With Cao Cao by my side, what do I have to fear from the world?

Chapter 110, Subduing Zhou Cang

Upon seeing Lu Xun, Prince Chen and Luo Jun looked at each other, their gazes lingering on Lu Xun for a long time.

After a while, Prince Chen held the letter in his hand and muttered, "His Majesty said in the letter that he would send a capable person to help. It's you? How old are you?"

"Fourteen years old!" Lu Xun replied neither humbly nor arrogantly.

Lu Xun showed no panic when facing Prince Chen and Luo Jun.

King Chen shook his head, his face filled with disbelief.

Lu Xun knew that he was underestimating him, so he said, "Gan Luo became prime minister at the age of twelve, Your Majesty ascended the throne at the age of nine, and Your Majesty is only seventeen years old this year. Yet you are still able to navigate among the many princes and still do not forget to pacify the world. Don't underestimate me because of my young age. My ambition and ability may not be inferior to yours."

Upon hearing this, King Chen was not angry at all; instead, he stroked his beard and laughed heartily.

"Good, well said. Ambition knows no age. Since His Majesty trusts you, I naturally have no objection."

Next, Lu Xun disguised himself as a staff member in Prince Chen's entourage and stayed by his side.

Everyone assumed he was a nephew or son of the Prince of Chen, so naturally no one suspected anything.

King Chen thought that Lu Xun would immediately suggest sending troops, but to his surprise, Lu Xun took a few people to Woniu Mountain and stayed there for three days.

Upon returning, Lu Xun produced a sketch. "This is a plan I drew based on the actual situation. We should try diplomacy first, then resort to force. King Chen can send someone to persuade Zhou Cang to surrender. If Zhou Cang refuses to surrender, then we can send troops to attack him."

Prince Chen took the sketch, examined it carefully, and couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, "As expected of someone appreciated by His Majesty, you are so meticulous at such a young age. You have been living and eating in the mountains these past few days, which must have been quite a hardship for you."

Lu Xun shook his head. "What is this little grievance? If we're talking about grievances, His Majesty is surrounded by tigers and wolves every day and still has to force a smile. That's what grievances are."

Prince Chen's face immediately darkened, and then he clenched his fists, his eyes reddening. "Your Majesty saved my life. I have been favored by the Emperor for generations and am a member of the Han imperial family. I will never forget Your Majesty's safety day and night."

Immediately, following Lu Xun's advice, King Chen sent someone to persuade Zhou Cang to surrender, but even with the letter written by Liu Xie, Zhou Cang ignored it.

Lu Xun remained calm and composed, without getting angry.

He then ordered King Chen to surround Woniu Mountain, but deliberately left Zhou Cang with an exit.

King Chen was a rough and uncultured man who didn't understand the intricacies of the situation. He led his men in a direct charge, and Zhou Cang fought and retreated. Ultimately, Zhou Cang's forces were outnumbered, and after only two days of holding out, they were caught off guard when someone sneaked up from behind.

After a fierce battle, Zhou Cang had no choice but to escape through the small path to the south, which was the path that Lu Xun had specially left for him!

As dawn approached, Zhou Cang and his group finally shook off their pursuers. Everyone was exhausted, and Pei Yuanshao suggested they rest for a while.

Zhou Cang took a deep breath and waved his hand, "Alright, everyone, take a break."

Zhou Cang sat on a rock, wielding a large sword and wielding a golden horse. He grabbed a twig haphazardly, bit it, and sulked.

"Our perfectly good mountain stronghold is gone just like that, forcing us to find a new place to stay. It's outrageous!" Pei Yuanshao cursed.

Zhou Cang snorted, "Alright, the world is so big, isn't it easy to find a place to stay?"

These days, you can easily gather a group of people, find a mountain, and become a local warlord. Zhou Cang wasn't worried about having nowhere to go.

But just as they were resting, a group of people suddenly appeared in the grass on the nearby hillside, and countless crossbow bolts were coldly aimed at them.

Before Lu Xun arrived, Liu Xie had reminded him that the Prince of Chen had a well-trained crossbowmen.

This thing is much more powerful than a bow and arrow, especially for close-range ambushes. It can unleash the power of rapid fire in an instant, and the crossbow bolts have extremely strong penetrating power!

With a whoosh, Lu Xun pushed aside the branches, stood up, and called out, "Gentlemen, have you rested enough?"

Chen Wang's soldiers were puzzled, thinking to themselves, "Why waste time talking? Just launch a sneak attack; we'll definitely catch them off guard."

Zhou Cang and the others all jumped up from the ground in a panic.

Seeing that Lu Xun was young and there was no one else around, Zhou Cang couldn't help but sneer inwardly.

Lu Xun kindly said, "King Chen is benevolent and righteous, and cannot bear to harm you. I advise you to surrender obediently, otherwise, you will face certain death."

"Ok?"

After careful observation, Zhou Cang discovered that bursts of cold light were occasionally reflected from the woods.

"I didn't expect there to be an ambush here. Brothers, let's charge!"

Zhou Cang was filled with arrogance and completely disregarded the ambush.

Lu Xun shook his head. "It seems you won't give up until I show you. Fire the arrows!"

Lu Xun waved his hand, and suddenly a large number of people emerged from the woods on both sides. There were no fewer than a thousand people, each carrying a crossbow on their arm. Although they were small in size, their power quickly opened Zhou Cang's eyes.

Puff puff!
At Lu Xun's command, a thousand crossbow bolts were fired simultaneously. Zhou Cang and his men had just charged forward a considerable distance when a dense rain of crossbow bolts came flying at them.

These bandits weren't even wearing armor, and caught completely off guard, a large number of them fell in an instant. Lu Xun stood expressionless on the hillside, watching coldly.

Although he was young, he was fortunate enough to experience the fierce battle of defending Lujiang.

Today was his first time going to the battlefield, but facing life and death, Lu Xun was unusually calm.

The crossbow bolts came whistling through the air with tremendous force. Even when people used knives and spears to block them, some bolts still maintained their direction, piercing deep into the flesh and entering the body.

Life becomes incredibly fragile at this moment.

Zhou Cang swung his sword with all his might, and the dense rain of arrows made his situation difficult; every step forward was extremely dangerous.

Zhou Cang witnessed two people beside him being shot by crossbow bolts almost simultaneously. The bolts, with no loss of force, pierced through the necks and flew past, leaving behind a trail of blood.

In just a short while, the ground was covered with corpses.

Some were riddled with arrows, their bodies riddled with arrows, their eyes wide open, showing how unwilling they were to die.

Perhaps being killed by an arrow is considered relatively lucky. Some people, even after being shot, still struggle in pain, rolling and convulsing, and do not die for a long time. This is the most torturous thing.

Many thieves were completely terrified and dared not rush forward. They turned around and ran back, and no matter how loudly Zhou Cang shouted, he could not stop them.

After a while, Lu Xun waved his hand and stopped attacking.

"How about it? It's not too late to surrender now. I don't have much patience left. If I give you a chance to live and you don't appreciate it, then I'll have no choice but to kill you all."

Zhou Cang looked around and saw that everyone was terrified. He sighed helplessly, "Fine, I, Zhou Cang, admit defeat today. As long as you don't kill us, I am willing to surrender."

Lu Xun nodded. “Those who know when to yield are the heroes. Don’t worry, I guarantee that Prince Chen will not kill you. Not only will he not kill you, but if you perform well, he will give you important positions in the future.”

Lu Xun performed exceptionally well, successfully helping Prince Chen to subdue Zhou Cang and Pei Yuanshao.

When they parted, Prince Chen expressed his gratitude repeatedly, holding Lu Xun's hand and praising him endlessly.

Lu Xun smiled and said, "I need to return to His Majesty's side; there's still much to learn."

…………

Kong Rong and Mi Heng were of no interest to Cao Cao.

Even the military power of Beigong was handed over to Cao Anmin by Liu Xie, so Cao Cao naturally gradually relaxed his vigilance towards Liu Xie.

However, Liu Xie valued Kong Rong highly.

From the very beginning, he had ulterior motives in arranging for Kong Rong to excavate the artificial lake.

"Wenju, in a few days, I will arrange for some people to come to your side. Remember, these people are trustworthy. With you providing cover for them, they can dig the secret tunnel with peace of mind."

"Digging a secret passage?"

Although Kong Rong spoke in a low voice, he made no attempt to hide his surprise and delight.

"Yes, although I can freely enter and leave the palace, I am inevitably followed and monitored wherever I go. Although I am confident that I can avoid these troublesome little tails, dealing with them is still quite troublesome."

"Moreover, we can't deliberately avoid them all. So, I've already planned to dig secret passages from the palace to some important places. With secret passages, everything will be much easier, and in the future, these passages can be extended outside the city."

Kong Rong was overwhelmed with ecstasy, and it took him a long time to force himself to calm down.

"Your Majesty, once the secret passage is completed, we will no longer need to fear Cao Cao."

Liu Xie shook his head. "It's not as simple as you think. First, the secret passage project is huge, and we can't dig it openly, nor can we use too many people to avoid leaking information. So the progress will be very slow. In addition, Cao Cao is currently very vigilant in his defenses of Xuchang. We can't rush things. Besides, I'm not trying to get rid of Cao Cao, understand?"

After such a long period of observation, Kong Rong and Mi Heng had gradually passed the test, and Liu Xie was finally relieved to entrust this matter to them.

Mi Heng squinted at Liu Xie for a long time and said, "I see. Why did Your Majesty send Kong Rong to supervise the digging of the artificial lake? First, Your Majesty wanted him to avoid Cao Cao's sight. Second, he wanted to use the mud dug out of the artificial lake as cover."

Kong Rong suddenly realized, "Yes, digging a secret passage is troublesome because the excavated soil is difficult to handle. The longer the passage, the more soil there will be. But with the artificial lake, we can openly send carts to transport the soil out of the city every day. The soil excavated from the secret passage can be mixed with the soil from the artificial lake and transported out of the city legitimately."

Both of them looked at Liu Xie with admiration. In fact, Liu Xie's idea of ​​digging the secret passage was entirely inspired by "The Shawshank Redemption".

First of all, there aren't that many trustworthy people, and this project is quite large, so you need to be especially patient.

Liu Xie instructed, "This matter must be handled with utmost care. It is better to dig slowly and take more time than to let it leak out. Therefore, you must not secretly hire people to dig secret passages in order to speed up the process."

"Here!"

Both of them knew the importance of the matter and nodded vigorously!
According to Liu Xie's estimate, it would take several months to dig the secret passage to any place in the city, and at least two years to reach the outside of the city.

(End of this chapter)