Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1062: 1057 [Huang Zuo the Slaughterer]

There were corpses everywhere inside and outside the city.

Wu Juyuan, together with other civilians, was ordered to clean up the battlefields.

"The army massacred the city, didn't it?"

"do not know."

"I heard that the Uighur soldiers were killing indiscriminately."

"We brought Uighur soldiers with us. There are also Uighur soldiers here. Why are they killing their own people so cruelly?"

"Hey, you don't know this. The Uighur soldiers of Gaochang believe in all kinds of religions, and the Gaochang court doesn't bother to care. But the Kucha Kingdom can only believe in the Islamic religion, and those who don't believe in that religion will be killed. The hatred between the two sides is great, especially in Yanqi, where the Black Khanate often brings Kucha soldiers to attack."

"How do you know this?"

"There are merchants in our village who made a lot of money in Gaochang and recruited many fellow villagers to work as caravan assistants. These are what they talked about when they returned home for the New Year."

"What else is strange?"

"Hehe, the most unusual thing is the wife guest."

"What wife guest?"

"Even if you visit a Gaochang person's home, they will use their wives and daughters to entertain you."

"That kind of treat?"

"It's what you think. This is the tradition of the Uighurs. It's not just the Gaochang Uighurs who do this. The Uighurs in Shaanxi and Ningxia also use their wives and daughters to entertain guests."

"What should we do? The government wants us to marry Uighur women, but I would rather marry a widow whose husbands have died several times than a slut who has been slept with by many men!"

"..."

The topic quickly shifted from the massacre to the strange story of his wife being a guest, and he became panic-stricken because he was going to marry a Uighur woman.

They had little idea of ​​what was going on.

In fact, the Uighur troops that followed the Ming army were not allowed to enter the city of Kucha at all, as they had long been on guard against massacres or looting in the city.

But these Gaochang Uighur troops were ordered to go west to pursue the defeated soldiers.

Those defeated soldiers were all holy soldiers from Dongkala.

The Gaochang Uighur soldiers hated them so much that they would kill them if they caught up with them, and would not take any prisoners. Although they themselves had never experienced a holy war, their grandfathers had fought against those holy soldiers.

At that time, Gaochang and Qiuci were still one family, with two Uighur kings ruling together.

For more than a hundred years, Kucha was the target of the Eastern Kara holy war. Gaochang nobles often led troops to rescue it, and reports of various massacres spread widely.

Even though the royal family of Kucha was forced to convert, the holy war of Dongkara was not over.

Because there were still a large number of civilians who believed in other religions in the territory of Kucha Uighurs, Dongkara was determined to kill them all until they converted.

The holy war ended completely not because all the Uighurs converted, but because the Eastern Karakhanid Khanate was too corrupt to be defeated.

As for the rumors of the massacre that the civilians heard, it was that the Ming soldiers were enraged by the fanatics.

When the Ming army attacked the city, a large number of defenders abandoned the city and fled, but many defenders fought to the death. They could not withstand the attack of the Ming army, so they retreated to the inner city. Due to the lack of unified command, the Ming army quickly occupied the inner city wall.

By the evening, the battle was basically over.

Huang Zuo ordered the army to eliminate the remaining enemies and maintain public order, but some of them were crazy and gathered their followers to attack the Ming army patrolling the city at night.

Several Ming armies were attacked and immediately defeated and hunted down, but those guys fled into houses and were often hidden by the owners during the search, and then came out to do various things afterwards, and some even deliberately set fires to create chaos.

Who is Huang Zuo?

The general under Zhong Xiang!
They started out by rebelling against Manichaeism, and slaughtered countless monks, Taoists, and Confucian scholars. How could they not understand the ways of the Muslims?

Huang Zuo directly ordered that the rioters should be killed wherever they fled to. If they fled into a private house and the owner did not hand them over, all the men inside would be killed.

Moreover, Huang Zuo personally led his troops to massacre the temples, and all the Muslim temples inside and outside the city were massacred by him.

The next day, when the civilians entered the city, they saw corpses everywhere, and thus rumors of a massacre spread.

In fact, there was no massacre. More than half of the soldiers and civilians in the city were still alive, and the captured soldiers could survive as long as they did not cause trouble.

By the late night, the residents in the city had become very "cooperative". If a troublemaker broke into their home, they would take the initiative to capture him and hand him over to the Ming army, insisting that they had nothing to do with the troublemaker.

Wu Juyuan was cleaning a temple when he heard someone behind him say, "All the big temples in and outside the city should be converted into Manichean temples. Invite some Manichean monks from Gaochang. And all the people of Kucha must convert to other religions. I am annoyed by the Muslims!"

The person who spoke was Huang Zuo.

Although the doctrines of Gaochang Manichaeism and Han Manichaeism were so different that they were completely two different religions, Huang Zuo himself was a Manichaeist, and he had a natural liking for Manichaeism, so he simply took the opportunity to develop Manichaeism in Qiuci.

Of course, Huang Zuo did not dare to go too far. He only supported Manichaeism and allowed the people to convert to Buddhism, Nestorianism, and Zoroastrianism.

After inspecting various places in the city, Huang Zuo went to the royal city.

The members of the Kucha royal family had been taken into custody and were now brought to meet the Ming generals.

"The young king pays homage to the great general of tomorrow!" Kuma Yu dragged his slightly fat and sick body to kneel down, and his wife and children and grandchildren followed suit.

Huang Zuo took a quick look and said, "Take them all to Gaochang and hand them over to Protector Wu for disposal."

He no longer paid attention to these people, but personally led his troops to escort the prisoners to the desert not far to the west.

The prisoners and Han laborers carried a large number of corpses.

Dig countless large pits in the desert.

Huang Zuo said: "You dared to raise troops to fight against the Ming army. After the outer city was breached, you still relied on the inner city to continue to resist. All the nobles of Kucha Uighurs deserve to die. Except for women and children, all the nobles were executed and buried. The Han immigrants came to execute you, so that you can also get your blood on your hands. There will be plenty of wars to fight in the future!"

Wu Juyuan was singled out as one of the executioners. The nobles and male members of their families were trembling with fear and kneeling on the ground begging for mercy.

The Han civilians who were in charge of the execution also looked pale.

At the urging of the officers, some civilians closed their eyes and rushed forward with guns, while some of them waved their swords and slashed randomly.

Wu Juyuan drew his sword, held down the head of a noble and slashed his throat, then kicked the twitching body, which was not yet dead, into the sand pit.

Huang Zuo saw it clearly and said with a smile, "Call the young man over."

Wu Juyuan was taken away quickly.

Huang Zuo asked: "What's your name? How old are you this year?"

Wu Juyuan saluted and said, "Reporting to the commander, my name is Wu Juyuan, I am eighteen years old, and I live in the suburbs of Kaifeng."

Huang Zuo was delighted by the word "Grand Commander" and continued to ask, "What do you do for a living? Are you engaged?"

Wu Juyuan said: "My family owns more than 200 mu of thin land, an oil press, a wine brewery, and raises dozens of pigs. I am already engaged."

Huang Zuo nodded in approval: "He is also from a good family. Has he ever been to school?"

Wu Juyuan replied: "I started learning at the age of five and have been studying hard for more than ten years."

Huang Zuo asked again: "Do you know martial arts?"

Wu Juyuan said: "I am good at riding and shooting, I know a little about swords and spears, and I know a little about boxing and kicking."

Huang Zuo said, "During yesterday's siege, some of my soldiers were killed or wounded. You can come in as a new soldier. Remember, a good man should make achievements and establish a career. You should not marry for the time being. If you really can't wait, you can take a concubine."

"Ah?" Wu Juyuan didn't understand.

Several personal soldiers nearby were trying to hold back their laughter, knowing that their commander was looking for a son-in-law again.

Huang Zuo's youngest daughter was extremely doted on. Although she was not ugly, she was not pretty either. She had been wielding swords and sticks since she was a child and was not a lady at all.

His other two daughters had already married the sons of other military generals, but this youngest daughter was reluctant to marry and insisted on personally choosing a talented and handsome husband.

Wu Juyuan was well-educated, skilled in martial arts, and handsome, which caught Huang Zuo's eye.

However, it is still in the investigation stage, and one must have good character as well.

There were two backup candidates before, but they were abandoned during the inspection stage because of their poor character.

Wu Juyuan became a recruit in a daze, but he didn't know which battalion he belonged to, and Huang Zuo didn't let him leave, so he just stood there and watched the fun.

All the captured Kucha nobles had been executed, and the captured soldiers were next in line.

Huang Zuo first executed the captured soldiers by beating them with a whip, and then asked the terrified survivors to curse the gods. Those who refused to curse the gods were immediately executed and thrown into a sand pit.

After a few days, we continued westward.

There was no time to distribute the land, and only part of the army was left to garrison the city of Qiuci.

As soon as the army crossed the desert Gobi, the King of Dongkara, Ibrahim, ran away.

This Khan, who could not even suppress the rebels, fled with a large number of corrupt nobles and hundreds of years of accumulated treasure, abandoning his own people.

He also took away the most "elite" troops. With these troops as bargaining chips, he could gain preferential treatment in the Western Liao Dynasty, which had suffered heavy losses.

Some people don't want to leave.

A young noble general named Fatuma called on all soldiers and civilians to rise up in resistance, and gained the support of the clergy.

He announced that the land left by the fleeing nobles would be distributed to the local common people, and also promised to reduce taxes. For a time, he was regarded as a great hero by the people, and his prestige far exceeded that of the fleeing king.

From Kashgar to Hotan, countless people enlisted in the army and gathered under Fatuma to resist the Ming army.

Although these troops had poor weapons and equipment, their combat effectiveness and morale were far superior to before, because they were truly defending their country, not fighting for those corrupt nobles.

But the will to fight must ultimately conform to objective rules.

Even if the Ming army did not have firearms, these poorly trained and poorly armed troops were no match for the fully armored Ming army.

Wu Juyuan was incorporated into the light cavalry unit, and his leather armor was replaced with light cotton armor.

This kind of cotton armor has only a few iron sheets lined on the chest and abdomen, and the rest of the body is pure cotton armor. It weighs ten kilograms.

A few dozen miles east of Kashgar City, Wu Juyuan experienced the first cavalry battle in his life.

The light cavalry unit he was in was sent to scout thirty miles away from the main army, where they encountered a reconnaissance cavalry of the enemy.

The captain led Wu Juyuan forward and started shooting arrows and fighting.

Wu Juyuan shot and wounded an enemy soldier from a few dozen steps away. Then he shot and killed an enemy cavalryman from 20 steps away. When he rode around to the side, he shot and wounded two more enemy soldiers.

Such a record made the captain's mouth smile so much that he led his soldiers to charge into close combat.

After a battle, only three members of the enemy's reconnaissance cavalry team escaped in a panic, while the rest were killed by the Ming army's light cavalry.

As the Ming army continued to advance, a decisive battle broke out between the two sides on the outskirts of Kashgar.

When her troops were repeatedly defeated by firearms, Fatuma did not flee in fear, but instead led her own troops in a suicidal charge.

But when he was dozens of steps away, he was hit by cannonballs, fell off his horse and was trampled to death.

Huang Zuo repeated in Kashgar and Hotan what he had done in Kucha, and soon became a demon that could stop the waiter from crying at night.

He didn't care about it. He had killed a lot of people in Hunan back then!
Huang Zuo urgently wrote a letter to Wu Jie, saying that the territory of Kashgar was particularly large and that he had slaughtered many stubborn elements, and requested the court to immigrate another 10,000 people.

(End of this chapter)