Traveling the Heavens in Thunderbolt

Chapter 56 Unification of the world

The news that Ling Donglai and Li Gong broke through the void and left in front of Xuanwu Gate was immediately spread throughout the world by the martial artists who were watching the fight. The departure of these two people would bring varying degrees of shock to the country and the martial arts world.

First of all, at the national level, those foreign races that were intimidated by Ling Donglai's power and dared not invade, such as DTZ and Goguryeo, began to stir and take frequent actions after receiving the news that Ling Donglai had broken through the void and left.

Secondly, in the martial arts world, the current situation where the Holy Church is the only dominant force will change with the departure of Li Gong.

This is because everything in the Holy Church is built on his absolute strength. His undefeated prestige allows Li Gong to ignore opposition within the church and forcefully implement reforms.

But with the departure of Li Gong, it is unclear whether his previous efforts would be in vain. Although the position of the leader of the Holy Church was designated as the deputy leader Zhu Yuyan before Li Gong ascended to heaven, she would not be able to suppress the wave of opposition within the church because she does not have the same strength as the previous leader.

It is almost foreseeable that this wave will cause the Demonic Sect, which is not easy to unify, to split.

This is also something that Buddhism would be happy to see. If the holy religion were to develop internal strife due to division, then the opportunity for Buddhism to prosper would reappear.

The situation that followed was just as everyone had expected. The Holy Church, which had been sweeping the martial arts world, finally began to split.

First, the Butian Pavilion, which was the best preserved, was the first to withdraw from the Holy Religion under the leadership of the current successor Yang Xuyan.

Afterwards, the Demonic Sect and the True Teaching Sect within the Holy Church also experienced splits to varying degrees, and some of the backbone members of the sect left along with some of their disciples.

Fortunately, the Lotus Sect, the Destroying Love Sect, and the Holy Extreme Sect were unable to split up because their leaders had died, and Li Gong took the opportunity to disperse their disciples. The Huajian Sect was completely destroyed because its leader and descendants died.

Naturally, these news made the Buddhist sect, which was suppressed by the Holy Religion, ecstatic. They believed that Buddhism would be like during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. After the Heavenly Master Sun En swept across the south, although Buddhism suffered a severe blow, it gained a chance to breathe and prosper again because of Sun En's ascension.

The only thing that made the Buddhist community feel regretful was that the "evil king" Shi Zhixuan, who they had believed would take up the banner of splitting the Holy Church and be able to compete with Zhu Yuyan, did not take advantage of this opportunity to appear, thus completely bringing an end to the Holy Church that was already in a state of division.

Could it be that it was dealt with long before the battle between Li Gong and Ling Donglai?

Unlike the mainstream optimistic attitude in Buddhism, Fan Qinghui holds a different point of view.

She believes that the current holy religion is the biggest enemy of Buddhism.

This is because the Holy Religion is different from the Heavenly Master's Way in that only Ling Donglai is responsible for the main task.

Its original Yinkui Sect was an evil leader that was no less powerful than Cihang Jingzhai. It had many masters within the sect and was a sect that needed to be treated seriously by the Buddhist sect.

Although we have lost Li Gong, the master who dominated the world, the foundation of the Holy Church has not been destroyed. Although the number of masters in the sect has dispersed, they are still more numerous than those in Buddhism.

On the other hand, because of Li Gong's previous bloodbath, Buddhism lost not only the four great monks and a number of masters such as Liao Kong, but also many Buddhist temples that served as its foundation were cut off by Li Gong, resulting in the loss of a large number of middle and low-level talents.

But because of Li Gong's previous heart-breaking strategy, her voice was no longer taken seriously by the Buddhist community.

Even if the affairs of the martial arts world are turbulent, it cannot affect the progress of the war on the front line and the trend of unification of the world.

Just when something unexpected happened in the Holy Religion, Li Tang's army had already completed the encirclement of Kou Zhong's army.

Li Yuanji took the lead in leading his troops to join Li Shimin, causing the balance of victory to begin to tilt towards Li Tang.

When Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) arrived with his troops to march into Hebei, Kou Zhong already knew that there was no hope of victory. However, he relied on his unwillingness to admit defeat to hold on and withstand the attacks from Li Tang's troops from all directions.

In order to accumulate military merits for Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) and suppress Li Shimin, Li Yuan issued an imperial decree to replace Li Shimin as the commander-in-chief of the army. After seeing that the young commander's army survived the first round of Tang army's attack and still maintained high morale, Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) ordered to change the strong attack to siege instead of fighting.

It was because Li Jiancheng knew that although he had an absolute advantage, Kou Zhong was the son of the plane of this world, and who knew if he would be able to cheat and make a comeback.

Even if he could not turn the tables, Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) was afraid of forcing the tiger to hurt others, so he burned his boats and caused huge damage to his own army.

Therefore, he rejected the idea of ​​Li Shimin and Li Yuanji to achieve the goal in one battle, and began to build a strong camp and fight with sticks.

They surrounded Kou Zhong's Young Marshal's Army and sent cavalry to cut off their food supply.

No matter how he provokes us, we will not send troops.

When Kou Zhong saw that Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) refused to send out troops to fight him, he knew that their food and grass were running out, so he thought of leading his troops to break out and launched a series of fierce attacks on the Tang army's camp.

However, they were all held off by Li Jiancheng (Chengqian), and he himself suffered heavy losses when attacking the well-equipped Tang army.

There were some minor incidents in the middle. The Turks and Goguryeo sent troops to attack together, but they were repelled by the troops led by Luo Shixin and other generals from the Prince's Mansion, and a total of 70,000 heads were beheaded.

With the pacification of Hebei, Jiangnan and other regions, more and more Li Tang troops arrived, making Kou Zhong's hope of breaking out of the siege even slimmer.

At this moment, the arrival of two visitors to Li Jiancheng's central military camp brought hope to Kou Zhong.

The people who came were Xu Ziling and Ba Fenghan.

Their purpose of coming to the camp was not to kidnap Li Jiancheng, but to give Kou Zhong a chance of survival.

Seeing that the two were so loyal, Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) asked them to join the Young Marshal's Army to deliver a message to Kou Zhong, saying that if Kou Zhong was willing to surrender, he would give the Young Marshal's Army a chance to live.

He could also survive, but the price was to accept Li Tang's imprisonment and would only be released when the world was stable.

After Kou Zhong received the letter of surrender from the two men, he left the tent and inspected the camp. Then, he accepted the advice of Xu Ziling and Ba Fenghan and surrendered to the Tang army.

I was also placed under house arrest by the Tang army and sent to Chang'an.

At this point, the whole world belonged to Li Tang.

Li Shimin and Li Yuanji were returning to Chang'an with the troops escorting Kou Zhong, while Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) had to arrange the troops to withdraw to their original territories in batches, and then lead his own direct line of troops, the Changlin Army, to meet with the generals and civil officials under the Prince's Mansion and return to Chang'an.

But when Li Jiancheng returned to the court, he kept receiving secret reports from the spies he had arranged in Chang'an City.

After Li Shimin returned to the court, he was first appointed as the General of Tiance, and served as the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of the Grand Secretariat of the East Shaanxi Province. His position was above that of princes and his fief was increased to 30,000 households.

But then, all the civil and military officials under his command in the Tian Ce Palace were transferred or dismissed by Li Yuan using various excuses.

Just when Li Jiancheng (Chengqian) was leading the Changlin Army and his civil and military officials to approach Chang'an, he received the obituary of Liu Wenjing, who was sentenced to death by Li Yuan.

(End of this chapter)