The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 495 The Five Elements Camp has long suffered under the Ming Cult.
While Pu Zhishen was on his way to deliver a message to Wu Du, Wu Chengyu was also hiding in his room to recuperate.

Although he did it intentionally these past few days, drinking continuously for five days straight, even without consuming alcohol, would have inevitably resulted in water intoxication if not for his extraordinary physical body.

Furthermore, Wu Chengyu had never met and drunk with so many people in five days before. The density of interpersonal interactions was simply terrifying. If it were a so-called "E person" with social anxiety disorder, they would probably be tempted to commit suicide.

The effect was good, of course. As an outsider and a parachuted-in cadre, he was initially regarded as one of their own by the Five Elements Flag in the shortest possible time.

Just seeing all those thousands of faces in front of him was exhausting, and Wu Chengyu was now lying on the couch with listless eyes, looking quite dejected.

After a while, Wu Chengyu took out the sheepskin blueprint again. He knew nothing about civil engineering, and was completely clueless about ancient blueprints. Although this engineering drawing was like a book written in heaven to him, at least he could distinguish between the ground and the underground in the drawing.

The Ming Cult's secret passage is underground, but it's definitely not something you can find by just digging down somewhere. That would be underestimating the Thick Earth Banner, the number one engineering force in the martial arts world, unless you hit the jackpot.

Ninety percent of this drawing shows underground operations, and only one-tenth shows the above-ground operations, which are depicted with just a few strokes. Wu Chengyu did not stay at Bright Peak for more than a few days. After Fang Yu's funeral, he was exiled to Houtu Banner. It was impossible for him to deduce the exact location of the tunnel from this small amount of drawing.

He was just looking at it idly, whether he was looking at it right-side up or upside down, but he didn't find anything. However, his eyesight was really good, and he accidentally saw a black dot on the edge of the parchment drawing.

If it were someone else, they might think it was just mold on the parchment that had grown over time and would quickly overlook it. Pu Zhishen probably would have thought the same.

The parchment was originally yellowish, and after countless years, it was covered with patches of mold, making it look dirty and smelling musty, which made people reluctant to get close.

Moreover, the black spot didn't appear on the front or back of the drawing, but on the edge. If parchment weren't thicker than regular paper, it would be difficult for mold to grow there.

If it were Pu Zhishen, unless he already knew what the mold spots were and had a modern high-powered magnifying glass, he would never have been able to discover the mystery.

However, if someone with extraordinary eyesight were to concentrate, they could still barely make out that the mold spots seemed to have a specific outline.

Wu Chengyu immediately thought of his mother, Mu Qingyin, whose jade pendant had the same feature. The small dots were almost invisible and could only be mistaken for decorative bumps on the pendant, but they turned out to be the keys to finding the Murong family's martial arts manual.

Thinking of this, Wu Chengyu immediately sat up. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the mold spots on the edges of the drawing were unevenly distributed along the four edges of the parchment, with inconsistent spacing, seemingly without any pattern.

If this mold spot were a character, it would probably be smaller than the raised dots on the Murong family jade pendant.

Fortunately, Wu Chengyu is no longer the same young man who had just returned to Wujiapo and whose martial arts skills were not yet up to par.

He concentrated his inner energy on the acupoints around his eyes, including Qingming, Zanzhu, Chengqi, and Sibai, while shutting down his other four senses. He focused all his energy into his vision and finally managed to see one of the words: bitterness.

What is the suffering? Wu Chengyu was puzzled and then looked at the other characters: camp, line, five. If the order was reversed, it would be five elements camp suffering.

Wu Chengyu looked at the other edge of the sheepskin map and gradually saw the four mold spots that were far apart. When put together, they read: "The Five Elements Camp has suffered under the Ming Cult for a long time."

The mere eight small characters were pieced together by examining three edges of the parchment, but their meaning sent a chill down Wu Chengyu's spine.

He instinctively associated the Five Elements Camp with the Five Elements Flag, which was essentially the same as the Five Elements Camp.

However, the meaning behind this statement, "We have suffered under the Ming Cult for too long," is thought-provoking. First of all, it distinguishes the Five Elements Flag from the Ming Cult and does not regard the Five Elements Flag as part of the Ming Cult.

Secondly, what a great phrase, "the people have suffered under Qin for too long." Wu Chengyu recalled reading history books, and the last person to say this was: "The people have suffered under Qin for too long." The person who said this was Chen Sheng of the Dazexiang Uprising, but it represented the people's boundless resentment towards the Qin Dynasty's forced labor.

Although the text was short, Wu Chengyu could sense the resentment within it—the resentment of the Thick Earth Banner, or perhaps the entire Five Elements Banner, towards the Ming Cult.

This resentment often stems from oppression. Whoever oppressed the Five Elements Flag must have been the Ming Cult. This oppression should not be considered an internal conflict, but rather more like the oppression of one class by another.

To put it more clearly, these eight characters represent that the Five Elements Flag originally did not belong to the Ming Cult and had always been oppressed by the Ming Cult.

Wu Chengyu was filled with doubts. As a person from later generations, his understanding of the Ming Cult came from The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. If he hadn't read this novel, people from later generations probably wouldn't have known that the Ming Cult existed in history, even though the novel was based on the Ming Cult and made some modifications.

History textbooks describe the Fang La Rebellion as a peasant uprising, without mentioning the Ming Cult. Later, people discovered from some obscure corner that the Fang La Rebellion was related to Manichaeism, which is the Ming Cult.

Thus, in those martial arts fanfictions, Fang La truly became the so-called leader of the Ming Cult; otherwise, it would be difficult for anyone to connect the two.

In the novel *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber*, the basic structure of the Ming Cult from its very first appearance includes a leader, left and right Bright Envoys, four Dharma Kings, five Wanderers, and five elemental flags. People naturally assume that these are the inherent organizational structure of the Ming Cult.

However, after Wu Chengyu infiltrated the Ming Cult, he discovered that while the leader, the left and right Bright Envoys, and the Four Great Protectors were indeed established, the Five Wanderers were not necessarily so, as the name "Wanderer" itself implied the temporary nature of their positions.

At least during the Legend of the Condor Heroes period, the Ming Cult did not have this position. The Five Wanderers seemed to have appeared at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. They were five temporary positions responsible for contacting local rebel armies. They were high-ranking officials, but did not have much power. They were more similar to the so-called special envoys during the Kuomintang era.

Meanwhile, the Five Elements Banner maintained a very low profile within the Ming Cult during the Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber arc. Their presence was primarily manifested in establishing anti-Yuan rebel armies in various regions, with little direct connection to the Ming Cult's headquarters at Bright Peak. They only appeared when the six major sects besieged Bright Peak, consistently blocking their attacks from the perimeter. Clearly, most of the Five Elements Banner's strength was dispersed among various rebel armies; their numbers were small, and they didn't contribute significantly.

It wasn't until the Ruijin Banner encountered the Emei Sect and had its flag bearer killed by Abbess Miejue's Heaven-Slaying Sword that the Ruijin Banner went berserk.

During this period, the Five Elements Flag and Yang Xiao and other high-ranking officials did not form a united force. Only the Green Wing Bat King, a street urchin, offered some assistance when they were fighting a hard battle.

Afterwards, Zhang Wuji became the leader of the Ming Cult, which did attract the attention of the Mongol Yuan high command. He did indeed lead his subordinates in a fierce battle against the masters recruited by Zhao Min.

Ultimately, Zhang Wuji was still troubled by personal feelings, or he focused his energy on the martial arts world, such as venturing into Shaoshi Mountain to save Xie Xun, or competing with the corrupted Zhou Zhiruo for the title of martial arts leader.

From beginning to end, it was not the masters of the Ming Cult who overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, but the uprisings that spread like wildfire across the land. These uprisings gradually merged, and Zhu Yuanzhang made a powerful entrance into the political arena.

After the Ming Dynasty was established, the Ming Cult was labeled as a rebel party by Zhu Yuanzhang and suffered a crushing defeat, with Zhang Wuji fleeing overseas.

At first, Wu Chengyu attributed this result to the strength of the lower-level followers, who were unwilling to be commanded by the higher-ups who had not contributed much.

But what if the Five Elements Flag harbored resentment towards the Ming Cult from the beginning? What if the Five Elements Flag wasn't originally part of the Ming Cult, but was acquired through annexation, just like the Ming Cult tried to annex the Beggars' Sect before? It's just that this time the Beggars' Sect wasn't successfully annexed, but the Five Elements Flag wasn't so lucky.

Therefore, when the Five Elements Banner gained power and established a new dynasty, it did not hesitate to abandon the Ming Cult. The real reason is that the Five Elements Banner never belonged to the Ming Cult.

Look at what Wu Chengyu saw after infiltrating the Ming Cult. The Five Elements Banners, which defeated the Beggars' Clan without any chance to fight back, had their own unique tactical advantages. The team was completely modeled after an army, yet it had no corresponding status.

On second thought, the doctrines of the Ming Cult were introduced to the Central Plains from Persia and were used by ambitious people in the Central Plains to establish sects and control the thoughts of their followers with the doctrines of the Ming Cult.

The Ming Cult's original martial arts tradition came from Persia, and the Great Shift of the Universe was also a supreme martial art in Persia.

However, while martial arts and doctrines could be introduced from Persia, Wu Chengyu absolutely did not believe that the unique technologies of civil engineering, gunpowder, and metallurgy possessed by the Five Elements Banner could have been introduced from Persia. It was even questionable whether they themselves possessed these technologies in this era.

These techniques and tactics are clearly treasures inherited from Chinese civilization, and are incompatible with Persia and Manichaeism.

Thinking about this, Wu Chengyu finally understood why the Five Elements Banner was in such a predicament within the Ming Cult. They probably harbored hatred for a long time, but were powerless to resist and had been lying low, waiting for the right moment.

"An opportunity, an absolute opportunity!" Wu Chengyu paced back and forth in the room, holding the parchment drawings, his heart pounding with excitement, unable to contain himself.

His primary purpose in infiltrating the Ming Cult was not only to annoy them and have some fun, but also to obtain the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth. It wasn't until he witnessed the performance of the Thick Earth Banner along the way that he developed a strong interest in the Five Elements Banner.

Once the Five Elements Banner joins his ranks, it will immediately make up for the biggest weakness of the rebel army and his militia, and at the same time lay the most solid foundation for him to use gunpowder to fight against the Mongol cavalry in the future.

That's why he used Fang Yaning's words to get Yang Xu to send him to the Five Elements Flag, and that's why he didn't hesitate to subdue the entire Five Elements Flag to achieve his goal of integration.

But what then? Wu Chengyu was completely bewildered. He couldn't figure out how to poach an entire army from the Ming Cult. The difficulty was simply too great, unless he became the leader of the Ming Cult or used the Life and Death Talisman.

Becoming the leader of the Ming Cult is not an easy task; Zhang Wuji's experiences were merely a matter of chance.

While the Life and Death Talisman can indeed control many people, it is ultimately not the right way. The Life and Death Talisman can only be used to deal with treacherous villains, or the money-loving and cowardly civil and military officials of the Southern Song Dynasty.

True heroes, or true warriors, are not afraid to fight to the death even if they are struck by a life-or-death talisman.

To control an army and gain its morale and trust, one cannot resort to such crooked methods. These are people who charge into battle without fear of sacrifice; mere life-or-death talismans will only ruin things. This is the bottom line that Wu Chengyu set for himself.

Therefore, although he had temporarily gained the approval of the Five Elements Flag, he was at a loss as to what to do next until today's discovery.

But all of this is just speculation, without any actual evidence. Wu Chengyu still can't do anything. He deduced that the Five Elements Banner's predecessor, the Five Elements Camp, was forcibly annexed by the Ming Cult, but as time has passed, who can know the details of its origins?

Wu Chengyu suppressed the pounding in his heart and calmed himself down. The eight characters "The Five Elements Camp has suffered under the Ming Cult for too long" appeared on three edges of the parchment map, and there seemed to be four mold spots on the last edge as well.

Wu Chengyu looked closely and found that this time it was an idiom: "smoke billowing from all seven orifices".

What does this mean? Wu Chengyu really couldn't understand it. The Five Elements Banner had suffered under the Ming Cult for so long, so why were they so angry? What kind of riddle was this?

Wu Chengyu racked his brains but couldn't come up with a solution. Just then, someone knocked on the door: "Deputy Banner Master, your servant has brought you tea."

(End of this chapter)