Chapter 92: Team Wipeout
She said this to her subordinates, who were currently among the crowd waiting to enter the city outside the south gate of Yuzhou City.
Two days ago, she received the news from Zhao Mingyue and immediately brought people to Yuzhou City.
The task Zhao Mingyue gave her was to capture the South Gate.
Since Zhao Zhuo led a large group of people to Laoya Mountain to hold a swearing-in ceremony, the defense of Yuzhou City was a little weaker than usual.
It was noon now, and the scorching sun was shining down. The guards at the city gate were listless.
The massive explosion just now shook the defenders so much that they were shaken and suddenly snapped out of their wits. "What happened?"
Outside the city gate, merchants and civilians waiting to be interrogated by the guards were also startled. They felt the ground shaking and looked around in panic.
The city also began to shout in panic, "Is there going to be an earthquake?"
After waiting quietly for a while and seeing nothing happened, everyone felt relieved and the team entering the city continued to move forward.
Soon, it was Zhu Dafeng's turn.
The sergeant guarding the city looked her up and down. "What do you do? What's in that package? Take it out and inspect it!"
As he spoke, he reached out to pull the bag slung over Zhu Dafeng's shoulder. Zhu Dafeng dodged without a trace, repeating, "Yes, yes, General, I'll show it to you right away."
The soldier was about to get angry when Zhu Dafeng reached into his bag and pulled out a musket.
Looking at the pitch-black barrel of the gun, the sergeant shuddered in fear. "What are you going to do?"
Zhu Dafeng pointed the gun at his forehead, "Didn't you want to see it? I'll let you see enough now!"
With a bang of a gunshot, half of the sergeant's head was blown off, and the whole person fell to the ground like mud, like a cracked watermelon, bright red.
"Murder! Murder officials!" The people in the queue screamed in fear and fled in panic.
"Quickly capture this man!" The other male soldiers guarding the city immediately drew their swords and rushed towards Zhu Dafeng.
"Attack!" Zhu Dafeng gave an order, and the bandits who were ambushing in the crowd drew out their guns and aimed at the soldiers guarding the city.
All the guns fired at once, and dozens of male soldiers fell to the ground and died.
When the people who were fleeing nearby saw this scene, they froze all over, covered their ears, and squatted on the ground trembling. What kind of weapon was this? It was too terrifying.
The subordinates praised: "This firearm is really powerful!"
Zhu Dafeng was also a little surprised that it went so smoothly. She looked down at the rifle in her hand, her heart pounding with excitement.
In fact, the musket was invented a long time ago, but it has never been taken seriously and has not been used in the army.
In addition to its defect of slow reloading, a more important reason is that those generals felt that the musket was an opportunistic weapon.
Whether it is a bow and arrow, or a sword or a stick, it takes a long time for soldiers to train before they can be effective. But with a musket, you can just call anyone to train for a few days and then they can go to the battlefield.
This made the male generals and soldiers feel that all their years of training had been wasted and that their bravery and prowess were no longer useful.
If such weapons are allowed to appear in the military, their status will be threatened, which is simply intolerable!
But for women like Zhu Fengzhai, the simple and easy-to-learn musket is a magic weapon that completely makes up for the gap between them and the government army.
Zhu Dafeng once felt that there was no future for women like her. They couldn't defeat the men, nor the soldiers, so they could only hide in the mountains and forests and fight guerrilla warfare against them.
But now, Zhu Dafeng found that it was actually very simple to win. As long as this weapon was in the hands of women, they could absolutely crush men.
But now is not the time to think about these things. Soon, Zhu Dafeng reloaded the iron bullets, waved his hand behind him, and everyone quickly rushed to the city wall. When the patrol soldiers saw them, they turned around and ran away in panic, but Zhu Dafeng pulled out his long sword and chopped them to the ground with one blow.
Then, there was another burst of gunfire and flashes of fire. There were wailing and screaming on the city wall, and the soldiers defending the city fell down row after row.
Zhu Dafeng quickly seized the South Gate and fired a flare to notify his companions.
Not long after the flare was sent out, the city gates in the east, west and north directions also fired flares in succession, and several loud bangs broke the sky.
Zhu Dafeng was overjoyed, "It seems they have already captured the city gate!"
————
At the same time, Song Zhong, the general of the military department stationed in the city, also heard the four flares.
Before this, Zhao Zhuo had already transferred 4,000 soldiers to garrison at Laoya Mountain, but now there are only 1,000 soldiers left in the city. If bandits come to attack, it will not be a good thing.
He was filled with doubt and panic, and quickly ordered his men, "Come here, go to the city gate and check to see what's going on!"
The subordinate received the order and was about to go to the city gate to check the situation when he suddenly heard footsteps outside the gate.
Song Zhong looked up and found that it was the female official beside Princess Fuguang, who walked in with a dozen guards, and hurried to greet her.
It was Xue Qi and Lu Qibai who came. She flashed the token in her hand and said hurriedly, "Xie General has ordered you to lead a thousand soldiers and horses to the south gate to welcome the prince back to the city!"
Song Zhong was somewhat surprised. "Is the oath-taking ceremony over so soon? But the prince didn't tell me to go to the South Gate to greet him."
Moreover, why did Xie Qinjian ask Princess Fuguang's people to deliver the message? This is so strange.
Xue Qi said coldly, "If you have to wait for the prince's orders before doing anything, then what's the point of having you? Besides, if General Song doesn't go, he'll be disobeying military orders."
Her expression was so natural that Song Zhong couldn't help but believe it, so he had to gather a thousand soldiers and lead them to the South Gate personally.
Xue Qi and Lu Qibai looked at each other, and they both saw the hidden cunning in each other's eyes.
Song Zhong knew nothing about it and led his soldiers to the south gate, but found that the gate was closed and there was not a single soldier patrolling on the city wall.
He suddenly became suspicious and ordered his troops to retreat, but it was too late. He saw the ambush troops on the city wall suddenly appear. There were about a hundred of them, some with guns, some with bows, and arrows and bullets were shot at them.
The soldiers in the front row were shot and fell to the ground immediately, and the others screamed in panic and turned around and ran away.
"Oh no, we've fallen into a trap! Xie Qinjian is planning a rebellion, we need to quickly inform the prince!"
Song Zhong thought that this was an ambush arranged by Xie Qinjian. Seeing that the city gate was controlled by the enemy, he immediately turned his horse's head and led his men to rush towards the west gate. However, he didn't know that the west gate had also been captured by the Jinwu Guards.
As long as the gates of the four cities are controlled, dealing with the defenders in the city will basically be like closing the door and beating the dog.
Xue Qi and Lu Qibai took advantage of the chaos to leave and inform Ximen's companions of the news.
————
On the other side, Swallow Valley.
After the huge explosion, Zhao Zhuo, who was kneeling on the high platform, was shocked to see that under the thick smoke, the valley entrances on both sides were blown up.
Countless huge rocks, soil and trees rolled down in an instant, blocking both exits.
The soldier who happened to be standing below was hit directly, and the bright red blood dyed the ground red. Screams were heard one after another under the rolling boulders.
Immediately afterwards, guards stood up one by one on the mountain walls on both sides. It was unclear how many people there were, but only rows of muskets were pointed at the soldiers in the valley.
Zhao Zhuo suddenly screamed, "You actually set an ambush here!"
The soldiers who had just tried to attack Zhao Mingyue also screamed in unison, "They blew up the exit, we can't get out!"
"Let's run away!"
"Run away, catch them all and kill them!"
This group of male soldiers who had never been to the battlefield suddenly became agitated. They pushed and shoved each other, climbing over the rocks and trying to climb out. Suddenly, the situation became a mess.
However, just as they climbed up the huge rocks and trees that blocked the mountain pass, they heard a loud noise from above their heads. Countless bullets blasted down, limbs flew everywhere, and dozens of people died instantly.
When the other soldiers saw this, they were so frightened that they collapsed to the ground.
Only Xiqi's general Heihan remained shocked. He led his men to raise their crossbows, wanting to teach these female soldiers a lesson.
However, what awaited them was the sound of merciless "bang bang". Before they could shoot their arrows, the Jinwu Guards' muskets had already killed them all.
It can be said that this was a one-sided massacre.
Zhao Mingyue stood on the high platform and suddenly felt a little heartbroken. How much ammunition would be wasted!
After realizing that they could not escape from the valley entrance, the generals immediately looked at Zhao Mingyue on the high platform.
At this time, Li Zhi was still wailing in pain on the ground, but they didn't care about him at all, not even Zhao Zhuo.
Only by taking Zhao Mingyue as a hostage can they have a chance of survival!
The Yuzhou general immediately rushed towards the platform, waving his sword, and the rest of the soldiers followed closely behind.
Seeing this, Zhao Yuzhang raised his foot and kicked Zhao Zhuo on the back, kicking him off the platform. He then looked at Zhao Mingyue and the guards and said, "We can retreat now."
They had already prepared grappling hooks on their bodies, and immediately turned around and ran towards the mountain wall behind them, threw the grappling hooks up and caught them, then quickly climbed up by grabbing the ropes.
The soldiers below the stage were thrown in front of them by Zhao Zhuo, blocking their way. Seeing them escape, they were so angry that they jumped to their feet.
Zhao Zhuo was overjoyed. He stood up from the ground with trembling feet and stretched out his hands to them, "Hurry, help me—"
Before he could utter a word, a sharp arrow shot out and pierced his chest.
Zhao Zhuo's pupils trembled, "No——!"
He hasn't become emperor yet, so he can't die yet.
Zhao Zhuo looked back unwillingly, only to see Zhao Mingyue standing on a high mountain wall with a bow and arrow pointed at him.
The string was released, and another arrow was shot. Zhao Zhuo spat out a mouthful of blood and fell to his knees.
"Your Highness!" The soldiers widened their eyes in disbelief, rushed forward and helped him up.
She placed her trembling fingers on the tip of his nose, but there was no breath.
Everyone was in despair, but then they heard the Golden Crow Guards shouting in unison on the cliff: "Zhao Zhuo is dead! Surrender quickly!"
"Surrender! Surrender! Surrender!"
They looked down at the male soldiers in the valley, urging them on, as if they were about to take their lives.
Some of the timid ones had already knelt on the ground, dropped their weapons, and wailed, "I surrender, I surrender, don't kill me, I have an 80-year-old mother and a three-year-old child at home, please have mercy on me, don't kill me!"
However, those generals were ashamed to surrender to a woman. Seeing Zhao Mingyue and others leaving the cliff, they immediately rushed over with dozens of people, grabbed the stone wall and began to climb up, trying to fight their way out.
However, without the help of the grappling hook, it was impossible to climb up this extremely steep mountain wall, not to mention that there were Golden Crow Guards constantly throwing stones at them. Soon, these people fell down one after another with screams, their brains bursting.
Seeing that no matter how hard they struggled, they could not escape the valley, the remaining people finally knelt down and raised their hands in surrender to the women they hated the most, feared the most, and were most terrified of.
On the cliff, Zhao Mingyue looked at the group of dejected and terrified men, and could no longer remember how arrogant and complacent they looked half an hour ago.
She looked at Zhao Yuzhang, "Aunt, do you want to forgive them?"
Zhao Yuzhang was silent for a moment, then spoke softly, "To cut the grass at its roots, let this Swallow Valley be their burial ground."
She raised her head. The red sun that had already set in the west was like a drop of blood, reflecting the redness of her eyes. The voice that rang out again was firm and cold: "Pass on my order, leave no one alive!"
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