Incite trouble

  On that day, Lin Xu left a body in the Western Battlefield of the film world, just to observe and experience the changes in the divine battle routine. The main idea was to prepare for the unexpected, while his true golden body returned to the Central Plains with Taihang Mountain's Shenlong Shi'er.

  The host and guest chatted idly at the old mountain temple, eager to establish a residential point in the Taihang Mountains to preserve their own humble incense. Long Shi Er Huo Zhi Pi Gu (Dragon Stone Ear Fire) bid farewell hastily, returning to the Taihang Mountains to prepare for this matter. Of course, Lin Xu was not idle either. He sent out an incarnation to meet with Chen Liang in Anzhou, who was immersed in books to relieve his inner worries and anger. Lin Xu was so anxious because too many unexpected events came one after another, disrupting his original plan.

  Lin Xu had originally planned to let Chen Liang grow slowly, waiting for the right moment to encourage him to rise up and overthrow Qin to seize the world. However, with the successive integration of new realms into this land, the situation seemed increasingly urgent.

  It's easy to imagine that after the three major forces in the west have decided on a winner, whoever emerges victorious will inevitably march eastward and seize control of the entire realm. To avoid a future where they are like scattered sand against an invading enemy, Lin Xu reluctantly intervened to accelerate Chen Liang's growth rate, despite not wanting to help him grow stronger so quickly.

  He pushed open the door with a creak, and the dry wooden hinge made a "creak" sound. Hearing the noise, Chen Liang, who was reading a book under the lamp, looked up to see who it was. Seeing clearly that it was him, Chen Liang's face lit up with joy, and he stood up saying:

  "Brother Lin, how did you come? Quickly sit down, I'll pour a bowl of tea for you."

  At this time, Lin Xu waved his hand at Chen Liang and said:

  "Alright, don't be in a rush, no need to be polite with your own brother. I came today because there's something important I want to talk to you about."

  "What's up? Just say it."

  After a moment of contemplation, Lin Xu slowly said:

  "Chen brothers, your younger brother and sister-in-law were killed in a miserable way, you haven't forgotten this matter, have you?"

  Upon hearing this, Chen Liang unconsciously clenched his fists, then realized his behavior was out of place. He forced a smile and said:

  "I remember you said, a gentleman takes revenge ten years later, I can wait."

  Not unexpectedly, Lin Xu nodded and said:

  "Haha, great! It seems that you haven't wasted your time reading books these days. Your fiery temper has also been tempered a lot. However, if you're waiting for revenge, it's going to take at least ten years, and this day might be a bit too long!"

  Hearing this, Chen Liang himself also felt a bit disheartened and said dejectedly with his head lowered:

  "I'm a rough man, but I know that killing someone means paying with one's life, and repaying debts is a matter of principle. Those Imperial Guards killed my wife and her whole family, I'm a man, if I can't even avenge my wife's death, then I'd be a turtle coward!"

  Lin Xu smiled and looked up at Chen Liang, saying slowly:

  "So what do you plan to do?"

  A hint of confusion and disorientation flashed in his eyes, but Chen Liang quickly steeled himself, clenched his fists and said:

  "I... I... want to rebel!"

  "Hmm, what about after rebelling?"

  Although they were discussing the dangerous topic of treason, Lin Xu's tone was as if he was saying that the mother pig in the neighbor's house had just given birth to a litter of piglets, and not a hint of tension or fear could be heard.

  At this scene, Chen Liang was also stunned, he had an incredulous expression, and emphasized his tone:

  "I say, I want to rebel!"

  At this time, Lin Xu still smiled and nodded slightly, saying with an unchanged expression:

  "Is it! I heard clearly, you're going to rebel, aren't you? What a big deal."

  At the sound, Chen Liang felt as if a basin of cold water had been poured over his head. Suddenly, he felt like he had just met this rich old man who was several years older than him for the first time, and said in surprise:

  "This is rebellion! Brother Lin, why aren't you afraid at all?"

  Having heard this, Lin Xu laughed even more happily and casually said:

  "Chen brothers, do you know how many people are rebelling against the current dynasty?"

  On that day, in the Xue Mansion, Chen Liang seized a knife and injured several Jin Yiwei guards. At this moment, he was still a wanted criminal nationwide by the Great Qin court. Unspoken, all over the country, every state and county had posted his wanted poster at the city gate, offering a reward for his capture. Even under Lin Xu's arrangement, hiding in Anzhou to avoid trouble, Chen Liang didn't dare step out of the door during the day. Even if he occasionally went out, it was always at dusk, hurrying back and forth, rarely having the opportunity to exchange information with others. So, for him, being cut off from news was a normal situation.

  After careful consideration of Lin Xu's words, Chen Liang couldn't figure out the meaning behind them and could only shake his head honestly.

  "Uh... I don't know."

  Upon hearing this, Lin Xu seemed to have heard something particularly ridiculous and burst out laughing loudly. He didn't stop until Chen Liang's face turned beet red, at which point Lin Xu finally stopped laughing and said with a teasing tone:

  "Good grief! Don't you see what the world is like nowadays? It's utter chaos! There are countless rebel armies and bandits roaming around, with many claiming to be kings or overlords. If we count them all up, big and small, there must be at least a thousand or eight hundred of them. Can it be that they're still missing one - you?"

  Ever since he made a vow in front of the gods, Chen Liang was willing to pay the price of 100,000 merits to help his deceased wife and family ascend. In fact, from that moment on, he had already positioned himself as the future emperor, otherwise this debt would be difficult to repay.

  Suddenly hearing that there were so many people in the world who had devoted themselves to the cause of rebellion, Chen Liang felt a sense of loss in his heart, as if something had been shattered. It was like a rare treasure that he had always thought was his own precious possession, which he usually kept hidden and was reluctant to show others. Who would have thought that one day someone would tell him that everyone else had this thing too? The huge psychological gap that appeared was also easy to understand.

  It wasn't Lin Xu's intention to come all the way to Anzhou just to deal a blow to Chen Liang's confidence, so he gave Chen Liang some time to adjust, and then said:

  "Alright, let's cut the small talk. Brother Chen, what are you planning to do? Are you going to join someone else as a foot soldier or go solo?"

  At the sound, Chen Liang lowered his head and fell into thought. After a moment, he raised his head and said with determination:

  "I'm a rough man, but I can't spend my whole life doing chores for others. This time, I'll do it myself."

  "Hurray! Brother Chen, I'm also willing to fully support you in rising up in arms."

  After that, Lin Xu revealed a mysterious smile. He lifted his foot and tapped the bluestone floor heavily several times. Immediately afterwards, Chen Liang clearly heard a hollow echo coming from under the stone slab.

  Lin Xu smiled and said:

  "I originally stockpiled a batch of goods here two years ago, seeing that the market trend was not good, and planned to sell them when the market improved. Since you can also use it, why don't I just give it to you as capital?"

  Chen Liang noticed this overly deliberate hint, and as soon as Lin Xu had just left the mansion, Chen Liang thought about it and still felt uneasy in his heart. He then found a wooden stick and iron hammer and other tools, and with great difficulty pried open several bluestone slabs laid out in the main hall.

  Under the floor that had been removed, a three-foot square large black hole was exposed at this time. The entrance to the cave was gloomy and seemed bottomless. Chen Liang stood at the entrance and looked down, feeling a cold wind blowing all over his body. When Chen Liang brought some fire and lit a torch, he plucked up the courage to go down into the cellar. After turning several corners while feeling his way, the scene in front of him scared Chen Liang stiff. In the deepest part of the cellar, within the reach of the firelight, there were piles of wooden boxes like small hills.

  Chen Liang walked forward to open it and take a look, the box was filled with armor, weapons, crossbows of various colors, and arrows. The quantity of these goods was enough to equip an army of one thousand people.

  It's not just the number of weapons stored in the underground cellar that's astonishing, but among them are nearly a hundred pieces of Mingguang armor and Shanwen armor, which are rare and precious items!

  Cao Cao's annotation of Sun Tzu's Art of War, the first sentence of the opening chapter is "Cao heard that in ancient times there was the advantage of bows and arrows."

  In the era of cold weapons, facing the hail of arrows, those soldiers without armor on their bodies would inevitably end up dead or wounded. In close combat, troops were in dense formation, with enemies in front and comrades behind and to the sides. No matter how high your martial arts skills were, you couldn't dodge swords and guns by stepping on others' heads! Therefore, in the era of cold weapons, military forces popularized the technique of exchanging injuries for lives, strongly rejecting those fancy moves of wandering warriors. In this bloody melee where one sword was exchanged for one spear, whether a soldier wore armor or not made all the difference between life and death.

  The significance of a samurai wearing armor was so important that the armor transcended weapons and became the primary prohibited item for private collection and manufacture, with its status equivalent to that of crossbows.

  Known as the Iron Beast, wielding a mace and wearing heavy armor such as Mingguang armor, heavy cavalry was synonymous with invincibility in the Cold Arms era. Except for the powerful crossbow, ordinary bows and arrows could hardly kill knights in heavy armor, except that the horse's power might not be enough, the armored knight could be called a human tank. Similar to the high-end Mingguang armor, even in the army, it was not an ordinary item, and the cheapest leather armor could not be popularized to the general soldier class, everyone could only look at it with envy, at least it was necessary to have a rank of hundred-man commander or above to get a piece of Mingguang armor.

  The criminal law of the Great Qin Empire stipulates that if a civilian craftsman privately manufactures weapons, only the principal offender will be executed, and the accomplices will be exiled to the border. The crime of privately storing and manufacturing armor is obviously much more serious, basically it is a treasonable offense punishable by death.

  It has to be said that Lin Xu's gift to Chen Liang was really too valuable, even making him suspicious on the spot.

  That Lin Dage, who was originally a woodcutter by birth, had only just become wealthy in the past few years. How did he manage to accumulate so many contraband goods? Moreover, these things aren't something you can buy with money. The items that appeared earlier might still be explainable as coincidences or clever excuses, but when Chen Liang pulled out a large flag embroidered with "Expel the Tartars, Restore China" from a large trunk, along with over a thousand taels of gold at the bottom of the trunk, he was completely stunned.

  After some thought, Chen Liang felt that Lin Xu was no ordinary person and couldn't help but mutter to himself:

  "Lin Ge, which road's immortal are you?"

  In the basement of the Anzhou mansion, Chen Liang saw too many things that defied common sense. Even though he had doubts in his heart, it was already too late to retreat.

  Calm and composed, Chen Liang began to devote himself wholeheartedly to the promising work of plotting a rebellion with the greatest enthusiasm of his life.

  It's just the gold taken out of the cellar, converted into half a tael of silver is already a staggering amount. Chen Liang immediately began to launch a large-scale silver bullet campaign, secretly recruiting fugitives and escaped prisoners in Anzhou and surrounding areas, starting to build his own power base. Fortunately, in this era, everything is scarce, except for the poor who are willing to spend their lives for money. As the old saying goes, "No constant property, no constant heart." Only those who yearn for a better life will fear the arrival of death, but for those who are so poor that they have nothing left but their worthless lives, death is actually not scary at all. Endless poverty and suffering, that's the real hellish torture.

  Of course, Chen Liang was not stupid enough to directly shout out the slogan "I want to rebel". When recruiting soldiers from outside, he used the name of recruiting house slaves to protect the mansion for a certain wealthy family in Lin Prefecture.