All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

Chapter 56: Tian Xiao'e, a beauty that could shame the moon and flowers

It was half a month later when Liu the Blind received the news of the entire regiment's annihilation.

When he learned that none of his more than two thousand men had managed to escape and send a letter back, his undisguised shock left him standing there for a long time.

He has been attacking Xi'an for a month and a half, with constant artillery fire and human lives being sacrificed. So far, the actual death toll is only four thousand, with more than three thousand wounded.

But the enemy was just a small bandit stronghold, yet in just a few days, they wiped out more than two thousand of his soldiers, leaving not a single survivor. This was truly unbelievable!

Whether Liu the Blind believes it or not, the matter is right in front of him: of the more than two thousand people, not a single one has returned.

Commander Qin was a trusted confidant who had followed him for twenty years; he would never betray him, so this is 100% true!

This is absolutely bizarre!

Even the usually hot-tempered Blind Liu suppressed his usual rage. He was no ordinary person who could rise from a swordsman to a powerful warlord with an army of 100,000.

This was too bizarre, and for a moment, Blind Liu didn't know how to solve it.

After convening his staff for a discussion, Liu the Blind finally decided to send out a reconnaissance team in plainclothes to investigate the situation in Wuzhishan.

At the very least, he needs to know who his enemy is!

So, under his arrangement, a team of 100 plainclothes detectives, disguised as peddlers or out-of-towners visiting relatives and friends, secretly went to the countryside and arrived in the Bailuyuan area to begin investigating the situation in Wuzhishan.

The sudden influx of outsiders into the village was impossible to hide, but the Wuzhishan authorities ignored it.

As long as these investigators don't go up the mountain, they can search the villages at the foot of the mountain as they please, because they won't find anything of any use.

And just as they suspected, after a week of investigation, the group of detectives returned and gathered their information, only to find that it was all completely useless.

For the past twenty years or so, Wuzhishan has imposed a ban on villagers from going up the mountain, so the local villagers are almost unaware of the changes that have taken place there.

The only slightly useful information they found was that the bandits who came to collect the head tax each year were almost all different.

This shows that the number of bandits on Wuzhi Mountain was far more than the hundred or so people reported in the intelligence.

As far as they knew, in the past twenty years or so, the successive magistrates of Zishui County had launched more than fifty bandit suppression campaigns, almost without exception. All of them ended in failure, with the loss of more than five hundred soldiers.

If we spread the casualties over twenty years, the number of casualties is not that high, only about twenty or thirty people per year. You should know that Zishui County has had more than twenty different county magistrates in the past twenty years.

The reason why previous intelligence indicated that there were only about a hundred bandits on Wuzhi Mountain was because in all the years of bandit suppression operations, the number of bandits from Wuzhi Mountain who were mobilized had never exceeded a hundred.

Gradually, everyone came to believe that the bandits on Wuzhi Mountain numbered only about a hundred.

It was this intelligence that caused Liu the Blind to lose more than two thousand men.

The Wuzhishan area consists of five peaks connected to each other, with a total area of ​​over 20 square kilometers. The other party has been operating there for 20 years. They would believe it even if there were 10,000 or 100,000 people on the mountain.

Liu the Blind, having received the intelligence, was also confused. In this situation, should he continue to send troops to attack, or should he prioritize peace, draw a clear line, and prevent the two sides from becoming enemies?

The intelligence above also clearly shows that the bandits of Wuzhi Mountain are different from other bandits. They never harass the people and are not very aggressive. They almost always keep to themselves and never take the initiative to attack other forces.

This band of bandits is really strange. Their fighting strength is ridiculously strong, but they never make a living by plundering. They just occupy a mountain peak and have been doing so for twenty years. This doesn't make any sense at all.

If they were members of the White Party or the Red Party, it wouldn't make much sense. They were being far too low-key, and they had been around for quite some time. Logically, in such a chaotic world, a force with such fighting power shouldn't be confined to a small area like Bailu Plain!

This is absolutely bizarre!

That doesn't make any sense at all!

After discussing for a long time, Liu the Blind and his staff decided to put aside the bandits of Wuzhi Mountain for the time being and concentrate their efforts on attacking Xi'an City!

And so, after the scouts left, Liu the Blind's army seemed to have forgotten the previous unpleasantness, and had no intention of avenging their two thousand-plus brothers. As if they had forgotten about Wuzhi Mountain, they did not send a single soldier to harass them again.

Bailuyuan returned to its former tranquility once again.

Perhaps even Zhang Xiaopeng didn't expect that Liu the Blind would be so cowardly, able to endure the loss of more than two thousand people.

It should be noted that Zhang Xiaopeng has made thorough preparations for this, and can withstand an attack of up to 5,000 people at the same time!

What else could Liu the Blind Man do but hold back?

With the enemy in the dark and him in the light, he really didn't want to fight on two fronts. The siege of Xi'an had lasted for more than two months, but they still hadn't captured a single brick or tile in the city.

Although they had already blasted open several breaches in the city walls with cannons, the troops that charged in were always routed in a very short time. The enemy's willpower was beyond their imagination!

Liu the Blind was also beaten into a rage by the other party. When it comes to willpower, he was no less capable!

He rose from a ruthless swordsman to his current status by sheer grit and determination.

Let's see who can outlast whom.

And so the siege of Xi'an continued. Even after holding out for two months, this siege had only just begun!

Whether inside or outside the city, everyone was suffering greatly.

The soldiers and civilians inside the city spent every day in a state of constant hunger, while the army outside the city, in order to solve the problem of food for its 70,000 to 80,000 troops, had to continue to send out large numbers of grain requisition teams to the countryside, almost looting every inch of the land, and gradually taking away all the farmers' life-saving food.

The only exception was the Bailuyuan area, where there were no grain requisition teams around and the villagers continued to live their lives as usual.

However, as the grain requisition teams became increasingly outrageous, many farmers in Zishui County were forced to sell their fertile land at rock-bottom prices, preferring to seek a way to survive in other places.

And the legendary bandits of Wuzhi Mountain in Bailuyuan gradually gained fame after this incident.

Although news spread slowly in those days, many people both inside and outside Zishui County still heard about this special paradise.

As a result, many people brought their families and willingly went to several villages near Wuzhishan to seek refuge. They preferred to be tenant farmers for the villagers rather than return to their hometowns to farm.

Because these days, the grain you grow yourself doesn't even go into your own pocket, so it's better to sell it cheaply and become a tenant farmer for someone else.

It should be noted that the Zhen Song Army's grain requisition teams did more than just collect grain; they also bullied men and women, and committed numerous acts of arson, murder, and looting!

Sure enough, Bai Jiaxuan was on his way to Xi'an when he encountered an unexpected woman while passing through Guojia Village.

Tian Xiao'e originally came from a decent family; her father was a poor scholar, and they were considered a scholarly family.

Unfortunately, her father loved money, was greedy, and favored sons over daughters. From a young age, he disciplined his daughter with the traditional three obediences and four virtues, and even bound her feet.

Tian Xiao'e was intelligent and beautiful, with a face so pretty it would shame the moon and flowers. Although she was petite, she was curvaceous and had men who coveted her even before she was married.

Last year, when she had just turned sixteen, she caught the eye of an old scholar from a neighboring village. He gave Tian Xiao'e's father one hundred silver dollars and brought her home, essentially selling her and marrying her off!

This old scholar, surnamed Guo, had just turned seventy last year. In this day and age, seventy was considered a rare age, a truly immortal person.

This guy was a scholar who passed the imperial examination during the Qing Dynasty, so he was naturally rich and powerful. Even after the Qing Dynasty fell, his family was still the largest landlord in the area, owning hundreds of acres of land.

At his age, he naturally had a legal wife, and not only that, he also had three concubines, with Tian Xiao'e being his fourth concubine.

At his age, that thing of his was no longer useful. He took a concubine purely because Tian Xiao'e's beauty was so captivating that it aroused him and brought him some joy.

So, he brought home a beautiful young wife, but he couldn't use her yet, and of course he couldn't just look at her. So he used a folk method and had Tian Xiao'e soak dates for him!

The method of soaking dates is really hard to talk about. Basically, it involves soaking a young girl's... well, you know, overnight, and then consuming it. I've heard it has the effect of nourishing yin and yang.

Whether it was effective or not is unknown, but in short, Tian Xiao'e was tortured and left with many wounds in the Guo family. In just one year, she was almost resigned to her fate!

In the original novel, Tian Xiao'e is an extremely tragic woman from the old society, who ultimately dies a miserable death in a dilapidated cave.

In the original novel, her fate was closely intertwined with that of Lu San's son, Heiwa. It was precisely because of Heiwa that her fate was plunged into an even more tragic situation.

In this life, because of Bai Jiaxuan's existence, the world has been affected by a butterfly effect, and the two people's lives have not intersected at all so far.

In the original story, Heiwa is a tragic character. As the son of a tenant farmer, he was looked down upon from a young age. When he grew up, he became a wheat harvester in order to survive.

Wheat harvesters are outsiders who travel to distant places to harvest wheat in order to earn a living. Every summer and autumn, countless wheat harvesters wander to other places.

While working for the Guo family, Heiwa met Tian Xiao'e. From then on, their passion was like dry wood meeting a raging fire, and Tian Xiao'e eloped with Heiwa!

Unfortunately, fate did not favor them. When Tian Xiao'e returned to Bailu Plain, her past as a concubine was exposed. In an era where reputation was paramount, Tian Xiao'e was synonymous with "prostitute".

In that environment, Heiwa's father, Lu Sanyi, in a fit of anger, wanted to sever his father-son relationship with Heiwa.

Heiwa was also stubborn and refused to give up on Tian Xiao'e, so the two moved to a dilapidated cave dwelling at the entrance of the village.

But that was only the beginning of their unfortunate fate. Later, Heiwa was forced to leave home to become a bandit, while Tian Xiao'e began to suffer all kinds of injustices in the village.

Initially, she was targeted by Bai Xiaowen, who was willing to abandon his innocent identity and get together with Tian Xiao'e.

Besides Bai Xiaowen, the most disgusting old man also had his eye on Tian Xiao'e, and that person was Lu Zilin.

Lu Zilin used tricks and schemes to forcibly take Tian Xiao'e as his own, and then turned around and accused her of wrongdoing.

For the sake of her son's reputation, Tian Xiao'e was eventually nailed to death by Lu San in the dilapidated cave. Before she died, Tian Xiao'e let out a desperate and unwilling scream!

A woman with exceptionally beautiful bound feet thus lived her life hastily, a life filled with tragedy.

In this life, Tian Xiao'e and Heiwa had absolutely no interaction.

In this life, Heiwa is both literate and skilled in martial arts. Although he did not go to university, he is literate and polite. He is a martial artist so skilled that ten or so people cannot get close to him. He is a tall man of 1.8 meters with a robust physique. Because of Lu San, he has followed Bai Jiaxuan since childhood.

He was the second person in Bailuyuan Village, besides Lu San, to know Bai Jiaxuan's identity. Currently, Heiwa was in charge of the village's joint defense team. Although Bai Xiaowu was Bai Jiaxuan's son, Xiaowu was not as good as Heiwa, that was a fact.

Heiwa is just his nickname; his real name is Lu Zhaoqian, the same name given to him by Bai Jiaxuan's brother-in-law, Mr. Zhu, just as in the original novel. However, this name comes about a decade earlier than in the original work.

In this life, Heiwa is both literate and skilled in martial arts. Because he is with Bai Jiaxuan, his stubborn temper from childhood has long been tamed, and he now has a very good relationship with his father, Lu San.

Lu San had already arranged a marriage for him with the daughter of a schoolteacher in the next village. Although the girl was not as beautiful as Tian Xiao'e, she was still pretty and gentle, and she was also good at managing the household. She had also won Heiwa's approval.

At the prime of his life, he was overjoyed to have a marriage that was quite good in every way. He was just looking forward to holding his beautiful wife in his arms as soon as possible, and he had no thought of becoming a wheat harvester!

Therefore, in this life, Heiwa and Tian Xiao'e had almost no interaction, and naturally, there was no romantic relationship between them.

The reason Bai Jiaxuan met Tian Xiao'e was purely by chance. Perhaps it was because God couldn't forget this girl with a tragic fate, so He arranged for her to meet Bai Jiaxuan.

In the previous life, when the Zhen Song Army entered Zishui County, Tian Xiao'e had already gone to Bailuyuan with Heiwa. At that time, she escaped the calamity because she was living in a dilapidated cave and Tian Xiao'e deliberately made herself look ugly.

In this life, Tian Xiao'e is Guo Juren's fourth concubine. Although she doesn't live a life of luxury, it's still much better than that of an ordinary village girl. With some makeup, her stunning beauty is like a rare treasure. Guo Juren keeps her hidden in the inner room and forbids her from seeing anyone.

But local gentry like Guo Juren, who possessed a large amount of grain, were easy prey in the eyes of the Zhen Song Army. After the grain requisition team went to the countryside, their first target was these landlords with grain!

Despite her best efforts to please and hide, Tian Xiao'e was eventually discovered by a junior officer of the Zhen Song Army while she was in the inner room.

The officer's eyes widened in shock; he almost pulled down his pants on the spot, but fortunately, Guo, the scholar, arrived in time.

Although the old man was failing, he still had some backbone before he died. When he saw someone insulting his concubine, his white beard twitched, he glared and went to pull the officer away.

The result was self-evident. The old man was seventy years old after all. He was shoved hard by the officer and hit his head on the threshold, falling to the ground on the spot!

It's a pity the times were wrong, otherwise I could have easily extorted ten or twenty thousand from him. The old man's eyes were wide open, and he breathed his last like that!

Unwilling to be humiliated, Tian Xiao'e held a pair of scissors to her neck, threatening suicide, which successfully forced the officer to back down.

The death of Guo Juren threw Guo Family Village into chaos. Some people swallowed their anger, while others picked up hoes and prepared to fight to the death.

Unfortunately, those who picked up hoes were ultimately met with gunshot wounds.

The crackling gunfire also attracted Bai Jiaxuan, who was passing by.