Steward: "Reporting to the master, they are still 150 li away from Gaoling!"

Gao Cheng immediately looked at everyone and said in a deep voice, "Gentlemen, now that things have come to this, we have no choice but to fight to the death. If we make a move here, Jizhou, Qingzhou, and Yanzhou will naturally follow suit. If we hold out for a few days, the crisis will be resolved on its own!"

"Patriarch Gao's words make sense. Even if we don't move, we can't escape death anyway, so we might as well fight to the death..."

"Yes, let's give it our all!"

At this moment, everyone no longer hesitated and chimed in with their opinions.

Soon, the heads of each family dispersed, and Gao Cheng gathered together the young and strong men of the Gao family, the servants in the mansion, and the assassins he had raised, and distributed weapons to them.

When they learned that Gao Cheng was plotting a rebellion and that the imperial court had sent troops, the Gao family members and servants, who had no way out, had no choice but to follow Gao Cheng's orders.

Soon, the Gao family, together with several other families in the city, organized a force of five thousand men, shouting slogans such as "Purge the court of corrupt officials and punish the traitors," and charged toward the Gaoling government office and the four city gates.

Faced with the sudden uprising of Gao Cheng and others, the magistrate of Gaoling County, as well as the yamen runners and soldiers in the city, were caught off guard and were quickly defeated and captured by the rebels.

In the blink of an eye, Gaoling was taken over by Gao Cheng and his associates, and even Wang Yun, the prefect of Zuo Fengyi, became a prisoner of Gao Cheng and his group.

Meanwhile, the powerful clans who received Gao Cheng's message also rose up at the same time, quickly raising a rebel army of up to 30,000 men and beginning to attack the county town under Zuo Fengyi's control.

In an instant, the entire Zuofengyi region was engulfed in flames of war.