On the tenth day of the fourth month, after half a month of hard fighting, Dongmen Leopard finally took the empty city of Yicheng! The capital of Hengshan County thus fell under the control of the Southern Expeditionary Army.

However, unlike the situation in other places, the conquest of Yicheng relied on the help of local heroes.

Xiakou's boatman crossed the river, tried his best to block Dongmen Leopard and Anpu, and finally crossed the river on a bamboo raft, and had to face the tall and thick city.

Fortunately, the Marquis of Wuzhong defeated Feng Wuxuan, and the news of the capture of Jiangling came in time, and Wei Wei was shocked to let the soldiers of Hengshan convey it loudly, which triggered infighting in the city: the local chief Zhu Shi, when the southern expeditionary army crossed the river to attack the city, suddenly attacked, launched an attack on the official temple, and arrested the county guard, which led to chaos in the city, and Dongmen Leopard took the opportunity to trap the city.

When the army entered the city, the Zhu family sent two people to greet them respectfully.

"Villain Zhu Fang."

"Villain Zhu Cheng."

"Meet the Captain!"

Dongmen Leopard has always disliked dealing with these wealthy families, and left proudly without nodding, only beckoning the guards to go to the warehouse to take a look:

"Go and see if there is any wine in the city, you are dying of thirst!"

An Pu led the army to the east to pursue the Jiujiang County Lieutenant who had escaped from the city, and the army was busy restraining the soldiers and maintaining order in the city, so the work of contacting the local forces fell on Wei Jing's head.

When they learned that the mediocre-looking middle-aged man in his thirties was actually the younger brother of Marquis Wu Zhong, the two were a little surprised, and their attitudes became more and more respectful.

"I'm a fake tiger."

Wei was a little funny, he was no longer the age when he was younger, and he also learned a little bit of his brother's pretense and talked with the two.

"Both of them are the sons of Zou Guo, right?"

Meng Ke's hometown Zou Guoben in Zou County, Xue County, Chu Kaolie King eight years (255 B.C.), Chun Shenjun Huang Xie Valu, by the way, the Zou State was also destroyed, moved the monarchs and people of Zou State to build a city here, because Zou State is also called Yi, so it is named Yicheng. The descendants of his clan were divided into two branches, so they took the name of Zou and Yi as the clan, and then some people went to Yi to take Zhu as the clan and called the Zhu clan.

Zhu Fangdao: "The contemptible person is the thirty-fifth generation great-grandson of the son of Cao Cao. ”

He pointed to the white-faced scholar who was forty years old beside him: "But this one, although he is of the same clan as me, is not of the same clan, but the son of Zhu Ying, a famous man......"

"Zhu Ying?"

Wei was shocked to know that it was a little old, so he said: "Could it be the guest of Chun Shenjun, the doorman who reminded Huang Xie to be careful of the unwarranted disaster and suggested that he get rid of Li Yuan first?" ”

"It's my father."

Wei sighed in surprise: "If Chun Shenjun listens to Ling Zun's words and preemptively gets rid of Li Yuan, I am afraid that he will not die at the hands of the villain, and die outside the thorny gate." ”

Zhu Cheng had a good impression of Wei Jing, and said politely: "My father saw that Chun Shenjun refused to listen to good words, and knew that he would definitely die, so he left Shouchun and came to Yicheng for refuge. ”

Through his words, Wei Jing also figured out that it was Zhu Cheng who persuaded Zhu Fang's family to raise troops to help the southern expeditionary army.

"Last month, we saw that the Echeng on the other side of the river was tragically ravaged by the rebels, and our property in Echeng was destroyed, but Hengshan Shou sat idly by, and the corpses on the river continued.

Zhu Fang was originally a member of the Zou family, and Zhu Cheng's ancestors were Wei people, who only lived in Chu, so they did not have very deep feelings for Chu or Qin, and their greatest hope was to live and work in peace and contentment in the local area and protect the family.

"The two of you can rest assured, my brother raised troops for the sake of the Yasukuni disaster, to get rid of the traitors and rebels, to punish the evil and hang the people, not to disturb the good people, to do business as usual, and to farm as usual, there will be no delay."

By the way, he also preached for Heifu about rent reduction and burning coupons.

Now Erzhu was relieved, the Qin Dynasty, especially the few tenant farmers in the sparsely populated Jiangnan Province, because the theory was that the land belonged to the state and could not be bought and sold at will, and the government collected rent from all the people through officials at all levels, and the rent reduction was a good thing rather than a bad thing for the local wealthy families, and they certainly welcomed it with both hands.

Although I don't know if the Southern Expeditionary Army can succeed and whether it will be suppressed by the imperial court soon, at least it is necessary to pass the current pass, and under the persuasion of Zhu Cheng, Zhu Fang also accepted the matter of "borrowing grain" proposed by Wei Jing, and donated 20,000 stone of grain, and repeatedly pushed it back, saying that it was not necessary to pay it back.

Wei Zhen stubbornly wrote them an "IOU".

"My brother said, the Southern Expeditionary Army is a righteous teacher, don't take a stitch from the people, don't embarrass me!"

……

"This Zhu Cheng is a person who knows the times, I can recommend him to Brother Zhong and help us govern Hengshan."

The next day, after Wei was shocked to deal with all the above, Jun Zheng angrily came to call him to a meeting, it turned out that Anpu was chasing the remnants of the enemy army, and returned from the east, and a letter from the west of Gangneung also sent a letter from the Marquis of Wu Zhong.

"Brother, have you caught the lieutenant of Jiujiang County?" Wei Wei is young, and Heifu's subordinates, he has to act as a brother.

Anpu sat on the couch and drank water: "The lieutenant of Jiujiang County panicked and took three thousand remnants into the hills of Dabie Mountain, and I didn't bother to chase after him." ”

The Dabie Mountains stretch for hundreds of miles, which is the watershed of Jianghan and Lianghuai, and is also the boundary of Hengshan and Jiujiang counties. Previously, in order to suppress the Southern Expeditionary Army, Feng Wuxuan transferred 8,000 people from Jiujiang County, but half of them were confessed to the battlefield of Jiangling, and the other half also suffered a lot of losses.

"Where's Ge Ying?" Wei Jing has always been obsessed with Ge Ying's evil deeds of destroying Echeng.

An Pu said: "Ge Ying's thief, too clever, to the east occupied Qinan Township (Qinan County, Hubei), I asked the partial division to chase, he also ran away, and also entered the boundary of Jiujiang County......"

At this time, holding the wine jug, the Dongmen leopard on the paralyzed couch seemed to come to life, and said a few times: "Junzheng, what did the prince say in the letter?" Do we want to continue our march to the east and defeat Jiujiang County for him? ”

"No!"

Angrily opened the letter sent by Heifu: "The prince has seized Jiangling, and at the same time ordered the officials to take Dangyang, Yidao, Yiling, Jingling and other counties respectively, and strive to take all the southern counties. ”

"As for our side, the prince said that after occupying the city, we can no longer rashly divide the troops, otherwise we will have to leave troops to garrison every city we get, and the southern expeditionary army will become a plate of scattered sand. And first sent someone to seize Xiling, to pay tribute to the first emperor who was buried there two months ago, and then to meet with Ji Ying and Li Cang, who recovered Anlu, and clean up the remnants of Feng Wuxuan......"

"The enemy is not in the east, but in the north! Therefore, we only take Hengshan, and do not cross the border into Jiujiang! ”

The forces should be divided according to Jingzhou, and then concentrate the troops to deal with the next suppression of the imperial court, this is Heifu's plan.

Who made him a bird......

So outside of Jingzhou? Let's let the grass kings grow savagely for a while, so that I can help Heifu share the pressure.

Dongmen Leopard was a little excited: "It's a pity, it's a pity, I remember that Huainan Shouchun is much richer than Hengshan." ”

An Pu said: "Jiujiang County is probably no longer prosperous, when I chased to Qinan, I heard that there are many people in Jiujiang County who learned about the Wuchang Shouyi and raised troops to rebel against the government and kill the Qin officials!" ”

"One of the bandits named Dubu, with a group of fugitive criminals, actually knocked down the six counties!"

"Let the soldiers of Jiujiang County, and the traitors of Huainan, go dog eat dog!"

……

Six counties (Anhui Lu'an) is the spring and autumn period of the "six countries" of the land, later was wiped out by Chu, and Hengshan County across the Dabie Mountain, so from the southwest of the county to the northeast, are lofty mountains.

The contradictions between the local Qin officials and the Chu people were already fierce, and the number of people who were arrested as prisoners was countless.

Last month, when the news of the "death of the first emperor" came with the first shot in Wuchang, the shackles were loosened, and the people of the six counties were moved.

At this time, because of the crime of escaping, the six county people who fought guerrillas in the Dabie Mountains "Di Bu" came back with a team to kill, this group of outlaws was unstoppable, and with the cooperation of the light men in the city, they quickly defeated hundreds of county soldiers and captured the six counties.

Brutal revenge ensued.

After all, since the fall of the Chu State, they have been slaves of the country for more than ten years, and they are fed up with the days when the Qin officials were arrogant and trampled the light heroes under their feet.

After a massacre, the corpses of the county commanders, lieutenants, cheng, and a group of Qin immigrants, as many as dozens of hundreds, were stripped of their clothes and hung neatly at the head of the city, and their heads were piled up outside the door, making a Jingguan, and every time a Chu person passed by, he would urinate here, sneer and humiliate him.

"Thief Qin official, torture my father and brother, lonely my son, cut off people and siblings, and tattooed words on our faces, did you ever think that there would be today?"

His real name is Yingbu, his face is eye-catching ink, his hair has been shaved, and he does not tie his bun after re-growing, just like a teacher's mane, his bronze complexion is the result of years of hard work, and there are obvious traces of shackles on the back of his hands and ankles.

He used to be a slave, and two years ago he was escorted to Lishan to serve hard labor, but he slaughtered the officials who escorted him in the middle of the road, and hid in the mountains and forests with seven or eight people, but because of the harsh government of the imperial court, more and more people took refuge in him, and finally there were seven or eight hundred.

Now Yingbu has relied on the sword in his hand to regain his free body, and he wants to do something great!

Yingbu occupied the county temple and sat with a group of subordinates in the public court where the case was tried in the past, discussing the way forward.

When he heard his subordinates urging him to "become king", Yingbu let out a laugh.

"When I was young, a foreign guest looked at me and said that I should be punished and king, that is, after being punished, I would be king."

He touched the ink on the right side of his face and said: "Six years ago, I broke the law because of Ren Xia's affairs and was sentenced to death. ”

"At that time, Shi Haha laughed and ridiculed me, but now, the hand he has tattooed countless people has been cut off by me, and his head is kicked as a juju."

"Yes, my brother should be king! How about calling the Six Kings? ”

A prisoner who had his nose cut off said angrily, "It's better to be the king!" ”

The prisoners were angry, but Yingbu stopped them.

"I definitely want to be the king, but not now, my identity is too lowly, in Chudi, only respect the hope of the clan, Zhaojingqu will not recognize me first, and the people of the world will laugh at me!"

"Second, we only have a thousand soldiers and occupy a small county, how dare we rashly claim the throne? It will definitely attract the Qin people to clean up. ”

As a fugitive convict, it is a capital crime, and it is also a capital crime, but after taking the six counties, the convicts are still a little uneasy - their power is too small.

So someone suggested: "Since my brother is not the king, we might as well go to the west to join the Marquis of Wuzhong, he was in Wuchang Shouyi, fought several battles with the Qin army, heard that there were more than 100,000 people under his command, and also sent a troop to besiege the city of Hengshan County, from the six counties, but more than ten days. ”

"Ranye, after going, Marquis Wu Zhong will at least make his brother a Sima!"

"Sima is enough, at least the captain!"

The prisoners were noisy and optimistic, but Yingbu interrupted their discussion by throwing his sword heavily on the ground.

Yingbu sneered, "Captain? Sima? Oh, if we really go to the Marquis of Wu Zhong, in exchange, I am afraid that it will be the punishment of the axe, and the head will be in a different place, right? ”

Everyone was silent, and some people were puzzled: "Aren't we all against the government?" ”

Ying Bu said: "I heard that the banner of Marquis Wuzhong was to avenge the first emperor of Qin and liquidate the so-called traitorous ministers and rebels, but he did not mention the rebellion. Although he fought against the Qin army, everywhere he went, he only executed a cool official who had a big resentment among the people, and the rest of the officials were all retained. ”

"In my opinion, between the Southern Expeditionary Army and the imperial court, it is a dog eating a dog, and it is not a good thing!"

"Marquis Wu Zhong still pretends to be a Qin official, but we are Chu people, fugitive prisoners, and killed the Qin people in all six counties, according to the law, all of them are murderers, raccoon slaves and rats, can they go to the same road? Wouldn't it be self-defeating to defect to Marquis Wu Zhong! ”

Yingbu touched the ink on his face again, he had suffered losses and suffered, and he had no trust and good impression of the Qin officials who abused him with whips and torture tools!

"What then?"

The prisoners looked at each other, and after a few days of eating and drinking in the six counties, they had lost their way to the future.

"Go to Shouchun!"

Yingbu made up his mind, got up and said: "In Luyi, east of the six counties, there is a righteous army in Chaohu under the banner of General Xiang Yan, which has repeatedly defeated the county soldiers for several years, and now it has also raised its banner against Qin. The leader is the grandson of General Xiang Yan, the Xiang Ji who can carry the Ding! ”

"Unlike Marquis Wu Zhong's side, whether he wants to rebel or not, ambiguous and unclear, Xiang Ji is upright, and he has played the banner of recovering Da Chu and punishing Qin!"

"The light man who came from Luyi said that Xiang Ji has gathered 3,000 people, and even called on the heroes of Chu to go to Shouchun to meet, take advantage of the absence of the lieutenant of Jiujiang County, seize the city, return to the old capital, and revive Great Chu!"