Longzang

Chapter 961 The First Year of Hongjing
Emperor Jing issued an edict to quell the rebellion, and the feudal lords of the land were mobilized. By December of the first year of Emperor Jing's reign, all the regional military governors, military commissioners, pacification commissioners, and pacification commissioners, as well as the princes of the imperial family and military commissioners of the nine kingdoms, submitted memorials one after another. The memorials flew to the capital of the Great Tang Dynasty like snowflakes, and for a time, it was as if the Great Tang Dynasty was still in its early days!
In the imperial study of the palace, Prince Jin sat behind his desk, reviewing a mountain of memorials. Beside him sat the emperor, whose face still bore the traces of youth. The memorials that Prince Jin had reviewed would be passed to him for careful examination of their contents and comments. He could ask questions at any time if he didn't understand something.

However, the young emperor was not paying attention, and his gaze kept drifting back and forth between the two maids standing at the door of the study.

After reading all the memorials, the Prince of Jin wrote down a number on a piece of paper and compared it with the previous ones. Immediately, his face turned angry, and he slammed his hand heavily on the table, saying, "What a scoundrel!"

The young emperor was startled and didn't understand what was happening.

Prince Jin glanced at him, suppressing his anger, and patiently explained: "So far, there have been more than a hundred memorials from those who have been ordered to suppress the rebels, and more than fifty more claiming to have won battles and requesting rewards! Hmph, these more than a hundred armies that came to the aid of the emperor only number more than 90,000, and they are scattered all over the country! Each army has less than a thousand men. Are they a punitive expedition or bandits?"

What's even more ridiculous is that he's demanding rewards before the battle has even begun. Look at this guy, he's in Northern Qi, yet he claims to have won a battle against the southwestern state of Ji!
And this guy, a minor military governor on the frontier, actually said he'd send 200,000 troops to attack the rebels! Hey, that's double the combined total of all the other armies. He's at least 300,000 li away from the rebels; how are hundreds of thousands of troops going to get there? His vanguard is a single flying boat that can carry a thousand men. I think that's all he has.”

The young emperor caught the two memorials thrown to him and opened them. The one requesting rewards wasn't anything special, just a bit shameless. Ever since the decline of the Tang dynasty, a group of regional officials had been requesting rewards all the time, since they didn't lose anything anyway.

As for the other letter, it was signed by Wei Yuan, the military governor of Qingyang in Qingzhou, the same guy who claimed he would send 300,000 troops to quell the rebellion.

Upon seeing the words "Qingyang Jiedushi" (military governor of Qingyang), the young emperor suddenly felt an indescribable emotion. He then wondered, "Does the Great Tang Dynasty have a Qingzhou?" The young emperor was only sixteen years old and had never imagined he would become emperor, so his basic knowledge was not very solid.

After thinking it over, he realized that Da Tang also had Qingzhou, so he concluded that this person had occupied a piece of land in a remote area, proclaimed himself the military governor of Qingzhou, and then bribed some official in the court to buy a blank official document.

This is quite common; Da Tang now has at least seventy or eighty military governors.

After his outburst of anger, the Prince of Jin pondered for a long time before finally making up his mind. He said, "A strong medicine is needed to cure a serious illness! Issue an edict that anyone who can quell the rebellion shall be granted the right to establish a government on the spot, and anyone who can control a prefecture shall be granted the title of Garrison Commander!"

The young emperor was somewhat surprised and hurriedly said, "Isn't this like cutting flesh off the body of the Ji Kingdom?"

The King of Jin, having already devised his plan, remained calm and composed, saying, "The flesh of the Ji Kingdom has long been rotten; even if we dig it out, the King of Ji will be powerless to do anything about it. After this battle, at least two or three counties of the Ji Kingdom will return to the territory of the Great Tang, and we will also have an enclave bordering the foreign tribes. After this is accomplished, you will also have the opportunity to conquer the foreign tribes."

The young emperor, however, was rather uninterested. He only wanted to fight with the palace maids in the palace, not to go to the frontier to fight with foreign tribes. The arduous task of leading troops into battle was naturally left to his ministers.

……

At the border between Yongzhou and Jiaozhou, a continuous stretch of camps covered the mountains and plains, stretching as far as the eye could see.

At this moment, the various rebel forces gathered here to form an alliance and prepare to enthrone a new leader.

In the central army camp sat a dozen or so rebel leaders, each with a different demeanor and temperament, generally characterized by leopard-like heads, bulging eyes, and robust, dark-skinned figures. However, seated in the central, high position of the camp was a scholar.

On the table in front of the scholar were hundreds of memorials. He pointed to them and said, “Whatever memorials are kept in the emperor’s study, we will keep the same ones here. These are all the various lords who have responded to the call to defend the emperor and are coming to punish us.”

A burly man said, "So many feudal lords? There must be several million of them in total, right?"

Another person sneered: "The army of Ji State has been utterly defeated by us, what are we afraid of?! Although these feudal lords are numerous, they can't fly over here."

The scholar smiled and said, "General Liu Heihu is quite right. These feudal lords are only after rewards and titles, so the total number of troops they've mobilized is less than 100,000. And even among those 100,000, more than half will never reach us in their lifetime." The burly men in the tent immediately perked up and shouted, "What are we afraid of? Let's fight them!"

But some people said, "There are immortals in the Ji Kingdom too. If we cause too much trouble, what if the immortals take action?"

The scholar had been waiting for these words, and smiled, saying, "Even immortals have their limitations; they cannot attack mortals without cause. Besides, even if this immortal were to break his facade, I have ways to keep him in check. You need not worry; we only need to defeat Ji Jun. Once we have occupied several prefectures, we can establish our own rule, first gaining a foothold, and then gradually crushing the Great Tang's empire!"

Immediately someone said, "Big Brother actually has methods to deal with immortals! Besides, Big Brother is resourceful and wise, while we are all just roughnecks, so this alliance leader must be Big Brother!"

Everyone echoed their agreement. Those who had other ideas could only swallow their words when they saw the overwhelming power of the others.

In December of the first year of the Hongjing era, the various rebel armies held a meeting and unanimously elected Lu Jiande as their leader, boasting an army of one million. The day after the meeting, the rebel army decisively defeated Ji's army at Sishui, beheading 100,000, which shocked the entire country.

The rebels all wore yellow turbans and had a chrysanthemum painted on their front blouses.

……

A small flying boat hovered in the deserted mountains. Wei Yuan looked down at the valley and asked, "Is the secret realm here?"

Hulegaoen said, "This is the place."

Wei Yuan immediately ordered the flying boat to land. This place was less than 20,000 miles from the core of Qingming, and would be within his control once Qingming matured. Subsequently, more than a hundred people disembarked from the flying boat, including cultivators from Taichu Palace and dozens of carefully selected military experts.

Led by Hulegaon, the group entered the secret realm. The realm wasn't large, but it bore the marks of time, with many artifacts decayed. In the center stood an altar, long since destroyed, its purpose unknown.

Hulegaon led everyone to a secluded corner, moved aside the rocks, and saw a deep passage. At the end of the passage was a teleportation array that led to the outside of the secret realm.

After inspecting it, Ji Liuli found that the formation was quite intact and still usable, but it required a large amount of spirit stones as energy to activate.

Restarting the teleportation array was not difficult and was completed smoothly in a short time. Wei Yuan left half of the cultivators behind and led Hulegao En through the teleportation gate.

Outside the portal, the landscape had indeed changed completely. As far as the eye could see, there were rolling hills, and large swaths of exposed rock were strange colors, ranging from reddish-brown to green. Clearly, this was evidence of a mineral vein, or rather, a large open-pit mine.

Hulegaon was right, and Wei Yuan was immediately in high spirits. But before he could even rejoice, a cultivator hurriedly walked out of the teleportation portal and said, "Lord of the Realm, something has happened to Qingming. More than a dozen Dao Foundation Establishment cultivators have died, and nearly a hundred are seriously injured!"

"What?" Wei Yuan was shocked and immediately returned to the teleportation portal to check back in Qingming.

In the deep winter of the first year of the Hongjing era, a massive explosion suddenly occurred at the Qingming Immortal Cultivation Workshop, resulting in countless deaths and injuries.

(End of this chapter)