After Yan Luo retreated and held on, Yicheng and Tianlin counties could not wait for reinforcements, and they were lost one after another.

The county magistrates and heroes of these two counties have tried all kinds of means to try to retain a certain independent status.

But the two generals Zhou Ping and Huang Jingtong, who had already received Zhou Bai's orders, ignored them at all and bulldozed the military villages on the outskirts of the county all the way.

Then he besieged the county town with 2,500 men, which could mobilize thousands of troops, without showing any timidity, and even forced the city to dare not act rashly.

The actual combat power displayed by this guard and horse, as well as the general trend of the Anbei Governor's Mansion like a mountain, made the county commander of Tianlin County recognize the facts and give up stubborn resistance.

However, something is wrong with Yicheng County, and the real person in charge is not the county magistrate, but the local Fang family, a century-old county wealthy family.

In the troubled times, the strong soldiers and strong horses are dominant, which is vividly shown in Yicheng County.

As early as the last years of the Xiangxing Dynasty, the Fang family had already grasped the real power of Yicheng County, and the official county government was reduced to a mouthpiece.

It's not that the county government and even the state government don't want to rectify it, but in recent years, there have been constant external troubles, and if they can't catch actual evidence, how can they do it at will.

It is not that I am afraid of a county tycoon, but I am afraid of touching the interests of the local tycoon, the interests of the entire class.

There are no fools in the real bureaucracy, and in the last years of the dynasty, they just wanted to fill the fence with a few lakes.

Limited to this situation, few of the top three jinshi were willing to come here to serve, so that it was delayed again and again, until Yan Luo chose to divide Ruinan, claiming to be modest, and everything was over.

The Fang family entered the county seat openly, and the head of the family and high-level officials moved into the county office, officially implementing the rule of the Fang family's regime.

However, the Fang family has been trapped in one place for a long time, and in the final analysis, it also has limitations and insufficient foundation.

The contemporary head of the family was impetuous and reckless, could not see the general trend clearly, and was reluctant to accept the temptation of separating a place, so he listened to Yan Luo's letter and decided to stick to it.

Unexpectedly, after only resisting for two days, the old family Ding suffered heavy losses, especially the officers with a clear stomach, who were often targeted by martial arts masters, and few could survive the two waves of siege.

Where have I seen such a fierce offensive inside and outside Yicheng, the wind direction changed rapidly, and the other families who had been oppressed by the Fang family for a long time decisively opened the city and surrendered under the tandem of Xuanyiwei.

On July 14, the battle report reached Zhou Bai.

Knowing that the two counties on the flanks were in hand and the north of Ruinan was under control, he did not delay, and immediately announced that Ruinan's strategy would enter the next stage and capture the location of Ruinan's Jiedu Mansion.

In fact, Zhou Bai chose to attack Ruinan very cleverly, July is the time when the wheat is ripe, and late July to early August is the key stage of the summer harvest in Dingzhou.

The wheat has not yet been harvested, but the official warehouses in various places are close to emptying, especially the natural disasters in the past two years, the savings of every household have been exhausted, and the ordinary people of Ruinan County are basically looking forward to the summer harvest.

At this time, the soldiers besieged Ruinan City, and they didn't even need to make a big move in the Anbei army, they just needed to quietly besiege it and not let the grain of rice enter the city.

In this regard, Yan Luo could either go out of the city to fight in the field and repel the Anbei army, or he could only suppress the hunger riots internally and lose the support of the people.

Combined with the intelligence of Xuan Yiwei, all the staff officers have calculated the food stock of Ruinan City, which is only enough for 200,000 people in the city to eat for a month under the condition of reducing the supply of non-combat personnel.

The Chinese army specially issued a military order to Lou Jinpeng, telling him to cover the thirty miles of fields near Ruinan County, and not to make Ruinan City rush to harvest wheat in advance.

In addition, before leaving, Zhou Bai met with the god doppelganger at the Imperial Temple of Shuiyang City.

July 15, it happened to be the Zhongyuan Ghost Festival, the scene of the hundred ghosts walking at night and the chaos in the world earlier, Zhou Bai still vividly remembered.

He checked the historical materials of the mortal world, and also used the authority of Tianjue to check some information in the heavenly disk, and it turned out that the Tianyuan Realm and the Blue Star where Zhou Bai was located had similar legends.

Legend has it that on Halloween, the ghost gate of the underworld is wide open, and the ghosts of the underworld will briefly return to the world through the ghost gate.

Ghosts with descendants and descendants who have sacrificed themselves go home to collect incense offerings, while the orphaned souls can only wander around, wandering back to any place where they can go and beg for some corner incense.

Therefore, whether ordinary people are kind-hearted or in order to prevent them from causing harm to the world, most of them will burn incense for their ancestors, and then burn an extra pile for lonely souls and wild ghosts.

However, this legend was only a legend in the Blue Star period, and it had not been proven, but in the Tianyuan Realm, this legend was proved by the Heavenly Court.

In ancient times and even in ancient times, the development of the Heavenly Court reached its peak, subduing many surrounding worlds, making it a nether realm, as if it was a giant force in the heavens.

At that time, the Tianyuan Immortal Court, where the Qingxu Realm could touch porcelain, the so-called expeditionary fleet, did not dare to set foot in the radiation range of the Tianyuan civilization.

It's just that things must be opposed, and this law is perfect for Heavenly Court.

Formulate the rules of heaven, manage the thirty-three days, manage the mortal world, and manage the subordinate nether realm......

With nothing to worry about, the heavenly officials and immortals set their sights on the underworld.

In the eyes of the elders, the Underworld can just be an extension of the influence of the Heavenly Court, because the Underworld exists in every world where transcendence can be born.

The saints and emperors all went down together, observed the rules of the underworld, and laid the foundation for the establishment of the underworld.

Under the personal perception of these elders, the rules of the underworld have been peeled away, and it is logical to enshrine the gods of the underworld who control the rules of the underworld.

The appearance of the underworld system, the heavenly court sealed the yin official gods, these yin official gods all had the power to restrain ghosts, and with the behemoth of heavenly court as a backing, it didn't take long for the underworld to become a climate.

One hundred thousand Yin soldiers and ghosts are rampant in the heavens and underworlds, and the prestige of the Ten Halls of Yama and the Four Great Judges is even comparable to the Emperor of Heaven in the surrounding affiliated worlds.

By the time of antiquity, the underworld had established a complete system of yin and yang order in the Tianyuan mortal world and dozens of worlds.

The Zhongyuan Halloween Festival, which allows ghosts to pass through the ghost gate and return to the world in an orderly manner, is a tradition that began at this time.

The rhetoric of the heavenly court and the underworld is to appease the ghosts who have not been reincarnated for a long time, let them meet their relatives, and at the same time give them a chance to get incense.

But what is actually it, in fact, is that the underworld wants to show its strong strength and further develop the "territory" in the outer realms.

What if you release more ghosts to the world, you see if there are ghosts who dare to violate the laws of the underworld and cause trouble to the world, this is the confidence of the underworld.

After the establishment of the Zhongyuan Halloween Festival, the influence of the underworld reached its peak, and even the incomprehensible reincarnation in the underworld could control part of the power, and reincarnation became "artificial" manipulation.

The heavens and all worlds are omniscient and omniscient, and even many worlds have taken the initiative to support the underworld to enter the realm of the underworld.

However, the extremes of things must be opposed, and the prosperity of the poles must decline, and the prestige of the underworld will end here.

When the local government's control and exploration of the underworld reached a limit, it seemed to have touched some taboo and suddenly encountered great difficulties.

Overnight, the reincarnation channel controlled by the underworld collapsed, and the Yin Gods of Yama, Judge, and other prefectures collectively disappeared.

The remaining middle and lower-level underworld officials were also affected, and they lost the blessing of the power of the rules of the underworld, and they were no stronger than some ghost kings and ghosts.

The same is true for the Yin soldiers and ghosts, they are no longer the immortal privileges who lead the Yin position, and like other ghosts, they will not enter the cycle of reincarnation, and their souls will also die.

The 100,000 Yin Soldiers and Ghosts seem to be a lot of people, but after losing the special power to restrain ghosts, placed in the vast underworld, it is only a slightly more powerful ghost army, and it cannot form an effective deterrent.

The underworld system could not be maintained without the support of a strong force, and it can be said that it came to naught overnight, and no one knew what taboo had been violated.

It's just that Heavenly Court was implicated in the collapse of the underworld, and since then, its momentum has plummeted.

Zhou Bai flipped through his memories and saw only some fragments of some of the secret records of the Golden Court Scripture Pavilion.

In order to facilitate the balance of yin and yang and the communication of the underworld, the underworld has opened up many channels, and the ghost gate is an important means.

After the collapse of the underworld, the ghost gate could not be closed, and countless passages went out of control, forming cracks of different sizes.

The ghosts from the Heavenly Underworld, like cats smelling fish, frantically poured into the Immortal Land belonging to the Tianyuan Realm, and then followed the ghost gate and various cracks to the human world.

The opposite of Yang is Yin, the living represent vitality, and the soul can only represent death.

It is all instinctive, and there are no restrictions on ghosts, what kind of disasters will be done if they break into the human world, and the high-level of the Heavenly Court understands very well.

As soon as possible, the Heavenly Court mobilized in the Heavenly Officials, the Thirty-Three Days Immortal Gods, which can be said to be full of stars falling into the mortal world.

Among them, even the Western Heavenly Gods and Buddhas, who have a very low sense of existence, also plugged the leak in the lower realm, blocking the leak that pierced the sky by the collapse of the underworld.

In the end, Heavenly Court was worthy of its prestige at that time, and after paying a heavy price comparable to the establishment of Heavenly Court, the ghost gate opened by the underworld was blocked, and countless cracks were temporarily repaired.

The foundation of the Tian Yuan Continent was finally preserved, and it did not become a part of the Heavenly Underworld.

However, the collapse of the underworld has seriously weakened the strength of the Heavenly Court, and you must know that the ten halls of Yama are all at least half-saint-level existences.

Later, in the operation to deal with the aftermath of the collapse of the underworld, the loss of the heavenly court was even more heavy, and the sphere of influence continued to shrink.

The subsidiary worlds have become independent, and Heavenly Court is still unable to hold accountable, and when it is weakest, its influence is not even out of Tianyuan Mainland.

During that time, it was also known as the Dark Age, and the position of the Emperor of Heaven had changed in the Dark Age, and he was the supreme powerhouse under the Great Luo Daozu.

Even saying that the number of Dao Ancestors appearing is getting less and less, it is not a sequelae of the collapse of the underworld.

It was not until the so-called ancient era that the Heavenly Court regained some of its vitality and barely returned to the top of the Heavenly World, which was considered the strongest part.

If it weren't for the disappearance of the Dao Ancestor for 10,000 years, and the Qingxu Realm took advantage of this invasion, maybe Heavenly Court would also start to expand externally and take back the former little brother.

The underworld is gone, but part of the underworld's Yin God system has been forcibly retained by the power of mortal humanity, such as the city emperor, who generally sits in the local underworld.

It is also the existence of the city emperors in various places, and the "temporary" cracks left by the ancients have also been preserved intact and have not had major problems.

Why did Zhou Bai want to meet with the god clone before the Midyear Festival, it was really that he was not at ease about this Midyear Festival.

You must know that most of the areas except for Bei'an County are still in a state of war between the two realms, and maybe Qingxu will use the underworld again to stage a night walk of a hundred ghosts.

The Shinto system in Bei'an has just been integrated, and Ruinan's Shinto system has also been invaded by the god master, and Zhou Bai must know what the divine court system is.

If it is an oversight and the Heavenly Demon makes some trouble, it will be a great trouble for the Anbei Governor's Mansion to rule the new territory of Ruinan County.

Shuiyang City Imperial Temple.

After the Anbei Army entered the city, although it was still well taken care of and there was no shortage of incense, Zhou Bai felt that something was wrong as soon as he came in.

The cracks in the beams of the house, the cobwebs that were quickly born after being swept away, the gilded patent leather that fell off the golden body of the god, and the dim moonlight and sluggish breath all showed that the owner of this room was not in good shape.

Zhou Bai waved his hand gently, and the temple gate and the temple door were all windless and automatic, and they were firmly closed, and the guards outside were also very sensible, and they retreated outside the temple one after another.

The night breeze was light, the candle flame was flickering, and a god with a crimson light on his face appeared next to Zhou Bai.

Needless to say, it was the Divine Lord, and she dissipated the light on her face, revealing a familiar look.

Of course, it's the same thing, but in fact, in order to avoid being accidentally served in a pot, the face of the god doppelganger is more like the soul appearance of Zhou Bai before he crossed over.

Except for the transcendent and majestic temperament, he is really an ordinary mortal, mediocre.

The god lord just glanced at it a few times, and immediately put it on Zhou Bai's shoulder, and said with a smile: "Tsk, I haven't seen the deity for a long time, this is luck." ”

"Don't you know? The luck intercepted by the Fortune Monument is also the general trend of expanding more and more after entering Ruinan. Zhou Bai was not half unwell, but chatted like an old friend.

This is the doppelganger, the two are one, and there is no need to hide any secrets.

The Divine Lord thought for a moment and asked, "If you take down Ruinan, it is definitely not enough to wait for you, but there should be a pattern of a kingdom, right?" I've read the information of Tianya Pavilion, the movement of the royal family, as long as you support the strong and powerful of the center, maybe even a county will be sealed. ”

Zhou Bai bowed slightly, and explained: "The county can only be a baron and a viscount, which is nothing more than the difference between a small county and a large county. ”

"The initial national character will affect part of the luck pattern, the earl, since ancient times, has been a humane noble, at least from the beginning of the country will not drag down the potential."

"Dingzhou is not as prosperous as the prosperous state in the south of the Yangtze River in the middle of the region, and it is a little more than the king, but the weight of its tripod is not a problem. As for the uncle, the two counties are a little thinner, and the three counties are right. ”

Obviously, Zhou Boming did not mention the founding of the country at all, but he had already calculated maturely in his heart.

"Okay, if you have a plan, then I'll talk about the Divine Court."

The god lord sniffed the smell of incense, and then took the fruit offering on the shrine and said while eating: "At present, it is actually only a prototype, even if you give a certain amount of luck control authority, it is still difficult to seal all the gods in place. ”

"The current county emperor of Bei'an is represented by Chao Qu, and he has not yet taken the throne, so he may need you to make a big sacrifice after defeating Ruinan. In addition, there are three county emperors, all of whom are located in counties with cracks in the prefecture, so you can rest assured during the Midyear Festival. ”

"There are eleven land gods, all of whom are distributed in important grain-producing areas, with six hundred and thirty-two heroic spirit soldiers and twenty......-three god generals."

"As for Ruinan, I left her alive in this Shuiyang City Emperor, firstly, to suppress the cracks in the underworld here; Second, she accepted Tian Ming's incense to do things, which is also in line with human feelings, after all, the incense god ......"