Ming Dynasty: Gain one supernatural power every day

Zhu Gaoxi put the gourd back into his sleeve and turned to Zhu Di: "Father, we've dealt with all those people on the city wall. What about the soldiers below?"

Zhu Gaoxi retrieved the gourd and scanned the city with his spiritual power.

Although he had cleared out the guards on the city wall, several thousand Annamese soldiers remained stationed in the city's camps after the wall was closed.

Through mental power, it was clear that the soldiers had completely lost their will to fight.

Some people squatted at the entrance of the camp, hugging their knees and trembling; some huddled together, arguing fiercely in the Annamite dialect; and others had already thrown down their weapons and slumped on the ground, staring blankly at the sky above the city wall where lingering smoke still drifted.

Near the city gate, in an open area, several soldiers were surrounding a wounded soldier lying on a stretcher. The soldier had been hit by rubble that had just fallen from the city wall, and blood was flowing from his leg. The people around him were frantically tearing strips of cloth to bandage him, their faces showing a mixture of fear and despair.

They all saw the triple heavens of ice, fire, and thunder on the city wall. The icy cold light, the burning red light, and the silver light of the lightning strikes made the ground tremble even when they were inside the city.

The screams from the city wall had stopped by now, but the smell of burning and the alternating hot and cold air currents were still drifting down from the city wall.

Listening to what these people were saying, it was clear that most of them were farmers and ordinary people who had been forcibly conscripted by the rebels. They had never received formal military training and, faced with such miraculous methods, they didn't even have the courage to hold a weapon.

As for why Zhu Gaoxi could understand Annam, we have to start with the Vientiane Heavenly Book.

Zhu Di habitually stroked his beard, but his fingers only touched the short, stiff stubble. However, after becoming younger, the long beard that he could stroke for half a day was gone, leaving only a neatly trimmed short beard.

He coughed somewhat awkwardly, lowered his hand, and gestured with his chin towards Zhu Gaoxu: "Second brother, go and call out to the people in the city to see if they will surrender. Wait a moment and see what they say."

Zhu Gaoxi silently calculated in his heart that it would be best if none of them surrendered and he could refine them all in one go.

However, the commotion caused by those gourds was indeed a bit too much, scaring these people out of their wits. They probably don't even have the courage to fight back now.

Zhu Gaoxu put away the jade token, rode the Fierce Tiger King slowly forward, and stopped above the city gate.

He took a deep breath, raised his voice to its highest point, and his voice echoed throughout the city: "You Annamese barbarians in the city! You must have already seen what's happening on the city walls! Surrender or continue to resist, the choice is yours! I'll give you half an incense stick's time to consider!"

The city was deathly silent, then erupted into an even greater commotion.

The soldiers scurried around the camp like ants on a hot plate, some shouting something, others desperately peering toward the city gate.

"Quiet! Quiet down for a moment!" An Annan interpreter who understood Chinese shouted twice in the crowd. The people around him gradually quieted down, and everyone turned their eyes to him, their eyes filled with expectation and fear.

"What are the Ming Dynasty people outside saying?" the soldiers asked all at once.

Most of these soldiers were farmers from the countryside who were forced into military service by the rebels with knives and guns. They couldn't even understand a few words of Mandarin, let alone fight.

The interpreter translated Zhu Gaoxu's words into Annamite and said loudly, "The Ming general outside said that as long as we surrender, there is still a glimmer of hope, and they might give us a way out."

The moment the words were spoken, the crowd erupted in chaos.

An old peasant soldier with a wrinkled face threw his spear to the ground, his voice trembling with tears: "Then let's surrender! I dare not fight against gods!"

The young soldier next to him also threw his weapon far away: "I'm waiting to go home. My rice hasn't been harvested yet. I don't want to die here!"

"If we hadn't been dragged here by these rebels, why would we be here? We were all honest, hardworking farmers!" a middle-aged man cursed angrily.

"Yes! It's all these rebels' fault! They're the ones who caused this!" The soldiers, filled with righteous indignation, all turned their gazes toward the rebel leaders in the center of the tent, who were still trying to appear calm.

The leaders were deathly pale, their hands on the hilts of their knives, yet they were retreating step by step.

But where could they retreat to? They were surrounded by people, their soldiers, on all sides.

But the way these soldiers were looking at them now was even more ferocious than when they had looked at the golden-armored general in the sky.

In just a few breaths, the crowd swarmed forward and pinned several rebel leaders to the ground.

The leaders struggled briefly before giving up—the tide had turned, and resistance was futile.

The soldiers hurriedly disarmed them, tied their weapons tightly with hemp rope, and left them by the city gate.

They had been stationed here for several months, and those on the inside knew better than anyone who knew who the core rebels were constantly instigating to fight the Ming army to the death, and who the ordinary people were forced to take up arms.

No one knows the rebels better than these low-ranking soldiers who live with them day and night; the truth cannot be hidden.

In less than half an incense stick's time, the city gate creaked open.

The Annamese soldiers piled their weapons at the city gate, bound several rebel leaders, and led them out of the city gate tremblingly, led by an interpreter who understood Chinese, and knelt before the Ming army.

The interpreter knelt at the front, his forehead pressed against the ground, and shouted in broken but clear Chinese: "Your Majesty, the Celestial Empire! We are originally farmers from the countryside of Annam, and we never thought of being enemies with the Celestial Empire. It was these rebels who came to our village with weapons and forcibly dragged us into the army."

We have elderly parents to care for and young children to raise; our rice fields haven't been harvested yet. We simply cannot afford to fight! These are the leaders who instigated the rebellion. We have seized all their weapons and handed them over to the Celestial Empire for punishment. We implore the Celestial Empire to forgive us innocent people and grant us a way out!

Behind him, a large number of Annamese soldiers knelt down, some lying on the ground trembling, others raising their heads to peek at the few white clouds in the sky before quickly burying their faces back in the soil.

They couldn't understand Chinese, but they knew that the representative they had sent to negotiate was pleading for them. They were so nervous that they didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

"Damn it, these Annamese have no backbone!" Qiu Fu, riding on the back of a rhinoceros, looked at the Annamese soldiers kneeling on the ground, his mustache almost standing on end with rage. "I've been stuck in Annam for months, hoping every day to fight a battle and vent my anger, but these barbarians surrendered without daring to utter a single word!"

"Yeah, our vanguard beast legion hasn't even started to exert its power yet," Zheng Heng complained from the side, patting the head of the lion beneath him. The lion let out a low growl, seemingly expressing its dissatisfaction as well.

"I really want to have a good, satisfying fight." Xue Lu sighed, putting the spear back in his hand before he could even warm it up.

The Annan interpreter knelt on the ground, listening to the Ming generals complain about not having fought a battle, and felt a mix of emotions.

He wanted to say something, but dared not speak, only silently grumbling to himself: We may be a small country, but we're not stupid. Even the gods have come; what are we going to fight with? If we dared to resist after seeing this, then we'd be truly out of our minds.