"Yes. Guo Hua replied in the affirmative. The days of fighting side by side with the villagers made him deeply understand the hatred of the people for the green headband, and the hope and dependence on the officials and soldiers.

Guo Hua took the opportunity to tell his thoughts on the future frontier defense of the Western Regions.

He suggested that the people should be organized together, and that each village and tribe should have two or three experienced sergeants.

And establish a communication post road between the villages, as well as between the villages and the Bondage Mansion and Broken Leaf City. Allowing the people to pass on the news from village to village can greatly reduce the trouble caused by the lack of manpower in the government and facilitate the transmission of information.

At the same time, villages, towns and tribes can form a situation of mutual assistance, and when they encounter a small group of bandits, they can cooperate and confront each other.

In the face of a large group of bandits such as green bands, the villages and towns can coordinate and confront each other, which can buy more time for the arrival of a large number of officers and soldiers.

They were summoned this time to expose the criminal deeds of the Flame Cultists, to bear witness to the public execution, and to help the voice of justice.

Second, we can take advantage of this opportunity to organize them, and the general's office will come forward and appoint the village heads, fort chiefs, and village soldiers captains of each village.

In the past, the officials of the villages and tribes tended to only manage household registration, taxation, and forced labor, and had no military powers.

Guo Shuzheng's suggestion shocked Yang Shuzheng, but he thought it was true.

Guo Hua's idea sounds a little similar to the government military system implemented by the Tang Dynasty before, but it is actually very different.

The so-called government military system is based on each prefecture, and the people are peasants in their spare time, busy with farming. When the state needs to be drafted, they bring their own horses, weapons, and dry rations to perform military service.

Later, as the land became more and more concentrated in the hands of some landlords, the people lost even their land, where did they have the money to prepare horses and ordnance?

Later, the imperial court had to implement the conscription system, that is, the state prepared ordnance and horses, and recruited ordinary people to join the army.

In the final analysis, it is the state that gathers the people to form an army.

Guo Hua's method was to decentralize some organizational and command powers, mobilize the people to form village soldiers, and send official and military representatives to coordinate management.

The common people can spontaneously fight against small bandits, or they can mobilize as a whole to defend themselves against large groups of foreign invaders.

It can effectively organize the people without investing a lot of military pay and manpower.

It's wonderful.

Yang Shuzheng thought about it again and again, agreed to Guo Hua's suggestion, and planned to organize several villages and tribes as pilot projects first, and then promote it if the effect is really good.

At the same time, it is also necessary to do a good job of defense, the Holy Fire Cultists are very organized, and they must be guarded against coming to rob the Dharma Field.

Speaking of the matter of convening the people to participate in the public execution meeting, Guo Hua and the three of them personally went out and brought the notice issued by Yang Shuzheng, the general of Broken Leaves, to lobby in various villages and tribes.

The people were very happy about the arrival of Guo Hua and the three people, good wine, good meat and good hospitality, and heard that the officials and soldiers had annihilated a large number of "green bands", and they were even more excited.

As for going to the scene to expose the brutal acts of the green bands and appointing the captain of the village soldiers, everyone quickly reached a consensus.

Each village actively elected its own "kung fu" masters—some brilliant and experienced hunters—and eight or nine hundred people of all ethnic groups went to Shattered Leaf City to cheer on the execution of the bandits.

It took a total of four days to go back and forth, and Guo Yu brought nearly 1,000 people to Broken Leaf City in a mighty team.

In the past few days, the authorities have also publicized the repeated incursions and massacres of the people of the surrounding tribes by the Holy Fire Cultists, and the people in the city generally know what is happening.

In order to avoid long nights and dreams, Yang Shuzheng set the execution time in the early morning of the next day, and the execution was carried out immediately after the morning meal.

This day was very lively, in the city of broken leaves, the people in the surrounding villages and tribes, bustling with thousands of people.

Yang Shuzheng ordered people to close the city gate, and deployed 7,000 elite soldiers around the court to protect the safety of the people.

Nearly 700 condemned prisoners, one column after another densely lined up in a phalanx, each with two sword soldiers standing behind them, shiny horizontal knives out of the sheath, murderous.

In front of it is a high platform with wooden planks made up.

Yang Shuzheng, Guo Hua and others stood with their hands behind their backs on the high platform, majestic.

Before he could speak on the stage, there was already a lot of discussion below, and the people in those villages and tribes who had been invaded and slaughtered by the Green Head Belt began to denounce the evil of the Green Head Belt with the people around them.

Speaking of grief and indignation, some people simply climbed onto the high platform and made tearful accusations.

It didn't take long for the people's emotions to be mobilized - after all, these Holy Fire Cultists had attacked Broken Leaf City a while ago, taking advantage of the chaos to destroy several centuries-old ancient Buddhist temples and kill more than 500 monks.

The brutality of these guys is also obvious to all.

"Kill them—"

"Kill them—"

"Cut them with a thousand cuts—"

"General Yang, let us call the shots—"

The cries of the masses, the mountains and the tsunami. Yang Shuzheng took the opportunity to take a few steps forward, impassionedly, and delivered a speech.

It is roughly to denounce the brutality and bloodiness of these Holy Fire cultists, as well as their insidious cunning, and finally said that they will protect the peace of the party, and for any rioters and invaders, those who dare to offend the people of the Tang Dynasty will be punished from far and near.

With the support of the people, the execution officially began.

Executions also pay attention to rituals, which mainly play a deterrent role. Starting from the first row, the horizontal knife was raised high and fell, and dozens of heads rolled on the ground.

There was a hysterical cheer from the people.

In the blink of an eye, three rows were cut. There are no Holy Fire cultists who have come to rob the Dharma Field.

This is not like the style of the Holy Fire cultists, they can endure the public execution of so many people?

They value the dignity of their religion very much. For those who dare to challenge their authority, they have always been willing to fight back with several times the force. In order to maintain the spiritual deterrent effect of the religion on the infidels, so that they are always afraid of themselves.

To talk about this kind of thing, I really can't help but wonder.

Guo Hua and Yang Shuzheng had just exchanged opinions, wondering if those Holy Fire Cultists might really not come.

There's a movement over there.

A group of fast horses rushed over like crazy, not many people, that is, more than twenty people, each brandishing a long scimitar in his hand, very arrogant.

Like a big ship breaking through the river, a group of ordinary people watching the excitement were so frightened that they hurriedly flashed out of a way.

More than 20 people dare to come and rob the Dharma field?

Six or seven hundred people are being tortured here.

Odd.

Guo Hua felt that something was wrong, and hurriedly pulled Yang Shuzheng aside, signaling him to wait and see what happened.

There were only two dozen people coming, and either they had backup, or they were coming for a few people.

Among the six or seven hundred people who were executed, there were big names in their Holy Fire Sect.

Yang Shuzheng understood immediately, suppressed the fire in his heart, and let them in.

I saw the two dozen or so Holy Fire Cultists, showing a reckless attitude, slashing left and right with scimitars in their hands and rushing into the death row array.

In the blink of an eye, they came to the rear of the death row camp and surrounded the two old men.

The two riders did not even get off their horses, but each bent down and picked up an old man in his arms, and then turned his horse and left.

These people are too clean and neat, fast, accurate, and ruthless.

But it didn't work. With Guo Yu and the three of them here, no matter how high the master is, he has to take a break.

The three of them swept up, landed on each other's horses, slapped one to death, snatched their horses, and chased and beaten.

These people are indeed masters, and they are very fast.

But it didn't last long, and they were cleaned up by Guo Hua and them. The focus is on the two old men. They were all caught alive.

It happened suddenly, and many people didn't see what was going on, and the battle was over here.

Yang Shuzheng ordered to speed up the execution, hurry up and finish the work, and go back to interrogate the two old men carefully.

These two people originally lived in the city, and their brothers and sons were not elders in the temple, nor were they big families. Usually, the two brothers depend on each other and open a cooked butcher shop together. His braised pig's head, sauce-roasted large intestine, and charcoal-grilled pork ribs are very famous in Broken Leaf City.

It may be that people are too old to work, and although they are popular, the business has been doing little and barely maintaining.

Let's try it.

After a night's trial, the two old men didn't say a word useful.

These Flame cultists were either hard-mouthed, or they lied and talked nonsense, which made the interrogators even more angry.

There was nothing to be done about it, and a group of soldiers hurried outside the general's mansion, and two people were also detained—looking at the costumes, they were also Flame Cultists.

Hey, there's still one in town. Why are these people like rats and cockroaches, why can't they catch them all?

When I asked, it turned out that these two people secretly went to the house of the two old men—in the front and back yards of his house—and were rummaging in the house.

happened to be blocked by the group of soldiers sent by Yang Shuzheng.

As we explained earlier, this General Yang Shuzheng was delicate and sensitive, and after knowing that these two old men had more serious problems, he immediately sent someone to search their homes carefully.

The two people who caught it seemed to be quite familiar with the old man's house, and after a few rummags, they found a secret room.

As soon as the secret room was opened, the officers and soldiers rushed in, grabbed them, and found all the things in the secret room.

It turned out that although these two old men were not noble people in the Holy Fire Sect, they also had extremely special identities - they were the messengers of the Holy Fire Sect in Shattered Leaf City.

All kinds of operations of the Holy Fire Cult, big and small, such as information exchanges, all passed through the two of them. They communicate with each other.

A lot of letters were found, including two large wooden boxes.

Yang Shuzheng instructed the staff not to rush to translate first, but to read it quickly according to the time and date, from near to far. If there is important information, report it in a timely manner.

It doesn't matter if you check this one, and you find out another earth-shattering secret.

It turned out that a Great Elder of the Holy Fire Sect of the Great Stone Country persuaded a governor and general of the Great Stone Kingdom to send 100,000 troops to attack Talas City.

At the same time, in order to ensure the smooth capture of Talas City, the Great Elder also sent his own messengers from all walks of life to secretly gather the Holy Fire Cultists in Talas and Shattered Leaf City, asking them to cooperate with each other and fight together.

Shattered Leaf City is also among the targets, on the one hand, to contain and make it difficult to aid Talas, and on the other hand, once Talas conquers, Dashi will immediately send a large army over and take Shattered Leaf again.

100,000 people, plus those Flame Cultists living in the territory, to say the least, 1670,000.

And the date of their general attack was five days later, on April 18.