Chapter 411: Failure at the last moment, the ambitious Hong Chengchou
"This Hong Chengchou is too cunning! He had evacuated most of his personal guards and their families long ago. Now, as soon as the city was breached, he personally led a military killing formation composed of 30,000 elite soldiers and left Chang'an City without looking back!"
Outside the city of Chang'an, on the banks of the Ba River, Hongmei looked at the enemy rapidly moving away. Even though she usually did not show her emotions, she could not help but curse.
"General Manager, should we send a large army to pursue them?"
"Are we just going to watch them run away?"
Tang Guangqiang, the commander of the White Tiger Legion, was extremely angry and asked Hongmei with a red face.
"Forget it. Hong Chengchou is so shrewd that he must have made an escape plan. As long as he is determined to escape, it will be difficult for us to stop him."
Hongmei shook her head upon hearing this and rejected Tang Guangqiang's proposal. "I will send Xiao Jin to monitor them all the way and see where Hong Chengchou wants to retreat to."
"After determining where they are staying, he won't be so lucky next time."
Now, this elite guard army led by Hong Chengchou was free of any encumbrances and was lightly equipped. It was difficult to catch up with them in the Qinling Mountains, which were full of high mountains and steep cliffs.
In order to capture Chang'an City in one fell swoop, Hongmei even led three legions to attack. Although Chang'an City was captured in one battle, she still underestimated the calculations of Hong Chengchou, the old bastard.
He had actually secretly transferred his 300,000 guards, more than a million soldiers' families, and a huge amount of property and goods in advance.
The moment the firearms battalion of the Fuxing Army destroyed the ancient capital's defense formation, he personally led the military killing formation to flee from Chang'an City without even looking back, and quickly escaped into the distance.
Although Hongmei could let her mount, the spirit bird Xiaojin, lock onto the other party's whereabouts, she could only watch them escape.
"Wu Hongai, you must immediately command the soldiers of the Suzaku Legion to thoroughly clean up the entire Chang'an City."
Hongmei immediately gave an order, "This ancient capital will no longer be a place where filth and dirt are hidden. Instead, it will be the headquarters of our Fuxing Army inside the pass. We must make it clean and not leave any hidden dangers!"
"The King of Qin has been captured by me personally and is being held in custody for the time being. I will come over to deal with him when the commander-in-chief is free!"
She remembered Li Dingguo's instructions, so as soon as the city was broken, she immediately rode the sixth-level spirit bird Xiao Jin and headed straight for the Qin Palace. With her full combat power, she easily captured the Qin Palace and captured the current Qin King Zhu Cunji alive.
Seeing the commander of the Suzaku Army, Wu Hongai, leaving, Hongmei turned to look at Tang Guangqiang, "You lead the soldiers of the White Tiger Army and cooperate with the Black Tortoise Army to capture all the towns in Xi'an Prefecture as quickly as possible!"
"All actions must be carried out according to the rules, and no one who deserves to be killed can be spared!"
"I believe that by now, Cao Yongxiang has already led the Azure Dragon Army to attack Tongguan and won the battle."
"Without Hong Chengchou's 300,000 personal guards guarding the Tongguan Fortress, no matter how perfect the defense is, it will not be able to stop the attack of Cao Yongxiang's Qinglong Army."
As Tang Guangqiang quickly left to convey Hongmei's latest order, he led the soldiers to continue their journey. Hongmei stood by the rolling Ba River, looking towards the east, and muttered to herself, "Brother Qiang sent a message a few days ago saying that he was leading the soldiers to attack Qufu in Yanzhou. I wonder if they have reached the Kong family's lair?"
In the past five years, as Li Dingguo founded the Fuxing Army and fought wars everywhere, he destroyed countless aristocratic families, wealthy merchants, and obtained countless precious ancient books.
There is no shortage of records about the ancient Xian Qin period in these ancient books. Hongmei has naturally read many rare copies of this kind of books. Of course, she has some understanding of the Kong family, whose history is earlier than that of the Xian Qin period.
If we were to ask which family in the current Ming Dynasty has the deepest heritage and is the most mysterious, it would be the Kong family of Yanzhou.
Although the Kong family has experienced the collapse of countless dynasties, it has always been the top family in every dynasty and has never changed.
Although they despise the Kong family and are good at writing letters of surrender, completely abandoning the true Confucian way, there is no doubt that the Kong family does have a profound heritage.
The rumored Kong family heirloom artifact will most likely be there, and there might even be one or two acquired or even innate spiritual roots.
The contemporary Duke of Yansheng, Kong Yinzhi, is 44 years old this year. He is the 65th generation descendant of Confucius, the son of Kong Shangtan and the eldest grandson of Kong Zhenning. His great-uncle is Duke of Yansheng, Kong Zhengan.
Sixteen years ago, because his uncle Kong Shangxian passed away without an heir, Kong Yinzhi inherited the throne and became Duke Yansheng.
Kong Yinzhi was extremely greedy. Since he took control of the Kong family, he had seized almost all the land in the vast area of Qufu through various means and turned it into his own, turning the entire Qufu into the Kong family's kingdom.
Perhaps because he had committed so many evil deeds, he had only one descendant, Kong Xingxie, who was born this year, and his direct line of descendants was almost extinct.
Ever since the Song Dynasty conferred the title of Yansheng Duke on the head of the Kong family, most of the current Yansheng Dukes have died without any descendants, and most of the Yansheng Dukes in history were inherited from collateral lines.
I guess this is the retribution for doing too many evil things.
But after all, the Kong family is large and powerful, and the Kong family has countless members, so the family has been passed down.
No matter what, the Kong family has been worshipped by scholars all over the world for tens of thousands of years, and the fortune accumulated over generations cannot be underestimated, and the foundation is not lacking at all.
It is precisely because Hongmei knows that the Kong family's background is unfathomable that she feels a little worried at this time.
But she also knew some of the magical qualities of Li Dingguo.
Li Dingguo personally took part in the battle this time, bringing Wan'er with him, and accompanied by two level six golden eagles and 200,000 elite soldiers. It was no problem for him to capture the Kong family in Qufu.
No matter how powerful the Kong family is, or how prosperous their luck is, they can never be compared with the contemporary hero Huang Taiji.
At least until now, I have never heard that the Kong family has a level six expert.
Li Dingguo, who was not afraid of even Huang Taiji, certainly would not be afraid of the Kong family.
Hongmei figured out the situation and stopped thinking about it. She turned around and flew towards the huge and majestic Chang'an City.
Now, they have only conquered the most famous ancient capital of the Chinese nation, and there are still a lot of things she needs to deal with personally.
In this great world, the city of Chang'an has a circumference of nine hundred and ninety miles and a population of tens of millions, making it one of the top five largest cities in the world today.
Apart from anything else, it would take at least a month just to thoroughly sort out the city and restore the collapsed order.
The next infrastructure projects, such as the renovation and transformation of the entire Chang'an City, would not be completed in more than a year even if millions of soldiers and civilians worked together.
It’s because the city of Chang’an is simply too big.
If we want to carry out a major transformation according to the planning model of the Fusion Army, the workload will be too huge.
This could only be achieved with the participation of hundreds of thousands of warriors and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen.
Chang'an City is different from other towns. The Fuxing Army plans to build and renovate it as its base camp inside the Great Wall for a long period of time in the future, so of course it has to be done to perfection.
……
On the bank of the Jia River rushing southward, Hong Chengchou met up with a large fleet that had been waiting there for a long time.
"Grand Commander, that level six golden eagle is still hovering thousands of feet above our heads. This..."
Hong Yuanfeng looked extremely unhappy. He looked up at the golden figure in the sky and said to Hong Chengchou, "If we continue like this, our whereabouts will be exposed and we will not be able to escape the surveillance of the Fuxing Army at all."
"If the enemy learns of our intention to retreat to Hanzhong, will it be very disadvantageous to us?"
Although he had expected this situation, Hong Yuanfeng was still a little worried. It was because the Fuxing Army was too strong and he could not defeat them at all.
"It's okay. If the big golden eagle wants to follow us, just let it follow."
Hong Chengchou waved his hand calmly and said, "This is actually a good thing for our Qin army. Anyway, the big golden eagle doesn't dare to come down and attack our army."
"We just need to have our soldiers maintain their formation all the way. A mere level six spirit bird can't do anything to us."
"It would be good to let the Fuxing Army know where our Qin Army is going. With Li Dingguo's vision, he will know that now is not the time to march into Hanzhong."
"After he determines the direction of our army, he can let the Fuxing Army attack Jin Province without any worries about the threat we pose to them."
"This is a good thing for both of us, but it will be hard for Lu Xiangsheng and Sun Chuanting. They will face the violent attack of the main force of the Renaissance Army, and they will most likely be overwhelmed and unable to cope with it."
"But no matter what, we have gained valuable time for development and can take advantage of this opportunity to firmly control the Hanzhong area."
"Ha ha……"
He thought of something and sneered, "I, Hong Chengchou, will stay in Hanzhong for the next few years. Even if an imperial edict comes, you don't have to pay attention to it!"
He had already made up his mind not to follow the imperial edicts anymore.
If he marched out of Hanzhong again to fight against the Fuxing Army, he would not be able to escape again.
There was no way. The Renaissance Army was too powerful, at least not something he could deal with right now.
"Whoosh!"
When the two men were personally commanding the soldiers to quickly board the ship, a third-level spirit pigeon flew rapidly from the south and landed in front of Hong Chengchou.
Looking at the unique mark on this spiritual pigeon, it is precisely the spiritual pigeon specially cultivated by the Hong family.
"Cuckoo..."
This third-level spiritual pigeon, which was well versed in human nature, took a third-level spiritual fruit handed over by Hong Chengchou, swallowed it quickly, chirped happily at him twice, lowered its head, picked up a small bamboo tube tied to its left leg, and handed it to Hong Chengchou.
Hong Chengchou took the small bamboo tube with one hand, took out the secret letter and started to read it.
As expected, this was the reply from Qin Liangyu, the commander-in-chief of the White Spear Army.
In the letter, Qin Liangyu expressed her gratitude to Hong Chengchou and agreed to form a formal alliance with him. The two of them used the natural barriers of Hanzhong and Shu to block the intention of the Fuxing Army and other rebel forces to attack.
"Qin Liangyu broke through to the early stage of level six a few days ago?"
When Hong Chengchou saw the end of the secret letter, he was suddenly shocked and his face looked very ugly.
If for no other reason, as Qin Liangyu broke through and became a level six expert, the alliance formed by him and the other party in equal cooperation would inevitably reduce his own voice.
This was extremely disadvantageous for Hong Chengchou, who was confident that he could take the initiative.
He was also thinking of tricking Qin Liangyu and the White Spear Soldiers into joining his camp in the hope of competing with Li Dingguo in the future, but this situation ended up happening.
"Humph!"
Hong Chengchou was silent for a while with his face turning green and red, and snorted in his heart, "So what?"
"I can already feel my bottleneck of level 5 peak loosening. I should be able to feel the energy of a breakthrough soon, and then break through to level 6 in one fell swoop!"
As the heavens continued to change, the spiritual energy of the world recovered rapidly. He felt that his cultivation was improving faster and faster. It was estimated that it would not be long before he could break through to the early stage of level six and become a level six expert like Qin Liangyu.
This is also the reason why he is confident that he can compete with the Restoration Army in the future.
With Hong Chengchou's ruthlessness and insidiousness, once he arrives in Hanzhong, it will take him at most a year to firmly control the entire Hanzhong area.
Hanzhong was the fief of King Rui Zhu Changhao, a pleasure-seeking and insatiable guy.
Hong Chengchou had already made up his mind that after the army entered Hanzhong City, the first thing he would do was to attack Prince Rui Zhu Changhao.
This was not to kill him, but to put his entire family under house arrest and seize King Rui's massive wealth to develop his own Qin army.
Prince Rui Zhu Changhao has been the Prince of Hanzhong for thirty-five years. Through his crazy money-making, only God knows how much wealth and resources he has accumulated!
In terms of wealth, this greedy guy should be ranked among the top ten of all the princes in the Ming Dynasty. He is definitely rich.
This was also the main reason why Hong Chengchou was determined to occupy Hanzhong Prefecture and grow rapidly.
He is not a soft-hearted person. Once he makes up his mind, he will not hesitate at all to take ruthless action.
"Grand Commander, what's wrong?"
Hong Yuanfeng saw that Hong Chengchou fell into deep thought after reading the secret letter, so he asked in confusion.
"Yuanfeng, this is Qin Liangyu's reply, take a look."
Hong Chengchou came to his senses after hearing this and handed the letter in his hand to his most trusted confidant.
This time he led a large army to Guanzhong without bringing any miscellaneous troops.
In order to keep the secret, he even secretly killed He Renlong, who was demoted by him to be the garrison commander of Chang'an City, to prevent this unruly guy from exposing his own situation.
After reading the secret letter, Hong Yuanfeng was shocked and said, "Qin Liangyu, the commander of the White Spear Army, was able to break through to the sixth level at the age of sixty?"
"But this is a good thing!"
"From now on, our two armies will help each other. I don't believe that the enemy will be able to invade Shu and Hanzhong!"
Although Qin Liangyu is old, she is a peerless genius who is as famous as Lu Xiangsheng and Cao Bianjiao. She has never been defeated and has a great reputation.
Although he knew what his Grand Commander was thinking, he did not think that far.
"Well, that's a good thing."
"Yuanfeng, the soldiers have already boarded the ship. Go and give orders to the large fleet to set off quickly and head directly to Hanzhong Prefecture via the waterway!"
"In terms of wealth and vast territory, Hanzhong Prefecture is definitely one of the most valuable places in the Ming Dynasty. It is enough for us to settle down and develop vigorously as a base in the future."
Following Hong Chengchou's order, a moment later, the large fleet set sail under the surveillance of the big golden eagle in the sky, sailing downstream towards the south of the river, and soon disappeared at the end of the turbulent river.
(End of this chapter)
