Chapter 1037: The aftermath of the war!

Huainan, Shouchun

Ten days ago, as the news of Xu Zhaojie's defeat and capture reached Shouchun, the morale of the Zhennan Army defending the city immediately collapsed!
The next day, one of the defending generals, Cao Yuanzheng, rebelled and surrendered the city. Shouchun, the capital of Huainan, fell into the hands of Fengwu Army commanded by He Jingyun.

Although the war had just ended in the city at this time, and some traces of the war could still be vaguely seen on the streets, the streets were full of vitality, and the people passing by also showed long-lost smiles and began to look forward to the new life to come!

In the past, when Feng Keqin was in power in Huainan, although Feng Keqin was also ambitious, he had been preparing for war and wanted to accomplish something big in the troubled times!

But after all, he was born and raised here, so he had feelings for Huainan. Therefore, he remained restrained in imposing heavy taxes on the elders of his hometown, and did not drain the pond to catch all the fish, making the people suffer!

However, facing Xu Zhaojie's offensive, Feng Keqin had to increase taxes and recruit young and strong men in order to preserve his foundation in Huainan!
In order to seize Huainan at that time, Xu Zhaojie once raised the banner of overthrowing Feng Keqin's tyranny, which even received a response from some Huainan people!

However, after Xu Zhaojie really captured Huainan, he no longer pretended and revealed his hideous true face.
Compared to Feng Keqin who was born and raised here and has feelings for his hometown Huainan, Xu Zhaojie directly regarded Huainan as a springboard!
Xu Zhaojie's plan is to make full use of Huainan's wealth to actively prepare for war, strengthen his army, and then attack Jiangnan, Jingchu, Sichuan and other places, and then achieve the ultimate goal of splitting the south and competing with Ye Mingsheng for the world!
In order to achieve this goal, Xu Zhaojie did not care about the people's strength or livelihood at all. He imposed heavy taxes and conscripted young and strong people to the maximum extent. It was also during this period that he established the infamous Thousand Tiger Guards!

On the one hand, Xu Zhaojie established the Thousand Tiger Guards to emulate Ye Mingsheng's Coordination Office, using these spies to spy on the enemy's military intelligence and monitor internal civil and military officials to stabilize his own rule!

On the other hand, Xu Zhaojie also hopes that the Thousand Tiger Guards can actively expand his financial resources and provide a steady supply of money and food for his plan to expand his military and prepare for war!
During the years when Xu Zhaojie was in charge of Huainan, the Thousand Tiger Guards launched a terrifying spy frenzy in the Zhennan Army's territories such as Huainan, Jingchu, Anqing, etc.!

Not only were some landlords and gentry killed and their families destroyed, but even some ordinary people could not escape their clutches and had to contribute their life-long wealth to Xu Zhaojie's ambition and greed!
In such a frenzy of terror, Xu Zhaojie gathered a large amount of money and food in Huainan in a short period of time, and at this time Xu Zhaojie's troops were officially renamed Zhennan Army····························

With the help of money and grain from Huainan, the size of the Zhennan Army's troops developed rapidly, and its strength once exceeded 100,000 people. This undoubtedly fostered Xu Zhaojie's ambition!
At that time, Xu Zhaojie was immersed in the beautiful fantasy of punching Jingchu, kicking Jiangnan, unifying the south and marching north to defeat Ye Mingsheng, unify the world, and create an everlasting foundation!
However, Xu Zhaojie didn't know at that time that capturing Huainan was already the most glorious moment of his life!

In order to prevent the Fengwu Army from unifying the north, Xu Zhaojie went against his pre-planned plan to conquer Jiangnan, and began to want to work with the Luoan court to attack the Fengwu Army from the north and south!
However, the final disastrous defeat in the march north to Hebei and Henan became an important turning point in the Zhennan Army's decline. In this war, Xu Zhaojie not only lost tens of thousands of elite soldiers he brought from Anqing, but also lost Anqing, his birthplace, to the Fengwu Army!
After that, although Xu Zhaojie tried several times to rise again, he was never able to regain his former heights!
After losing Anqing, Xu Zhaojie became more dependent on Huainan to realize his war ambitions, which also led to his exploitation of the people of Huainan to the point of exhausting all resources!
Huainan, where once prosperous people lived and worked in peace and contentment, had begun to become dilapidated after Xu Zhaojie’s destruction in just a few years. Some people tried to resist but were ruthlessly suppressed by the Zhennan Army...

Seeing that resistance was hopeless, many people began to flee with their families to Anqing, which was ruled by the Fengwu Army, seeking a safe place to start a new life!

You have to know that Huainan is the richest place in the Great Zhou Dynasty after Jiangnan. Even in years of famine, people from other places would flee to Huainan to seek food!
Basically, no ordinary people in Huainan fled to other places. This shows how much damage Xu Zhaojie's tyranny had caused to the people's livelihood in Huainan!
In order to stop the population loss, Xu Zhaojie initially pretended to announce several benevolent policies and slowed down the exploitation of the people in Huainan!

But when the pressure on the battlefield increased, Xu Zhaojie immediately tore off his hypocritical veil and began to exploit the people even more severely. In order to prevent the people from leaving Huainan and getting rid of his terrifying exploitation, Xu Zhaojie even used his most deadly weapon - the butcher's knife!

Xu Zhaojie implemented the anti-human system of collective responsibility in Huainan. If one person in a village escaped, everyone in the village would die!

In such an atmosphere of terror, the problem of population loss has been alleviated to a certain extent, but it has also made the anger of the people in Huainan towards Xu Zhaojie and the Zhennan Army reach its peak. Now that the Fengwu Army is heading towards Shouchun, the anger in the hearts of the people has finally been vented...
With the help of the common people, the Fengwu Army led by He Jingyun swept through Huainan like a whirlwind. They basically encountered no decent resistance and killed their way to Shouchun City, the core of the Zhennan Army's rule!

The remnants of the Southern Army in Shouchun Town were determined to fight to the end. They fantasized that their lord would be able to defeat the Fengwu Army on the battlefield of Jingchu, successfully return to Shouchun and lead them to complete a desperate counterattack!

However, the beautiful fantasy is just a fantasy after all. They did not wait for the news of Xu Zhaojie's return to help, but instead waited for the news that Xu Zhaojie was defeated and captured!

This news shattered all their fantasies and they fell completely into the abyss of despair!

After the Fengwu Army entered Shouchun, in order to prevent the Xu family from being bullied by the Fengwu Army, the remnants of Xu Zhaojie followed the example of Feng Keqin and his family who set themselves on fire. They also ignited a raging fire in Xu Zhaojie's mansion!
It is said that the fire killed hundreds of people in the Xu family, including Xu Zhaojie's wives, concubines and children. But some people said that the fire was just a smoke screen, and the remnants of Xu Zhaojie left with Xu Zhaojie's young son!
But no matter what, the cruel rule of Xu Zhaojie and the Zhennan Army in this ancient land of Huainan has come to an end, and the dark clouds that had accumulated in the sky of Huainan have also dissipated!
The common people who have suffered so much have begun to look forward to a new life in the future. They hope that the Fengwu Army can exempt them from taxes for the next few years so that they can recover as soon as possible and make the once fertile land of fish and rice revitalize again and become the prosperous Huainan in people’s impression...
At night, in a remote area of ​​Shouchun City, a middle-aged man in ragged clothes and in a hurry was walking on an empty path with great vigilance! Although he tried his best to calm himself down, his expression still revealed a sense of fear!

Apart from that, although his clothes were tattered, as if he had escaped from a pile of rags, and his face was smeared with some soot, he looked not much better than a beggar on the street, but the skin on his hands and neck was faintly white!
Obviously, this middle-aged man is not as poor as he looks. The tattered clothes and the soot on his face are just a disguise!

The real identity of this person is Xu Tu, one of the stewards of the Xu Mansion!

After walking in the alley for about half an incense stick of time, Xu Tu came to the door of a dilapidated house. He looked around hurriedly and saw that there was no one around. Finally, Xu Tu carefully took out a key from his arms, opened the lock hanging on the door, and quickly entered the room. After entering the room, he did not forget to close the door tightly.

This house is bare with only a bed and a wardrobe. Even a thief would shake his head when he came in!

After Xu Tu entered the room, he immediately came to the closet. Looking at the lock on the closet, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief...
Long before the Fengwu Army reached the city of Shouchun, the people in the Xu Mansion still held on to hope that the Marquis would be able to return to help, but facing the cruel reality, they also began to seek other preparations!
At first they planned to escape from Shouchun before the Fengwu Army arrived, but the Fengwu Army led by He Jingyun came too fast, and the people from the Xu Mansion were blocked in the city before they could leave quietly!
This also prompted the people in the Xu Mansion to begin another preparation, which was to quietly set up some backup plans in the city. Several of the most loyal subordinates took Xu Zhaojie's most beloved youngest son Xu Kang and hid in a secluded corner of Shouchun!
These people knew very well that once Shouchun City was captured, the Fengwu Army would certainly hunt for the Marquis' descendants. So in order to make the Fengwu Army believe that Xu Kang was dead, they directly burned down the Xu Mansion and used the lives of hundreds of people in the Xu Mansion to cover up Xu Kang's departure!
Although the fire burned down the entire Xu Mansion, Xu Tu and the others knew that Xu Kang was not safe. The lackeys in the Coordination Office would not completely believe that Xu Kang was dead just because of the fire. They would still search openly and secretly!
Therefore, Xu Kang could no longer stay in Shouchun or even the whole Huainan. Therefore, after discussing with the remnants of Xu Zhaojie, they decided to take Xu Kang and flee to places where Ye Mingsheng could not control, such as Annan, Jiaozhi and other places, and then think of ways to make a comeback wherever they go, and do it slowly...

In order to complete this plan, they need money, but they only have some travel expenses, so Xu Tu came to this house at this time, just to take away the money hidden in this house, so as to use it for Xu Kang's next expenses!

He took out a medicine key and opened the door on the wardrobe. He saw hundreds of gold bars neatly arranged in the closet. A smile immediately appeared on Xu Tu's face when he saw these gold bars!

However, the next second Xu Tu's smile froze on his face, and he saw a dagger with a cold glow was placed on his neck!

Just when Xu Tu's heart sank to the bottom, a hoarse voice came from behind him.

“Where is my family?”

Hearing this voice, Xu Tu's heart suddenly moved. Then he hesitated for a moment and slowly turned around. At this time, a short man with a scar on his face and a tired look appeared in his sight!
This person is none other than the commander of the Thousand Tiger Guards of the Zhennan Army—Fang She!
Seeing Fang She's appearance, Xu Tu was obviously a little shocked, and subconsciously said:

"Fang She, why are you here?"

However, before Xu Tu could finish his words, Fang She punched Xu Tu in the liver area. Xu Tu immediately fell to the ground, with cold sweat on his face, and curled up in pain like a shrimp. At this time, Fang She's hoarse voice sounded in his ears again.

“Don’t talk nonsense to me, tell me where my family is…”

The reason why Xu Zhaojie was able to rest assured in letting Fang She serve as the commander of the Thousand Tiger Guards and let him work for him over the years was largely because he rewarded Fang She with a mansion and hundreds of servants and maids for Fang She's family to live in!
All of this looks good on the surface, but in fact it is just a cage, and Fang She’s family is Xu Zhaojie’s hostage!

With these hostages in hand, Xu Zhaojie will feel at ease to employ Fang She and have him work for him without worrying that Fang She will betray him!

There were inevitable reasons for the avalanche of the Zhennan Army this time. For example, the Zhennan Army was already at the end of its strength and unable to face the strong pressure of the Fengwu Army in the two battlefields of Jingchu and Anqing. Another reason was that the Zhennan Army's exploitation of the people of Huainan was too cruel, which led to Huainan supporting the invading Fengwu Army!
However, the collapse of the Zhennan Army still seemed a bit sudden, and Fang She, the commander of the Thousand Tiger Guards, was still continuing the task assigned to him by Xu Zhaojie in other places when the Zhennan Army collapsed!
When Fang She learned that Xu Zhaojie was defeated and captured, although he rushed to Shouchun with all his strength, by the time he arrived, Shouchun had already been captured!
After finally sneaking into the city, Fang She just wanted to find his family, but he discovered that the house where his family lived was already deserted and there was no clue at all. This undoubtedly made Fang She despair!
However, as the commander of the Thousand Tiger Guards, Fang She still had some connections, so he soon found out that his family had been moved away before the city was broken...

(End of this chapter)