The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 696 Mortal
"Brother Wu, when will those armies from Kyushu set out to attack Edo? The Emperor doesn't really want to rely on the eighteen of us to eliminate those evil monks, right?"

"Li Zicheng, are you scared? Back then, there were only five of us, yet we dared to climb Unknown Mountain and kill the evil monk Hui Ran. If five of us could do it, why can't eighteen? And now we have the fierce tiger."

Li Zicheng was speechless.

Hui Ran's illegitimate child should be more difficult to deal with.

That sickly tigress is always elusive, and God knows where she will hide when fighting for her life.

Jiang Liuer checked his equipment, rearranged his muskets, grenades, and Molotov cocktails, and patted his companion on the shoulder:

"Old Li, if it's a blessing, it's not a disaster. If it's a disaster, it can't be avoided. Don't waste time. A mortal body is on par with a god."

Li Zicheng angrily said: "Bah! What kind of god is this? He is just a demon at best."

He stared towards the Eight Immortals Mountain and said, "I'm not afraid of death, but I still have many battles to conquer. It would be a shame to die here."

The sea fog was thick, the sky was covered with dark clouds, and the sky looked like it was dipped in ink. The wind was blowing along the coastline.

The waves are overlapping, as if trying to break the dark clouds on the sea.

The biting cold wind blew across the handsome face of the owner under the pine tree, and the 32-year-old Jiang Liuer looked even more vicissitudes of life.

In order to prevent the wind from entering their stomachs, everyone stopped talking.

They escaped from the Monnoji Temple, circled westward, bypassed Jianwan (a place name near Edo) from the northwest, and went around to Mingkai Road, preparing to lurk behind the Monnoji Temple and then suddenly attack, resulting in the death of Master Chunshen.

There are at least a hundred warriors stationed around the Mononji Temple, if not eighty, as well as a large number of monks. Wu Xiao and his men's whereabouts have been exposed, and if they continue the assassination, the probability of failure is very high.

Despite this, we still have to fight to the death.

"A mortal body is on par with a god."

Standing between the dark sea and sky, an unprecedented sense of oppression came over me.

Finally, the sea breeze died down a little. They hid behind the big reef, their faces solemn. Li Zicheng said:
"I have an ominous feeling."

Wu Xiao comforted him, "Don't worry, I have the same premonition as you."

Jiang Liuer rolled his eyes: "Lao Li, I haven't heard any good words from you since I've been with you."

The experience of hunting down Luo Jiao in Guazhou flashed through his mind.

An ominous premonition came to Jiang Liuer's mind, but he didn't say it out loud.

After walking east for half an hour, they were already very close to the northern foot of the Eight Immortals Mountain.

The villages at the foot of the mountain became denser.

The hut was dilapidated and in ruins.

At an intersection ahead, a woman was crucified, seagulls were pecking at her eyes, and a suffocating stench filled the air.

Li Zicheng covered his nose but did not close his mouth.

"Fuck him! This must be the work of the evil monk. He's trying to intimidate us!"

Jiang Liuer showed a sad look on his face. He put down his weapon, endured the stench, and stepped forward to put the woman down.

"What are you doing?" Wu Xiao stopped this reckless action.

Jiang Liuer couldn't bear it and said, "The shaman said that if you hang on a tree, your soul will never find peace."

Li Zicheng said angrily: "You fool, if you put her down, we will never have peace!"

Wu Xiao glanced at the female corpse and signaled everyone to continue on their way.

After walking for more than a mile, the stench gradually dissipated.

Wu Xiao said to everyone, "It must have been done by the Unknown Volcano Monk. They hate Christ. This man has been dead for some time, so it's obvious that he wasn't targeting us."

"Maybe it's some kind of sacrificial ritual." A trace of fear flashed in Jiang Liuer's eyes.

Everyone looked towards the vast ocean on the left and fell into dead silence.

At this time, the thick fog was finally blown away by the wind, revealing the gloomy sky and the gray-brown dirt road in the distance.

Suddenly, a fire rising from the seashore caught Jiang Liuer's attention.

The fisherman and the woodcutter curled up and built a fire behind the rocks. The fisherman weaved nets and the woodcutter sorted firewood.

"Maybe he is a spy sent by the evil monk," Li Zicheng expressed his thoughts.

Wu Xiao gave a wink and Jiang Liuer immediately stepped forward.

When the fisherman saw a group of people coming towards him, he did not show any fear or anxiety and continued to weave his fishing net around the campfire.

In an instant, Ruan Ji's poem emerged in Wu Xiao's mind: The sky's net covers the whole area, and the six wings cannot cover it.

Jiang Liuer came to the campfire and found that the woodcutter and the fisherman were both elderly, with gray beards, but they were in good spirits. The domain was often visited by pilgrims and believers, so they were not wary of unfamiliar faces. Apparently, the two old men mistook Jiang Liuer for a pilgrim visiting the Mononji Temple.

While warming himself by the fire, Jiang Liu'er asked the woman who had just been stared at, what crime she had committed.

The fisherman hesitated.

The woodcutter took over the conversation and talked freely.

Legend has it that the woman was the illegitimate daughter of a Christian. Did you know about the Shimabara Rebellion? Since you're not from this domain, you certainly don't know. The woman had believed in Yesu since she was a child, and the first thing she did every day was pray to the gods. Her husband was an honest farmer, but he hated hearing his wife pray. It was said that every time he heard his wife pray, he would beat her. Until a month ago, the farmer's wife was in a state of confusion, muttering "It's about to be unearthed, it's been unearthed, it's been summoned." It is said that the neighbors heard the woman muttering these words all night, and at dawn, she slit her husband's throat with scissors... "The shrew was executed by Master Chunshen on charges of inciting the people and murdering her husband. On the day of the execution, many crows circled in the sky, and there was an earthquake on Mount Fuji..."

The woodcutter's front teeth had disappeared, and he always spoke with a lisp. His dry mouth opened and closed like a dead river clam.

Jiang Liuer gestured to the back, indicating that Wu Xiao should wait a little longer.

"Was she nailed there after she was killed?"

"No, he was crucified alive. This domain has always been swift and resolute in punishing heretics. We will not be like those domains in Kyushu that condone Christianity..."

Jiang Liuer took two steps back and pretended to look terrified.

The woodcutter thought the young man had some misunderstanding about the Shanhe Domain, so he quickly emphasized, "Lord Chunshen, the Domain Lord, is a very kind person. We live in the Shanhe Domain because we earned our fortune in our previous lives."

Jiang Liuer asked curiously, "Isn't Master Chunshen in Nagasaki? Why is he serving as the lord of the Shanhe Domain?"

"Who's to blame for his favor?" the woodcutter said in a low voice as he finished packing his firewood and prepared to set off. "The general trusted Master Chunshen and couldn't bear to see him go away, so he rewarded him with land and tenants around Baxian Mountain. We farmers and fishermen work under him."

"Although our domain is far from being as large as Satsuma and Choshu, our people live a comfortable life."

The Shanhe Domain was a small domain with a territorial reserve of 10,000 koku. The previous lord exploited the people to death. It is said that he captured one-sixth of the young and strong men in the domain and took them to Edo to build fortifications. He also looted food and cloth from various villages, plundering everything until the last copper coin was taken from the people of the domain.

He used such means just to maintain his family's luxurious life in Edo.

Later, this greedy feudal lord was sentenced to death by the Shogun.

The current lord of the domain, Shunshin, who comes from Nagasaki's unknown mountain, usually practices in Nagasaki and only returns to Edo in good years to collect grain taxes. Farmers only need to hand over the grain and oil required by the domain...

The fisherman, who had been silent all this time, suddenly interrupted the woodcutter.

"In addition to food and oil, every three years, the village must offer a young girl to the wizard."

"Nothing!"

The fisherman and the woodcutter had an argument about offering the girl. The woodcutter said that the decree to offer the girl had been abolished long ago (they believed that the will of Master Chunshen was the decree of the domain), while the fisherman insisted that it had always existed and had happened once before decades ago.

As the two argued, Jiang Liu'er asked tentatively, "Twenty-two years ago? That year, the Ming army invaded Kyushu. I heard that the leader is the current Tatar emperor."

"Yes, I remember..."

The fisherman's bright eyes suddenly dimmed and he lowered his head like a blind man.

The woodcutter didn't notice this detail and continued talking:

"Master Chunshen's master drove the Ming people away. They all possess supreme magical powers. They bless us, bringing abundant rain, a bountiful harvest in the rice fields, and calming the waves. They will make the bays around Minghaidao teem with eels, and our fishing nets brimming with crabs and prawns."

"Oh oh," Jiang Liuer continued to ask questions in fluent Japanese.

"Then the Han government office was also built in Suenō-ji Temple?"

"That's right," it was the woodcutter who spoke this time. "The Moneng Temple is also the dojo of Master Chunshen. By the way, the master has been giving lectures on the art of longevity at the dojo these days. You are his followers, right? You can go and listen. Since I became his believer, I've been going up the mountain to chop wood much more often than before."

"How much rice does the provincial government consume in a year?" Jiang Liuer asked casually.

"Five hundred dan, or even more, who knows? It's enough for more than five hundred people." The woodcutter took out a wine gourd from his arms and gulped down a mouthful.

Five hundred guards! Or more.

It seems that a combat battalion needs to be sent. Li Zicheng's worries are not unreasonable. It is indeed difficult to assassinate the evil monk Chunshen by relying on the eighteen of them.

Jiang Liuer took out a stack of copper coins and handed them to the two old men, preparing to buy fishing nets and firewood to facilitate the next step.

The white-haired fisherman and woodcutter looked at each other, waved their hands and said that the money was too much.

Jiang Liuer was about to try to persuade them, but suddenly he realized that the two old men had left no shadows in front of the campfire.

If my father were still alive, he would be as old as the fisherman in front of me. Jiang Liuer's father is also a fisherman.

"What's the use of asking for money for a dead person? ... I mean, we are all dying."

Jiang Liu'er looked at him with horror, left his fishing net and firewood behind, and ran away.

After taking a dozen steps, the thin fisherman caught up with him, and cold sweat broke out on Jiang Liuer's forehead.

"Young man, I remember now,"

The fisherman choked up and said:
"The one hanging on the cross is my daughter. She was never married, and she wasn't killed by her husband. She refused to submit to the evil monks of Meneng Temple, so she was..."

The old man stared at Jiang Liuer's eyes, with an expression on his face that only a dying man would have.

"Young man, are you going to assassinate Master Chunshen?"

"Correct."

Jiang Liuer nodded.

"Remember, never look into his eyes at any time, or your soul will be taken away, just like me."

Two lines of blood flowed from the fisherman's empty eye sockets.

Jiang Liuer screamed in fear and took two steps back. The fisherman fell down like a dried eel, and the stench of a rotting corpse emanated from the surrounding area.

(End of this chapter)