The Eastern City Guard, Chen Zhi, had his courage taken away and before half of the incense stick was burned, he retreated with all his men to the empty space in front of the door. He also felt that he didn't have the face to say any more nice words to Lin Xie, so he lowered his head and retreated. The dirt road was blocked by the Eastern City Guard's soldiers and horses, Chen Zhi didn't even have the heart to tidy up the formation, nor did he give the order to retreat, he simply rode his tall horse through the fields of green sprouts towards the south, his men naturally followed in a swarm. Some were riding horses, some were walking on foot, the formation was scattered and chaotic. The ordinary soldiers didn't know what to do, those behind Yang Shulin's line of sight were blocked and had no idea what happened ahead, seeing their superior fleeing through the fields towards the south, they feared that the strong attack would fail and the people inside would come out and kill them, so they swarmed in a panic, rushing to flee south. The spread of fear was very rapid, those around him ran wildly, only knowing how to abandon their armor and follow in the wild escape...
Lin was tied to the gate of the fence, looking at it with a mixture of laughter and anger and hatred. The greedy officials who misled the country were indeed like this. In a chaotic world, what scene could be more vivid than this? Even someone with a little ambition would see the weakness of the soldiers in front of them and their ambition would grow from three parts to ten parts. Ge Fu, Wu Yanqing, Zhao Shuhan, Ge Siyu, and even Zhao Qinmin were also shaking their heads and sighing at the scene before them.
At this time, the horn bell rang again, and everyone felt strange. The soldiers and horses of the Ministry of War had all withdrawn, so why did the alarm bell ring again?
The outer wall was high and surrounded, with watchtowers at the corners. To get up, you had to climb a ladder or go around the south or north gate. Zhou Pu walked to the bottom of the watchtower, waving his hand to signal for the rope ladder to be lowered. He climbed up like a monkey and observed the enemy situation from the top of the four-zhang-high watchtower. After a moment, he climbed down and reported to Lin Xie: "Those hundreds of rascals who followed the Eastern City Patrol's soldiers only thought Chen Zhi wanted to launch a strong attack on the main gate. They went around to the side of the willow forest, broke open the fence at the southwest corner and the middle of the west wall, and dozens of people have already rushed in..." Zhou Pu squatted down and drew a map of the broken fence for Lin Xie and the others to see. These rascals were clever, breaking open the fence at the back of the houses. The Eastern City Patrol's soldiers retreated like fleeing, but they blocked the view of the willow forest, so these rascals didn't notice anything unusual about the main gate.
"Alright, the whistle blows, and the gate closes to catch the dogs!" Lin Tie naturally didn't show any courtesy to the fat meat that was delivered to his doorstep. He summoned all the leaders of the migrant workers, including Cao Zi'ang, to discuss how to assign people to block them from the front, surround them from the sides and back, and drive them into the large courtyard of the enclosure house on the west side, which only had an outer high wall built. They wanted to catch as many of these rascals as possible.
"Will you cut off your hands and feet?" asked Zhou Pu, Cao Zikang and others.
"Am I so cruel?" Lin Xie smiled and asked in return, "Catch the rabbit alive to exchange for ransom!"
Zhao Qinmin thought that Lin Xian was indeed reckless, but thinking about it, he couldn't say anything. These rascals had broken into the house on their own accord and were asking to be caught, and if Lin Xian didn't catch them and extort money from their families, then he wouldn't be Lin Xian.
Zhao Shuhan, Ge Sixu, Ge Fu, Wu Yanqing and others listened to Lin Xie's straightforward words and were all speechless. Lin Xie ordered the guards, Wu Zu, to escort them to the grass hall to wait, in order to avoid any accidental injuries later on.
Lin tied up with Zhou Pu borrowed a rope ladder and climbed up to the corner building to watch this fun of catching rabbits.
The whistle sounded, and Cao Zikang led the bamboo spear-wielding refugees out of the gate. The Eastern City soldiers who had begun to flee thought they were being pursued by their own side and wished they had four legs to run with. Chen Zhi and his attendants were surrounded by the chaotic troops and completely lost control and judgment, listening to the whistle sound, even they thought Lin Xuan led the refugees to attack from behind, and they galloped towards the East Huamen official road.
"Lin Zhong, Lin Zhong!" Lin Tie shouted to the soldiers under the watchtower, "Choose a few dozen men and go to the southern fields to collect the abandoned weapons, armor, and scattered horses. We have a windfall before us, not taking it would be a heavenly curse!"
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Chen Zhi fled for over ten miles, exhausting his horse's strength as he whipped it to run wildly through the fields. He fell off his horse three times within twelve miles, and the good horse was nearly dead from exhaustion. Only then did Chen Zhi calm down slightly and find a high place to observe the situation, discovering that except for the East City Guard's soldiers rushing about in the fields, there were no pursuing enemies behind him. Chen Zhi's will was defeated, but he also feared being scolded by Wang Xueshan for making things so messy, so he gathered his scattered troops on the official road at Donghua Gate and returned to the city.
The soldiers were cowardly and had no will to fight, when they fled in a panic, they only felt that the armor on their bodies and the weapons in their hands were cumbersome. Among the chaotic troops who gathered, seven or eight out of ten immediately discarded their bows, arrows, and armor. The cavalry was not skilled in horsemanship to begin with, and the fields were not as flat as the main road, so all 200 cavalrymen fell off their horses. After falling off, the horses ran away, and they didn't have time to chase after them, so they simply opened their legs and fled for their lives. Chen Zhi looked on as less than thirty warhorses were gathered, and he was heartbroken.
Chen Zhi sent people to pick up the abandoned armor and horses scattered in the fields, but his subordinates were all scared out of their wits. Chen Zhi kicked and scolded them, sending over a hundred men out again. These men quickly returned empty-handed. After asking around, Chen Zhi found out that over a hundred people from the neighboring village had gone to pick up the armor and horses, but when they asked for them back, the villagers refused to give them, so they could only return to report.
Chen Zhiqi was so angry that he stomped his feet and shouted: "You are soldiers, you are bandits! You are actually afraid of these commoners!"
These undisciplined soldiers all looked at Chen Zhi, wanting him to take the lead in demanding their weapons back. Chen Zhi hesitated for a long time, thinking that with Lin Xie's temper, he probably wouldn't willingly return the weapons and horses to him. At this point, he didn't have the courage to forcefully demand them from Lin Xie either. However, having lost so many weapons and horses, Wang Xueshan would naturally not let him off easily.
Chen Zhi was so anxious that he almost cried, with so many weapons and armor lost. He wanted to deceive heaven and earth, but the only way to make up for it was to pay out of his own pocket, or perhaps barely get by. Otherwise, at least he would be dismissed and investigated, and if the chaos earlier was exposed again, he worried that his life might not be spared.
The civil and military affairs of Jiangning Prefecture were not under the jurisdiction of the county government, but the Jiangdong Inspection Department had the right to supervise Jiangning Prefecture. Chen Zhi felt that if Wang Xueshan was furious and didn't protect him, it would be hard to say whether his life could be spared if he fell into Gu Wudun's hands.
Since becoming the East City Guard, Chen Zhi had not been idle in embezzlement, bribery, extortion, buying houses, raising concubines, and flattering superiors. He had spent a lot of money, but the family property he had accumulated was far from enough to compensate for the loss of over 400 soldiers' armor and 170 war horses.
King Xue Shan wanted to turn the two battalions of soldiers from Dongchengwei into a model for Jiangdongjun and even the southeastern provinces, with strong combat effectiveness that was difficult to inspect. The armor equipment was worth spending money on, comparable to the elite equipment under the jurisdiction of the Jiangning Guardian General's Mansion. Even if the cost of corruption and embezzlement in the middle is removed, each set of armor is still valuable. Those 170+ horses were all warhorses from the northwest, and when they were first brought back, it was felt that this batch of horses was too fierce; just these warhorses alone are worth tens of thousands of taels of silver.
Chen Zhi was furious and scolded his soldiers, hating them for their usual bullying of the people, but now they were so useless. The old veterans just took the beating and scolding without a word, knowing that their superior was frustrated, but when it came to going to the river mouth to demand weapons and horses, they all wanted Chen Zhi to lead the way, they didn't have the courage themselves.
At this time, only a dozen or so desperate city rascals escaped back to the official road of Donghua Gate. Seeing Chen Zhi's men gathered on the official road, they cried out like seeing their parents: "General Chen, Lord Chen, save us! The Dongyang scholar has killed people, the Dongyang butcher has started killing! We are hundreds of people, all surrounded by the fence and killed, only a few of us have fast legs and escaped. General Chen, Lord Chen, you must avenge us and redress our grievances..."
Chen Zhi's back hair stood on end, and only then did he remember that there were five or six hundred city rascals in Jiangning City who had followed their troops to watch the excitement today, and he had completely forgotten about them just now.
Chen Zhi saw that only a few people had escaped, and he thought to himself that the city's ruffians were more numerous than his own men. He hastily grabbed one of them and asked what was going on. After questioning him, he found out that the city's ruffians had seen the eastern city gate being occupied by the Eastern City Patrol, so they decided to sneak up from behind through the willow forest and launch a surprise attack from the west side of the fence. However, who would have thought that the Eastern City Patrol would withdraw in the blink of an eye? During their retreat, they became disorganized and chaotic. The city's ruffians' view was blocked by the willow forest and the surrounding houses, so they broke through the fence and charged forward, only to be blocked again, and Lin Zhuo's men had also cut off their rear route. Only a few people managed to escape.
They had no idea what Lin Xie was thinking, and they thought that Lin Xie had steeled himself and started a massacre.
It is said that 500 or 600 city rascals were slaughtered by Lin Xuan's men, but Chen Zhi was like grasping at a straw to save his life, and he led the dozen or so city rascals who had escaped and his own mutinous soldiers towards the Donghua Gate. Lin Xuan cut off people's hands and feet in the street, which could be said to be arrogant and tyrannical, and slaughtering hundreds of rascals was no different from rebelling. Even if these rascals broke through the fence, they should not have been slaughtered like this.
In this way, Chen Zhi thought that even if he had to bear the blame for fleeing in defeat, it was better than losing all his family's property and having to compensate for so many soldiers, horses, and equipment.
Donghua Gate was jointly guarded by the East City Patrol and the Garrison General's Office under the jurisdiction of the Jiangning Defender-in-Chief. Chen Zhiyan ordered his troops to be vigilant and defend against Lin Shuang's attack on the city, and also informed the military officer in charge of Donghua Gate from the Jiangning Defender-in-Chief's office to make arrangements for this side. He temporarily settled most of the disorderly soldiers brought with him near Donghua Gate, and he himself rode a fast horse with a whip to Wang Xueshan's mansion to report to Wang Xueshan about Lin Shuang's massacre of civilians.
Wang Xueshan is making every effort to make up for the loopholes and handles that Zhao Qinmin's betrayal may bring to him. Someone has been in the inner mansion behind the prefecture, and Chief Secretary Ma Weihan has already set out on a fast horse to Yanjing before noon, bringing gold, silver, and jewels to persuade high-ranking officials in the court to prevent Gu Wuchen's memorial from reaching Yanjing after someone helps Wang Xueshan speak.
When Wang Xueshan heard Chen Zhi's report, he didn't believe that Lin Xuan would dare to slaughter hundreds of civilians. He sat in his carriage and went to the East Huamen Gate to investigate the situation. The hundreds of soldiers from the Eastern City Garrison who were brought back by Chen Zhi had all abandoned their armor and helmets, and dozens of them had escaped with broken heads and bleeding wounds, making them look even more pitiful than defeated soldiers. These soldiers were also afraid of taking responsibility, so they naturally followed Chen Zhi's orders and reported back to Wang Xueshan. Furthermore, a dozen or so city rascals came forward with bloody complaints, describing Lin Xuan as a butcher and a murderer, and claiming that he had led hundreds of rascals in the massacre, but only a few dozen had managed to escape. This made it impossible for Wang Xueshan not to believe them. Deep down, Wang Xueshan also wanted to believe that Lin Xuan was bold enough to slaughter civilians, which would allow him to implicate Gu Wudust and make it difficult for him to extricate himself from the situation. Once Gu Wudu was dismissed and investigated, the crisis facing Wang Xueshan would naturally be resolved.
"Go find Qin Chengbo!" Wang Xueshan stood on the gate tower of Donghua Gate, looking at the official road stretching far away as the dusk deepened, and said resolutely.
The massacre of hundreds of civilians is a rebellion, the incident occurred in Jiangning, which is beyond the jurisdiction of the Jiangning Prefecture government and needs to be reported to Qin Chengbo, the Minister of War for the Southeast and the Commander-in-Chief of Jiangning Garrison. As dusk fell, Wang Xueshan and Chen Zhi, surrounded by dozens of close followers, changed horses and rode fast horses towards Qin Chengbo's mansion. The sound of horseshoes on the long street echoed like a sudden rainstorm, making people's hearts tremble with fear.
