the lobby, with wine, meat and beauties on the table, and he was drinking to celebrate. He had sent someone to secretly contact the bandits of Chenjiawu two months ago, and agreed that they would be responsible for attacking Jeju City and then divide up the property and food in Jeju warehouse.

Chen Yongfu was a hero in the martial arts world and was extremely cautious in his actions. He first sent people to pretend to be merchants to defraud the government of money, and then secretly sent scouts to Jeju at night.

The defense of the Jeju government was weak, so it was easy for the scouts to sneak into Jeju City. The scouts found that the defense of Jeju City was lax, so they sneaked into the government office to investigate, and found gold, silver and jewelry worth tens of thousands of taels of silver in the warehouse.

After the scout reported the situation, Chen Yongfu realized that his opportunity had come. He immediately sent someone to notify other bandits and then led his troops to rush to Jeju City.

However, Chen Yongfu did not ride into the city alone, he also left 500 cavalrymen to guard his home. They took advantage of the night to quietly arrive at the official road outside Jeju City, and then attacked Jeju City as planned, and at the same time sent someone to notify the Jeju County Magistrate Wang Shizhen to send reinforcements.

When Wang Shizhen, the governor of Jizhou, received Chen Yongfu's letter for help, he was shocked. Chen Yongfu led 500 people to attack Jizhou, how could he resist the soldiers who were five times his number? He quickly ordered to abandon Jizhou and send reinforcements to support Chen Yongfu.

Before the reinforcements of Wang Shizhen, the governor of Jeju, arrived in Jeju, Chen Yongfu was defeated by the defenders of Jeju City. Only a few escaped, and the rest were captured. Although Chen Yongfu managed to escape, he was seriously injured and was eventually captured by the soldiers.

After listening to Zhou Tieniu's narration, Yang Ling felt even more depressed.

"Marshal, now that Jeju City has been lost, the bandits in Jeju will definitely move away. What should we do now?" Zhou Tieniu said worriedly.

"We have been exposed. We can only retreat back to Huai'an Prefecture now." Yang Ling said, then shook his head and said, "No, we must capture Jizhou City as soon as possible and take back the goods in the granary and warehouse, otherwise our losses will be too great."

"General, why don't we withdraw to Huai'an and call for reinforcements, or wait for the reinforcements to arrive before attacking Jeju City."

Yang Ling shook his head and said, "We are now exposed. If we retreat to Huai'an City, we may be besieged. Our reinforcements have not arrived yet. With only a few thousand remnants, we can't compete with the enemy that is several times our number. Moreover, the defense of Huai'an City is far inferior to that of Jeju. If we retreat now, we will be walking into a trap!"

"General, you are wise. We should continue to harass Jeju City. As long as we can hold off the enemy for two months, reinforcements will arrive, and we will be able to turn defeat into victory."

Yang Ling sighed and said, "I just hope that my guess is wrong. That treacherous thief just wants to consume my strength and is unwilling to fight us head-on."

"Marshal, how about I lead the troops to attack Jeju?" Zhou Tieniu volunteered eagerly.

Yang Ling thought for a moment and shook his head, saying, "Jizhou is only sixty or seventy miles away from our camp. I'm worried that the garrison commander of Jizhou will set an ambush. It's too dangerous for you to go. I'd better take the rest of the brothers with me."

"Marshal, you are so seriously injured, I am worried about you!" Zhou Tieniu insisted.

"Take a few brothers with you to accompany the Marshal." Shen Tieniu stepped forward and said.

"Okay, then I'll trouble you, Old Shen, and your brothers to accompany and escort the Marshal!"

"Hey, everyone is exhausted. It's been a while since we had such a good fight like today. Don't worry, Marshal. We promise to bring you back safely!"

"Ok!"

Yang Ling led twenty personal soldiers over mountains and across rivers and returned to the camp overnight to report Chen Yongfu's situation to Liu Zongmin.

When they were halfway there, they saw smoke rising from the east. Yang Ling looked up and saw that it was the villagers of Jeju Village lighting a fire and cooking.

"Brother, there seems to be someone in front."

"Go over and take a look!"

"Lord be careful!"

Yang Ling and his men approached slowly and found four bodies lying in the forest ahead. Judging from their clothes, these four people were all villagers from Jeju.

When Zhou Tieniu got closer and saw the corpse clearly, he shouted angrily, "It's the Jeju militia! Marshal, we've been ambushed, we have to leave quickly!"

"Go? Where to?"

Yang Ling snorted coldly, "The bandits in Jeju have already started to take action. I estimate that the magistrate of Jeju, Wang Shizhen, has already dispatched troops to encircle and suppress the bandits in Jeju City. We can no longer escape."

"What, the bandits in Jeju City have rebelled?" Zhou Tieniu said in surprise.

Yang Ling smiled bitterly and said, "My guess is almost right. The Jizhou County Office is in chaos and the city gates are closed. Not only can we not enter the city, but even the Jizhou County Magistrate Wang Shizhen's troops cannot enter the city. The situation in Jizhou City is precarious. Unless we can break through the defense line of the Jizhou County garrison, no matter how hard we try, it will be in vain."

"What should we do? We can't just watch Jeju City fall."

"The bandits in Jeju City have already started attacking the city gates, and they will soon be breached. There are still more than 2,000 soldiers in the Jeju County Office. We have too few men, and a forced attack is not an option." (End of this chapter)