Tibet.

Chapter 1356 A two-pronged approach
In the imperial study, Li Ye pondered for a moment and said to Li Chenghua: "I will issue an order to strictly prohibit the spread of Zoroastrianism in the Tang Dynasty. It is easy to suppress the open preaching, but it is difficult to deal with the secret preaching. I have considered it over and over again. The key is to capture the leader, that is, Anjia. Is she still in the Tang Dynasty?"

Li Chenghua bowed and said, "All signs indicate that she is still in the Tang Dynasty, or even near Chang'an, but she is hiding deep and is not easy to catch. According to people who have seen her, she is just a middle-aged woman."

Li Ye nodded, "We must find a way to find her as soon as possible, capture her and her men, and don't let her escape from the Tang Dynasty!"

This mission was difficult, but there was no room for bargaining. Li Chenghua immediately bowed and said, "I will find Anjia as soon as possible and capture them all!"

Li Ye said calmly: "We should try to capture these missionaries and use them to exchange the kidnapped girls with the Saint's Society."

"I humbly obey my orders!"

Li Chenghua left in a hurry.

Soon, the Secretariat drafted and issued an imperial decree in accordance with the emperor's wishes, prohibiting the spread of Zoroastrianism and the Holy Maiden Society in the Tang Dynasty. Except for a few Zoroastrian temples designated by the court, all other Zoroastrian temples and Holy Maiden Society missionary sites were banned. If any Holy Maiden Society missionaries were found, the county magistrate would be dismissed from his post! "

In the inner guard meeting hall, Li Chenghua was discussing with four important generals how to find the leader of the Holy Maiden Society. The reason they had obtained a lot of intelligence before was thanks to Kang Shiber's explanation.

The four Inner Guards are all Tiger Guards. In addition to Zhou Xiao, Wang Zaisheng and Zhang Kuan, there is also a female general named Wu Shaodan. She is the apprentice of Gongsun Da Niang. She has joined the Inner Guards for many years and has made countless contributions. She is very smart and capable and has always been Li Chenghua's right-hand man.

Wu Shaodan had 1,500 female soldiers under her command, all of whom were wearing colorful armor. They had always been a part of the scenery of Chang'an. If the queen took other concubines out for a trip, they would be the ones to protect her.

This time, Wu Shaodan is the main force in dealing with the Holy Maiden Society.

"Everyone, the emperor and the government are very concerned about the Saint Maiden Society. If they are allowed to develop, it will shake the foundation of the Tang Dynasty, so the emperor has decided to resolutely eradicate them. I will divide the work. General Zhou Xiao will be responsible for the hard-hit Helong Road, General Wang Zaisheng will be responsible for Jiannan Road and Shannan West Road, General Zhang Kuan will be responsible for Zhongyuan and Hebei, and General Wu Shaodan will be responsible for Guanzhong, especially the Jingji area, which is the top priority of this attack. Everyone has received the manual, so please strictly follow the regulations in the manual. That's it, get ready to go!"

Everyone stood up and saluted, then left. Li Chenghua kept Wu Shaodan.

"The mission in Guanzhong is the most difficult. Anjia and her men are probably hiding near Chang'an. Do you have any good ideas on how to find them?"

Wu Shaodan thought for a moment and said, "I have two ideas. The first is based on some of the Saints' special customs. For example, they like to light holy fires at high places when they worship on the fifth day of the month. We can use this clue to find the approximate area where they are hiding. The second idea is to mobilize bounty hunters to search for them. As long as there is a reward, the bounty hunters will work hard."

Li Chenghua was born as a bounty hunter. She knew the abilities of bounty hunters. She nodded and said, "We will work on both clues simultaneously. We will deploy internal security surveillance in every county in the Gyeonggi region, and all the alien camps will go out to look for clues."

The Yi Ren Camp is composed of people with special identities, such as the elderly, middle-aged vendors, short dwarfs, young and pretty village girls, etc. There are more than 300 people in total. Their duty is to conduct secret visits so that people will not notice them.

The Yi Renying was also Wu Shaodan's subordinate. She immediately bowed and said, "I will arrange it right away!"

There is a big house in the west of Xianyang City. Its gate has been closed for some time. One afternoon, several ox carts carrying goods stopped in front of the gate. A woman stepped forward and patted the iron ring rhythmically. Soon the door opened. The woman said a few words, and soon a group of women came out and moved all the boxes in the ox carts back.

The courtyard was deep, and in the inner hall, a middle-aged woman in a red robe was burning incense on the altar. Above her was a burning candle, or to be more precise, a ball of fire, and three golden swords.

This middle-aged woman was An Lushan's youngest daughter, Anga, who was sent to the Samarkand Holy Maiden Society by An Lushan and escaped the disaster of genocide.

Anga is currently the Silver Saint of the Holy Maiden Society and also the leader of the Eastern Camp. She is responsible for the eastward expansion of the Holy Maiden Society. She had been preaching in the periphery of the Tang Dynasty before and began to enter the heartland of the Tang Dynasty three years ago. In fact, this is the second time she has entered the heartland of the Tang Dynasty to preach. The first time was during the An-Shi Rebellion, when she preached in the Youzhou area. However, with the demise of An Lushan and the rise of the extremely cruel Shi Siming, a large number of female believers were raped and killed by the rebels, resulting in the failure of the first missionary work.

Anjia learned from her first failure and waited patiently until the world gradually settled down before she started her second missionary work. During these three years, her missionary work went very smoothly. She used money to pave the way and could be said to have no problems. After training a group of loyal believers, they invested in opening a store and let the loyal believers run the business to earn back the money they had invested. Just when they were ready to do something big, something went wrong. The missionary Kong Shibai, who was closely related to them, was arrested. The case of trafficking in girls caused the court to be furious, and the inner guards began to crack down on the Saint's Society.

Anga never dreamed that they would fall into the trap of trafficking in girl children. The Holy Maiden Society had been trafficking in girl children for more than ten years. Anga took over the trafficking of Tang Dynasty girl children eight years ago. She kept the smart and qualified girls and sold those with slightly inferior qualifications to the Arab Empire. The nobles there liked Tang Dynasty girls who were good at music and dancing very much.

In fact, the Holy Maiden Society did not take the trafficking of child girls seriously. In their view, girls were no different from other commodities. Now they realized that the trafficking of child girls had touched the bottom line of the Tang Dynasty. Anga was upset, but there was nothing he could do. He could only restrain himself temporarily and wait until the storm had passed.

The woman who was transporting the goods came to the back hall and bowed, saying, "Greetings to the Silver Saint!"

The woman's name was Lin Qu'er. She was sold to the West in the fifth year of Tianbao and was kept by the Holy Maiden Society for training and thorough brainwashing. She was very capable and was appreciated by Jin Shanling, becoming a first-class priestess of the Holy Maiden Society.

This time she is Anga's right-hand man.

"Is there any news from Chang'an?"

"Saint, there is bad news!"

"What news?" Anjia asked with a frown.

"The emperor issued an edict, announcing that the Tang Dynasty would ban all Zoroastrianism and the Holy Women's Society's preaching and missionary work."

"what?"

Anjia's face changed drastically and she began to tremble all over. Did she know what this meant?
The emperor's edict is the highest law in the Tang Dynasty, which means they have absolutely no hope.

"Why is this happening?"

Anga muttered to himself, looking distraught.

Lin Quer bit her lip and whispered, "Saintess, now it's not a matter of preaching, but a matter of whether the sisters can leave the Tang Dynasty safely. The inner guards' operation may have already begun."

Anjia sighed for a while and said, "But today is Saint's Day!"

The Saint's Day is the birthday of the Saint of Light and is also the most important day of worship for the Saint's Society. Saint's Society in all places will hold a worship ceremony.

They specially customized thirty-two large white candles for use in worship. More importantly, the worship must be performed at the highest point.

They even specially decided to hold the sacrifice at the Huai'en Pagoda in the Huai'en Temple in Xianyang. Now that the Tang Dynasty has banned the Holy Maiden Society, can they still hold the worship ceremony?

Anjia pondered for a long time and said: "The leader is as great as the sky, tonight's worship must be held as planned!"

(End of this chapter)