The unconscious Zu Dashou was dragged into the tent by the guards, along with the head servant of the Zu family and a fat servant.
A group of guards held short blunderbuss and waist knives, staring intently at the two people kneeling on the ground.
When they saw Liu Zhaosun sitting at the top, they kowtowed to each other.
Liu Zhaosun withdrew his eyes from the corpses scattered outside the tent and quickly glanced at the two of them.
Zhang Dong came close to him and whispered a few words in a low voice.
Before meeting Ping Liaohou, the leader of the Zhenfu soldiers had briefly interrogated the two men and had a general understanding of their situation.
After Liu Zhaosun heard what Zhang Mazi said, he slowly opened his eyes and looked forward:
"Zu Dashou, did you catch him?"
The two looked at each other, and one of them, the short and stocky one, nodded quickly and said flatteringly:
"Master Liu Hou, my name is Wang Rong, Zu Dashou asked me to catch him, and I caught him alone."
After he finished speaking, he looked at his kneeling companion with disdain and said disdainfully:
"He was just a cook who escaped with his life."
Zhang Dong picked up the scabbard and threw it at Wang Rong, saying angrily:
"Just say whatever you ask, don't be nagging!"
Wang Rong quickly shut up.
Liu Zhaosun looked sternly and said:
"Are you the head of Zu Dashou's servants?"
Wang Rong realized that the situation was not good and quickly waved his hand:
"Master Liu Hou, you are wronged. I am originally from Luanjiazhuang, Shenyang. I was caught here by Liao Town in the 40th year of Wanli. I know some archery, but I was forced by Zu Dashou to do bad things. I want to report to the court every day." Expose Zu Dashou's crimes, God's eyes will open, Lord Liu, you caught him today..."
The servant kept talking nonstop, and Liu Zhaosun interrupted him with a wave of his hand:
"You have been with the ancestral family for ten years?"
Wang Rong, who was kneeling on the ground, nodded in confusion.
"Since you are the head of the servants, Zu Dashou treats you well. In times of crisis, you not only fail to protect your master, but also betray him! Use his blood to dye your official robe red. When I was in Saarhu , all eight hundred servants under his command died in battle, who is like you?! I hate treacherous people the most in my life, and you must have done a lot of bullying over women in the past few years."
Liu Zhaosun's voice suddenly increased several times, and he started to slap the case, his face full of murderous intent:
"Last winter, the servants of the ancestral family colluded with Dongchang fans, sneaked into Kaiyuan, killed innocent people indiscriminately, incited Song Yingsheng to defect, ambushed my guard in southern Liaoning, killed the guard captain Zhang Chao, and also went to Shandong to kill my wife. Are you involved in all of this?"
"Come here, drag him out! Take him to Ningyuan City and execute him in Lingchi!"
Wang Rong's face was pale and his forehead was covered with sweat. He cried and kowtowed to the Marquis of Pingliao for mercy:
"Sir, spare your life! Spare your life, the villain was forced to kill the original soldiers. It was Zu Dashou's idea, and it has nothing to do with the villain... Didn't your Excellency say that as long as Zu Dashou is captured, thousands of households will be sealed and a reward of silver will be given... ···”
A group of guards immediately rushed up and dragged the servant out. Many brothers in the Chinese Guards were killed in Liaonan. The enemies were extremely jealous when they saw each other.
Liu Zhaosun raised his hand slightly, and the guards stopped in place, waiting for orders.
"Wait a minute, I remember that I seem to have said this."
Wang Rong let out a long sigh of relief, with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
He was about to kowtow and thank Marquis Ping Liao.
A cold voice sounded in the tent:
"In that case, I will cut you into pieces first, and then I will grant you the title of Thousand Households and a reward of three thousand taels of silver. I will keep it for you first. You can go in peace."
Wang Rong's newly ignited hope was instantly shattered. Liu Zhaosun waved his hand gently to those lifeless eyes.
The guards swarmed up and dragged the servant leader out by his limbs like a dead dog.
The captured general of Liao Town in the tent saw this scene and did not dare to express his anger. He Kegang was tied up by Wu Hua Da, struggling and shouting:
"Liu Zhaosun, if you want to kill me, kill me. I will frown and take your last name!"
Zhang Dong stepped forward and wanted to hit someone, but Marquis Pingliao stopped him.
"He Shou Bei, I have wronged you. I need to deal with some personal matters first. I will talk to you after the handling is completed."
"You killed innocent people indiscriminately..."
He Kegang continued to scold, but Zhang Dong stuffed a piece of rag into his mouth.
Liu Zhaosun nodded to this fierce general from Liao Town and turned to look ahead.
Before Zu Dashou woke up, the fat cook next to him was trembling with fear, and the ground under his feet was wet.
Liu Zhaosun restrained his murderous intent and looked up at the cook:
"Are you from Huguang? How did you come to Liaoxi?"
The fat cook trembled and stammered:
"Back, back to Mr. Liu Hou, I was originally from Junzhou, Huguang. I opened a tea shop at Junzhou Caodian Wharf. Wan, in the thirty-seventh year of Wanli, General Zu went to Wudang Mountain to offer incense. He said that Xiaoren's dishes were made It tasted so good that I took the villain to Liaoxi."
Liu Zhaosun looked at the fat man and said pleasantly:
"May I have your name?"
"My name is Tan Er. I usually add two spoons of soup to my dishes, so they all call me Tan Er."
Liu Zhaosun's gloomy face rarely showed a smile. With the war in chaos, he didn't want to meet his fellow villagers in western Liaoning.
"Er Shao, I am also from Junzhou. My family is at the foot of Wudang Mountain. I heard from Zhang Yingguan that you are an honest man and have not done anything bad. I will give you some money to leave this place of trouble and go back to Junzhou."
Tan Ershao was deeply moved when he heard that Marquis Pingliao said that he would not kill him but would still pay for it.
He hesitated for a moment and then said bravely:
"Master Liu Hou, our ancestor Dashou was full of evil in western Liaoning. There were not many good people in his family. Over the years, they raped women and plundered the people. You destroyed your ancestor's family today to eliminate harm for the people. We have such a person like you in Junzhou. Good officials, like Chen Shimei, are really a blessing to the people. I have been away from home for almost ten years, and I am afraid that I will not be able to return home."
Hearing Chen Shimei, his heart skipped a beat. Isn't this guy the big villain in the Chen Shimei case?
Judging from Er Shao's tone, this person has a pretty good reputation among the people.
But I don’t have time to study the guillotine case now.
I looked at Er Shao carefully, and the more I looked at it, the more I felt that I was destined to this fellow countryman.
If Jin Yuji is still alive, she will be in confinement.
I need to hire a cook.
He looked at Zhang Dong and whispered:
"Take him to the training officer Sen for a lesson. If there is no problem, he will be sent to the General Military Mansion to cook for me."
At this time, Zu Dashou sat up from the ground unsteadily.
He finally woke up.
Liu Zhaosun glanced at Zu Dashou and said nothing.
This was the second time the two met. The first time was in Shenyang City in April of the 47th year of Wanli.
That time, he and Zu Dashou almost had a fight.
It was from then on that the two began to officially feud.
Now, Zu Dashou was slumped on the ground, his former unruly look gone.
Zhang Dong shouted loudly and ordered Zu Dashou to kneel down.
"You bitch, I'm going to chop you up for the people of Kaiyuan today!"
Liu Zhaosun waved to Zhang Dong, stood up, left his seat, and walked straight to Zu Dashou.
Liu Zhaosun looked at his enemy with a calm expression, so quiet that it was scary.
Zu Dashou was shocked by this aura and said uneasily:
"If I had not allowed Ding Bi and the others to trouble you three years ago at the Liaodong Governor's Mansion, would the fate of our ancestors have been different?"
Liu Zhaosun's face was as calm as water and he shook his head gently.
Veins popped up on Zu Dashou's face as he cursed.
Suddenly, General Zu thought of many things.
Three thousand servants have been lost, Ningyuan is about to be lost, and there is no land the size of the ancestral home in western Liaoning. The family business of three generations has been destroyed today at the hands of Liu Zhaosun.
He raised his head with difficulty, his eyes filled with resentment and unwillingness.
Suddenly, he laughed ferociously.
"Liu Zhaosun, Song Yingsheng and the others succeeded in Shandong, didn't you know? Your women and children are all dead. Hahaha! I only got the news before Ningyuan was surrounded, and I never had time to tell you."
"Liu Zhaosun, don't you want to be the emperor? You can't even protect your woman, how can you be the emperor? And your father-in-law Yang Hao, do you know how he died? It's because..."
"Give him a little white boat."
Liu Zhaosun's voice was choked and he looked up at Zhang Dong.
Zhang Mazi nodded.
~~~~·
On that day, generals such as Zu Dashou, Zu Dabi, and He Kegang were captured. A total of 2,000 soldiers and servants were captured in Liao Town. The rest were killed by the common people, and Liao Town was destroyed.
Of the 5,000 men and horses that went out of Xuanfu Town in pursuit, less than 1,000 of them finally escaped, and 3,000 generals and soldiers below the rank of general were captured.
For the next two days, the defenders huddled in the city and did not dare to show their heads.
The fighting will of the guest soldiers was not as good as that of Liao Town. Now that Zu Dashou died and Liao Town was destroyed, naturally no one regarded Ningyuan as their home field anymore.
As the siege continued, not only a few generals, but also the supervisors and managers had begun to surrender.
The Kaiyuan Army continued to dig tunnels and pile mounds of earth.
The range of artillery fire at the city head was not enough to cover the mounds behind the earthen wall.
The defenders in the city could only witness in despair as the mound grew taller and taller until it was higher than the city wall.
On March 6, Wu Zimian couldn't bear it anymore and led 300 servants out of the city to attack.
As a result, the people of Yansui Town were killed by the ambushed Kaiyuan Army, leaving more than 60 corpses behind, and Wu Zimian fled back to the city in panic.
From then on, no one dared to leave the city to fight in the wild.
On March 9, under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands of soldiers at the foot of the city, a white boat was pushed into the moat.
Zu Dashou, the commander-in-chief of Ningyuan, and Zu Dabi, the commander-in-chief of Guangning, were tied up in the boat, and their bodies were soaked in fierce fire oil.
Ping Liaohou, surrounded by Chinese army guards, came to the moat, and the sound of mountains and tsunamis was heard over the endless camps.
Liu Zhaosun took a big bow from Deng Changxiong.
The boiling crowd immediately subsided.
Kang Yingqian handed over a light arrow in his hand, the arrow cluster dipped in tung oil.
Liu Zhaosun took out the fire seal and approached it slightly, and the arrow was immediately lit.
Under the city wall, hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes looked this way.
Behind the battlements at the city head, the Liaodong governor and supervisors all looked cold.
Liu Zhaosun's eyes were filled with tears.
He forced himself to take out the amber thumb ring given to him by Jin Yuji from his arms, put it on his right thumb, gently pulled the bow string, and adjusted the finger ring position.
He took one last look at the small white boat floating on the river fifty steps away, and gently closed his eyes.
The Korean nursery rhyme sung by Kim Yu-hee rang in my ears.
blue sky milky way
There is a little white boat
There is an osmanthus tree on the boat
White rabbit is playing
The oar can't be seen
There are no sails on the boat
The thumb suddenly loosened, the bowstring quickly opened, and the light arrow came out of the string, quickly rising into the air with a buzzing sound.
Moments later, the small white boat on the moat was engulfed in flames.
Liu Zhaosun stood on the shore, watching the planks of the ship burning, watching his brothers struggling and twitching in the fire, and watching the boat slowly disintegrating.
Until the sound of coals colliding with the river water could be heard in the distance, and the stench of burning human bodies drifted up.
Until everything turns into nothingness.
Liu Zhaosun slowly turned around and walked towards his army.
~~~~~~
On March 10, all the mounds around the city wall were completed and the general attack began.
At the beginning of Shenshi, the artillery camp concentrated a total of 460 artillery pieces of various types, covering the crenellations of the city wall and firing from all sides.
Hundreds of field guns slowly pushed up the mound of dirt more than four feet high, and bombarded the top of Ningyuan City from a high position.
The infantry field gun fired five rounds per minute, and in the hands of an experienced gunner it could go even faster.
Although they were not as powerful as the red cannons, under the high-speed and intensive bombardment, the red barbarian cannons at the top of the city had no room to fight back.
Amidst the lightning and thunder, thick white smoke covered the long front line. Each artillery mount retreated, and hundreds of iron bullets ranging from two to ten kilograms rushed out of the muzzles and poured down on the city wall like raindrops. superior.
Dust suddenly flew up inside the urn city, and bricks, stones and wooden blocks were overturned into the air and fell like raindrops.
Many of the red-coated cannons erected at the top of the city were destroyed.
The wooden gun mount was beaten to pieces, and the surviving gunners sat slumped behind the crenel, staring blankly at the remains of their limbs on the ground. Everyone seemed to have just woken up.
From behind the city wall, there were constant sounds of bricks and stones collapsing, mixed with many screams and panicked calls.
After three rounds of bombardment, Senti led a group of trainers onto the mound, raised a loudspeaker and shouted to the messy and miserable city.
"Liao Town and Xuanfu Town have been destroyed, Zu Dashou is dead, and there is no enmity between Kaiyuan and other military towns. Surrender at this time and give you a way to survive! It was just a test of artillery. You are limited to surrender within half an hour! Otherwise, the army will conquer Ningyuan!"
Half an hour later, the thousand-jin gate of Chunhe Gate was slowly pulled up.
The king of Liaodong's economic strategy led a group of generals in Jin to disarm and surrender, and went out of the city to surrender.
