Troubled times: Start practicing spiritual practice by taking care of your sister-in-law

Chapter 191 Suddenly there is a madman who sharpens his knife at night
  Since Emperor Xuanhe succeeded to the throne and lost power, the court, which was already in a state of crisis, has gradually intensified. The court and local government orders are in chaos, and the people's lives are in hardship.

Luo Guang was originally a Taoist priest in a dilapidated Taoist temple in the mountains of Beidi. He couldn't bear the suffering of the people and used "magic" and incantations to heal people everywhere. Many sick people drank his talisman water and recovered without any medicine. So far, Luo Guang has He is widely regarded as a living god by the people and respected as a heavenly master.

Luo Guang also established the Tianshi Sect, and during this period, he sent six Taoist boys as envoys to preach abroad. In just a few years, more and more believers were pursued, reaching tens of thousands, covering hundreds of thousands of people in the north. state.

Later, there was a severe drought in the Northland, and Luo Guang also took advantage of the situation to rise up. Believers all over the Northland states responded one after another. From the original tens of thousands of believers, the number suddenly skyrocketed to hundreds of thousands or millions.

In order to seek refuge with Luo Guang, many people did not hesitate to sell their property and travel thousands of miles to seek refuge with him.

Seeing that the number of followers increased, Luo Guang turned the Tianshi Sect into the Tianshi Army. In order to manage the Tianshi Army, he divided his forces into thirty-six districts, called squares, with thirty thousand to sixty thousand in a large square and three thousand in a small square. Ranging from [-] to [-], each party recommended a leader, called Qushuai, who was all controlled by Luo Guang.

Among them are many aristocratic families, powerful men and officials from the North.

However, as the Tianshi Army continued to grow and develop, it gradually deviated from its original intention, causing many conflicts within the Tianshi Army.

Among them, the reason why aristocratic families took refuge in Luo Guang was because he was the first to show the attitude of a king master, and because he was powerful and could summon thunder from the sky, they believed that he could succeed, so they invested.

However, recent developments have made these wealthy families feel a little uneasy.

Chuanhai, the northernmost inland sea of ​​the Song Dynasty, was also the name of a state.

Among them, the Nangong family is the number one "noble family" in Sichuan and Hainan. It has only developed in the past hundred years and started from the sea. Although its influence is not comparable to the seven famous families, its wealth is not inferior to the seven famous families.

Because he often went overseas to do business, there were many pirates and bandits on the sea, so he established a navy.

At that time, the world was not in chaos, and the people were not allowed to raise private soldiers, and the control was extremely strict. Therefore, the Nangong family's navy was established secretly, and the people recruited were all orphans and unregistered gangsters. At the beginning, At that time, there were not many people, less than a thousand people.

Later, overseas business grew bigger and bigger, and the Nangong family accumulated more and more wealth. With this, they bribed officials at all levels in Sichuan and Hainan, and transformed from a lowly businessman into a local gentry.

In the following decades, the Nangong family became more courageous due to continuous marriages and profit transfers with local and surrounding wealthy families. The number of private soldiers at the time grew from less than a thousand to five thousand, and they were organized into maritime forces. Pirates were in the limelight for a while.

Of course, the Nangong family's ambition goes beyond that. Its goal is to become an official, a high official.

Therefore, as Luo Guang rose up, the Nangong family saw the potential of the Tianshi Sect, and quickly contacted Luo Guang to provide assistance.

Because the Nangong family understands that they are businessmen after all, and are looked down upon by real aristocratic families. This can be seen from the marriages in recent decades. Most of the Nangong women who married in the past were the legitimate sons of those wealthy families as concubines, and married into aristocratic families. A woman is either a concubine or a daughter of a collateral lineage.

The Nangong family has a long-term vision. Among the seven famous families today, none of them has experienced the change of dynasties.

In mid-October, Luo Cheng's envoy once again pressed the Nangong family for grain, grass, and warships. The request was too much, and the current head of the Nangong family, Nangong Jin, felt that it was unbearable.

In the past two months, in order to support the Tianshi Army's attack on Fengzhou, Nangong Jin sent all the Nangong family's naval forces to the front line. They spent a lot of money and manpower, but the results were not satisfactory, and they were defeated one after another.

This made Nangong Jin feel that the Fengzhou battlefield was like a bottomless pit. In addition, the recent performance of the Tianshi Army also made him extremely disappointed, because the Tianshi Army's looting in the north also harmed the interests of the Nangong family.

Of course, it doesn't matter if your interests are harmed, as long as you let me see the benefits in return, but when there is nothing, your mind will change.

In a garden, Nangong Jin just sent away Luo Guang's envoy.

"Sir, I heard that King Qin's army has already reached Zhentianmen. Once Zhentianmen is defeated, King Huai's army can fight all the way to the capital. By then, the internal war in the imperial court will be over, and they can go back and wipe out the rebels. Can the Tianshi army Can you withstand it?" Nangong Jin's wife Zhang served Nangong Jin soup cakes and asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, madam." Nangong Jin smiled and said: "King Qin's army is composed of many forces and parties. Although they seem to be united, they are actually inseparable and have undercurrents. Take King Huai as an example, even if Xu Guozhong is killed, King Huai Will he return power to the emperor? I'm afraid if he is not the second Xu Guozhong, this war will not end so quickly."

"That said, the current Tianshi Army is even more complicated than King Qin's army. The soldiers harassing the people often happen. Any pretty girl dare not go out for fear of being kidnapped by the sergeants."

Mrs. Zhang sighed. She was also a daughter of a wealthy family. Although she was a concubine, she was not a country girl. She could see things from a farther perspective. She said:

"Master, I don't hide some things from you. Recently, someone suspected of being from Fengzhou came into contact with Brother Feng."

Zhang Feng, Zhang's younger brother, is also a concubine and currently serves as the commander of the Nangong Navy at the front.

Hearing this, Nangong Jin stood up suddenly, frowned, and said anxiously: "How many people know about this?"

"Don't worry, sir. Brother Feng has only written to tell me so far, asking me to make up my mind." Zhang said.

Nangong Jin finally breathed a sigh of relief, sat down and said, "What did the people in Fengzhou say?"

Whatever is suspected, it is highly probable. "The man claimed to be the envoy of Fengzhou Prefect, and assured Feng Di that as long as Feng Di turned against him at a critical moment, he would report it to the court when the matter was completed, recommending that I be the Prefect of Sichuan and Hainan, and Feng Di the Defense Envoy of Feng Prefecture. At that time, the yamen will be the fourth-rank official of the Zhengerbajing, and the ancestors will be honored." Zhang said.

The ultimate goal of rebellion is not to achieve glory and wealth, but also to honor our ancestors.

But there are too many uncertain factors in the rebellion, and he doesn't know when he will die. Accepting the recruitment can at least stabilize him for a while, and Xu Xu Tuzhi is not afraid of being in the court in the future.

The most important thing is that the current Tianshi Army seems to have seen the future.

"Master, it's time for us to find a way out for ourselves," Zhang said.

Nangong Jin narrowed her eyes slightly, tapped her fingers on the table, and then said:

"It's inappropriate, at least not yet. Besides, the magistrate of Fengzhou is only a fourth-rank official. How can he have the nerve to recommend someone else as a fourth-rank official? In my opinion, I'm afraid that Fengzhou can no longer support it and starts to create some alienation." It’s a trick.”

Although the Tianshi Army has disappointed people too much at present, it has not been injured. If it "jumps back" at this time, the Tianshi Army will definitely be treated as a typical example.

Chuanhai is behind the Tianshi Army.
  "Hurry up and write back to Zhang Feng, asking him to immediately disassociate himself from that person and report it to Luo Guang." Nangong Jin continued.

The Zhang family is led by Nangong Jin, and he must listen to Nangong Jin for important matters. When he was about to reply to the letter, he saw the newspaper on the table and said, "Sir, is this?"

"This is the Di newspaper issued internally by the Tianshi Army. The only eye-catching thing is that a young general named Chen Mo under Yang Minggui is only seventeen years old and is already a sixth-level warrior. This time on the Yuzhou battlefield, He even defeated the Yuzhou Army, severely damaged the Xuanbao Cavalry, killed five thousand enemies and captured six thousand, and even Xu Jie, one of Liang Song's three generals, was beheaded by him," said Nangong Jin.

"Oh?" Mrs. Zhang became interested and said, "Is he the genius of some famous family?"

Nangong Jin shook his head and said: "The newspaper here did not write about Chen Mo's life, but I have never heard of any aristocratic family named Chen in the north. There is a Chen family in the capital, but I have never heard that the Chen family in the capital has any clan members. Come north.”

……

Xia Lin.

After the day's work, the peasants came to the place where they were preparing meals. They looked at the soup and water in the bowls and suddenly cried out.

The porridge water is getting clearer and clearer.

At the beginning, the porridge was still thick, but towards the end, there were fewer rice grains.

They were doing hard work, not to mention they couldn't maintain their nutrition, and their stomachs would growl in the middle of the night just after drinking.

"Sir, if you can, please have another bowl. This is really not enough."

An old man with a yellow face, wearing tattered linen clothes, and already starved to skin and bones. He looked to be in his fifties. He stretched out his arm that was thinner than firewood and said tremblingly to the sergeant who was fetching the meal.

"Get out of here, I only have one bowl per person. Everyone has enough to eat, but you don't have enough? Get out of here, get out of here."

The sergeant picked up the wooden stick on the side. If the old man had been a step too late, the wooden stick would have hit him.

There are more than [-] people in Xia Lin, and Yang Minggui provides them with only [-] shi of food every day. Normally, [-] shi is only food for [-] people a day, but now it provides more than [-] people. It is conceivable that Know how much each person can get.
  There was no food to eat, and the soldiers responsible for distributing porridge naturally had no money to make money. They were treated poorly, so how could they have a good temper?

After finishing the porridge, many civilians lay down in a large resettlement camp. In order to preserve their physical strength and cope with tomorrow's work, they could only move less.

Because many civilians were recruited from neighboring cities and counties, thousands of people were crowded into each resettlement camp. The smell of sweat was overwhelming, especially since it rained heavily a few days ago and the roofs were leaking. It was damp in the camp.

But Yang Minggui's people did not deal with this.

One can imagine how bad the environment inside is.

The peasants had to endure a long period of torture before they could sleep.

The night was getting darker, and the guards outside the resettlement camp were getting lazy. At this moment, the "joke" made a few days ago was heard in the resettlement camp again.

"Damn it, we have less and less to eat. If we continue like this, we will either be beaten to death or starve to death from exhaustion. Folks, we can't continue like this. We have to resist. Either way, we will die. In my opinion , fight with them.”

(End of this chapter)