The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 195 Grievance
For this great battle.

The five guard posts and the military households throughout the border town had been preparing for about twenty days.

I felt scared, uneasy, and somewhat expectant.

The bad news is, the Tatar army has really arrived!
The good news is: The Jade-Faced Rakshasa has returned!
From Deputy Commander-in-Chief Xiong Zhen to the many military families in the border city, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Previously, it was rumored that the Jade-Faced Rakshasa had single-handedly killed tens of thousands of Western Region barbarians at Jinzhou Pass.

Now it's the Tatars' turn!
As they were both enemies invading the border, she couldn't possibly show favoritism to the Jade-Faced Rakshasa, could she?

The Tatar army is now in a precarious situation, with no choice but to act.

Now that their whereabouts have been discovered by the Bei army, they cannot retreat.

then.

After the scouts discovered that the pits and caves were safe for people to step on, they found that the pits and caves were safe for people to step on.

The commanders at the three breaches simultaneously made the decision to have their armies abandon their horses and attack the city!

What the Tatar cavalry relied on.

First, their mounts are incredibly fast when they run, and can catch the enemy off guard during a surprise attack. Second, everyone has excellent archery skills.

At the three major passes, a tough battle is about to begin.
Meanwhile, in Xijing City.

General Zhao was also ordering a new round of attacks on the defending Po Jun.

This was the third day since the border troops arrived in Xijing City.

Although the army has been traveling for more than twenty days since it set off from the border town, and has been moving at a fast pace, the journey has not been smooth.

They first encountered more than seven thousand deserters from nearby prefectures on Guanlong Avenue.

To avoid being drafted to suppress bandits, these deserters hid in the deep mountains and became bandits.

They are so vicious and ruthless, they dare to rob anyone!

They actually managed to steal the grain transport workers who were walking ahead of the main army.

The border troops were forced to begin their anti-banditry campaign ahead of schedule.

More than 7,000 people are not enough for them to fight and kill several times.

But seeing the ragged, emaciated soldiers who had been killed, the border troops felt particularly heavy-hearted.

If it weren't for General Zhao, most of them would probably be in a worse situation than these soldiers.
This group of people had weapons and men. When they were driven to a dead end, the difference between soldiers and bandits was truly just a matter of a single thought.

One can imagine the feelings of the border troops as they slaughtered these former comrades.

What gave them even more headaches was entering Po Jun's territory.

Although ordinary people dared not openly fight the border troops, they could deduce their destination from the border troops' marching patterns.

then.

Various roadblocks appeared from time to time on the official road.

Those unruly villagers would organize men, women, and children in the village overnight to dig hundreds of large pits on the official road.

They didn't turn it into a trap; they just put it out there openly on the road!

People can pass through, but vehicles cannot; horses are prone to falling over.

If the stone road is difficult to dig, some clever people will roll huge boulders from the mountain into the middle of the road to block it, often several tons of boulders blocking the road in large piles.

What's most infuriating is that some people lay nails or thorny splinters on the road. Furthermore, nearby streams and water sources have been polluted by these people using animal excrement.

The border soldiers tried several times to enter the village to ask for a bowl of water, but they were unsuccessful.

In the border town, and even throughout Huaiqing Prefecture.

Although military households have a low status, when have the border soldiers who protect the country ever been treated like this by the common people?
The people of Guanzhong, are they being treated like barbarians or Tartars?

Each and every one of them felt incredibly wronged.

General Zhao had no choice but to send several thousand men ahead to clear the roadblocks so that the main force could proceed.

It was delayed by five or six days compared to the original plan.

When they saw that the army's attack on Xijing City was unstoppable and a foregone conclusion, the people along the way started causing trouble again.

Thousands of old men and women sat in a large group on the official road, pleading for justice for the fallen soldiers:
"My lord, we've finally had a few months of peace. Can't we just stop fighting and stop people from dying?"

General Zhao remained expressionless:

"Where has the peace been found? The refugees have not only taken over more than half of the prefectures in the Three Qin Provinces, but they are also constantly expanding outwards! If anyone in your family has joined the refugee army, or even if they die, quickly tell them to open the city gates and surrender. As long as they are not the leaders of the rebels, they can be spared the death penalty!"

The old man wouldn't let it go:
"What wrong have they done? It's all the court's fault! When has the court ever cared about the lives of us common people? When there's drought or disaster, we haven't seen a single grain of relief grain! If Po Jun had opened the granaries to give grain to us poor people, our old bones would have been maggots long ago!"

The accompanying officers were so angry they laughed:

"These refugee leaders are really generous with other people's money. Are they opening granaries to distribute grain even their own? They've done all the good deeds, but the court bears all the blame. Every time they go to a prefecture or county, they slaughter indiscriminately. Are the lives of court officials really that important?"

Seeing that these officials were taking a very tough stance, the old ladies became anxious:

"They killed corrupt officials! They don't bully the poor. Our county magistrate is a big corrupt official! He's a decrepit old man in his fifties who has taken eight concubines. The soldiers found more than 50,000 taels of silver in his mansion! How much is a county magistrate's annual salary? This kind of parasite deserves to be killed by everyone!"

"In traditional operas, it's called punishing evil and promoting good!"

"Yes, punish evil and promote good! The Po Jun are all for us poor people. If it weren't for them, three generations of us would have been tenant farmers."

"Waaah, my husband is seriously ill. I borrowed five taels of silver from the landlord Qian, and after a year of compound interest, it has become fifty-eight taels! Even if I sell all the children in my family, I still can't pay it back! In the end, the landlord Qian took away the few acres of land that my family had inherited!"

Since the landlord Qian settled in our town, in less than ten years, half of the land in the eight villages below had fallen into his hands. We were still farming our own land, but we only received 30% of the grain! In years of natural disasters, we tenant farmers still had to pay rent to the landlord Qian as usual.”

Unfortunately, the old man and woman were destined to be disappointed.

No matter how good Po Jun is in their mouths, or how much the people love him.

The imperial edict has been issued.

Military orders are like mountains.

No one could stop the army's advance towards Xijing.

They were trying to forcibly block the road of unarmed civilians, mostly elderly people.

The border troops expended considerable effort in dragging the suspect, and bloodshed inevitably occurred.
The army of 100,000 finally arrived at the gates of Xijing City in about twenty days.

If Po Jun is the savior of the poor.

That corresponds to the enemies of merchants and officials.

When these merchants learned that the imperial court was dispatching elite troops from key border towns to relieve Xijing City, they became eager to act.

It has always been true that defending a city is easier than attacking it.

Zhao Muyun and his men launched a fierce attack yesterday and have already learned their lesson.

Last night, we received some inside information and finally found a breakthrough. General Zhao and his men plan to make a breakthrough in one fell swoop.
(End of this chapter)