42, Outbreak

  Cheng City is a lifeless city, and in the early morning, Cheng City looks even more dead. There are no pedestrians on the streets, nor are there any vendors who get up early to sell their wares. The quiet streets, if not illuminated by sunlight, would be as heavy as at night.

  Zhu Yuanzhang did not like such a city, he preferred a thriving and prosperous one where everything was moving forward. When he first established the Ming Dynasty, the entire dynasty was full of sunshine and optimism, every subject was striving for progress... However, after several hundred years, the Ming Empire had become like this...

  He sat by the west gate, looking at the listless old soldier at the gate, hoping that Zheng Yanfu on Tiger Head Mountain could come down as soon as possible to wake up this dull city and see its appearance when it was shocked.

  However, there was no movement on Tiger Head Mountain, and the peasant uprising was not that simple. Could it be that just by shouting, everyone would follow? Zheng Yanfu had to gather the villagers first, then deliver some passionate speeches, invite a few people who were persecuted by the government to say a few words, and paint a picture of how much silver and grain they could get after taking over the county seat, and explain what would happen if they didn't do so...

  It wasn't until noon that Zhu Yuanzhang finally heard a loud roar from the top of Tiger Head Mountain: "Kill!"

  Then the hillside surged, hundreds of people crowded together, and rushed down from the hillside. These people could be seen at a glance to be villagers nearby, wearing coarse linen clothes, with very short sleeves and pants, exposing their arms and calves, which was convenient for farming. The weapons in their hands were chaotic, some wielding iron rakes, some wielding hoes, some holding sickles, and some holding bamboo shovels...

  Their charge was very disorderly, basically just a bunch of people piled together, relying on the momentum of their numbers to rush forward. Those who ran fast reached the front, while those who ran slowly fell behind, and in a short stretch of mountain slope, they opened up a long distance between them. If they were fighting against regular soldiers, this disparity would be enough to create a fatal weakness, all that was needed was for a small cavalry unit to infiltrate from the side into the area where the front and rear were tangled, and these villagers could be split in two, then easily annihilated.

  Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but laugh, what formation am I explaining to a group of villagers? If they knew how to form an array, that would be the real strange thing.

  At this time, the two old soldiers at the city gate had already seen the rioters rushing down from Tiger Head Mountain. They looked at the villagers with a dazed and expressionless gaze, still unaware of what was happening. After several breaths, the old soldier on guard finally realized that someone had come to rebel and kill...

  Two old soldiers neither immediately closed the city gate nor beat the alarm drum, but instead hid in a dog kennel by the side of the road. There were no troops garrisoned in the county town, and they knew that even if they had closed the gate or beaten the alarm drum, it would have been useless to anger the rebellious mob, except to send themselves to their deaths.

  Some friends who do not understand the situation of ancient garrisons, or those who like to play strategy games, may mistakenly think that ancient armies were all stationed in cities... In fact, this view is incorrect. During the Ming Dynasty, troops would usually not be stationed in cities, but rather in military households outside the city walls, tens of miles away.

  These garrison places are called "baos", and the names are mostly "Anti-Japanese Bao", "Refugee Bao", "Qiang Town Bao" and so on. For example, "Anti-Japanese Bao" was built during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty when the Japanese pirates were rampant along the coast of Jiangnan, with 59 baos built along the coastline at that time. Until now, some of the intact "Anti-Japanese Baos" still exist. Next to these garrison forts are large tracts of military colonies, which provide land for soldiers' families to cultivate.

  When there is a war, the civil officials take the order to the fortress and can bring out the troops to garrison the city. Normally, the troops are absolutely not allowed to enter the city for leisure.

  Like the sudden outbreak of a peasant uprising, the local garrison was completely unprepared to react. By the time nearby forts received military orders, the yellow flowers had already withered. So when experienced old soldiers saw the rioters coming, they didn't think twice and hid first before talking. Before the government troops reacted, all resistance was futile.

  Zhu Yuanzhang saw the villagers on the slope rushing closer and closer, Zheng Yanfu was in the front, waving a pig-killing knife in his hand, his expression looked extremely fanatical, the villagers behind him were also like him, with red faces, excitement seemed to overflow.

  With rich experience in peasant uprisings, Zhu Yuanzhang saw at a glance that this was the moment when the power of the peasant uprising was greatest. The poor and white, with nothing to lose, peasants who joined the rebel army for the first time often had such a frenzied expression. They had nothing, they couldn't survive, so they rose up in revolt, their faces full of determination to fight to the death, no one could stop the farm tools in their hands...

  The surging peasants rushed down from the mountain slope and arrived at the city gate in an instant. The city gate was open, but Zheng Yanfu still kicked it heavily with a loud "bang" sound, kicking the thick wooden gate to make a loud noise, shaking the people beside him with ringing ears.

  There were originally no pedestrians by the city gate, so there was no scene of people and animals scattering. Instead, several civilian houses not far from the city gate hurriedly closed their doors, and pairs of terrified eyes peeked out through the gaps in the windows to spy on the rioters at the city gate.

  "Kill Zhang Douyao!"

  "Kill Zhang Douyao!"

  "Kill the officials! Rebel!"

  "Open warehouse... issue grain!"

  Zheng Yanfu kicked the city gate with one foot, and his body didn't stop moving. He rushed towards the county government office in the center of the city, followed closely by two or three hundred villagers.

  Zhu Yuanzhang patted his buttocks and stood up, following them from a distance, also running in the direction of the county government office.

  As they approached the city center where the county government was located, there were more and more people on the streets. Small vendors also began to appear on both sides of the road. Seeing so many rough men rushing over, with red eyes, these pedestrians were frightened and quickly dispersed, small vendors didn't even care about their own stalls, and hastily hid in the side alleys.

  A young master from a wealthy family was riding his horse on the road, when more than 200 villagers shouted and rushed over. The young master hastily whipped his horse to escape, but in his panic, he lost control and crashed into a tofu stall by the roadside, causing both him and his horse to tumble onto the tofu, with dirty water flowing all over the street.

  There were originally four porters carrying a sedan chair on the street, and it was unknown which family's old man was inside. When the rioters arrived, the four porters didn't think twice and threw down the sedan chair before running away. The old man lifted the curtain to take a look outside and was so frightened that he shrunk his whole body, almost being scared to death.

  However, Zhu Yuanzhang was well aware that these people would not have any problems. In the early stages of the peasant uprising, the rioters would absolutely not take extra actions to chase and kill pedestrians on the street. They only had one enemy in their minds now, that is Zhang Douyao. Only when they killed Zhang Douyao, opened the county granary, and looted a large amount of money and grain, would their hatred begin to shift from the government's body to the rich households, and then disperse and become violent thugs who kill people at sight.

  Zheng Yanfu's team soon arrived at the county government square, where there was not a single person on the square. The Shenming Pavilion and the Jingshan Pavilion stood alone on both sides of the square, while the Pichang Temple was cold and quiet, desolate and miserable.

  Several yamen runners peeked out from inside the yamen, one of them with a black mole on his face being particularly bold, and shouted: "Are you people crazy? Take advantage of things not having gotten out of hand yet and disperse quickly!"

  "Disperse? Haha! We're here to cause trouble, disperse our butts!"

  Zheng Yanfu let out a loud roar and charged forward fiercely, the butcher knife in his hand gleaming with a cold light. The yamen runner with the black mole on his face snatched up a water-fire club and also let out a loud shout: "You...!" As he shouted, he swung the water-fire club down at Zheng Yanfu with great force.

  Zheng Yanfu's body was short, he dodged the water fire stick and stabbed the butcher knife in his hand fiercely, blood splashed... The long black mole official had a knife in his throat, didn't even have time to let out a miserable cry, and fell backwards.

  "He's been killed!"

  "It's on fire!"

  "Kill him! Take down Zhang Douyao!"

  The first death in the rebellion has appeared, and once the furious mob sees blood, they will become even more excited and fanatical. All the villagers are now even crazier than before, hundreds of people shouting together, rushing into the government office.

  A rebel group that had not harmed a single passerby on the street just now suddenly went mad and bloodthirsty, a government official hid behind the door, was actually dragged out from behind the door by more than a dozen villagers, hoes and plows smashed wildly, smashing the official into a bloody pulp, unable to see human form.

  Zhang Douyao's master was writing a document in the hall when a rioter rushed over and chopped him on the shoulder with an axe, causing blood to splatter everywhere. His entire left side was almost split open, and he let out a miserable cry as he fell under the desk.

  The rioters began to run wildly in the government office, chasing and killing the officials and clerks one by one, showing no mercy. However, after charging and killing for half a day, they still didn't see Zhang Deyao.

  "What about Zhang Douyao? Why isn't he in the hall?"

  "Didn't he come to the yamen today?"

  "Quickly catch one alive and ask it..."

  "Is anyone else still alive? The people from the government office have all been killed..."

  Zheng Yanfu was in a great hurry, if he didn't kill Zhang Douyao, wouldn't this rebellion against the officials become a farce? The villagers' indignation would also be unable to be vented.

  At this moment, a figure wearing a bamboo hat suddenly appeared in front of Zheng Yanfu. The clothes on his body were very clean and didn't seem to be from the rioting crowd, but strangely, he walked through the pile of rioters without being attacked by anyone. He walked up to Zheng Yanfu, lifted his hat, revealing a face that Zheng Yanfu remembered vividly, and said in a low voice: "Zhang Douyao is not attending court today, he's at home receiving guests..."