Outside Linzi City.

The Zibo River flows through the east side of this oriental city and surging westward.

The Zhao army surrounded Linzi from the west, north and south, and the commander's tent was located in the northern camp.

Linzi City has been fully mobilized, and there are vigilance everywhere on the city walls. The fully armed soldiers of Qi, who are well-equipped, are all good goods that have just been taken out of the treasury or are freshly made from workshops, but these exquisite equipment does not give these soldiers any sense of security.

"That is the handsome flag of Wu Xinjun Zhao Kuo!"

"It is said that Wu Xinjun Zhao Kuo is the killing star under the throne of Tai Yi. He is protected by Tai Yi's destiny. Ordinary generals are no match for it at all!"

"ah?

Then aren’t we finished?”

"It may not be possible. Perhaps the repression of the Great Qi State will be better than Wu Xinjun."

"But more than 30 years ago, did the national destiny of Daqi be destroyed by Le Yi once?"

"..." Before learning about the arrival of the Zhao army, tens of thousands of people had fled the city, but there are still hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city.

Whether it is soldiers or people, there is a sense of tension, anxiety and fear from top to bottom in Linzi City.

At the top of a small hill five miles southwest of Linzi City, Zhao Kuo and Li Mu stood on the chariot, staring at Linzi City, which was as if they were facing a great enemy.

Zhao Kuo said: "Li Mu, I asked you, if you come to lead the army, can you conquer this city?"

Li Mu smiled and showed a mouthful of cleansing his teeth: "I will not hide it from the lord, but I think it is very simple to conquer Linzi.

I have at least two strategies to break through Linzi."

Zhao Kuo raised his eyebrows slightly and said curiously: "Which two types?"

Li Mu said: "The first type, and the simplest type, is to directly use a large amount of gunpowder to open the Linzi city gate!"

Zhao Kuo nodded and said, "This is indeed the simplest one, but it is also the most unlikely one to be used now.

Because this marquis wants to cover up the appearance of gunpowder.”

Li Mu nodded to express his understanding.

Since the advent of gunpowder, Zhao Kuo has asked Li Mu to use it twice.

The first time the gunpowder was used was in Xianyang City, which exploded the gate of Xianyang Palace City in one fell swoop, thus capturing the King of Qin.

The second use of gunpowder was in the Luoshui Battle, which had just ended, and the Luoshui Earth Dam was blown up in one fell swoop, flooding the Qi, Wei and Yan coalition forces to win a great victory.

These two uses have one thing in common, that is, there were no other soldiers from Zhao State at the scene where the gunpowder was used, and only Chi You Army was present.

As the Chiyou army trained by Zhao Kuo, these knights were unquestionable for Zhao Kuo.

There were no spies installed by Queen Mother Zhao and even Lin Xiangru and others before, but under the powerful identification of the Nightingale system, these spies were either sent away from Chiyou's army for various reasons to go to some remote places, or they simply died for various inexplicable reasons.

So Zhao Kuo was very confident that it was absolutely impossible for the Chiyou army to leak the secret! In addition to the Chiyou army, there were also some imperial guards in the Qin palace city who had witnessed the power of gunpowder with their own eyes.

But most of the imperial guards were already slaughtered by the Zhao army led by Li Mu in that battle. Some of the remaining people either chose to keep silent because of fear, or even if they said it, no one believed them.

Such words like "a loud bang and the city gate is gone" sound like an excuse for the ineffective combat.

After occupying the Qin palace city, Li Mu specially asked the Chiyou army to clean up the scene at that time, and used the prisoners to demolish the nearby palace walls hundreds of feet to ensure that the Qin people could not determine the secret.

So, it has been used twice, but gunpowder is still a non-existent thing for the whole world.

Li Mu calmed down and said, "I also know that I cannot use gunpowder, so I have another way.

Please see, Linzi is close to Zibo, and the flow rate of Zibo is not low.

As long as the design is properly, the flow of Zibo water can be used to destroy Linzi in one fell swoop, and the entire city will be flooded!"

Zhao Kuo was stunned for a moment, then laughed in silence: "I always think I have heard of your idea there?"

Li Mu smiled and said, "I will tell you that this is actually the inspiration from the master's plan to "flood Daliang City" back then."

Zhao Kuo nodded slightly and said, "This plan is indeed a good plan and it can be successful, but this lord still won't use this plan."

Li Mu was stunned: "Why is this Lord?"

Zhao Kuo sighed and said, "What the Empress Dowager and Lin Xiangru most hope is to destroy the reputation of this marquis. If this marquis drowned hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Linzi City at one time, wouldn't that just give them an excuse to attack this marquis?"

After all, it's still a matter of reputation.

If you want to directly overthrow the rule of Zhao with violence, then reputation actually doesn't matter.

Zhao Kuo was not unable to do it, but doing so would inevitably cause chaos in Zhao's country and greatly extend the time for Zhao Kuo to unify the world.

Like Zhao Kuo now, he is a "silent" way of seizing power by slowly catching the magpie's nest. A good reputation is necessary.

For example, the Tian family, the current royal family of Qi, is not the royal family when Qi was founded. The royal family when Qi was founded was the Jiang family, the direct descendant of the Zhou Dynasty's Taishi and Taigong Jiang Shang.

The Tian family was originally just a minister of the Jiang family, but they continued to use their power to win people's hearts and slowly undermined the royal family of the Jiang family in Qi, and eventually replaced the Jiang family Qi State into the current Tian family Qi State.

This path of Tian’s family is actually the path Zhao Kuo is going to take.

With one victory after another, Zhao Kuo was constantly approaching his goal of seizing power. The huge reputation brought by each victory, the continuous public opinion propaganda in the Zhao Academy and the continuous role of scholars in the Academy as officials in the local area, Zhao Kuo kept winning the hearts of the people.

But the closer you get to the end, the more you should be careful not to fail. At this time, no matter what may make Zhao Kuo's reputation dark, you cannot do anything.

It is said that no one is perfect, but what Zhao Kuo has to do is to make all the people of Zhao feel that Wu Xinjun Zhao Kuo is a flawless leader! Both of Li Mu's strategies were rejected by Zhao Kuo, and he was a little surprised and said, "If the lord is unwilling to adopt these two strategies of his minister, how can he break through Linzi City?"

Zhao Kuo smiled slightly and patted Li Mu on the shoulder: "The key to breaking through this city is not in this military camp.

Okay, I will give you a task. You will set off immediately with 30,000 cavalrymen and continue to attack other cities in Qi to the east.

Your goal is very simple, which is to eliminate all the vital forces of Qi that dare to resist, so that the people of Qi cannot organize any troops to reinforce Linzi.

In addition, you must plunder all the food, grass, weapons, money and wealth you can obtain, destroy the war potential of Qi to the greatest extent, and let the people of Qi feel their fear of our Da Zhao to the greatest extent. Do you understand?"

Li Mu subconsciously stood at attention and whispered loudly: "I accept the order!"

After Zhao Kuo returned to the commander's tent, Xu Li appeared: "Master, this is the information of all the personnel of the Nightingale Linzi branch you asked for before."

Zhao Kuo nodded, took the thin little book in Xu Li's hand, and started reading it.

After a moment, Zhao Kuo closed the book and breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's very good. Starting today, the army is preparing to siege Linzi for a long time, and a bird is not allowed to leave Linzi!"

Xu Li hesitated for a moment and whispered: "Master, we have the hope of conquering Linzi immediately, why should we carry out a long-term siege on Linzi?"
Chapter completed!