Chapter 5 Five Eastern Kings Apparition

In fact, Peng Yulin was wrong, there was indeed a person swimming on the river.This person made a special trip to spy on Xiangyong's top-secret military situation; he was none other than Kang Lu, who was officially appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Taiping Army.After the news of Zeng Guofan's comeback spread to Zhejiang, he was ordered by Li Xiucheng to come to Bahe in disguise to inquire about the military situation.In the past few days, there have been rumors in Bahe Town that Zeng Guofan will summon various generals here, and Kang Lu is secretly happy.In the afternoon, Kang Lu saw Zeng Guofan by the river with his own eyes, surrounded by Li Xubin, Peng Yulin and others, walking and talking, and went ashore along the stone steps.Although the commander of Xiangyong who nearly died under him twice was in good spirits, he was visibly aging.Kang Lu had dealt with Zeng Guofan for many years, and he knew that Zeng Guofan always worked day and night. Since all the generals had arrived, there must be an important event tonight.

Kang Lu closely watched the movements of Bahe Town.In the evening, he saw Zeng Guofan and his party walk into the big boat moored by the river, and then the boat sailed to the middle of the river.He gets it.When the clouds covered the moonlight, Kang Lu swam to the side of the boat.He boarded the boat lightly, and strangled the guard outside the cabin silently to death.Kang Lu changed into the clothes of that soldier, and stood close to the side of the cabin.On a dim moonlit night, no one realized that this soldier was a fake from the Taiping Army.The discussion in the cabin clearly reached Kang Lu's ears.When everything had been heard, he quietly left the boat and went into the water.

Kang Lu is very good at water, he easily swam two or three miles, and then swaggered ashore and walked away.The next morning, he found a fast horse and traveled day and night to Huzhou. He divided Zeng Guofan's troops into two groups, and mainly reported to Li Xiucheng the secret of marching to central Anhui. This white-faced, petite, handsome general of the rear army is doing his best to deal with Zeng Guofan's entry into Zhejiang. After hearing Kang Lu's report, he was startled: This old treacherous monster! Li Xiucheng himself had never fought against Zeng Guofan.Over the years, his opponents have been Jiangbei, Jiangnan Daying, and the green camps in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.However, for Zeng Guofan, he has heard his name for a long time.Li Xiucheng did not dare to take Zeng Guofan's strategy of using troops lightly, focusing on marching into central Anhui.He immediately made two decisions: one is to send people to Beijing quickly, report this information to the king of heaven, and ask the king of heaven to order Chen Yucheng, Li Shixian, Wei Jun and himself to gather in Zongyang, Anhui to discuss how to deal with it; the other is to order Lin Shaozhang to follow the original plan The plan, under his banner, went down from Zhejiang to Fujian, led Zeng Guofan to the mountains at the junction of Jiangxi and Fujian, made his navy ineffective, and then surrounded them in groups, gathering and annihilating them all at once.He expected that Zeng Guofan knew it was a trap, and he had no choice but to enter under the urging of the court.After receiving the imperial edict agreed by the king of heaven, Li Xiucheng took Luo Dagang, Zhou Guoyu, Kang Lu and others to Zongyang in the starry night.

Zongyang is divided into two towns, the upper and lower towns. The two towns are eight miles apart. They control the mouth of the Yangtze River from the three lakes of Pogang Lake, Caizi Lake, and Xizi Lake. It is eighty miles away from Anqing Waterway. Lead ten thousand elite soldiers to station here. In the past two years, Li Xiucheng has suffered a lot in his heart.The scene of blood flowing into rivers and corpses piled up in Tianjing City was too deep in his mind.In the dead of night, he would often hear the wailing of women and the crying of babies for no reason.This old brother of the Taiping Army who was born in abject poverty and defected to heaven with his family will feel a sharp pain in his heart at this moment.After all, the king of heaven is the leader who was fought in the flames of war. At the critical moment after King Yi left, he reorganized hundreds of thousands of troops.What made Li Xiucheng especially fortunate was that the Heavenly King did not exclude Wei Jun.Yes, Wei Jun has a powerful team under his command, he must not be pushed to Qing Yao's side!On the whole, Li Xiucheng is very supportive of the decision to establish the commander-in-chief of the five armies, but he is also dissatisfied.In terms of age, Li Xiucheng grew up to ten years old; in terms of talent and combat achievements, Li Xiucheng was not inferior to Chen Yucheng. Why was Chen Yucheng's title and power above him?Li Xiucheng took the overall situation into consideration.He knew that the heavy burden of the kingdom of heaven was already on the shoulders of the few of them, and they could no longer quarrel because of their personal interests, otherwise, the tottering ship of the kingdom of heaven would really capsize.Since the Tianjing Incident, Heaven has never held such a large-scale high-level military meeting. Li Xiucheng very much hopes that through this meeting, everyone will unite again, revive the prestige of winning all battles in the past, and completely defeat Zeng Yaotou. conspiracy.

A few days later, Chen Yucheng, Li Shixian, Wei Jun, and more than 60 senior generals from the battlefield in Anhui Province all came to Zongyang one after another.In the past few days, the four chief generals, Xiucheng, Yucheng, Shixian, and Wei Jun, and all the senior generals attending the meeting have deeply analyzed the situation of the enemy and ourselves.He believed that Zeng Guofan had just come back and had not yet had time to calmly dispatch all forces in the future. The Jiangbei and Jiangnan battalions would be arrogant and lazy, and they should take this opportunity to fight a big battle.An idea suddenly appeared in Li Xiucheng's mind like lightning, and he and Yucheng discussed it and hit it off.

Three days later, that is, July 27, the eighth year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was the second anniversary of Yang Xiuqing's death.Soon after the internal strife subsided, Hong Xiuquan thought of Yang Xiuqing as the founding father of the country, and was angry at Wei Changhui's indiscriminate killing of innocents. In order to stabilize the army and maintain the country's destiny, he restored Yang Xiuqing's title of East King and let his fifth son inherit the title of Young East King , and set the day when King Dong was murdered as Dongsheng Festival. On the night of the twenty-seventh day, in Zongyang Town, no matter the barracks or private houses, two lamps were lit at the door, and three cups of tea, three bowls of rice, and three dishes of vegetables were offered.The barracks is led by the highest officer, and the head of the private house leads all the staff, holding three sticks of incense in their hands, kneeling on the ground, and praying to the sky: May the Eastern King enjoy honor in heaven forever, and bless the creatures in the lower world to find happiness soon.

In the former richest man's Ma's compound in Zongyang Shangzhen, all the generals who participated in the meeting have stood respectfully in the flower hall.The ceremony here is much more grand than those in the barracks and private houses in the town. On the front of the flower hall, a green cloth curtain was temporarily pulled up, and a picture of the Eastern King's Ascension to Heaven was hung on the curtain.The East King in the picture is not the actual bloody and dead body in the bedroom, but wearing a dragon robe with fluttering hair and wielding a sword, and was slowly sent into the air by He Feng Ruiyun.

In front of the Dongwang statue is a strip-shaped long table, on which more than a dozen large dragon and phoenix candles are burning.There were only three cups of tea, but the teacups were fine porcelain cups made in Jingdezhen, made in Jingdezhen for imperial use.There are only three dishes: a plate of stir-fried dog meat with spicy peppers, a plate of Wuchang group head bream, and a plate of stewed bear paws - all Dong Wang's favorites during his lifetime, but the plate for the dishes was made a special trip from Jiangning Palace. The all-gold imperial plate shipped from China.There are only three bowls of rice, but the rice is cooked with the river water loess au fragrant rice that is treasured in the Tianwang Palace. Although it is only three small bowls, the fragrance overflows the entire flower hall.Hundreds of candles were burning all around, and each general held three sticks of incense in their hands.Cigarettes lingered and candles flickered. Facing the lifelike Dongwang statue, everyone felt sacred and noble emotions in their hearts.

The mourning ceremony was presided over by Cheng Tianyu Chen Yucheng, who was led by You Zhengzhang and former military commander.Yucheng held a piece of yellow mounting paper with both hands, and there were a few lines of words written in a vermilion pen on the paper. He walked up to the East King Statue and bowed three times with a solemn expression. Xiucheng, Shixian, Wei Jun, Da Gang, Guoyu and others stood behind Yucheng. , followed by three bows.After bowing, Yucheng knelt down, and everyone also knelt down.Yucheng picked up the yellow mounting paper and read aloud: "We praise——"

There was a sudden harmony in the flower hall: "We praise——" Then, they followed Yucheng and chanted one sentence at a time: "We praise God as the heavenly father, Lord Hun as the only true God; praise the heavenly brother as the savior, who sacrificed his life to replace others; praise the heavenly king as a sage, a saint who saves all things; Praise the Eastern King as the divine wind, the Holy Spirit who redeems the sick and saves people; praise the Western King as the Rain Master, a noble man from high heaven; praise the Southern King as the cloud master, a righteous man from high heaven; praise Yi Wang as the electrician, a righteous man from high heaven.”

This is the "Hymn" written by King Qin Rigang of Yan in the fourth year of Jiayin, and there are three lines in it: "Praise the Northern King for being Leishi and a benevolent man of Gao Tian; praise the King of Yan for being the Master of Shuang and a loyal man of Gao Tian; The king is Master Lu, the real Gaotian." Later, King Yu was deprived of his title, and the last line of the hymn was also deleted.After the internal strife, the two sentences praising the King of the North and the King of Yan were also deleted. After the recitation, Chen Yucheng turned around and burned the yellow mounting paper. Everyone got up and shouted together: "May I really order the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom He Naishi to redeem the sick Lord Dongwang and enjoy wealth and honor in heaven forever!" Li Xiucheng walked out of the queue, came to the front of several cases, and spoke to all the generals.Li Xiuben was single-handedly selected by Yang Xiuqing. He has a deep gratitude to Yang Xiuqing and admires his outstanding talents.Li Xiucheng spoke affectionately about Dong Wang's illustrious military exploits since the Jintian Uprising and his extraordinary ability in governing Tianjing, praising him for his ability to predict things like a god, loving talents like his life, and loving soldiers like his son.Speaking of emotion, this strong Guangxi man burst into tears and his voice choked up. Most of the generals in the flower hall, including Chen Yucheng and Li Shixian, were also promoted by Yang Xiuqing, and they all had deep feelings for Yang Xiuqing.Xiucheng's speech brought them back to the days when they were invincible and victorious after following the Heavenly King and Eastern King.What an exciting day it was!Wuchang was captured, Jiujiang was captured, Anqing was captured, and millions of troops entered Little Paradise in an instant.In the Palace of the Heavenly King, the Eastern King, on behalf of the Heavenly King, confers titles and confers official titles on meritorious generals. The promise made by Yongan has not been broken!At that time, the soldiers of the kingdom of heaven were high-spirited and heroic, marching north and west, singing triumphantly, and reporting success frequently.What a magnificent and prosperous career this is!Seeing that Beijing was about to be captured and the whole country was about to be restored, who would have expected that the situation would change abruptly, causing Xiao Qiang to fall, the Eastern King falling in a pool of blood, and 30,000 soldiers spilling blood on Tianjing.The military strength of Heaven was greatly bruised, but the bruise was more serious to the soul.For a time, in the minds of many soldiers, the beautiful belief was destroyed, and the firm belief was shaken.Why do leaders who advocate equality for all have to formulate a strict etiquette system?Why are the sons of the same heavenly father confronted with swords and brutally poisoned?Most of the old brothers from Jintian and Lianghu have extremely deep feelings for the kingdom of heaven. They are saddened by the situation in the past two years. Instead, I miss Dong Wang, miss Dong Wang's rare military organizational skills, and even more miss the glorious years when Dong Wang led them to win battles and destroy demons... "Brothers!" Xiucheng's sonorous Guangxi mandarin voice shook the roof tiles, "Eastern King is not dead, he is in heaven with his father and brother, protecting my heavenly land and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. He often entrusts me with dreams recently, asking We loyally obey the king of heaven, learn lessons, unite again, and the day of completely eradicating the demons is not far away. My kingdom of heaven has passed the most difficult juncture, and the fortune of the country is improving. If you risk your life for two or three years, you can enjoy great wealth forever Very expensive!" At this time, a gust of wind blew out most of the candles in the flower hall, and in the seemingly absent candlelight, a picture of the Eastern King's Ascension to Heaven floated down.Suddenly, a horrifying and strange thing appeared: where the wall chart used to be, now there was a person standing upright.This person wears a crown of one dragon and two phoenixes on his head, and a gown embroidered with Nine Dragons. His eyes are piercing and his face is black and red.Isn't this Dong Wang?Everyone thought it was a mistake because they were dazzled, so they rubbed their eyes, then took a closer look, yes, it was indeed the Eastern King!Everyone shouted in their hearts: "The Eastern King has appeared!" Everyone was extremely excited, but also fearful and uneasy, and tremblingly knelt down again. "Yu cell, Xiu cell." Dong Wang's majestic voice sounded, but it was slower and hoarse than when he was alive, "The Qing demon Jiangbei camp is exhausted, you go and annihilate it quickly. The Qing demon invaded central Anhui and killed itself. Kill it in the Three Rivers area. I'm leaving." After speaking, Dong Wang got up and walked out of the flower hall, scaring everyone to kowtow and dare not look up.After a long time, everyone raised their heads, and Dong Wang had already returned to heaven.Yucheng excitedly said to everyone: "Tonight, everyone saw that Dong Wang appeared with his own eyes. The Eastern King ordered us to wipe out the Qing Yao Jiangbei camp, and eliminate Zeng Yaotou in Sanhe. Brothers, what shall we do? " "Observe the order of the Eastern King!" Everyone shouted without hesitation.