Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 270 If nothing unexpected happens, something unexpected will happen
Mashed Potatoes savored the majestic posture just now and the cold and solemn manner in which he shouted the orders. He was simply an expert in pretending to be cool, playing the pig and eating the tiger in the skit.

She subconsciously twisted her mouth into a faint smile, as if she had transformed into the Crooked-Mouthed Dragon King. With a wave of her hand, her opponent was shocked and ashamed.

A feeling of pleasure as strong as electricity rushed up her spine to the back of her head, making her feel as if she had ascended to a fairyland. The boredom squeezed in her body poured out like sweat, and the worries of a day at work also disappeared. She even felt like she had enough time to work overtime twice as much the next day.

No wonder everyone likes to show off and then get slapped in the face. After experiencing it myself, it really lives up to its reputation.

Mashed Potato gradually became addicted to the good feeling of pretending to be cool and getting slapped in the face——

She stared blankly ahead. Hundreds of players, like hunting tigers, grabbed the yangban's collars and threw them to the ground, then pulled out metal baseball bats and smashed them hard on the nobles' backs.

Players who didn't have blunt weapons used their hands and feet instead, and their fists and feet rained down on the nobles.

The players who arrived late after hearing the news fought desperately for the "prey", with only four or five players getting one. They then passed sticks and hammers to each other and took turns beating the nobles.

The newly rescued volunteers stood in a circle. They subconsciously crowded together, staring at the "tragic scene" before them in amazement.

Unexpectedly, these weird and eccentric heavenly soldiers were so ferocious and violent. Some of the gifted heavenly soldiers could even strike with three sticks in one second, making the nobles cry for their parents.

The nobles who had just gathered to "force the emperor to abdicate" were now reduced to their original state. They cried and begged for mercy, "Ahhh! Spare... my life... Ah..."

The nobles were beaten and screamed, fleeing in all directions like cockroaches.

However, the players showed no mercy to them, and hunted down the escaped "sinners" everywhere, pressing them into mud pits to "eat" them, or kicking them to the ground and beating them with sticks.

While playing, the players uttered Korean swear words from movies and TV dramas.

What the hell, you bastard, I'll tear your mouth apart, you mad dog, die for me...

"Three sticks will crush the souls of the two groups. General, I am a scholar..." Seeing this scene, "Lü Xiaobu" couldn't help but recite a poem, and continued to raise and lower the stick in his hand, causing wailing.

Many nobles could not bear the beating any longer, and dozens of them escaped while the players were exchanging sticks.

They were like wild boars caught in a trap. One by one, they knelt down before Mashed Potatoes, begging for forgiveness from the prince and asking him to ask the heavenly soldiers to put away their sticks.

"Spare my life..."

The nobles were crying and sobbing, with frozen blood stains on their noses and mouths.

They said that they had no intention of coercing the prince, but only upheld justice and hoped that the prince could see the overall situation. Although their actions were a bit hasty, their sincere desire to serve the country was evident to all.

Some people were beaten with blood all over their faces, but they still concealed threats in their words: Although the Tartars have retreated, the defeated soldiers and bandits in various places still need to be cleared out. If the prince persists in his mistakes and harms the two masters, aren't you afraid that the Eight Taoists will be shocked and he will eventually lose his position as prince?

Seeing dozens of people being dragged back by the players and the advice and threats of the yangban echoing in his ears, Mashed Potatoes couldn't help but look worried.

Yes, if today's actions were spread throughout the eight provinces by scholars, she might be deprived of power by the king before she even takes the throne.

You must know that now that the Tartars have retreated, Korea no longer needs the rescue of the Beiwei Army, so the Ming army no longer has any reason to stay here.

As if noticing the worry on Mashed Potato's face, Wu Litou and Breakthrough Hand leaned in to soothe him, saying, "Even if the Tartars leave and the King of Korea wants to remove your power, we can still use the power of the righteous army to divide Korea into North and South."

"By then, if I had lost my sense of justice, who else would I be loyal to?" Mashed Potatoes drooped his face, like a defeated dog soaked by a rainstorm.

"That's a bit too narrow-minded." Wu Litou habitually adjusted his nonexistent glasses. "Righteousness is just the icing on the cake. The foundation of establishing rules is always violence—"

"Violent?" Mashed Potatoes muttered to himself, glancing at the sword at his waist. Then he looked at the players not far away, engaged in a fierce battle with the Yangban.

Wu Litou continued, "Lee Seong-gye, the founding monarch of Joseon, was just a frontier general, yet he led his troops back to seize the throne.

Besides, at the moment, without the violent support of your brothers, you would have reached a compromise with the nobles and had to kill the heroes. But if you hold the violence in your hands, the nobles of the Yangban class will have no choice but to put aside their arrogance and kneel before you to beg for mercy.

Many people have a misunderstanding about the rules and the imperial position, thinking that being a monarch gives them supreme power, like having a kill button in a game, where whoever they click on dies. Without the support of violence, even Emperor Xian of Han would not be able to control Cao Cao.

Recalling everything he had just experienced, Mashed Potato chewed over the other person's words, thinking to himself, "But there aren't many players entering the DPRK this time. We've come all the way here, and apart from those who died in battle and those who stayed behind, there are still about 5,000 people left... I don't know if the resurrected players will come."

"We still have the Ming army and the Korean vassal army. Excluding the garrison troops left behind, there are still 10,000 to 20,000 people. Have you forgotten?" The breakthrough man added.

"That's not counting the loyal military and civilian generals who have joined you. They can gather thousands of men under their command. And although you may have offended the nobles today, you have won the hearts of these righteous soldiers. They will clearly be your solid support when you face the king in the future. Look—"

Wu Litou raised his head and pointed at the leaders of the volunteer army. The latter also looked at the prince and the heavenly soldiers with gratitude, admiration and respect, and even knelt down and kowtowed several times spontaneously.

The emotional contrast of being saved from a desperate situation made Jin Liu burst into tears of gratitude. Hot tears flowed down his dry skin, like a sweet rain moistening the dry earth.

It is true that few of the Yangban masters are good people, but the Crown Prince and the Heavenly Soldiers are both "honest judges" who uphold justice. They are willing to offend the Yangban in order to clear their grievances.

Even if the future prince wants to be an enemy of the yangban, Jin Liu secretly vows to serve the prince all his life!
He felt that he could proudly tell his elder brother that he had found a bright way out for the righteous soldiers, and he could express his feelings to his elder brother with even more confidence.

Big brother is right.

And he, Jin Liu, was right.

The prince's heroic act soon spread throughout the surrounding areas, and thousands of volunteers emerged to join the prince's army - although the Tartars retreated, the stragglers were still there, and there was still a place for the soldiers to use their skills.

The prince also announced to them: Anyone who has made military achievements will be rewarded as a good person and demoted as a lowly person.

However, there are gains and losses. The "Unrestricted Fighting Tournament" injured more than a hundred people and killed dozens of yangban nobles, causing a large number of nobles to feel disgusted with the prince and leave with their troops.

……

On the official road where the cold wind was howling, dozens of large and small troops marched in columns. For several days in a row, the nearby Korean regular army and private soldiers of the nobles came to join them.

Zhao Silang personally led thousands of soldiers from Huanghai Zuodao and walked in the middle of the team. From time to time, he looked far ahead of the team, or turned his head to look at the tail of the team.

The original size of 20,000 people gradually expanded to an army of 35,000, and the long team of tens of thousands of people almost stretched to the sky.

Zhao Silang was very proud.

As the leader of the literati faction of the North Koreans, he was defeated by his political enemies in the past and driven out of the capital and returned to the countryside. He thus avoided the turmoil of "barbarians seizing power" and did not bear the stain of surrendering to the Tartars.

Although Korea was a small country, its party struggles were even more brutal than those in the Ming Dynasty.

Various factions emerged one after another, and even the victors of factional struggles would split internally and continue to fight. Zhao Silang thought that the prince was indeed too immature and acted simply and crudely. He beat up the nobles for a group of untouchables, which made the nobles feel disheartened. Otherwise, he would not have seized the opportunity to recover.

After all, he is only a young man of twenty years old. He has been a hostage of the Tartars for three years. Now that he is free from the constraints of the Tartars and has suddenly obtained the privilege of "taking charge of state affairs", it is inevitable that he will become complacent.

Zhao Silang himself has no prejudice against Prince Li Hao, but he will not "invest" in a fool, especially a big fool who attempts to shake the "Four People System".

The hierarchy is the cornerstone of Joseon. Countless people, including the yangban and the middle class, have benefited from this system. Even the current king has benefited from it in his position in Joseon.

Only when the sons of nobles become high officials and the sons of untouchables become untouchables can the country be peaceful for generations; otherwise, there will be chaos under heaven.

Now the Crown Prince is not behaving like a king. Even if the King wants to protect the only remaining heir at all costs, he has to consider the opinions of the Yangban.

After all, the king overthrew his "predecessor" with the support of the two classes. According to the Ming Dynasty's script, Zhu Yunwen overthrew Zhu Di with the support of the gentry.

Given this precedent, the king had to accept it reluctantly.

However, Zhao Silang also knew that a coup was only a last resort and should not be used lightly, and joining forces with other high-ranking officials and the yangban to force the king to abdicate would only arouse the king's resistance.

He had to find another way to persuade the king to make up his mind to abolish the throne of the crown prince and replace him with another prince.

This hastily assembled army could not be used by him in actual combat, but only provided him with a step for promotion so that the king could see his loyalty. As soon as he heard that the Tartars had retreated, he organized "righteous soldiers" to go south to defend the king.

However, Zhao Silang, who was good at party struggles, thought of the "sure-win method" before thinking for long. As the saying goes, success and failure are both due to Xiao He.

The king secretly granted the prince great power over the country, which also led to the expansion of the number of civil and military officials gathered around the prince, and even the number of volunteer soldiers increased.

The Crown Prince and the King are first ruler and subject, and then father and son.

Which king would like to see his subjects become more powerful? Not to mention Emperor Taizong of Tang who forced his father to carry out a coup, even Lee Seong-gye, the founding monarch of Joseon, was sidelined by his son and honored as the "Grand King".

With just a hint from him, the king could relate it to the disaster of the founding of the country, and even to the palace coup that overthrew the king's uncle more than ten years ago...

Words are like this. Even a few simple sentences can sometimes be fatal.

Looking at the distant sky, Zhao Silang couldn't help but smile evilly, as if the time to return to the royal court and hold power was coming again.

Just when he was full of plans, he suddenly found that the marching troops gradually stopped, the horse under his crotch snorted, and several generals could not help but curse the front army.

Zhao Silang looked around and saw several hills and mountains running north-south on the flanks of the army. He was startled. Could it be that they had encountered an ambush by the enemy?
Fortunately, his worries did not come true. A group of scouts came back to report that they did not encounter any enemy soldiers, but found some wooden boxes.

wooden box?
While he was wondering, he saw that the shrewd general had already sent people to carry the boxes back, thirteen boxes in total.

There was a piece of paper with large characters written on the seal of one of the boxes: The heads of Dorgon and Jirgalang are inside.

The other twelve boxes each had the head of a Manchu or Mongolian prince written on them, as well as countless gold, silver, and jewelry hidden inside, and a message: Please ask the Korean army not to pursue them and leave them a way out.

As soon as the general saw the heads and treasures in the box, he wanted to present them to Zhao Silang so that he could establish connections with high-ranking officials and surely prosper in the court in the future.

At first, Zhao Silang wanted to accept the jewels in the name of "military supplies", but then he thought that if he presented them to His Majesty the King, his position would be more secure, so he planned to separate the head and the jewels, but keep the treasures under temporary custody.

But who would have thought that the box seemed to be possessed, as if some mechanism was triggered during the transportation process, and suddenly there was a thudding sound coming from inside.

Could it be that there are hidden weapons that can hurt people hidden in the box?
"Stop!" Zhao Silang was about to speak out to stop him, but he saw that the general who received the order had already completed the task.

The thirteen boxes were opened one by one, but what caught the eyes of the civil and military officials were not heads or jewels, but hundreds of pigeons flapping their wings and flying into the sky.

The clear sound of bells spread for miles as the pigeons soared.

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell.

Immediately afterwards, all the civil and military officials around Zhao Silang fell into deathly silence.

They didn't know what would happen next. Saliva flowed down their throats, and the sky was silent after the pigeon flew away.

Without heads and jewelry, is this just a joke played by the Tartars on them?

The brief incident scared everyone, but they quickly regained their composure. Zhao Silang also lost interest in continuing the journey and immediately ordered the army to set up camp on the spot.

With an order, the soldiers of the three armies slowly gathered together.

But just over half an hour after setting up camp, Zhao Silang, who was sitting firmly in the military tent, suddenly heard soldiers shouting and clamoring outside the tent.

He hurriedly led his men out of the camp. Dozens of black dots suddenly appeared at the end of the white snow, and then more and more blurry black dots appeared.

Zhao Silang suddenly felt an ominous premonition in his heart, and the strong negative emotions fed back into reality and caused hallucinations.

He seemed to see thousands of Tartar cavalry pouring out from behind the mountains and forests, rushing towards his camp like a flood.

Do not!
That was not an illusion, but a cold and biting reality.

The Tartars rushed forward on horseback, shouting and yelling, like a pack of hungry wolves pouncing on an unprotected sheepfold.

"East! East! The Tartars are coming!"

The gongs and trumpets sounded one after another, warning the entire army. A large number of civil and military officials fled in panic, but Zhao Silang was already standing there in a daze, as if he had lost his soul due to fear.

The rumors that the Tatars fled north were just rumors. Not only did they not escape, but they were lying in ambush on the road leading south to the royal capital, waiting for the unlucky ones to fall into the ambush.

White doves with bells hanging from them were the signal for the entire army to attack.

Tens of thousands of Tartars and traitors to the court surrounded them from three sides, and the snow-white ground was instantly covered with dark red blood.

Zhao Silang felt his heart sink.

He was fooled by the Tartars!
It's over, it's over.

(End of this chapter)