Zhutian: Starting from the Space-Time Merchant

Chapter 620 This is just the beginning!
"My lord, this is Cangwu County, about a hundred miles from Wuzhou City."

Outside the city gate of Cangwu County, the newly appointed deputy commander of Xunjiang, Yiketanbu, snorted and dismounted.

A group of Goshkhas hurriedly stepped forward to serve him.

He glanced at the magistrate of Cangwu County and others who had come to greet him not far away, and casually asked, "Where is General Zhou?"

General Zhou's name was Zhou Fengqi, and he was originally the General Commander of Zhenyuan County, Guizhou Province.

Iktanbu was one of Zhou Fengqi's subordinates.

The bloated and inefficient Qing court finally responded to the uprising that had taken place in remote Guangxi.

Soldiers from Guizhou, which were geographically closer, were the first to enter Guangxi to provide support.

"Reporting to Master."

Goshha cautiously replied, "The garrison commander is still in Guilin City, waiting for General Xiang."

As ordered by the Qing court, Xiang Rong was appointed as the Governor-General of Guangxi, in charge of military affairs in Guangxi.

The Guizhou soldiers were considered guest troops, and theoretically they were also subject to orders.

"Ah."

Iktambu nodded and strode toward the people of Cangwu County.

He understood his commander's intentions and stayed in Guilin to discuss with Xiang Rong and request various military financial support.

As for Xiang Rong, after receiving the transfer order, he arranged to hand over his work and then rushed over.

The journey is long, and we are still on the road.

"Greetings, General!"

"Your humble servant, He Yougui, Magistrate of Cangwu County..."

"This is the county magistrate."

"Dianshi~"

"Inspection~"

"Wu Shangxian, a student of the Imperial Academy, and Zhu Mingyang, a student of the Imperial Academy, are from this county."

"These are all respected figures from our county."

"Upon learning of the General's arrival, the entire county has prepared a small gift to welcome the troops."

"A banquet has been prepared in the city to welcome the general and wash away the dust of his journey."

The magistrate of Cangwu was very hospitable because Yiketanbu was a Manchu.

The Manchus were truly superior to the Qing, and the old saying that scholars were valued more than warriors was meaningless to them.

The Qing army had very poor discipline, or even no discipline at all.

If the hospitality is inadequate, looting the village is a common occurrence.

"Good~"

Iktambu nodded in satisfaction. "I have been ordered to suppress the bandits. You must do your utmost to assist me and not disobey in private. Otherwise, I will certainly report you to the authorities."

"No, no, General, please!"

"You all remember to prepare ten large bags of rope." As they entered the city, Iktambu instructed with a smug air, "Once we have defeated the rebels, I will use them to capture prisoners."

(This is not fiction; it really happened. He did prepare a rope.)

"Guangxi soldiers are no good."

At the banquet, after a few drinks, Iktanbu, with his arm around the city's most popular tech professional, laughed heartily, "We can't even beat these lowly peasants, we have to be the Guizhou soldiers to save us."

The others sitting with him were itching to speak, but unfortunately they had nothing to say and could only force a smile.

There was nothing they could do; their Guangxi troops had been defeated.

While the generals were feasting and drinking in the city, enjoying themselves with the technical workers, the temporary military camps outside the city were not idle either.

The local gentry brought grain, wine, and meat to reward these visiting soldiers and asked them to be lenient and not cause harm to the local area.

As everyone knows, the mite-infested scorpion is rotten and decaying.

The Ikhtambu consortium has over 4,000 members on the surface, but in reality, only about 1,500 are actually involved.

According to regulations, these people have had their military pay and benefits withheld for many years.

Wearing tattered uniforms, carrying rusty weapons, and eating coarse food.

It's a rare opportunity to have a good meal, or even a taste of meat, so naturally everyone fights fiercely for it, and nobody cares about the defenses.

In the distant mountains and forests, several Taiping Army scouts disguised as hunters were sketching and writing on paper to record the movements and defenses of the Qing army.

Immediately someone took the intelligence and quickly took it away to report it.

This place is a hundred miles away from Wuzhou, which is definitely a long distance in this era.

Iktambu planned to use this place as an outpost, stationed there to await his general and subsequent reinforcements.

Although arrogant, he still has basic judgment.

He appeared to have four or five thousand troops, but in reality, he only had a little over a thousand.

He was very clear about the fighting strength of these more than a thousand people.

It is said that the rebels who seized Wuzhou City numbered in the tens of thousands.

Given this disparity, an aggressive strategy is not advisable. The correct choice is to wait for reinforcements to gather before launching a decisive attack.

However, he regarded Lin Dao as a bloated band of outlaws and never considered that Lin Dao might take the initiative to attack.

Perhaps they have already considered it, but feel that the distance is too far, and it is still possible to start preparing the camp defenses tomorrow.

Then~
In the dead of night, Iktambu, fast asleep, was snoring loudly.

A bucket of cold water was poured over him, and Iktambu, jolted awake, sat up straight reflexively.

"Master!"

"Come on!"

Before Iktambu could react, a group of Goshha rushed up, dragged him off the bed, and ran outside, leaving the tech worker on the bed trembling.

My head was still spinning from the anesthesia.

Iktambu, who was being held by the Goshha, saw torches everywhere outside.

The deafening sounds of battle cries filled my ears.

It wasn't until he was pushed onto the horse that Iktambu gradually came to his senses.

"The rebels have attacked?!"

Goshha, leading his horse at breakneck speed, panted heavily as he replied, "Master, the rebels have seized the city gates and are rampaging indiscriminately killing everyone. Nobody knows how many there are!"

Iktanbu, who was hurriedly putting on his armor, asked anxiously, "Outside the city~" He had only brought his own Goshha into the city. How was the army in the camp outside the city?

"The situation outside the city is even more chaotic!"

Goshkha's response shattered Ikhtamb's illusions: "The rebel army has launched a surprise attack on the camp, and the fires over there have lit up the sky!"

Iktambu stopped talking and ran towards the city gate, gritting his teeth.

At this point, nothing you say will matter; the most important thing is to escape as quickly as possible.

As dawn broke, a large banner proclaiming "Following the Way of Heaven" had already been raised on the city wall of Cangwu County.

Surrounded by the crowd, Lin Dao entered the city and, following the dilapidated streets laid out in a cross shape, arrived at the county government office in the very center of the city.

The environment along the way remained as dilapidated as ever.

These days, the countryside is the true heart of China.

The so-called city itself has no output and is basically supported by the surrounding villages and towns.

The streets along the way were dilapidated, with the stone slabs and blue bricks cracked and broken everywhere, and there were even many holes filled with sewage.

The shops on both sides are mostly service-oriented businesses.

The store included a general store, a tofu shop, a butcher shop, a pawnshop, a tavern, a cloth shop, and a workplace for a technical worker located very close to the county government office in the very center of the county town.

Inside the county town, many auxiliary soldiers of the Taiping Army were busy cleaning up the battlefield.

They extinguished fires, removed bodies, cleared garbage and other debris, and entered shops and residences to register and compile statistics.

There were many Taiping soldiers, but the proportion of the elderly, weak, women and children was too large.

Lin Dao was not a bandit; he would never do something like using the elderly, women, and children as cannon fodder.

During the reorganization in Wuzhou, he gathered together young men and trained them as regular soldiers.

Older, sick, or injured men were assigned to auxiliary troops.

As for the truly elderly, weak, women, and children, they were all incorporated into the old camp to do logistical and miscellaneous work.

Therefore, the number of elite soldiers who could actually go to the battlefield was far less than imagined.

Upon arriving at the county government office, Lin Dao dismounted.

This was the site of the fiercest fighting in the county town last night.

The fighting was even fiercer than that in the military camps outside the city. After all, the simple military camps outside the city had no trenches, fences, barricades, or antlers, and the Green Standard Army soldiers, who rarely had a full meal, had little will to resist and were quickly defeated.

It's different in the city.

The students and scholars in the county town, the local gentry, their relatives and lackeys, the officials, and Ikhtanbu.

Iktambu attempted to break out with Goshha.

But all the city gates were blocked, and he couldn't get out.

Left with no other option, they could only chase and fight their way back to the county government office.

He and his companion, Ghoshha, put up the most resolute resistance here.

This not only caused serious damage to the already dilapidated county government office, but also, in the final moment of despair, set fire to everything that could be burned.

Yes, in ancient times, it was customary not to repair county government offices, so they were incredibly dilapidated, incomparable to the grand and world-renowned ones of later generations.

The auxiliary soldiers dragged away the corpses one by one, and many others carried buckets of water to pour on the embers.

Carrying spray cans and wearing masks, the auxiliary soldiers have begun disinfecting various locations.

A pungent, strange smell permeated the air.

Although the season is gradually turning into the cold winter, the chances of a large-scale outbreak of infectious diseases still exist, and the issue of disinfection should not be underestimated.

Upon entering the county government office, auxiliary soldiers brought over the collected documents.

"Most of them were burned."

Yang Xiuqing explained, "The warehouses too, all the warehouses were set on fire."

"After we put out the fire, we checked inside and there wasn't much stuff there."

This is normal.

The things in the government office basically only exist on paper.

In reality, everyone, from officials to clerks, used every means possible to steal, take, and transport the goods.

Let alone a small county town, even the silver treasury in the capital could be smuggled out of its warehouses by the guards through the valleys, allowing them to make a fortune.

"Do it the old way."

Lin Dao glanced through the document and casually handed it to Yang Xiuqing.

The so-called old rules actually involved conducting public trials and confiscating the property of officials and local gentry.

The people were given to the oppressed populace to vent their anger.

The confiscated goods were sent to the Taiping Army's warehouses.

Deep inside the county government office, they found the corpses of many female relatives in the backyard.

Xiao Chaogui, who was in charge of leading the troops into the city last night, stepped forward to explain, "Chief, most of these women were killed by the Qing demons themselves."

"Ah."

Lin Dao nodded, without saying anything more.

Later, outside the magistrate's study, they found piles of corpses.

"Qingyao Deputy General Iktambu~"

"And his Goshha's."

“They fought fiercely,” Xiao Chaogui explained. “They would rather die than surrender.”

Lin Dao nodded again. "I can understand."

During the Qing Dynasty, uprisings broke out in various places without interruption.

If they encounter members of the pro-independence camp, they can talk about the treatment they received after surrendering.

However, if they encountered the Eight Banners, it was usually a fight to the death.

Over the years, the Eight Banners have come to realize that surrendering is a dead end.

So as long as there's no chance to escape, they'll basically fight to the bitter end.

Looking at the study in front of him, riddled with holes from musket fire, Lin Dao took a breath.

His gaze swept over the Taiping soldiers.

"This is just the beginning!"

(End of this chapter)