Chapter 256 Worthwhile
In their original thought, Wang Jian and Li Maozhen would have two choices when the Fengxiang Army attacked the Regal Guards today.
The first choice was to be loyal to Li Changyan and lead the army to capture Li Yan. In this case, when Li Changyan hijacked the emperor to order the feudal princes, he would naturally expand his forces, so it was inevitable to ask the emperor to appoint his trusted generals as the commissioners. With Wang Jian’s and Li Maozhen’s current status, it wasn’t difficult for them to be the commissioners.
But there was a problem. When Wang Jian and Li Maozhen took office in the vassal states, the original commissioners and Vassal State Armies were not necessarily willing to accept them. Maybe, they had to attack the vassal states, like Huang Chao’s men. Only when they won the victory could they occupy the places.
The second choice was to be loyal to the imperial court and betray Li Changyan. Lead the army to capture Li Changyan and claim loyalty to Li Yan.
The advantage of doing so was that Wang Jian and Li Maozhen would surely be rewarded afterward for their meritorious service. Not only could they be appointed as the commissioners, but they might also be given the surname by the imperial court and granted other official titles, like Zhu Wen.
This choice would undoubtedly be more profitable than the first one. But there was a problem as well. It was the concern that Wang Jian had said previously.
In the final analysis, Wang Jian and Li Maozhen’s choice depended on whether or not Li Ye could arrive at Chencang successfully.
With Li Ye in charge of the overall situation, when Wang Jian and Li Maozhen turn their coats against Li Changyan, they would surely succeed with the help of Pinglu Army later, even if they could not defeat Li Changyan immediately. And they didn’t need to worry that Tian Lingzi would call black white and wipe out their credit.
Li Ye became the key factor that Wang Jian and Li Maozhen decided which way to go.
At this moment, when Wang Jian and Li Maozhen saw Li Ye appear, they were overjoyed and felt that the great things could succeed.
However, when they saw the rainbows coming behind Li Ye, they were shocked. The two of them were now in semi Foundation-building Stage, so, with just one glance, they knew that the people behind Li Ye all had Spiritual Master Realm cultivation.
Being shocked, Wang Jian and Li Maozhen looked at each other and their backs felt cold at the same time.
If they had gone all out in today’s battle, the Regal Guards would have been defeated and Li Yan would have been captured by Li Changyan. It was easy for Li Ye and his men, who were in the Spiritual Master Realm, to kill Wang Jian and Li Maozhen.
Wang Jian and Li Maozhen took a deep breath and no longer delayed. Wang Jian shouted, and his voice spread through his army. “Li Changyan revolted against the imperial court and attacked the Regal Guards. He is disloyal and a traitor! Our Fengxiang Army is the elite of the country, so we should fight for His Majesty! Now that Prince An has come, all the soldiers, listen to my order. Follow me to capture Li Changyan, make achievements for our country, and gain good reputations for your wife and your children!”
As soon as Wang Jian finished speaking, Li Maozhen also went back to the sky above his army and shouted, “Li Changyan is a traitor, so I, Li Maozhen, swear not to associate with him! All the soldiers of the Fengxiang Army are loyal and righteous men. You have fought countless bloody battles for our country, but now Li Changyan wants you to be cursed forever. He is harming you! “Prince An has come, and the Pinglu Army is coming. All the soldiers, listen to my order. Follow me to capture Li Changyan and kill this rebel for the imperial court!”
Wang Jian and Li Maozhen told their trusted generals about this arrangement in advance. At this time, after hearing their words, the soldiers of the two armies stood stunned and didn’t understand what was happening, but the generals had already raised their knives and called their troops to turn around and rush toward Li Changyan.
The other generals of the Fengxiang Army had no idea what was happening.
The front soldiers of Wang Jian’s and Li Maozhen’s armies stopped attacking. They gathered on both sides and set up a defensive formation. At the same time, they gave way to the Regal Guards to advance. The soldiers in the back formation began to turn around and rush to Li Changyan. At this moment, they finally realized that Wang Jian and Li Maozhen had betrayed them.
These generals were a little stunned. But only a second later, they realized that their armies couldn’t continue to fight the Regal Guards under these circumstances, so they had to order their armies to retreat. Leave the battlefield and protect themselves first.
Since the Fengxiang Army wanted to retreat, chaos was inevitable. The Regal Guards wouldn’t let go of this opportunity, so they began to fight aggressively.
Shangguan Qingcheng didn’t expect that Wang Jian and Li Maozhen would suddenly betray Li Changyan, but what the Fengxiang Army had done wasn’t like a trap, and they didn’t need to do so. Of course, she wouldn’t let go of this opportunity. Seizing the right time, she led 3,000 Wolf-tooth soldiers to bypass the chaotic battlefield and cut off Li Changyan’s route of retreat.
In the air, Li Ye witnessed all the changes in the battlefield. Not only him, but also Su Emei and the others behind him felt surprised.
Nangong Diyi looked at Li Ye, puzzled. “Did you arrange Wang Jian and Song Wentong’s betrayal in advance?”
Li Ye smiled bitterly and said, “It really has nothing to do with me.”
Nangong Diyi felt stranger. He thought about it and said, “Li Changyan wants to hijack His Majesty. If the Regal Guards can keep His Majesty safe, Tian Lingzi, who has no military exploits before, will gain a great achievement. But after Wang Jian and Li Maozhen’s betrayal, the great achievement has nothing to do with Tian Lingzi anymore.”
Li Ye didn’t comment. He didn’t care about whether Tian Lingzi would have military exploits or not.
But Li Ye knew that Tian Lingzi didn’t get along with him and played many little tricks in the battle of pacifying the chaos, so Li Ye was happy to see him suffer.
At this time, Li Ye wouldn’t ride a horse on the battlefield. As his cultivation had reached the Spiritual Master Realm, the military formation was no longer his battlefield, and his target was the other side’s masters.
But obviously, after Buddhism was defeated, Li Changyan had no masters who could fight Li Ye, so Li Ye’s target became very simple, to capture the chief first.
Targeting Li Changyan’s yellow flag, Li Ye directly flew over there.
Li Changyan was retreating in panic, under the guard of thousands of his trusted soldiers. Wang Jian and Li Maozhen’s betrayal caught him by surprise, but Li Ye’s sudden appearance really made him feel desperate. As he rode away, he looked back from time to time, his eyes inevitably full of fear.
Li Changyan couldn’t understand why Li Ye would appear in Chencang.
18 guardian warriors, 36 arhats, and the 800 monks’ corps were powerful forces of Buddhism. In Li Changyan’s previous expectation, they would kill Li Ye effortlessly, and then they would come back to help him and charge into the army to capture Li Yan.
If Li Changyan didn’t have the reliance of Buddhism, he would not dare to attack the Regal Guards outrageously and hijack Li Yan. But things went contrary to his wishes. Buddhism didn’t come back, while Li Ye came in good condition.
Li Changyan was frightened because Li Ye was in the Spiritual Master Realm, while he was just a practitioner of Qi techniques. Their fighting abilities were not at the same level.
But Li Changyan didn’t wait to be killed without a fight. Seeing Li Ye flying over, he pulled out his knife, trying to fight back fiercely. He roared, “Shoot arrows together!”
The people around Li Changyan were all his trusted elites under his direct control, and their fighting abilities were much better than ordinary soldiers’. Although they were fleeing in panic, after hearing Li Changyan’s order, they gritted their teeth and said, “Shield soldiers, guard the military commander! Shoot arrows together!”
With dull sounds of strings being pulled, hundreds of iron arrows were shot into the air, raining down toward Li Ye. At the same time, a hundred shield soldiers were guarding around Li Changyan tightly.
There were many masters in the army, so it was a heavy responsibility to guard the military commander. The military formation had a special response to prevent the enemy’s masters from charging into the army. The archers were all cultivators, and most of the shield soldiers around the military commander were practitioners of Qi techniques. At this time, more than a dozen masters were flying out from the formation to occupy important positions. Facing this situation, even if the cultivator at Level 9 of Qi-refining came, he had to retreat obediently, or he would be killed on the spot.
When Li Ye flew into the formation, hundreds of iron arrows immediately approached, but he didn’t look at them at all. He swung his sleeves, a gust of wild wind of Spiritual Qi rolling in the air. All of the arrows were swept away and went nowhere.
Seeing the formation of shields guarding Li Changyan tightly like a turtle shell, Li Ye didn’t pull out his Luke Sword but punched out calmly.
Instantly, purple clouds rose, and a fist with a width of dozens of meters hit the formation of shields.
The shields and the soldiers scattered and flew up. Those Qi-refining masters in favorable positions, who wanted to take the opportunity to strike, vomited blood and flew backward like broken leaves under this fist.
In the middle of the chaotic explosion, Li Ye fell in front of Li Changyan who was horrified. As he stretched out his hand, Li Changyan flew out and his neck was grabbed by him.
Around Li Ye, at least a few hundred soldiers fell in all directions. Further away, Li Changyan’s trusted soldiers and those soldiers, who were fleeing, stood stunned as they saw this scene, and they even forgot to flee.
They had never thought about such a scene, to say nothing of seeing it. That was the power beyond their knowledge. In their imagination, perhaps only immortals could do that. Facing such Prince An, they had no courage to attack him together.
Li Ye indifferently looked at Li Changyan whose face was getting red. He asked calmly, “Li Changyan, do you know you will die soon?”
Li Changyan gave up struggling and calmly looked at Li Ye. “Winner takes all. No one has expected that you would be so powerful. I know I will die soon, but my defeat isn’t my fault, so I don’t regret it!”
“You don’t regret it?” As Li Ye loosened his hand, Li Changyan directly fell to the ground. After he covered his neck and coughed violently for a while, he immediately stood up and straightened his back, maintaining the dignity of a military general and a hero in the chaotic times.
“In the competitive world, all those who have ambition want to fight for themselves. As the world is in chaos at present, an ordinary man can become a hero, and a boor can become an emperor as well! Such a good opportunity comes once in a hundred years. For all the people with lofty ideals in the world, who don’t want to fight for it?”
Li Changyan stood like an iron spear and looked at Li Ye fearlessly. “I admit my defeat today. It’s nothing more than death. A real man is not afraid of death but afraid of having no courage to fulfill his ambition! At least, I have fought for it, so I live up to being a man and my strong body!”
Li Ye nodded. “What you said makes sense.”
Li Changyan laughed. “Wang Jian and Li Maozhen betrayed me just because they wanted to make their own achievements. They have no difference with me. If the chance was given, they would choose like I did. They betrayed me today, so they will also betray the imperial court one day. Your Highness Prince An, you have to watch out these two people.”
Li Ye said, “The world is in chaos, so I can’t kill all this kind of people. I can destroy their souls and spirits, but I can’t eliminate people’s ambition of making achievements.”
Li Changyan nodded. “You are right. However, as long as you are in the Tang Empire, those people, who want to fulfill their great ambition, won’t have a good end. I won’t the first or the last to raise an uprising suddenly but end up being defeating and dying.”
At this point, seeing Wang Jian’s and Li Maozhen’s armies rushing over outrageously, Li Changyan sneered disdainfully.
As he saw 3,000 Wolf-tooth cavalrymen outflanking from behind, appreciation and admiration flashed in his eyes. Then, he stuck his neck and said to Li Ye, “Your Highness, kill me now. It’s my pleasure to die in your hands!”
“You’re a real man. It’s worthwhile for me to kill you with the emperor’s sword.” Li Ye took out his Luke Sword. “Farewell.”
As cold light flashed, Li Changyan’s head flew up high.
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