Next Destination, Jinyang!

Chapter 103 – Next Destination, Jinyang!

June 1st. Julu City, Government Hall.

The morning assembly resumed again today. Zhang Jiao voiced out that they would not rebel at the moment as there was no proper cause to do so.

Lu Zhi sighed in relief. He appreciated Zhang Jiao's thoughtfulness, or rather, Tong's consideration.

Sima Fang, however, did not say anything. He understood Zhang Jiao's reasons. He also agreed that it was too rash to make a move without a reason. If they proceeded as they had suggested yesterday, they would be at risk from being attacked by many warlords nearby. He also learned a bit about strategy, but he was not on a level that he could be called a strategist. Therefore, he stepped down.

With no one objected Zhang Jiao's idea, he transferred the next agenda of the meeting to Tong.

"Master, we've been searching for Zhao Yun for a long time now. Is there any progress?"

Tong stepped up and asked Lu Zhi, who was responsible for finding a few talented individuals. Since he successfully invited Sima Fang over, every official acknowledged his abilities.

Betrayed Tong's expectation, Lu Zhi shook his head.

"No, my disciple Gongsun Zan said he did not have a subordinate by the name 'Zhao Yun'. We also searched the nearby counties and regions, but we came up with nothing."

"I see. Then let's stop the search and call our men back. We'll need them with other tasks in the future."

"Will do."

"For the next agenda, I want to talk about forming an alliance with Ding Yuan, anyone wants to comment?"

The crowd murmured in surprise. Ding Yuan was known to be loyal to the Han Imperial Court. If they wanted to rebel, why would they form an alliance with someone who would side with the next Emperor?

Sima Fang stepped up and bowed to question what on their mind.

"Young master Zhang, Ding Yuan is always siding with the royalties. We want to hear your reason for forming such an alliance."

Tong nodded and gave out his thought.

"First of all, we do not have a choice. From the very beginning, we are surrounded by four enemies. The north, we have Liu Yan who participated in the joint attack against my family. The east, we have Yuan Shao who had backstabbed us in the battle of Anping. Even if we opened our border and traded with each other, they will bite us the moment we give them a reason to."

"On the south, we have Han Fu and the Imperial City of Ye! This one is more dangerous than Yuan Shao because he can conscript 100,000 militias anytime he wanted to!"

"And our newest enemy, Zhang Yan at Ganling City on the southeast of us. That guy used to be my subordinate but he abandoned us at the critical moment!"

"With those four having a history with us, I doubt that they will agree on our alliance terms."

Sima Fang frowned when he heard about Zhang Yan, while Lu Zhi squinted his eyes as he also read the reports about this person.

Zhang Yan was currently known as the leader of Black Mountain bandits. He plundered all villages, towns, and his own city! He was also on the wanted list criminals by the Imperial Court.

Sima Fang stepped up again and asked.

"Zhang Yan was a well-known criminal. There are enough reason and causes to rally an army to attack him. Isn't it our chance for an expansion?"

The officials in the room buzzed as they agreed to Sima Fang's suggestion. However, Tong shook his head.

"I haven't told you this. When he deserted my camp, he had only a thousand men. The next time I heard about him again, he already took Ganling City into his own. As the matter of fact, I already knew that we have all the reason that we can attack his city because he isn't appointed as a governor by the Emperor. Yet, the nearby warlords haven't made a move against him! I suspect that he has some abilities or something that can threaten his neighbors not to take action against him. We should not make a move on him before we gather more info about how he took the city and how he managed to ward off all neighbor warlords."

Tong's untold information about Zhang Yan desertion and his reason for not attacking Ganling shocked the officials.

It was impossible for a thousand bandit to lay siege and occupy a city which had similar tall walls as Julu City, yet Zhang Yan managed to take it down. This abnormality gave them goosebumps, they became wary of this bandit leader.

Tong continued stating his ideas.

"Although we should not attack him at this moment, it doesn't mean that we will not attack him in the future. Father, Master Lu, I will have to ask both of you to help us gather more information about Ganling City and Zhang Yan."

"Alright, son"

"I understand."

"Continue what I left off, with four of our neighbors as enemies, we have no choice but to try and form an alliance with Ding Yuan. We have not made any contact with them yet, I think we will have a chance for this deal to bear fruit. Secondly, his adopted son was a valiant warrior! I think everyone here should know his name by now."

The person that Tong talked about was Lu Bu, who had been making a name for himself in the past years. He participated on the frontlines with Ding Yuan, his foster father, and proved his prowess by slaughtering a thousand Xiangnu barbarians at the borders by himself.

As a result, he became famous among the neighbor provinces and in his city.

"If we succeed in forming this alliance, we might be able to borrow his son and his army for our cause. We might lose a bit of our gold in this alliance deal, but that is not our problem anymore."

The crowd laughed. They all knew that Tong had millions of gold in his secret warehouse (his space storage). They did not have any worry about the gold shortage or the lack of fund.

…

The morning assembly ended. The agenda was concluded that they would send an ambassador to Jinyang, and that ambassador was none other than Tong himself.

At first, Lu Zhi and Sima Fang objected this. However, there was no other candidate that was confident enough to convince Ding Yuan, so the job fell to Tong in the end.

After the morning meeting, Tong prepared for the trip to Jinyang right away.

He did not need much luggage as he had his space storage, which already had 2.5 million taels of gold stored in it. His provision for the escort troops and other miscellaneous stuff were shoved into his inventory.

With a little over two hours of preparation, Tong, Zhou Cang, and their 2,000 elites journeyed west to Jinyang.

…

…

The border between Nie County and South of Jinyang City.

A caravan of five thousand soldiers and their family members were hiking through a valley road. On the front of the caravan, Zhang Ji and Zhang Xiu were leading the group.

Their mission was to travel to Jinyang City and meet Lu Bu.

Zhang Ji and his caravan crossed many counties on the way. After they crossed the river, they journeyed pass Dayang County and He Dong County. Then, they traveled eastward toward Shangdang City. Afterward, they headed north in order to head to Jinyang City, where Lu Bu and Ding Yuan were at.

…

Before Dong Zhuo reached Hongnong City and occupied it, Zhang Ji was ordered to immediately cross the Yellow River and head toward Jinyang City. Afterward, they were to head east to Julu City.

Li Ru had assigned them two tasks on this trip.

First, as the original plan, they were to journey to Julu City to form an alliance with Zhang Jiao and his son by giving Dong Bai and a redhare to Tong.

And the new mission, Zhang Ji had to deliver another redhare horse to Lu Bu and convinced him to join Dong Zhuo.

Lu Bu had been making a name of himself in the skirmishes with the Xiangnu barbarians on the border areas of Jinyang City while Ding Yuan continued to protect the city and the border.

Li Ru heard the feats of the mighty warrior. He advised Dong Zhuo to recruit him into his ranks as he had to clash against the Imperial Army soon, so they need another great general to suppress the elites like Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun.

Dong Zhuo agreed. At first, he arranged two redhare horses for Lu Bu and Tong each. However, Li Ru disagreed. He told Dong Zhuo that the horses might encounter an incident during the trip, so they should bring spare horses just in case.

In the end, Dong Zhuo gave 10 redhare horses to Zhang Ji for this trip as spare horses.

These warhorses weighed 1,500kg, which was 50% heavier than the average warhorses that usually weigh 1,000kg. They were considered a rare breed. Giving one each to Lu Bu and Tong was a good investment that Dong Zhuo could afford as he still had over a few hundreds of them back in Tianshui.

…

…

Dong Bai sat inside a carriage with Zou Shi, who was holding the little girl on her laps.

"We'll get there very soon. Don't be anxious, okay?"

"Umm!"

For a second, the eyes of Dong Bai changed from the innocent eyes of a child into deep abyssal eyes before it reverted back to her usual expression.

'I'm getting tired of playing a child. I want to see my Tong …'

'I hope there isn't any skank latching on him.'

'If there is, I'm gonna repeatedly castrate him for a hundred years once we get back!'