Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 220 Blood Sun over Songjiang

The midday sun, like the cold, golden eye of the Heavenly Emperor, hung high in the sky above Songjiang Prefecture.

The lingering warmth of last night's extravagance and this morning's flattery still remains.

The air in the city still carried the lingering aroma of wine and the sweet scent of cosmetics. In the streets and alleys, people were still whispering about the grand yet bizarre welcoming ceremony.

The emperor remained silent despite his presence, much like a boulder thrown into a deep pool. Though there was no loud noise, it stirred up endless undercurrents and speculations beneath the surface.

However, at that very midday, when the sun was at its most intense, compressing all shadows to their shortest length, all speculation and wishful thinking vanished into dust.

Those Beijing garrison troops who entered the city with the dragon boat fleet at dawn and were assigned to various barracks to rest now seemed like tigers released from their cages at the same time, as if they had received orders from their general.

Those who took the lead were the Imperial Guards officers who had long since transformed into ordinary people, seemingly becoming one with the city.

They rose from the corner of the teahouse, stepped out from behind the counter of the silk shop, and broke away from the crowded ferry crossing. In the blink of an eye, their worldly air was completely stripped away, replaced by a chilling coldness and precision.

Like a ghostly figure, they appeared silently in front of each army, and completed the final confirmation of intelligence with the commanding generals as arranged beforehand.

In that instant, an invisible net woven from swords and slaughter tightened completely over Songjiang Prefecture.

……

"By imperial decree, take over the city's defenses!"

A general of the Imperial Guard, clad in golden armor, held aloft a golden plaque. The plaque reflected a dazzling light under the midday sun, so bright that the soldiers guarding Songjiang Prefecture could not open their eyes.

Before they could even utter a question, dozens of elite Imperial Guards clad in black armor, exuding a murderous aura, surged onto the city wall like a tidal wave.

There was no attempt to persuade them to surrender, and no standoff.

Any defender who dared to obstruct or hesitated even slightly was met with the cold, sharp edge of a broadsword.

Immediately afterwards, the Imperial Guards split into four groups.

One team stormed the prefectural government office, capturing the prefect and his officials who were in a panic, discussing countermeasures in the courtroom. Another team swiftly surrounded the county government office. The third team targeted the city's armory, and all the weapons and armor changed hands within a quarter of an hour. The fourth team, and the most important one, blocked the canal wharves that ran through the entire city, cutting off all possibility of escape by water.

Swift, precise, and ruthless.

One moment Songjiang City was a bustling capital of Jiangnan, and the next, in the short span of time, it was transformed into a massive iron cage from which there was no escape.

……

"Third Battalion, target: Dong Family's Xuanzai Hall! Advance along this alley!"

"Fifth Battalion, target: Xu's second branch! Divide into left and right flanks and outflank their rear!"

Upon receiving the order, the newly formed Beijing garrison, organized into battalions and led by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, surged into the city's intricate, spiderweb-like streets and alleys in dozens of torrents.

They remained silent, their military boots pounding on the bluestone slabs, creating a suffocating, deathly drumbeat.

Their target was clear—the mansions of all the gentry and noble families on the list.

A group of soldiers poured into the vermilion gate of the Chen clan. Before the dozen or so servants and guards behind the gate, armed with clubs, knives and spears, could even see who was coming, a row of spears gleaming coldly thrust forward.

The screams lasted only a moment before abruptly ceasing.

The Beijing garrison soldiers stepped over the corpses expressionlessly and advanced swiftly into the inner courtyard according to their original plan.

These vicious dogs, who usually bully others in the countryside and are kept by their masters, are nothing more than lambs to the slaughter in front of an army that has truly experienced the baptism of blood and fire.

Resistance was swiftly, bloodily, and efficiently crushed.

One after another, the gates of mansions were smashed open, accompanied by flying wood chips and terrified screams. The once arrogant mansions of gentry were now turned into caged beasts at the mercy of others.

……

If the actions of the Beijing garrison were like a skilled doctor scraping the bone, precisely removing the rotten flesh, then the iron cavalry rampaging along the main roads of the city were like a flood bursting its banks, aiming to cleanse all filth.

"Take them down! Don't let a single one escape!"

A general of the Xuanda cavalry let out a beast-like roar.

Behind him, the iron cavalry, reeking of blood, spurred their horses forward and began a high-speed gallop along the widest street in the city.

They did not have a fixed target for their attack.

Their mission is to deter and pursue.

The thunderous sound of hooves echoed through the eyes of these knights, their gazes filled only with absolute obedience to orders.

Their warhorses were pushed to their limits, moving at high speed through the city like a series of barriers, blocking all possible escape routes.

Anyone who manages to escape from those breached mansions, whether a finely dressed gentleman or a panicked servant, will be caught by this black iron torrent in the next moment.

Before a gentryman who had just escaped by scaling the wall could even catch his breath, a rider had already rushed up to him like a ghost.

He felt a tremendous force coming from the side, and the knight on horseback swept him away with the shaft of his long spear, sending him flying like a broken sack. He crashed heavily to the ground, immediately losing consciousness, and was then tightly bound with ropes by the foot soldiers who caught up with him.

Another wealthy businessman, who was trying to hide in the street corner, was cornered and, in a panic, drew his short knife for self-defense and wildly waved it while yelling.

A cold glint flashed in the knight's eyes, a mixture of excitement and disdain at seeing his prey finally bare its claws.

He neither dodged nor avoided, but merely snorted coldly. His warhorse charged forward, knocking the wealthy merchant to the ground. The hooves of the following horses trampled over him without stopping, the muffled sound of bones breaking drowned out by the loud hoofbeats, leaving only a pool of rapidly blurring flesh and blood on the bluestone slab.

The imperial decree of "kill without mercy" only applies to those who resist.

Fear is spreading in more concrete ways.

To flee means to be caught; to resist means to die a horrible death. This choice is far more devastating than simply facing death.

The initial screams and cries for help were quickly replaced by a desperate silence and the occasional brief, mournful final cries that arose in resistance.

The entire city of Songjiang was enveloped in the neighing of warhorses, the roar of iron hooves, and the dull thud of cold weapons striking flesh and bone.

……

In the chaotic and bloody courtyard, some figures always seemed out of place.

After the soldiers of the Beijing Garrison cleared away the resistance in the front yard with spears and broadswords, the Jinyiwei captains, dressed in flying fish robes and carrying embroidered spring knives at their waists, would walk with calm, almost cruel steps into this bloody hell on earth.

Clutching tightly a dossier wrapped in oiled paper, they ignored the corpses lying around them, the women and children kneeling and begging for mercy, crying and wailing, and walked straight to a group of men who had been cornered against the wall by soldiers with knives and guns.

They slowly unfurled the files, their gaze sweeping over the terrified faces one by one, like a butcher selecting livestock to be slaughtered.

"Where is Dong Qizheng?" he asked coldly.

No one answered. The Imperial Guard captain sneered, took out a portrait from his robes, and carefully compared it with the face in front of him.

"Dong Qizheng, take him down!" he shouted in a deep voice.

Two soldiers immediately stepped forward and roughly dragged a middle-aged man with a deathly pale face out of the crowd, tied his hands behind his back with hemp rope, and bound them tightly.

The captain's gaze continued to move across the list.

"Dong Zuchang!"

In the crowd, a young man trembled.

"Take it!"

"Chen Ming!"

"Take it!"

"Wang Chengyi!"

"Take it!"

This cold and ruthless roll call was being performed simultaneously in dozens of luxury residences in Songjiang Prefecture.

Each person whose name is called represents the core of a family, a staggering piece of evidence of their crimes.

The list in the hands of the Imperial Guards is the Book of Life and Death of the King of Hell; no one can escape its stroke.

They were the most precise measure in this great purge, ensuring that the emperor's wrath would fall precisely on the heads of every person who deserved to die, no more and no less!
……

At the eye of the storm was the Dong family's mansion—Xuanzaitang.

Dong Jing summoned all the gentry who were most closely related to the Dong family. While trying to calm them down after being looked at so intently by the emperor, he also discussed the next steps.

"Please calm down, everyone!" he said in a loud voice. "The Emperor is merely putting on a show, trying to intimidate us! We have already made the Book of Yin and Yang flawless, and we are even more in cahoots with the government..."

His words were interrupted by a deafening roar.

Sunlight and murderous intent rushed in together.

"what--!"

The lobby instantly transformed into a living hell.

Those gentry who had just been talking big and giving orders were now like a group of startled fat pigs, squealing in terror and running around like headless flies.

Dong Jing's face turned from red to white in an instant, and then from white to ashen. His eyes were bloodshot, and he could not believe what was happening before his eyes.

"Where are the servants! Where are the guards! Where have they all gone!" he roared hoarsely, tearing down the ancestral longsword that had been hanging on the wall as decoration. "Protect me and fight our way out! Fight our way out!"

However, his desperate roar came to an abrupt halt the next moment.

Because he saw that the wide-open gate was now densely packed with soldiers holding crossbows.

They were expressionless, arms outstretched, cold crossbow bolts already strung, their dark arrowheads like the eyes of countless venomous snakes locked onto him.

Despair, like icy seawater, instantly overwhelmed Dong Jing.

Just then, the crossbow formation parted to the sides, and a figure dressed in a black flying fish robe, with a tall and straight posture like a pine tree, slowly walked in from outside the door.

The visitor was none other than Li Ruolian, the Deputy Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Li Ruolian's gaze swept past the mess on the ground and the trembling crowd, landing directly on Dong Jing, who held a long sword and appeared fierce but was actually weak.

"Dong Jing," he spoke, his voice carrying clearly to the ears of everyone in the hall, "His Majesty has decreed..."

“You have formed cliques for personal gain, embezzled state funds, oppressed the local people, and defied national policies. Your crimes are unforgivable.”

"Anyone who dares to resist," Li Ruolian's eyes narrowed slightly, and she uttered the last four words, "will be killed without mercy!"

"You...you...traitors!!" Dong Jing trembled, gripped by the overwhelming killing intent. He brandished his longsword, trying to utter a final shout, "I am a relative of an official of the court! How dare you..."

At this point, Li Ruolian was too lazy to listen to him say another word.

He raised his hand slightly.

Then, he swung it down hard.

“Swish, swish, swish, swish—!”

It was like the breath of death.

Dozens of crossbow bolts, which had been ready to be fired, were released in that instant, their sharp whistling sounds blending into a chilling, deathly echo.

The last thing Dong Jing saw was a dense rain of black arrows rushing towards him.

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"

The sound of arrows piercing flesh was as dense as rain pattering on banana leaves.

Dong Jing and several of his core disciples, who had also drawn their weapons in an attempt to resist, were instantly pierced by dozens of crossbow bolts.

Their screams were barely reached before they were silenced by more arrows.

The powerful impact pinned them to the beams and walls behind them, and blood gushed from countless wounds, instantly turning them into several bloody sieves.

The longsword clattered to the ground, and Dong Jing's body twitched twice before falling silent.

His wide-open eyes still held the lingering fear and disbelief of the extreme.

In half a day, Songjiang Prefecture went from a paradise on earth to an inescapable hell.

The desperate wails of the gentry and the mournful cries of the women were drowned out by the cold shouts of the army and the thunder of their iron hooves, appearing so insignificant.

As the first rays of the setting sun struggled through the thick smoke to illuminate the city, the clamor and carnage gradually subsided.

Those once arrogant gentry and powerful families who controlled the economic lifeline of Jiangsong Prefecture have either been beheaded and left to rot in the streets, or have become prisoners, strung together with ropes, awaiting their final judgment.

Blood flowed slowly through the cracks in the bluestone slabs, merging into the street-side ditch and turning the clear river water into an ominous dark red.

There wasn't a single civilian to be seen on the streets.

Only squads of soldiers clad in cold armor and squads of Xuanda cavalry on horseback, exuding a chilling aura, patrolled the empty streets in silence.

Their armor and sabers reflected the blood-red glow of the setting sun, heralding the complete end of an old era and the bloody arrival of a new order!
(End of this chapter)