Dual Transmigration: Starting from being captured and brought to the Hehuan Sect!

The Empress remained silent for a long while, her fingers tapping lightly on the imperial desk.

She was finding Lin Mo increasingly difficult to understand.

He was loyal, for he dared to defy imperial orders and even sent troops to bomb the prefectural government office.

Despite being accused of being a rebel, he wrote "Support the Empress" in black and white in the Lianhai Daily, refusing to collude with the rebels.

Perhaps this person didn't really want to rebel, but simply didn't want to be bound by the imperial court.

In any case, the most urgent matter right now is in Hezhou.

She picked up her vermilion brush, spread out the imperial edict, and wrote with flowing, powerful strokes.

A moment later, a new imperial edict was held in the hands of the female official and sent to Lianhai County by express courier.

The imperial edict stated that Lin Mo was to immediately assume the post of Prefect of Hezhou, overseeing the military and political affairs of Hezhou, quelling the rebellion, and was not permitted to resign.

The imperial edict still failed to reach Lianhai County; it was stopped again as soon as it arrived in Cangwu.

Lin Mo was in the study planning the future development of the two places with Su Qing, Yang Liu, and Long Qingxue when Liu Si ran in, holding a telegram in his hands, his expression unreadable, a mixture of joy and worry.

"My lord, another imperial edict has arrived from the capital!"

Lin Mo took the telegram, scanned it, and a smile crept onto his face:

"The opportunity has arrived! From now on, Hezhou will be my domain!"

Yang Liu curiously took the telegram from Lin Mo's hand, skimmed through it, and then excitedly began to speak:

"Xiao Mo, you got promoted!"

"It's called a promotion, but it's actually a hot potato. However, it's hot to others!"

"Pass on my order: Self-Defense Forces, assemble immediately!"

Leaving one-third of the troops to garrison Lianhai, Lin Mo personally led the main force in an armored vehicle, marching westward in a grand procession.

Although he was rushing to the aid of Hezhou, his marching pace was orderly. He rested when he needed to and cooked meals when he needed to, without any sense of urgency as if he were on a forced march.

In his mind, even if Hezhou Prefecture were captured, it wouldn't be a great loss to him.

But if this newly built army, which I have worked so hard to build, were to be lost, that would be a real huge loss.

Two days later, the army finally arrived near Hezhou Prefecture.

Lin Mo stood on a high slope and raised his binoculars. He saw that the city of Hezhou was filled with the smoke of gunpowder, and the faint sounds of crying and shouting could be heard on the wind.

He frowned, about to order the deployment of the siege formation, when a scout suddenly rode up to report.

When the rebels in the city heard that the army from Lianhai County had arrived, they didn't even put up any resistance and simply ran away through the west gate with the looted goods.

Lin Mo paused, a hint of surprise flashing across his face.

Victory without a fight?

This is going too smoothly.

He had originally planned to show these unsophisticated rebels what the power of technology was, but before the mortar could even be unloaded from the mule, the enemy had already fled.

It felt like putting all your strength into a punch, only to hit a ball of cotton.

When the army marched into Hezhou Prefecture, the people on the street saw another group of troops entering the city from afar, and fear instinctively flashed across their faces.

As the saying goes, soldiers and bandits are one family.

These days, they've seen so much burning, killing, and looting that they can no longer distinguish between soldiers and bandits.

Lin Mo, riding on horseback, witnessed all of this, a complex mix of emotions washing over him:

"When prosperity comes, the people suffer; when ruin comes, the people suffer..."

That's absolutely right!

Without delay, he immediately ordered the entire army to halt its advance. The first priority was not to pursue the routed enemy, but to put out the fire, collect the corpses, and comfort the people.

At the same time, messengers were sent out to announce the news by banging gongs along the streets.

The newly appointed prefect of Hezhou, Lin Mo, has taken office. The Lianhai Self-Defense Army is the imperial army and will never disturb the people. The people need not panic.

The reassurance operation went very smoothly.

The unit Lin Mo brought received modern military discipline training from the very beginning.

"Not taking a single needle or thread from the masses" is an ironclad rule written into the "Discipline Regulations of the Self-Defense Army".

Those who violate this rule will be dismissed from the military at best, and imprisoned at worst; there will be no ambiguity.

But there are always some people in this world who take chances, thinking that in the chaos, their little tricks won't be discovered.

In a house in the south of the city, half of which had been burned down, a new recruit was squatting in the ruins, rummaging through them.

His name was Liu Ergou. He had recently been recruited from among the refugees. Before joining the army, he had worked as a laborer in other counties for several years and was not exactly clean.

While his companions were carrying rubble in the neighboring yard, he quickly stuffed the few pieces of gold jewelry and precious stones scattered on the ground into his satchel.

"Liu Ergou, what are you doing?"

A cold voice suddenly sounded behind me.

Liu Ergou's hand trembled, and he almost dropped his satchel into the pile of rubble.

He turned his head and saw a military police officer wearing a red armband standing behind him.

"N-nothing, just checking to see if anyone is still buried underneath."

Liu Ergou stood up with a smile, intending to walk away.

The military police officer reached out and stopped him, pointing to his bulging satchel:

"What's in the bag? Open it and see."

Liu Ergou's face turned pale instantly, and he instinctively covered his bag:

There's nothing there...

The disciplinary officers stopped arguing with him and simply grabbed his bag and shook it out.

Gold hairpins, jade bracelets, and several strings of pearl necklaces fell to the ground with a clatter, gleaming brightly in the rubble.

The military police officer glanced down at the pile of jewelry, then looked up at Liu Ergou, whose face was ashen, and waved to the soldiers behind him:

"take away."

That evening, the entire army assembled on the drill ground.

The thousand people stood in neat rows, completely silent.

Lin Mo stood on the reviewing stand, with Liu Ergou kneeling beside him, bound hand and foot, and the pile of jewelry that had been taken from his satchel spread out on the ground in front of him.

The disciplinary captain opened the "Discipline Regulations" and read out Liu Ergou's violations one by one in front of all the officers and soldiers.

"Liu Ergou, soldier of the 7th Platoon, 3rd Company, recruit camp."

This afternoon, while assisting with the cleanup in the ruins south of the city, he took advantage of his companions' absence to steal valuables left behind by the city's residents, including two gold hairpins, a pair of jade bracelets, and three pearl necklaces.

Caught red-handed, he confessed to his disciplinary violations.

According to Article 8 of Chapter 4 of the "Self-Defense Army Discipline Regulations":

Anyone who steals civilian property during wartime will be discharged from the military.

Those involving substantial sums will be transferred to military courts.

The disciplinary captain closed the book of regulations and took a step back.

Two military policemen stepped forward and stripped Liu Ergou of his uniform in front of the entire army.

The collar insignia, armbands, and rank insignia were torn off one by one, leaving only the military cap that had been worn for less than a month.

Liu Ergou knelt on the ground, trembling all over. His lips quivered as he tried to say something, but he couldn't utter a single word.

The military police put shackles around his neck and led him out of the drill ground.

His silhouette stretched long in the setting sun, watched by thousands of eyes, the silence broken only by the orderly footsteps of the military police and the clanging of shackles.