I wield power with my innate talents, and forge the Heavenly Court.

Chapter 193 Sorcery, Popular Rebellion
Originally, shamanism did indeed have twelve deities.

However, towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of Han Chinese from the Central Plains entered Northeast China and, combined with Taoism, Buddhism and other religions, eventually gave rise to the worship of the Five Immortals, while Shamanism gradually declined.

If it is merely a nonexistent deity, then naturally it can only give birth to a spiritual aggregate.

But these animals do have real bodies.

With the worship and offerings from the crowd, a large amount of spiritual power converged, causing the animals being worshipped to experience a rapid increase in spiritual intelligence.

In their final moments, their spiritual wisdom was in no way inferior to that of humans.

However, they are ultimately just animals, and their initial spirituality, if not completely blank, is still mostly animalistic instinct.

After being worshipped and offered sacrifices by humans, they merged with a large number of chaotic spiritual memories and human perceptions of them, instantly altering their understanding. They truly believed themselves to be gods and immortals.

This gives them a combination of humanity, animality, and divinity.

Humanity allows them to communicate with humans;
Their bestial nature makes them bloodthirsty, and coupled with countless fragmented memories and remnants, their intelligence is often filled with chaos, making them violent, chaotic, and bloodthirsty. Compared to ordinary sacrificial offerings, they prefer blood food.
However, the existence of divinity allows them to mobilize the power of heaven and earth to some extent.

If enough people perform sacrifices and offerings, they may even form a special power similar to the national destiny, much like the rulers of various powers, which can interfere with the rules of heaven and earth to a certain extent and respond to the prayers of believers.

As a result, shamanism flourished once again in Northeast China and other regions.

However, the development of religious sects will inevitably have a certain impact on the rule of the rulers.

Shamanism, which had already been gradually suppressed and controlled by Huang Taiji, was once again on the verge of spiraling out of control.

In particular, Huang Taiji's crushing defeat this time caused his prestige to plummet.

Not only the four princes who had been suppressed by him, but also the other three princes besides Daishan, were rising again and showing signs of challenging his authority.

Shamanism flourished, attracting a large number of believers by relying on the twelve immortals who truly possessed extraordinary divine power.

Even if there are virtual deities like the Dragon Immortal among the Twelve Immortals, as long as the other animals possess extraordinary divine power, the absence of one or two virtual deities will not have a significant impact.

The sheer number of believers who offered sacrifices and offerings caused the power of the Twelve Immortals to expand rapidly, although it was still far inferior to that of Huang Taiji.

However, it was still a considerable force, with a large number of followers, which made Huang Taiji very wary, and he began to look for ways to weaken the power of shamanism again.

However, taking action against them has become extremely difficult, and he will need to plan carefully.

In the Northeast, there are the Twelve Immortals, and in the mountains of Yunnan and Guizhou in the South, there are also special beings, such as witchcraft.

As the world progresses and the concentration of energy in the heavens and earth increases, the existence of spiritual power has led to the resurgence of ancient legendary shamanistic rituals.

In the mainland of the Ming Dynasty, things were better, with Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism existing, and Taoism and Buddhism being more prevalent.

In the border regions, especially in the southwest, shamanistic rituals gradually re-emerged, and even the ancient legend of the Ten Shamans began to spread once again.

Ancient legends, and of course, the Twelve Ancestral Witches in later novels.

However, they are not ancestral witches, but ancient legendary deities recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Naturally, there was no longer any witch clan.

However, there were indeed legends of witches in the past, except that there were ten witches.

They are the ten witches: Wu Xian, Wu Ji, Wu Pan, Wu Peng, Wu Gu, Wu Zhen, Wu Li, Wu Di, Wu Xie, and Wu Luo.

Of course, let's set aside whether these people actually existed in history.

But nowadays, they certainly no longer exist.

Therefore, in the southwest Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and even in some parts of Sichuan, their legends have resurfaced.

However, they are no different from other virtual deities.

At most, they will form spiritual aggregates, especially in Sichuan, where there is a spiritual power and national destiny. Their spiritual aggregates are purer and must all be spiritual beings with firm beliefs, but at the same time, they are the weakest.

Most of the spiritual power generated by offerings is assimilated by spiritual energy.

However, some relatively powerful spiritual aggregates have emerged on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

Of course, the main purpose of shamanic rituals is to communicate with the heavens, not to refer to any particular deity.

Therefore, the deities communicated by shamans are not necessarily the ten shamans, but rather many ancient deities from legends, as well as heaven and earth themselves.

The twelve ancestral witches of later legends, Zhurong, Gonggong, Dijiang, Houtu, and even Pangu, as well as some deities in Central Plains legends, were all within their scope of worship.

These spiritual entities, once they reach a certain level, can indeed communicate with some shamans and priests, conveying vague ideas and displaying some supernatural phenomena.

Besides this most orthodox shamanic ritual, there is also the Gu Master, a practice prevalent in the Miao region.

As the energy of heaven and earth increases, humans and animals are constantly becoming stronger, and even those insects that were once insignificant and seemed like they could be crushed at will are evolving rapidly.

The practice of raising Gu in the past was essentially nothing more than raising some special poisonous insects.

However, with the current increase in the energy of heaven and earth, these specially cultivated Gu worms have begun to truly possess some special abilities.

In particular, the hopes and desires of those who raise Gu worms will continuously transmit spiritual power to these Gu worms.

As time goes by, the spirituality of these Gu worms will gradually increase.

In addition, all of these spiritual powers were gathered by the person who raised the Gu poison.

Therefore, newly born Gu worms will become close to the Gu keeper, even to the point of achieving a certain degree of telepathic connection and acting at will. In this way, some of the Gu worms in legends and later novels began to be cultivated by Gu masters.

As time went by, the method of raising Gu (a type of poisonous insect) even began to spread subtly.

Those who first learned of and experimented with this method were naturally the leaders of various factions.

Thus, with the shaman as spiritual guidance and the Gu worms as combat power, they had a powerful shaman.

The ambitions and desires of these leaders also began to grow day by day.

Gradually, they became dissatisfied with their small plot of land and began to try to expand their territory.

In the beginning, they naturally did not choose to annex forces that were as powerful as themselves, but rather chose to annex smaller forces.

However, they have shamans and sorcerers, and they have Gu masters who control Gu worms, as do other forces.

Therefore, after a fierce battle, although they absorbed those smaller forces, they also suffered heavy losses.

Finally, they began to unite, eventually forming several large coalition forces that fought and killed each other, yet faced external threats together.

Needless to say, this other force is the official power of the Ming court.

As time went by, conflicts began to erupt between the two sides.

Especially after the People's Salvation Army occupied Sichuan, the Ming court failed to reclaim it for a long time. These chieftain tribes seemed to see the weakness of the Ming court and launched a complete rebellion.

Using Gu worms and Gu poison, they killed government officials, generals, and other personnel dispatched by the Ming court, and quickly achieved a great victory.

Even in Yunnan, which had been guarded by the Mu family for generations, a large-scale rebellion broke out.

Pu Mingsheng, the chieftain of Ami Prefecture, had already begun to gain fame during the previous rebellion of She Chongming, and gradually gathered a large number of people.

After acquiring the art of witchcraft, namely the methods of witchcraft rituals and raising gu (a type of poisonous insect), his strength began to increase even further.

When the dynasty marched north beyond the Great Wall to attack Ligdan Khan and Huang Taiji, and occupied the Hetao Plain and the Shanxi Provincial Military Command, Pu Mingsheng, whose strength had greatly increased, finally led his troops to attack Kunming.

At that time, Mu Tianbo, the current Duke of Qian of the Mu family, was just a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy.

He inherited the title of Duke of Qian in the first year of the Chongzhen reign, at the age of ten.

The duties of the Mu family mansion were all handled by the Yunnan governor, and all matters, large and small, within the mansion were managed by his mother, Madam Chen, and the Ruan brothers, the stewards.

It can be said that Mu Tianbo, the Duke of Qian, was raised by women and was only fourteen or fifteen years old. How much ability could he possibly have?
Even as the world advanced and the energy of heaven and earth became more abundant, many guards of the Mu Royal Palace began to cultivate their own true qi.

However, when faced with the undetectable Gu worms and Gu poisons, they often meet a tragic end before even engaging in battle.

Within three to five days, Kunming was breached by Pu Mingsheng, and Duke Mu Tianbo of Qian was led to flee by his mother and the Ruan brothers, his stewards.

In fact, by this time in history, Putin's reputation was probably already dead.

But now, due to the world's advancement and the emergence of celestial energy, not only are they thriving, but they have also launched a preemptive attack and breached Kunming.

Having captured Kunming and greatly increased his strength, Pu Mingsheng was naturally unwilling to remain confined to one place.

As a result, Pu Mingsheng, relying on his greatly increased strength and the fame of conquering Kunming and defeating Mu Wangfu, began to recruit soldiers and expand his power, forming alliances with his close associates and sending troops to besiege those who refused to submit.

When the People's Salvation Army occupied Datong and Xuanfu, he nominally controlled most of Yunnan and began to set his sights on Sichuan, the Land of Abundance.

If the Ming court is so weak, how strong can the People's Salvation Army be even if it defeats the Ming court?
At this time, Pu Mingsheng was feeling triumphant because he had mastered witchcraft, conquered Kunming, expelled the Mu family who had ruled Yunnan, and nominally controlled most of Yunnan.

Even though the various miraculous legends about the People's Salvation Army were widely circulated, he didn't take them to heart.

They were stronger than the Ming army, but how could they compare to the witchcraft they possessed?

Another reason is that the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau is known as having "eight parts mountains, one part water, and one part farmland." Although it is a military stronghold, travel to and from it is really inconvenient.

Therefore, the exchanges between the Yunnan-Guizhou region and Sichuan were not as frequent as those between the People's Salvation Army and other regions.

Therefore, Pu Mingsheng only knew rumors about the situation of the militia.

In his opinion, even if the People's Salvation Army had some miraculous abilities, they were no different from the Ming army, only that their abilities were exaggerated intentionally or unintentionally during the process of dissemination.

Since the Ming army could be easily defeated by them, rescuing the militia would simply require more effort and result in more deaths.

As long as we can occupy Sichuan, then it will all be worth it.

Of course, although he was full of pride, he was still a local tyrant and would not blindly attack the Sichuan Salvation Army on his own.

Instead, they sent troops to contact some powerful chieftain tribes in Guizhou and Yunnan, preparing to gather their strength to conquer Sichuan in one fell swoop.

Pu Mingsheng's idea was that if he could conquer Sichuan, known as the Land of Abundance.

Perhaps he could learn from Liu Bei, the imperial uncle in history, establish his own "Shu Kingdom," and then set his sights on the Central Plains.

Furthermore, in this process, he can gradually subdue many other forces by relying on his own strength and power.

As for those who are stubborn and unyielding, we can only send them to meet the gods.

By that time, he commanded numerous chieftain tribes, relying on powerful and mysterious witchcraft.

Even if he couldn't conquer the Central Plains, he could still maintain his kingdom and dominate the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan by relying on witchcraft, right?
(End of this chapter)