Chang'an is good

Chapter 580: Divine Punishment

This cold wave occurred before New Year's Eve.

Ever since Xiao Min was relieved of his post as commander-in-chief in the campaign against Bian's army and rushed to Lingnan Road, the eunuch supervising the army and Lou Jingshan continued to lead troops in Daozhou area to hunt down the remnants of Bian Chunliang.

This seemingly inevitable final battle did not go smoothly.

Because they were unable to find Bian Chunliang's hiding place, they could only adopt the method of scattered patrols to search for clues of Bian's army.

Once, a patrol team of 300 people finally found traces of the remnants of the Bian Army in a mountain. The patrol team did not dare to rush to alert the enemy, and when they were about to turn back to report the news, they were discovered by the vigilant remnants of the Bian Army first.

That day, not a single one of the three hundred soldiers escaped alive.

Three hundred soldiers suddenly disappeared out of thin air, and it was easy to imagine what had happened. However, under the cover and misleading of the local people, the imperial army still failed to capture Bian Chunliang. Instead, the patrol team was ambushed several times one after another, and people were killed and all the horses were robbed.

It was obvious that some civilians had tipped off the Bian army. However, the army captured some civilians for interrogation and obtained a mixture of true and false information. In addition, although the remnants of the Bian army were small in number, they had the advantage of being able to flexibly move to hiding places, which resulted in the imperial army's repeated attacks.

The anxious eunuch supervisor thought that Lou Jingshan was too soft-hearted - what was the point of arresting a few civilians without causing any harm? All the troublemakers in the nearby villages should be severely punished, so as to have a deterrent effect on people!
This proposal was flatly rejected by Lou Jingshan. He kept in mind the advice Xiao Min gave him before he left, and knew clearly that he must not have a head-on conflict with the people at this juncture, otherwise it would only force the people to completely oppose the court, which would in turn encourage Bian Chunliang's power and bring about immeasurable consequences.

Under repeated pressure from the eunuchs supervising the army, Lou Jingshan continued to search for Bian Chunliang's whereabouts and tried to persuade some common people to act as insiders - Bian Chunliang relied on the people's hearts for support, so he might as well start from the people's hearts and open this tiny gap.

Those persuaded people began to slowly infiltrate the crowd in the nearby area who were secretly delivering messages and transporting food and fodder to the Bian army.

But if they wanted to gain the trust of the crowd and have a chance to learn the exact whereabouts of Bian Jun, it would take some time. Lou Jingshan expected it to be a month - there was still half a month left until New Year's Eve.

However, during this period, a cold broke out in the army.

At first, only a few people were sick, but as more and more soldiers fell ill, there were problems with the supply of medicines, and some soldiers who were not adapted to the humid climate in the south began to die.

The tragic scene of the plague in Yuezhou is still vivid in people’s minds, and fear is quietly spreading among the army.

The morale of the army gradually declined due to the repeated failures in the pursuit of the Bian army. Especially as the year was coming to an end, the people had already started preparing for the New Year's Eve celebration, but most of the soldiers had not returned home for several years. In this chaotic time, they were not even sure whether their family members were still alive. During the New Year, the atmosphere in the military camp was particularly solemn and depressed.

At night, sick soldiers began to sob quietly. Experienced generals knew that this was not a good sign, so they issued strict orders to suppress such phenomena. If anyone was found to be undermining morale, they would be severely punished.

Lou Jingshan saw all this and tried his best to appease the soldiers. He also personally ordered that he would celebrate New Year's Eve with the soldiers and made an exception to purchase meat for the army, which already had limited pay.

However, before New Year's Eve, a rumor suddenly spread widely among the people and soon reached the military.

There are rumors that Bian Chunliang is the reincarnation of Buddha, who came to save the people of the world from suffering. Therefore, he is immortal and no one can kill him. The best evidence is that Bian Chunliang has fought hundreds of battles without dying, and even the plague could not infect him.

This statement was widely recognized by the people, and the people became increasingly agitated, while the military became increasingly panicked.

To Lou Jingshan, this was pure nonsense from someone with ulterior motives, but the ignorant soldiers who had long been suppressed by imperial power and divine authority firmly believed it, and some even began to reflect on their own sins.

With all these emotions accumulating, the unexpected event finally broke out on New Year's Eve.

A group of more than ten people who came in mule carts and were responsible for transporting meat and dried vegetables suddenly snatched the blades from the soldiers without warning while the soldiers were counting their numbers, and started a sudden killing spree.

Those more than ten people all had martial arts skills and were ruthless in their attacks. They left no way for retreat and with the intention of dying together, they caused more than a hundred casualties in the army.

By this time, it was already dark, and the view was dim. A soldier shouted in panic, and the news was passed on by word of mouth among the crowd, who were all suspicious of the trees and grass, and the content of the shout gradually became: "... Bian Chunliang is here to kill us!"

"Quick, meet the enemy!"

A sick and sleeping soldier was suddenly awakened, not knowing what was happening. Seeing his companion quickly stand up and grab a knife, he immediately followed suit and rushed out of the tent in panic, as if he was sleepwalking.

"quick!"

People began to gather in panic. Lou Jingshan had already found out the situation and asked people to stop the spread of false information, but he soon discovered that the situation was showing signs of getting out of control.

Just at this moment, someone blew the horn to meet the enemy.

People became increasingly nervous and alert, and because there was no clear instructions, the assembly action became blind and chaotic.

The sky soon fell into complete darkness, and this darkness, which seemed to have some kind of psychological suggestion, once again worsened the mood in the army.

The eunuch supervising the army was alarmed and walked out of the tent. He saw a group of soldiers with spears raised and gathering quickly, so he ordered them to be arrested.

When the leading soldier was brought before the eunuch supervising the army, he was still shouting in panic: "Kill the enemy! Bian army!"

He had obviously caught a cold, his lips were pale and flaky, his cheeks were thin, and his expression was as if he was hysterical. The eunuch who was supervising the army raised his hand and slapped him in the face: "You stupid guy who doesn't know how to live or die, where did the Bian army come from? We have 50,000 troops here, let's ask Bian Chunliang, does he dare to come over!"

The soldier's head was buzzing after being hit by the slap. He looked dazed as if he had just woken up from a dream.

He saw the eunuch's greasy lips opening and closing, but he could not hear what he was saying. He only saw a ferocious and contemptuous expression on his pale, beardless face, with contempt and disgust, as if he was looking at an out-of-control livestock.

"You are spreading rumors to confuse the people and disrupt the morale of the army! Drag him away and beat him with a hundred military sticks!" The eunuch supervising the army said this, muttered in annoyance, "How does Lou Jingshan command the army?", and turned around to go back to the tent.

The guard in front of the tent opened the curtain for him, and in an instant, the captured soldier smelled the aroma of wine and meat in the tent.

The fragrance that he had not smelled for a long time suddenly hit a nerve in the soldier. He looked up into the tent in a daze, and saw that the table in the tent, which had been lit early, was filled with delicacies, and the white jade wine cup was emitting a bright light.

The soldier who was suffering from the cold and had no medicine to use suddenly felt a spicy sensation rushing to his eyes, and tears suddenly welled up in his eyes.

"Why..."

He suddenly broke free from the two hands that were about to drag him away and beat him to death, and pounced on the eunuch who was supervising the army.

His movements were too swift and sudden. Before anyone could react, he had already thrown the eunuch supervisor to the ground from behind, kneeling on his back, pinching his neck with one hand and punching his head with the other hand. With red eyes, he cried and asked, "Why?!"

The guards in front of the tent immediately drew their swords and stepped forward. The soldier was stabbed, but he still roared, beat and bit the eunuch in charge as if he was crazy. He dug his fingers into the eunuch's eyes and asked, "Why?" This bloody scene stimulated the other soldiers. They knew that they could not escape the death penalty for "disturbing the military morale". For a moment, they rushed forward like crazy and fought with the guards in front of the tent.

In the chaos, the eunuch who had one eye gouged out was crawling on the ground, screaming and trying to crawl back into the tent, but a soldier stabbed him in the back with a knife.

Those soldiers knew they could not escape death, and completely lost their minds, screaming and killing anyone they saw.

Chaos began to spread, and cries of collapsed soldiers were heard from many tents. A plague in people's hearts was spreading rapidly.

Chaos needs to be controlled, but the more you control it, the more counterproductive it becomes.

With the precedent of the eunuchs who supervised the army being killed, the soldiers who were unaware of the situation were unwilling to be held accountable and began to resist desperately.

There were still people shouting "Bian Chunliang is coming to kill us". The army, which had lost its order and suppression, even began to trample, cry, and fight. These sounds were like sharp blades, completely cutting the last taut strings of reason in the soldiers' minds.

In this bloody night, some people began to lose the ability to distinguish between reality and dreams, and this illusory illusion happened to give them an outlet to vent.

Fear, despair, helplessness, confusion, resentment... They have too many emotions that need to be vented but have been suppressed.

Just treat it as a dream, kill them all, die together, and you will be free!
Before this, these "crazy" soldiers had experienced too much. Many of them had survived under Li Xian's extremely harsh military management methods, and then witnessed the outbreak of the plague in Yuezhou.

The man-made plague has been eliminated, but the plague in their hearts has never disappeared.

The fatal battle with the plague-stricken Bian army shattered Xiao Min's understanding of the imperial court and left an indelible shadow in the hearts of countless soldiers.

A frantic soldier knelt on the ground, slashing at a general who had already fallen to the ground with his sword again and again: "...it was you who ordered me to shoot those people who were infected with the disease! Do you know that I saw my sister who married far away in Yuezhou among those people!"

The soldier with blood all over his face cried and laughed: "Sister must have seen me too! She must want me to save her...but I can't even collect her body!"

The night wind howled like the roar of the dead.

The fear of the rebel army, the resentment towards the imperial court, the dissatisfaction with military law, the accountability for one's own sins, the hopeless future, the cold eyes of the people, the cold wind, the defeat, the foreign land, the festive season... all these combined together formed a breeding ground for the plague in people's hearts.

This large-scale "people's plague" that only appeared in the army can be traced in history books. It is terrifying and has a clear and specific name - camp roar.

More and more soldiers began to fight each other. Some of them had grudges in the past that could not be resolved due to military law, or they were jealous of the distribution of military merits, or there was no reason at all, they just wanted to protect themselves in this chaos, or perhaps they just wanted to kill to complete their blind venting and destruction.

"Commander... the camp has been blown up!" The experienced general's face was pale as he found Lou Jingshan who was still trying to calm the soldiers: "There is no turning back after the camp has been blown up. They won't listen to anything. Commander, move on! Quickly!"

During a camp bombing, generals and commanders often become the main targets of the frenzied soldiers' anger and are seen as the evil source of all misfortunes and injustices.

Lou Jingshan looked at the scene in disbelief.

Camp bombing... was a strange word he had only heard in rumors, but now it appeared before his eyes without any warning.

No, perhaps it was not without warning. People's hearts would not explode suddenly. A seed of this disaster had been planted long ago. It had come all the way, irrigated with blood, and finally broke out of the ground. With its sinful posture that could not be tolerated by the world, it brought about destructive thunder and fire from heaven and earth, burning everything madly.

"Coach, let's go!"

Amidst the urging voices, Lou Jingshan ran into the chaos without looking back.

There were tears of shame and determination in the eyes of the resolute young general.

He had promised General Xiao that he would lead these soldiers well, but now...

No matter what, as the commander-in-chief, there is no reason for me to abandon my soldiers. Not all of these 50,000 soldiers want to destroy themselves... We should save as many as we can!
The night shrouded in blood was exceptionally long.

When the first rays of daylight appeared, the sounds of fighting weakened.

This is not because people's hearts have been appeased, but because the victims can no longer make any sound and the killers are exhausted.

Instead, there were hopeless groans everywhere.

Countless corpses were piled up, with broken limbs and debris everywhere. Among them, there were still some people with a trace of life, wriggling in the pile of corpses. From a distance, it looked like a sea of ​​burned and trampled insects and ants, emitting a fishy smell.

In just one night on New Year's Eve, most of the 50,000-strong army were killed or wounded.

The young coach fell in a sea of ​​corpses, looking at the gray sky. For the first and last time, he realized the terrifying power of human heart backlash.

This backlash fire spread to the people without any stagnation in a flash.

More than half of the 50,000-strong army were killed or wounded, and some escaped from the barracks. With unscrupulous evil intentions, they swung their butcher knives at the civilians and started killing and looting.

Most of them had lost their rationality and were unable to gather in large numbers, but they were filled with crazy violence. In addition to their angry resistance, the people also became more hateful towards the court.

At this time, Bian Chunliang appeared.

He took his remaining 5,000 troops and quickly quelled the unrest for the people, and gathered some deserters. In addition, he also provided horses, food and fodder in the military camp, as well as the hearts of the people.

People increasingly believed the rumor that Bian Chunliang was the reincarnation of Buddha, and regarded the terrible roar in the imperial army as a punishment from heaven.

In Daozhou City, in an inconspicuous courtyard, Li Cong stood in the corridor. After listening to the news brought back by his subordinates, he said, "Send a message back to Yizhou and tell the prince that the Daozhou plan is going well."

Li Cong looked at the foggy sky outside the courtyard wall, and then instructed: "Another matter can also be arranged."

The Rong Palace also had another generous gift for Bian Chunliang.

Thank you all for your monthly tickets, rewards, and messages. Good night~