Outside the city of Suzhou, the high-level colorful sheds, Suzhou's civil and military officials, scholars, celebrities, and leaders of major families are all dressed brightly and stand up.

Two couplets are hung in front of the city gate, "Eighty days of wearing allegiance, the figure of the seventeenth dynasty of Taizu; 60,000 people died with one heart and righteousness, saving 300 miles of rivers and mountains in the Ming Dynasty. ”

In the distance ahead, there was a troop of men, they were ragged and gray-faced, but everyone was full of spirit and majesty.

Chen Mingyu and Yan Yingyuan rode in the front, and the first thing that caught their eyes when they approached Suzhou was this couplet. This was Yan Yingyuan's last pen before his death, because Hou Xuanyan defrauded Suzhou City and solved his death.

Chen Ming was already crying silently when he met the old tears, and these two sentences made him and the Jiangyin man behind him suddenly feel like they had met a confidant.

The defenders of Suzhou lined up, they were recruited by Gu Yanwu and Xia Wanchun, and they were pulled out for the first time. Everyone straightens their shoulders and holds their heads high.

Staying alone in the lonely city for 80 days, and seeing the pure Ming military uniform again, Yan Yingyuan felt like a world away. Looking at these recruits with red turbans and green cloth armor, the expectations in his heart recovered little by little, maybe there was really hope for Daming.

Approaching Suzhou, he and Chen Mingyu and others dismounted and handed over the whip to their own soldiers and walked to the city on foot.

Hou Xuanyan inexplicably felt that his nose was sour, how could these people still have a little human appearance, with deep-set eye sockets, dark eye sockets, and faces burned by artillery fire, there was no white place.

"Which one is Yan Yingyuan?"

"Exactly down there." Yan Yingyuan has no official status, so he doesn't dare to call himself a subordinate official, and he is just a retired warden. Dolgon gave the order to shave his hair, and the people in Jiangyin were excited, and everyone was unwilling to shave their hair and accept it. Chen Mingyu, the warden at the time, had the intention of opposing the Qing Dynasty, but knew that he had no ability to command troops, so he remembered his old friend Yan Yingyuan. Only then did he dig out this rare shining point at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and he did a great job of leaving a name in history at once.

Hou Xuanyan hurriedly stepped forward: "I have admired General Yan's name for a long time, I can finally see the true face, come on, let's enter the city quickly." After speaking, he looked at the scribe next to him who had not dried his tears, and Hou Xuanyan asked eagerly: "This must be Chen Mingyu Chen, right?" ”

Chen Mingyu was flattered, and although Hou Xuanyan on the opposite side looked young, he was indeed a real governor. The official position is several times greater than that of him, a nine-rank warden. "Chen Mingyu is a district official, how dare he call himself an adult in front of Lord Xiaohou."

The literati and gentry in the Jiangnan area, because they admired Hou Dongzeng, liked to call Hou Xuanyan a little waiter. At this point, Hou Xuanyan had reluctantly recognized the reality and accepted it with a smile.

Hou Xuanyan held one arm in one hand and said: "Welcome the Jiangyin boy into the city today, how can there be any adults or adults, come, let's enter the city together." ”

As soon as you enter Suzhou City, you will see a crowd of people on the street. The eyes of the people were full of awe and curiosity, and they looked at this Jiangyin soldier and horse with their feet crossed. The small Jiangyin City, because of the 80-day feat of resisting the Qing Dynasty, has long been famous in the land south of the Yangtze River. You must know that Shi Kefa sat on the army of the Southern Ming Dynasty and guarded Yangzhou for only one day. Compared with Yangzhou, Jiangyin is difficult to compare with the city wall weapons, money, food, soldiers and horses. Under such extreme conditions, these natives of Jiangyin guarded 80,000 Qing soldiers for a full 80 days.

If it weren't for Hou Xuanyan inviting them to evacuate the whole city and come to Suzhou, they would have defended...

There are more and more people on the road, and the Suzhou recruits are struggling to keep the road open, and the bustling area in front of the road section and the front of Hou Xuanyan's house has been blocked by the crowd.

Hou Xuanyan simply stopped, climbed a stone staircase, and swept his eyes over countless people. Stretched out his hand and clenched his fists and said loudly: "Fathers and fellow villagers, please listen to me." ”

Although the street was overcrowded, because of this sound, it immediately became silent, and the woman holding the ignorant child in her arms also covered the baby's mouth, afraid that he would cry and not be able to hear Hou Xuanyan's voice clearly.

Hou Xuanyan raised his voice and said loudly: "Everyone, it is difficult for Jiashen to come, the traitor Wu Sangui opened the Shanhaiguan and led the Manchu Qing into the customs. In the past year, Shenzhou has sunk and the people have suffered. Yangzhou is not far from us, and the corpses of the killed are all over the field, and the blood is drifting. Jiading, my hometown of Hou Xuanyan, was also slaughtered, and the women and women in my township were humiliated. I often say to the remnants of Jiading, "My hometown father and elder have suffered this hardship, and we Jiading men should all die in battle." Now we have one life spared, if nothing else, but for revenge.

These people in front of you are good men in Jiangyin, and they don't have the capital crime of Jiading men, because they have kept their hometown. Their wives, sisters, and daughters need not be insulted by adultery; Their ancestral tablets and ancestral tombs will not be trampled on. ”

The street was silent, as if a needle could be heard clearly when it fell to the ground, and the men in Jiangyin, including Yan Yingyuan, all bowed their heads proudly. They deserve all the praise, that's the dignity they fought so hard for. Xu Yuanbao, Fan Xian and other Jiading people have long been teary-eyed and unable to cry. The people of Suzhou feel the same way, they are not far from Yangzhou, many people's relatives are in Yangzhou, the Qing soldiers killed for ten days, and they killed their relatives and friends. Thinking that Suzhou had not yet fallen, they were both glad and afraid.

Hou Xuanyan's eyes were also damp, he breathed a long sigh of relief, and said loudly: "Now, the iron cavalry of the Qing soldiers is already on the way to Suzhou, and I want to take you to hold Suzhou." I want to take you to protect your father and mother from being killed, and your wife and daughter from being insulted, are you willing to fight with me? ”

"I am willing to follow Lord Xiaohou to fight to the death!"

An excited and trembling civil official suddenly turned red and shouted. Hou Xuanyan turned his head and saw that it was his daughter-in-law Gu Ling'er's second uncle, Gu Shouzheng.

Hong Yixun, Xu Yuanbao and other Jiading people roared desperately.

One person moved, everyone followed, and the people around were quickly infected by it, and they all roared: "Fight to the death!" Fight to the Death....

It was like a stone thrown into the calm water of the lake, rippling and rippling, and with them as the center, the people who were black and overwhelming as far as the eye could see responded and shouted.

In the small attic of the Hou Mansion, Ji'er put her arms around Gu Ling'er and stared at the back of Hou Xuanyan in the center of ten thousand people, her eyes were like pure wine, and she was already drunk before she drank it.

After a long time, she came to her senses and looked back suddenly, but Xiaoxiao, who was now sitting beside her, was also staring at the front of her stupidly, with a light on her face that she had never seen before, and those eyes, which seemed to be dripping.

Ji'er took a sip and scolded in her heart: "Shameless little hoof, I have a spring heart, and sooner or later I will hook up with Brother Xiaohou..."

In the teahouse on the side of the street, eight sturdy and burly men beside Gu Youde escorted him to sit upstairs and drink tea.

He picked up the tea bowl, blew the tea leaves, and said with a smile: "This little monkey is more refined than the real monkey, even I was almost touched by him..."