The Great Wei Music Bureau

Chapter 335 Current Situation

Last time we talked about how Tiangou told Li Yi that Yuehua was abducted by the Chu people, and the latter immediately set off for Dunhuang to get to the bottom of it. So let’s stop talking nonsense and see what really happened.

If flying a sword for such a long distance, the energy consumption would be too great, so Mo Bai became Li Yi's mount. Li Yi was silent along the way, calculating various possibilities in his mind, but every time he thought of Yue Hua being killed or insulted, he would roar at the sky in anger.

Five days later at sunset, Li Yi saw from afar the wall of Dunhuang, which had collapsed in half. It was obvious that it had experienced a war. He became more and more confused. Why was Dunhuang attacked? It must have been a major war to destroy half of the wall.

But Dunhuang does not border the State of Chu, so how could there be a war? Besides, there are also the Tiger Guards, so what is going on? With a lot of questions, Li Yi came to the collapsed city wall to check.

This was the damage caused by the explosion, with obvious signs of fire. The guards who were cleaning up the city wall saw Li Yi riding a big dog, and they quickly raised their weapons and surrounded him. The leader asked, "Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing here?"

Li Yi asked in return: "Where are Gu Zhou, Kun En, Wei Lue and the others? Let them come to see me."

The guards looked at each other, not knowing how to respond. The leader said, "Who are you? Tell me your name!"

At this time, Shi Ying rode up on horseback, pointed at Li Yi with a halberd in his hand and asked, "Who are you and why are you here... Li Yuefu? How did you end up like this after your trip to Tianshan?"

Finally meeting someone he knew, Li Yi took a deep breath to calm himself down and said, "Brother Shiying, what happened in Dunhuang? I heard Yuehua was arrested. What's going on?"

Shi Ying sighed and said, "Let's go to the City Lord's Mansion and let Sister Baozhu and Li Yuefu talk about the specific situation."

Shi Ying led Li Yi to the City Lord's Mansion. Along the way, many people pointed at Mo Bai who was standing next to Li Yi. This made Mo Bai very unhappy, and he asked, "Why do they all look at me like this?"

Li Yi immediately held Mo Bai's mouth and said, "You'd better not speak when you get to the mortal world. Mortals will think you are a monster! You can send me a message, but don't act on your own if you have any problems, and don't cause any other trouble.

As for why they look at you like this, it's because many of their relatives and friends have died at the hands of the Black Wolf, so they naturally won't be happy with you. Be patient, we can't stay here for long, at most one day, and we have to travel tomorrow."

Mo Bai transmitted his voice: "Ah? Still in a hurry? I'm dying of exhaustion these past few days!"

Li Yi touched Mo Bai's head and said, "I know you've been working hard. I'll take you to eat something good tonight. Have a good rest. I'll ride a horse tomorrow so you can relax a little."

Arriving at the City Lord's Mansion, it was obvious that a great battle had also taken place here. Li Yi's heart sank, and he came to the temporary reception room, where Baozhu Faluo, Wei Lue, and Gu Ting were already waiting. When they saw Li Yi who came with Shi Ying, no one greeted him, and they all looked at him in surprise.

Shi Ying said: "Lord Li has also experienced a lot on the grassland, so..."

Li Yi reached out to interrupt Shi Ying and sat directly in the main seat. Mo Bai lay beside Li Yi. He glanced around and said, "Order someone to prepare food. I heard that Yue Hua was in trouble and didn't have a good meal during the long journey. Don't talk nonsense. How did Dunhuang City become like this?"

At this time, Quinn ran in crying, fell to his knees, and kowtowed heavily.

Li Yi looked at Quinn who had lost an arm, took a deep breath, and tried to speak in a calm tone: "Quinn, you failed to protect Yuehua, and you still have the nerve to come to see me." Quinn did not even look up and cried while recounting the situation of the surprise attack on Dunhuang City that day:

Xianmu Ding and two other Zoroastrian priests survived the Battle of Tianchi. After Zuolu Arhat left, they fled to Xingxing Gorge, where they met the Tianhuo tribe who left Gaoche Kingdom and wanted to return to the grassland. This was the same Tianhuo tribe that had a grudge against Baozhu Faluo and Wei Lue.

The Five-Colored Deer originally enlightened those priests and made them convert to Buddhism, but for some reason, Xianmu Ding and the other two turned against them! When Tianhuo asked about the whereabouts of the Qiang-Di coalition, he actually put all the blame on the Northern Wei and Li Yi!

According to him, the high priest Lu Sheng led the coalition forces of Qiang and Di to fight against the evil spirits for seven days and seven nights, and finally completely eliminated the evil spirits. The high priest was seriously injured and disappeared, and just when everyone was celebrating the victory, Li Yi led the Northern Wei army to Tianshan and intercepted the exhausted coalition forces.

Taking advantage of the hatred between the Northern Wei and the Qiang and Di tribes, and Xian Muding's pyramid selling methods as a priest, he quickly gained the trust and leadership of the Tianhuo tribe. But he knew that he could not stay in the grassland any longer, and if he wanted to survive, he had to find a new backer. Xian Muding's final decision was to go to Dunhuang City first, and then flee to Western Chu.

When the Tianhuo tribe arrived near Dunhuang City, they heard that Dunhuang City was autonomous in name only, but in reality it was under the rule of Wei, and that the new city lord Wei Lue was an old acquaintance of the tribe leader Tianhuo. Tianhuo naturally opposed the idea of ​​entering Dunhuang City, but the tribe also needed supplies, so he had to go buy some necessities.

Xianmu Ding took his men to explore the way, but by chance they ran into spies from Western Chu who were exploring the way. After some negotiations, Western Chu wanted to expand, and Xianmu Ding gave them a reason to send troops, and the two hit it off.

After the formal meeting, the two sides reached an agreement that Western Chu would launch a surprise attack on the border, pretending to attack Dunhuang City and transfer the main force of the Wei army stationed in Dunhuang City, while the Tianhuo tribe's surprise attack on Dunhuang was mainly to destroy the city's defenses.

Dunhuang City is located on a major transportation route and is a must-pass place for Western Chu to march into the Western Regions. If the Wei army is allowed to gain a foothold here, the cost of taking over the city will certainly be high. In order to submit a token of surrender to Western Chu, the Tianhuo Tribe is just right to destroy the defense of Dunhuang City.

After the battle plan was finalized, the main force of the Chu border army confronted the Dingnan Army and the Imperial Guards, and sent a team of 5,000 people to raid the northwest. After receiving the news, Shi Ying was confident that he could defeat these 5,000 Chu troops. Furthermore, considering that Dunhuang City now needed stability, it would be best to keep the war outside the city. He finally decided to lead the main force of Dunhuang out of the city to meet the enemy.

But when he left, Dunhuang City was left empty. The only ones left in Dunhuang were the more than 1,000 guards led by Gu Zhou and Quinn, who had to guard the inner and outer cities respectively. It was conceivable how weak the defense force was.

After seeing the army leave the city, the Tianhuo tribe also started to take action. Xian Muding led people to sneak into the city and cooperated with the Tianhuo tribe to destroy the Dunhuang city wall. Not only that, Tianhuo also wanted to completely get rid of his sister-in-law and nephew, so he took advantage of the chaos to break into the city lord's mansion.

Gu Zhou, Kun En and Wei Zhen led the guards to fight bravely, and finally repelled the Tianhuo tribe and rescued Baozhu Faluo and Wei Lue. However, Xian Mu Ding kidnapped Yuehua and Gu Zhou, and only he knew the importance of these two people.

The Tianhuo tribe had achieved the purpose of the surprise attack by destroying the city wall of Dunhuang, so they stopped pursuing the enemy and headed southeast to join the Chu army.

Shi Ying originally thought that he could easily defeat the 5,000 Chu troops, but he never thought that he would run into a tough opponent. These 5,000 people were the elite Shenxi troops of the Chu State, led by the Western Chu Crown Prince Xiong Zhu himself.

This army, which was carefully selected and built after the restoration of Western Chu, was the ace among aces and had always been directly governed by the royal family. The prince Xiong Zhu who led the army was no good-for-nothing. Known as a hero, he secured the position of crown prince precisely by virtue of his exploits on the battlefield. Although there was some water in his exploits, his bravery was real.

As soon as the two armies met, Quartz realized that something was wrong. The battle situation was not developing as he had imagined. He should have been able to wait for the enemy to tire themselves out, but the Chu army did not show any signs of taking the initiative to attack. There must be a conspiracy for an isolated army to not take the initiative to attack.

Quartz sent out a thousand cavalrymen to harass the Chu army, but the Chu army maintained a defensive formation and did not fight back, obviously stalling for time. Quartz ordered a retreat, but as soon as he moved, the Chu army attacked, but always kept a charging distance. Quartz then guessed that he had fallen into a trap.

But in this situation, if they ordered to retreat to Dunhuang, the Chu army behind them would certainly pursue them with all their might, so they had no choice but to attack, so a tough battle was inevitable. Since they had to fight, they had to fight with all their might. Shi Ying no longer hesitated and ordered the entire army to attack. Even if they were tricked, they could not lose their momentum.

The two armies were fighting fiercely, and the Tianhuo Tribe formed a pincer attack from the rear. Seeing that defeat was inevitable, Shi Ying did not dare to return to Dunhuang City. The situation of the Tianhuo Tribe attacking Dunhuang City from the rear was not optimistic, so he could only lead his troops to break out in the direction of the confrontation between the main forces of Chu and Wei.

Fortunately, the Chu army did not pursue them with all their strength, so Shi Ying led the remnants to successfully break through, and finally retreated to the Wei army camp with less than 2,000 people. Shi Ying did not dare to delay, and after a short rest, he led the remaining troops back to Dunhuang, set up a camp outside, and asked Wei Lue to hurry up to repair the city wall and prepare for the battle.

On the other side, the Chu army and the Tianhuo tribe retreated to Chu together, and Xiong Zhu brought Gu Zhou and Yuehua back to the capital Baidi City. Gu Zhou was the son of the Di tribe leader, and his "request for help" was the perfect reason for Chu to go to war, and Yuehua was naturally in trouble because of her beauty.

Xiong Zhu threatened Yuehua to force Gu Zhou to take the poison, and then he became a tool of Xichu. As for Yuehua, just like the song, beauties have always been short-lived. Xiong Zhu attended the birthday banquet of Empress Dowager Xiao, so he naturally remembered Yuehua. Now that he has the beauty, he certainly doesn't act like a gentleman.

Xiong Zhu locked Yuehua in his mansion and cast a poison on her to prevent her from committing suicide. Fortunately, although he was not a gentleman, he was not a beast either. He dressed her in fine clothes and fed her delicious food, and had maids to serve her, and he treated Yuehua like a concubine.

What happened next was that Western Chu sent troops to the Western Regions under the pretext of seeking help from Gu Zhou, the chief of the Di tribal alliance, and the priests of the Qiang tribe. Three Zoroastrian priests became lieutenant generals and followed the army, and Tianhuo also became a general.

Before the army officially set out, Xiong Zhu "favored" Yuehua and made bold statements, saying that he would help Yuehua regain the lost land and take her back to the grassland after the war. In fact, such high-sounding words were very necessary.

Think about it, if they win, they will be the righteous side, and naturally they will help the Qiang and Di peoples to regain the grassland from the Northern Wei as he said. But now the two tribes are too few in number to protect themselves, so Western Chu will naturally help the two tribes to guard their territory. Everything is logical and seamless.

If you lose the fight, you will lose your life, so why would you care about your reputation, right? So the attitude towards Guanhua Fenglin is that you say yours and I listen to mine.

However, after Xiong Zhu led his troops to war, Yue Hua's life was no longer so good. Xiong Zhu had a crown princess, so what good could a legal wife do to Yue Hua?

The Crown Princess not only reduced Yuehua's food, clothing and other expenses, but also assigned Yuehua to learn the etiquette and rules of the Chu State, knitting, needlework, raising silkworms and making brocade. This was a common method, and even if Xiong Zhu came back, he would not be able to find fault with it.

Yuehua had suffered before, so these were nothing to her, but what she could not stand the most were those people who said bad things about her behind her back. Some said that Yuehua was a seductive enchantress who spent all day thinking about how to please the prince in bed. Others said that Yuehua used charm and poison to seduce the prince.

She was clearly a victim but was accused of being the seducer. No woman could bear this. However, Yuehua, who was poisoned, could not even commit suicide. She could only endure it and survive. She would hide in her bed and cry late at night.

What else can a woman do except cry? She can only feel regret. She regretted why she had to go back to the grassland. If she had known it would be like this today, she would have stayed in Li's Mansion. The grievance and bitterness in her heart gathered into tears that soaked the bedding.

The above are the movements of Western Chu, now let's talk about Northern Wei. The court, which originally praised Li Yi for recovering the Western Regions without any soldiers, suddenly changed to accusations, saying that Li Yi dragged Wei into the quagmire of war again and was a sinner. Bailing and Hanfeng were implicated and suspended from their posts and went home.

Li Yi was criticized continuously, and even Yuan Jun could not stand it anymore, so he withdrew all the rewards for Li Yi, leaving him with only the idle position of the Music Bureau. At this time, no one said that the emperor would change his orders every day, but only said that the emperor would follow the will of the people.