Chapter 111: Killing
All four gates in Nanyang were destroyed, leaving only one Tang Prince's Mansion that posed a slight threat - on the other side of the Mansion, Tang Fu's two troops had already returned to the building, and the Tianyi Battalion's A and B teams had also found Gu Baihua after opening the east gate. You Futian gathered together... If the six teams still can't win a prefect's office, then Lao You should stop messing around in the future!
It will take some effort to capture the Tang Palace.
The first reason is that there are royal guards. The royal guards are different from the beggar-like guards. Their equipment, training, and salary and diet have clear standards, which are much higher than those of the guards. No civil servant dares to try to interfere with the vassal prince. In addition, the prince Various rewards and subsidies... If you eat well, your health will be good, if you have enough salary, your morale will be high, and you will be guaranteed to be strong and well trained, so your combat power cannot be underestimated.
The second reason is the palace wall. The two-foot-high wall of the Tang Prince's Mansion is higher than the walls of ordinary prefectures and counties. Trying to break through from here is no different from attacking the city with ants.
The third reason is that there is a rockery in the Tang Palace. There is a local folk song "There is a Wangfu Mountain in Nanyang, which can touch the sky" to describe the height of Wangfu Mountain. There is a pavilion on the mountain called "Jietian Pavilion". As the name suggests, this is the commanding height of the city. Although the folk songs are a bit exaggerated, in an era without skyscrapers, the height of Wangfu Mountain was indeed the highest in the Ming Dynasty. The first Tang Dynasty king Zhu Huang* was the 23rd son of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang - Taizu was fifty-eight years old at the time! You can imagine how much you love him when he gets a son at an old age: not only was he named his son after the most powerful dynasty in Chinese history, but he also went to great lengths to build the Tang Palace, transporting Taihu stones from two thousand miles away in oxcarts and piling them up with manpower. Come out of this tallest artificial rockery in ancient China!
The king of Tang Dynasty in this generation is King Tang Duan. Even though there is the word "duan" in his name, his behavior is not "duan" at all. He loves to play and plays out of style. One of the favorite games was the Tang Dynasty king's bride snatching: stand at the Jietian Pavilion to see who would marry a bride in Nanyang City...and then let the guards snatch the bride into the palace - the pretty ones would be kept, and the unattractive ones would be given away three days later. go home! Therefore, there is an old custom of "night marriage" in Nanyang. Welcoming a bride in the middle of the night is because of this prince: Even if you don't sleep in the middle of the night, you can only hear a lot of people playing and beating, and you can't see anything in the dark and dark. How can you tell the difference between a funeral and a wedding? Take back a dead body and you're responsible for burying it!
King Duan once snatched one back and caused a big trouble. The bride is a "girl" in the "Yingchun Pavilion" - as you can tell from the name, "Yingchun Pavilion" is a hook-and-rail courtyard. The girl was very scheming. She met a businessman whose first wife had died, so she used all her skills to charm this guy into a trance. Not only did she redeem her body, but she also made it clear that the matchmaker was going to marry him and take him home as his first wife. ...As a result, the businessman was unlucky and had a bad luck, and the bride was carried into the palace by the guards before she even entered the door.
When the girl regained her composure, she discovered that it was Prince Tang who was sweating profusely and panting like an ox on her body. She was so happy that she suddenly used the eighteen martial arts skills she had trained in the Spring Festival Pavilion to almost kill Prince Tang. No matter whether it was Princess Tang or the other ordinary women who were snatched, how could they have such skills? How could the playful prince be willing to let her go again?
A year later, the girl gave birth to a fat boy, and King Tang was even happier. Girl, oh, it’s time to call her Princess Side. After all, she is the Phoenix girl who came out of the courtyard. She only knows how to reach the sky in one step. She doesn’t care about the clan’s family rules. She keeps blowing the pillow wind. Finally, other than having fun, nothing else matters. The king of Tang Dynasty made a move - he wanted to change the crown prince!
This is an earth-shattering event! The crown prince of the Tang Dynasty, Zhu Qiji (pronounced "Sheng"), had already been registered at the Zongren Mansion in the capital - not only the crown prince, but also his grandson Zhu Yujian's status had also been confirmed. The rule set by the great ancestor Taizu was that "there are direct descendants, but no direct descendants". The eight sons of the Tang king were all concubines, so the king's title could only be inherited by the oldest Zhu Qiji. It is absolutely not allowed to directly submit a letter to change the crown prince. Not only is it impossible for the court to allow it, but even one's own prince will be involved. Kill Zhu Qiqi directly? The King of Tang did not dare to do it blatantly. As the saying goes, paper cannot contain the fire. Sooner or later, he and even his beloved son will be implicated. After pondering for a long time, the unlucky father and son were finally imprisoned in the Prince's Prison in the name of "unfilial piety". It wasn't enough for people to be imprisoned. They had to find a way to kill them, so they ordered that they not be given food and that the two troublemakers would starve to death. Fortunately, there was a clerk named Zhang Shutang who secretly sent some brown rice from time to time, so the father and son could not breathe. In the end, the impatient King Tang finally made up his mind and poisoned Zhu Qiji. This is what the historical records say "King Duan was confused by his lover". Just when he was thinking about killing poor Zhu Yujian* later, Guan Shengyun came.
You Futian finally knocked open the ceremonial gate of the prefect's Yamen. There were nearly two hundred people in the courtyard as soon as they entered, but the only ones wearing armor were the guards of forty or fifty Qian Yuchuan, and the others were just some idle people from six rooms. Qian Yuchuan's guards usually bully the people and show off their prowess. Where have you seen such thugs? Although most of Yufu Tianbe only wear half armor, the murderous look on their bodies is something that these guys have never seen in their lives, let alone Do you have an absolute advantage in numbers and experience in fighting with real swords and guns? In a short while, there was no one alive in the yard - You Futian had been holding back his anger these days and wanted to beat him again. Old You didn't know how to treat prisoners preferentially. The soldiers rushed to the second courtyard, while the auxiliary soldiers scattered into the lobby and the side rooms on both sides to search.
Qian Yuchuan was so frightened that he was at a loss when he entered the courtyard. The remaining guards were also panicked. At that moment, a large number of objects were thrown in through the wall. Everyone looked at them intently. They were all those who had just entered the courtyard. The heads of the guards! Immediately, there was a heavy banging sound at the courtyard door and a shout of death that was close to my ears! Upon seeing this, Qian Yuchuan said nothing and winked at the guard captain Qian Wu, and the two of them fled in panic to the back garden of the government office.
After a few hits, there was a crash, and the second door was opened from the inside, and armored guards knelt on the ground. You Futian was not a kind person, but since the other party took the initiative to open the door and asked for surrender, he did not have the nerve to start a killing spree on the spot, so he asked the auxiliary soldiers to tie up everyone first, and he led his troops straight to the third courtyard of the government office.
This place is already the back house, with only a few servants running around, and in a short time they all became dead souls. Tang Fu, who was outflanking to block the back door, heard the noise and knew that there was only a wall between him and You Futian. There was no need to stop the dog officer from escaping, so he kicked open the door and led the crowd in. Several soldiers pulled out a goatee from the side room, knelt on the ground and kowtowed to beg for mercy. He spoke in Jiaodong dialect that was difficult to understand, and it took You Futian a long time to understand that he claimed to be the cook of the government office. Looking at the long robe on his body and the small piece of silk ribbon hanging on his waist, Tang Fule was stunned before You Futian could say anything: Do you really dare to treat the thief ancestor as a fool? That piece of rope was clearly originally tied with a jade pendant! Are you trying to fool me by pulling off the jade pendant? Who has ever seen a cook with a piece of jade hanging from his waist? You can't even hide it from me, but you still want to deceive such a knowledgeable General You? Tang Fu, who was too lazy to talk nonsense, took out his dagger and let his men hold his hair. He cut off the goatee's left ear with one knife, and then the right ear was also cut off amidst the howling of ghosts and wolves. Before Tang Fu could reach his nose with the dagger again, , Mr. Kang, who was shitting himself, did it himself.
Everyone looked around but couldn't see the dog officer, so they couldn't help but look at each other. Master Kang had been hiding under the bed and didn't know anything. All the servants died, and You Futian felt a little regretful that he should have been left alive. Could he have climbed over a wall or escaped through a dog hole? Facing You Futian's probing eyes, Tang Fu felt a little annoyed: You look down on people a bit! The battalion officers in the imperial court all have guerrilla titles. Tang Fu should be considered a general after all. How can he let a dog officer escape right before his eyes? Seeing a group of prisoners being escorted in front of him, Tang Fu was so angry that he wanted to cut down a few of them and then interrogate the other frightened guys. He inserted the dagger back into his waist, and when he took the long knife that was handed over to him, it slipped and almost fell off - Master Kang's ear was cut and his hands were covered with blood and he couldn't hold the knife. He saw the lotus pond, so he went over to wash his hands, and just put his hand into the pond. After checking it out, Tang Fu was happy again: The water is a bit muddy!
The water on both sides of the pool is still clear, but there is a turbid mark that leads directly to a lotus leaf two feet away! You Futian was greeted by Tang Fu, and he was very happy. He patted Officer Tang's shoulder hard: "Good boy, I have you!" In an instant, everyone surrounded the small pond, and there were auxiliary soldiers coming from the tool room. I found the scratching hook used by the government to put out fires, got out of the pond and swung it towards the lotus leaf. Some people simply tie the iron hook with a rope, stand on the shore and shake it a few times...
"Ah" and "Ah" screamed several times. Qian Wu and Qian Yuchuan were hooked by iron hooks and dragged out.
Looking at the size of the Tang Palace, Guan Shengyun knew that there would be no shortage of guards for the palace. There must be at least more than a thousand, or even two thousand. If they were as serious as You Futian who broke into the door or had ants crawling on the wall, they would definitely be able to defeat him sooner or later, but the loss would not be huge. It will be small. At this point, the initiative was completely in his own hands, and he was not in a hurry, so he laid out a siege without haste and surrounded the palace from all directions. Then he mobilized 3,000 auxiliary soldiers to transport firewood and attack with fire!
Are there tables, chairs, benches, quilts, door panels, etc. in residential houses? The auxiliary soldiers carried their shields and piled flammable objects at the gate. The palace guards on the wall were helpless and terrified, and the arrows they fired became increasingly weak. When the pile was as high as one person, a few ladles of lamp oil were poured on it, and a few torches were flown over. In less than an hour, the gate burned down.
Some of the guards couldn't hold it back and tried to rush out at the risk of death, but they were all knocked down quickly. There were also some who stepped on ladders and climbed the wall to jump to the outside. They were more than two feet high. Without exception, they broke their arms and legs and collapsed. They were waiting on the ground to be stabbed with swords and spears, while more people suffered from mental breakdown and knelt down to beg for surrender.
Relatively speaking, Guan Shengyun was not very bloodthirsty, and he understood the risk of forcing a trapped beast to bite back, so most of the surrendered troops temporarily saved their lives. While Guan Dashuai was calmly watching the auxiliary soldiers pile firewood at the second gate of the palace, Luo Shifan, You Futian and his party arrived holding Qian Yuchuan Master Kang - Qian Wu was just a useless dog officer guard captain, and was killed by Tang on the spot. Fu stabbed him to death with a knife.
Luo Shifan saw more than a hundred prisoners squatting on the ground with their heads in hands, and the auxiliary soldiers carrying wood back and forth despite the arrows shot from the inner wall. He rolled his eyes and muttered a few words to Guan Shengyun. Guan Shengyun said with great joy: "My dear nephew" We really have you!" He called Guan Jianlin and ordered: "Remove the auxiliary soldiers", pointed at the group of prisoners, "Tell them to pile up!"
The defenders on the inner wall watched their former comrades carrying firewood for themselves under the pressure of swords and guns. Some of them cursed and shot arrows, and more of them had pleading looks in their eyes... The prisoners also shouted the names of acquaintances. : "Zhang Yun, Li Gui, please surrender. You can't escape. The king said he won't kill you if you surrender..."
After the second gate was burned down, soldiers from Feihu Camp and Poxiao Camp strode in, and the guards' will to fight was completely shattered. More than 300 people kowtowed to surrender, and the rest were killed on the spot.
The Tang palace fell.
Guan Shengyun sat in the Jietian Pavilion with a golden sword, overlooking the whole city of Nanyang Mansion. Although the place was relatively cramped, all the generals gathered and crowded into a pile. The king of Tang was also tied up and kneeling beside him. The generals were angry at Qian Yuchuan's viciousness and unanimously wanted to kill him, but they had no unified opinion on how to deal with the king of Tang. Luo Yonghao whispered a few words in Guan Shengyun's ear, and Guan Shengyun nodded.
Under Guan Shengyun, everyone is not so particular, and they are all laughing and joking without any rules. But if we have to rank them, Gao Tengdou and You Futian are more senior than others, so they, in a subtle way, sometimes have to compete for the limelight. Two wooden stakes were erected at the foot of the Wangfu Mountain. Qian Yuchuan and Master Kang were tied naked to them. The two naked guys held knives in their hands and looked at Guan Shengyun, waiting for his signal - it was Gao You, they were going to Let's perform another massacre of a living person to see whose skill is more exquisite.
A series of miserable howls suddenly sounded, and then slowly became fainter...
More than an hour later, Zhang Ding, who served as the referee, carefully examined it for a long time and finally announced: Although they were all skeletons, Prefect Qian's heart still fluctuated slightly, so General You Futian, the surgeon in charge, won! Gao Tengdou came closer unconvinced, put his face against Qian Yuchuan's ribs, looked through the gap, stared for a while, stabbed his heart hard with the knife in his hand, and said bitterly: "This guy is young, so he can be more durable." . Let's compete again!" As he spoke, he glanced at King Tang.
King Tang had already collapsed on the ground like mud. Guan Shengyun waved his hand: "Forget it, forget it, Guan is still tired if you are not tired."
After hearing this, King Tang kept kowtowing and stammering his endless gratitude. Guan Shengyun said contemptuously: "Don't be happy. If I don't take your life, I'm afraid my brothers will say what else Guan is afraid of and leave a way out for the court! You are a prince after all, we will personally send you on your way!" With a wave of their hands, the generals lifted up the fun-loving Prince Tang and threw him down from the high mountain top!
The supplies in the official treasury of Nanyang Prefecture were piled up like mountains, and there were even more harvests in the rooms of Qian Yuchuan and Kang Sheng, as well as in the Tang Palace. Guan Shengyun's tribe had plundered prefectures, counties and even prefectures before, but this was the first time in the palace. . Moreover, no matter how hard they turn it over, some things will always leak out to the public. Qian Yuchuan worked hard to collect them all over the past few years, but it seemed that they were prepared in advance for Guan Shengyun and others!
Gu Baihua found a teenage boy in the dungeon. He was so hungry that he was covered in skin and bones, and he was very dull, as if he was stupid. A young official named Zhang Shutang cried and said that he was his son, and he accidentally broke the prince's cup. He was imprisoned here and was punished to starve to death in front of his eyes... Gu Baihua felt compassion and gave hundreds of dollars to him. The two silver coins were sent away, and Zhu Yujian saved his life.
*In order to avoid naming conflicts among the people, the names Zhu Yuanzhang gave to his children and grandchildren were basically incomprehensible and rare characters. Many of them were created by Lao Zhu himself. They were arranged according to the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, so you can tell by looking at the names of the clan members. Which generation is it.
*Tang Duanwang, Zhu Qiji, Zhu Yujian and others did exist, especially Zhu Yujian who succeeded Tang Wangjue and became Emperor Longwu. This is relatively the most similar of the four emperors of the Southern Ming Dynasty. It is also recorded in official history that King Duan was confused by his lover. Of course, Yingchunyuan and so on are just myths.
