Seeing Zhang Ping approaching from behind under the escort of two guards, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu could no longer maintain even half a shred of composure. He roared at him loudly:

“What is that scoundrel Han Qian trying to do? Has he become so arrogant that he completely disregards Yueyang’s feelings and wants to trap us all here to our deaths? As the supervising military commissioner, have you been completely kept in the dark by Han Qian, or are you saying you’ve long been in cahoots with him!”

Zhang Ping could understand Marquis Xinchang Li Pu’s fury. He cupped his hands and said calmly: “When Lord Han first arrived in Jinling, he made clear to the Marquis and even swore a solemn oath that unless he died, he would advance and retreat together with the women and children. Lord Han is currently evacuating large numbers of elderly, weak, women and children into the Fuyu Mountains. If the Chishan Army doesn’t withdraw to operate around the Fuyu Mountains and doesn’t use its main forces to keep watch on the provincial armies of Hu, Xuan and other places who eye us covetously, but instead remains along the Maoshan line, how could it look after so many elderly, weak, women and children in the Fuyu Mountains? Regarding the withdrawal, Lord Han kept strict secrecy, also worried that aristocratic families in Shuishui might leak intelligence, but he had me deliver this letter to the Marquis today. And I’ve been telling the Marquis to prepare early, yet you ignored this. Of course, the Chuzhou Army and Southern Court Forbidden Army won’t react that quickly, so the Marquis still has time to lead his troops to withdraw south of the Jieling Mountains. Lord Han’s side couldn’t possibly not welcome the Marquis.”

“I…” Marquis Xinchang Li Pu nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood from anger, yet he couldn’t open his mouth to question Zhang Ping’s words.

Zhang Ping had been in Shuishui City these past days and had indeed told him that Han Qian was evacuating women and children to the Fuyu Mountains, but in his view, this was precisely a manifestation of Han Qian abandoning the elderly, weak, women and children to avoid being dragged down.

On one hand, he had long since decided in his heart that Han Qian would lead that part of the Chishan Army’s elite main forces to remain along the Maoshan line and maneuver with the Chuzhou Army and Anning Palace.

Li Pu felt Han Qian would do this both to ensure neither Anning Palace nor the Chuzhou Army—with whom he had a blood feud over his father’s death—could rest easy, and also to gain greater military achievements to strengthen his position and influence in Yueyang.

On the other hand, Li Pu also determined that if Han Qian truly wanted to look after so many elderly, weak, women and children, he could only advance eastward as a whole to forage in the grain-abundant plains south of Lake Tai.

Only in this way would it be possible to collect enough grain to ensure so many elderly, weak, women and children wouldn’t starve to death from famine, and only in this way could they resist the well-organized local elite forces south of Lake Tai.

Think about it—throwing two to three hundred thousand elderly, weak, women and children without self-protection capabilities like scattered sand into deep mountain forests with no grain to collect—if that wasn’t abandoning them as a burden, what was?

Based on this, Li Pu had initially decided to seize Shuishui City, then quickly rallied the aristocratic families and clans of Liyang, Pingling and other places. In just over ten days, the Qiuhu Army authorized by Yueyang had recruited over three thousand elite troops. With Shuishui City as the core, they frequently deployed westward to Dangtu and Caishi, as well as northward to Pingling, Jiangcheng and other places, performing extremely actively.

Li Pu had also put forth every effort to demonstrate to Han Qian and other Chishan Army officers and soldiers the principle that “troops are valued for quality, not quantity.”

Also based on this, even though several days ago he had confirmed that Han Qian was rapidly evacuating the elderly, weak, women and children to the Fuyu Mountains, he had made no corresponding preparations. He never expected that Han Qian would actually withdraw all the Chishan Army’s elite forces overnight, leaving them isolated in Shuishui surrounded by wolves!

At this moment, several people climbed up to Azure Dragon Ridge from the opposite mountain hollow.

Seeing that familiar figure barely managing to stagger up the stone steps with the support of two sturdy servants, Li Pu felt so ashamed he wanted to bury himself in the ground. But the dozen or so people around him, regardless of Li Pu’s expression, stepped forward to greet him, worried that the green-robed elder might slip and fall on the wet mountain path.

“They’ve really all left. Han Qian truly is ruthless!” Yun Puzi gazed at the deserted, chaotic garrison at the foot of the mountain and sighed, then bowed to Li Pu with cupped hands. “Yun Puzi greets the Marquis.”

“Palace Envoy Lord Gu is too courteous,” Li Pu said coldly.

During the previous dynasty, Emperor Zhaozong created the Divine Mausoleum Bureau, which complemented the Divine Strategy Army. In the later period, both fell under the control of the eunuch faction.

In the final years of the previous dynasty, when the Jianghuai region still maintained a thread of loyalty to the court, Gu Yunpu at that time was a palace envoy formally dispatched by the court to serve as supervising military commissioner at the Shengzhou Military Commissioner’s Office, and nominally was also the overall commander of the Divine Mausoleum Bureau’s hidden intelligence network in the Jianghuai region.

However, the Divine Mausoleum Bureau’s covert intelligence teams lurking in Jianghuai had always been directly controlled by people like Lu Qingxia and Li Pu, while Lu Qingxia, Li Pu and others were nominally under Gu Yunpu’s authority.

When the previous dynasty’s last emperor was killed in Luoyang by Taizu of Liang, announcing the previous dynasty’s demise, and Emperor Tianyou led the Huainan Army across the river to occupy Shengzhou, Gu Yunpu had wanted to lead the Divine Mausoleum Bureau’s forces in the Jianghuai region to submit to Great Chu and Emperor Tianyou. Ultimately, forced by schemes from Li Pu and Lu Qingxia, he retired to Maoshan in seclusion.

In the blink of an eye, seventeen years had passed. Unexpectedly, Gu Yunpu, now approaching seventy, had a ruddy complexion and the dignified appearance of an immortal sage.

Facing Li Pu’s coldness, Yun Puzi smiled slightly and said: “The Marquis worked so hard to open up some prospects in Shuishui. As it looks now, only the path of a hasty southern retreat remains.”

Regardless of whether Yun Puzi had any mocking intent of kicking someone when they’re down, Li Pu’s heart was full of bitterness. He looked toward the green-robed elder’s stooped figure gazing down the mountain, wanting to speak but hesitating.

He didn’t want to remain in Shuishui surrounded by wolves and wanted to retreat south with them, but how should he retreat?

The three thousand elite troops he had recruited, obtaining the Qiuhu Army banner from Yueyang, had nearly two-thirds composed of private troops and retainer forces directly commanded by sons of the various Shuishui families.

Under the threat from Anning Palace, the various Shuishui families who had submitted might choose to follow them in retreating south, but if so, with their three thousand troops escorting nearly twenty thousand family members southward—what difference would there be from the rabble of the Chishan Army?

After losing the protection of city fortifications and retreating to the southern foothills of the Jieling Mountains, if they still wanted to maintain independence and not merge with the Chishan Army, but they had to collect grain for over twenty thousand elderly, weak, women and children, and protect these twenty thousand elderly, weak, women and children from attacks by the provincial armies of Xuan and Hu—even with three thousand elite troops, they actually couldn’t accomplish anything. They would soon be dragged down and exhausted by so many elderly, weak, women and children, quickly becoming no different from a migrant army.

However, if he wanted to place so many family members under the Chishan Army’s care, perhaps evacuating them into the northern foothill mountainous areas of the Fuyu Mountains controlled by the Chishan Army, wouldn’t all his efforts and struggles during this period become a joke?

The more critical problem was that he didn’t believe dispersing the elderly, weak, women and children like scattered sand into the Fuyu Mountains could truly solve the survival problem for so many people.

He wouldn’t believe it, the aristocratic clans wouldn’t believe it, and might even consider it one of Han Qian’s schemes.

Who could guess that Han Qian’s withdrawal of the Chishan Army from Maoshan this time wasn’t an advance through retreat?

After a long while, the green-robed elder turned back, walked unsteadily before Li Pu, and said: “No matter what, you can only take one step and see the next.”

Li Pu had too many concerns and suspicions, but as his elder brother said, he could only first lead his troops in a southern retreat and then figure out how to respond to future circumstances. Otherwise, whether the Chuzhou Army or Anning Palace dispatched troops to garrison Maoshan, they would completely seal off their route for breaking through southward.

Thinking of this, Li Pu finally swallowed a mouthful of bloody-tasting saliva and said with difficulty to Zhang Ping: “The Chishan Army still has over a thousand cavalry active along the White Fox Ridge line. Could you ask them to cover our flank…”

The Chuzhou Army and Southern Court Forbidden Army both had scouts active nearby and must have already noticed signs of the Chishan Army’s main forces completely retreating south. No matter how slow their reaction, they would inevitably dispatch more cavalry southward to probe the situation. Covering the chaotic retreat of over twenty thousand elderly, weak, women and children southward would be no easy task.

Furthermore, under his coercion, the various Shuishui families had torn relations with Anning Palace, but if they determined that retreating south was not a good strategy, there was no guarantee some wouldn’t have thoughts of submitting to the Chuzhou Army.

Currently, the Qiuhu Army was divided into two corps. The First Corps was the eight hundred cavalry and infantry led by Li Xiu. The Second Corps was the two thousand aristocratic family troops commanded by Chen Mingsheng. Beyond these was the three hundred elite troops of the Personal Guard Battalion led by his son Li Qi.

To quickly open up an independent position in Shuishui, although Chen Mingsheng was the Second Corps commander, the eight battalion commanders appointed—Wei Huang, Liu Zishu and others—were all sons of Shuishui aristocratic families. The soldiers under their command were also implicitly private troops and clan soldiers directly controlled by the Shuishui aristocratic families. Chen Mingsheng only had authority to coordinate them. For military officer appointments below battalion commander and soldier selection, neither Chen Mingsheng nor Li Pu had authority to interfere—all positions were filled by family sons and their direct retainer forces.

At this moment, Li Pu truly had no confidence that with merely over a thousand direct elite troops, he could suppress any rebellious thoughts from the Second Corps, which had nearly double the manpower, then force over twenty thousand family members to flee in disarray to south of the Jieling Mountains within just one or two days.

Facing cruel and harsh reality, no matter how much resentment and hatred Li Pu harbored in his heart, he could only choose to bow his head.

“I’ll immediately send someone to contact Commander Zhao Wuji to see if he can lead the cavalry battalion to remain near Maoshan for two more days.” Zhang Ping agreed, then cupped his hands toward the green-robed elder and Yun Puzi, saying: “Maoshan is in chaos, and for the next several months it will be difficult to find peace. The Prince and Palace Envoy Gu should also head south to avoid trouble, shouldn’t you?”

Yun Puzi looked toward the green-robed elder.

The green-robed elder with his ashen complexion nodded and said: “These old bones of mine don’t have many days left, but I don’t want my corpse desecrated, so I can only head south together with Xiu’er and the others. I trouble Lord Zhang with your concern.”

After finishing his words, the old man coughed violently. Taking a handkerchief from an attendant, he spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm before easing slightly.

Seeing Li Yu so ill, Zhang Ping only worried that Li Pu and his group couldn’t control the situation. Since the old man insisted on traveling with them despite his broken body, Zhang Ping no longer tried to dissuade him. He immediately leaned against the cliff wall to write a letter, having an escort ride swiftly to see Zhao Wuji, hoping that after receiving the letter, Zhao Wuji could lead the one thousand cavalry the Chishan Army had worked so hard to assemble to rush to Shuishui, suppress the restlessness among the Shuishui aristocratic clans, and assist Li Pu’s newly formed Qiuhu Army in retreating south…