The poem says:
The divine dragon is dormant, and the stars are falling like rain;
There are so many evils in the universe, this thing is in the wind and dust.
Kyushu, Saga Castle.
Saga Domain's Residence.
The Supreme Emperor put down the fly whisk and ordered: "I have many things to do, so I cannot kill people myself. The shogunate is heavily guarded. If you want to kill the Tokugawa turtles, you must first kill all the demon monks. They claim to be noble people, and they must hide in the famous mountain caves and the true realm of Okawa." "
"So, let's first search around the famous mountains and fairyland, find Bald Ass Harushin, kill him, and then assassinate Tokugawa Iemitsu."
The Supreme Emperor didn't know how powerful Chun Shen presided over. If he had known, he wouldn't have sent just these few people to assassinate him.
He really couldn't get away. Compared with the demon monk Chun Shen, there were more powerful enemies that the Supreme Emperor needed to deal with.
"Last night, the God of War gave me a dream. Something big happened in Kyoto. The Northern Corps knew nothing about it and was still attacking south. I can't just sit idly by."
The Supreme Emperor closed his eyes and resumed his meditation posture, like a statue of a god.
Everyone looked at each other.
Pei Dahu was recuperating at home and could no longer fight. Among the guards, Wu Xiao was the most experienced, so he had to bite the bullet and said:
"Your Majesty, with the strength of three people, we may not be able to enter Edo. Please send more people."
Li Zicheng was outspoken and blurted out:
"Exactly, the Five Tigers of Kaiyuan were no match for that monster monk, let alone the three of us..."
Liu Zhaosun nodded slightly, then remembered that Lin Yu was no longer there, and more than half of his Chinese guards had been killed or injured.
Moreover, this mission is extremely dangerous and difficult for ordinary people to accomplish.
Dongfang Zhu whispered from the side: "Your Majesty, General Lin's son Lin Zhenyu came from Ryukyu. The child is not afraid of tigers when he is a newborn, and he wants to avenge his father. You can let..."
The Emperor interrupted the chief steward with a wave of his hand and shook his head slightly: "Are you going to let a ten-year-old child go to Edo to die?"
Wu Xiao heard the conversation between the two and looked sideways, implying murderous intent.
The general manager did not notice Wu Xiao's anger and continued to recommend Lin Zhenyu.
"Your Majesty, you have forgotten something. Although Lin Zhenyu is a ten-year-old boy, he is just like his father. He is tall and mighty, with a body like a human bear. Ordinary soldiers are no match for him. He is eager for revenge and will definitely be used by Daqi."
The Supreme Emperor raised his fly whisk, a strong wind rose above the hall, and all the whale oil lamps on the walls were extinguished.
Seeing that the Supreme Emperor was displeased, Dongfang Zhu quickly stopped talking and never mentioned the matter again.
"I am still a human being, not a god. People have to be conscientious. Lin Yu entrusted his child to me before his death. How can I let Lin Zhenyu die now? If this child is even slightly damaged, how can I have the face to see him after he ascends? Lin Yu."
The Supreme Emperor looked to the east and said leisurely: "For my own selfish reasons, I can't let my children go to the battlefield to die. I can't do such a thing as annihilating my descendants."
Dongfang Zhu felt ashamed and kept saying that he would die.
Wu Xiao cupped his fists and said, "Your Majesty treats the Lin family so well, I would like to thank you on behalf of Brother Lin."
The Supreme Emperor waved his hand:
"Allocate some more people to help you, go ahead, I'm exhausted and want to cultivate immortality."
~~~~
Li Zicheng, Wu Xiao, and Jiang Liu'er accepted the emperor's order and went to each of the three armies to select five soldiers. They were all warriors of the three armies, a total of eighteen people. They left Saga City that day and headed east to the river where the Japanese pirates had nested. The household has gone.
After walking for two days, we arrived at the border between Kyushu and Honshu, the Kanmon Strait, opposite the famous Shimonoseki Castle (Uigoseki).
Eighteen years ago, the Supreme Emperor signed the famous "Treaty of Ushioseki" with the Tokugawa Shogunate here on behalf of the Ming Dynasty, and gained sovereignty over Japan.
Nowadays, things have changed, the "Niuguan Treaty" was abandoned by the Japanese country, and Daqi's ruling order in Japan was also completely destroyed.
It is time to restore a new order in Greater East Asia.
Everyone pretended to be Goryeo paper merchants and entered Niuguan City. The streets were bustling with lazy samurai ronin, as if the war was still far away from here.
No one questioned the three of them along the road. After walking for a while, they saw a sign hanging on the roadside saying "
Take a break at the izakaya.”
Li Zicheng pretended to be a Taoist boy, stood up and said, "Brother Wu, buy a bowl of wine."
Wu Xiao said: "You have bad drinking habits. You can't eat too much. Otherwise, if you spill the beans, we will be in danger."
Jiang Liuer also whispered: "Brother Wu is saying that this state is the territory of the shogunate. There are many hidden dangers, so be careful in everything."
Li Zicheng glared at Jiang Liu'er and said, "Why don't you go in and eat some meat? Jiang Liu'er, where is your tigress? I don't believe it doesn't eat meat either!"
Just as Jiang Liu'er was about to have a fit, Wu Xiao saw that it was already getting late and said, "Don't make any noise. Now that we are here, we are looking for a hotel to stay. We will leave early tomorrow and there will be meat."
With that said, everyone found an inn to rest.
Jiang Liu'er found the shopkeeper and asked him to pick out five guest rooms and prepare meals for a dozen people, and then gave him a handful of silver.
The shopkeeper stretched out his hand to take it, weighed it in his hand, and found that it was about three taels. His eyes turned into lines with a smile, and he asked the waiter to lead the horse to the backyard to feed fodder, and went to the kitchen to prepare meals.
Soon, a table of hot meals was brought in.
Li Zicheng glanced at it. Fried mutton, takoyaki, grilled mushrooms, tempura, miso soup, sashimi... all were island flavors.
Just no wine.
After a day's journey, everyone's stomachs were already empty. Everyone's index fingers were moving wildly, and they were gobbling up the food.
Li Zicheng was holding a bowl of plain rice and a bowl of vegetable soup, and ate dully beside him.
Wu Xiao said: "Why don't you eat fish?"
Li Zicheng responded: "If you don't drink, there will be birds in your mouth."
Wu Xiao thought: "This guy must be drinking secretly." So he took the plain rice.
Li Zicheng shouted: "Mu Tianli is so stupid! He won't even give him food!"
Wu Xiao quietly asked Li Zicheng for two cents of wine and a plate of beef, and let him eat there.
Li Zicheng ate smoothly, drank all his two cents of wine, and fell into a deep sleep.
At five o'clock the next day, when he woke up, he found that everyone had left, and he quickly got up to chase them.
At this time, the sky was dim and hazy, and it was unclear where Wu Xiao and the others had gone.
Suddenly there was the clear sound of clogs hitting the ground behind him. Li Zicheng hurriedly hid behind the wine shop, but he heard someone shouting on the street:
"The Tatars are here, catch them!"
A moment later, a hundred warriors holding torches rushed over, their swords glowing coldly in the cold night.
"Tatars are entering the city, catch them!"
Li Zicheng hid behind a thatched house and did not dare to speak loudly.
"Grandma, you ran out without even saying a word to me, Jiang Liu'er, I'm going to cook you tigress and eat her."
While complaining, he slowly retreated to the corner of the hut, which was further away from the street and less likely to be spotted. After taking a few steps back, he suddenly bumped into someone.
"who?"
Li Zicheng roared and slashed at the man's neck with his short knife.
There was a faint sob in the dark night, it seemed to be a woman.
There was a samurai ronin passing by on the street across the wall. Li Zicheng didn't dare to pick up the fire certificate. The hand holding the short knife remained motionless and pressed against the man's neck.
"Get into your mother's hair! Who is it? If you don't say anything, I'll starve you to death!"
"Ya Zhi Butterfly!"
The Japanese woman did not need to understand Li Zicheng's northern Shaanxi emphasis, but at this moment the short knife had already cut her neck and could kill her at any time. This is more convincing than any words.
Li Zicheng received simple training in the Japanese language before the Eastern Expedition. Although he was poor at learning it, he still knew what Yachudie meant.
He looked around but couldn't see anything clearly. He suddenly retracted the dagger, stepped forward to strangle the woman's throat with his left hand, and covered her mouth with his right hand.
"Don't say anything, I'll kill you if you say anything... Do you understand me?"
Those bright and moving eyes in the darkness are full of desire for life.
The woman nodded.
"Are you the daughter of the bartender?" Li Zicheng gestured and said a Japanese sentence with a weird pronunciation.
"Private farmer's mother (I am a village girl from nearby)"
"Since you are a farmer, why do you appear in Niuguan City?"
The woman wiped the tears from her eyes and looked sad: "Five years ago, my father was transferred to build a fortress by the lord of Changshu and never came back. Deputy Tanaka took away all the surplus food from my family, saying that my father owed it to the lord. Qian...My mother died of illness last month. There are often horse thieves and robbers passing by in the village, as well as samurai who have lost battles. If I want to survive, I can only live in the city..."
There were more and more torches on the streets, and the light around the thatched houses seemed brighter.
After the woman finished speaking, Li Zicheng finally saw her face clearly. He suddenly realized that although this woman was petite, she was quite pretty.
"May I have your name?"
"Kugagaki Yui."
Li Zicheng touched the Taoist crown on his head:
"This is a good name,"
He said with an embarrassed smile: "Okay, you are a farmer, and I am a farmer. You are in the Japanese country, and I am in northern Shaanxi. You have a grudge against the shogunate, and so do I. It is fate that we are together today. You go, I don't kill you,"
The woman bowed to Li Zicheng and turned to leave.
Li Zicheng grabbed Yui Kugaki and said:
"Wait a moment, wait until the hunger is gone, and then you can leave."
The torches outside the street gradually faded away, and Li Zicheng and Yui Kugaki sat side by side.
The night sky is clear and the stars are huge.
It was the first time for Li Zicheng to be so close to a woman. Xinheng Yui sat with his knees in his arms, his clothes not covering his body.
Li Zicheng saw that this woman was about the same age as his sister, and he gradually felt compassion.
"Here are some pieces of silver for you. The Japanese kingdom is about to end."
Yui looked at the silver in Li Zicheng's hand and couldn't stop her tears from flowing. She hesitated for a moment and prepared to take off her few clothes.
Something is wrong with the atmosphere.
Li Zicheng quickly interrupted with a wave of his hand and said in a low voice: "I'm hungry, so you can use your tail juice."
After that, he walked out of the shadows and walked eastward without looking back, leaving Yui Kugaki alone under the stars, feeling lost.
~~~
Niuguan City is a small place, and the earthen city is not very difficult. Looking down from the female wall, Li Zicheng first pressed the Yanling knife with the tip up and the scabbard down. Standing on the edge of the moat.
Under the moonlight, when I looked at the water, it was only one or two feet deep.
It was November weather at this time, and the water springs everywhere were dry.
Before his footing was stable, there was a loud shout on the city wall, and several sharp arrows were shot at Li Zicheng.
Li Zicheng did not dare to stop and quickly continued running eastward.
"Grandma's legs will come back sooner or later and tear you apart."
