The World Online

The red sun hung overhead; the wilderness was utterly silent.

Suddenly, from a small road on the side of the official path, a man’s shout broke out.

“Stand still!”

“Quick, catch him; do not let that little wimp run!”

A short while later, a frail-looking woman dressed in a tattered dress limped out from the small path. Dirt covered her dress, and there was even a hole at her knee area. One could even see some blood stains.

The young woman was terrified, as she ran forward for her life. Time after time, she would turn her head around as if a bunch of devils were chasing after her.

Following closely behind her were naturally not some devil but three men. They were not that old, and the oldest among them was probably not even forty. From his appearance and clothing, he seemed like a nearby farmer.

The only unusual area was a white cloth on their heads and around their arms.

Ahhh!

Probably because of the immense stress, she did not notice the path ahead of her. She tripped on a rock, stumbling before crashing onto the ground.

When the men behind her saw that, they were delighted.

“Haha, let’s see how you will continue running!”

As he spoke, the three of them quickened their pace and was about to grab her.

A look of despair appeared in the eyes of the girl, and she had already prepared herself for the worst.

At this very moment, at the far end of the path, the rhythmic sounds of horse hooves rang. When the girl heard this, her eyes showed a strong will to live once more, as she hollered, “Save me!”

“Save me!”

When the three men heard her scream, they froze immediately. They quickened their steps; they wanted to drag the girl back into the side path that they came from before someone else arrived.

However, the sounds of the horse hooves did not stop.

A well-equipped cavalry soldier emerged from the official path, with a golden dragon flag in his hands.

When the three men saw this flag, their faces turned ashen white.

Anyone under the rule of Shanhai City knew that the golden dragon flag represented the personal guards of the Lord.

“What a downer!”

At this sight, the three men scolded the girl and wanted to escape. Unfortunately, at that moment, an arrow broke through the air and stopped them in their tracks.

The arrow stopped three inches from them; it was obviously a warning. If they continued to run forward, the arrow would greet their bodies.

All of a sudden, the three men broke out in cold sweat, their faces completely white.

In the end, they were just normal farmers, so what kind of knowledge and confidence would they have?

After a short while, the leading cavalry soldier arrived and from atop his horse, he shouted, “How bold, you actually dare to try and forcefully capture a woman in broad daylight!”

“Sir, this woman is my my wife. She wanted to run away from home, so I’m just trying to catch her.” One of the young men stepped out and said expressively.

“Oh?” When the cavalry heard this claim, he did not believe it, so he turned his head to the woman and asked, “Are his words true? Do not worry, we are the personal army of the Lord. We can help you.”

When the girl heard these words, her eyes brightened, and she pitifully said, “Sir, save me!”

“Speak!”

“He is really my husband, but I was not misbehaving. They wanted to kill me and use me as a burial sacrifice for King Hong,” the girl replied.

“Burial sacrifice?” The cavalry frowned, “The funeral matters of the old king will be handled by Tianjing, what does it have to do with you?”

“This….” When the girl heard this question, she was a little hesitant.

“If you want to live, speak!”

The cavalry could feel that this whole matter was highly complicated, and his expression became really serious.

When the young girl saw that, she disregarded the eyes of the men and said resolutely, “When the old king died, the various sacred religion believers all wanted to hold burial ceremonies for the king. One of the points was to choose young women to be sacrifices to be buried with the king.”

As she stated this, the girl was filled with both sadness and anger, as she pointed at the young man that spoke, “Since there are no suitable girls, he actually targeted his own wife. I had no choice but to escape from the village.”

“Preposterous!”

When the cavalry heard this news, he was furious and knew that the situation was unusual.

“Men!”

“Present!”

“Tie them all up and interrogate them before handing them over to the Lord!”

“Yes!”

Needless to say, these cavalry were members of the Divine Martial Guards, and the vanguard forces of the army.

When Ouyang Shuo received the news, he immediately ordered the army to stop their advance. The three captured men and the woman were interrogated by the Military Intelligence Division.

They were all normal people, so how could they hold on under the torture of the Military Intelligence Division? As a result, they spilled everything.

It was just as the girl had said. Everywhere in Xunzhou, people who believed in the religion spread by Hong Xiuquan decided to take such action upon learning that he had died.

Such acts basically happened at the various villages and avoided the detection of the officials.

The part that left Ouyang Shuo astonished was that based on their words, some of the minor officials and scholars had actually secretly rushed back to attend the sacrificial ceremonies.

It seemed like that although Hong Xiuquan had died, his religion had already taken root around the land, as he had formed a strong believer base.

In a short time, it would be hard to remove them.

This was a dangerous signal toward the future rule of Shanhai City. Even Ouyang Shuo did not think that the believers of the religion would run so rampant.

It seemed like he had to take charge of Tianjing City as soon as possible.

Hence, Ouyang Shuo immediately decided to leave a Divine Martial Guards squadron to investigate this matter. The army would proceed at their fastest speed toward Tianjing City.

During the battle at Guiping Pass, only two thousand mountain barbarians from Shihu’s 1st division led survived. Apart from the injured, only 1500 of them were left.

As for the Divine Martial Guards, they also suffered heavy casualties.

Hence, Ouyang Shuo decided to move all the survivors of the 1st independent division into the Divine Martial Guards to maintain the three thousand member number.

Although these mountain barbarians had not undergone much training, they were all top-class soldiers. Moving them into the Divine Martial Guards would not reduce the group’s combat strength.

On the other hand, bringing them in was also the greatest reward to these warriors.

Of course, the title of mountain barbarian 1st independent division had also disappeared. As for the young general Shihu, he would become the major general of the 2nd independent division.

As for the surrendered soldiers that participated in the battle at Guiping Pass, Ouyang Shuo did not treat them badly. He moved them into Han Xin’s Leopard Legion.

When Wuzhou Prefecture was organized, the Leopard Legion had a shortfall of thousands of men. Now, after several battles, although their core was not that badly affected, they had still lost five to six thousand members.

Hence, even after adding in the surrendered Taiping Army troops, they still lacked a few thousand men.

Not only the Leopard Legion, the Dragon Legion, the Guards Division, and even the 1st division of the city protection division housed in Mulan Stronghold needed more members.

The Taiping Army troops would naturally fill up this shortfall.

The Battle of Mulan Stronghold had net them 120 thousand prisoners. During the Battle of Xunzhou, they had also captured forty thousand city protection forces.

After destroying Shi Dakai’s west army, they had captured a further ninety thousand prisoners.

Lastly, there was the one hundred thousand Taiping Army troops housed within Tianjing City.

Summing up everything, a total of 350 thousand Taiping Army soldiers awaited reorganization. This did not take into account the prisoners that would appear as Baiqi led the Dragon Legion to sweep Zhen An Prefecture.

For Shanhai City to defend their vast land, they needed to completely digest this batch of surrendered soldiers.

Military Affairs Director Du Ru Hui personally took charge at Mulan Stronghold and the 250 thousand prisoners there.

The main part of the job would be to remove the injured members, including the soldiers that lacked combat strength. Secondly, they needed to work together with the Military Intelligence Division and the Black Snake Guards to dig out the cancers in the army.

Out of the three thousand surrendered soldiers at Guiping Pass, there were many dead loyalists to the old king. It was not hard to imagine how many there were among one hundred thousand troops.

If they did not get rid of these people, how could they reorganize the army?

During this period of time, the interrogation experts from the Military Intelligence Division, the Black Snake Guards, and the newly built Shanhai Guards all gathered at Mulan Stronghold.

Based on lines and lines of information, they investigated each and every one of the hundred thousand surrendered soldiers.

Even so, Ouyang Shuo was still not certain if this round of washing would leave only trustable soldiers. There would definitely be some people that infiltrated the army.

As long as it did not affect the big picture, Ouyang Shuo would have the charm and confidence to make use of this batch of surrendered soldiers.

Of course, according to the usual practice, this batch of surrendered soldiers would be broken up and sent into the three legions.

The weaker soldiers would even be sent into the various Garrison Divisions. At the same time, the elites of the Garrison Division would be moved to the combat army.

Hence, this reorganization mission would affect every part of the military. If they really wanted to organize everything, it would at least take two to three months or even an even longer period of time.

As such, Ouyang Shuo did not have the ability to start a huge war against Guilin Prefecture.

11th month, 30th day, Ouyang Shuo and his troops reached Tianjing City.

The fall of Guilin Prefecture had made the atmosphere in the city exceedingly weird.

At this point, the officials of Taiping Country realized that in the southwest region, there was actually a presence that could fight against Shanhai City. All of a sudden, hidden forces started to act in the city.

Luckily, Yang Xiuqing remained resolute, and he managed to temporarily stabilize the situation.

Moreover, the arrival of Ouyang Shuo would put an end to this hidden current.