These people from the Southern Barbarians are just evil guests who come to other people's homes uninvited and act arrogantly.
To these, the court of the Eastern Tang Dynasty would naturally react. Apart from anything else, it is intolerable for barbarians to occupy their own city, burn, kill, and loot.
The previous situation was too tense to send people off to the city. Now that the situation has calmed down a bit, people from the Tang Army have sneaked into Jiangling City.
As the saying goes, "Know yourself and the enemy, and you can fight a hundred battles without danger." Intelligence is very important for the confrontation on the battlefield. No matter what mission this advance team has, intelligence cannot be missed.
After entering the city, these people reunited briefly and then broke into pieces again. They continued to disperse according to the plan to prevent attracting the attention of the Southern Barbarian Army.
The young man's face was somewhat familiar. If Lin Yan or Ming Ya were here, they would definitely recognize him. Because this young man was none other than Li Zongsheng, whom he had not seen for a long time.
But even if they meet, I'm afraid Lin Yan and others won't dare to recognize each other easily, because the youth has changed so much compared to before!
From a practical perspective, Li Zongsheng can definitely be called a "dandy", and it should have nothing to do with joining the army no matter how you think about it.
Moreover, his father's side did not belong to the military system. Even if this guy wanted to go to the military to get gold or something, he would not be able to come to such a frontline location.
After all, the purpose of gilding is to gain credit safely so that the second-generation disciples can easily sit on the credit book and dominate. How could they really come here to risk their lives?
Today's Jiangling City is not an easy place to deal with. No matter what your status is, you are all the same here. You may lose your life in an instant. As long as Li Zongsheng's brain has not been caught by the door, it is impossible for him to come to a place like this to gild.
Thinking about it now, no matter what happened, Li Zongsheng should have really joined the army, and he was not a "showman", but a real sergeant of the Tang Dynasty.
Now than before, he is less carefree and cynical, and has more of a calm and restrained aura. The lines on his face are not that of a white-faced young man at the beginning. They have sharp edges and corners, making him look much more resolute.
After only a brief appearance, Li Zongsheng's figure disappeared again, like a ghost, and began to perform his mission.
…
On the other side, Lin Yan and others rushed towards Jiangling City after grasping the situation.
Now that the situation in the Tang Dynasty is critical, he will naturally not be so arrogant as to think that he can turn the tide by himself. However, as a Tang person, and as a former soldier, he should do his part in such a national crisis. Meager strength.
Although Xihuang's offensive was fierce, the initial army seemed to have stricter military discipline because of its elite status. Their purpose is clear, they only plunder what they need, and the damage they cause to the people is relatively small.
The Northern Desert Buddhist Kingdom also had an ambiguous attitude as before. Although they also had the idea of taking advantage of the situation, they had too many scruples and did not dare to be too obvious.
Among the three parties, it was the Southern Barbarians who caused the greatest damage. Originally, they had been fighting with Dongtang for years, and their hatred continued to accumulate, and they acted without any scruples.
These people marched all the way, and all they did was burn, kill, and loot. Their methods were several times crueler than those of ordinary bandits and robbers. There were mountains of corpses and seas of blood along the way!
Let's not talk about it far, just take the "Three Days of Unsealed Sword" after Jiangling City was broken. Those officials were brutally killed in various ways. Some had their heads displayed in public, and some had their skin and bones removed. It was such a cruel scene. To name a few.
It is naturally difficult for ordinary people to escape. Basically, the men are killed and the women are kidnapped and humiliated. Even the word "purgatory on earth" is not enough to describe this tragic event.
Since Yang Guang ascended the throne, the Southern Barbarian Army's behavior has increasingly lost its bottom line, as if it has completely detonated the dark side of human nature and turned into a group of carnival demons!
Even though Lin Yan has already set foot on Xiantian, it would be a fool's errand to think that he could turn the situation around by himself.
The role of high-level warriors cannot be ignored, but manpower is sometimes scarce, especially when fighting in battle formations. At such times, personal power is not as important as imagined.
Otherwise, if the world has become a chat room for high-level warriors, what is the meaning of the existence of the country?
However, there are things he can do. Sneaking into the city to cause some damage not only helped Tang Guo and fulfilled his duty, but also stopped Yang Guang. He killed two birds with one stone. Why not?
Lin Yan and others also entered the city in batches. In fact, entering the city is still extremely strict nowadays, and they have to go through a lot of interrogations.
But the so-called "the upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked" is no longer allowed in the city, but these barbarians have tasted the sweetness, how can they stop just now?
If there is an order from above, then use some other means. Anyway, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below, so we can always get around it.
Lin Yan mixed some gold and silver with Ming Ya into a caravan and entered the city first. Anyway, for him now, ordinary gold and silver are not too valuable.
After some investigation after entering the city, even though they were well prepared, the tragedy that occurred in Jiangling City overturned their understanding.
Although Lin Yan had served in the army, he was only a frontier soldier at that time, and he only had head-on confrontations with the barbarians on the battlefield.
Although they knew the ferocity of the barbarians, the border troops fought desperately at that time and did not let the barbarians penetrate too far into the hinterland. The damage caused was also controlled within a small area. It seems that such tragedies are unheard of today.
It’s just that although the news of the fall of Jiangling has spread all over the world, what happened here has not been spread out under the deliberate control of Nanman. The world naturally knows the cruelty after the city is broken, but they did not expect that things have reached such a point. .
After the Southern Barbarians took advantage of the situation, they still claimed that the Eastern Tang Dynasty was unjust in the name of righteousness. They sent troops to help the people in the Tang Dynasty to live a better life.
Such shameless behavior simply makes people blush and make them furious. Isn't this just a pawn, why should we erect an archway? He really let him say everything and take advantage of everything!
But even if today's Jiangling City has temporarily restored some commercial circulation under the intentional control of the Nanman high-level officials, allowing the city's functions to recover a little, this is only on the surface, and the tragedy in the city will continue inside.
Those wealthy squires and powerful families, whether they were forced or took the initiative, have now transformed from victims into accomplices of the Southern Barbarian Army. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are all the same.
When faced with a crisis, these people are always able to quickly adjust themselves and lean towards the more beneficial side. They also call it "the one who knows the current affairs is a hero", but they put shamelessness and shame on the lintel. above.
Of course, not everyone is like this. After the city was broken, facing the intimidation or inducement of the Nanman, there were still some people who maintained their character and stood up as the backbone of the Tang people!
Jiang Hongwen was originally a great scholar in Jiangling City. He had a very high status among literati and had close friendship with some important officials in the Tang Dynasty.
If such people can be recruited for one's own use, then it can severely damage the morale of the Tang army, which is really an excellent idea.
It's just that although this old man in his seventies was very old, he was still strong-willed and would rather die than surrender. In the end, dozens of members of his family were beheaded by the barbarians in full view of the public.
Before he died, the old man left these words: "It would be better for the jade to be broken than to be destroyed!"
These eight short words are so inspiring.
It is easy to stand for a while, but it is difficult to stand like this for a lifetime. Some people usually talk loudly and talk endlessly, but when they need to stand up, they kneel down without hesitation. Everything they said at the beginning seems to turn into the most violent slap, hitting them hard. on the face.
The old man insisted on his beliefs from beginning to end, straightened his spine, and died vigorously.
In fact, when the city was destroyed, most of the people with backbone and passion were already dead. Some people who knew how to assess the situation and protect themselves wisely survived and continued to dominate the people.
For these people, their own interests are more important than the country. Compared with people like Jiang Hongwen, they seem to be on opposite sides, disconnected from each other.
Nowadays, the city only maintains peace on the surface, but in fact, the chaos and disorder inside are still continuing.
A large number of women have disappeared in the city recently, and some were even forcibly abducted in broad daylight. It is obvious who did it.
At night, outside a Taoist temple in the city, a figure in black was quietly approaching.
This place is called Baiyun Temple. It was originally a place for Taoist monks to practice. However, since the city was destroyed, it has been occupied by barbarians and is now the territory of a general.
The man in black was agile and quickly sneaked into the Taoist temple, bypassing the guards guarding the front, and then sneaked towards the back.
After entering a large hall, what he saw immediately made him clenched his fists, and he unconsciously uttered a curse word: "These beasts!"
I saw that in the originally solemn and solemn hall, there were now cages lined up one after another. There were not beasts in them, but rather disheveled women.
Some of them were in a trance, some had dull eyes, and some were covered in scars. They lay in the cage and moaned. It was obvious that they had too much air and not enough air.
The original Sanqing statue has collapsed. From behind the statue, you can still faintly see a few figures shaking, mixed with women's cries and men's obscene laughter.
The air was filled with a stench of obscenity that made people feel sick. The man in black's eyes were bloodshot at this moment. He directly pulled out the knife he carried and walked quickly behind the Sanqing statue.
Someone heard the noise and turned around and shouted: "Who is it?"
The only answer he received was a flash of sword light, followed by his head flying up and blood splattering everywhere...
