Gao Wu: You have science, and I have magic!

Chapter 271 I haven't rebelled yet, but Daliang is about to fall

Liaodong County, Baigeng City.

Cheng Tinghu got up early in the morning and did morning exercises with his concubine. He sweated profusely and felt relaxed all over. Then he got up to take a bath and change clothes. He held his aching waist and sighed: "I am old now. My waist is not as strong as before. I remember that when I was by the Qinhuai River, I could have sex with eight beauties at night as if it was nothing."

Several of his followers smiled and complimented him: "The general is in his prime, he can kill a cow with one punch, how can he be old?"

Although he knew it was flattery, Cheng Tinghu still felt relieved after hearing it. Then he remembered his son's trip to Jicheng and asked, "Has Ji Mao returned?"

The subordinate quickly replied: "No."

"It's been a few days. Have you gone out to drink wine again?"

Cheng Tinghu cursed with a smile, but didn't take it to heart.

As the saying goes, like father, like son. Cheng Jimao learned his arrogance and lawlessness from Cheng Tinghu. He was used to being a local emperor in Youzhou, so he looked down on everyone.

The four generals of Liaodong, Cheng, Li, Ma and Nie, were just four border army generals when Daliang was first established.

At that time, the Central Plains had just been stabilized and the whole country was in a state of disrepair. Therefore, the imperial court was unable to transport food and fodder to Youzhou to resist the invasion of the Donghu. As a result, Emperor Taizu had to establish four major border towns in Liaodong, immigrate to settle and cultivate the land, and integrate the military and agriculture.

As time went by, the four major border towns gradually evolved into independent kingdoms. The four major general families, Cheng, Li, Ma and Nie, commanded 300,000 border troops, making it difficult for Daliang's decrees to reach Liaodong.

The Cheng family was extremely powerful in Baigeng City, and Cheng Tinghu was extremely arrogant and extravagant. He took all the profits of the merchants and citizens in the city into his own name.

If there are no married people in the city who take shares, your business will not be able to continue.

The sons of married families are equally unscrupulous. If they take a fancy to a young wife of a family, they will kidnap her on the street. If you dare to say no, they will kill your entire family on the charge of collaborating with the enemy.

In recent years, Cheng Tinghu even took the lead in robbing passing merchants and travelers, killing people and stealing their goods, and obtained huge wealth. The local county officials did not dare to intervene at all.

Therefore, in Cheng Tinghu's opinion, since Ye Qingzhou has offended King Chong, he must win him over, otherwise it will be difficult for him to gain a foothold in Youzhou.

That's why Cheng Tinghu dared to lay his hands on Ye Qingzhou's spoils. Those millions of cattle and sheep really made him greedy.

And he doesn’t ask for much, just 30%. Is that a lot?

You know, in Baigeng City, the Cheng family will take 70% of the profits if they take dry shares. Now they only ask you, Ye Qingzhou, for 30% of the spoils, which is already giving you face.

At the same time, in Linghe City of Liaodong County, there was also a quarrel within the Nie family.

"Father, there is no need to hesitate any longer!"

The youngest son, Nie Yongjie, urged him impatiently, "Cheng Jimao has already taken his men to Jicheng. I heard that the Cheng family is very greedy and wants to eat up 30% of the spoils at once. If we go too late, let alone the cattle and sheep, I'm afraid that our Nie family won't even get a share of the cow dung!"

Millions of cattle and sheep, such a windfall is really enviable.

Now with the support of the provincial governor's decree, it was tantamount to robbery under the order of the emperor. Naturally, the four great generals of Liaodong could not hold back and all of them wanted to take it for themselves.

Nie Dingyuan was quite tempted at the moment, but then he hesitated: "Let me think about it, or maybe we should wait until your second brother comes back."

Nie Yongjie became anxious when he heard this, and couldn't help but urge him, "Father, opportunities are rare and will never come again. Why are you still hesitating at this time?"

"General, the second young master is back."

"what?"

Nie Dingyuan was very happy to hear this. He had three sons. The eldest son was mediocre and incompetent, the youngest son was ambitious but lacked talent, and only the second son, Nie Shixiong, was calm and courageous, and had the style of his ancestors, and was capable of shouldering great responsibilities.

Soon, Nie Shixiong, who had hurried back to Linghe City, walked up to Nie Dingyuan and Nie Yongjie with vigorous steps: "Father, third brother."

"Shixiong is back. That's great. I have something to discuss with you."

Then Nie Dingyuan repeated Nie Yongjie's words to Nie Shixiong, but his tone was more tactful: "Your father knows that Ye Jianjun has shown you a favor. Our Nie family will not accept this favor for nothing. We will definitely come forward to help Ye Jianjun and settle the other three families. What do you think?"

Nie Shixiong sighed when he heard this: "Father, isn't it good to be alive? Why do you want to seek death?"

Nie Yongjie stood up in displeasure and angrily scolded Nie Shixiong: "Second brother, how did you talk to father? This matter concerns the interests of my Nie family, don't let your emotions get in the way!"

brush~
Nie Shixiong suddenly attacked, grabbed Nie Yongjie's neck and lifted him into the air: "No matter how you acted before, I thought you were young and ignorant, but this time it won't work. Master is a martial arts master, I can't watch you kill the Nie family."

Nie Yongjie's face turned red and his eyes rolled back after being pinched by Nie Shixiong. He struggled desperately in pain.

Seeing the quarrel between the brothers, Nie Dingyuan quickly scolded: "Shixiong, what are you doing? Why don't you let go? He is your own brother!"

Only then did Nie Shixiong let Nie Yongjie go. The latter fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. Although there was anger on his face, there was more fear and terror.

"If he wasn't my brother, he would be a dead body now."

"Shixiong, do you think you have grown so powerful that you don't even take me, your father, seriously?"

Nie Dingyuan was extremely angry at the moment, and at the same time he felt that the son in front of him had become very unfamiliar. It had only been a few days?

"Did that guy named Ye give you some kind of drug that could make you mad?"

Nie Shixiong was too lazy to explain too much. He directly drew the sword from his waist and twisted the sword made of tempered steel into a twist in front of Nie Dingyuan and Nie Yongjie.

The two of them gasped in shock. Such a shocking scene had a profound impact on their hearts.

"I have become the disciple of the master and have been taught the way of mind martial arts. This is the power I have gained through hard practice. Father, times have changed. In front of the way of martial arts, thousands of troops are nothing but a joke."

After saying this, Nie Shixiong turned and left.

"Where are you going?"

"Following the Master's orders, we will wipe out the Cheng family and make an example of them."

That night, Nie Shixiong entered Baigeng City alone and single-handedly killed 3,000 elite troops of the Tabai Army, causing them to flee on the spot. Then he trampled the long street, massacred the General Zhenglu's mansion, and killed the entire Cheng family without leaving anyone alive.

In the flames rising into the sky, there was the back of Nie Shixiong carrying Cheng Tinghu's head and leaving. The whole of Liaodong was speechless for a moment.

On the second day, among the remaining three major general families in Liaodong, the heads of the Li and Ma families came to Nie Shixiong in person to express their submission to the Xinwu family.

They even yearn to join Xinwumen and become Ye Qingzhou's followers.

King Chong's strategy of using one faction to fight against another was completely declared a failure.

Jicheng, Protectorate of the Northern Territory.

Nie Shixiong came to Ye Qingzhou holding Cheng Tinghu's head and said, "Master, the entire Cheng family has been executed. Here is Cheng Tinghu's head."

"Well, you did a good job."

"Master, there is one more thing."

"explain."

"The Li family and the Ma family want to join the Xinwu Sect."

"Okay, you can arrange it."

"Yes."

Nie Shixiong then bowed and took his leave.

After a while, Liu Chang came in and reported the results of the investigation to Ye Qingzhou: "Master, the matter has been investigated clearly. The cause of the incident was someone around King Chong who offered advice."

"Ah, you are such a fool."

Ye Qingzhou immediately stood up and led his men straight to the governor's mansion. He was too lazy to play any tricks with politicians and bureaucrats like King Chong, so he just used his flying dragon to ride on his opponent's face and let him see the situation clearly.

"Who are you?"

"stop!"

"what!"

After a few screams, the guards at the door turned into cold corpses.

Ye Qingzhou kicked the door open and walked in with a swagger: "Where is King Chong? Tell him to come out and see me." "You bold lunatic! Do you know where this is? How dare you come to the governor's mansion to make trouble? I think you are tired of living!"

King Chong's steward and several burly servants came running over upon hearing the news. Ye Qingzhou didn't bother to waste time talking and swung his sword forward, instantly creating a whistling wind.

With the nourishment of spiritual energy from the spiritual world, Ye Qingzhou is now able to use sword energy to slash.

With one sword, he killed the enemy from a distance. Six heads flew high into the air. After the bodies fell, bright red blood flowed all over the ground.

"Can you talk properly now?"

Ye Qingzhou's sword energy move was so powerful that it shook the heavens and the earth and made the ghosts weep. It was more sonorous and powerful than any words, and it made everyone in the governor's mansion shiver.

A moment later, King Chong, who wanted to escape from the back door, was blocked in the alley by a group of warriors. Finally, he was tied up and brought to Ye Qingzhou.

"Ye Qingzhou, do you want to rebel?"

"Why not?"

Ye Qingzhou's recklessness instantly silenced King Chong.

Seeing that King Chong didn't say anything, Ye Qingzhou turned his gaze to an aide beside him: "Are you Tong Yangyi?"

"Yes."

Tong Yangyi does have some character of a scholar. Even though he is now a prisoner, he remains neither humble nor arrogant.

Ye Qingzhou admired such a tough guy, so he decided to leave his body intact: "Come on, hang him outside the governor's mansion."

"Yes."

Two soldiers immediately followed the order and dragged Tong Yangyi out of the door like a dead dog and hanged him in the street.

Such a brutal act made the other aides around King Chong silent in fear. They all lowered their heads and pretended to be dead. They didn't dare to look at Ye Qingzhou at all, let alone talk to him about some profound principles.

After he had a thorough grasp of the situation, Ye Qingzhou looked at King Chong and said, "Just stay in the governor's mansion and be a mascot. You are still somewhat useful now, so I won't kill you. But my patience is limited. Do you understand?"

Then, Ye Qingzhou raised the Jingzhe Sword in his hand and said in a leisurely tone: "In order to prevent some of you from losing your mind, I will show you my strength first."

Zheng~
The clear sound of swords resounded through the sky, and in the brilliant light, King Chong and others seemed to see a soaring dragon.

Rumble~
Under the indestructible sword energy, the entire governor's mansion was split into two, leaving a hideous sword mark on the ground.

"This...this kind of power!"

Prince Chong, his staff, and his entourage all collapsed to the ground, their eyes completely lifeless.

With the martial power displayed by Ye Qingzhou, even if the imperial court sent a large army to attack him, who in the world could stop this sword?

On the contrary, the warriors behind Ye Qingzhou all had extremely fanatical expressions at this moment. In their eyes, Ye Qingzhou, the leader of Xinwu Sect and the commander of the Shenwu Army, was undoubtedly a real god!

When leaving the governor's mansion, Ye Qingzhou looked up at the sky. In the vision of his divine eyes, the light of luck turned into a sky full of red clouds, rolling like a tide, pouring down all at once.

"It seems that after the blow to King Chong's prestige, the fate of the entire Youzhou has been taken over by me."

Ye Qingzhou suddenly understood something in his mind, and his spiritual energy surged. His divine consciousness became stronger and stronger, and his connection with the spiritual world became closer, allowing him to absorb spiritual energy from the spiritual world more easily.

At this point, the governor's office was in name only, the Liaodong generals collectively defected, and the entire Youzhou was completely under Ye Qingzhou's control, and no one dared to disobey his orders.

Even Lu Gongming, the leader of Louguan Dao who had been secretly observing Ye Qingzhou for a long time, brought his disciple Xu Buyi to join Ye Qingzhou's army.

Especially Xu Buyi, who is also a peerless talent who can be compared with Nie Shixiong and Wang Junfeng. After joining the Xinwu Sect, his cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds, and he soon became the third direct disciple under Ye Qingzhou after Wang Junfeng and Nie Shixiong.

In the following time, Ye Qingzhou practiced in the Protectorate every day, while his three direct disciples Wang Junfeng, Nie Shixiong and Xu Buyi were busy selecting soldiers, training warriors and expanding the power of Xinwu Sect.

All the human and material resources of the entire Youzhou were mobilized. Wang Junfeng, with the remnants of the Tabai Army who had just surrendered, began to go door to door to "reason" with the local noble families and wealthy families, asking them to "voluntarily" hand over the land they had illegally occupied.

Of course, there were definitely people who opposed it at the beginning.

But when all those who opposed it died, naturally no one would oppose it anymore.

With land, refugees could be recruited to farm, and social order was greatly stabilized. At the same time, Ye Qingzhou was able to gather a large number of people's hearts.

For the Xinwu Sect, the power of thought is the most important resource for cultivation, so Wang Junfeng and others showed no mercy in sweeping away the diehards among the aristocratic families.

Preventing someone from achieving enlightenment is like killing his parents!
The entire Xinwu Sect was united in purpose, and they were able to dominate Youzhou, and their power grew rapidly.

Originally Ye Qingzhou thought that the Daliang court would gather a large army to attack, but after waiting for half a year, he got the news that the Xiliang border army rebelled and the capital fell.

Looking at the intelligence that the divine fortune teller Lu Gongming had collected from the disciples of Louguan Dao, Ye Qingzhou was speechless: "What is this? I haven't even started to rebel yet, and Daliang is going to perish?"

Lü Gongming stroked his beard and smiled, "This is God's help. My Lord is destined to rule the world, conquer the four seas, and achieve a hegemony that will only happen in the ages."

"What on earth is going on? Why would the Western Regions Protectorate rebel for no reason?"

Ye Qingzhou was very puzzled by this.

The Daliang State established four major protectorates in the east, south, west and north. The most powerful of them was the Western Regions Protectorate, which was responsible for guarding the Western Regions and intimidating other countries.

Ranked second is the Northern Territory Protectorate, which is responsible for suppressing the northern border and blocking the Donghu from moving south.

The remaining Eastern Protectorate and Southern Protectorate were naval forces that mainly fought by boat. Among them, the Southern Protectorate had a large army because it had to suppress the Baiyue area.

In terms of military strength, Daliang is still quite impressive, maintaining a huge army with a total size of nearly one million.

As a result, first the Northern Protectorate was destroyed by the rebels, and now even the Western Protectorate, which has the strongest combat effectiveness, has raised the flag of rebellion. The Daliang Kingdom is probably doomed.

Lu Gongming said with emotion: "Alas, the country of Daliang was destroyed by the hands of Li Guozhong, the uncle of the emperor."

"Li Guozhong, the Prime Minister of Daliang?"

Ye Qingzhou had heard of Li Guozhong's name, mainly because of the rumors in the streets, which often mentioned his most beautiful woman in Daliang, Li Yunxia.

Although she was a divorced woman, she was still able to charm the emperor and climb all the way to the position of queen, bringing her whole family together. She was simply a role model in the world of gold diggers.

After Lu Gongming's explanation, Ye Qingzhou also understood why he said that Daliang's country was destroyed in Li Guozhong's hands.

It was really because Li Guozhong was too unkind. After he climbed to the position of prime minister with the help of nepotism, it would have been fine if he had just been greedy and taken a little.

But he was too greedy, and he actually privatized the state-owned shops in Daliang State through financial reform!
The Guifang is equivalent to the bank in Daliang and is the country's purse.

Li Guozhong's move was equivalent to transferring the bank from the hands of the Daliang court directly to himself and his children and students, completely monopolizing the financial system.

What’s even worse is that Li Guozhong later carried out tax reforms, ordering the people of Daliang to pay taxes in cash instead of directly collecting public grain.

But the problem is that the right to issue currency is in the hands of the money houses. They raise prices arbitrarily, continuously increase interest rates, and artificially create deflation, which results in the money on the market being taken away by the money houses. Ordinary people have no money and can only find ways to sell their grain and land in exchange for currency to pay taxes.

As a result, the people were completely controlled by the gentry and officials, and they stepped on the accelerator and rushed into the dead end of land annexation.

Land annexation resulted in all the wealth being squeezed out by the gentry and bureaucrats such as Li Guozhong's children and disciples. The entire country lost a large amount of tax base, and the court could no longer collect money and grain, and was no longer able to suppress the local governments.

The religious turmoil of the Xuantian Sect further accelerated the rise of aristocratic families and powerful armed forces. The rebellion of the Western Regions Protectorate was just the result of a series of chain reactions.

"My Lord, the Emperor of Daliang has fled east to Xingyang and is calling on all the troops in the country to come to the capital to defend the king and fight against Cao Yincheng, the Protector General of the Western Regions. Should we intervene?"

Lu Gongming looked at Ye Qingzhou, waiting for him to make the decision.

Ye Qingzhou saw the eagerness in Lu Gongming's eyes, so he smiled and nodded and said, "I'm free anyway, so I might as well join in the fun."

The Emperor of Daliang was crazy and courting death, and the bureaucrats under him were also a bunch of weirdos, who actually destroyed the cornerstone of the regime just to make money.

All I can say is that if it is God's will, you can still survive, but if it is one's own will, you cannot.

But this is a good thing for Ye Qingzhou. If the enemy does not seek death, how can he quickly unify the Central Plains and bring the Xuanyuan Sword into the world?

Ye Qingzhou had a premonition that he would gain a lot on this trip to the capital. This was a sudden inspiration of a warrior and was often very effective.

(End of this chapter)