After Yan Luo retreated and stood firm, Yicheng and Tianlin counties could not wait for reinforcements and declared their losses one after another.
The magistrates and powerful officials in these two counties tried every means to retain a certain degree of independence.
But the two generals Zhou Ping and Huang Jingtong, who had already received Zhou Bai's order, ignored it and bulldozed the military stronghold outside the county.
Then 2,500 people besieged the county town, which could use thousands of troops, without showing any timidity, and even forced the people in the city to dare not act rashly.
The actual combat power displayed by this guard horse, as well as the overwhelming momentum of the Anbei Governor's Mansion, made the magistrate of Tianlin County recognize the fact and give up his stubborn resistance.
However, something happened in Yicheng County. The real person in charge was not the county magistrate or county lieutenant, but the Fang family, a local wealthy family with a hundred years of history.
In troubled times, those with strong soldiers and horses rule the roost, and this is clearly demonstrated in Yicheng County.
As early as the end of the Xiangxing Dynasty, the Fang family had already mastered the real power of Yicheng County, and the official county government was reduced to a mouthpiece.
It's not that the county government and even the state government didn't want to rectify it, but in recent years there have been constant internal and external troubles, and if no actual evidence is available, how can they take action at will.
It is not that they are afraid of a county tycoon, but that they are afraid of touching the interests of local tycoons, the entire class.
Real bureaucrats are not stupid. In the last years of the dynasty, they just want to fill in a few fences.
Due to this situation, few top three scholars were willing to take up the post, so they delayed it again and again, until Yan Luo chose to separate Ruinan, claiming to be Jiedu, and everything came to an end.
The Fang family took over the county town openly and openly. The head of the family and senior officials moved into the county government offices and officially implemented the rule of the Fang family.
However, the Fang family has been trapped in one place for a long time. In the final analysis, it has limitations and lacks foundation.
The contemporary head of the family is impetuous and aggressive, unable to see clearly the general trend. He is reluctant to bear the temptation of separatist rule, so he listens to Yan Luo's letter and decides to stick to it.
Unexpectedly, after only resisting for two days, the old servants suffered heavy losses. Especially the officers with distinctive armor and stomach were often targeted by martial arts masters, and few could survive two waves of sieges.
Such a fierce offensive has never been seen in and outside Yicheng. The wind direction changed suddenly. Other families who had been oppressed by the Fang family for a long time, under the coordination of the Xuanyi Guards, decisively broke out of the city and surrendered.
On July 14, the battle report reached Zhou Bai.
Knowing that the two flanking counties were in hand and that everything north of Ruinan was under control, he did not delay and immediately announced that the Ruinan strategy would enter the next stage and capture the location of Ruinan Jiedu Mansion.
In fact, Zhou Bai chose the time to attack Ruinan very cleverly. July is when wheat matures, and late July to early August is the critical stage of summer harvest in Dingzhou.
The wheat has not yet been harvested, but official warehouses in various places are nearly empty. Especially due to the natural disasters in the past two years, every household's savings have been exhausted. Ordinary people in Ruinan County are basically looking forward to the summer harvest.
At this time, the army was besieging Ruinan City. It was not even necessary for Anbei's army to engage in large-scale warfare. They only had to besiege quietly and prevent grains of rice from entering the city.
In response, Yan Luo could either go out of the city to fight in the field and repel the Anbei Army, or he could only suppress the hunger riots internally and lose the support of the people.
Combining the information from Xuanyi Guard, the staff calculated that Ruinan City's food reserves would only be enough to feed the city's 200,000 people for a month while reducing the supply of non-combat personnel.
The Chinese army specifically issued a military order to Lou Jinpeng, asking him to cover thirty miles of fields near Ruinan County to prevent Ruinan City from harvesting wheat in advance.
In addition, before setting off, Zhou Bai met with the clone of the God Lord at Shuiyang City Emperor Temple.
July 15th happens to be the Ghost Festival of the Ghost Festival. Zhou Bai still vividly remembers the scenes of hundreds of ghosts walking at night and causing havoc in the world.
He checked the mortal historical materials and also used Tianjue's authority to check some information in Tiandish. It turned out that Tianyuan world and Blue Star where Zhou Bai was located had similar legends.
According to legend, on the Ghost Festival, the ghost gate of the underworld opens wide, and ghosts from the underworld will briefly return to the human world through the ghost gate.
Ghosts who have descendants and descendants to offer sacrifices naturally go home to collect incense offerings, while ghosts without owners can only wander around, wandering back to any place where people can go to beg for some scraps of incense.
Therefore, whether ordinary people are kind-hearted or want to prevent them from causing harm to the world, when they burn incense for their ancestors, they will burn an extra pile for the ghosts.
However, this legend was just a legend in the Blue Star era and had never been proven. However, in the Tianyuan world, this legend was proven by heaven.
In ancient times and even in ancient times, the development of heaven reached its peak, overwhelming many surrounding worlds and making it become the lower realm, becoming a giant force in the heavens.
At that time, no one in the Qingxu Realm of Tianyuan Immortal Court could touch porcelain. The so-called expedition fleet did not dare to set foot in the radiation range of Tianyuan Civilization.
It's just that things must reverse when they reach their extremes. This law is perfect for Heaven.
Formulate the rules of heaven, manage the thirty-three days, manage the mortal world, and manage the subordinate lower realms...
With nothing left to worry about, the heavenly officials and gods turned their attention to the underworld.
In the eyes of the elders, the underworld can just be used as an extension of heaven's influence, because the underworld exists in every world where extraordinary beings can be born.
The saints and emperors all came out to understand the rules of the underworld and lay the foundation for the establishment of the underworld.
Under the personal insights of these elders, the rules of the underworld were stripped away, and based on this, it was logical to consecrate the gods of the underworld who controlled the rules of the underworld.
The underworld system emerged, and the heavens consecrated the Yin officials and gods. These Yin officials and gods had the power to restrain ghosts. With the support of the behemoth of Heaven, it didn't take long for the underworld to become a climate.
One hundred thousand Yin soldiers and ghosts roamed the heavens and the underworld, and the reputation of the Ten Halls of Yama and the Four Great Judges was even comparable to that of the Emperor of Heaven in the surrounding worlds.
By the ancient times, the underworld had already established a complete yin and yang order system in the Tianyuan mortal world and dozens of worlds.
During the Ghost Festival of the Ghost Festival, ghosts are allowed to pass through the gates of ghosts and return to the human world in an orderly manner. This is the tradition that started at this time.
The rhetoric from heaven and hell is to appease the ghosts who have been unable to reincarnate for a long time, allowing them to see their relatives, and at the same time giving them a chance to obtain incense.
But what it actually is is that the underworld wants to show its strong strength and further expand the "territory" of the outer world of the underworld.
No matter how many ghosts are released into the human world, do you think there are ghosts who dare to violate the laws of the underworld and cause trouble in the human world? This is the self-confidence of the underworld.
After the Ghost Festival of the Ghost Festival was established, the influence of the underworld reached its peak. Even the incomprehensible reincarnation can control part of the power, and reincarnation becomes "artificial" control.
The heavens and the worlds are omniscient and omniscient, and even many worlds actively support the underworld to take over the underworld.
However, the extremes of things must reverse, the extremes of prosperity must decline, and the power of the underworld ends here.
When the local government's control and exploration of the underworld reached a limit, it seemed that it had touched some taboo and encountered a catastrophe.
Overnight, the reincarnation channel controlled by the underworld collapsed, and Yama, Judge and other underworld gods collectively disappeared.
The remaining Yin officials in the middle and lower levels of the underworld were also affected. They lost the blessing of the power of the rules of the underworld and were no more powerful than some ghost kings and ghosts.
The same goes for Yin soldiers and ghosts. They are no longer the ones with the privilege of immortality who hold Yin duties. Like other ghosts, their souls and bodies will decline if they do not enter reincarnation.
One hundred thousand Yin soldiers and ghosts seem to be a large number, but after losing the special power to restrain ghosts, placed in the vast underworld, they are just a slightly powerful ghost army, unable to form an effective deterrent.
The underworld system without strong support cannot be maintained. It can be said that it disappeared overnight, and no one knows what taboos were violated.
It’s just that Heaven was implicated in the collapse of Hell, and its momentum has plummeted since then.
Zhou Bai looked through his memories and only saw some scattered fragments of some of the secret records in the Jinting Sutra Pavilion.
In order to facilitate the balance of yin and yang and communicate with the underworld, the underworld has opened many channels, and the gate of hell is an important means.
After the collapse of the underworld, the gates of hell could not be closed, and countless passages lost control, forming cracks of various sizes.
Ghosts from the heavens and the underworld, like cats smelling the fishy smell, rush into the underworld belonging to the Tianyuan world, and then follow the ghost gates and cracks to the human world.
The opposite of Yang is Yin. Living people represent vitality, while souls can only represent death.
The higher-ups in Heaven know very well what kind of disaster a ghost with no restrictions will cause if it breaks into the human world based solely on instinct.
Immediately, the Heavenly Court mobilized the Heavenly Officials and the Thirty-three Heavenly Gods, and it can be said that the stars in the sky fell into the mortal world.
Among them, even the gods and Buddhas of the West, who have a very low sense of existence, have also blocked the leak in the lower realm, blocking the leak that pierces the sky through the collapse of the underworld.
In the end, Heaven lived up to its reputation at the time. After paying a heavy price comparable to the establishment of Heaven, the gates of hell created by the underworld were blocked, and countless cracks were temporarily filled.
The foundation of Tianyuan Continent was finally preserved and did not become part of the heavens and the earth.
However, the collapse of the underworld has seriously weakened the strength of the heaven. You must know that the ten halls of Yama are all at least half-saint level beings.
Later, in the actions to deal with the aftermath of the collapse of the underworld, the losses in heaven were even more heavy, and the sphere of influence continued to shrink.
The affiliated worlds have become independent one after another, and the Heavenly Court cannot yet hold them accountable. When they are at their weakest, their influence does not even extend beyond the Tianyuan mainland.
That period of time was also called the Dark Ages, and the position of the Emperor of Heaven was changed during the Dark Ages. He was the supreme power under Da Luo Daozu.
It can even be said that the frequency of Dao Ancestor's appearances is becoming less and less, which may not be a sequelae of the collapse of the underworld.
It was not until what is now called the modern era that Heaven regained some of its vitality and barely returned to the top of the world, considered the strongest part.
If the Dao Ancestor hadn't disappeared for ten thousand years and the Qingxu Realm invaded again, the Heavenly Court might have begun to expand and take back its former younger brother.
The underworld is gone, but part of the underworld's Yin Shen system is forcibly preserved by the power of mortal humanity, such as the city emperor, who usually sits in the local underworld.
It is also due to the existence of the city emperors in various places that the "temporary" cracks left in ancient times have been preserved intact without major problems.
Why did Zhou Bai rush to meet the God's clone before the Hungry Ghost Festival? It was because he was not at ease about the Hungry Ghost Festival.
You must know that most areas except Bei'an County are still in a state of war between the two realms. Maybe Qingxu will use the underworld again to stage a night walk of hundreds of ghosts.
Bei'an's Shinto system has just been integrated, and Ruinan's Shinto system has also been invaded by the divine master. Zhou Bai must know what the divine system is like.
If there is any negligence and the devil causes any trouble, it will be a big trouble for the Anbei Governor's Mansion in the new territory of Ruinan County.
Shuiyang City Emperor Temple.
After An Beijun entered the city, although the care was still undiminished and there was no shortage of incense, Zhou Bai felt something was wrong as soon as he entered.
The cracks in the beams, the spider webs that sprouted quickly after cleaning, the gilded patent leather that fell off the statue's golden body, plus the dim moonlight and depressed aura, all indicate that the owner here is in poor condition.
Zhou Bai waved his hand gently, and all the temple doors automatically closed tightly without any wind. The guards outside were also very sensible and retired one after another to guard outside the temple.
The night breeze blew gently, the candlelight swayed, and a god with a red light on his face appeared next to Zhou Bai.
Needless to say, the person who came was the Divine Lord. She dissipated the light on her face, revealing a familiar look.
Of course, it is said to be the same, but in fact, in order to avoid being accidentally blamed, the face of the God Lord's clone is more like the appearance of Zhou Bai's soul before time travel.
Apart from his transcendent and majestic temperament, he is really just an ordinary mortal, unremarkable.
The Lord God just looked at him for a moment, then immediately put his arm on Zhou Bai's shoulder and said with a smile: "Tsk, tsk, I haven't seen you for a long time. This is because my luck has improved."
"Don't you know? The fortune captured by the Heavenly Luck Monument, and the trend of it expanding even more after marching into Ruinan." Zhou Bai didn't feel uncomfortable at all, but chatted like old friends.
This is the clone, the two are one, and there is no need to hide any secrets.
The Lord thought for a moment and asked: "To win over Ruinan, the title is definitely not enough, but the pattern of an uncle country should be there, right? I have seen the intelligence of Tianya Pavilion and the movements of the royal family. As long as the powerful people in the center support it, it might really be possible." Even a county is sealed.”
Zhou Bai nodded slightly and explained: "A county can only be a baron or a viscount. It is nothing more than the difference between a small county and a large county. Anyone who has a potential dragon destiny and is determined to fight for the dragon will definitely not use this as a starting point."
"The initial national structure will affect part of the luck pattern. The count has been a humane nobleman since ancient times. At least starting from the count will not hinder the potential."
"Dingzhou is not as prosperous as the prosperous states in the south of the Yangtze River in the Central Region. It is a little better to be called king, but its cauldron is so important that it is not a problem to call it a prince. As for calling it a uncle, two counties are a bit weak, maybe three counties."
Obviously, Zhou Baiming didn't mention Jianguo at all on his face, but he had already made mature plans in his heart.
"Okay, as long as you succeed, then let me talk about the Divine Court."
The God Lord smelled the incense, then took the fruit on the shrine and ate it while saying: "It's still just a prototype at the moment. Even if you give a certain amount of control over luck, it's still difficult to seal all the gods in place."
"The current county emperor of Bei'an is represented by Chao Qu. He has not yet been enthroned. You may need to make a big sacrifice after conquering Ruinan. There are three other county emperors who are enthroned, and they are all located in counties with cracks in the underworld, so the Ghost Festival You can rest assured.”
"Eleven top-grade earth gods, all located in important grain-producing areas, 632 heroic warriors, and 23 priests and generals..."
"As for Ruinan, the Emperor of Shuiyang City, I spared her life, firstly, to suppress the cracks in the underworld; secondly, it is humane for her to take Tian Ming Incense to work. After all, the God of Incense..."
