Ancestors, please don't crawl out again.

Chapter 170 This servant feels sorry for his master!
Yin Tai, who had escaped Luoyang, fled to Tongguan almost without stopping. The Qing troops who had retreated to Zhengzhou and other places, upon learning of the incident in Luoyang and the whereabouts of their commander, also chose to flee directly. They simply headed south to Nanyang. The Eight Banners garrison in Xi'an and the Shaanxi Green Standard Army received orders from Yin Tai in Nanyang to withdraw directly to Guanzhong and prepare to close the gates at Tongguan.

What business is it of theirs whether the gentry of Henan live or die?

But we can't let those demons ruin their good days in Xi'an!
As for Ma Ge...

He'll have to figure it out himself!
He has hundreds of thousands of loyal Eight Banner troops in the capital; he can't place his hopes on the few thousand Eight Banner troops stationed in Xi'an.

And so, Luoyang was demonized by the official language of my Great Qing Dynasty...

The Qing government officially referred to this kind of unruly revelry that spread from Kaifeng, and the behavior of militialing and following the immortals to establish an autonomous regime, as demonization. The immortals were, of course, demons, and this title was certified by the masters they trusted. They also confirmed that Yang Feng was the evil spirit of Huang Chao who had come to wreak havoc on the world. Ma Ge even said that he had cultivated in the palace before in order to obtain divine protection as the emperor and to cultivate magic power to suppress this demon.

However, after learning the news, this demon went to the capital to cause trouble, hoping to take the opportunity to interrupt the Holy Ruler before he had fully mastered his skills.

Of course, he definitely failed.

After all, a wise and benevolent ruler is blessed by Heaven; how could a demon like him defy destiny?
However, his disruption, coupled with the Crown Prince's mishandling of the situation, did indeed cause the Holy Ruler to fail in his endeavors. Fortunately, the Holy Ruler has invited a higher-level master to help him continue his cultivation. When his power is fully developed, he will surely make this demon's soul disappear.

But until then, all we could do was watch him run rampant.

But loyal ministers and righteous men everywhere must remain steadfast in their beliefs, knowing that it will not be long before he is utterly destroyed by a wise and benevolent ruler who has successfully cultivated himself.

My glorious Qing Dynasty will not fall.

We must remain steadfast in our confidence!
We must resist to the death!
How could anyone abandon a wise and benevolent ruler who had served for fifty years to follow a demon?
Of course, such ghost stories are of little use, since even if Ma Ge truly achieves great supernatural powers, those gentry would have to survive to see it.

At least for now, they saw no hope, as the prison carts carrying the Dezhao clan continued to move forward along the official road.

Cheqi Pass.

"Your Majesty, Prince Xin is innocent!"

"Traitorous officials! It's all the work of traitorous officials who harmed Prince Xin!"

……

Elders from Daming Prefecture, Linqing, and even Dongchang Prefecture, Jinan Prefecture, and even Lu'an Prefecture in Shanxi Province blocked the southward-bound prison cart procession. They wailed with snot and tears streaming down their faces, and even lunged at the prison carts, grabbing at them. Some old fogies even lay on the official road, as if they could just walk over them if they wanted to go south.

Of course, they certainly didn't have any affection for Prince Xin, who was only eleven years old, in the prison cart.

Although the latter was indeed moved to tears.

These old men had been plotting for a long time. Although such incidents had indeed occurred frequently along the way south of the prison cart, this was the first time that gentry from three provinces had organized such a coordinated interception. These old men adopted a posture of loyalty to the Qing Dynasty, using the pretext of treacherous officials framing them and claiming that they had secretly given the Xin Prince's family to demons without Ma Ge's knowledge. Ma Ge had never admitted to giving the Dezhao family to Yang Feng; instead, he used the excuse that Yinreng had mishandled the demons' rampage in the capital, resulting in damage to the Imperial Ancestral Temple and the deaths of the Xin Prince and others, to depose the Crown Prince.

As for how the murder occurred, he didn't write it in the imperial edict, nor did he specify whether Dezhao and the others were dead or alive.

Similarly, it is even more inappropriate to say that Baltu did anything with his ironclad crops.

The imperial edict was simply a vague statement about being murdered.

These things can't be explained clearly. It's better to be confused than to be confused. Just let it pass by vaguely. Anyway, everyone understands but no one will bring it up.

But it gave these old fogies a chance.

They claimed that the treacherous minister Baltu had framed Dezhao, secretly sending Dezhao's clan to demons without Ma Ge's knowledge. They, being loyal to the Qing Dynasty, couldn't stand by and watch such a tragedy unfold, so they stepped forward to block the prison cart's advance and simultaneously wrote a petition to the people, making a grand display of their loyalty. Among them were many retired ministers who could submit memorials to Ma Ge, as well as officials like censors and their descendants. In essence, they were reviving practices from the Ming Dynasty.

Just like dealing with Emperor Wanli.

I definitely wouldn't have dared to do that in the past.

Ma Ge wasn't his own tax supervisor; the Imperial Guards were burned, drowned, or killed as bandits, and Wanli didn't dare do anything about it.

Under normal circumstances, if they dare to play like this, they're bound to become the next Jin Shengtan.

But is my Great Qing Dynasty still in a normal situation now?
Ma Ge is no longer the Ma Ge of the past, so why indulge him? When he could wield life and death over the gentry, everyone had no choice but to kneel obediently. But now he needs to beg the gentry, so of course the gentry have to stand up straight and speak to him. You want to be a wise and benevolent ruler, you want our support, then you have to put up with us. In the end, we're all in the same boat now, and we even have a better way out than you. After all, at worst, we can hand over our land and kneel at the feet of that demon and endure it, but even if you kneel, they won't want you!

So these old geezers are fearless. They came to humiliate Brother Ma and to block the prison van in a big way, so that the whole world can see that you're not just pretending to be dead and trying to get away with it.
Then we'll be frank with you.

I'll broadcast this to the whole world, so that everyone knows that you were so afraid of that demon that you were even willing to sacrifice an entire royal family.

A wise and benevolent ruler?

This is Wanyan Gou!

stand up!
Don't kneel!
Don't make a perfect face shape!

If you don't want to become a laughingstock, if you don't want your weakness and incompetence to be ridiculed by the world, and if this leads to other regions no longer fearing you, or even engaging in separatist activities with you, then stand tall and fight that demon.

Do you want to live a life of complacency and seek only peace?

Do you deserve it?
Do you, a conqueror of a foreign race, have the right to be weak?
Don't you know your own true nature?

If you dare to be weak, you will immediately face the collapse of your rule and the hateful backlash from the gentry across the land. You cannot be weak. Stand up and fight that demon to the death. We will still recognize you as our emperor. If you kneel, then why should we kneel to you?
Wouldn't it be better to just kneel down to that demon?
Thus, at Cheqi Pass, this spectacular yet utterly absurd scene unfolded: thousands of elders and scholars blocked the southward-bound prison carts, adopting the posture of loyal ministers and righteous men, preventing them from advancing, and even pleading for the innocence of Dezhao and others in the prison carts, displaying the lowly attitude of servants who felt sorry for their masters, and shouting as if they were full of righteous indignation to punish the treacherous officials.

As for the Qing soldiers escorting the prison cart, they dared not kill these old geezers. After all, these old geezers had brought their servants with them. They were blocking the road, but their servants, who outnumbered the Qing soldiers by almost tenfold, were all armed and keeping watch on the outside. So the Eight Banners officer in charge of the escort could only try to explain, but it was no use. In fact, he couldn't explain. First, he dared not say that it was approved by Ma Ge, because Ma Ge would probably confiscate his property.

But if he dares not say that Ma Ge tacitly approved it, then it can only be that a treacherous official framed him.

This matter is inexplicable.

In the end, he could only feign death amidst the siege of these old fogies.

The area around the gate was packed with onlookers, making the area in front of Cheqi Pass a sea of ​​people.

In the midst of the chaos, no one noticed that a group of cavalrymen in red uniforms had appeared in the distance. They bypassed the Cheqi Pass and headed straight for them. As they were quickly blocked by the crowd, the leading officer simply raised his musket, fired it into the sky, and with the sound of gunfire echoing across the plains, everyone's eyes turned to them.

"The Heavenly Cavalry Battalion has been ordered to escort the descendants of Dorgon!"

The officer shouted.

The crowd immediately made way for them.

At this time, the two sides still used the Zhang River as the boundary. However, the gentry in Cizhou in the south had already resigned themselves to fate. In fact, many of them fled to Lu'an with their families. After all, Handan was obviously not safe either, while Lu'an was temporarily safe. Those who did not plan to flee did not spend money to organize local militias. At worst, they would surrender when the imperial army arrived. In this way, they could hand over their land and still have money left. But if they organized local militias, they would even throw away their money, and those militias would be useless.

In fact, many local gentry adopted the same approach. After all, the gentry at this time still had vivid memories of the Qing army's massacre and Li Zicheng's torture, so they were relatively rational in the face of a powerful enemy.

They still know how to be afraid.

As for the Qing army, since Ma Ke did not send the Eight Banners army south, and the Green Standard Army was scattered in the south, it was basically better than nothing.

Moreover, these barely any members of the pro-independence camp are all waiting to defect.

The Green Standard Army from Shanxi did arrive, but they didn't cross the Taihang Mountains at all; they just guarded the passes.

They didn't care about the lives of the gentry in Beizhili, as long as they didn't go there.

At the far end of the separated crowd, the elders and scholars lay on the prison carts, staring in astonishment at the cavalrymen in red robes and helmets.

The Eight Banners officer also quickly stepped forward to greet him.

Those who were sent to do this kind of thing were naturally sensible. He dismounted to greet the heavenly soldiers and cavalry, then stepped forward and bowed respectfully in a very standard manner, just like how they were humble when meeting foreign dignitaries in the late Qing Dynasty.

"General, my convoy was delayed and could not proceed in time. Please forgive me."

He said.

"Who dares to stop me?"

The officer shouted from his horse.

The elders and scholars looked on awkwardly.

The Eight Banners officer turned to look at them, then faced the Heavenly Army officer again.

"General, these elders and scholars are here to block our way because they believe that my trip has caused us to lose sovereignty and the country. They have also reported to the Emperor and requested that he recall Prince Xin and others."

He said it very maliciously.

"Oh, so they're all Qing demons?"

The heavenly soldier officer sneered.

“We are loyal subjects of the Great Qing Dynasty, while you are originally good citizens. How did you become the lackeys of that demon? Look at your attire, so incongruous and disheveled. How can you face your ancestors!”

A scholar angrily rebuked him.

"boom!"

Gunshots rang out immediately afterward.

He stared in astonishment at the blood gushing from his chest.

"Ancestors, my foot! Did your ancestors have money rat tails?"

The officer, holding a repeating rifle, said disdainfully.

At the same time, the scholar's corpse slowly fell to the ground.

(End of this chapter)