On the second day of the Fangla uprising, Xu Ziling learned the news that shocked him extremely much. At that time, he was in Deqing County, assisting Bai Mei and Fang Jie in completing the finishing work of the Manichaean mission.

He knew that Fang La might revolt in advance, but he never expected it to happen in such a hurry, nearly a year in advance.

Of course, for him, the success or failure of Fang La's uprising was not the most important thing, he just wanted to save Fang Baihua's life. But this alone is enough to show that he will inevitably stand on Fang La's side, and even contribute to him.

As far as he knew, the timing of the Fangla uprising in history was impartial, and it happened to hit the critical period of the Northern Expedition of the Huizong court. It can be said that the failure of the Northern Expedition later was due to the factors of the Fangla Uprising.

As soon as the emperor learned that Fang La had revolted in the south, he immediately ordered the northern expedition to be stopped, and the army originally used to deal with the Liao State was sent to the south to conquer Fang La.

Even if he revolted in advance, the odds of victory were still very small, but the matter had come to this point, Xu Ziling had to act with Fang Jie first.

Since Fang La killed Gu Xiuxiu's guards, Gu Xiuxiu painted his face and pasted it on the notice board of Hangzhou City, before Fang La's army arrived in Hangzhou, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, he was unwilling to go back, and ran business with Fang Jie in the prefectures and counties near Hangzhou to complete the order from Fang Baihua.

What gave him a headache was that Yao Mengling, who was originally going to send Fang Baihua, was unwilling to go to Hangzhou and wanted to follow him alive or dead. He had no choice but to ask Bai Mei to find a female Manichaean disciple to take care of her.

Fortunately, the girl was quite sensible and followed him around, but she pretended to be deaf and dumb and ignored what he and Fang Jie and the others did, even if she guessed that it was not a good thing.

A few days later, on October 19, the news of Fangla's uprising had reached Hangzhou, and Zhizhou Gu An ordered the city gate to be blocked, and at the same time began to gather the Xiang army and the township army from the nearby county town to enter the city to guard it.

Xu Ziling and Fang Jie also received a message from Fang Baihua at this time, asking them to go to Taizhou to help Lu Shinang, who was in charge of Taizhou's missionary and response affairs.

Lu Shisang was the head of Manichaeism in Taizhou, and his status in Manichaeism belonged to that of a local envoy, slightly lower than that of the deputy sect leader.

When he was collecting grain and grass and preaching in Taizhou, he was accidentally discovered by the Secret Investigation Division, and was assassinated by a group of experts in the Taizhou Mansion, and almost died many times. Xu Ziling and Fang Jie's mission is to help him resist the government's arrest until Fang La's army arrives in response to the uprising.

The Secret Investigation Department is an espionage agency under the jurisdiction of Zhongshu Province, which is under the control of the right prime minister, and is responsible for supervising local people and officials, collecting all kinds of information, and has the power to request the cooperation of the local government when encountering people or things that violate the imperial court.

By the time Xu Ziling and the others arrived in Ninghai County, Taizhou, it was already two days later. Under the guidance of the Manichaeans, they met Lu Shisang in an inn in the county town of Ninghai.

He was a man of about forty years of age, burly and rugged, but neatly dressed, well-behaved, and had the demeanor of a scribe.

Knowing that Xu Ziling and Fang Jie were sent by Fang Baihua to assist him, he was immediately excited and truthfully informed the two of them of his thoughts.

In fact, Lu Shisang is not afraid of the assassination of the Taizhou government and the secret investigation department, although his martial arts are not the best, but it is easy to protect himself.

It's just that he can't wait for Fangla's army to come, because the Taizhou Mansion is forcibly recruiting more than 1,000 people to transport grain for the imperial court, from Xianju County to Sanmen Bay, and one-third of these people are Manichaean believers.

According to the news from them, the officials in charge of escorting the grain and grass in order to transport the grain and grass to Sanmen Bay as soon as possible, beat and scolded the people who transported the grain at every turn, and the people were overwhelmed and resentful.

He wanted to do it earlier, but because the Secret Investigation Department was always paying attention to him, it was inconvenient for him to do it for the time being, but at this time, with the help of Xu Ziling and Fang Jie, he could implement the plan in advance.

The plan was that Xu Ziling and his five hundred Manichaeans under Lu Shisang would wait near Datian County, where the grain transportation route must pass, and then as long as they killed the officials who transported the grain and led the oppressed people to revolt, they could take Datian County by chance.

Xu Ziling and the two thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. He also knew that since the uprising had been declared, it was necessary to make a big noise as soon as possible and attract more people to join in.

When the time is ripe, Lu Shisang will deliberately appear in Ninghai County to attract people from the secret investigation department and the government to reduce the danger of Xu Ziling's actions.

Since they were going to the front, Xu Ziling explained to Yao Mengling and told her to stay in Ninghai County first, while he and Fang Jie began to go to Datian County with the Manichaeans.

……

Hangzhou City, inside the Wuxian Building.

Fang Baihua looked at the news about the rebel army presented by the shopkeeper, and a relaxed smile appeared on her face.

The shopkeeper on the side was also full of smiles, and the rebels defeated 5,000 soldiers and horses in one fell swoop, and there was nothing more exciting than this.

"You go and write a few letters and tell the envoys of Yuezhou and Mingzhou," Fang Baihua said softly, looking at the door of Wuxian Building as she spoke, "You can start acting." ”

The shopkeeper answered, bowed slightly, and turned to leave. As he left, three people, one old and two young, walked in at the door.

Fang Baihua pretended to look at the old man who walked in casually, but when she saw that the old man suddenly turned his head to look at her, she immediately turned her head to the other side.

The old man was followed by two young girls, one of whom looked to be thirteen or fourteen years old, and seemed to be a maid.

After finding a table and sitting down, the old man called the shopkeeper, asked the woman next to him to order, and asked casually, "Does the little brother know where there is news of Manichaeism?" ”

The shopkeeper was stunned and replied, "Old man, this Manichaeism is now a cult, where do I know about them." ”

The old man smiled, turned his head, and said loudly: "Then you have seen a boy named Xu Ziling, about seventeen or eighteen years old?" ”

Fang Baihua raised her eyebrows when she heard this, turned her head to look, and just saw the old man looking at her with a smile.

Seeing that the old man was looking at Fang Baihua, the shopkeeper was shocked in his heart, and replied: "Although there are many people in the store on weekdays, there are many seventeen or eighteen years old, but there are not many who know their names. ”

"It's all right," said the old man, turning back and waving his hand, "go down and prepare your meal." ”

The shopkeeper nodded and left, and when he turned around, he saw Fang Baihua walking over.

"The predecessor is the famous 'Iron Arm' Zhou Wei, right?"

The old man watched her sit on the empty chair next to her, and sighed softly: "The old man has retired for so many years, and I never thought that anyone would remember this name." ”

Fang Baihua looked at the old man and said, "You were the existence that swept the entire martial arts back then, and who among the martial artists who wandered the rivers and lakes didn't know your name?" ”

The old man smiled and did not speak.

But the woman on the side suddenly asked, "You are Sister Baihua, right?" ”

"You are Sister Mingxia," Fang Baihua glanced at her a few times, nodded and said, "Sure enough, she is as beautiful as a flower." ”

Ming Xia smiled lightly: "I have often heard Ziling mention your sister, saying that my sister's martial arts are extraordinary, and women are not allowed to shave their eyebrows, and today I saw that it was really the case." But my sister doesn't know where Ziling is, we have been looking for him in this city for several days and have not heard from him. ”

"He's not in Hangzhou City now," Fang Baihua's expression was a little unnatural, and he said softly: "He helped me go out to run errands." ”

Hearing this, the old man's face became gloomy, and he said coldly: "You have been planning for so long, and there are many high-ranking people in Manichaeism, there are not many more than him, and there is no less than him, why bother to pull him in, you tell me where he is, I will go to him." ”

Feeling the strong momentum on the old man's body, Fang Baihua frowned and said, "These things were done by him voluntarily, not by me forcing him to do them. ”

The fist under the old man's table condensed slightly, and said in a deep voice: "You just need to tell me where he is?" ”

Ming Xia looked at their tense appearance, hurriedly walked to the old man's side, hugged his arm and persuaded: "Master, Ziling, he can do this for Sister Baihua, there should be a reason for him, don't embarrass Sister Baihua." ”

The old man looked at Fang Baihua and snorted coldly: "I hope you can come to Hangzhou as soon as possible." As he spoke, he withdrew the breath he had released.

……

A few days later, east of Daejeon County.

A snake-like procession of grain transporters walked slowly on the post road.

In the middle of the procession were the men pushing the grain carts, and on both sides were the officers and soldiers in charge of escorting. At the front of the line, a man rode a horse, turning around and cursing from time to time.

The scolded officers and soldiers will spill their anger on the people pushing the grain carts, and they will be whipped at them with a whip. The people were in pain, unwilling to endure the humiliation, and occasionally scolded a few words, but once the officials and soldiers heard it, they would be pulled out and beaten severely.

When the team passed through a mountain forest, a gust of wind blew.

The escort officer saw a faint figure scurrying in the nearby woods, and ordered the officers and soldiers to stop.

The adjutant next to him asked, "My lord, what's going on, why did you stop here?" ”

The escort officer looked at the mountains and forests and said, "Look over there, are there many people there?" ”

The adjutant looked at it and said with a smile: "Why should your lord worry about the sky. It's just a robber fighting in the mountains, and even if there is a plot against us, how can my 500 officers and soldiers get along well. ”

The escort officer nodded: "Yes." It's just that I see that the mountains and forests here are very evil, so I told these untouchables to move quickly and get out of this mountain forest earlier. ”

"All right," the adjutant replied, and yelled at the back, "it's all sloppy, and if anyone drags on and spoils the matter, his rations will be deducted." ”

The people suddenly complained again, the rations distributed to them by the officials and soldiers were not much, and this grain transportation was manual work, and if the rations were deducted, it would be equivalent to half a life.

"What a noise! Let's go! The adjutant whipped a whip on a talking man next to him, "Don't talk nonsense, put all your strength on your legs, if Lao Tzu finds out that he is talking here, it won't be as simple as eating whips." ”

The man nodded again and again: "What the official said is that the little one doesn't dare." ”

The adjutant withdrew the whip and said loudly: "Hmph, it's good to be interesting, I hope you can understand, if you are disobedient, it will be difficult for me to do it." ”

Suddenly, there was a shrill hissing sound in the sky.

The adjutant looked up and saw a strange large bird hovering in the sky, making a chilling hissing sound.