Who killed the Ming Dynasty?

Song An began to curse loudly:

"You blind, despicable soldiers! How dare you frame loyal and virtuous officials!"

"I, Song An, wore out seventeen pairs of hemp shoes running for the imperial court, and even when crossing the Yellow River, icicles pierced the soles of my feet, I still didn't miss the appointed time!"

"Now, your fabricated charges are no different from treating human life like dirt!"

He spat on the ground, his eyes wide as saucers, and continued cursing:

"You, as soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, instead of protecting your country, are here indiscriminately killing innocent people and oppressing the common folk!"

"Open your eyes and look at your armor! Feel the military badges on your waists! Should the swords of the Ming Dynasty be used to cut down Tartars or civilians?"

"How can you commit such atrocities? Do you think you're worthy of the loyal martyrs buried in your ancestral graves? Your parents in the afterlife would be ashamed to death!"

Song An's curses grew increasingly fierce, almost roaring.

When the words "turn over" were uttered...

The scarred soldier grabbed a dusty rag, shoved it around the back of his head, and gagged him tightly.

Song An's face contorted instantly, turning purple, and he could only utter muffled "uh-uh" sounds.

"Gentlemen,

Zhu Cilang took half a step forward and bowed with his hands clasped in greeting:

"Huang Degong, the General of Luzhou, is my mentor and a fellow general of General Liu."

He met the soldier's gaze and raised his chin slightly:

"I am passing through this place today on my way to seek refuge with my master. I am by no means a bandit."

When Zhu Cilang mentioned Huang Degong, he specifically emphasized that this general of Luzhou, along with Liu Zeqing, was one of the four garrison commanders of Jiangbei.

He attempted to suppress the opponent's arrogance by virtue of his status as a general of the same rank.

Before the words were finished, the town suddenly fell into an eerie silence.

The faded "Taipingchun" signboard of the tea stall stood frozen in the wind.

The soldiers under Liu Zeqing exchanged glances, as if they had suddenly received some kind of secret signal.

Suddenly, a burst of rough, boisterous laughter erupted, and the soldiers laughed so hard they almost fell over.

The scarred soldier suddenly slammed his spear heavily on the ground.

"The General of Luzhou?"

He tilted his head and took half a step closer.

"What business is it of our Linhuai Army?"

Zhu Cilang suppressed his anger, but lowered his voice:

"I recently assisted General Gao Jinzhong in recovering 180,000 taels of silver in Huai'an Prefecture."

"This can be corroborated by the Grand Canal Transport Commissioner!"

After speaking, he took out the "pass document" signed by Lu Zhenfei from his pocket and presented it with both hands.

This was his last resort. If even Lu Zhenfei's name couldn't suppress these thugs, things would likely end badly today.

Wang Bazong's lips twitched slightly, and his thumb, which was stroking the hilt of the goose-feather knife, suddenly stopped.

The pockmarked guard behind him suddenly spat out a chewed blade of grass.

"You have quite the nerve! 180,000 taels? You're probably crazy for money!"

The other soldiers laughed so hard they were doubled over, and the soldiers holding Song An were shouting mockingly:

"Huang Degong is nothing!"

"How could Lu Zhenfei's lucrative position in charge of the canal transport possibly extend to our lives?"

"While we were risking our lives, you little brat were still drinking women's milk!"

Amidst the laughter, the scout stepped forward, snatched the document, glanced at it only once, and casually tossed it to the ground.

Finished!

Zhu Cilang stared at the document on the ground, his last glimmer of hope completely extinguished.

The collapse of social order has reached this point.

Official documents are nothing but a fig leaf; the law comes from the very handle of the knife.

A chilling realization coursed through his body; he finally understood—

In this chaotic world, no rules matter; the only way to survive is to fight your way out.

Although he was filled with resentment, he knew that he should not act rashly at this time.

Shortly after, Commander Wang waved his hand, and the soldiers escorted everyone south, out of the town.

Zhu Cilang was not tied up, perhaps because the boy did not seem to pose much of a threat.

He and the hunched old man each held one end of a straw rope, carrying the young man's still-warm body, and slowly moved at the back of the procession.

The road underfoot gradually transformed from a solid dirt track into a forest path strewn with gravel and dead branches.

The trees on both sides grew increasingly dense and shady, their intertwined branches and leaves cutting the midday sun into fragmented spots of light.

Zhu Cilang didn't know where he was going, so he could only move forward in silence and wait for an opportunity.

The procession moved with unusual slowness, each step feeling like a threshold to hell.

Blood dripped down the grooves of the hemp rope, leaving intermittent red marks on the loess ground.

The lively atmosphere of the town had long since vanished, replaced by an indescribable, somber smell of earth.

In the deathly silent mountains and forests.

The only sounds were the heavy thud of soldiers' boots, the suppressed sobs and gasps of refugees, and the rustling of ropes.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the soldiers ahead shouted for them to stop.

A flock of crows took flight in the mountains and forests.

The strange "quack quack" echoed through the empty valley, and a strong smell of blood wafted over.

Zhu Cilang felt a churning in his stomach, but he forced himself to hold it in and looked up—

The sight before him startled him so much that he almost lost his balance.

Ahead lay a huge, newly formed pit.

Dozens of headless corpses lay sprawled in the pit, their bodies twisted and overlapping.

Some were highly decomposed, with flesh and bones exposed, and the smell of decay was overwhelming.

A corpse had its arm outstretched upwards, its five fingers digging deeply into the mud of the pit wall, frozen in the struggle before its death.

"This...this is what it looks like outside of Nanjing under the rule of the Ming Dynasty?"

A surge of immense anger instantly gripped him.

"This is not a battlefield, this is a slaughterhouse! They are not killing Tartars, they are killing the people of the Ming Dynasty!"

The arm struggling upwards in the pit dug straight into his heart, suffocating him.

He subconsciously turned his head to look at Song An beside him.

Song An's face was pale, his lips trembled slightly, and he made indistinct babbling sounds, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't.

Just then, the sound of a dry branch snapping suddenly rang out from behind.

Zhu Cilang turned his head and saw a young woman of about twenty years old who was knocked to her knees by the scabbard.

She was dressed in plain clothes, her brows were like snow, her eyes were like frost, and she exuded a cool and aloof temperament.

The wooden hairpin in her hair was sticking out at an angle and was about to fall, but she still raised her head and looked directly at the soldiers. She was pushed and staggered a few steps, almost falling down.

She bit her lower lip, a hint of grief and indignation flashing in her eyes, and murmured softly:

"How absurd this world is..."

Looking at the pit in front of him, Zhu Cilang had already pictured what was about to happen:

"The refugees would be ordered to kneel in a row one by one, and the soldiers, armed with sharp blades, would cut off their heads one by one, then kick the bodies into the pit."

These scoundrels actually wanted to use the heads of refugees to exchange for military merits and rewards; they were utterly depraved!

They seem to have become quite adept at such atrocities.

They even skipped the step of moving the corpses, letting the victims walk to the edge of the pit on their own and let them be slaughtered.

They would tie the head with a straw rope as soon as it hit the ground, and use it as a number in the military merit book.

If the operation were carried out within the town, it would require the laborious task of moving the corpses; this new method saves a great deal of trouble.

This is absolutely outrageous and intolerable.

They had just put down the young man's corpse.

A one-eared soldier, swinging a rope, slowly approached Zhu Cilang, the notch in his left ear gleaming white in the sunlight.

Zhu Cilang's anger flared up instantly:

"You actually want to use my head to exchange for the money I retrieved?"

Extreme anger overwhelmed the last shred of hesitation.

"In this glorious Ming Dynasty, is there anything more absurd than this? Even if I die today, I will splatter your blood!"

Zhu Cilang stared at the corpse in the pit, and the "One-Eared" soldier shouted:

"Put your hand out..."

Zhu Cilang obediently stretched out his hands, but the cuffs trembled slightly due to the tension in his muscles.

The one-eared soldier was bending down to grab his forearm, the blade of his dagger swaying in front of his eyes with the movement.

The instant the rope touched his wrist—

Zhu Cilang suddenly raised his left hand and instantly clamped the soldier's right wrist shut like an iron clamp.

His right hand had already reached for the hilt of the sword at the other's waist. With a clang as the steel sword was drawn from its sheath, the blade swept diagonally through the air.

The one-eared soldier never expected that this seemingly weak boy would resist, and his pupils suddenly contracted in the flash of the blade.

"You little bastard!"

Blood vessels shot out from the cloudy whites of his eyes, and his perfectly healthy right ear instantly turned red.

Years of slashing had ingrained muscle memory, causing his left hand to instinctively reach for the short blade at his waist.