The vassal king was one of the cancers of the Ming Dynasty. King Fu had been killed by Li Zicheng. The current King of Chu Zhu Huakui was also a vampire like King Fu, even more domineering than King Fu. Even the officials in the border areas dared to kill a commoner without authorization. It is conceivable that killing a commoner in the King of Chu was like killing a chicken? It is inevitable to bully men and women and kill innocent people indiscriminately. From this, it can be clear what kind of life the people in the King of Chu territory lived.

The peasant uprising army eliminated the vassal kings not only to reduce the burden for the Ming Dynasty, but also to eliminate harm for the people. From this point of view, Li Guodong was unwilling to save the King of Chu. However, Zhang Xianzhong confiscated the King of Chu's mansion and copied millions of taels of silver and countless gold and jewelry. These wealth were all in vain. According to historical records, Zhang Xianzhong massacred Wuchang and forced men aged fifteen to twenty to join the army. All the rest were killed, from Parrot Island to Taoist priests, floating corpses along the road covered the river. A month later, the fat on the water surface was several inches thick, and fish and turtles in the water could no longer be eaten.

Li Guodong naturally suspected that Ji Liuqi's "The Beiluo of Ming Ji" was deliberately slandering Zhang Xianzhong. After all, Ji Liuqi, who was born in a gentry family, would not have a good impression of the bandits. Moreover, Ji Liuqi was already in the Kangxi period when he wrote the history books, and some bad things done by the Qing army would naturally frame Zhang Xianzhong.

But it is undeniable that Zhang Xianzhong could not do anything good in Wuchang. It can be denied that Zhang Xianzhong was the emperor in Sichuan and killed everyone. Who will farm and who will produce? Zhang Xianzhong was a frame-up by the Qing Dynasty. However, when Zhang Xianzhong was in Wuchang, he was still a form of bandits. He did not intend to stay in Wuchang for a long time. There must be some massacres, but it was exaggerated.

Li Guodong naturally wanted to save the innocent people, but he also wanted to use Zhang Xianzhong's hands to get rid of King Zhu Huakui of Chu, which made him embarrassed.

Even if he sent troops to rescue Wuchang now, because of the stinginess of the King of Chu, when his army arrived, Wuchang City would have been defeated by Zhang Xianzhong long ago, and it would be too late to save the people.

"What should I do?" Li Guodong said to himself.

"I have it!" He thought about it, so he picked up a pen and wrote a letter to Zhang Xianzhong. In the letter, on the one hand, he advised Zhang Xianzhong not to massacre innocent people and to kill all the men of the Chu Prince's Mansion, but please let go of women, children, old and weak. On the other hand, he had some threatening tone: Zuo Liangyu's 500,000 troops were defeated in front of Ben Bo. If he did not listen to the advice, he would not mind fighting to the death with Zhang Xianzhong. Finally, Li Guodong told Zhang Xianzhong that they were all friends, and he had secretly provided a lot of help to Zhang Xianzhong, hoping not to turn against him.

Of course, Li Guodong was still a little bit conscientious. This letter could not be handed over to Zhang Xianzhong directly. If Zhang Xianzhong turned against him and sent the letter to the Ming officials, this is evidence of his own conspiracy. So Li Guodong called Xu Liang and handed the letter to him: "Xu Liang, you memorize the contents of the letter, then destroy the letter, go to Huangzhou to meet Zhang Xianzhong, and tell him the contents of the letter. Remember, you must be careful not to take your own life."

Xu Liang was the personal guard agent who once bravely entered Songshan and rescued Cao Bianjiao. This person was agile and smart, so he was most at ease with this matter. More than a year has passed. Xu Liang, who had originally shaved his hair and had braids, had already grown his hair. Although his hair was not very long, he could already tie it. He wore a net scarf on his head, which looked no different from other Han people.

"Please rest assured, lord, I will definitely bring the words to Zhang Xianzhong!" Xu Liang bowed.

Xu Liang had just left the central army tent, and someone came outside to report: "Brother, the money for the general to suppress the thief has been delivered, right outside the camp."

"Send someone to count it. When the amount is matched, release the person immediately and let the prisoners push the grain cart away. We will push the silver cart into the camp." Li Guodong ordered.

The weight of 350,000 taels of silver reached more than 21,800 kilograms. In addition to the weight of the box and the car, it exceeded 30,000 kilograms. Zuo Liangyu used more than 30 large trucks to transport it.

Zhang Shiwen, sent by Li Guodong, went to count the silver and carefully checked the quality and weight of the silver.

Zhang Shiwen turned around and shouted, "The amount is up, let someone go!"

The more than 14,000 prisoners who were detained were loosened from the ropes. Li Guodong said to the prisoners: "You push out the grain cart. This is the food sold to you. A total of 30,000 stones of food are left to you to take it away!"

The captives thanked them very much, and then pushed the grain cart away from the Jinyang Army camp.

Li Guodong asked someone to push the silver cart back into the camp, and boxes of silver were removed from the car and loaded onto the ship.

"All members boarded the ship! Prepare to Wuchang!" Li Guodong gave the order.

More than 20,000 infantry and artillery soldiers of the mainland division boarded the navy ships, and more than 10,000 navy officers and soldiers were also ready to drive the ship.

The Navy Village was filled with gongs and drums, and flags were waving. Warships untied their cables and pulled up anchor chains. The sails slowly rose, and more than a thousand large and small warships set sail. With the help of the southeast wind, they went upstream along the Yangtze River and headed straight for Wuchang.

Just before Li Guodong's main army set off, a small boat had left Anqing, and the sailors on the boat were rowing their oars desperately and heading against the current.

The shape of this small boat is quite strange. From a distance, it looks like a wooden board floating on the river surface. But when you look closer, you can see that the hull is under the wooden board of the boat, but there are only two hulls. That's right, this is a catamaran. Because the two hulls are very narrow, two knife-like wooden boards inserted into the water, the resistance is very small. This boat uses sailings and can sail even against the wind. There are also sailors on the boat paddling and sailing together, and the speed is very fast. When sailing against the current on the river surface, the speed can reach an astonishing fifteen knots.

This small boat is a communications express specially made by Li Guodong. At this time, Xu Liang, who was preparing to go on an envoy to offer troops, sat on the ship.

The soldiers who rowed were not naval officers and soldiers, but were all agents of the personal guards. The ship had ten oarsmen, a captain, two helmsmen and two sailors who controlled the sail.

The Clippers ran like flying on the river. In just two days, they ran more than 600 miles of water.

When Xu Liang arrived at the Huangzhou River, he saw that there was only one empty camp left in the Xianjun camp in the north of the Yangtze River. The ships that were originally parked on the riverside were no longer visible. Looking at the other side, he saw that the city of Wuchang County (now Ezhou) on the south bank was in ruins, and thick smoke was still emitting in the city. It seemed that Wuchang County had been harmed by Zhang Xianzhong.

"Zhang Xianzhong must have set out to Wuchang! Let's go! Continue to swim upstream!" Xu Liang said.

The clutch left the Huangzhou River and continued to gallop northwest. After walking about fifty miles, a fleet appeared on the river surface in front of him. At the same time, a ragged team was walking towards Wuchang on the embankment on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Among the ragged team, there were many soldiers wearing red mandarin duck battle jackets and light yellow and red tassel felt hats. Those were the Ming army surrendered soldiers in the Xianjun army, and some were light blue uniforms, red red tassel felt hats and red cloaks. Those must be Zhang Xianzhong's old camp soldiers, most of the old camp soldiers were cavalry.

"It's an army that offers thieves!" a personal guard agent shouted.

"Don't worry, let's get closer!" Xu Liang said.

The fleet in front found a clutch behind, and immediately several small sampans turned their heads and rowed towards Xu Liang's clutch.

Xu Liang found a young general with white helmet and white armor standing on the small boat, so he bowed to the boat from afar: "Is the young general Zhang Kewang or the young general Zhang Dingguo who came?"

"It's Zhang Dingguo! I wonder how this hero knows the name of the young general?" Zhang Dingguo asked.
Chapter completed!