Aoyama

Chapter 286: Take orders from heaven and live forever

has it ended?

ended.

Li Xuan panted and looked around. Blood mixed with dirt and corpses were everywhere, like a purgatory on earth.

Break through the enemy's formation, be the first to climb the ladder, seize the flag, and kill the general. Breaking through the enemy's formation is the easiest, while killing the general is the hardest.

Once the commander dies, the army will be defeated.

When Li Xuan set out on this bloody road with the determination to die, he actually never thought that he would really be able to appear in front of Yuan Zhen. At this moment, he just felt that it was a little unreal.

It was like a dream and he didn't know whether he should wake up.

At this time, Chen Ji struggled to get up from the ground, looking surprised and doubtful.

Seeing Li Xuan in a daze, he immediately tore off his clothes and rushed forward, wrapped Yuan Zhen's head and handed it to Li Xuan.

Li Xuan came back to his senses and took the head. He subconsciously wanted to untie the black cloth wrapped around the head, but Chen Ji held him tightly.

Li Xuan looked at Chen Ji in confusion, but Chen Ji did not explain: "Quick! Don't let the border troops suffer any more casualties!"

Li Xuan immediately raised the black cloth wrapped around Yuan Zhen's head and shouted angrily: "Yuan Zhen is dead!"

The battlefield was silent for a moment, and then there was a roar of applause, with the frontier soldiers shouting excitedly one after another: "Yuan Zhen is dead!"

"Yuan Zhen is dead!"

"Yuan Zhen is dead!"

The sound spread from near to far, rolling outward like a tide. In an instant, the morale of the Tiance Army was completely gone. Except for the Yuanzhen Guard Battalion, everyone slowly put down their weapons and no longer had the will to fight.

The Tiger-Armored Cavalry quickly penetrated the group, drove the Tian Ce Army soldiers to one place, took away their weapons, removed their armor, led away their horses, and even threw down hemp ropes, ordering the Tian Ce Army soldiers to tie each other up.

The war is truly over.

In the dark night, the border soldiers sat on the ground.

Chen Ji originally thought that they would cry or cheer, but they didn't. There was only endless confusion and silence on the battlefield.

At this moment, the Tiger-Armored Cavalry raised their iron halberds again and rode their horses back and forth among the captives of the Tian Ce Army!

This sudden change startled the border troops so much that they stood up again and watched in confusion as the Tiger Armored Cavalry slaughtered the Tian Ce Army.

Li Xuan roared: "What are you doing? You didn't kill the surrendered generals in front of the battlefield! It's not that I am soft-hearted, but I set a precedent. No one will be willing to surrender to our dynasty in the future. If our soldiers surrender to Jing Dynasty, they will also be slaughtered!"

But the tiger-armored cavalrymen kept shaking their halberds, as if they heard nothing.

There was the sound of horse hooves in the distance. Li Xuan turned around and saw Mr. Feng riding towards him.

Mr. Feng said from a distance: "After Guyuan surrenders, can the Tiance Army keep its promise? In the Jingning Dynasty, there have always been more people from my dynasty who surrendered to Jing, and fewer people from Jing Dynasty surrendered to me. We are fighting to the death, and this time, I will make those spineless people give up the thought."

After that, the Tiger Armored Cavalry continued to kill the prisoners, leaving no one alive. It was too late for the Tiance Army to resist again.

After they had slaughtered all the Tian Ce Army, Li Xuan was furious when he saw the Tiger Armored Cavalry and the Elephant Armored Guards raising their swords to his neck at the same time, their movements were so coordinated that they looked like the same person.

The next moment, the elite members of the Liu family committed suicide together, fell off their horses, and fell in a pool of blood!
This scene frightened the border troops so much that they retreated again and again. Even though they were experienced in many battles, they had never seen such a sight!

Li Xuan's anger turned into shock and he was speechless for a moment.

Only Chen Ji guessed that these elite troops of the Liu family had been suppressed by Mr. Feng's magic of exorcism, and the other party was so impatient to open the gates and surrender the city, burn the granary, and sell the prince, probably because they could no longer be suppressed.

Therefore, the Tian Ce Army must die, otherwise after the Liu family's elite troops get out of control, the remnants of the border army's infantry will be unable to clean up the mess.

Chen Ji looked around, but saw that Hu Junxian and Zhou You looked normal, as if they had already known about this.

Mr. Feng ignored him and pointed at the corpses and weapons on the ground. He smiled and said to Hu Junxian, "General Hu, the five thousand war horses, ten thousand sets of armor, bows, halberds, and swords that the Prime Minister promised you are all here. Take them. With these weapons, Guyuan City can guard the border for another fifty years for the Ning Dynasty."

Hu Junxian had a blank expression on his face: "The way the Minister of Internal Affairs sent the weapons was quite unique."

Mr. Feng didn't care about his attitude, and praised himself: "This is the weapon that the Liu family spent a lot of money to build, especially the leather armor of the Elephant Armor Battalion. I am a little reluctant to give it to you... It can be regarded as making up for the Guyuan Border Army!"

The heavier the armor, the better.

The leather armor of the Elephant Armor Battalion is made from rhinoceros skin. After several months of hardening, it is treated with lacquer and iron sand to harden the surface. Even a mountain axe cannot break it. It is light and strong, and is most suitable for elite troops to rush and infiltrate.

Throughout the history of war, only the elite among the elite were qualified to wear leather armor.

Mr. Feng did not say any polite words, he really wanted to leave the leather armor to Jie Fanwei.

At this time, Li Xuan supported himself with his sword and asked angrily, "Is this all the work of the Imperial Household Department? He is indeed a vicious minister, who disregarded the lives of half of the people in Guyuan and carried out such a vicious plan!"

Mr. Feng did not take it as an offense, but just said casually: "Master Li, it doesn't matter if you say I am vicious, but if you make false comments about the Prime Minister, be careful of your life. This time, I will spare your life because you have killed the general. As the saying goes, righteousness cannot manage money, and kindness cannot lead the army. Do you know that after this battle, Guyuan completely wiped out the main force of the Tiance Army and killed the old enemy Yuan Zhen, how many years of peace can Guyuan have? How many deaths will be saved in the border troops?"

After that, he looked up at Hu Junxian, pointed at Li Xuan and said, "General Hu, he is somewhat similar to you in the past, but I don't know when he can be sharpened. His soft heart must be hardened and made as rough as the stone in Guyuan, so that he can be of great use."

Li Xuan could not accept Mr. Feng's words, and immediately threw Yuan Zhen's head to the ground: "The merit of killing a general in exchange for tens of thousands of lives, it's better not to have it!"

A thud.

The sound of the head falling to the ground was not accompanied by the sound of blood and flesh. Li Xuan was startled and immediately squatted down and lifted the black cloth. There was only a piece of pine wood stake inside and Yuan Zhen's head was gone!

Li Xuan turned back to look at the traces, and recalled the other party's action of stopping him from pulling off the black cloth just now. He must have discovered it at that time. But for the sake of the overall situation, he covered it with a black cloth and endured it.

Chen Ji was silent. He could find out because he did not receive the ice flow when Yuan Zhen's head was cut off. How could a second-rank official of the Jing Dynasty not have ice flow after his death?

Mr. Feng looked at the wooden stake and narrowed his eyes slightly.

He jumped off his horse lightly and kicked open Yuan Zhen's robe with his toes, revealing several pieces of wood inside his clothes, an imperial edict, and a yellow paper talisman stuck on the wood.

He put his hands in his sleeves, not getting angry, but just sighed softly: "It's really hard to kill... But, I finally found the trace of this fellow disciple of the magic of victory."

Li Xuan suddenly remembered something: "No, if Yuan Zhen in the Tiance Army was a plant puppet, why was he able to ward off evil spirits?"

Mr. Feng thought for a moment and said, "I guess the problem lies with the imperial edict."

After saying that, he bent down, picked up the imperial edict and unfolded it, and saw it was written in blood.

In the imperial edict, there was no "The Emperor, by the Mandate of Heaven, decrees that"; it only had eight characters written on it:

Mandated by Heaven,

May you live long and prosper!

At the end, there is a vermilion seal!
"The emperor's blood letter," Mr. Feng sighed, "I was wondering why he carried an imperial edict with him. It turns out he was just trying to scare people."

He turned to look at Hu Junxian: "General Hu, if this man is not removed, Guyuan will be in turmoil."

Hu Junxian didn't say anything.

……

……

On a cliff, Yuan Zhen stood silently, looking down at the mountain calmly.

The city of Guyuan has been reduced to ruins, and the Tiance Army camp outside the city is still on fire, causing great suffering to the people.

An attendant came over and put a cloak on him, whispering, "General, let's go. We failed in Guyuan this time, and Lu Jin will definitely take the opportunity to blame us when we return. We might as well just slaughter a few villages and get some heads when we return."

Yuan Zhen was silent for a long time and then slowly said, "I started dealing with Guyuan when I was seventeen years old. At that time, I just followed my father to the battlefield and served as a small general beside him. Later, my father was seriously ill. He told me in front of his bed that if we conquered Guyuan one day, we must write a memorial and burn it in front of his tomb. At that time, I thought that the soldiers in Guyuan were all old, weak and disabled. They could only wear rattan armor, use blunt knives and soft bows, and they didn't even have firearms. How difficult would it be to conquer Guyuan? If I were the commander-in-chief, Guyuan would be just around the corner."

"At that time, I looked down on my father." Yuan Zhen said absentmindedly, "But later I received the title and was promoted from a lieutenant general to a commander-in-chief. In the past 23 years, I fought Guyuan seven times and lost seven times. Only then did I realize that my father was actually more powerful than me."

As he spoke, he pointed at the dilapidated Guyuan City at the foot of the mountain and sneered, "When I was young, I thought I could fight my way to the prosperous capital of the Ning Dynasty, but I ended up fighting in this dilapidated, old city for more than 20 years. I and those stinky, hard stones will waste our whole lives here."

The followers dared not speak.

Yuan Zhen turned and walked down the mountain: "Let's go."

However, at this moment, screams were heard from the foot of the mountain.

Under the cover of night, he stood there and watched the figures swaying under the bare earth hill. More than a dozen followers stopped in front of him and were alert.

An unknown amount of time had passed before more than twenty people climbed up the mountain in the biting cold wind, holding long knives dripping with blood in their hands.

Yuan Zhen narrowed his eyes and looked over. When he saw who it was, he suddenly realized, "It turned out to be you. I thought you would never come back to Guyuan again."

Uncle Hu shook off the blood on his knife and grinned, "I promised the general that I would offer your head at his grave. How can I break my promise to him? These years, I have been thinking about how to kill you day and night!"

Yuan Zhen looked at the men behind Mr. Hu Sanye who were as fierce as wolves and tigers. His tense body suddenly relaxed again: "It turns out that everyone has his own obsession."

Mr. Hu Sanye walked up step by step: "In the sixth year of Jianing, 3,214 soldiers of Guyuan border were killed in battle; in the ninth year of Jianing, 2,932 soldiers of Guyuan border were killed in battle; in the fourteenth year of Jianing..."

He counted them one by one, not missing a single life.

eye for eye.

Xiao Wu whispered behind Mr. Hu Sanye, "And the shopkeeper."

Mr. Hu's expression darkened.

Yuan Zhen shook his head: "How could the number of soldiers killed in the Tiance Army be less than that of yours in Guyuan?"

Mr. Hu San said in a serious tone: "If you had known this would happen, why would you come back again and again? Can't we just live in peace?"

Yuan Zhen suddenly said: "Hu Junyuan, I am luckier than you."

Mr. Hu was stunned: "You are about to die, what nonsense are you talking about?"

Yuan Zhen laughed: "I am about to be freed, but you are still trapped here. I am naturally luckier than you."

Mr. Hu was silent.

Seeing him like this, Yuan Zhen suddenly burst into laughter: "Do you regret coming to Guyuan?"

More than twenty men behind Mr. Hu Sanye killed Yuan Zhen's followers one by one.

He strode forward and stabbed Yuan Zhen in the abdomen, letting the warm blood flow down the blade.

Mr. Hu stared into Yuan Zhen's eyes and asked, "Anything else you want to say?"

The light in Yuan Zhen's eyes gradually dimmed: "I won't come to Guyuan in my next life."

(End of this chapter)