Let's move on.

The second tube was the hardest, and I almost covered my nose to go there.

The three tubes are actually all kinds of small single rooms. It seems that the key prison is really special.

None of the people inside knew each other, some of them were sitting, some were standing, and their expressions were different.

But I still saw an acquaintance, in fact, I knew him, he didn't know me - I was just impressed with him, and I didn't even know his name. He was the sole survivor and winner of the Great Gladiatorial Fight, the slave who had been in the limelight at the funeral of the Emperor.

Although the final victor of the great gladiatorial battle will be free, in general, those victors can no longer tolerate the banality of being an ordinary person. Many of them would be loyal to the Emperor, even though the Emperor had taken them as slaves.

I thought this man had entered some army to serve his country, but it turned out that he had been locked up here all along.

I was standing in front of his cell, and he was standing staring at me.

He was half a head taller than me, muscular, and covered in scars. He had a Chinese face, thick hair and beard, and a murderous aura in his eyes, staring at me vigorously.

I asked Xiao Lizi, "Who is this person?" ”

He said: "Li Hongguang, a native of the Western Regions, was sentenced to death for running to the Western Desert Province and committing the crime of 'leaving the country'. He was the last gladiator at the funeral of the emperor. ”

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The twenty-three provinces of the Ming Empire were divided into the headquarters, the frontier, the four yi, and the four seas.

The headquarters is a large number of agricultural provinces, such as Gyeonggi, Central Plains, Hebei, Jiangnan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, etc.

The frontier is a province that is half agricultural and half pastoral, such as Xiliang, Liaoxi, Liaodong, Lingnan, etc.

The four Yi are the Western Regions, Mongolia, Yunnan, and Goryeo.

Sihai is the four major overseas provinces - the Far North, the West Desert Province, the Far South Province, and the East Sea Province.

The Overseas Provinces had no borders because no one knew where their borders were, and the four provinces were deserted, with only four fortresses serving as their capitals, guarded by the Praetorian Army. Legend has it that Siyi is a forbidden place in the sky, so the royal laws of successive dynasties have forbade entry – this is called the "crime of exiting" – and it is guarded by border guards, and violators are immediately executed.

The Far North Province is north of Liaodong. Ancient history books say that the Far North Province is a bitter cold land with huge icebergs and huge snow monsters. The provincial capital was a fortress north of the town, guarded by the royal forbidden army.

The province of Extreme South is south of Yunnan. Ancient history books say that the province of the extreme south is a land of smoke and poisonous gas, and no one has ever been able to come out alive. The provincial capital was the fortress south of the town, which was guarded by the royal forbidden army.

Donghai Province is an island province in the east. No one knows where it is, but the ancient history books say that it takes several months to sail from Shanhaiguan to the east. Its provincial capital is Fuso, which is guarded by the Royal Janissary Army. Of course, these are all things on paper, and the royal law prohibits subjects from going to sea, and even stipulates that no one is allowed to live within fifty kilometers of the coast, and the violator will be punished by the whole clan, so no one knows if there is such a province as Donghai Province, and no one knows if there is any Fuso. I even checked the budget of the Royal Budget Department, where there are funds for the troops stationed in the other three overseas provinces, but there is no money for the garrison of the Donghai Province! I guess the royal family made up a Donghai province just to save face.

The Western Desert Province is west of the Western Regions. Xiliang is a grassland province, and the Western Regions is a desert province, and the Western Desert is simply a desert within a desert. In the Western Regions Province, from east to west, the more you go, the fewer oases, and when an oasis is gone, it is the territory of the Western Desert Province. Ancient history books say that the Western Desert is a strange place, full of incredible beasts. The capital is the fortress west of the town, which is also guarded by the forbidden army.

Of course, these ancient history books are all forbidden books. I used to read it in the Central Plains, and the book that my father gave me was also slightly involved. Later, I searched carefully in the Royal Library and read a lot of true and false history books, travelogues, strange things, and novels. I've always wanted to go to the edge of this world.

And this person has actually been to the Western Desert Province!

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I looked at him.

He stared at me defiantly, too. The people who can kill out of thousands of people really have momentum!

I said to him, "People from the Western Regions? ”

The people of the Western Regions live in oases. There are enough people in the Western Liang, only tens of millions, and the people in the Western Regions are even more pitiful, they all live in an oasis in the desert, and the imperial court can't control them.

He nodded.

He was reluctant to talk about him at first, but after talking to me for a while, he was very open.

I learned about his story from a conversation with him.

His name is Li Hongguang, and he was born in an oasis in the western part of the Western Regions. That oasis was probably the last oasis, and there was never a drop of water ever since.

The so-called people from the Western Regions are all Xiliang people who can't bear the oppression of the government and run over. It's as if the people of Sichuan are all Tibetan immigrants, the people of Gyeonggi are all immigrants from Sichuan, and the rest of the people are all immigrants from Gyeonggi - of course, this is what is said in the forbidden book, but both the court and the people are against this.

However, the long years of 10,000 years have changed people's physical appearance and ideology, making those who fled to the Western Regions become "Western Regions people".

From the physical point of view, the northerners are tall and have white skin, which is all an evolution to reduce calorie consumption; Southerners, on the other hand, are slightly shorter and have slightly darker skin, which is to dissipate heat and resist the evolution of ultraviolet rays. I can even predict that in tens of thousands of years, they will hardly be a race, and maybe the northerners will have all white skin, and the southerners will have all carbon black skin.

From an ideological point of view, 10,000 years of geographical separation have produced different dialects and customs, so there is a sense of ethnic group, as if the north and the south look down on each other, and even in our place, the people on both sides of the Yellow River look down on each other. I guess in tens of thousands of years, maybe they won't recognize themselves as people from the same country.

The only way to avoid either outcome was to communicate freely, which was something that the imperial court strongly opposed, and it was precisely in order to maintain the situation of great unification that the imperial court did so. What the imperial court wants is unity, and what it gets is division - damn, another paradox!

- Alright, I'll move on to the people of the Western Regions. Although these people have run far enough and no longer play with the mainlanders, the imperial court still does not let them go. The imperial court probably has a habit of cleanliness, and always likes to make the border clean and turn the border into a no-man's land. 100 kilometres of the border are closed to people, and a large number of royal border guards patrol them all the time. As a result, neither the coastline to the east nor the land borders on the other three sides are empty.

One day, the Western Liang Army, together with the garrison of Dihua City, the capital of the Western Regions, swept the western border of the Western Regions, destroying a large number of rare oases, killing the old, weak, sick and disabled, and taking the rest back to the slave black market in the interior. The desperate men ran into the Western Desert Province in despair, and the imperial army was waiting for them to return at the border. Many died in the scorching desert, and those who returned were still captured.

Li Hongguang is one of them.

After Li Hongguang was caught, he was sold as a hard laborer in Xiliang, tanning leather for Xiliang's factory all day long.

When Emperor Zhu Zhaotian died, the imperial court collected slaves who looked like they were in good health, and then gathered them together to kill each other in the royal arena.

Li Hongguang was sold to the imperial court and entered the Colosseum, and after a great battle, he was the only one left among the last few thousand.

After he escaped death, the court asked him to be loyal to the emperor on the grounds that the emperor spared him from dying.

Perhaps everyone else would be grateful to the emperor for sparing him from dying, but Li Hongguang didn't think so, and he kept vowing to kill the emperor.

So, he was thrown into the Royal Prison Department.

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There was fire in his eyes, and he stared at me.

I guess if it weren't for the iron fence gate, he would have killed me in a second - because I'm also the Emperor's man.

He asked me, "We've gone so far, why haven't you let us go?" What are we doing wrong? ”

I said, "The book says, 'The shore of the land is not a king's minister.'" Those who have talents in the country but are not used by the emperor will also seek rebellion. "Complain about this "Ming Imperial Law", everyone does what it is written, whether it is murderous or killed! ”

He shouted, "I am not convinced! ”

I asked him, "What are you going to do?" ”

He slammed the iron gate hard: "I'm going to kill you all!" ”

I said, "Don't bother you, we'll kill ourselves all, and have faith in that." ”

At this time, I suddenly had a mischievous mentality, trying to persuade him to join the Emperor's army, which must have been very interesting.

I said, "Why don't you become an official, what a good opportunity!" ”

He roared: "The emperor killed my whole people, and I can't wait to eat his flesh and drink his blood!" How could I be his official! ”

I say:

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That's what I want you to do.

Do you think you can kill him by yelling like this here? Don't talk about you, even tens of millions of troops can't attack Chang'an.

But if you can read more books, like me, you will understand how emperors die: they were never killed by foreign enemies, they were all killed by insiders, and none of them died well. They were killed by the people of the inner court, by the people of the harem, by the people of the outer court, by the relatives of the foreign court, by the nobles, and by the military heads.

Suppose you hate someone, what would you do? Will you point out his mistakes, scold him, and make him correct? No, that's not a sign of hate, that's a sign of love.

If you hate someone, you have to keep saying to him, 'This is the prosperous age, do a good job, keep doing it,' and not only should you not go against him, but on the contrary, you should join him and let him perish faster.

What I'm going to do today is to get you to join the Emperor's army.

Once you've joined the Emperor's army, you can do whatever you want.

Didn't you say that the people of the Western Regions and the Western Liang killed your whole family, you can lead the army to kill you, and no one can control you, because you are the emperor's army. You can do whatever you want in the name of the emperor, take revenge, kill people, rob, and ruin his reputation until one day he betrays his relatives and leaves.

Maybe one day you will become a general above one person and under ten thousand people, and then what you want to do will be your business.

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He lowered his head and did not speak, as if he had already felt something.

I continued:

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Your family is no longer alive, and you are now free at last.

To be absolutely free is to abandon everything because you have nothing.

Why should you refuse, as if you still have dignity? Is your dignity and principles important, or is your revenge important?

When you go to a place, you don't have to go straight to it, as long as you have a goal in mind, you can go through it with any route.

There are two paths in front of you right now, and they are easy to do and hard to do.

The first is to be thrown into the Royal Prison so that you and your family are as if they have never been in this world, no one will remember your clan, no one will remember you, and you think the hundreds of thousands of spectators in the gladiatorial arena will remember you? You are wrong, they have long forgotten about you, they will not stop looking at other gladiators.

This is the first point, which is very simple, the easiest, and the weakest.

Second, you can join the Emperor's army. It's very difficult, it's not something that ordinary people can do.

If you do this, you will be heading for a real point of no return full of thorns.

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His hands were shaking. I understand that he has been convinced.