Tibet.

Chapter 1471 It’s hard to escape
Jia Yuan was the third generation of the Linqiong Jia family. It was under his leadership that the Jia family developed rapidly and eventually became the second largest family in Bashu after the Guo family.

Jia Yuan is sixty years old this year. Thirty years ago, he began to train scholars to serve the Jia family, and used the Jia family's financial resources and connections to support them to move up step by step.

This is one of the two things one must do to become a noble family in Bashu, one is to expand and spread out, the other is to have intertwined roots.

To have tangled roots means to cultivate cronies in officialdom, and to have numerous branches and leaves means to marry wives and concubines for children and grandchildren, and to have children desperately.

After thirty years of perseverance, Jia Yuan finally reaped a rich harvest. He controlled the five states in Jiannan Road, and everyone from the governor and the chief secretary to the county officials were his people.

In addition, he had more than one hundred descendants and more than one hundred daughters and granddaughters. At the same time, his daughters and granddaughters brought him sons-in-law and grandsons-in-law.

All of the more than one hundred descendants developed well. Some became officials, some did business, and some joined the army. In Jia Xiu's camp alone, there were eighteen Jia generals and seven son-in-law generals. Of course, all of them were executed.

Jia Yuan has been a little nervous these two days. According to his experience, once they openly oppose the court's abolition order, if the court wants to resolve the issue through negotiation, the first thing to do is for Wang Wei, the governor of Jiannan Road, to visit him, but so far Wang Wei has not come to visit him.

This made Jia Yuan feel something was wrong, especially tonight. He became increasingly anxious and restless. He sat in front of the study window, thinking about all sorts of things and almost did not sleep all night.

Suddenly, "Bang!" The study door was knocked open, and brother Jia Xiu stumbled in, crying, "Brother, run away! The Tang army is coming!"

Jia Yuan's mind went blank for a moment, and it took him a while to realize that if he ran away, what would happen to his descendants? What would happen to his family business? And what about the thousands of salt wells?
"Brother, hurry up and leave! Li Sheng is personally leading an army to kill us. There are at least 20,000 to 30,000 of them. If you don't leave now, it will be all over!"

Jia Yuan was startled. He turned around and pulled out an iron box from the secret cabinet. In the iron box were not any priceless treasures, but various items needed for escape, various travel permits issued by the government, an exquisite human skin mask, house deeds and land deeds to major cities such as Chang'an and Luoyang, and of course more than one hundred taels of gold. This was the way out he left for himself.

The two brothers no longer cared about their descendants and family property. They got on a three-horse carriage and fled out of the city under the escort of a hundred cavalrymen.

They ran to the gate in a moment, and the guard on duty hurriedly opened the city gate for them. Jia Yuan gave a few instructions to the head of the servants.

The chief of the retainers stepped forward and said to the gatekeeper, "You are the gatekeeper, right?"

The gatekeeper bowed and said, "I am Liu Kang, the captain on duty!"

The head of the family servants said arrogantly: "My master said that as long as you keep silent and don't say anything, I will reward you with a thousand strings of cash later!"

"I won't say anything, thank you for the generous reward!"

The leader of the servants turned around and waved his hand, and everyone surrounded the carriage and rushed out of the city gate, galloping along the northwest official road towards Maozhou.

The gatekeeper watched them walk away and spit on the ground fiercely, "Damn it, you still owe me the reward money, do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Close the city gate!"

Maozhou was the territory of the Liao people. Jia Yuan's mother and wife were both daughters of the Liao leader. They had close ties with the Liao people for generations. Jia Yuan also became the second-generation king protector, who was responsible for communicating between the Han people and the Liao people.

The previous generation of King Liao was both Jia Yuan's father-in-law and his uncle, but the previous generation of King Liao has died. The current King Liao is more complicated. He is Jia Yuan's brother-in-law, cousin, and relative. Jia Yuan's eldest son married the daughter of King Liao.

Of course, Jia Yuan’s wife had passed away, and his eldest son’s family was in Maozhou, otherwise Jia Yuan would have brought his eldest son and wife with him, otherwise he would not have been able to meet his in-laws.

Not long after the Jia brothers left, the Tang cavalry arrived.

Liu Kang, the captain on duty at the city gate, had a relatively low position and had no connection with the Jia family. It was precisely because of this that he had no connection with the Jia family that he had to do such a hard job as night duty.

When Liu Kang saw the Jia family's carriage, he instinctively opened the city gate and let it go, but he did not react and did not know who was in the carriage.
At this time, Li Sheng led an army of 10,000 soldiers to charge in. A general stepped forward and shouted, "General Li of Jiannan is here, open the city gates immediately!"

Liu Kang recognized the general who was calling for the city gate, Zhao Ting'an, the military commander of Shuzhou. He was startled and quickly ordered the city gate to be opened.

He also ran down the city wall and stood by the city gate. Zhao Ting'an led thousands of cavalrymen into the city. Li Sheng also came. He reined in his horse and asked Liu Kang, "Can you tell me how many troops are in the city?"

"Reporting to the governor, there are five hundred brothers!"

"What is your position?"

"My name is Liu Kang, I am a captain, commanding a hundred men. Am I not from the Jia family?"

Li Sheng was stunned. "How do you know I would ask you if you are from the Jia family?"

"Before, Jia Xiu fled into the city in a panic. Not long after, a hundred cavalrymen escorted a Jia family carriage and escaped. I don't know who was in the carriage, but I think I should tell the governor!"

Li Sheng frowned and asked quickly, "How long have you been escaping?"

"At most a quarter of an hour!" A quarter of an hour was still enough. Li Sheng turned around and ordered General Yu Jianliang, "General Yu, take a thousand cavalrymen to chase after them immediately. We must catch up with the carriage no matter what!"

"Follow the order!"

Yu Jianliang immediately led a thousand cavalrymen and chased towards the northwest at lightning speed.

Li Sheng then entered the city, and found that the vast Jia Mansion had been surrounded by thousands of soldiers.

Jia Xiu inherited his father's will and continued to occupy his neighbors' houses. Eventually, he built the Jia Mansion into a huge house covering an area of ​​120 acres. Four brothers and countless children and grandchildren lived together. Jia Yuan was like an emperor high above, looking down on everything in the family, which greatly satisfied his desire to control the family.

But at this time, the entire Jia family was wiped out. Except for Jia Yuan, his brother Xia Xiu, and the eldest son Jia Mingde, the other Jia family members were tied up and taken out by Tang army soldiers, wailing. Soon, the governor Jia Wei, the county magistrate Jia Kuan, and other Jia family officials were all tied up and brought in by soldiers. Zhao Tingan knew the situation of the Jia family very well, and he started to arrest them. None of the Jia family members in the city escaped.

Li Sheng immediately ordered that all male members of the Jia family over the age of fourteen be escorted out of the city and beheaded, including his son-in-law and grandson, as well as the housekeeper, servants, and so on, nearly five hundred people in total, leaving only a thousand women and a group of children. The Tang army would not kill women and children. This was an iron rule that Li Ye had set in Hezhong, and it had never been violated in the past twenty years. At the same time, raping women was also prohibited.

Previously, Wei Yulin, the general of the Jiannan Army, allowed his soldiers to rape the palace maids and concubines of the Linyi Kingdom. He was escorted back to the country and publicly executed. Therefore, the soldiers who participated in raping women were also expelled from the army and retired. Being expelled from the army means that there will be no land compensation.

Of course, Li Sheng would not trigger this iron rule. These women and children were sent to Chang'an, and later exiled to Liaodong. Of course, they were not sent into exile, but they were allowed to migrate to Liaodong to live. The young women married soldiers and established new families.

Yu Jianliang led a thousand cavalrymen and chased for more than thirty miles in one breath. Yu Jianliang suddenly found a carriage blocking the road in the distance.

He reacted very quickly and shouted, "Be careful of arrows attacking from both sides!"

The soldiers looked to both sides, and sure enough, someone shouted, "Shoot!"

More than a hundred arrows were shot at the cavalry from both sides in front.

These servants ambushed on both sides of the carriage, but were discovered by the Tang army. They could not wait for the Tang army to advance, so they had to shoot arrows in advance. The Tang army raised their shields and urged their horses to kill the ambushing servants on both sides.

When Yu Jianliang saw that the wheel of the cart was broken, he knew very well that the other party was using the cart to block the road and ordered the servants to restrain him. These bastards had a good idea, and they would have no chance of escaping this time.

Yu Jianliang ordered the soldiers to move the carts away and clear the official road, and he led 500 cavalrymen to continue chasing forward.

Yu Jianliang had participated in many battles and was very experienced. He had excellent eyesight and kept staring at the two lines of horseshoe prints on the ground as he chased.

After chasing for more than ten miles, Yu Jianliang found that there were fewer horse hoof prints on the road ahead. He reined in his horse. Suddenly, a soldier pointed at the woods and shouted, "There are horses neighing in the woods!"

Yu Jianliang waved his hand, and five hundred cavalrymen rushed into the woods below the official road like a tide.

The person hiding in the woods was the head of the family, Jia Yuan. He was too old, and his body was hollowed out by alcohol and sex. He could not keep riding a horse for long, and he couldn't bear it after running only a dozen miles.

He had no choice but to let Jia Xiu continue running to attract the Tang army to chase him, and he hid in the woods. He went deeper and deeper, but his horse was unwilling to follow him into the forest. It struggled desperately and neighed a few times, which was heard by the Tang soldiers.

The warhorse broke free from its reins and ran away with the box, leaving Jia Yuan alone in the dark forest.

Jia Yuan was exhausted, his legs felt like lead, and he could not walk any further. He had no choice but to sit down against a big tree, panting.

At this time, Jia Yuan was filled with regret. He had sacrificed his entire family for the sake of fighting against the emperor with more than 10,000 slaves.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I was so arrogant. Did I think the emperor would compromise with me?

I am so stupid! I am so stupid that I have lived like a dog all my life. If I had been a little bit afraid of the imperial power and released all the slaves, the Jia family would have definitely continued to carry on the family line.

Jia Yuan whined, "I'm so stupid!"

At this time, torches not far away gradually gathered around.

Jia Yuan knew he couldn't escape, so he took out a small wine bottle from his arms, sobbed for a while, then raised his head and drank the poisoned wine in one gulp.

He slowly closed his eyes.

Soon, more than a hundred Tang soldiers holding torches surrounded Jia Yuan. A soldier stepped forward and felt his breath, then turned back and shouted, "General Yu, he's dead!"

Yu Jianliang walked forward and took a closer look. It was indeed Jia Yuan. Although he failed to catch up with Jia Xiu, the head of the family, Jia Yuan, was caught up, so he could go back and report.

"Cut off his head, bury the body, and take the head back!"

(End of this chapter)