Xiangyang West Gate.

"Call the door!"

Jingzhou General Santua waved his hand impatiently and said.

With that, he yawned.

"Master, do you want to take a bite first?"

The soldier next to him said with a cigarette gun.

"Nonsense, this is the time to smoke!"

Santua retorted.

As he spoke, a leader next to him urged him to step forward and walk towards the closed city gate, while Santua looked back behind him, the torrent of four thousand cavalry was constantly arriving, all of them were the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners with helmets and armor, although they were all tired and panting, but obviously they could still hold on, he immediately nodded with satisfaction, it was obvious that the Eight Banners of Jingzhou still had a bit of ancestral style, at least not like the waste in Jiangning.

He already knew the news of the fall of Jiangning.

And I also knew that the Immortal Venerable of the God Worship Sect under the pseudonym Yang Feng was Lin Shuangwen.

These two astonishing pieces of news had been sent to Jingzhou nine days earlier, and the startled Santua immediately went to Wuchang to discuss with Shu Chang, the governor of Huguang, and the result was that the latter had assembled the Green Battalion and prepared to send troops to Jiangning, and he led the Jingzhou garrison Eight Banners to Xiangyang, taking advantage of the speed of the cavalry to quickly seize control of Xiangyang before the Worship of God henchmen could raise troops. The reason why the Eight Banners were used instead of the Green Battalion was because Shu Chang had already received a secret report from An Yun Xiangjing that at least a quarter of the soldiers of the Green Battalion belonging to Yunyang Town had already joined the Church, and I am afraid that one-third of the people in Xiangyang City would also join the Church.

In this way, you can only use the Eight Flags.

Xiangyang cannot afford to be lost, once the worship of God raises troops in Xiangyang, then it will be difficult for Huguang's troops to be mobilized to Jiangning.

And Eight Banners is definitely more reliable than the Green Battalion.

Then he quickly returned to Jingzhou, gathered four thousand cavalry, starry night and along the official road straight to Xiangyang, although five hundred miles of road he ran for seven days, four thousand cavalry tired like dogs, but after all, it was still held, said that this is already rare, at this time the Eight Banners in fact, as long as they can ride horses and run long distances, that is the real elite, you must know that the Jiangning Eight Banners used to go to Maoshan once a year, but at this time it was rotten enough to go to Baohua Mountain, at this rate if the whole army was not wiped out, it would be time to go to Purple Mountain in a few years, The Eight Banners of Jingzhou can drive 500 miles in seven days, which is enough to be proud of the armies.

"I'm still an invincible male master!"

Santua said proudly.

He took the cigarette gun from his own soldier.

"When the Jingzhou general Sang arrives, don't open the city gate immediately!"

Ahead of him, he shouted at the city wall.

There were only a few green camps on the city wall lying on the arrow stacks to watch the scenery, lazily looking drowsy, after hearing the shout, one of them raised his head to look at the leader, and then lifted a monocular clairball, the width of the Xiangyang moat, without this thing is indeed difficult to see clearly.

"Gui Ye, why are you here, please go to you in a while!"

The green battalion then exclaimed.

"You bunny, don't open the door yet!"

Zuo Ling shouted angrily.

"Gui Ye, it's not that the small ones don't open the door, there are too many worshippers in the city who worship God, I'm afraid that they and the thieves should be together, and several adults in the city strictly order that all doors are not allowed to open without them coming, you wait a while, the small ones will go to report to Lord Tian!"

The green camp said.

Zuo Ling looked at Santua, who had already smoked Santua's face was comfortable, and he just waved his hand very casually.

"Get out of here!"

Zuo Ling shouted.

The green battalion smiled with a thousand children, then turned his head and walked back, and then sat on the city wall and looked at the road to the city with a smile, where a large number of soldiers in red uniforms were climbing the city wall with their waists bent, and the chests of these soldiers were embroidered with five-colored stars, and a large number of young and middle-aged people under the city wall were receiving their weapons under the leadership of those patriarchs, boxes of flintlock pistols and bullets that had been made long ago were constantly distributed, and then the young man with the gun also went to the city with his waist bent, Walk up to the Holy Army soldiers who are already in position, and the latter pulls out their bullets and leans them against the stacks of arrows to teach them how to reload them.

Xiangyang has already been taken.

There was no battle here at all, and after being informed by the Wuchang Sect's fast horse, Qi Lin and the others immediately received the order brought by Wang Cong'er, and then sent people to Huanglongguan overnight to inform the Holy Sect Army there, and the five hundred Holy Sect Army quickly loaded a raft on Maqiao with a large amount of ammunition hoarded there, and went down the Nanhe River. The believers in the lower valley county immediately took action to conquer the county ya, and then the holy religious army changed into river boats in the valley county and continued to go straight down to Xiangyang, and last night they rushed into Xiangyang City with the cooperation of the parishioners in the green camp in Xiangyang, and the defenders did not make any resistance, and the holy believers in the green camp directly cut down the generals, and joined forces with the holy army to easily attack the yamen everywhere, as for those officials......

"Old Wu, give me Lord Tian!"

The green battalion said to a young man below.

The latter picked up a pigtailed human head from the corner of the wall and threw it to him.

It's just that he's throwing a little high.

"What's that?"

Santua, who had pumped enough, was in very good spirits, and he was looking at the head of the city, and he saw the fleeting head at a glance.

Although it was just a black dot passing by.

"No, there's a problem!"

He suddenly came to his senses.

He is the general of Jingzhou, several levels higher than the highest official in the city, An Yun Xiangjing Bing Beidao, even if the latter has an order not to open the city gate, it is impossible for the green battalion on the city wall to have the courage to let him wait outside!

"Quick, retreat!"

Cold sweat broke out on his head instantly, and he shouted as he turned around without hesitation.

"Master Gui, Lord Tian is here!"

Almost at the same time, the green battalion just now suddenly appeared behind the arrow stack, and then raised his hand with a shout, and a black dot immediately flew out of his hand and flew straight towards Nazuo Ling, but unfortunately the moat of Xiangyang was too wide and he fell into the river halfway.

"Master Gui, your little strength is not enough, you can go to the river to fish for the field by yourself!"

He said apologetically.

Then there burst out laughing.

In his laughter, the four cannons on the city wall suddenly erupted into flames, and almost at the same time, the muzzles of the flintlock pistols stretched out of the arrow stacks, and then the fire and gunpowder smoke kept spraying, and the dense bullets and scattered bullets instantly swept over the moat more than a hundred meters wide, hitting the Qing army in chaos like a storm, and the leader bore the brunt of the attack, screaming and falling with splashes of blood in the impact of the bullets, and the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners, who were also retreating, also fell more than a hundred in an instant.

"Withdraw, withdraw!"

Santua roared in panic.

The Holy Cult soldiers on the city wall reloaded in an orderly and rapid manner, and under their close-up demonstration, those strong men who had just received their muskets also finished reloading, of course, they didn't need to fire, they only needed to hand the reloaded muskets to the Holy Cult soldiers. These soldiers, who have been training for more than half a year, continue to aim at the Eight Banners Army outside the city under the cover of the arrow stacks, and the modern steel pipe brown bass is far beyond the original in terms of range and accuracy, although the distance is more than 100 meters, but those sixteen mm diameter bullets still accurately drill into the body of a famous Eight Banners elite soldier, and the chaotic retreating Eight Banners elite soldiers continue to drop corpses.

Fortunately, the cavalry retreated quickly, and after dropping nearly four hundred corpses, Santua and his cavalry escaped from the fire range of the city walls.

But he didn't withdraw.

This loss was not enough for him to retreat.

The Qing army quickly retreated to a safe distance and set up a barracks to wait for reinforcements, behind them there were infantry and artillery, and the green battalion of the Yunyang General Army Headquarters was also coming, and then there would also be a large army around Xiangyang, and all he needed was to wait.

And Xiangyang City is also waiting.

Zhang Cuncheng, Qi Lin and others were waiting for the news of the troops rising in other places.

The will of the Immortal Venerable has already been sent to the patriarchs of various places, and the perfect clerical system has ensured their efficiency, and the slogan of worshipping God without food has also been passed down, and the ideal of establishing the Chinese Holy Dynasty has also been instilled, and then it depends on the actions of the believers everywhere.

And the actions of these believers are not unexpected.

Just when Santua was waiting for reinforcements, one of his reinforcements, the Green Battalion under the command of the Yunyang Town General Soldier, suddenly mutinied, and those Holy Sect believers in the army did not hesitate to cut down the Yunyang General Army, along with some of the non-believer soldiers who were encouraged by the slogan of Juntian Free Food, and returned to Yunyang to kill Yunyang. On the same day, Song Zhiqing, the great patriarch of the Holy Sect of Henan, summoned troops in the south, and the general army of Nanyang Town, who was originally going south to reinforce Santua, had to lead the green battalion to turn around and go north, but the green battalion mutinied halfway, and the general army of Nanyang fled back to Nanyang in a hurry with less than a thousand remnants of his subordinates, and the Song Zhiqing army, which shouted the slogan of free food in Juntian, grew like a snowball.

And Santua's infantry did not wait.

Because just as he went north to Xiangyang, after the general army of Yichang Town led the green battalion to board the ship to reinforce Jiangning, the holy cultists Xiong Daocheng and others raised troops in Dangyang, and Nie Jieren and others raised troops in Zhijiang, among which Xiong Daocheng's troops broke through the county seat of Dangyang, and then the two roads combined to go to Jingzhou, and the Jingzhou Eight Banners infantry who had arrived in Jingmen were afraid that something would happen to their families in Jingzhou, so the deputy commander who led the army ordered to turn around and return to rescue Jingzhou, and at the same time, the White Lotus disciple Lin Zhihua and others raised troops in Changyang, this group is no longer a saint. But they shouted the same slogan as the Catholics.

Uniform field, free of grain.

The power of this slogan is too great.

All the rebels, whether they were saints or White Lotus, were warmly welcomed, and the poor tenants everywhere cheered for this dream like crazy, and then eagerly joined the ranks of the uprising, and one after another rebel armies snowballed in the border area between Sichuan and Chu.

Even soon Yunyang was conquered.

Nanyang, on the other hand, was surrounded by Song Zhiqing's rebel army.

The green battalions in various places were simply unable to confront them, and most of them defected or collapsed at the touch of a button.

But this is still only the beginning, because as time goes by, more and more people know the news of the Holy Sect's rebellion, and know the slogan of Juntian to worship God without food.

Then the real prairie fire began. [.]