On a summer day with gaps in the clouds, cicadas chirped in the woods. On the official road to Hongnong County, smoke and dust flew up from people's feet, rising into the sky and spreading into a light gray.
The creaking shaft of the cart twisted and groaned as it turned. The man driving the old donkey wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked back from time to time. His wife and children sitting on the cart were panic-stricken and huddled together. There were countless figures surging around. An old man who lost his wife was holding a broken bowl, staggering on a cane, and following the crowd in a daze. Occasionally, there were cries, but no one paid attention. A lost child was standing on the side of the road wailing. There were also people from the outlaws mixed in among them, looking back uneasily at the way they came. At a glance, there were only crowds of people, moving slowly and numbly.
The yamen runners who were maintaining order rode their horses and shouted in the distance between the ridges of the fields: "Don't go any further, don't block the road!"
However, no one paid any attention. Tongguan was breached, and all the soldiers in the city either surrendered or died in battle. The common people who heard the news did not dare to stay and went to the capital Chang'an, or even further places to seek refuge with relatives, or to find other ways to make a living. No one was willing to gamble whether these rebel soldiers would kill them, the ordinary people.
"Fellow villagers, please clear the road and go to the nearby villages and don't go any further."
On one side of the long dragon-like migrating team, officials were running along, leading their horses, and constantly persuading the common people passing by that the capital had issued an order that a defense line would be deployed in Chang'an and that refugees who fled here would not be taken in. There was another meaning, which was that the gods would not care about these common people, but they did not dare to make it public. Once it was mentioned, people who worshipped gods and Buddhas might very likely cause even greater chaos.
Yang Guang could only send officials and yamen runners to lobby and move people to more remote villages and towns to wait for the war to end. Even if the officials knelt down and kowtowed to them, few people went to the mountains and the village markets.
The same scene occurred not only in Hongnong County in the east, but also in Zheyang and Shangluo in the south and Fengling in the north. The soldiers who received the emperor's order withdrew from the city defense early. In the northwest, the roads were inconvenient and the news was blocked. The 50,000-strong army of Li Gui of Liangzhou advancing eastward was difficult to resist. General Liu Jianwu, who had served in the northwest for many years, led the remaining troops and fought and retreated all the way, and stopped in Tianshui County.
"We can't retreat any further... If we retreat any further, we'll be in the capital, Chang'an."
The towering city walls stretched to the left and right, surrounding an area of more than thirty miles. Liu Jianwu stood on the top of the city wall, looking at the clouds in the west. His gray hair and beard trembled slightly in the wind, and he let out a long sigh.
Around him, his old subordinates and the soldiers in the city were constantly carrying equipment for defending the city. They piled up stones and rolling logs, and even the beams from the people's homes were collected and moved onto the city wall. Liu Jianwu tightly gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist, turned around and walked slowly, looking at the busy scene on the city wall, he couldn't help but think of Murong Fuyun who was trapped in the Dadouba Valley that year, and he smiled self-deprecatingly.
"I guess the Tuyuhun emperor must have felt the same way as I do..."
The evening wind started to blow, and the slightly tattered large flag with the word "Sui" on it fluttered in the wind. As they moved forward, the deputy general beside Liu Jianwu looked at the remaining red in the sky and seemed a little uneasy.
"General... can we hold this place? They don't look like humans at all. How can they stand up and continue fighting after being knocked down by swords and guns? The brothers all said... all said..."
Liu Jianwu turned his head and asked: "What did you say?"
"Some say it's a monster, and some say it's a god possessing someone."
hehe…
Liu Jianwu chuckled, turned around and continued walking forward. He helped two soldiers carry the rolling log and brushed the dust off his hands.
"So what? If it's a god or a monster, we won't defend it."
He slapped the parapet with one hand, blinked his tired eyes, and said firmly: "Soldiers are supposed to defend the territory and die on the battlefield. How can we stop fighting just because we can't win? Then we soldiers will become a joke and be looked down upon by others!"
"Even if the enemy is a god... a demon... don't we still have the Imperial Master? At this time, His Majesty and the Imperial Master should be dealing with the situation in Chang'an. What we need to do is to hold on and delay the rebels."
In fact, he was a little confused. Li Gui was originally the Sima of Yingyang Mansion of Sui Dynasty. Why did he rebel and claim to be king? How did he gather such a group of soldiers who were not afraid of swords and guns
And more than a hundred miles to the west, Li Gui, the King of Daliang whom Liu Jianwu mentioned, had already led 50,000 of his men to conquer Zhangye, Dunhuang, Xiping, Jincheng, and Longxi, and was advancing rapidly eastward, as if racing against time, pushing all the way towards Chang'an.
As the sun sets, in the red glow, flags stretch for miles. The vast army raises dust in a straight line up to the sky. Li Gui, riding on his war horse, is gazing towards the distant east.
"Once we cross the city ahead, we will be able to meet up with the immortals in Chang'an."
Li Gui, a member of a famous and prominent family in Hexi, was originally the Sima of Yingyang Prefecture in Wuwei County. He suddenly started a rebellion, which puzzled everyone. However, no one knew that a few months ago, he was possessed by Wei Tu Zhi, one of the twenty-eight constellations, and started this rebellion to disrupt the world and take back the Kongtong Seal. These things were all planned in heaven and could not be changed.
"When it gets dark, we will camp outside Tianshui City!"
He gave the order, and the mighty army formations around him quickened their pace, advancing with dense sounds. Just as he was looking into the distance, he saw a fast horse returning in front of him. It was a scout attached to the immortal soldiers under his command.
"Report, there is a yin energy spreading ahead, there must be a yin spirit appearing."
Li Gui frowned slightly, raised his head and looked at the sky from his horseback. It was getting dark. "It seems that the Yin God appointed by Lu Liangsheng has arrived."
Thinking of what happened to the previous few Xingxiu immortals, he waved his hand and said:
"Be careful and advance slowly! Go and find out who this evil spirit is."
The scout received the order, turned his horse around and galloped away. However, it was getting dark. Less than thirty miles away, a cold wind blew out of the sparse woods, and hundreds of ghosts holding flags and bows and crossbows were seen guarding a chariot that floated out. The next moment, the chariot instantly closed the distance, and before the scout could react, an ancient bronze dagger slashed across his body, splitting a golden figure in two.
The figure on the chariot came down, and the tip of the sword casually wrote a few seal characters on the horse, leaving the unconscious scout's body, and patted the horse, letting it run back to Li Gui alone in its original direction. He was led forward and saw a few large characters formed by the lingering Yin energy - Bai Qi, King Wu'an of Qin.
"How dare you, a mortal god, bully me!"
Li Gui suddenly roared and dispersed the lingering evil spirit with a palm. The warhorse let out a mournful cry and was knocked to the ground. It struggled a few times with its four hooves and then fell silent.
"I will catch him with my own hands and destroy his soul!!"
Soon, 50,000 troops advanced rapidly along the horizon. In Tianshui City, Liu Jianwu, who heard the news, rushed over wearing armor and holding a sword. Looking at the end of the sky and the earth in the distance, a black line with dust and smoke swept over. He punched the parapet and squeezed out a sound through his teeth.
"Prepare for battle!"
"General!"
Almost at the same time, the deputy general's voice also shouted: "Look over there!"
The last rays of the setting sun pointed in the direction where an army of more than a thousand people came from nowhere, lined up in an array to guard a chariot slowly approaching from the side. The armor they wore and the weapons they held were completely unlike those in the Central Plains.
Faced with the sudden appearance of the strange army, Liu Jianwu and the soldiers defending the city were thrown into a tense atmosphere, waiting for the moment to know whether the other side was an enemy or a friend.
To the east of Chang'an, Dou Jiande and Li Mi, who had spread through Hongnong County, were the first to encounter a group of enemies.
At the end of June, across the plains of Hongnong County, there were gusts of cold wind. More than a dozen Yin Gods who had been waiting for a long time launched a harassing attack on the two armies that had merged into one, and fiercely chopped down the first blow.