Chapter 152 Bold!

Early in the morning, Zhu Youqi sat at his seat. There were dozens of different kinds of delicious food in front of him. He only took a bite of each one.

The palace steward stood next to him, whispering what happened last night.

"How can he be such a simple and unsophisticated person? Does he not like women?" Zhu Youqi couldn't help but guess after hearing this.

"To answer your question, Your Majesty, the story of Liang Zhu that Ou Xiuzhuan tells is an allusion to an elusive love." The steward of the palace speculated seriously, "And Ou Xiuzhuan returned to his hometown this time to get married, so he should love women, maybe only his wife!"

"That means you haven't tasted other women, so you don't know how wonderful they are."

Zhu Youqi put down his chopsticks and said calmly, "Spread the news of last night's conversation to Nanchang. I have to go to the horse race today, so I won't entertain them."

"Yes." The steward of the palace responded and slowly retreated.

Ou Zanghua and Wei Bin came out of the palace and got on their carriages to return to Leting Town.

After coming back, Ou Zanghua didn't take time to rest, so he went to Zuo Lengchan to ask about the situation.

"Sir Ou, these are the silver notes found on Jiang Qi, a total of five thousand taels." Zuo Lengchan placed a small wooden box on Ou Zanghua's desk and said calmly.

"Is Jiang Qi honest?" Ou Zanghua asked calmly without opening the small wooden box.

Zuo Lengchan said, "After we caught him, he never resisted. Now Junior Brothers Ding and Lu are guarding him personally."

"That's good"

Ou Zanghua originally wanted to interrogate Jiang Qi directly, but at this moment, Wang Chenger came outside to ask for a meeting.

After getting permission, Wang Chenger entered the room, saluted with his fists and said, "Sir Ou, during today's morning exercises, we tested the toughness, strength, and running of more than 2,000 sailors. The results were incredibly poor."

"This is the statistics compiled by Taoist Tianbai. Please check it, Lord Ou."

Ou Zanghua was a little surprised. How bad would it have to be for Wang Chenger to use the adjective 'unbelievable'?
The Ou Zanghua tribe only needs a quarter of an hour to complete a ten-mile middle-distance race.

It took these navy troops half an hour, a speed not even as fast as that of the old men who take a walk after dinner in later generations.

In terms of strength and toughness, the passing line for the Ou Zanghua Department is to walk half a mile in half an hour while carrying a weight of 100 kilograms.

As a result, among the more than 2,000 navy soldiers, not a single one met the requirements.

"Huh" Ou Zanghua couldn't help rubbing his eyebrows. If possible, he wanted to fire all two thousand people.

But without these people, no one would be able to operate the boats docked at the dock, and the Poyang Lake navy would be really useless.

“Other than that.”

Wang Chenger hesitated for a moment before continuing, "In the memorial they submitted to the court, they wrote that there were 100 patrol ships and 40 warships. The number is correct, but less than half of them can be used. The others are already half-sunken due to years of disrepair."

After hearing this, Ou Zanghua became even more speechless. He opened the information handed to him by Wang Chenger and started flipping through it.

The Poyang Lake Navy inherited from the Chaohu Navy. Back then, the Yu family, the founder of the Chaohu Navy, made great contributions to the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.

Yu Tingyu was shot to death while fighting bravely in the Battle of Anqing, and his son Yu Tonghai was also shot to death in the Battle of Suzhou.

It is said that when Yu Tonghai was shot by an arrow, he was only seriously injured at first but did not die.

Zhu Yuanzhang visited him in person and found that he could hardly rest in peace. Knowing that he was sad about having no descendants, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately conferred the title of "Princess Jinhua" on his daughter and arranged for her to marry a handsome man named Zhou. He changed Zhou's name to Yu and temporarily married her into the Yu family. Only then did Yu Tonghai rest in peace.

Handsome man surnamed Zhou: ???

Looking at the glorious history of their ancestors, Ou Zanghua thought it would be better to save them, so he gave instructions: "First, tow the old and dilapidated ships ashore for dismantling and destruction, and repair the usable ships as well." "Also, the navy will train with you first. For the first thirty days, the requirements for them can be appropriately lowered. Once they have adapted, we can treat them equally."

"Yes!" Wang Chenger immediately responded and then stepped back.

After dealing with a bunch of troubles, it was already midnight when Ou Zanghua got up and went with Zuo Lengchan to check on Jiang Qi's condition.

The two men, accompanied by a team of guards, went to the temporary courtyard where Jiang Qi was imprisoned.

Before I got close, I saw dozens of men in black using light skills to sneak into the yard under the cover of darkness.

Ou Zanghua was stunned and asked, "Uncle Zuo, did you see it?"

"I saw it," Zuo Lengchan nodded, "Someone attacked us!"

The two men immediately used their Qinggong skills to rush forward, and the guards behind them took out bamboo tubes and began to fill them with gunpowder while running.

When they reached the outside of the yard, they found that all the caravan members resting outside had drawn their weapons and were pointing them at the two men who came to support them. Looking around, there were at least thirty or forty people.

"Uncle Zuo!"

Ou Zanghua used Qinggong to jump up, and Zuo Lengchan understood what he meant, and used the Great Songyang Divine Palm - Creation of Heaven and Earth, pushing both palms upward with great momentum, and hitting Ou Zanghua's feet.

With the help of this force, Ou Zanghua flew over the heads of the group of people like an arrow and landed in the yard.

Without waiting for them to react, Zuo Lengchan drew out his sword and rushed forward.

He held the sheath with his left hand, and instantly drew out the sword to strike the armed enemy. This strike was as sharp and clean as the autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves. Then, he swung the sword back with his right hand, and a flash of cold light passed by, severing the enemy's neck.

Then the scabbard quickly chopped towards the enemy's instep, and at the moment of spinning in the air after taking advantage of the force, the long sword swept past like a ghost, cutting the necks of several people.

The moment he landed, Zuo Lengchan swept his scabbard across, cutting off the enemy's leg. He then drew his sword with his backhand and pierced another man's chest once again.

At the same time, he kicked one person away with a jab, held up his scabbard to block the enemy's attack, swung his spinning long sword to block, then he misstepped and pierced another person with the long sword.

He pressed the scabbard against his neck, hooked his legs and swung, then raised his sword and killed another person.

It was as if he had eyes on his back. He suddenly raised his scabbard to block the attack from the person next to him. Then he got close to the enemy and shot him in the head with an elbow.

In just a few breaths, nearly ten people fell to the ground.

Zuo Lengchan, armed with a sword and a sheath, pinned all the men outside the yard.

He snorted coldly and asked indifferently: "Humph! Who are you? How dare you sneak attack the imperial officers?!"

"on!"

One of them shouted, raised his weapon and rushed forward.

Zuo Lengchan leaped forward and slashed diagonally, followed by a horizontal slash, killing two men in the blink of an eye.

Then he swung his sword left and right like lightning, killing all the people in the group.

Faced with the few remaining enemies, Zuo Lengchan did not hesitate at all. He rushed forward again, drew his sword with his backhand to cut the abdomen, stepped forward and slashed the sword diagonally to kill two people in a row. After blocking with the scabbard, he turned his hand and slashed horizontally. The last person was facing Zuo Lengchan's back.

He raised his sword and chopped at him without hesitation, but Zuo Lengchan unexpectedly kicked out with a Gengzi kick, directly kicking the man away.

Without caring about anything else, Zuo Lengchan immediately pushed the door open and walked in.
(End of this chapter)