Chinese dining table

Chapter 1282: No Oil, No Squeeze

After hearing what the black-clad eunuch said, Li Hong stood under the eaves and thought for a moment, then turned around and returned to his bedroom.

Naha, who had just closed her eyes, was awakened. She looked at Li Hong standing in front of the bed, opened the quilt and said, "Come in quickly."

Li Hong tucked Naha in again and said softly, "You sleep well. I won't sleep tonight."

Seeing Li Hong start to put on his armor, Naha sat up and asked, "Is something big happening?"

Li Hong tightened the silk belt of his armor and hung the sword on his belt. After he was fully dressed, he said to Naha, "My son-in-law will patrol the city and my son will guard the palace. I think my father will be less worried."

Naha, who had already put on her clothes, said, "Let's go together."

Li Hong thought for a moment and said, "If you're not sleepy, then let's go together."

Naha naturally had armor too, which was specially made for her by Yunchu. However, she hadn't worn it for many years, and her body had become much plumper, so the armor's straps couldn't be fastened tightly. Li Hong complained, "You're getting fatter."

Naha said angrily, "Yesterday you said I looked better when I was plumper, but today you say I'm fat?"

Li Hong finally helped Naha put on the armor. He tapped the round armor with his knuckles and said, "It's better to be fatter on the bed. It's better to be lighter on the battlefield."

The couple chatted and came to the door of the emperor's bedroom with their lances in hand. Seeing Ruichun's defensive face, Li Hong said, "Don't worry, it's just the two of us. We heard that the emperor was disturbed by thunder, so we came here to protect him."

After saying that, regardless of Ruichun's reaction, he and Naha stood on the left and right of the bedroom door and guarded it seriously.

The chief eunuch He Chun immediately reported the news that the prince and his wife came to guard the palace to the emperor, who was unable to sleep.

Li Zhi looked up at the gate, said nothing, then lay down again and fell asleep.

When it was almost dawn, the heavy rain turned into soft raindrops. The person Yun Chu was waiting for still did not come, but Nanny Chun, who was covered in mud, came instead.

Nanny Chun saw that Yun Chu did not dismount and sat on the horse which was also covered in mud and said, "The Queen asked me to ask you, what does the general want to do?"

Yun Chu glanced at Nanny Chun and waved her hand, saying, "Get off your horse and talk."

Nanny Chun said stubbornly: "Don't dismount easily when the enemy and ourselves are not separated."

Yun Chu looked at Nanny Chun's increasingly round face and said, "What you mean is, if my answer is not to the Queen's liking, you are ready to go to war with me?"

Nanny Chun said expressionlessly, "My Lord, please think twice."

Yun Chu looked at the cavalrymen who came with Nanny Chun again, squinted his eyes and said, "Are you relying on these few cloves of rotten garlic?"

Nanny Chun drew out her sword with a clang, pointed it at Yun Chu and said, "Today is the day to show your loyalty to the Queen."

Nanny Chun shouted twice in succession, but the knights behind her remained motionless. Nanny Chun gritted her teeth and urged her horse to rush towards Yun Chu.

Then, Nanny Chun was captured alive by Yun Chu, who carried her belt to a dark tent.

Nanny Chun, who was thrown onto a chair by Yunchu, saw that there was a lot of food on the wooden table in front of her, so she immediately grabbed a pancake and started to devour it. Yunchu brought her a bowl of cold rice porridge and said, "Eat slowly, the pancake is too hard and it will irritate your throat."

Nanny Chun, who had been eating with her head down, raised her head and said with tears in her eyes: "Can't you just be more relaxed? If you keep going on like this, you will be fine, but we, who are slaves, will be exhausted to death."

"Isn't it reasonable for me, a senior official of the court, to meet the emperor?"

"Why don't other important officials go at this time, but you are the only one who is meddling?"

Yun Chu stroked the mustache on his lips and said, "Others only owe your majesty wealth and glory. If he doesn't pay back the debt, others will just laugh at him and call him a scoundrel.

I am different. I still owe Your Majesty a debt of friendship. If I don't pay it back, won't I be laughed at by the world?"

When Nanny Chun heard Yun Chu say this, she jumped up three feet high and pointed at Yun Chu and said, "You have to repay the friendship you owe to His Majesty, but what about my friendship?"

Yun Chu smiled and pushed away Nanny Chun's fingers and said, "Next time, definitely next time."

Nanny Chun slowly sat back on the stool, picked up the cake and continued to chew it. Tears started to flow as she chewed it, and she sobbed, "You've been lying to me all this time."

After hearing what Nanny Chun said, Yun Chu no longer wanted to ask her about the Queen's news, and said seriously: "Go back and tell the Queen that I just want to go see the Emperor at this time to complete our friendship as monarch and subject."

Nanny Chun sneered and said, "The Queen also asked me to tell you that there are more than 130 elite soldiers and generals in Hebei Town, Shandong Town, and Hejian, a total of 67 military states. Can you destroy them all in one go?"

Yun Chu smiled faintly and said, "There are no less than 120 military states in Hebei, Shandong, and Hejian. Why are there only 67 military states? Did the Queen say that it is too few?"

Nanny Chun said, "Some are reluctant to come."

Yun Chu said: "Oh, you don't want to come. Do you think there is a possibility that those people are His Majesty's or the Crown Prince's people. The Queen transferred her people from those places. Does it mean that the Queen has lost control of those places?"

Nanny Chun shook her head and said, "There are still many noble families in the area who have surrendered to the Queen."

Yun Chu nodded to show that he understood. Seeing that Nanny Chun had finished eating, he picked her up again and threw her onto a carriage. He said to Nanny Chun's followers, "Take her back, slowly."

Nanny Chun poked her head out of the carriage, looked at Yun Chu and said, "Don't die."

Yun Chu agreed with a smile, then slapped the horse on the butt and let the carriage leave.

Seeing that it was getting light, Yun Chu said to Yin Erhu, "Send everyone in your hands to clear the way. Anyone who stands in our way will be killed without mercy!"

Yin Erhu turned around and left, followed by a number of men carrying long black boxes.

Yun Chu also returned to an empty little tent carrying a black box.

After opening the box, a familiar rifle appeared before his eyes.

His fingers slowly slid across the wooden stock and finally landed on the front sight at the end of the barrel.

The buttstock is made of walnut and the barrel is slightly rough due to being bitten by strong acid. However, after being painted black, the entire barrel is dark and full of industrial style beauty.

Compared with this rifle which is only one meter and two meters long, the box of thirty yellow bullets neatly arranged in the box is the highest achievement that the current technology of the Tang Dynasty can achieve.

Black gunpowder appeared in the fourth year of Yonghui, and it has only been twenty years since then. With Yun Chu's unremitting pursuit, black gunpowder has evolved into smokeless gunpowder.

The Second Workshop invested a maximum of 200,000 strings of cash in research funding each year. Over the past 20 years, the Second Workshop had burned through Yun Chu's fortune of over one million strings of cash.

When it comes to scientific research, as long as you know the right direction, have sufficient funding, and have researchers with outstanding skills, it is only a matter of time before you achieve results.

Over the years, God knows how many wrong directions in research Yun Chu has shot down, which allowed the real rifle that Yun Chu had always dreamed of to be released in small batches.

Yun Chu picked up the rifle and stuffed bullets into the holes on the side of the rifle, one, two, three... until eight bullets were stuffed into the rifle. Yun Chu pulled the handle under the trigger, and with a click, a bullet was loaded and ready to fire.

This is the most accurate, safest and most convenient lever-action rifle currently in the Tang Dynasty. Although it can only fire one bullet at a time, as long as you use it skillfully, eight bullets are enough for a short confrontation.

What's more, Yun Chu's marksmanship is very good, and he never misses a shot within a hundred steps.

He picked up the rifle, aimed casually around, fastened the safety lock, put the rifle in a cloth bag with a strap, and left the small tent.

It was at the moment he mounted the horse that Yun Chu began to realize that he was the best general in the world. Even now, with Xue Rengui's ability, it would be difficult for him to last even one round under his command.

Just as Yun Chu was leading the people of Chang'an to continue marching towards Jiucheng Palace, the person he had been waiting for for a long time finally arrived.

It was obvious that Jin Manru had also been riding a horse for the entire night. Compared to Nanny Chun, Jin Manru looked even more embarrassed. When she saw Yun Chu, she immediately threw away her muddy cloak, grabbed the reins of Yun Chu's warhorse and said, "Wait a minute, my lord."

Yun Chu sat on his horse and looked down at Jin Manru and said, "I just gave an order that anyone who stops me will die."

Jin Manru took off the bag on her back and handed it to Yun Chu with both hands, saying, "My Lord, what if I use this to ask you not to approach Jiucheng Palace?"

Yun Chu hesitated for a moment, looked back around, and seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he took the bag and opened it to take a look. Inside were the potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and two burnt yellow leaves that he had been longing for for a long time. He put them to his nose and sniffed them. Yun Chu immediately crushed a dry leaf, found a piece of paper, tore out a strip of paper, folded the strip of paper and poured the crumbs into it, and skillfully rolled the strip of paper into a stick-like object.

He raised his hand to pinch off the paper on the butt of the stick, quickly stuffed it into his mouth, and impatiently took out a fire starter, lit one end of the stick, took a deep puff, and then a thick smoke gushed out from his mouth and nose.

Although his body seemed unable to accept the smoke, his long-aged soul enjoyed it very much.

Amidst a violent coughing fit, Yun Chu called over Yu Xiurong, threw the bag that Jin Manru had brought to Yu Xiurong and said, "Take it, this is our family heirloom."

Yu Xiurong had never heard her husband say that something could be called a family heirloom. Since he called the ugly things in the bundle heirlooms, she immediately hugged them tightly in her arms. From the moment her husband said heirlooms, Yu Xiurong had no intention of giving these things to anyone, not even the emperor!

Jin Manru looked expectantly at Yun Chu, who was sitting on his horse and smoking, and asked, "Are you satisfied, my lord?"

Yun Chu spat out a mouthful of saliva with cigarette residue and said, "Have the Silla people actually reached the land that belongs to the Sun God?"

Jin Manru said: "There are no Silla people in the world anymore, only Tang people."

Yun Chu took another puff of his cigarette and asked, "Where is the person who brought these things back?"

Jin Manru said with a gloomy expression: "He has been killed by the Queen."

Yun Chu nodded and said, "The sea chart is left here, right?"

Jin Manru whispered, "In the Queen's hands."

Yun Chu nodded again and said, "That's right, such a treasure cannot be humiliated by the hands of slaves."

Jin Manru said: "Since you are very satisfied with the Queen's gift, I think you can stop moving forward."

Yun Chu thought for a moment and said to Yu Xiurong, "This old woman has made great contributions to our Yun family. What do you think about taking her into the Yun family's backyard?"

Yu Xiurong looked carefully at Jin Manru in front of him and said with some dissatisfaction: "Taking a concubine or a beauty, the Marquis took an old woman into the back house, I am afraid that others will laugh at him."

Yun Chu laughed loudly in the crowd and said, "I have always loved old women. Everyone in the world knows this. She is the one."

Yu Xiurong said helplessly, "As long as you like it."

After saying that, he pulled out a curtain from behind and threw it into Jin Manru's arms, saying, "Jin, you are my Yun family's concubine today. Put on the curtain quickly, and don't let others laugh at my Yun family's lack of rules in the backyard."

Jin Manru hugged Mu Li and said in surprise: "That's not the case."

Yu Xiurong was furious and said, "How dare this lowly servant be so ungrateful? Come, tie her up and throw her into the carriage, wash her and strip her clean so that you can play with her when you have time."

Seeing Jin Manru being tied up without any resistance by several sturdy maids of the Yun family and thrown into the carriage, the Hua Lang disciples who came with Jin Manru stepped forward to stop them.

Yu Xiurong's eyes were cold as she just exchanged a glance with Fei Jiu. Then a group of strong men with knives came out. In just a moment, they slaughtered all the twenty or so Hua Lang disciples brought by Jin Manru.

The Chang'an nobles and wealthy people who were watching did not take Yun Chu's act of robbing the woman seriously. Even though more than twenty Silla slaves were beheaded on the spot, they felt that it was not a big deal. A Silla maidservant, a group of Silla slaves, and what's more, she was such an old Silla maidservant.

They were just surprised at the unique taste of the prince's bed, but as for murder? Who would judge the prince?
The large group of people continued to move forward. Yu Xiurong carried her bag and walked side by side with Yun Chu. Occasionally, she looked back at the quiet carriage that Jin Manru was riding in. She couldn't help but whispered, "Husband, just kill her too. She's an eyesore."

Yun Chu snorted coldly and said, "You know nothing. This time, our family made a fortune. The prince has been working on agricultural improvement and demonstration for more than ten years, but it may not be able to compare to what we have gained this time."

Yu Xiurong said: "It seems that the prince also has potatoes, but the yield is not good and they are prone to disease."

Yun Chu smiled and said, "That's because the seeds are bad. There are a few fist-sized potatoes in here that are the real good stuff."

Yu Xiurong nodded to agree with her husband's point of view, but she immediately asked: "My husband, do you really want to accept that old woman?"

Yun Chu sneered and said, "It's just that there's one more person to eat in the backyard. When I was young and romantic, your husband was a virgin. Now that I'm middle-aged, isn't it too much of a loss to still rely on an old woman?"