The new era of chaos begins in the Song Dynasty

Chapter 451: The Rebels Awaken
The moment Cheng Zhishao was beheaded, an invisible wave instantly spread to the entire world, especially to many people in the Song Dynasty. It was as if they had suddenly woken up from a dream, with a strange yet real memory in their minds.

Among them, the Guiyi Army, which was fighting a bloody battle with the Tubo tribe in Qingtang, suffered the greatest impact.

The so-called Guiyi Army was actually the Zhennan Recruiting Army led by Wang Huan, Han Cunbao and others. They were originally led by Chen Shen in Qishan to cross the border to conquer Guifang.

However, they were tricked by Qingbao Tianzun into making the real with the fake. Everyone fell into the illusion and had a yellow millet dream. Only Chen Shen managed to escape, while the cognition of tens of thousands of others was distorted.

Afterwards, Wang Huan and others and their troops were transferred to Huangzhou by the Song court, and participated in the battle of the Song Dynasty to recapture Qingtang as cannon fodder.

Speaking of which, although the Tubo tribesmen who occupied the barbaric areas such as Qingtang were also human beings, their living habits were basically the same as those of savages. They were rude, brutal, barbaric, and bloodthirsty, only slightly stronger than the beastmen in the dream world.

Although these barbaric tribes have never been civilized, they have retained the primitive savagery of humans as terrifying upright apes, and their fighting power is extremely terrifying.

Although the Song Dynasty's border troops had an absolute advantage in organization and tactics, the Song Dynasty had always used civil control over military forces, so the army's fighting spirit was not very high. Especially among the middle and high-level generals, there were many cowardly people who were used to protecting themselves, and they were afraid to avoid suffering and getting hurt.

To use the gaming terminology of later generations, the Song Dynasty's army inherently lacked the characteristics of a meat shield MT.

So when the Song army faced the barbaric Tibetan tribe in Qingtang, the Song army had the upper hand overall, but in local small-scale conflicts, the Song army was repeatedly defeated.

The characteristics of the Song army also meant that they always suffered local defeats which gradually led to overall passivity and even defeat.

Of course, the Song army did not suffer from this kind of trouble in the Battle of Qingtang. The reason was that they had a group of cheap and easy-to-use cannon fodder - the Zhennan Volunteer Army.

Just like the Liangshan heroes who were recruited in Water Margin, the Zhennan righteous army, with their distorted cognition, fought bloody battles with the barbaric Tibetans without hesitation, with their traditional respect for the imperial power and their desire for military exploits.

Although their cognition was distorted, the rebels did not completely forget the memories of the dream ghosts, but regarded them as illusory dreams - although they were indeed a big dream.

The tactics and methods of fighting against the beastmen that Chen Shen taught the soldiers in the dream were just as useful in dealing with the Tibetan barbarians in reality.

As a result, the rebels created countless astonishing military exploits, so that even the Song army, which came from a legitimate background, did not dare to underestimate them.

Of course, behind the numerous achievements of the Zhennan Volunteer Army, there were also countless blood and lives shed as a price.

Not to mention the lowest-ranking soldiers, more than half of the leaders of the upper echelons of the rebel army were killed. The severity of the incident was comparable to the battle between the Liangshan heroes and Fang La in another timeline.

When the invisible waves hit this land soaked with endless blood, all the surviving rebel soldiers were awakened with horror.

It should be noted that this rebel army was originally led to Qishan by Chen Shen, which was basically a second rebellion.

Although people in the underworld say that if you want to be an official, you have to kill people and set fires to be recruited.

But even the dumbest people know one thing: there is basically no way out for a rebellion like the second rebellion. Just like Wang Lun, the Yellow-robed Heavenly King, no matter what the reason is (including but not limited to being framed or wronged, etc.), being suppressed by the court is the only fate of a rebel.

Because of the example of the Yellow Heavenly King, the Zhennan Volunteer Army, which was recruited for the second time, couldn't help but feel uneasy. Especially recently, they have been acting as the death squad of the Song army on the battlefield, and the tragic casualties are almost devastating. Previously, he and others were thinking about making meritorious deeds and being rewarded, but now they think about it, is it possible that the dog officials of the Song court are deliberately using them to fill the trenches and kill people with borrowed knives?
As a result, the remaining Zhennan volunteer army began to become unsettled.

In desperation, Wang Huan and other leaders secretly gathered together to discuss.

Li Congji, deputy commander of the scout battalion, said, "We woke up from the dream yesterday, and we are uneasy. The men under our command are even more agitated. I have little knowledge, but I would like to ask you brothers to come up with some ideas to calm people's hearts."

All the leaders were hesitant, but Jia Gan shouted, "We were fooled before and sold many lives for the Song emperor. Now we have woken up from the dream, and we should abandon the Song court and return to Mount Qishan to seek the leadership of General Chen."

The leader Jing Zhong sneered, "Abandon the Song court? That's easy for you to say! We are now in the wild area of ​​Qingtang. There are no less than 50,000 Song imperial guards and border troops around us, all of whom are elite soldiers who have fought in hundreds of battles. We don't know where there are Tibetan barbarians who are spying on us. We only have 8,000 or 9,000 remnants. If they dare to make the slightest move, we will be destroyed in a matter of seconds."

By the way, Jing Zhong was originally the deputy general of the general Gu Zhengxi. When the Qishan Incident occurred, Gu Zhengxi was unprepared due to lack of knowledge, and Jing Zhong and another deputy general Fu Shun turned against him, which led to Gu Zhengxi being captured by the Song army in advance and his troops being disarmed. When the entire Song Dynasty was distorted by the truth, Gu Zhengxi had already died in prison, and then Jing Zhong became the general commander of the disarmed troops.

There is no doubt that among all the leaders, Jing Zhong was the one with the least psychological burden. After all, he did not participate in the second rebellion of the Qishan Incident. On the contrary, he made some merits in helping the Song army suppress Gu Zhengxi's camp, and he had some favor in front of the official envoys of the Song army.

In a sense, Jing Zhong could be considered as a spy and military supervisor planted by the Song Dynasty in the Zhennan Righteous Army.

When the other leaders heard what Jing Zhong said, they all frowned and looked worried.

Jing Zhong added, "This time, you brothers led your troops to fight in Qingtang, expanding the territory of the Song Dynasty by hundreds of miles. Your contribution is unprecedented since the founding of the Song Dynasty. If you were to rebel, wouldn't the sacrifices of more than 10,000 brothers be wasted? I heard from Lord Guan Gou the other day that because of our great contributions, we have alarmed the current emperor, and the minister in the court has already issued an edict to commend us."

Jing Zhong's words really touched the vast majority of the leaders.

The war between the Song army and the Tibetan barbarians has already been decided. The merits made by the Zhennan Righteous Army in this war are almost unmatched by the entire Song army. Now is the time for them to enjoy the rewards for their military merits. If they rebel again, all their previous efforts on the battlefield will be wasted.

In economics, there is a term called sunk cost, which refers to costs that have already occurred or been committed and cannot be recovered.

Obviously, this word is appropriate to describe the leaders of the rebel army at this time.

It can be said that at this time no one really wanted to give up the reward for merit that everyone had worked so hard to earn, including Jia Gan, who was the most loyal to Chen Shen, who was somewhat unwilling to give up.

Wang Huan said: "The problem now is not about us, but the soldiers under us must be appeased, otherwise they will inevitably make trouble. You must know that when General Chen was in Qishan, he distributed permanent farmland to everyone."

Wang Huan’s words hit the nail on the head, but all the leaders were scratching their heads.

Since ancient times, the only thing that can most touch people's hearts on this earth is the land.

Other things such as gold, silver, cloth, power, beauty, etc. are worthless compared to land.

When Chen Shen first used the "land division" trick in the dream world, it was really hard to resist.

(End of this chapter)