With the earth-shattering roar, 500,000 imperial court crusaders were blown up, under the first battle, more than 300,000 dead and wounded, more than 100,000 captured, the remnants of the army who fled back were only 30,000 or 40,000, and the Yizhou army on the left and right won a complete victory.

The news came back to Chang'an, and the world shook.

"Who the hell is the leader of the rebels!" Li Longji was terrified, although the other party had a geographical advantage, his side was an army of 500,000! was almost wiped out in the first battle, and the Tang Dynasty has never suffered such a defeat since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Moreover, there are only one million soldiers in the entire territory of Datang, and more than 400,000 troops were lost in this battle, which made Li Longji feel painful.

"This ......" The civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty all looked puzzled, they only knew that there were anti-thieves in Yizhou, and they were born as bandits, but they didn't know anything else. In their opinion, it is just tens of thousands of bandits, although they occupy the entire territory of Yizhou, as long as the imperial court and the heavenly army arrive, it will be successfully pacified. didn't expect the ending to be so tragic, and he fought the worst defeat in the history of Datang. When did the bandits become stronger than the regular army of the imperial court?

"Your Majesty!" A military general came out of the crowd and said: "It is said that the rebel will summon the heavenly thunder, and my 500,000 army will suffer heavy losses by the heavenly thunder. ”

"Demons!?"

Li Longji and the Manchu Dynasty were all panicked, don't look at their high and powerful positions, but in the final analysis, they are just mortals, how can they be opponents when they encounter demons who can summon heavenly thunder.

"Your Majesty, don't panic!" is still the general, and said loudly: "What about the demons, Your Majesty's ancestor is Taishang Laozi, there are countless Taoist cultivators, and a hundred years ago, Master Xuanzang took the scriptures, Buddhism is prevalent, just send the Taoist chiefs and abbots of various factions to remove the demons, and the demons are all hands on to capture." Once the demons are eliminated, Yizhou is not a problem. ”

After hearing these words, Li Longji nodded again and again: "What the general said is right, since this is the case, immediately order the Taoist temples and Buddhist temples in the world, and send the archmage who can subdue demons and subdue demons to Yizhou to subdue demons!" ”

"Yes!"

……

A month later, hundreds of monks poured into Yizhou, originally they all came to Yizhou to subdue demons and subdue demons according to the will of the pilgrimage, but when they probed through mana and found that the leader of Yizhou anti-thieves was completely human, obviously they had no choice.

As cultivators, it is their duty to subdue demons and subdue demons, but they can't do anything to ordinary people. As a cultivator of the righteous path, you can't kill mortals, and once you kill mortals, it will cause karma, and it is almost hopeless to become immortals and attain the Tao in the future. Of course, they can also choose to fall into the devil's path, but as a decent monk, who wants to fall into the devil's path!

So when these monks found out that the traitor was an ordinary person, most of them returned to Chang'an one after another, saying that the rebel was just a mortal and they could not interfere.

As for the small number of people who did not return to Chang'an, they went to find out the reason for the victory of the anti-thief. When these people found out that the reason for the victory of the thieves was that the Fang Shi had researched gunpowder with extremely powerful explosions, they returned to Chang'an, and then told Li Longji the results of their investigation, but they did not get the formula for the gunpowder. After all, this is a mortal business, and they don't want to meddle in it. The reason is very simple, if the anti-thief rebellion succeeds and becomes the Ninety-Five, won't these people just sit on wax!

Therefore, mortal things are solved by mortals, and they will not be involved, which is the best choice for them.

After Li Longji learned that the anti-thief was only a mortal, and the reason for winning was to create a super powerful weapon called gunpowder, his heart was even more panicked than before. If the anti-thief is a demon, he still has to say that these heavenly masters and mages will clean it up, but if the anti-thief is a mortal who has mastered super weapons, then his country may not be stable.

"How's that for good? How good is that? ”

Just when Li Longji was panicked, and the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty were also trembling, Yizhou actually sent a list of ministers. The anti-thief Zuo Xiaoyou expressed his willingness to be a minister, as long as Li Longji recognized his identity as the king of Yizhou.

Li Longji first breathed a sigh of relief, and then became furious. In the past hundred years, Datang has never ceded an inch of land, but has continued to expand, but Zuo Xiaoyou actually wants to gnaw on the huge territory of Yizhou.

You must know that Yizhou is on the edge of Chang'an, if Yizhou is handed over to Zuo Xiaoyou, Chang'an's safety will become a problem, which is why Li Longji will send 500,000 regular troops to extinguish the anti-thieves, it is really the geographical location of Yizhou is too important. And Yizhou is next to Tubo, in case Zuo Xiaoyou and Tubo are in cahoots, Datang is in danger!

"The Tang Dynasty, how can it be ceded to others!" Although Li Longji was not very good, he still showed his imperial domineering at this moment, immediately rejected Zuo Xiaoyou's list of ministers, and gathered the army again, vowing to break through Yizhou and kill Zuo Xiaoyou!

However, Zuo Xiaoyou was very lucky, because it was already early winter at this time, and it was obviously unrealistic to send troops in winter, so the army could only remain assembled, and only wait for the spring of the next year to conquer Yizhou again.

After Zuo Xiaoyou got Li Longji to call the army again and come to conquer it in the spring of next year, he couldn't help but sneer and immediately ordered the 'Gunpowder Bureau' in Yizhou to speed up the production of explosives packs. If the Tang army doesn't come, if it really comes, he doesn't mind changing the dynasty decades early.

The topography of the Yizhou Basin ensures that the winter in Yizhou is not difficult, and the only thing to worry about is that the sunshine in Yizhou is insufficient and very humid, which also makes it difficult to preserve gunpowder in Yizhou. After all, explosives packets are very damp, so the preservation of gunpowder becomes a problem.

Fortunately, the monks were very experienced, and thanks to their efforts, the preservation of gunpowder was properly solved, and there was no need to worry about the use of gunpowder in the coming year. And Zuo Xiaoyou can also take advantage of this time to strengthen the military and political power of Yizhou.

For those families and officials who know the current affairs, Zuo Xiaoyou still chooses to retain, and those who are loyal to the auditorium, Zuo Xiaoyou can only order the men to be sent to the labor camp, and the women to the teaching department, learn music, dance or something, and serve the rich men in the future, at least they don't have to live too hard lives.

No one disliked Zuo Xiaoyou's orders, because compared to those orders that punished the nine clans at every turn, Zuo Xiaoyou at least didn't kill a person, and many people even said that Zuo Xiaoyou was too merciful, and he must be a benevolent monarch in the future.

Left and right, hehe. It is true that the views of the ancients and modern people are different, and the ancient people did not attach importance to human life at all.

In just a few months, Zuo Xiaoyou completely controlled the military and political power in Yizhou, and then began to implement various government decrees, one of which was fiercely supported by the entire low-level people in Yizhou.

All children who have reached the age of five can be enrolled in government-run schools and receive five years of compulsory education free of charge. After completing their studies, those who choose the best can enter careers or other fields.

In ancient times, because of the scarcity of paper, and educational resources are in the hands of the upper class, the opportunity for the people at the bottom to read and write is very difficult, although the Tang Dynasty has implemented the imperial examination system, but the vast majority of people who can read are still those who have some family resources, and the people at the bottom can fill their stomachs, which is good, how can they have the opportunity to study.

And the system of Zuo Xiaoyou directly gave the people at the bottom a ladder to the top, and all of a sudden, the image of Zuo Xiaoyou in the hearts of the people of Yizhou instantly became extremely tall, even taller than the Jade Emperor, and hundreds of people even set up an immortal tablet for Zuo Xiaoyou at home, hoping that Zuo Xiaoyou will live a long life and be 100 years old, and can bless their descendants with the opportunity to read and become literate and become superior people.

However, although this decree was supported by the people at the bottom, it was resisted by a huge number of middle- and upper-level officials and scholars. Nothing else, if the grass people at the bottom have the opportunity to read and write, what will happen to them, the vested interests of the upper class? Thinking that in the future, their children and grandchildren will not have the advantage of poetry and book heirlooms, but will be trampled under the feet of mud legs, they can't accept it.

Faced with this situation, Zuo Xiaoyou showed his iron-fisted methods, and directly sent troops to exterminate the clan and raid the family, so that these high-ranking scholars and masters would become prisoners of labor reform, and kill chickens to show monkeys.

Under the iron-fisted methods of Zuo Xiaoyou, no one dared to stand up against him, and everyone performed their duties tremblingly, for fear that Zuo Xiaoyou would be caught by the handle and become a prisoner.

Seeing that these people were so obedient, Zuo Xiaoyou was also relieved. Originally, he thought that once these people were all hard bones, he couldn't help but launch G, and when the time came, let these people taste the power of the little guards at the bottom, and see if your bones are still hard?

It turned out that the left and the right looked up at them, and before he could exert himself, these people fell.

Time passed unconsciously, just after the spring of the second year, the imperial court sent 500,000 troops, and this time the troops were divided into three routes, one way 200,000 troops from Hanzhong into the Sword Pavilion, one route to the east 200,000 water and land troops along the river, one route to the 100,000 army from Shangyong to the northeast, vowing to break through the Yizhou defense line, eliminate the thieves, and recover Yizhou.

In the face of the three-way army of the imperial court, Zuo Xiaoyou did not panic, but the soldiers were divided into three routes, and the 50,000 special forces trained by themselves carried a large amount of gunpowder, and the soldiers were divided into three ways to deal with the three-way army of the imperial court.

Yizhou is good on this point, easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is not a problem to use one as ten, and the 50,000 special forces trained on the left and small right are much more powerful than the regular army of the Tang Dynasty, plus the local defenders in Yizhou, it is not difficult to deal with the imperial army. Because of Zuo Xiaoyou's policy that the sons of grass people can go to school for free, those low-level Shuzhou defenders who joined the army can be said to be loyal to Zuo Xiaoyou, and even support him with all their hearts.

The two armies fought, and although they had to shoot a round of arrows at each other first, the ordinary bows and arrows of the imperial army met the explosive arrows of the Yizhou army. After the Yizhou bow and arrow tied to the gunpowder tube were shot, even if they couldn't hit anyone, the gunpowder tube could still injure the imperial court army within two meters of the surrounding area after the gunpowder tube exploded. What was even more unfortunate was that their archers were almost wiped out by the bombing, and they were no longer useful on the battlefield.

The mission of the Yizhou defenders is only to defend strictly, as long as they can block the attack of the imperial army, even if the task is completed, they do not need to expand the results, so the Yizhou defenders did not fight hand-to-hand with the imperial army at all, and relied on the long-range attack of explosive arrows to stop the imperial army ten times their size, and in just three days, they lost no less than 100,000 people.

In the face of this situation, the morale of the imperial army is getting lower and lower, and almost no one is willing to rush forward anymore, because the end of rushing forward is basically to be blown into rotten meat, and only two or three out of a hundred people can escape back, which is more terrifying than nine deaths.

The leading generals of the imperial army were not without tricks, such as deliberately pretending to be scattered, wanting to lure the Yizhou army into pursuit, and then wipe them out. It's a pity that the special forces trained by Zuo Xiaoyou know best how soldiers take obedience to orders as their duty, and the order given by Zuo Xiaoyou at the beginning is to defend the pass and not pursue, so the conspiracy and tricks that these court generals are satisfied with are useless, but with the rush and killing, the losses are getting more and more. If they can't attack and retreat, they can't lead the army to retreat, and these generals are going crazy.

The two armies confronted each other like this for two months, as the losses of the imperial army became more and more and more low, and the morale became lower and lower, Li Longji, who was sitting on the dragon chair in Chang'an, became more and more irritable, and what made him even more irritable was that because he sent almost all the regular troops of the imperial court to crusade against Yizhou, which led to the instability of law and order in the border areas, those ethnic minorities in the north began to move, and small movements were frequent, and when the news came back, Li Longji's head was about to explode.

"What a good thing this is!"

Li Longji never dreamed that things would come to this point, obviously it was only a state land, and it could actually stop the imperial court's million-strong army, and it also caused heavy losses to the imperial army, and now the imperial court has lost 600,000 people before and after the two crusades, and as long as it does not retreat, the losses will continue.

Li Longji found himself muttering about the amount of gunpowder in the Yizhou army, he thought that with human life, he could also consume the gunpowder in Yizhou, but he didn't expect that the gunpowder in Yizhou was endless, the imperial court had lost more than 600,000 troops, and in addition to the loss of a large amount of gunpowder on the Yizhou side, the loss of human life was almost negligible.

From ancient times to the present, Li Longji has never heard of the result of this kind of battle, it is simply a one-sided massacre, he hates it!

Now the Manchu Dynasty civil and military also feel that they can't go on like this.

"Your Majesty!" When the prime minister of the dynasty came out and said: "I can't go on like this, now Yizhou is difficult, and the northern aliens are ready to move, and if it goes on like this, I'm afraid that my Tang Dynasty will be in danger!" ”

"Then what do you say I'm going to do?" Li Longji asked with an ugly face.

"According to the old minister's opinion, it is better to withdraw from the army for the time being." Ignoring Li Longji's ugly face, the prime minister said: "The anti-thief is just a temporary ringworm, and he only wants the identity of the king of Yizhou, so he will give him this title, and then His Majesty will send a large army to the north to prevent rebellion in the north." When the north is stable, it is not too late for His Majesty to draw his hand to deal with the thieves. ”