Tang Dynasty Bandits

Chapter 72 Five Corpse Kings
Driven by the Huaixi mule army under the command of the Zang governor, the troops of Liu Yanzhang, the deputy leader of the Zhenyi League, also retreated westward and were gradually squeezed together with Wang Xianzhi's main force.

Wang Xianzhi finally saw the figure of his old friend Liu Yanzhang in his field of vision.

This normally refined and elegant hero of the Jianghu had his cloak completely shattered, revealing his blood-stained cowhide armor. His face was covered in scars, his nose sunken in, and his once delicate features were now completely destroyed, appearing utterly hideous.

Among the enemy troops chasing Liu Yanzhang's troops, there were five figures who looked like mountains. They held two or three feet long iron spears and swept the grass army soldiers like playing polo, making them fly like grass debris.

"Alliance leader, I'm sorry to have failed you..." Liu Yanzhang murmured.

"Yan Zhang, I'm glad to see you at last." Wang Xianzhi comforted him without any intention of blaming him.

Liu Yanzhang nodded gratefully, and his originally shaky figure suddenly turned into a flash of lightning, soaring into the air like a falcon and pouncing on one of the five giants.

The long sword created thousands of frost flowers, and the afterimage was so fast that no one could see it clearly.

Then there was a sound like a drum being hit, blood spurted out of Liu Yanzhang's mouth, and his chest completely sank inward.

But the giant with a green body and a ferocious face, his thick neck broke after a moment, like pushing down a golden mountain or a jade pillar, and fell heavily to the ground.

Its headless body stumbled forward a few steps before falling down unwillingly, stirring up mud mixed with blood all over the ground.

Liu Yanzhang, whose ribs were all broken and whose face was covered with scars, had a brighter gaze. Facing the sunlight, he revealed a brilliance that wanted to compete with the sun and the sky.

This was obviously just a last glimmer of hope. In fact, Liu Yanzhang had lost all his fighting power and was on the verge of death.

"I'll leave my head as a reward for my old friend, but I won't be able to face the demons with my true face. Brother Xianzhi, Yanzhang will go first!"

Liu Yanzhang exhausted his last bit of strength, leaping several times before landing on the riverbank and calmly stepping into the water. Blood immediately spread across the surface of the water, turning it red. A wave crashed in, and there was no trace of Liu Yanzhang left.

"You didn't cross the river, but you did. You died after crossing the river. What can I do to you..."

Wang Xianzhi watched with his own eyes as his old friend of over forty years, Liu Yanzhang, perished in the waves of the Yangtze River, and could not help but recite an ancient ballad.

"The one that Vice Alliance Leader Liu just killed was the weakest of the five guardian corpse kings of the Yu Shi Sect." Zhen Ranyu, holding the Fiery Flame Burning Heaven Blade, said to Wang Xianzhi, "But the remaining Jiang Chen, Hou Qing, Ying Gou, and Hanba are all stronger than him."

He then nodded to the Zangshi in the Huaixi army formation and said, "Zimian, you are here."

Zang Zimian is the full name of the contemporary leader of the Yushi Sect and the governor of Yingzhou.

He called himself "Master Sanzang", held a nine-ring white bone Zen staff, wore a blood-colored cassock, and wore a ghostly Vimalakirti hat shaped like a ghost claw.

But even with such a strange and gloomy outfit, it could not hide the fact that he was a handsome man with strong features.

Zang Zimian clasped his hands together and saluted: "This humble monk obeys the order of Marshal Yan."

This is not surprising, as the leaders of the Yushi Sect throughout the ages were all monks. Although they did not shave their heads, they could still marry and have children.

The Yu Shi Men is the remnant of the Mahayana leader Faqing during the Northern Wei Dynasty. Faqing preached the doctrine at that time, "Whoever kills one person becomes a Bodhisattva of the first stage, and whoever kills ten people becomes a Bodhisattva of the tenth stage." He also refined a crazy drug for people to take, so that "fathers, sons, and brothers no longer knew each other, and only cared about killing each other."

This practice quickly led to the Mahayana sect being suppressed as a heresy. However, after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, the Yushimen Zang family managed to gain the imperial court's approval, serving the court for generations and gaining the right to legally kill people on the battlefield.

As Zhu Wen had judged before, the earth immortals of the Yushi Sect were actually living people. They only became "earth immortals" who were insensitive to pain, had infinite strength, and had a poisonous mouth after taking the crazy medicine invented by Faqing.

However, the five corpse kings who guarded the Yu Shi Sect actually dug up graves and obtained the incorruptible corpses of those who had practiced the art of inner alchemy during their lifetime. After subduing them, they became the heritage passed down from generation to generation by the Zang family.

Where do these five corpse kings come from?

This can be seen from the generals and ministers who are in charge.

During his lifetime, Jiang Chen was a trusted and valiant general under the military mastermind Wang Jian, a member of the Qin Shi Huang's army. During Wang Jian's attack on Chu, Jiang Chen spearheaded the enemy's front lines, beheaded the generals and captured the flags. He personally slew the Chu commander, Xiang Yan, the renowned Chu general and grandfather of Xiang Yu, the Overlord of Western Chu. This paved the way for the Qin army's victory.

And Hou Qing, Ying Gou, and Hanba are also powerful people whose origins can rival those of Jiang Chen.

However, these individuals have one thing in common: they have no strong descendants. This brings us to the reign of Emperor Gaozong of this dynasty, when the leader of the Yushi Sect went crazy and wanted to dig up the tomb of the famous Northern Dynasty general Xue Andu, but accidentally let Marshal Xue Rengui know...

Xue Andu is the sixth generation ancestor of Xue Rengui.

You can imagine what happened next.

Wang Xianzhi glanced at the three surviving descendants of the five dukes, Qin Shuangbo, Cheng Qianxi, and Yuchi Yifeng, as well as the four corpse kings who surrounded them.

Not to mention that Marshal Yan and Inspector Zang are also master-level masters of the time.

In fact, if Commander Yan was really a weak woman who was powerless, no matter how strict her defense was, Wang Xianzhi would have taken her head in the previous charge.

In the previous round of desperate charge, before being defeated, Wang Xianzhi had already killed through the entire formation of soldiers on the high hill, and then fought several head-on battles with General Yan before he was exhausted and forced down!

Even Yan Shuai Zhen Ranyu had to admit in his heart that Wang Xianzhi's bravery was unparalleled in the world and there was not a single bit of falsehood in it.

"It's really interesting. It was nearly three hundred years ago today that Pushan Gong Li Mi was executed and his resentful son Liu Heita surrendered. And now, I have to clean up the last remnants of Wagang." Zhen Ranyu said as if no one was around. He didn't care at all about how Qin Shuangbo and Cheng Qianxi, the two descendants of Wagang, felt after hearing this.

I would rather learn from the three sworn brothers of Peach Garden than from the one incense burner of Wagang. When the former heroes of Wagang met on the battlefield, the so-called Wagang brotherhood may have been severed.

The Zhenyi League, founded by Wang Bodang, boasted of being the greatest sect in the martial arts world. But in the eyes of Marshal Yan, it was nothing more than a tiny ember of the Wagang. How could a commoner resist the power of the government?
As the most outstanding martial arts leader in the history of the Zhenyi League, Wang Xianzhi, the "land immortal" who suppressed the martial arts world for forty years, is just the right person to put an end to the so-called Wagang Dream and put an end to many vague fantasies of the people in the martial arts world.

Jiang Chen, Hou Qing, Ying Gou, and Hanba were all powerful men in their time.

Even though he was transformed into an "Earth Immortal" by the Corpse Control Sect, and his body was not as flexible as it was in life, he gained skin and bones as strong as armor. Overall, he still had at least 80% of his strength in life.

At that moment, the four corpse kings all turned their hollow eyes toward Wang Xianzhi, emitting shrill, terrifying roars. The resonance of these massive monsters' simultaneous roars was so intense that it shook the mountains.

Yan Shuai is a man with a mean temper.

When she mentioned Pushan Gong Li Mi, she had deliberately reduced the sarcasm in her tone, as a sign of respect for Wang Xianzhi, the world's number one master.

Because to the people of Zhenyi League, the ambitious, ungrateful devil of troubled times described by historians is actually a god-like existence.

Wang Xianzhi clearly remembers the shock he felt when he was a child when he read the contents about Wei Wang Li Mi in the handwritten notes left by his master Wang Bodang.

The King of Wei was born into the Li clan of Zhaojun, a family of distinguished rank. Yet, as a young man, he traveled the world on the back of an ox, associating with farmers and reading from books hung on the horns of an ox. People accused him of cultivating prestige and fame, but the King of Wei said he saw the suffering of the people and the hardships faced by children from humble backgrounds, and knew that every meal he ate came from the blood and sweat of the people.

When the heroes of Wagang pledged their brotherhood, Li Mi stabbed his heart and drew blood: "I wish that all the scholars and common people in the world will be one family, as close as brothers. If this wish is fulfilled, I will be stained with blood, and I will bear the consequences alone!"

In order to unify power, the King of Wei killed his benefactor Zhai Rang, and was reviled by later generations. However, he never let down his fellow peasants in Wagang.

He opened his granaries and distributed food, and the people were grateful for his kindness. He lived a simple life until his death, and distributed all the gold and treasures he gained in battle to his generals and soldiers.

As for the claim that he alienated the virtuous and got close to villains, which led to his defeat by Wang Shichong of Luoyang, it was nothing more than the one-sided statement of the court that held the right to speak. This is how the victors are the kings and the losers are the bandits.

Wang Shichong was a military prodigy, but commanding 100,000 elite Sui imperial guards, he had fought the King of Wei for years, but his victories were few and his losses were many, and he was on the verge of complete annihilation. But who would have thought that in the battle at Mangshan, which was thought to be just an ordinary defeat, Wang Shichong would seize the opportunity to pursue his victory and, by sheer coincidence, capture the families of the Wagang brothers.

Let your brothers sit back and watch their parents and wives being slaughtered by Wang Shichong for their own sake?
If it were the cruel, despicable and shameless Emperor Gaozu of Tang, Li Yuan, he would certainly be able to make such a request openly.

But he was Li Mi, the King of Wei, a man of unparalleled righteousness, the leader of the Wagang army! Born into a powerful family, he took it upon himself to reshape the world, treating the heroes of the outlaws like his own flesh and blood. He was the first to raise the banner of rebellion, and for this, his entire family was killed at the hands of the tyrant Yang Guang. His proclamation against the Sui Dynasty, his furious denunciation of the tyrant—"Even if I exhaust all the bamboo in the Nanshan Mountains, I cannot write down all my crimes; even if I stir up the waves of the East China Sea, I cannot expel all my evils"—was truly a resounding statement.

When Qin Shubao, Cheng Yaojin, Shan Xiongxin, Pei Xingyan and others were forced by Wang Shichong to flee to his place with their families, Li Mi could have stopped them but pretended not to know. This was because filial piety is the most important virtue and the King of Wei could not bear to see his brothers' parents and wives killed for him, so he could only watch the Wagang empire he had built up collapse.

When he returned from defeat and saw Wang Bo, the first words he said were: "I have been defeated, and I have troubled you all for so long! I will now commit suicide to express my gratitude to you all."

He abandoned his plans to regroup, discarded his lifelong pride, and surrendered to the Tang Dynasty. He simply couldn't accept that such a random event could destroy all his years of painstaking efforts. Even more so, he couldn't accept that his dream of reconciling the nobles and the poor was as fragile as a rainbow in the clouds.

Li Yuan pretended to appease Li Mi, but in reality, he had a ruthless plot. He ordered Li Mi out of the country to recruit his former subordinates, then falsely accused him of treason. He ambushed him at Xinggongxian and unleashed a barrage of arrows. The heroic figure passed away in the wilderness, and historians portrayed him as a disloyal, unjust, unkind, and unfilial demon of troubled times.

But in the eyes of Wang Xianzhi and other heroes of the Zhenyi League, Wei Wang Li Mi was anything but cold, treacherous, greedy, or conceited, traits characteristic of those in power. He constantly sought to compromise with the world, yet it seemed he was the only one to yield. He was righteous and unyielding, yet willing to bear all the sins of his brothers.

For more than two hundred years, the Zhenyi Alliance has never cooperated with the Tang Dynasty court and even launched several uprisings. This was not only because they were dissatisfied with the dominance of the aristocratic families, but also because they were following the dying will of their founder Wang Bodang - to avenge the King of Wei!

"The clear will be clear, and the turbid will be turbid. The Longxi Li family seized the world by force. If they could have initially maintained it with obedience, now they are completely defying heaven. What difference is there between them and the tyrant Yang Guang?"

Wang Xianzhi remained unmoved, calmly stating, "Yang Guang slaughtered heroes, and the righteous army will only slaughter more and more. And how could we be sure that General Yan's blind loyalty today isn't just like those blindly loyal ministers of Yang and Sui, who died for a broken ship?"

"The Tang Dynasty, which lasted for over two hundred years, is no match for the Yang and Sui dynasties, which perished in the second generation." Zhen Ranyu raised an eyebrow and said, "I didn't expect that even with the death imminent, Alliance Leader Wang still had the leisure to lobby me."

"In my opinion, the longer a nation lasts, the deeper its decay. The fall of the Sui Dynasty was solely due to the tyrant Yang Guang, and there were also some accidental factors in its downfall. But the Tang Dynasty is now rotten to the core, one beam at a time. The edifice is about to collapse. How can a few foolishly loyal ministers like Marshal Yan hold it up?"

As he spoke, Wang Xianzhi's right sleeve swung, and his arm incredibly stretched half a foot. At the same time, his sleeve deflected several cold arrows shot from behind, and at the same time, he clenched his right fist and hit Qin Shuangbo's chest directly, who suddenly attacked him.

Wang Xianzhi's fist was like a divine weapon, directly punching through Qin Shuangbo's soft armor and passing through his heart. At this moment, his tiger's mouth suddenly opened, and the sounds of bones and flesh breaking mixed together, which was extremely creepy.

When Wang Xianzhi retracted his angry fist, he saw a transparent hole had been blasted out in Qin Shuangbo's chest, and then the gushing blood and internal organs filled the hole.

After a while, the yellow-faced middle-aged woman collapsed to the ground with an expression of disbelief.

Among the descendants of the Five Dukes, Qin Shuangbo, a descendant of Qin Qiong, the Duke of Yi, died!
"That's why I don't like women who attack others while they're talking. They're too petty." Wang Xianzhi sighed, "Fortunately, Marshal Yan isn't like that."

After saying this, Wang Xianzhi's feet suddenly blew up into the air, his body like a white rainbow, and he pounced towards Zhen Ranyu angrily.

Wang Xianzhi, who was surrounded, had to face more opponents than just Flame Marshal Zhen Ranyu, Yingzhou Governor Zang Zimian, the four corpse kings, and the surviving descendants of the Duke, Yuchi Yifeng and Cheng Qianxi.

In order to take the head of Wang Xianzhi, who was an unparalleled martial artist, Marshal Yan mobilized most of the elite soldiers in the army.

With such a scene, I am afraid that even the military genius Han Xin trapped and killed the King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu, in this way.

(End of this chapter)