girl let me check

Chapter 445: Clouds and Rains Across the World

On the night of April 9th, Yuzhou, Ruyin.

This was once the ancestral home of the Zhou family of Runan. As the Zhou family moved to the south of the Yangtze River, the entire Ruyin County was captured by foreign troops half a month ago, but the city was not massacred.

A fine spring rain is falling in Ruyin tonight.

"There is a ban at night! No one except the unauthorized persons are allowed to enter or leave!" The soldiers at the city gate shouted at a group of people who wanted to enter the city.

In such a large Zhou Dynasty, people's hearts were naturally not monolithic. Some people resisted, and some surrendered. In fact, relying solely on the troops of the foreign tribes, it was impossible to conquer the five northern continents of the Great Zhou Dynasty in a short period of time. The foreign troops only attacked the cities and passed through the borders, leaving a few people to monitor the areas that were not massacred, and the task of management and governance was given to the surrendered soldiers from the Central Plains.

Most of the surrendered soldiers were local defense troops, with weak fighting power and willpower, but they were numerous. The fact that a foreign army of only 150,000 could be so crazy as to claim to have 800,000 soldiers was due in no small part to the surrendered soldiers.

"Sir, we just want to stay in the city for one night and leave tomorrow." The old man who was leading the people said tremblingly.

"Stay for one night?" The gatekeeper sneered, "If everyone in the world comes to stay here for one night, will this city still be needed?"

"General, it's still raining outside and we are really at our wits' end. There are children here, can you please be flexible?" The old man's face changed, he suppressed his anger, and said with a smile.

"Concession? Bullshit concession." The soldier pushed the old man impatiently, causing him to stagger and fall into the mud.

“Rules are rules! The Tuoba family’s convoy is coming tonight, get out of here now! If you are an eyesore to the adults, don’t force me to take action!” He grinned and took out his sword, with a faint fluctuation of blood around him.

This was actually a Mingwu with great accomplishments. The people were angry but dared not speak out and could only swallow their anger.

"Dad, are you okay?" A young man helped the old man up from the mud, with anger on his face.

The old man coughed, shook his head, and looked gloomy.

"It's okay, let's go."

"These beasts are obviously Zhou people, but they surrendered to the foreign race and became running dogs. Now they are ruthlessly bullying their own people." The young man said angrily.

He had clearly lowered his voice, but it still reached the ears of the gatekeeper.

"What did you just say?!" the soldier was furious.

He was originally a street thug, but he was lucky enough to be revived and had some skills. When he was about to make a name for himself, he encountered the Taikang Rebellion. Between serving the country and saving his life, he chose the latter without hesitation.

That's why people like him are most resistant to hearing others' advice on them.

The soldier pulled the old man away and grabbed the young man by the collar: "Do you have the guts to say that again?"

"General..." The old man turned pale instantly.

Being stared at by the soldier's fierce eyes, the young man's throat was strangled and he couldn't breathe smoothly. His face turned red and he felt the hot blood rushing to his head.

"I say, you are a traitor who betrays your own country." He stretched out his lips and smiled with difficulty.

"laugh!"

Blood foam splattered, and the soldier laughed cruelly at his suddenly widened eyes.

The soldier pushed his bleeding body away, knife in hand, with a look of contempt.

"You..." The old man fell beside his son, his eyes bloodshot, "You killed someone?"

"Kill people? Old man, this is a chaotic world, what's the big deal about killing a few people?" The soldier laughed nonchalantly, "I tell you, in this world, whoever has the sharpest knife deserves to live!"

"I have cultivation, but he doesn't. Isn't it only natural for me to kill him?"

The soldier looked at the people who were retreating in fear behind the old man, his eyes full of bloodthirsty look.

"Not only will I kill him, I will kill you too." The soldier waved his hand, "Brothers, get to work. There are a few pretty girls here. It's a good time to have some meat!"

The soldiers defending the city gathered together like hungry wolves with malicious intentions.

"You will be punished!" the old man shouted sternly, holding his son.

"Retribution? What retribution?" The soldier laughed. "If there is retribution, come on, see if I'm afraid of it!"

The other soldier had grown impatient waiting.

He walked towards the crowd, his target was the most beautiful civilian woman: "Boss, why are you talking so much? Let your brother try the feel of this little girl for you first..."

His words were interrupted and he suddenly stopped moving.

"What's wrong?" asked the leading soldier.

The man turned around, blood foam oozing from the corners of his mouth. His eyes bulged out, and he made a "ho ho" sound while breathing and covering his neck.

There was a pitch-black crossbow arrow stuck there.

"Enemy attack!"

The leading soldier was startled and started shouting loudly.

"Whoosh whoosh!"

The sound of crossbow arrows breaking through the wind rang out one after another, and many surrendered soldiers around him howled in pain from being shot and fell to the ground.

A group of ambushes rushed out from the bushes on both sides of the official road, with shining swords, wet cloaks, and black armor reflecting cold light in the rain.

The soldier did not recognize the differences between the flags of the various towns in the nine borders of Changyuan, nor did he recognize what the imperial guards of the six guards of the Northern Yamen looked like, but there was no way he did not recognize the attire of these people.

The black-armored wild goose sword, this is the Xuanzhongwei of the Zhou Empire!

The soldier was so frightened that he didn't care about bullying civilians, but even if he had ten times the courage, he would not dare to conflict with the notorious Xuan Zhongwei.

Taking advantage of the chaotic situation, he turned around and ran backwards in embarrassment.

A dull yellow sword blocked his way.

Under the hood was a black dress, revealing a girl with almond eyes and rosy cheeks. Her appearance was pure and beautiful, far more beautiful than any other woman he had ever seen in his life.

"you……"

The long sword hit his chest with its side, causing him to feel a sharp pain, as if his ribs were broken. With a huge force, he spurted out blood, rolled back in a panic, and fell into the mud.

The girl pressed his head into the mud with one foot, and with the tip of the sword against his neck, she said coldly:

"It is only natural for you to kill them. It is even more natural for me to kill you."

The battle around ended quickly, and none of Xuan Zhongwei was injured, and he easily dealt with the group of surrendered soldiers guarding the gate.

"It's Xuan Zhongwei! It's our Great Zhou's Xuan Zhongwei!"

The people around had expressions of having survived a disaster, and several women began to wipe their tears and cry.

There was never a moment when they felt so at ease when seeing these dark armors.

The old man knelt down with tears in his eyes and said, "Sir, please, save my son, please..."

Xiao Jin opened his hands, and pieces of life peeled off the soldier until he was no longer breathing. A thick white ball of light was shot out and fell on the old man's dying son. His wounds healed at an extremely fast speed, like a miracle. "Thank you, sir, thank you, sir." The old man kowtowed repeatedly.

"Go south. Once you cross the river, it will be safe." Xiao Jin said.

"Sir, is there still the Great Zhou in the south?" a young girl asked timidly.

She was about the same age as me, and her eyebrows still carried the innocence and timidity of a young girl. She was at the most beautiful age for a woman, so beautiful, but my hands were already stained with blood and life.

Xiao Jin was silent for a moment, then said softly, "Yes."

"If Shouchun is taken, there's still Hefei. If Hefei is taken, there's still Jinling. We won't give up on anyone, and Xuanzhongwei will fight for the Great Zhou until the last moment."

"As long as you are here and we are here, the hope of the Great Zhou will be here."

"Go quickly, be careful, and take care of yourself."

The people left.

Xiao Jin stood alone in the drizzling rain, with Ruyin City engulfed in flames behind her.

"Miss, everything is done." Xiao Bi came running over and said with a folded hand, "The feather letter reported that the two troops sent to Qiao County and Xincai have also completed the planned plan."

"Tuoba Liang's army will be in a food shortage within half a month!"

She nodded slightly, and the Zhuye Sword flashed with an enchanting bloody light.

"Miss, where are we going next?"

"Anfeng." Xiao Jin said, "The West City Embankment on the Huai River."

"Let's blow it up." the girl said coldly.

……

……

Yangzhou, Lujiang County, Shouchun City.

"boom!"

The skyfire hit the city wall, and a huge fireball rose up dozens of feet high. The deafening explosion made people's eardrums hurt, and large pieces of cast iron bricks were shattered into powder and fell one after another.

"Fight back! Fight back!"

The Lujiang Army shouted while holding their spears.

He held a red and green flag in each hand and waved them toward the sky in an orderly manner. A signal came from him.

"Alien artillery appears, correct the shooting direction. Left fourteen, up eight, full string! Fire!"

The Lujiang army controlled three crossbows to launch a counterattack. Arrows as thick as bowls flew like crows and pressed down on the alien army.

The arrows tore the armor apart, the cold iron broke the wooden gate, blood flowers exploded in the sky above the alien army, and the bandits fell to the ground with howls.

"boom!"

The aliens' artillery fire never stopped, and there were several dense and loud noises.

There were endless shouts and screams. He turned his head with his spear in hand and saw that the city wall ten feet away was shaking and was about to collapse.

The man holding the spear couldn't help but feel terrified.

He knew that the Shouchun City Wall was built by Lord Xie at a cost of 3.2 million taels of silver and 150,000 civilians. The outer shell was made of marine rock infiltrated with rice paste, and the inner layer was a complete wall of compacted earth. The defensive power was even comparable to the Changming City Wall built by the whole country a thousand years ago.

Such a city wall could actually be torn into cracks by foreign artillery and almost collapsed. Is the lethality of this weapon so terrifying?
"Buzz!"

The foreign horns blew, and the army in the distance began to move. Under the rising murderous and bloody aura, he could see the shadows of battering rams and ladders.

As a former captain of the Dragon Warrior Army, the battle-hardened warrior made a prompt decision and shouted:

"Everyone move! Get on the platform!"

The so-called pier is the protruding part of the city wall. If one side of the city wall is flat, the firepower of the defenders will not be able to cover the enemy when they reach the bottom of the wall, so the extended pier is designed to eliminate this gap.

However, the defense of Shouchun City was designed by Xie Lingwan himself, and its towers were different from those of other cities. In addition to dozens of small towers, there were two long large towers at the three-point points of the city. These large towers were fifteen feet wide and several hundred feet long, extending all the way to the distant bank of the Huai River. They were equipped with granaries, arsenals, and military roads, just like the two acropolises of Shouchun.

Normally, this design is not conducive to the defenders, because the enemy can first seize these two towers and then use them as a breakthrough point to approach the main city wall, and the extended towers are not convenient for the defenders to deploy firepower, which is equivalent to weakening the firepower coverage of the defenders.

But the reason why Xie Lingwan built these two strange towers was to deal with the situation today. The alien army must first seize the towers, otherwise the dense horizontal firepower on these two towers hundreds of feet long will make their siege troops miserable. If they use artillery to bombard the towers, the risk of damage to the main city wall will be converted into the risk of damage to the towers. The length of hundreds of feet will also greatly consume the enemy's ammunition reserves, giving the Great Zhou army more time to counterattack.

If they use artillery to bombard the main city wall for cover and adopt close combat to seize the tower, the situation will turn into the bloodiest tug-of-war between offense and defense.

And this is what Xie Lingwan most wants to see.

Most of the frontline officers in the north of Shouchun City were experienced veterans with high execution capabilities. With Xie Lingwan's advance notice, they all made the decision to move to the upper pier.

So when the foreign army carried the ladders and pushed the battering rams to a hundred meters in front of the city gate, they saw an extremely strange scene. There was no one at the gap in the city wall, only the cold sword tips of the three crossbows. On the piers on both sides, the archers of the Lujiang Army raised their crossbows and aimed their arrows at them.

In an instant, thousands of arrows were fired, and the dense rain of arrows shot from three directions directly turned the charging alien army into a sieve.

"Thank you for the order, sir. There is no need to save arrows! When there are enough arrows, they can be shot immediately after they are drawn!" The messenger struck the gong and ran to every position on the city wall to tell the news.

At that time, Jiangnan was prosperous and the weather was good. The north had suffered from drought for many years, and most of the refugees who fled south gathered in Jingkou. The refugees moved around and caused many disasters. In order to supervise and suppress these refugees, Fang Zun specially set up the Jiangzuo Huainan Town Guard in Jingkou, and moved the Jiangnan garrison and the Yangtze River Navy station here, collectively known as the Jiangnan Town Government. Therefore, Jingkou was also called the North Prefecture by the Jiangnan families. Xie Lingwan trained the Lujiang, Anfeng, and Guangling armies. For convenience, the town government was also set up in Jingkou. These three new armies were also called the North Prefecture Army by the people of Jiangnan.

The new army of the Northern Palace was mainly composed of refugees from the north, most of whom came from the people of the four states of Yan, Yu, Qing and Xu who were displaced by the invasion of foreign races from the south. Their hatred for foreign races was far greater than that of the people in the south of the Yangtze River. The salary Xie Lingwan offered them was not very high, just slightly less than the standard of the Jinwu Guards of the Changming Imperial Army. But even so, the refugees from the north were still very enthusiastic to sign up for the army, and even six out of ten men chose to join the army.

Now that the aliens are present, they finally have the opportunity to kill the enemies with their own hands.

The alien horns sounded again, but they were even more shrill than before.

This is a message of retreat.

"Report, the aliens have withdrawn!" The messenger rushed into the lobby under the city.

This was originally Shouchun's city defense camp, and now it has been temporarily requisitioned and converted into a command center, where the most powerful people in the entire Great Zhou Dynasty gathered.

Almost all the high-ranking officials from the royalist families gathered here, including Pingyuan King Fang Xuanmei, Chenjun Duke Xie Mingren, Pingjiang County Marquis Xiao Fuwei, Yangping County Marquis Xiao Yangwang, and Runan County Marquis Zhou Liangyi.

But it wasn't just any one of them who sat at the top.

"Miss Xie, this is impolite of us in our first battle with a foreign race. How should I wait?" Fang Xuanmei asked.

A young girl, dressed in green like a willow and with a jade hairpin as bright as the moon, is sitting on the steps, and in front of the steps are the dignitaries of the court.

She was twirling a long-rose between her slender fingers, her expression focused, indifferent and nonchalant.

"Keep your troops in place." Xie Lingwan said.

(End of this chapter)