Ancestors, please don't crawl out again.

Chapter 97: Destiny Crusade
Yang Feng, leaning on a nine-section staff, strolled across the battlefield of Xiangji Temple, searching for the dying wounded among the countless soldiers fighting in the melee.

Then poke them in.

Like a scavenger picking up trash, only a scavenger from hell.

Soldiers continued to fall beside him, among the piles of corpses and flowing blood.

This bloody battle involving the elite Tang troops from Guanlong and even the Western Regions, as well as the elite Tang troops from Hebei, can almost be said to be an elegy for the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The former who came to protect the Li family's kingdom and the latter who followed An Lushan in his rebellion, lost more than 100,000 people in that bloody day. Sixty thousand of the latter were beheaded alone, not counting the number of the former who died in battle.

Just a few hours.

More than 100,000 people fell on this battlefield, and the 480,000 elite border guards of the prosperous Tang Dynasty became history.

After this came a new generation of feudal lords and a new generation of arrogant and powerful generals.

The soldiers who were killing each other looked at this strange scene in a bit of confusion.

But no one disturbed him.

After all, everyone was so engrossed in the fighting that no one cared about him. Especially after noticing that the seriously wounded and dying had disappeared from the places he passed, they tacitly agreed not to bother him. Soon, however, a participating general noticed him and even sent a cavalry unit to investigate. However, the battlefield was too chaotic, and upon their departure, they were targeted by a group of enemy cavalry and became part of the melee. Yang Feng continued to advance, even pausing near the most brutal battlefields, waiting for the soldiers on both sides to inflict more serious injuries on him. There was no need to take care of the lightly wounded, as this war would continue for years for both sides, but there was no need to leave the seriously wounded to die.

These are the real elite.

One part of it was the Anxi Army that Li Siye led with thousands of horses to rescue the Central Plains.

Even the rebels almost included An Lushan's elite troops from Fan Yang.

"Let's let one let, let one let!"

As the soldiers in front retreated slightly, Yang Feng walked into the sea of ​​corpses and blood with his nine-section staff.

The soldiers on both sides looked at him silently.

He suddenly slammed the nine-section staff in his hand into the ground, and the seriously injured people around him flew towards his nine-section staff like garbage being sucked in, and then disappeared into it. He looked at the remaining lightly injured people with satisfaction. The latter were running towards their companions in fear because they didn't know what was going on.

"continue!"

Yang Feng said.

The soldiers on both sides looked at each other.

One of the parties silently threw away their weapons.

"No more fighting? It's boring. I want to see a river of blood."

Yang Feng walked past them and continued to move towards the next battlefield where blood was flowing like a river.

……

sunset.

He turned into a golden light and fell down, looking at the silent generals.

"Well, watching a powerful empire being established through bloody battles, and seeing it reach its peak of power, Wang Zhongsi should have explained to you what the Kaiyuan Era of Prosperity was, right? And then watching this prosperous era turn into a chaotic world of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, watching your prosperous capital turn into a hell on earth with mountains of corpses and bones, how do you feel?"

Yang Feng said.

"Since the Tang Dynasty still has a hundred years of national prosperity, its prosperity will eventually return."

Wang Zhongsi said angrily.

"It's gone, and it won't come back. The next hundred years were filled with separatist regimes, with the emperor controlled and even deposed by eunuchs. There were repeated rebellions by the feudal lords, and the Tibetans captured Chang'an three times. In the past hundred years, the capital was captured six times and the emperor moved nine times.

What, do you think An Lushan is the ultimate?

Wrong, he’s just getting started.”

Yang Feng said.

As he said this, he opened the crack again.

"Are you interested in following me to see how the Tang Dynasty's military governors, two years later, deliberately allowed their 600,000-man army to be defeated by 50,000 enemy troops in order to prevent the war from ending?"

He said.

The collapse of Yecheng was a tacit understanding among the military governors. They didn't want the war to end. Thanks to this war, they had become de facto separatist vassal states. If the war ended so early, it would mean that the court would have an easier time regaining power. They needed the war to continue, so when the 600,000-strong army besieged Yecheng, except for Li Siye's willingness to fight, the majority of the others were just idling. Then, when Shi Siming marched south, they would take advantage of the situation and collapse.

It can be said that the Battle of Yecheng was the beginning of the era of separatist regimes in the Tang Dynasty.

People's hearts have changed.

however……

No one entered the rift.

"Okay, then I'll go pick someone up myself. You guys wait here and don't run around."

Yang Feng said.

After saying this he walked into the rift.

Then he came back quickly and threw out a middle-aged general.

Then he turned around and split the space apart again.

"Xiangji Temple, what's going on?"

The general looked in astonishment at the blood-red earth under the setting sun.

Because the rebels had been defeated, the Tang army was clearing the battlefield and chopping off the rebels' heads. He even stared in amazement at a team of galloping cavalrymen, led by a general holding a Mo Dao and riding a horse, looking very majestic.

"Siye, is it a little strange to watch yourself galloping on the battlefield with your own eyes?"

Wang Zhongsi said dejectedly.

The latter then discovered him.

"Mr. Qingyuan, why are you here?"

He said in astonishment.

They must know each other!
It’s just that Li Siye’s previous official position was a little lower than Wang Zhongsi’s. When the latter was already serving as the governor of four military governors, he was just a general of the Anxi Army.

Of course, no one answered him. He was definitely a junior here...

Even compared with Wang Zhongsi, he is still a junior.

According to the time, the latter is already over fifty years old.

Li Siye was only in his early forties.

While he was confused, Yang Feng had already walked back into the space crack with a smile, and soon walked out again, leaving behind another person. This person was someone he didn't recognize. He stood there looking at the battlefield in front of him in the same confusion, and suddenly wanted to run down the mountain, but was grabbed by Luo Shixin next to him.

"Let go, someone is from Xinfeng!"

he said angrily.

Then he was about to push Luo Shixin away.

But seeing that Luo Shixin didn't let go, he changed his push to punching.

Luo Shixin dodged and grabbed his hand, twisting his arm in an attempt to pin him down, but he failed. He immediately realized that this guy was quite strong, so he simply hugged him and prepared to throw him down. The latter also hugged him, and the two of them turned into a wrestling match. Wang Haibin stepped forward, and his son also hurried forward. They each pulled one of them apart...

"Where have you been before?"

Wang Zhongsi asked directly.

"I was trapped by the Khitan and fell off a cliff."

the man said.

"Wang Xiaojie?" Wang Zhongsi and his son said in surprise at the same time.

"Introduce them to me, I have something else to do."

Yang Feng said with a smile.

He pulled out his gas mask and put it on, then opened a rift in space and walked in. It was an eerie darkness inside. He turned on his powerful flashlight and saw a huge coffin, but this time it had a stone box on top. He walked over to the coffin and tried to open the box, but found that the edges were sealed with molten copper and even had a wax seal. There were also several iron hoops around the outside, which showed that it had been treated with great care.

Even this stone box is exquisitely carved. On it is a fairy with fluttering robes, who looks like an immortal. In front of him are Qin Qiong and others who come to pay their respects.

There are words next to it!

It is obvious that it was written by a top calligrapher, recording the story of an immortal coming and taking Qin Qiong and others away to ascend to heaven.

"Old Li is sensible!"

Yang Feng said with satisfaction, took out a sledgehammer, swung it up and hit it.

"Sorry!"

As the stone box shattered, he casually apologized to Li Shimin below, then lowered his hammer and pulled out a tightly wrapped strip. Opening it revealed a long wooden strip, or rather, a longbow, completely encased in wax. Tang Dynasty bows employed a variety of styles: longbows, horn bows, monoblocs, and composite bows. Li Shimin possessed over a dozen bows, so it was unlikely they were all of the same type. Several recurve bows were also encased inside, and even the matching bowstrings were stored separately. However, over a hundred years had passed. Even if the seals were intact and the bows themselves were sound, the strings would undoubtedly be unusable.

Yang Feng didn't continue to look at it, and quickly put the bows and bowstrings into the nine-section staff.

This completes the bow removal.

All that was left was to gather the clan members together at the end of the Tang Dynasty.

This is the most difficult project.

The descendants of Li Shimin are different from those of Zhu Yuanzhang. The descendants of Zhu Yuanzhang are all one family, but the descendants of Li Shimin have nothing except clan membership, so they are completely scattered. By the end of the Tang Dynasty, they had already scattered all over the place.

In particular, there are a lot of mixed surnames given to people, and some Hu people are included in the royal family.

It's difficult to distinguish them.

Even if the jade book was found, it would be useless. The world was in chaos at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and most of the people whose names were on it had disappeared.

There were also those who were separated due to internal struggles, such as Xu Zhigao who boasted that he was a descendant of Emperor Xianzong of Tang.

This is where the Li family’s trouble lies.

First, they were scattered, second, there were too many scoundrels, and third, due to the long-standing Li family tradition, there were too many people hiding their identities. It could be said that those who claimed to be descendants of Li Shimin were not necessarily descendants of Li Shimin, and those who were not surnamed Li were not necessarily not descendants of Li Shimin. Simply dealing with those vassal states was not difficult. He already had a number of famous generals, among whom Wang Zhongsi was clearly a talented commander, and the rest were all truly capable fighters. He also had nearly 30,000 elite soldiers.

They were all collected at the Xiangji Temple battlefield.

The fact that they belong to different camps is not difficult to solve.

Life is given by the Immortal Lord.

The Immortal Lord is their true belief.

Yang Feng then went to arrest Liu Heita. He was executed by Li Jiancheng, so there was no need to waste time talking to Li Jiancheng. He could just go to the execution ground, throw a smoke bomb, and then take the person away.

By the time he finished his work and returned to the hilltop, it was already dark. Wang Xiaojie had calmed down and sat there in a melancholy manner. Wang Zhongsi had a good relationship with his father, and his father even respected him very much. After all, it was said that he held four military governorships. The position of military governor had already existed during Wang Haibin's time. His superior Xue Na was the first to use it, and he was the ambassador of the military governorship. However, the military governorship was officially established the following year by Heba Yansi, the governor of Hexi.

Four Jiedushi.

How noble this is! Even the emperor's own son is no more than this.

Wang Haibin, who was just an ordinary general, of course admired him very much.

Among these people, he has the lowest rank.

It made his son very embarrassed.

"Everyone, we've seen the prosperous times and the chaotic times, do you want to see the end of the world?

Your life is kind of fast-forwarding!"

Yang Feng said.

"immortal……"

Wang Zhongsi bowed and said.

"Call me Immortal Venerable. Many people used to call me that."

Yang Feng said.

"Immortal Venerable, since you wish to lead us to save the Tang Dynasty, we are naturally willing to serve you. However, you must at least let us know how the Tang Dynasty perished so that we can discuss a plan to save it."

Wang Zhongsi said.

"Destruction? Simple. The whole country was filled with military governors, whether in the frontiers or the interior. Even in Guanzhong, there were several. These military governors attacked each other, seizing territory. Add to that the rebellion of the people, and the entire Tang Dynasty was in chaos. One of the military governors who occupied Bianzhou, imitated Cao Cao's plan to welcome Emperor Xian of Han and use him as a hostage to control the princes, and then invited the emperor to his place. However, he lacked Cao Cao's patience and couldn't wait for his own son, so he forced the emperor to abdicate.

He was not as shameless as the Cao family, who kept Emperor Xian of Han alive for several decades. He poisoned the Li emperor to death in the second year after he abdicated.

But he had already killed one before.

So there is no need to be ashamed."

Yang Feng said.

"Do the people still miss the Tang Dynasty?"

Wang Zhongsi said.

"That's hard to say. It should still be read, right? After all, even in the later period when the feudal lords were divided, at least a semblance of order was maintained, and the prosperous areas remained prosperous. But after the turmoil, let's put it this way, in Yangzhou City, human meat cost ten coins a pound, and dog meat fifty coins a pound. The people probably wouldn't like such an era."

Yang Feng said.

"Thus, the fall of the Tang Dynasty was due to disintegration, not collapse. The chaos under heaven was not due to the people's misery, but rather the separatist regimes, each striving for supremacy. Their ambitions were the source of the chaos, not the Li family's lack of morality. After all, as the Immortal Venerable said, the Li family was almost the same as the Zhou Emperor. Even if they were unjust, what could they do? Even the Guanzhong area was under the rule of separatist regimes. How many prefectures and counties could the emperor still have under his jurisdiction?
If so, just kill these Jiedushi."

Wang Zhongsi said.

"If you kill them, their subordinates will appoint a new one. In the late Tang Dynasty, the appointment and removal of Jiedushi was no longer decided by the imperial court, but by their subordinates, arrogant and powerful generals. Driven by their own interests, the local area needed a Jiedushi."

Yang Feng said.

"If anyone is pushed out, we'll kill him, until no one dares to be the governor anymore.

We will appoint the Prince of Huaiyang as regent, establish the new Tang Dynasty, and appoint the Immortal Venerable as the Imperial Master and Regent. We will descend to the mortal realm to crush these rebels, slaying them one by one until all the Jiedushi are annihilated. During this time, we will visit Emperor Taizong and serve him as the new ruler. As for the Immortal Venerable's request, we can clearly state that we will do our utmost to help him accomplish it. I believe the Immortal Venerable would not look down on this ant-like leader.

Wang Zhongsi said.

This guy is still very cunning.

And they had obviously discussed it beforehand. After all, Li Daoxuan was a member of the royal family. Under the current circumstances, he must represent the Tang Dynasty, and they also had to have a new court to take charge.

This shows that these guys are very flexible when it comes to the throne.

They don't stick to etiquette.

"I only want to find all the descendants of your Taizong."

Yang Feng said.

"Then please accept our respects, Immortal Venerable. From now on, we will obey your orders."

Wang Zhongsi said.

Then he knelt down to Yang Feng.

Then Li Daoxuan, Qin Qiong and others knelt down and saluted Yang Feng.

(End of this chapter)