As the southern gateway to the Imperial Capital, Jinling is only a few hundred miles away from the Imperial Capital, which is not far. Moreover, the area surrounding the entire Imperial Capital is basically plains with a developed and prosperous economy and a large population. There are not many rugged mountain roads. In the past, as long as you rode a fast horse, you could come and go freely.
Yan Liqiang and his escort Wang Hui rode on rhinoceros horses in the darkness, under the stars and the moon, galloping towards the north of Jinling City. The sound of rhinoceros horses' hooves was like thunder, booming in the quiet night. Wherever they passed, roads were cut off and bridges collapsed. The villages and towns on both sides of the road were all reduced to ruins. Above the wilderness, with the light of the stars and the moon in the sky, huge meteorite craters with diameters of tens to hundreds of meters could be seen from time to time. The ground around the meteorite craters was pitch black and bare, and nothing could be seen.
In the villages that were reduced to ruins, the miserable cries of those who had survived could be heard faintly in the night wind, which was heartbreaking. In the wild, where the meteorites fell, you could still see the burning farmland and the burning forests, with thick smoke billowing, but no one paid any attention. Only occasionally, two people would meet a rider going in the opposite direction on the road. They were in a hurry and passed each other in the night. They looked at each other warily and then quickly left in the opposite direction...
The further north they went, the fewer people they met, the more damaged the villages they saw along the way were, the fewer living people they encountered, and the frequency of huge meteorite craters they encountered in the wilderness became higher and higher. It seemed more and more like Yan Liqiang and Wang Hui, who were riding on horses, had entered an uninhabited area.
When the road was blocked, the two men took a detour. When the bridge collapsed, the two men rode their horses and swam across. Looking at the current scene of the heartland of the once prosperous Han Empire, both men's faces and moods were equally heavy.
In fact, last night, watching the series of drastic changes that took place after the largest meteorite fell towards Dijing, Yan Liqiang had already made a vague judgment in his heart and guessed a little bit of the result. Yan Liqiang did not understand quantum physics in his previous life, but he also knew about nuclear explosions. He had never been to Russia, but he had heard about some statements about the Tunguska explosion on the Internet. In some film and television dramas, he had seen many huge disasters brought by meteorites. The knowledge structure and experience accumulated in his previous life allowed him to judge what such a huge change meant at the first time better than others.
It was just because he was at the edge of Jinling City at the moment, and he was unwilling to accept it if he didn't come and see it with his own eyes to confirm the final result. He even had a hope and expectation in his heart that he didn't even believe in himself - maybe everything was not that serious, and a miracle would happen.
After traveling for nearly a night, before dawn, the road ahead suddenly cut off again. Unlike the last time, this time, a whole mountain cut off the road. The road suddenly disappeared while we were walking. On the road ahead, there were only rocks all over the ground and towering cliffs...
“Whoa…” Yan Liqiang pulled the reins in an instant, and the sweaty Rhino Horse stopped and began to spin in place. “Brother Wang…” Yan Liqiang turned around and called out.
"This is Jinque Pass. When the escort leader and I came to the Imperial Capital, we took this road. After passing Jinque Pass, we walked another 70 or 80 miles to reach the Imperial Capital..." Wang Hui rode on his horse, looking at the scene in front of him, swallowing his saliva, "Originally, these mountains were on both sides of Jinque Pass. How come..."
"The landslide must have happened last night. Is there any other way besides this one?"
"There is a town about ten miles to the south, and there is a small path that bypasses Jinque Pass..."
"Then let's go and take a look..."
"Okay..." Wang Hui turned his horse around and continued galloping south along the foot of the mountain. In just a short while, he had run more than ten miles.
But when they arrived at the place Wang Hui described, they found that the town was gone, the road was gone, and collapsed rocks covered everything. Only one person was wandering among the rocks like a lonely ghost.
Seeing that person, Yan Liqiang and Wang Hui dismounted from their horses at the same time and walked over.
It was a man in his forties, wearing a somewhat torn police uniform, without a hat, staring blankly at the pile of rocks, his face blank, but his body was turning around in the rocks...
This was the first person in official uniform that Yan Liqiang and his companions had seen along the way.
"Big brother, is there any road leading to the capital?" Yan Liqiang asked.
Hearing Yan Liqiang's voice, the man finally turned his head slowly, and looked at Yan Liqiang lifelessly, with a silly but creepy smile on his face, "It's all gone... It's all gone... Everything is gone... Xiaohua is gone... Xiaoying is gone... The town is gone... Everything is gone..." After saying these words, the man turned his head again and circled around a pile of rocks.
"Li Qiang, this person is a little abnormal..."
Yan Liqiang glanced at the man and sighed, "Brother Wang, is there any way out?"
"These are the only two roads I know of from Jinling through Jinque Pass to the Imperial Capital. Now the terrain has changed drastically. If we go further south, there may be another way..."
Yan Liqiang looked up at the mountain that blocked the road and said directly, "If not, we can leave the horses here and go over the mountain to see..."
"Okay!" Wang Hui glanced around, "But not here, it's too conspicuous. If someone passes by and takes our horse away, it will be difficult for us to get back. Let's find a more secluded place ahead!"
"Brother Wang is really thoughtful!"
"Brother Li Qiang, please don't praise me. I have been escorting for decades, and I have only accumulated this little experience in the martial arts world!"
The two men rode the rhino horses for a few miles and saw a small ravine. They left the rhino horses in a secluded place in the ravine, tied the reins of the two rhino horses to a large rock, untied the bags of concentrate carried by the rhino horses and put them in the horses' mouths so that the horses could eat to restore their strength. Then the two men began to climb the mountain along the hillside below the ravine.
Both of them were very strong, and it took them less than two hours to finally climb to the top of the mountain.
When the two climbed to the top of the mountain, the sun had just risen from the eastern horizon. The first ray of sunlight at dawn finally reached the earth. The two stood on the top of the mountain and saw the scenery of the Imperial Capital...
Even though the Imperial Capital City is still seventy or eighty miles away from here, the two people standing on the top of the mountain can already have a panoramic view of the entire northern side of the hillside.
The earth was dead silent...
The Imperial Palace is gone...
The city is gone...
The person is gone...
The village is gone...
The river is gone...
Nothing is left...
Under such divine power, not to mention mortal flesh and blood, even gods would find it difficult to survive.
As far as the eye could see, the entire plain to the north of the hillside was as desolate as the surface of the moon, with no grass growing. What was left on the land that was supposed to be the Imperial Capital was a huge meteorite crater with a diameter of several miles. Even the trees on the north side of the hillside where the two of them were, facing the direction of the Imperial Capital, had all fallen down, and the entire hillside was charred black...
The power center of the entire Han Empire, countless high-ranking officials, wealthy businessmen, and nobles, as well as this city and the countless people living in this city, countless wealth, and endless power, just last night, turned into dust...
When Yan Liqiang actually saw the scene before him, he felt dizzy, his hands and feet trembled, and he even heard the sound of himself swallowing hard.
"It's over... The Han Empire is over..." Wang Hui's face turned pale, and he muttered to himself in a daze...
Everything before him was undoubtedly the most terrible disaster for this country. Yan Liqiang didn't know what would happen next, but what he was sure of was that after today, the fate of everyone in the Han Empire would be rewritten. Everything before him was definitely not a good omen...
"Brother Wang, let's... go back!" Yan Liqiang bit his tongue to wake himself up.
…
It was already evening when the two men returned to Jinling. After running for a day and a night, the two rhinoceros horses had almost reached their physical limit. As soon as the two men returned to the yard, Huang Sheng and Gong Dequan, who were waiting at the yard, surrounded them...
"How is the situation in Imperial Capital?"
(End of this chapter)