Chapter 539: Remnants of the Holy Cult

The red sun hangs high, and the wilderness is silent.

Suddenly, a man's shout came from the small road on the side of the official road.

"stop!"

"Catch her quickly, don't let this little bitch get away!"

Slightly leaning, a pretty little daughter-in-law in a floral dress staggered out from the path. The floral dress was covered with mud, and there was even a hole in the knee, and traces of blood could be seen faintly.

The young woman looked flustered, and while running forward desperately, she turned her head to look behind her from time to time uneasily, as if there were a group of demons behind her.

The ones following the young woman were naturally not any demons, but three men, none of whom were very old, the oldest was only in his early forties, and their clothes looked like they were dressed by farmers nearby.

The only special thing is that the heads and arms of these farmers are all tied with white cloth strips.

"Ah~~~"

Perhaps she was too panicked. The young woman was careless and didn't pay attention to the road under her feet. She tripped over a stone and staggered twice. After all, she couldn't stand steadily and fell to the ground with a "plop".

Seeing this, the man behind was overjoyed.

"Haha, let's see how you are still running around!"

Saying that, the three speeded up and were about to capture the young woman.

In the woman's eyes, there was a look of despair, and she was already mentally prepared to accept her fate.

At this moment, at the end of the official road, there was a sudden rhythmic sound of horseshoes. When the woman heard the words, a strong desire to survive burst out again in her eyes, and she shouted: "Help!"

"Help!"

But when the three men heard the words, their expressions were gloomy for an instant, and they immediately quickened their pace, trying to rush the woman into the path they had just walked before.

Unexpectedly, the sound of horseshoes came in an instant.

I saw a group of well-equipped knights coming from the official road, and the leading knight was holding a golden dragon flag.

When the three men saw the Golden Dragon Banner, their faces turned pale instantly.

Who among the people under the rule of Shanhai City does not know that the Golden Dragon Banner represents the presence of the princes and lords.

"What a fucking bad luck!"

Seeing this, the three men cursed and wanted to leave the woman behind and flee into the forest. Unfortunately, at this moment, a sharp arrow pierced through the air and blocked their way.

The arrow was inserted three inches in front of them, presumably, this was just a warning. If they dared to move forward, the arrows would greet them.

All of a sudden, the three men were so frightened that they sweated coldly, and their faces paled instantly.

After all, they are just ordinary farmers, so what insight and courage do they have?

After a little leaning, the leading knight led the team to arrive, condescendingly, and shouted loudly: "How dare you, in broad daylight, dare to rob people's daughters by force!"

"Jun, Lord Jun, this woman is a young girl, and her daughter-in-law refuses to be disciplined, and wants to run away from home, so this young girl took her back." One of the young men stood up and said flickeringly.

"Oh?" The leading knight heard the words, but he didn't believe it. He turned to look at the woman who asked for help, and asked, "Is what he said true? Don't worry, we are the personal guards of the Marquis of Lianzhou. You decide."

When the woman heard the words, her eyes lit up, and she said miserably: "Master Jun, help!"

"you say!"

"This man is indeed my husband, but it's not that the little girl disobeyed discipline, but that the god killed me so cruelly that he wanted to sacrifice me as a sacrifice to the king of heaven." The woman replied.

"Sacrifice?" The knight frowned, "Tianjing will take care of the emperor's funeral, so what does it have to do with you?"

"This..." The woman hesitated when she heard the words.

"If you want to survive, you must recruit them truthfully!"

The knight, however, sensed that something was wrong, and his expression became stern.

Seeing this, the young woman ignored the man's winks and said resolutely: "Don't dare to lie to the military master, the king of heaven has passed away. The saints from all over the world are spontaneously holding funerals for the king of heaven. One of them is to choose young As a sacrifice, she was buried for the king of heaven."

Speaking of this, the woman's expression suddenly became sad and indignant, pointing at the young man who had spoken just now, she said: "God damn it, because there is no woman in the village who has not yet left the cabinet, she even hit her idea on her daughter-in-law. The women have no choice but to That's when I escaped from the village."

"absurd!"

When the knight heard this, he was furious, knowing that things were unusual.

"Come on!"

"exist!"

"Tie them all up, interrogate them carefully, and hand them over to the lord!"

"promise!"

Needless to say, this team of knights is the members of Shenwuwei, acting as the vanguard of the army.

When Ouyang Shuo got the news, he immediately ordered the army to temporarily stop advancing and make repairs on the spot. The three men captured, including the woman, were handed over to the Military Intelligence Division for interrogation.

They are all ordinary people, how can they withstand the torture of the military intelligence department, they will all be recruited at once.

As the woman said, all over Xunzhou County, the believers who worshiped God learned that the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan had passed away, and they all spontaneously paid homage to the heavenly king and saw him off.

Such acts basically took place in remote villages, so they were not noticed by local governments.

What surprised Ouyang Shuo even more was that according to their confession, even some gentry officials in the city secretly rushed to the village to participate in the sacrifice.

From this point of view, although Hong Xiuquan died, the God Worship Church he founded had truly taken root in Xunzhou County and had a strong foundation of believers.

In a short period of time, I am afraid it will be difficult to eradicate.

This is undoubtedly a very dangerous signal for the rule of Shanhai City. Even Ouyang Shuo didn't expect that the remnants of the church would be so rampant.

From this point of view, it is even more urgent for him to go to Tianjing City to sit in town.

Therefore, Ouyang Shuo immediately decided to leave a Shenwuwei Squadron to investigate the matter thoroughly. The army speeded up and marched towards the capital city of Tiantian.

In the Battle of Guiping Pass, Shi Hu led the Shanman Independent First Division. In the end, less than 2,000 Shanman soldiers survived. Excluding the seriously injured, the rest were less than 1,500 people.

And Shenwuwei also lost soldiers and generals in the battle of Guipingguan.

Therefore, Ouyang Shuo simply merged all the surviving fighters from the Shanman Independent First Division into the Shenwuwei, so as to restore the Shenwuwei's 3,000-strong staff.

Although these mountain barbarian warriors have not experienced special combat training, they are definitely first-class strong soldiers, and being incorporated into the Shenwu Guard will not weaken the combat effectiveness of the Shenwu Guard.

On the other hand, merging them into Shenwuwei was also Ouyang Shuo's highest reward for these fighters.

Of course, the temporary designation "Shanman Independent First Division" also disappeared. As for the young general Shi Hu, he was transferred to the Shanman Independent Second Division and continued to serve as division commander.

Ouyang Shuo did not treat the soldiers of the Taiping Army who participated in the guarding of Guiping Pass, and organized them all into the Baotao Army led by Han Xin.

When Wuzhou County was reorganized, the Baotao Army had a shortage of thousands of people. Coupled with the several battles before and after, although there were no injuries, there were normal casualties of five or six thousand people.

Therefore, even if the Taiping Army is reorganized, the Baotao Army still has a shortage of several thousand soldiers.

Not only the Baotao Army, the Longxiang Army, and the Imperial Guard Division, but even the First Division of the City Guard Division stationed at Mulan Fortress, all have vacancies and urgently need to be replenished.

These shortages of soldiers were naturally reorganized from the Taiping Army's soldiers.

In the Battle of Mulan Fortress, more than 120,000 Taiping Southern Army soldiers were captured. In the first battle in Xunzhou County, the three-way army captured more than 40,000 local garrison troops.

The West Route Army led by Shi Dakai was defeated, and more than 90,000 people were captured.

Finally, there is the 100,000 Taiping Army waiting to be reorganized in Tianjing City.

Taken together, there are a total of more than 350,000 Taiping troops, waiting for reorganization. This is not counting, Bai Qi led the Longxiang Army to sweep Zhen'an County, and there will be prisoners of war who will appear later.

If Shanhai City wants to defend its vast territory, it must digest this batch of surrendered troops.

Du Ruhui, Director of Military Affairs, was already in charge of Mulan Fortress in person, and was in charge of reorganizing the 250,000 soldiers of the Taiping Army who were detained in the fortress.

Its main job is to weed out some seriously wounded soldiers, including some low-strength soldiers. The second is to dig out the cancer in the army with the cooperation of the Military Intelligence Department and the Black Guard.

The 3,000 Taiping troops at Guiping Pass suffered a stroke, and many of them were loyal to the Heavenly King. It is not difficult to imagine how many dangerous elements will be hidden in the hundreds of thousands of troops.

If you don't clear them up, how can you talk about reorganization.

During this time, the military intelligence department, the Black Snake Guard, and even the newly established Shanhai Guard, the torture masters of the three major intelligence agencies, almost gathered in Mulan Fortress.

They will investigate hundreds of thousands of soldiers one by one based on clues.

There is no doubt that this will be a massive white operation, but it has to be done.

Even so, Ouyang Shuo couldn't guarantee that after this cleansing, all the rest would be trustworthy soldiers. Certainly, there will still be some people lurking in the army.

As long as it doesn't affect the overall situation, Ouyang Shuo has the courage to boldly use these soldiers.

Of course, according to the usual practice, this batch of soldiers from the Taiping Army will not exist as an organizational system, but will be completely disrupted and reorganized into the three major armies.

Even some of the soldiers with relatively poor quality will be incorporated into the garrison divisions in various places. At the same time, the elite soldiers in the garrison division were transferred to the field army.

Therefore, this will be a systematic reorganization project involving all aspects of the military. It will take at least two or three months, or even longer, if all the reorganizations are really in place.

It was precisely because of this that Ouyang Shuo was unable to launch a war against Guilin County.

***********

On November 30th, Ouyang Shuo led his troops to Tianjing City.

The fall of Guilin County made the atmosphere in the city strange.

At this point, the ministers of the kingdom of heaven suddenly discovered that there were still existences in the southwestern region that could challenge Shanhai City. All of a sudden, there was an undercurrent surging in the city again.

Fortunately, Yang Xiuqing's determination was firm enough to temporarily stabilize the situation.

But the arrival of Ouyang Shuo forced this undercurrent to a dead end.