The Flourishing Tang Dynasty: Beginning with Marrying Yang Yuhuan

Chapter 145 Deserter
A guard from the He family caravan heard this and shouted angrily, "Don't insult my young lady!"

As soon as the guard finished speaking, the bandit leader hit him on the head with a stick. The guard's brain burst immediately and he died.

When the people in the He caravan saw this, they were all shocked and took a few steps back unconsciously.

"Brother, we have an agreement in advance. Try to hurt as few people as possible."

A bandit at the back stood up and advised the leader.

After hearing this, the leader angrily said, "Old Four, we are all bandits, how can you still be so soft-hearted?"

"There is a code of conduct for thieves!" The fourth brother retorted, and then advised: "Brother, we became thieves because we had no choice. How can we sink into depravity?"

"Really?" The leader sneered and said, "I know. After you sent us away, you want to go back to serve as a soldier, right? So many of our brothers died there. You want to go back and die too, right?"

The fourth brother said, "Since you know my thoughts, I will not hide it from you. I am going with you to repay your kindness. Going back to continue to serve as a soldier is my responsibility as a citizen of the Tang Dynasty."

The leader said, "Then go back. I won't keep you."

The fourth brother said, "If you let them go, I will go back."

"What did you say?" The leader glared at Lao Si and said, "Things have come to this point, and you want me to let them go?"

The fourth brother said, "Brother, let them hand over the money and leave. It's up to them to take whatever they can."

"Bullshit!" the leader shouted, "None of these people will escape today. Kill the men and capture the women. Brothers, attack!"

"Who dares!"

The fourth brother stood opposite the bandits.

The other bandits were frightened by the fourth brother and no one dared to move.

The leader glanced at the hesitant brothers behind him, laughed in anger, and said, "Okay, Lao Si, the brothers all respect you, today I will give you this face."

Having said that, she turned around and put on her dress to leave. Then, when the fourth brother wasn't paying attention, she suddenly turned back and stabbed him straight in the heart with a dagger.

The fourth brother never thought that his eldest brother, whom he had always regarded as a relative, would suddenly kill him, and he had no time to react.

At the critical moment, an arrow flew through the air and shot away the leader's dagger.

Then a group of officers and soldiers suddenly rushed out and surrounded these people.

After surrounding the group, Li Heng and Li Siye came up from behind.

Li Ying came up to He Jin and asked, "Miss He, are you okay?"

When He Jin saw Li Ying, her strong appearance instantly disappeared, her eyes suddenly turned red, and she said, "Your Highness, I'm fine."

Li Heng asked, "Why don't you stay in Anxi and study weaving brocade? Why are you running out here?"

He Jin said aggrievedly: "No matter how good the brocade is, it needs people to buy it. If I don't come out to understand what people like, I won't be able to weave it well."

"That's right." Li Ying agreed with He Jin's statement and comforted him, "Okay, I'm glad you're alright."

"Yeah." He Jin nodded.

Li Ying smiled at He Jin, then turned to look at the bandits. He glanced at their weapons and said, "Military clubs, wooden crossbows, short-handled iron knives without rings. You are soldiers, and elite cavalry at that."

The bandits were shocked to see that Li Heng recognized their identities at a glance.

The leader glanced at the troops led by Li Heng, who numbered no more than a hundred people, and said, "Since you know our identities, you should let us know that your hundred people cannot stop our forty people."

Li Ying said: "I like your confidence, but you don't know that your confidence does not come from you, but from the Tang Dynasty."

"Humph!" The leader was quite disdainful and said, "I have been invincible since I was a child. It has nothing to do with whether I am from the Tang army or not. If you don't believe me, send someone to fight me alone."

Before Li Heng could say anything, Li Siye walked out and said, "I'll come and meet you."

"Okay." The leader was very confident. "You use a stick, and I will use a stick too."

As Li Siye spoke, he walked up to the leader with a big stick.

The leader didn't say much, but rushed towards Li Siye with a big stick in both hands.

Li Siye didn't move at all, holding the stick in one hand, and waited until the leader got close before swinging the stick to block.

When the two sticks collided, the leader felt his hands go numb and quickly stepped back. When he looked down, he saw that the knuckles of his hands were bleeding.

The leader immediately became timid and said, "I give up..."

But before the leader could finish his words, Li Siye ran over with a big stick, jumped up and swung it down.

The leader quickly raised his stick with both hands to block.

Li Siye's stick ignored the leader's resistance and fell on the leader's head, breaking it into pieces.

Now everyone was stunned.

These people had just seen this leader beat others until their brains burst, but in front of Li Siye, he couldn't even withstand a single blow and his own head was blasted.

Li Siye killed the leader and said to the others: "If anyone does not lay down their weapons and surrender, they will be killed without mercy!"

After hearing this, the bandits looked at each other, and finally dropped their weapons and squatted down with their heads in their hands.

Seeing that everyone had surrendered, Li Siye said to the fourth one among them, "You still had some humanity just now. Go forward and tell His Royal Highness Prince Shou what he said."

"His Royal Highness the Shou Prince?" The fourth brother was shocked and confirmed, "It's the Shou Prince Li..."

"How dare you!" Li Siye interrupted the fourth brother, "Do you want to address His Royal Highness Prince Shou by his name?"

"I dare not." The fourth elder hurriedly shook his head, glanced at Li Siye, and said, "Since we have met His Royal Highness Prince Shou, the general should be General Li... right?"

Li Siye ignored him and had two soldiers escort him to Li Heng.

Li Ying asked the fourth brother, "From what I heard from you guys just now, you still want to go back and serve as a soldier?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you desert?"

"To be honest, Your Highness, I am a soldier from Shuofang. I was transferred to attack Shibao City last year. These are the only soldiers left from our combat battalion."

In the Tang Dynasty, a combat battalion consisted of about eight hundred to one thousand people.

Li Ying asked, "So you are running away because you are afraid of death?"

The fourth brother said, "If they died in battle, it would be fine. But General Dong always let the soldiers from Shuofang charge to the front in every battle, and they didn't have enough equipment. Later, they couldn't even send them food. When we asked him, General Dong only said that the soldiers from Shuofang should eat Shuofang's military rations, and asked us to ask General Wang."

These lower-level soldiers were not aware of the conflicts among their superiors, which made them not even aware of why they died.

Li Yan had no intention of explaining to him, so he just asked, "If that's the case, wouldn't it be like going to die if you go back?"

The fourth brother sighed and said, "To die on the battlefield is a worthy death."

Li Ying had never seen such a strange person before, and asked curiously: "What's your name?"

The fourth one said, "My junior is Zhang Guangsheng."

Hearing this name, Li Heng was stunned.

If someone else had deserted first and wanted to go back, Li Heng might not believe it, but Li Heng believed Zhang Guangsheng.

(End of this chapter)