Returning to his room, You Hongzhuo excitedly reported the news to Mister Zhao, who was drinking tea and reading a book. However, it was obvious that the two seniors already knew about this. Mister Zhao listened with a smile and nodded. You Hongzhuo could not help but ask, "Then … are the two seniors going to Zezhou because of Wang Shitong?"
Mister Zhao smiled and shook his head. "My wife and I will not participate in the Jianghu gatherings. We are passing by Zezhou to watch the fun. "Since you're so interested, you can take a look as well. It's just that the leader of the Great Radiant Sect's branch in the Zezhou Region is that Tan Zheng. If that Fourth Brother of yours is really the one who betrayed his brother, he might appear as well.
"Yes." You Hongzhuo calmed down slightly and nodded his head. After a moment, his heart could not help but surge again, "The Black Flag Army shook the world a few years ago, and only they were able to resist the golden dog without being defeated. If they could appear again in the Ze Province, it would truly be a major event …"
"The three years of war at Little Canghe has damaged the vitality of the Central Plains. How could the Hua Xia Army be spared? Two years ago, Xin Mo died in battle and the Black Flag Army retreated south. Later on, the remaining troops took root in Tubo, Sichuan, and Dali. If you are interested, you can go there to take a look. " Mister Zhao flipped the book in his hand. "As for Wang Shitong, it is hard to say if he is a remnant of the Black Flag Army. Even if he is, the Central Plains will be in chaos. The Black Flag Army has managed to save some strength and will not be exposed for this matter."
"… Why?" You Hongzhuo hesitated.
"What good will it do if he is exposed? The Wu dynasty has retreated to Jiangnan. The so-called Great Qi in the Central Plains is just an empty shell. The Jin will come south sooner or later. Two years ago, the Black Flag Army was defeated and the remaining people are hiding in the southwest corner. The Wu dynasty, Tubo, and Dali do not dare to touch them. No one knows how much strength they have left. However … once they come out, they will definitely attack the Jin. Of course, the strength they have left in the Central Plains will only be useful then. At this time, even if the Black Flag Army takes over the Central Plains, they will only be the first to bear the brunt of the war … "
At this point, Mister Zhao stopped talking and shook his head. "These things are not certain. We'll see when the time comes … Go, practice your saber technique and rest early."
Only then did You Hongzhuo take his leave. When he returned to his room, his eyes were still a little dazed. This inn wasn't small, but it was already a bit run-down. There were voices coming from upstairs and downstairs, and the air was stuffy. You Hongzhuo sat for a while and practiced a little in the room. After that, his heart wasn't very peaceful.
Actually, what really moved him was not Mr. Zhao's words about the black flag, but the simple phrase "the Jin men will come south again sooner or later."
There were many things that he had never thought about due to his young age. After his family was destroyed, he killed the group of monks and stepped into the outside world. He could still look at the Jianghu with a curious gaze, fantasizing that he would become a hero in the future and be revered by the people of Jianghu. Later, when he was hunted and starved, he naturally did not think too much about it. It was just that after these two days of traveling together, when he heard what Mr. Zhao said today, he suddenly felt a little illusory in his heart.
When the Jin men came again on a large scale, there would naturally be a new wave of conquest.
All of this would be gone in the future.
He was a practitioner of martial arts, so he was not afraid of fighting, killing, and even death. In the past, when he saw people dying on the road, the withered fields, the beggars, and even when he was about to starve to death, he did not have too many emotions. This was the way of the world. There was nothing strange about it. However, when he thought about how these things would not be gone, he suddenly felt that it was already very tragic.
As he thought about this, he gradually became more and more diligent when he practiced his saber technique that night. He thought that if there was any more chaos in the future, there would only be death. In the early morning of the next day, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, he woke up early again and practiced his saber technique dozens of times in the inn's courtyard.
On this day, after breakfast, the three of them set off once again, setting foot on the road to Zezhou. The summer was scorching, and the official road that had not been maintained for many years was not easy to travel on. They were surrounded by low grass, short trees, and low hills. Occasionally, they would see villages, but they all seemed desolate and dispirited. This was the usual atmosphere in the chaotic world. There were people in twos and threes on the road, and there were even more of them compared to the day before. Clearly, they were all travelers heading to Zezhou. Among them, they also encountered quite a number of people from the Green Forest who carried weapons with them. There were also some who had specially made yellow cloth belts tied around their waists. These were the symbols of the Great Radiant Sect's secular disciples and protectors.
On this day, at noon, they saw a group of carriages, horses, and soldiers coming from the road in a grandiose manner.
There were about three to five hundred soldiers, surrounding and guarding the carriages of a few Jin Kingdom's nobles. Wherever they passed by, the passersby would kneel and lower their heads. You Hongzhuo and the other two rested on a hill near the post road, watching this scene from afar. When the group of carriages passed by, they also saw the curtain of the carriage in the middle of the group being blown open by the wind, and a young lady dressed in luxurious clothes peeked out from within. Although she was a Jin person, she did not look ferocious.
'If I were down there, I'd most likely be able to chop off her head with a single slash if I were to attack now …'
You Hongzhuo was a young man, and when he saw the people on the road being forced to kneel and kowtow, he was filled with righteous indignation. As he thought of this, he saw someone in the crowd suddenly rise up and shoot a sleeve arrow toward the lady on the carriage. This person rose up so abruptly that many people had yet to react. The next moment, a soldier riding on a horse beside the carriage pounced forward and used his body to block the sleeve arrow. The soldier fell to the ground, and the people around him reacted and rushed toward the assassin.
The assassin's sleeve arrow did not hit its target, so he used the cover of the people around him to escape. The guards rushed over, and for a moment, the surroundings seemed to explode. The commoners who were kneeling there blocked the soldiers' path, and they were knocked into a pool of blood. The assassin fled up the hill, and a large number of soldiers behind him drew their bows and released arrows. Two volleys of arrows were fired, and several commoners were killed by the collateral damage. The assassin took two arrows in his back, and fell dead among the rocks on the hill.
The sudden assassination caused the atmosphere around the post road to change, and the passersby could not help but tremble in fear. The soldiers ran around the area, cutting off the assassin's head, and at the same time, searching for the assassin's accomplices among the surrounding Woodland people. The soldier who sacrificed himself to block the arrows for the Jin people did not die, and after a brief inspection, the surrounding soldiers cheered.
This group of soldiers were all Han people.
On this day's journey, there was only such a small incident. The three of them were not affected, and when they arrived at around 5 pm, a yellow ancient city surrounded by rivers appeared in front of them on the meandering official road. They had arrived at Zezhou.
Zezhou was the geographical hub of the Central Plains' Taihang and Heshuo regions. It was a majestic town in southern Hebei Province, surrounded by water on all sides, and the city was very sturdy. Ever since Tian Hu occupied it, he had been carefully managing it, and it was now a strategic location at the border of the Tiger King's territory. During this period of time, because Wang Shitong had been detained, Tian Hu's troops and the surrounding Woodland people had all gathered here, and Zezhou City had also strengthened its defenses and vigilance. For a moment, the atmosphere outside the city was quite lively.
The soldiers gathered at the city gates, and it was quite troublesome to inspect them, so the three of them spent some time before they could enter the city. Zezhou's geographical location was important, and it had a long history. The houses and buildings in the city could be seen to be quite old, and the market was dirty and old, but there were many pedestrians. At this time, what appeared in front of them the most were the soldiers who had taken off their armors but not their uniforms. They were in groups of three to five, and they strolled around the city streets, making a lot of noise.
The three of them found an inn in the city to stay. You Hongzhuo asked around and found out about the development of the matter, and he was a little dumbfounded for a moment.
The rebel king, Wang Shitong, and a group of his henchmen had been detained in Zezhou a few days ago, and they were to be executed six days later. The person in charge of escorting the rebels over was the Tiger King's general, Sun Qi. He led the 50,000 troops under his command, as well as the 20,000 troops that were originally stationed here, and they were now stationed in Zezhou to keep watch.
At present, 70,000 troops under the Tiger King's command had gathered in Zezhou alone. Although most of these troops were arranged to be stationed in the military camps outside the city, after the great victory against the 'hungry ghosts' just now, the military discipline of the troops could no longer be maintained. Every day, large numbers of soldiers would enter the city to visit prostitutes, drink, or cause trouble. This added to the liveliness of Zezhou at this time.
However, with 70,000 troops keeping watch, whether it was the Woodland people who had gathered here or the rumored remnants of Black Flag, how big of a wave could they cause here?
The setting sun shone on the simple and unadorned earth building of the small inn in Zezhou. For a moment, You Hongzhuo, who had just arrived, was a little confused. Meanwhile, upstairs, the Twin Killers of the Dark Winds, Zhao couple, pushed open the window and looked at the simple and unadorned city hidden in the quiet blood-red afterglow.
The liveliness of the city also represented a rare prosperity. This was a rare and peaceful moment.
*****
Everything had its cause and effect. The birth and death of one thing was bound to be accompanied by the disturbance of another cause. If there was a supreme existence in this world, in his eyes, this world might be countless moving lines. They appeared, developed, collided, bifurcated, twisted, annihilated, and continued with time …
In the eighth year of the Wu dynasty, and in the sixth year of the Da Qi dynasty, the Central Plains was a chaotic land that had lost most of its order. In this land, the rise and fall of forces, the success and failure of ambitious people, the gathering and dispersing of people — no matter how bizarre and abrupt it was, was no longer a matter of surprise.
Because there was no reason for the gathering and dispersing, all major events seemed ordinary. Of course, perhaps only the participants of each gathering and dispersing could feel the suffocating heaviness and unforgettable pain.
The Central Plains, Wei Sheng, was now an important place in the Central Plains.
This was because Prince Jin, Tian Hu, had set his capital here.
Prince Jin, also known as the Tiger King, was originally a hunter. When the Wu dynasty was still prosperous, he rose in rebellion and occupied land to become king. In all fairness, his schemes were not considered profound. Along the way, whether it was rebellion, encroachment of land, or proclaiming himself emperor, he was not clever. However, in the blink of an eye, more than 10 years had passed. The rebels and ambitious people of his generation had all left the stage of history. This Tiger King, on the other hand, had seized the opportunity of the Jin Kingdom's invasion and relied on his clumsy maneuvering and forbearance to conquer a large territory. Moreover, his foundation had become increasingly solid.
For more than 10 years, although they were still nominally under the command of Great Qi's Liu Yu, the leaders of many forces in the Central Plains understood that in terms of strength alone, the power under the Tiger King had long surpassed that of the nominal Great Qi imperial court. A few years after the establishment of Great Qi, he occupied a large area on the north bank of the Yellow River and immersed himself in development. Amidst the chaotic situation in the world, he had maintained the safest area north of the Yellow River and even north of the Yangtze River. In terms of foundation alone, compared to Liu Yu, who had only been established for a mere six years, and the many forces that had risen to power in a shorter period of time, he was already the most "prestigious family".
Of course, even so, Prince Jin's imperial court would still have struggles.
In the more than 10 years since the establishment of the Wu dynasty, Prince Jin's imperial court had experienced dozens of big and small political struggles. One by one, the rising stars under the Tiger King's system fell. Batch after batch of popular people in the imperial court gained and lost power. This was also a test that a rough regime would inevitably face. In the fifth month of the eighth year of the Wu dynasty, Wei Sheng's imperial court experienced another turbulence. An "old man" who had once been in an important position under the Tiger King's tent collapsed. For the people in the imperial court, this was neither a big nor a small matter.
Parallel to this matter was the migration and invasion of hundreds of thousands of hungry ghosts outside the borders of Prince Jin's territory. Therefore, at the end of the fifth month, Tiger King ordered the army to be mobilized — and now, this matter had also come to an end.
A complete victory.
It was getting late. The entire Wei Sheng City seemed to be prosperous, but there were teams of soldiers constantly patrolling the streets of the city. The security was extremely tight. Tiger King's palace, the "Celestial Palace", which took more than 10 years to build, was also heavily guarded. The powerful official, Hu Ying, passed through the overlapping corridors of the Celestial Palace. Along the way, after being reported by the guards, he saw the Tiger King, Tian Hu, who was sitting in the palace.
He was here to report on the most important recent events, and this included the progress in Ze Province. The "Ghost King" Wang Shitong was the most crucial part of the series of actions taken by Prince Jin's subordinates.
"... At present, it can be confirmed that this Wang Shitong was indeed a remnant of the Black Flag in the Small Cang River. Currently, there are no obvious movements of the Black Flag in Ze Province. Many people from the Green Forest Sect have gone there under the instigation of the Great Radiant Sect, but it is not a cause for concern. As for the other places, they are under strict surveillance … "
Hu Ying reported the situation one after another. Tian Hu quietly listened to him and stood up. He looked at Hu Ying coldly for a long time before he finally walked to the window.
"Inner Demon Ning Yi is indeed a demon in the hearts of the people. Minister Hu, I have prepared for this for two years. As long as the Black Flag is not eliminated, it will be difficult for me to make any big moves in the Central Plains. Keep a close eye on this matter. I will not mistreat you. "
"I have also prepared for this for two years. I will definitely sacrifice my life to live up to the expectations Your Majesty has entrusted to me!"
As Hu Ying expressed his loyalty, Tian Hu looked at the scenery outside the window with a fierce gaze. Two years ago, the death of Ning Yi, the Heart Demon, caused the people of the world to be stunned. However, the many pieces of news that followed also caused many of the factions in the Central Plains to be unable to advance or retreat. It was as if there was a fishbone stuck in their throats. Over the past two years, although the Central Plains no longer mentioned Black Flag, Ning Yi, and the other matters, all the rising factions in this area were actually feeling uneasy. No one knew how many chess pieces of Black Flag had quietly infiltrated into the inner workings of every faction since five years ago.
However, one thing was clear. These things were not baseless. In the past two years, whether it was Liu Yu's Daqi Imperial Court or Tiger King's Imperial Court, they had more or less caught or discovered the traces of the Black Flag's remnants. As rulers, how could they tolerate such suspicions?
After two years of peace and chaos, Prince Jin, Tian Hu, who had the deepest control over his own strength, finally began to take action. He wanted to pull out the poisonous thorn that had pierced into his body!
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