Chapter 69: Li Jue Besieges Chang'an

  After watching for a while, he immediately found that Lü Bu didn't have the slightest sign of fatigue, and finally cursed out loud: "This ungrateful beast is as hard as iron, doesn't he know what it means to be tired? The brothers who died at his hands are already over a hundred!"

  Lü Bu had already reached a frenzied state, his entire body covered in blood, his face twisted and grotesque, like a demon king emerging from hell. Wherever he passed, the enemy troops scattered, not daring to engage him in combat.

  Without any obstruction, Lü Bu instantly pierced through the army of three thousand men and rushed straight to Li Jue to kill him alone on horseback.

  Two hundred steps away from Li Jue's army array, Lü Bu suddenly took out his bow and arrow again, pointing at Li Jue from a distance.

  Under the pressure of several times the enemy, Lü Bu's martial arts seemed to have broken through another level, riding on the Red Hare horse, bowing and arrowing, with a kind of natural and effortless flavor.

  Li Jue suddenly had a strange feeling, although he was two hundred steps away from Lü Bu, the cold light flashing arrowhead seemed to be right in front of him, as if it were about to pierce his own skin. Li Jue couldn't help but shiver and reached for the precious sword at his waist. "Hsss..." The sword left its scabbard.

  At the same time, Lü Bu's fingers relaxed, and a strong arrow shot out of the bowstring with a whistling sound. Li Jue stared intently at Lü Bu's movements, and as soon as he saw the arrow leave the string, he immediately focused all his attention on the rapidly approaching arrowhead. "Open..." Li Jue finally judged the trajectory of the strong arrow's flight, let out a loud shout, and swung his treasured sword upwards in a sweeping motion.

  "Zi ga......" A very short and abrupt friction sound, Li Jue's sword blade was chopping at the back of the arrowhead.

  Li Jue's treasured sword was no ordinary item, extremely sharp, and with one slash, it actually chopped the arrowhead to pieces. Not good, Li Jue's heart sank, he knew that his eyesight was ultimately off by a bit.

  Cutting on the arrowhead would definitely knock the arrow flying, but cutting on the arrow shaft was just one sword to cut off the arrow shaft. The arrow shaft and arrowhead spun around and slapped Li Jue's chest, making a "bang" sound. Li Jue seemed to be stunned for a moment, then stretched out his hand to touch his chest, spat out a big mouthful of blood, and shook off the horse.

  "General... General Li is injured..." The army of Li Jue immediately fell into chaos, with each general rushing to jump off their horse and rescue Li Jue.

  Li Jue was helped up by his deputy generals, his face pale, and after a few violent gasps for breath, he hoarsely ordered: "Withdraw the army!" After that, he closed his eyes and didn't say another word.

  The deputy general hastily sounded the golden horn to retreat, Lü Bu took advantage of it and also couldn't advance an inch, he turned his horse and merged with his own iron cavalry.

  Let's take stock, Lü Bu's Bianzhou Iron Cavalry has lost more than 50 men. Looking at Li Jue's endless camps, Lü Bu is very worried and doesn't know what method to use to stop Li Jue's pursuing army. Just then, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew up. It was early summer, and the southeast wind blew from behind. Lü Bu's mind moved, and he thought of a plan.

  "Arson!" The idea sprouted in his mind and could no longer be waved away.

  Lü Bu thought carefully and found no flaws, so he hastily ordered his soldiers to gather wood and hay. Before half a day had passed, the materials on both sides of the official road were piled up like mountains. With one order from Lü Bu, the soldiers immediately set fire to the materials, and soon a raging inferno erupted.

  Looking at the raging flames and thick smoke in front of him, Lü Bu let out a cold laugh and retreated several steps back to avoid the rolling flames. Before long, the fire, fueled by the wind, slowly spread towards Li Jue's large camp.

  After waiting for a while, Lü Bu felt that it was about time and led his troops to slowly retreat from Chang'an.

  Of course, Lü Bu was not so naive as to want to burn Li Jue to death. Now the wind is not strong and the fire is spreading slowly. If Li Jue were to be burned to death, that would be a huge joke. Such flames can only waste some of Li Jue's time, but this is also Lü Bu's intention.

  Li Jue was lying in the big camp nursing his wounds, when suddenly one of his subordinates came to report that Lü Bu had set fire and cut off the front road, asking Li Jue to decide what to do.

  After a moment of contemplation, Li Jue cleared his throat and slowly said: "Order the men to retreat slowly, do not panic, and also order the infantry to fetch containers for water, to protect our grain and fodder."

  "Yes sir!" The soldier who delivered the order took his leave and went down. Li Jue then lay down on the couch with a sigh of relief.

  The commander-in-chief of the whole army was injured, which is a big deal. Guo Si and other generals brought the imperial physician to treat Li Jue. The imperial physician who followed them was an old man with white beard, he sat beside Li Jue, reached out to take his pulse, closed his eyes, and thought carefully.

  After a while, the old man finally opened his eyes.

  "Quickly, General Li's injuries are how?"

  The old man hesitated for a long time before slowly saying: "The general's injury is not serious... but needs to be well taken care of for a period of time, otherwise the consequences are unpredictable, and it may leave behind a hidden illness."

  "Alright, hurry up and take the medicine to General Guo!" Guo Ze shouted impatiently, waving his hand.

  The old general then removed his palm from Li Jue's wrist, got up and hurried away. Guo Si continued: "General, I think it's better to let the army rest for a few days, wait until the fire is extinguished, and pursue Lv Bu in no hurry. It's also good for the general to take care of his body."

  Li Jue let out a faint sigh and closed his eyes to rest.

  Guo Si then instructed them to take good care of Li Jue, and led the other generals out to attend to military matters. Jia Xu was left behind until last, and as he was about to leave the main tent, he turned his head back to look at Li Jue, seemingly thinking of something, with a flash of light in his eyes.

  Li Jue's army began to prepare for the impending attack by storing clear water and clearing trees around their camp to prevent the fire from spreading into the camp.

  Jia Xu wandered aimlessly, arriving at the edge of the large camp, his hand on the horse's neck, and suddenly let out a bitter laugh, muttering to himself: "Li Jue is not as good as Dong Zhuo!"

  During the Three Kingdoms period, top strategists such as Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Guo Jia and Zhou Yu were all renowned, but Jia Xu was absolutely not inferior to any of them. The main reason why Jia Xu's reputation is not as prominent as that of Zhuge Liang and others is that Jia Xu is very low-key in his actions. Generally speaking, it is only when his life is at stake that Jia Xu will come up with some bad ideas.

  Jia Xian's ideas were almost all poisonous, so some people called Jia Xian a poisonous scholar.

  Among the top strategists mentioned above, Jia Xu is undoubtedly the best in the world when it comes to understanding human nature. Li Jue's thoughts could deceive Guo Si and others, but not Jia Xu.

  Li Jue's secret was simple, that is, fake injury. Lü Bu did indeed shoot Li Jue with a bow and arrow, but Li Jue's injuries were absolutely not as serious as they looked. Old Lang Zhong also said so, the injury was not severe, just needed to be taken care of properly. But after saying this, Old Lang Zhong felt Li Jue's wrist shake, and hastily changed his words to say something more serious.

  This is normal, when doctors treat dignitaries, they tend to be more conservative in their words, lest something goes wrong and they get implicated themselves.

  Just like what is often depicted in operas, when an emperor or imperial concubine fell ill in ancient times, the imperial physicians would be at a loss, and eventually they would find a folk doctor who would cure the emperor with just a few simple treatments, and then receive countless rewards and become famous overnight.

  In fact, this situation does exist. The imperial physicians are not always incompetent, but rather they tend to be conservative in their diagnoses and treatments, afraid of taking responsibility, whereas folk doctors are different - these people are not familiar with the intricacies of the palace, and being simple-minded, they dare to take action; if luck is on their side, they can cure illnesses with ease.

  Lao Lang sought stability in the midst of chaos, and Li Jue naturally continued to pretend to be injured. His goal was simple: he didn't want to risk his life fighting Lü Bu, but rather wanted to preserve his strength.

  It's normal for Li Jue to have such thoughts, after all, the Western Liang army isn't just his own decision, Guo Si, Zhang Ji and Fan Chou each have their own troops. Li Jue has control over the conversation only because he has more soldiers under him, but still can't completely suppress the other three. Borrowing Lü Bu's hand to consume some of the strength of the other three is normal, it just doesn't seem very magnanimous.

  Jia Xu thought that Li Jue was not grand enough and could not accomplish great things, so he let out a sigh. In his mind, Zhang Ji was even stronger than Li Jue.

  Without mentioning Li Jue's delay, Lü Bu led the remaining Iron Cavalry to retreat slowly, advancing only twenty miles a day. However, after two days had passed, he still didn't see Li Jue coming in pursuit. Lü Bu found it very strange, but he couldn't afford to think about it too much. According to his calculations, Zhang Liao and the others should have arrived at Chang'an by now, so he should speed up his march.

  The cavalry moved extremely quickly, and within a day, Lü Bu arrived at the foot of Chang'an City, bypassing the Western Liang army that was besieging it, and entered the city.

  Before Lü Bu could rest, the palace eunuchs arrived with an imperial edict, summoning him to an audience. Lü Bu didn't have time to eat and hastily changed his clothes before entering the palace to see Emperor Xian.

  Following the eunuch who led the way, Lü Bu suddenly discovered that this path was not leading to the main hall, but was heading towards the rear palace, and hastily asked for the reason.

  The eunuch who led the way smiled and said: "The Duke of Wen does not know that this time he will have a private audience with the Duke of Wen."

  "Oh..." Lü Bu was puzzled, but according to his usual habit, if there was something important, it should be discussed in the grand hall with Wang Yun presiding. He didn't know what Liu Xie wanted to talk to him about this time. As Lü Bu pondered, he had already arrived at Liu Xie's bedroom. The eunuch who led the way asked Lü Bu to wait for a moment while he went to inform Liu Xie.

  After a while, the eunuch came out and led Lü Bu inside.

  Lü Bu entered Liu Xie's bedroom and saw that Liu Xie was wearing casual clothes, sitting in front of a desk, smiling at him with a pleased expression.

  Lü Bu hastily knelt down on the ground and respectfully said: "Your subject Lü Bu, reporting to Your Majesty!"

  Liu Xie stretched out his hand and said, "Lu Ai, quickly get up, someone is coming! Take a seat." Lu Bu hastily thanked him.

  He said a few words, and Liu Xie suddenly sighed: "I can be considered the most incompetent emperor of the great Han. I couldn't even protect my ancestors' temple, first there was Dong Zhuo's rebellion, now I'm surrounded by rebels, alas! I really owe an apology to my ancestors. When I die and go underground, what face will I have to meet Emperor Gaozu?"

  "Hurry up, Your Majesty, don't worry. The great Han dynasty has lasted for hundreds of years, and can a few rebellious officials and traitors shake it? I, Lü Bu, will definitely drive away the rebels Li Jue and others."

  Liu Xie shook his head and said, "Lu Ai does not comfort me. Although I am young, I have experienced several wars and know that a lone city cannot be defended for long. Moreover, the rebel army is numerous. Lu Ai is brave and invincible, but... This time, I summoned you to entrust you with something. Do you think you can do it?"

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