Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

There were corpses everywhere inside and outside the city.

Wu Juyuan and other civilians were ordered to clean up the battlefields.

"Did the army massacre the city?"

"I don't know."

"I heard that it was the Uighur soldiers who were killing people indiscriminately."

"We brought Uighur soldiers, and there are also Uighur soldiers here. Why are they killing their own people so cruelly?"

"Hey, you don't know this. The Uighur soldiers of Gaochang Kingdom believe in all kinds of religions, and the Gaochang court doesn't bother to care. The Kucha Kingdom can only believe in the Muslim religion, and those who don't believe in that religion will be killed. The hatred between the two sides is great, especially on the Yanqi side, where the Black Khanate often brings Kucha soldiers to kill."

"How do you know this?"

"There are merchants in our village who made a lot of money in Gaochang and recruited many fellow villagers to be caravan mates. These are what they talked about when they went home for the New Year."

"What else is strange?"

"Hehe, the most strange thing is the wife guest."

"What wife guest?"

"It means that when you go to Gaochang people's homes, they will use their wives and daughters to entertain guests."

"Is it that way?"

"It's the kind you think. This is the tradition of the Uighurs. It's not just the Gaochang Uighurs. The Uighurs in Shaanxi and Ningxia also use their wives and daughters to entertain guests."

"Then what should we do? The government asked us to marry Uighur women. I would rather marry a widow whose husbands have died several times than a slut who has been slept with by many men!"

"..."

The topic quickly shifted from the massacre to the strange news of the wife guest, and they panicked because they were going to marry a Uighur woman.

They had only a vague understanding of what was going on.

In fact, the Uighur army that followed the Ming army was not allowed to enter Qiuci City at all, and they had long been on guard against their massacre or looting.

But these Gaochang Uighur troops were ordered to go west to chase the defeated soldiers.

Those defeated soldiers were all holy soldiers from Dongkara.

The Gaochang Uighur soldiers hated them so much that they would kill them if they caught up with them, and would not take any prisoners. Although they themselves had not encountered the holy war, their grandfathers had dealt with those holy soldiers.

At that time, Gaochang and Qiuci were still one family, and the two Uighur kings ruled together.

For more than a hundred years, Qiuci was the target of the Dongkara holy war. Gaochang nobles often led troops to rescue it, and various massacres were widely spread.

Even if the royal family of Qiuci was forced to convert, the Dongkara holy war was still not over.

Because there were still a large number of civilians who believed in other sects in the territory of Qiuci Uighurs, Dongkara had to kill them until they all converted.

The complete end of the holy war was not because all the Uighurs converted, but because the Dongkara Khanate was too corrupt to be defeated.

As for the rumors of the massacre heard by the civilians, it was because the Ming soldiers were angered by the fanatics.

When the Ming army attacked the city, a large number of defenders abandoned the city and fled, but many defenders fought to the death. They could not withstand the attack of the Ming army, so they retreated to the inner city. Due to the lack of unified command, the inner city wall was quickly occupied by the Ming army.

In the evening, the battle was basically over.

Huang Zuo ordered the army to eliminate the remaining enemies and maintain public order, but some of them were crazy and gathered believers to attack the Ming army patrolling the city at night.

Several Ming troops were attacked and immediately defeated and chased. But those guys fled into residential houses and were often hidden by the owners during the search. Afterwards, they ran out to do various actions, and some even deliberately set fires to create chaos.

Who is Huang Zuo?

A general under Zhong Xiang!

They started their careers by rebelling against Manichaeism. They slaughtered countless monks, Taoists, and Confucian scholars. How could they not understand the ways of those Muslims?

Huang Zuo directly ordered that the troublemakers should be killed wherever they fled. If they fled into a residential house and the owner did not hand them over, they would kill all the men inside.

Moreover, Huang Zuo personally led his troops to massacre the temples. All the Tianfang temples inside and outside the city were massacred by him.

The next day, the civilians entered the city and saw corpses everywhere, so there were rumors of a massacre.

In fact, there was no massacre. Most of the soldiers and civilians in the city were still alive. The captured soldiers could survive as long as they did not cause trouble.

By the second half of the night, the residents in the city had become very "cooperative". Once a troublemaker broke into their home, they would take the initiative to capture him and send him to the Ming army, insisting that they had nothing to do with the troublemaker.

Wu Juyuan was cleaning up a temple when he suddenly heard someone behind him say: "Several large temples inside and outside the city have all been converted into Manichaeism temples, and some Manichaeism monks have been invited from Gaochang. And all the people of Kucha must convert to other sects. I am annoyed by Tianfang believers!"

The person who spoke was Huang Zuo.

Although the doctrines of Gaochang Manichaeism and Han Manichaeism are so different that they have become two completely different religions. But Huang Zuo himself was born a Manichean, and he had a natural liking for Manichaeism, so he simply took the opportunity to develop Manichaeism in Qiuci.

Of course, Huang Zuo did not dare to go too far, but only supported Manichaeism, and also allowed the people to convert to Buddhism, Nestorianism, and Zoroastrianism.

After inspecting various places in the city, Huang Zuo went to the royal city.

The members of the Qiuci royal family had been detained and were now brought to meet the generals of the Ming Dynasty.

"The little king greets the generals of the Ming Dynasty!" Ku Yu dragged his slightly fat body to kneel down, and his wife and children also knelt down.

Huang Zuo glanced and said, "Take them all to Gaochang and hand them over to Wu Duhu for disposal."

He no longer paid attention to these people, but personally led the troops to escort the captives to the desert not far to the west.

Those captives, as well as the Han people, carried a large number of corpses.

Dig countless large pits in the desert.

Huang Zuo said: "You dared to raise troops to fight against the Ming army. After the outer city was breached, you still relied on the inner city to continue to resist. All the nobles of Kucha deserve to die. Except for women and children, all the nobles were executed and buried. Han immigrants came to execute the execution, so that you can also get your blood on you. There will be plenty of wars in the future!"

Wu Juyuan was selected as one of the representatives for execution.

Those Kucha nobles and men in their families were trembling with fear at this moment, kneeling on the ground and begging for mercy.

The Han people in charge of the execution also looked pale.

At the urging of the officers, some civilians closed their eyes and rushed forward with their guns, while some civilians waved their waist knives and chopped randomly.

Wu Juyuan drew his waist knife, held down the head of a noble and cut his neck, and then kicked the body that was not yet dead and was twitching into the sand pit.

Huang Zuo saw it clearly and said with a smile: "Call the young man."

Wu Juyuan was taken away soon.

Huang Zuo asked, "What's your name? How old are you this year?"

Wu Juyuan saluted and said, "Reporting to the commander, my name is Wu Juyuan, I am eighteen years old this year, and I live in the suburbs of Kaifeng."

Huang Zuo was happy to be called "Commander" and continued to ask, "What do you do for a living? Are you engaged?"

Wu Juyuan said, "My family has more than 200 acres of thin land, an oil press, a winery, and dozens of pigs. I am engaged."

Huang Zuo nodded in approval, "You are also a good family boy. Have you ever been to school?"

Wu Juyuan replied, "I started to learn at the age of five, and have been studying hard for more than ten years."

Huang Zuo asked again, "Do you know martial arts?"

Wu Juyuan said, "I know riding and shooting, and I know a little about swords and guns, and I know some boxing and kicking."

Huang Zuo said, "Yesterday, when I attacked the city, some of my soldiers were killed or injured, so you can come in as a new soldier. Remember, a good man should make achievements and establish a career. You don't have to marry for the time being. If you really can't wait, you can take a concubine."

"Ah?" Wu Juyuan didn't understand.

Several personal soldiers nearby were trying to hold back their laughter, knowing that their general was looking for a son-in-law again.

Huang Zuo's youngest daughter was very much loved. Although she was not ugly, she was not pretty either. Moreover, she had been wielding swords and sticks since she was a child and was not a lady at all.

His other two daughters had already married the sons of other generals, but this youngest daughter was reluctant to marry, and she had to personally choose a man of both talent and appearance.

Wu Juyuan had studied, was good at martial arts, and was handsome, so he had already caught Huang Zuo's eye.

However, he was still in the inspection stage, and his character must also pass the test.

There were two backup candidates before, but they were abandoned during the inspection stage because of their poor character.

Wu Juyuan became a new soldier in a daze, but he didn't know which camp he belonged to, and Huang Zuo didn't let him leave, so he stood there and watched the fun.

All the captured Kucha nobles had been executed, and the next was the captured soldiers.

Huang Zuo first drew one out of ten to kill the captured soldiers, and then asked the terrified survivors to insult the gods. Those who were unwilling to curse the gods were immediately executed and pushed into the sand pit.

A few days later, they continued to move westward.

There was no time to divide the land, and only part of the army was left to garrison Qiuci City.

As soon as the army crossed the desert Gobi, Ibrahim, the king of Dongkara, ran away.

This Khan, who could not even suppress the rebels, took a large number of corrupt nobles and hundreds of years of accumulated treasures, and fled away, abandoning his own people.

He also took away the most "elite" troops. With these troops as bargaining chips, he could get preferential treatment in the Western Liao Dynasty, which had suffered heavy casualties.

Some people were unwilling to leave.

There was a young noble general named Fatuma who called on all soldiers and civilians to rise up and resist, and won the support of the clergy.

He announced that the land left by the fleeing nobles would be distributed to ordinary people in the area, and he also promised to reduce taxes. For a time, he was regarded as a great hero by the people, and his prestige far exceeded that of the fleeing king.

From Kashgar to Hotan, countless people enlisted in the army and gathered under Fatuma to resist the Ming army.

Although these troops had poor weapons and equipment, their combat effectiveness and morale were far superior to before, because they were really defending their country, not fighting for those corrupt nobles.

But the will to fight must conform to objective rules after all.

Even if the Ming army did not have firearms, these poorly trained and incomplete armies were far from being the opponents of the fully armored Ming army.

Wu Juyuan was incorporated into the light cavalry unit, and his leather armor was replaced with light cotton armor.

This cotton armor was lined with a few iron sheets only on the chest and abdomen, and the rest of the body was pure cotton armor. It weighed ten pounds.

A few dozen miles east of Kashgar, Wu Juyuan experienced the first cavalry battle in his life.

His light cavalry unit was sent to scout thirty miles away from the main army and encountered a scout cavalry of the enemy.

The captain rushed up with Wu Juyuan to shoot arrows and fight.

Wu Juyuan shot and wounded an enemy soldier a few dozen steps away. Then he shot and killed an enemy cavalryman twenty steps away. When he rode around to the side again, he shot two enemy soldiers again.

Such a record made his captain's mouth crooked with smiles, and he led the soldiers to charge into close combat.

After a battle, only three people from the enemy's reconnaissance cavalry squad escaped in a panic, and the rest were killed by the Ming army's light cavalry.

As the Ming army continued to advance, the two sides fought a decisive battle in the suburbs of Kashgar.

When the troops were defeated by firearms continuously, Fatuma was not scared to run away, but led his own troops to charge in a suicidal manner.

But dozens of steps away, he was hit by artillery shotgun shells, fell off his horse and was trampled to death.

Huang Zuo did what he did in Qiuci again in Kashgar and Hotan, and soon became a demon who could stop Xiaoer from crying at night.

He didn't care about it, he killed a lot in Hunan that year!

Huang Zuo wrote an urgent letter to Wu Jie, saying that the territory of Kashgar was very large and he had killed many stubborn elements, and requested the court to immigrate another 10,000 people.