Chapter 5: The Oath of the Blood Alliance
However, for Guizhou City, which has become extremely lively, not many people have noticed the slight waves caused by the deaths of Peng Yanhui and Ma Xiyin, two "out-of-fashion stars".
Since the victory of the Battle of Guizhou, Lin Feng has widely spread "hero stickers" in the pursuit of the Han army, and invited the officials and gentry of various cities in the Guiguan area, the heads of all ethnic groups, and the chiefs of various cottages to participate in the "oath of blood alliance" in Qinglongpi, five miles east of Guizhou City, on October 30.
With the proud victory of the Great War of Guizhou as the background, in the past half a month, regardless of whether or not they really received Lin Feng's invitation, there are more and more people in Guizhou City who have heard the news and come to "go to the appointment", officials wearing various official uniforms, squires wearing silk and satin, and chieftains wearing various national costumes, coupled with the different dialects they speak, the entire Guizhou City has suddenly become a city representing "national unity".
Some of these people know each other well, some are well-known, and more have never known each other, but once everyone has the opportunity to get together, they will spontaneously discuss what this blood alliance oath is, but no one can come up with a completely convincing statement.
At first, the people in Guizhou were very scared. Although everyone knows that the battle of Guizhou was won, the water and land passages to the north have been under martial law, and no one can get through, and there are so many unruly characters in the city suddenly, I am afraid that this time it will be a disaster. However, they slowly found that these people were basically well-behaved, and with the Datang patrol soldiers who kept walking on the street, the security in the city was even better than during the previous war, so they relaxed and joined the city-wide discussion of the "Blood Alliance Oath".
As a result, a group of people gathered in the tavern and inn to talk and talk, which became the most commonplace scene in the city. A Miao leader and a Han footman quarreled with a spit splash, and a Dong chieftain quarreled with a Guizhou official......
From 25 November, during the five days he returned to Guizhou City, Lin Feng opened the door of the Jingjiang Envoy's Mansion and sat firmly in the military tent of the Chinese army. However, Lin Feng only understood the basic situation of the other party, and only talked about how they would carry out commercial trade with Jinling City and Tanzhou City in the future, without mentioning the content of the Blood Alliance Oath.
Lin Feng's style made everyone's doubts even heavier, and the discussion became more and more intense. Some people even joked privately that if you stand on the city wall of Guizhou on a random night, you can hear the buzzing of mosquitoes and flies all over the city!
At the end of November 30, when the sky was still dark, the three gates of the eastern city wall of Guizhou City were opened, the soldiers walked through the middle gate, and the officials and people of Guizhou City and the distinguished guests from all over the country walked through the north and south gates, and began to open to Qinglongpi five miles away.
As the tide of people poured eastward, the bright colors of the sky became brighter and brighter, the sky was cloudless, and the cold wind was not strong, which was a rare sunny day in recent times.
When the colorful crowd arrived at the scene, they were immediately shocked:
The entire Qinglongpi has become an unusual cemetery, and eight flat rocks have been shoveled out at the highest point of the mountain, and eight huge characters have been written in thick ink: Guizhou Great War Martyrs Cemetery.
Under this line of big characters, the whole mountain has been leveled into the shape of terraces, and on each layer of terraces, small stone tablets are neatly arranged, like a person staring at the bottom of the mountain. As early as after the victory of the Great War, the soldiers who cleaned up the battlefield had already taken the captured Southern Han soldiers according to Lin Feng's request, set fire to the corpses of the Chu and Tang soldiers, and put a handful of ashes into a small box, and then buried them under the tombstone one by one in the order of the soldiers' surnames.
On top of the mountain, there are eight well-groomed straight paths, from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. Big characters, terraced steles, and small paths, although the overall setting is very simple and rough at first glance, it has a concise grandeur and shock.
At the foot of the mountain, a neat platform was piled out of stones. At the top, a long stone wall was piled up with marble, with small names engraved on it, which were naturally all Chu and Tang soldiers who died in this battle. On the current high platform, there is only an incense case full of meat, a huge stone incense burner, and a circle of Tang Black Dragon Battle Flags around it, and nothing else.
In front of the high platform, there were already heavily armed soldiers standing at equal distances, forming a huge square open space between them, and there were already soldiers lined up in the middle of the high platform. As for the people who visited, they all gathered in the open space on the east side under the guidance of the soldiers who maintained order, and the specially invited guests stood in the front row on the west side, and the rear was still filled by an endless stream of people.
At first, there was a slight commotion and chatter in the crowd. However, seeing the thousands of small stone monuments on the hillside, and seeing all the soldiers remaining silent, the solemn and oppressive atmosphere slowly spread, and all those who had arrived stood quietly, and those who arrived later also consciously lightened their steps.
When the hour came, Lin Feng, Liu Renzhen, Wang Kui, Zhou Xingfeng, Ma Jiwei and other generals in the army, who had been standing quietly in front of the soldiers for a long time, slowly ascended to the high platform, all of them were dressed in black Tang military uniforms, and their left arms were wrapped around a bunch of white cloth.
A drumbeat representing dreary and mournful sounded from the front of the phalanx of soldiers, sending heart-wrenching sorrow to the rear. For a time, more than 30,000 people could only hear the high-pitched drumming and subtle breathing sounds.
Lin Feng took the lead, and all of them came to the stage to pick up the three pillars of incense, lit them on the torches next to them, and respectfully took turns to step forward and insert them into the large stone incense burner in front of the monument.
The grieving drums stopped. In the curling cigarette, Lin Feng turned around slowly and shouted:
"The safety of the land is bought by the soldiers with their lives and blood! We won the battle of Guizhou, but Chu Tang Nan'er killed 5,322 people on the battlefield and wounded 3,567 people! The dead heroes are buried on this mountain, and their souls will protect this land forever! Now, I ask all personnel to bow their heads and observe a half-quarter of an hour of silence for these martyrs! ”
When Lin Feng spoke, every sentence was broken, waiting for the soldiers in charge of the separation position to shout this sentence one by one. On the solemn old battlefield, rows of shouts rolled from front to back, thus setting off a gentle echo in front of the mountain, and bombarded the hearts of every personnel.
After the last sentence was shouted, Lin Feng put his right hand on his chest, turned around slowly, stood up straight, lowered his head, Liu Renzhen and the others also bowed, and all the soldiers in the middle phalanx lowered their heads at the same time, and even made a huge "brush" sound.
In this event, except for the soldiers in the necessary posts, almost all the soldiers were pulled to the scene by Lin Feng, with a total of more than 20,000 people, and there were also some representatives of the captured soldiers of the Southern Han Dynasty in the middle.
Infected by this emotion, the personnel on both sides also lowered their heads, and several children who were brought to the scene were frightened by this atmosphere, and just opened their mouths to cry once or twice, and were immediately covered by their mothers.
Lin Feng silently counted four hundred in his heart before he raised his head, turned to face the people in the audience again, and said loudly: "The blood of heroes will not be shed in vain!" On behalf of Datang, I would like to issue a 100-piece pension to every hero who sacrificed his life, and a 10-point pension to every injured hero, and I would like to invite representatives of the families of the casualties to come to the stage! ”
The main battles of the Guizhou War were basically fought by the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty and the reinforcements of the Chu State, except for some of the soldiers of the two states of He Zhao in the crime battalion, there were not many soldiers from the Guiguan area, Lin Feng selected the families of ten representatives and let them stand under the stage in advance.
With tears in their eyes, the representatives of the family members, dressed in pure white filial piety clothes, each climbed the high platform with the support of a soldier and stood in a long row. Soon, fifty soldiers came to the stage with large wooden platters filled with money, and behind the delegates stood in a neat phalanx.
This kind of on-site payment can only be symbolic, always a thousand dollars, about 8 catties in weight, a hundred dollars, how many soldiers have to serve the plate!
Although it was a shrunken version of the bereavement display, the strings of money piled up in each plate gave an alluring color in the rising sun, except for the soldiers in the middle, there was no sound, and the people and spectators on both sides all made unfree gasping sounds, and the heavy atmosphere just now was washed away a lot.
After a short display, this group of family representatives was led off the stage, and only Lin Feng and a few generals were left in the audience.
Lin Feng's words rang out again: "Guizhou, is the home of every one of our Guizhou people!" Each and every one of you has protected the peace of this place with your life, and you deserve the respect and reward you deserve! Now, in my capacity as the special envoy of the Tang Dynasty and General Xing Yunlu, I solemnly announce that all the people in the Guizhou area will be exempted from rent for three years from next year! ”
Although many people secretly began to be surprised that Lin Feng had been announcing things in the name of Datang, the content of Lin Feng's announcement at this moment was really too shocking, and it immediately caused the exclamations of everyone present, and all kinds of unbelievable voices were mixed together, like chemicals of different natures mixed together, and suddenly exploded.
"This ...... This...... Is this true? Several old men and women standing in the front row of the people couldn't help but exclaim, tears coming out of their eyes. Since ancient times, the grass people have worked hard for more than a year to pay rent, and they are exempted from three years at once, can this be true?
In addition to surprise, shock, and doubt, there were also a lot of envious eyes at the scene. These eyes naturally came from the representatives of the surrendered soldiers of the Southern Han Dynasty who were invited to watch the ceremony. An adjutant general of the Han army looked at the ecstatic soldiers and people around him, and sighed in his heart: No matter how many soldiers the Han King sends in the future, I am afraid that it will be impossible to take away the hearts of the people here!