Witch Wind

Chapter 119: Overwhelming Destruction (Part )

The blue moon is high in the sky.

The blue ocean is calm.

Large flocks of seabirds were circling high in the sky, staring at the stern of the ship, hoping to find some leftovers to fill their stomachs so that they wouldn't have to go into the sea to look for fish.

Xing Tianli stood at the bow of an 8,000-ton passenger ship of British nationality, with his hands behind his back, looking at the huge fleet behind him.

There were thousands of large ships.

If it were an old man named Cao, he would probably have held his spear horizontally and asked loudly: "Gentlemen, is my army mighty?"

But in Xing Tianli's heart, he was cursing his mother over and over again.

There are so few reliable people in such a large fleet!
Needless to say, the brothers of the Xingtian family are very close and caring people.

The He clan members of Wuyue Hall are also their close family members. Xing Tianli is their chief witch. This is a connection of blood and faith that is as solid as a rock and cannot be shaken by any external force.

Well, those silly-looking native savages who have just completed military training for a few days are still reliable, right?

As long as Xing Tianli ran up to them from time to time, lifted a small mountain with all his might, and then did some tricks like breaking a rock with his chest, these stupid guys would follow him wholeheartedly and kill people and burn things.

Apart from this, are there any reliable people in this fleet?
Zhao Song, Cai Jing?
Zhu Ming, Lao Wei?

Haha, and Dongyun's Hu Hai and Zhao Gao, they thought they were hiding in the fleet, flirting with Cai Jing and Wei Zhongxian all day, and thought Xing Tianli didn't know about their existence? Come on, Xing Tianli's soul is also in the celestial realm, and his soul is thousands of times stronger than the newly cultivated celestial realm!

With nine small tripods suppressing his spiritual power, Xing Tianli's spiritual power can now be released twelve miles away. He sneaked around and had already figured out the whereabouts of Hu Hai and Zhao Gao clearly.

Well, there are also brothers Lucy and Lucia.

Oh, and there's that old witch Sophie.

There was also the military intelligence officer sent by Augustus, and the nine Tatas sent by Og to be by his side.

No matter how you look at it, this is a mob with endless internal troubles. With just this small group of troops, Xing Tianli led them to attack Dongyun's homeland with great enthusiasm!

With a few "tsk tsk" sounds, Xing Tianli shook his head and looked at the fleet lying across the sea ahead.

Judging from the flags, it is not a joint fleet composed of Faroese and Idoli.

The fleet in front of them had already formed an artillery array, led by four extremely old sailing, steam-powered hybrid ironclad ships with teak hulls and steel armor. Such old-fashioned warships had a displacement of only 2,000 tons and no fixed gun positions. From a distance, more than a dozen large and small caliber guns could be seen randomly piled on the deck.

Apart from these four old ironclad ships, the number of remaining ships is quite frightening, with more than 300 ships of various sizes.

But they are basically wooden sailing ships.

Among them are imitations of the Eastern-style hard-sailed large sand ships, imitations of the Western-style soft-sailed clipper ships, and Dongyun's own unique, rather strange-shaped bird-sailed turtle-shaped ship.

There were more than 300 ships of various sizes, and the flags they flew were all kinds of strange. At first glance, there were at least a dozen different flags - these were the main forces of Nanpipa Island, the local garrison fleet formed by the large and small powerful families.

When Xing Tianli was looking at the fleet ahead, a large group of nobles on the four hybrid ironclad ships, wearing Wuzhi inner garments and large armor outer garments, with some carrying long swords on their waists, and some holding spears and cross guns, were also looking over here.

Although these dignitaries of Nanpipa Island are only about four feet tall, their overall height is raised to about seven feet because of the huge emblems on their helmets, or the long deer horns, ox horns, dragon horns and other decorations.

They sat neatly on small stools, with stern and gloomy faces as they looked at the fleet which was a little too large.

The highest administrative officer of Nanpipa Island, Nanpipa Shou Qingshangang, who was in charge, slowly put down the telescope in his hand and said softly, "It's really as majestic as the army of demons. Such a big ship, ugh, one of them must cost several million taels of silver, right?"

Ku Tengyuan, the deputy of Qingshangang and the 'Nanpipa Zuofengxing' who was in charge of the finance and taxation of the entire Nanpipa Island, ripped the few goat whiskers on his chin and said gloomily: "It seems that there are not many decent gunboats. The cost of civilian ships is probably only 30% of that of warships."

Qingshangang coughed lightly and said, "30%, that's still a lot of money. Ah, how much silver did our Nanpipa Island earn last year? How many of these huge ships can we buy?"

Ku Tengyuan took out an abacus, carefully placed it on his knees, and started to calculate with a 'clacking' sound.

What? Nanpipa Island has a total population of 30 million households and a total registered population of 160 million people, divided and governed by 85 powerful families... How many good fields, how many medium fields, how many low fields, how much per mu yield, how much tax revenue...

After doing some calculations, Director Ku Teng sighed, "The total annual income is still okay, but the two ruling families took 20%, His Majesty took 30%, and the Penglai Shrine took 40%. We 85 families only got 10%. As for the remaining 10%, I don't know what happened to the other families. 80% of the annual income of my Ku Teng family was used to pay off the high-interest loan interest borrowed from the Chamber of Commerce."

"Just the interest alone, 80% of my Ku Teng family's annual income goes into that bottomless pit!"

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, and Ku Tengyuan's tone turned sad: "My Ku Teng family is pitiful. In name, we have five million people under our rule. They work hard like old oxen from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, but in the end, the annual income of my Ku Teng family is not even enough to buy a decent steamer!"

"This is the final money I'll get, and there's still money to feed this whole family. When your daughter comes of age, will you hold a proper coming-of-age ceremony? Will you prepare the twelve sets of Wuzhi palace dresses to be used in the ceremony?"

"Also, our son is going to Black Dragon City to study and make friends with nobles. Can't we save on this expense?"

"Also, our own expenses, private army, guards, ceremonial guards, maids, concubines, and the sickness and death of our clansmen!"

"Money!"

"Poor!"

Ku Tengyuan looked up at the sky: "Now, there are wars everywhere. When the war breaks out, every food, drink, and every cannonball fired costs money. If there are casualties in the tribe's army, the pension will be..."

Two lines of turbid tears flowed slowly in the Bitter Ivy Garden.

The heads of various powerful families present nodded one after another and complained about the difficulties faced by their families.

Although Nanpipa Island has a vast territory and a large population, the land is barren and there are no special products such as gold or silver. Moreover, it is deviated from the main trade route between Dongyun and the outside world, so it is extremely difficult to get any benefits.

The eighty-five powerful families are nominally the awe-inspiring Tounom nobles, such as Aoyama Oka who is not only the hereditary Nanbiwa no Kami, but also holds the title of Marquis of Tounom, while Kufugen is the hereditary Zuo Fengxing, also holding the hereditary title of earl.

Among the other eighty-three powerful families, there were two impoverished marquises, eight decadent earls, and the rest were all viscounts and barons, all of them were dukes!

But they live a hard life!

They depended on the weather for their livelihood, and could not extort more than a few bags of rice from the people throughout the year. Of the little change they managed to get, the two rulers took 20%, the Holy Emperor took 30%, and the Holy Lord took 40%. They lived on the remaining 10% - every family of them still owed money to the outside world due to the famine, and owed high-interest loans to many large trading companies!

It's true that the marquis, earl, viscount and baron were forced to borrow usury!

Qingshangang and Kutengyuan were still okay, and they were able to live a decent life. Among the 85 noble family heads present, how miserable were the two representative earls? During the slack season and when they were short of money, some of their direct relatives could only have one meal a day, and there was only a small piece of dried bitter melon in their rice bowls, and they were reluctant to even put a piece of salted fish!
Aoyama Oka suddenly roared, drew the sword from his waist, and slashed it hard on the guardrail at the bow of the ship.

There was a sound of "clang", sparks flew everywhere, Qing Shangang used too much force, and the heirloom in his hand, which had been passed down from his ancestors for nearly a thousand years, and had been constantly polished and maintained, had been polished to the point of being too thin and brittle. It was broken into two pieces by his powerful blow.

Qingshangang was heartbroken, staring at the broken ancestral treasure in amazement. His body swayed, and two lines of muddy tears rolled down: "Gentlemen, let us open the door and welcome the new master. Let us change the world and make achievements in following the dragon." There was a fierce light flashing in his eyes, and Qingshangang's voice suddenly lowered. He hoarsely said: "Even if Master Beihe loses, he will be the one who will be disemboweled in the end. We just waved the flags and shouted, taking advantage of the chaos, and fighting, at least the account books of those trading companies..."

With the broken knife, he gently slashed downwards.

Qing Shangang said softly: "Over the years, everyone has been made miserable by those vampires, right? Behind them, they have the support of the princes of Black Dragon City. In the normal years, we could only let them suck our marrow from our bones. But now, haha, it's a war!"

"Wow!" More than eighty heads of wealthy families applauded together, their eyes shining!
With the weak sound of the whistle, more than 300 tattered "warships", led by the four hybrid sail ironclad ships, lowered their respective family flags and raised the flag of the Beihe family.

There was also a small steamer with a displacement of only a dozen tons and which looked to be 60% new. It came out from the rear of the fleet with a "thump thump thump" sound and headed straight for Xing Tianli's fleet.

Xing Tianli stood at the bow of the passenger ship. With his mind out of focus, he could hear clearly the conversation between Qingshangang, Kutengyuan and others.

He looked up at the sky in amazement.

The sky is speechless.

Do these Dongyun nobles still have any moral integrity?

Just for a little bit of money, they sold out their master without hesitation?
Xing Tianli finally understood why the Dark Language Forest could so easily infiltrate so many Dongyun nobles, and could so easily lead the multinational coalition forces to capture nearly a hundred Dongyun islands in such a short period of time without firing a single shot!
Tsk tsk, listen to this!
Nanpiwa Island is one of the largest islands in Dongyun territory. Its territory is almost as large as two Jiangdong provinces. As a result, the nobles on the island lived so miserably?

Ninety percent of the silver, money and grain that the common people worked so hard to obtain were taken away by the higher-ups?

A local nobleman makes a living by loan sharking?

Tsk!
Without firing a single shot or a single bullet, the huge army led by Xing Tianli landed directly on Nanpipa Island. Qingshangang, Kutengyuan and others arranged a grand ceremony venue. The eighty-five noble families on Nanpipa Island jointly presented a "surrender" to Beihe Cangyi.

The leaders, Qingshan Gang and Ku Teng Yuan, cried bitterly in public, complaining about the "dire straits" and "miserable life" of hundreds of millions of people on Nanpipa Island. They hugged Beihe Cangyi's calves, kissed his boots, and begged Beihe Cangyi to "set things right" and "save the people from their desperate situation"!
Beihe Cangyi is worthy of being the eldest son carefully cultivated by the Beihe family. He accepted the surrenders of various families very familiarly, appeased and consoled the heads of each family one by one, and publicly admitted that the people of Nanpipa Island had "difficult lives" because of "treacherous officials in the court", and that the "treacherous officials" were within the "Beihe and Nanshan" families.

Beihe Cangyi promised that as long as the noble families of Nanpipa Island worked together to "punish the traitors together", they would be able to let Dongyun "see the sun" and create a "bright and peaceful world".

In front of tens of thousands of ragged "fellow villagers" of Nanpipa Island, Beihe Cangyi solemnly promised that from today onwards, all taxes and labor service on Nanpipa Island would be exempted for the next five years.

That is, from today on, within five years, all the wealthy families on Nanpipa Island can exploit the land to their heart's content. No matter how much money they squeeze from the common people, it all belongs to them, and Beihe Cang will not take a single penny from them.

Therefore, the "Nanzhu Port" where the Xingtianli Fleet landed was one of the largest ports on Nanpipa Island, with a population of one million. It was mainly engaged in salt industry, fishery, rice, and ironware. It was considered a very prosperous "commercial center" on Nanpipa Island.

Just as Beihe Cangyi was loudly and passionately trying to appease the various powerful families, intensive gunfire rang out on the main commercial streets of Nanzhugang.

The soldiers, dressed in black uniforms and wide-brimmed hats, dressed like the regular army of Dongyun, shouted the slogan "Long Live the Holy Emperor" and rushed into the lavishly decorated trading companies and shops, shooting the bosses and waiters to death, and stripped the pretty maids naked and pinned them to the ground...

The chaotic soldiers were like bandits, sweeping through several commercial streets, looting at will, and robbing all the goods and cash in these trading companies and shops.

Soon, gunshots were heard around the mansions of the big merchants behind these trading companies and shops.

Afterwards, columns of black smoke rose slowly into the sky. After the rebels plundered the wealthy people of Nanzhu Port, they burned down all the trading companies and shops, destroying all the evidence.

Oh, and they didn't destroy all the evidence.

They left behind some of the Dongyun regular army's guns, bayonets, and even their certificates at the crime scenes.

It's not just Nanzhugang.

Such things happened almost at the same time in all the major cities on Nanpipa Island.

The big businessmen who usually parade around the city with their wealth and power, and even have the ability to scold the wealthy families on various occasions, are all robbed today, no matter how strong their backing is.

The men were slaughtered, the women were raped, and all the property was looted.

Most importantly, all the high-interest loans these big businessmen usually lent out, as well as all the IOUs and contracts, were robbed, without leaving a single one.

The main military force of Nanpipa Island is the private army of the eighty-five powerful families. They vary in size and financial resources. The total strength of the eighty-five powerful families is probably just over 200,000.

On the huge Nanpiwa Island, only Nanzhu Port and two other important port cities had 300 regular Dongyun troops stationed there. The few hundred troops stationed directly under the Dongyun Imperial Family also represented the legitimacy of the Dongyun Imperial Family's rule over Nanpiwa Island.

At the same time as those big businessmen were being robbed, private armies with a force ten times the size of the garrisons raided the garrison camps.

After a fierce battle, hundreds of garrisons were wiped out, and their bodies were urgently transported and dumped in the fire scenes of the mansions of the robbed big merchants and trading companies and shops.

On Xing Tianli's side, while Beihe Cangyi was still performing the drama of "a wise ruler meeting wise ministers", "like a fish in water" and "like a tiger with wings", the nobles such as Qingshangang and Kutengyuan had already sent out small steamers, which "rumbled raucously" towards several large islands near Nanpipa Island, and informed their relatives and friends of the "truth" of what happened here.

What was delivered by the steamer were private letters with seals stamped by the heads of each family. What happened openly on Nanpipa Island had already been transmitted to the right place through the established telegraph lines.

The blood relationships among these nobles of Dongyun are a mess.

When you and I were good friends, my son married your daughter; when you and I were enemies, your daughter was given to me as a concubine in order to apologize; when a great noble died, the concubines he left behind were relatively young and beautiful, so the beautiful concubines were inherited by his brothers, sons, or even nephews or nieces in the tradition of 'the death of the elder brother shall be the younger brother', or 'the death of the father shall be the son'.

These brothers may have married their concubines' aunts, and their sons, nephews, and cousins ​​may have married their concubines' sisters or even nieces.

All in all, this is a rotten fishing net that has entrapped all the nobles of Dongyun, big and small. If we study it seriously, we will find that all of them are related to each other!

Qing Shangang and others told their relatives-in-law that the Holy Emperor had been deceived by treacherous ministers, and their family was in dire straits and could not survive any longer. Fortunately, a wise ruler Beihe Cangyi appeared, and their family had already resolutely joined Beihe Cangyi, striving to restore order and seek peace in the court.

But, there are treacherous people in the court!
He had just taken refuge here when the garrison from the Dongyun royal family in his own territory suddenly rebelled, attacked and killed all the big businessmen in his own territory, robbed their property, and burned their belongings!
Oh my, the gold and silver lost must be tens of millions, the land deeds that were stolen must be tens of millions of acres, and the house deeds that were stolen must be thousands. This is a huge windfall!

They tried their best to quell the rebellion, but the gold and silver that were looted were all burned to ashes in the flames of war; the land deeds and house deeds were also burned to ashes...there was no evidence of anything!
What a misfortune!

"No evidence can be given after death." The key is these four words. My dear relatives, uncles, nephews, and nieces, do you understand? "No evidence can be given after death." Ha!

On the second day, after replenishing some fresh water and food, the eighty-five noble families of Nanpipa Island gathered 100,000 elite soldiers and joined Xing Tianli's expeditionary fleet.

Before the fleet set out, the 'guardians' of several large islands next door had already sent telegrams - the garrisons were in turmoil, killing and robbing all the big businessmen in their own territory.

Oh, what a misfortune!

This horrific disaster happened because the Holy Emperor was deceived by treacherous villains.

I heard that the wise king Beihe Cangyi exempted Nanpipa Island from taxes and labor service for the next five years? Is it true? If it is true, then everyone will raise the banner of rebellion and join in the cause!

Therefore, Xing Tianli did not waste a single soldier. Six hundred and seventy-two noble families of all sizes from the five surrounding islands, brought 150,000 "elite soldiers" and their own dry food, and joined Xing Tianli's punitive army!
On the third day, twelve more large islands joined.

On the fifth day, fifteen more large islands were added.

Xing Tianli's scalp was a little numb - is Dongyun so "withered"? Isn't his speed of destroying withering trees and rotten wood a little unorthodox?
(End of this chapter)