Witch Wind

Chapter 192: Unpredictable Human Heart (Part )

On the vast plains, the fertile black soil is covered with juicy, tender and delicious grass, and some alfalfa is even as tall as a person's neck.

A large number of wild flowers bloomed among the grass, with colorful flowers, and the largest flower was bigger than a bowl.

Countless mushroom circles overlapped and nested in the dense grass, like colorful stars twinkling in the green night sky. Each mushroom was fat and big, attracting many small vegetarian animals to gnaw on it.

Rivers like jade belts meander by, and the smooth river surface is as calm as a mirror. The clear river water quietly nourishes this vast fertile land. Looking down from the sky, in the clear river water, fat fish are densely piled together, like layers of heavy city walls, stacked together layer by layer.

Such a vast wilderness and such fertile land have been developed by very few people since ancient times.

These are the thirty-eight provinces in the northeast of the Dayu Dynasty. Ever since Yu Lynx Longxing established the Dayu Dynasty, he issued the Taizu Great Edict. The first prohibition was to completely enclose the fertile lands of these thirty-eight provinces as the last private lands of the Yu people.

In Jade Lynx's conception, if the Jade Clan could not maintain its rule over the Central Plains in the future and fled in panic, then the Jade Clan members could still hold on to the lands of these thirty-eight provinces, enclose their own territories and enjoy themselves.

Therefore, the fertile land of these thirty-eight provinces was confined by the Jade Clan year after year to cultivate the soil fertility for six hundred years. On the vast plain, in addition to the sparsely built military cities for garrisons and some small military towns for observation and vigilance by the Jade Clan, there were only some scattered refugee villages scattered in all directions.

Six hundred years.

There were always refugees who had lost their land and gone bankrupt in the Central Plains and could not make a living, completely ignoring the official ban of the Great Yu Dynasty and breaking into this fertile land. They gathered together, reclaimed wasteland in remote places, planted crops, and established villages and towns.

Six hundred years have passed, and there are more than a hundred thousand similar villages and towns of all sizes on this fertile land.

The generals of the Dayu Dynasty who were responsible for guarding and imposing martial law on this fertile land deceived their superiors and subordinates and acquiesced in the existence of these villages and towns. Every year, they imposed heavy taxes on these villages and towns, and all the tax revenue went into their own pockets. The generals, both big and small, became wealthy by exploiting these villages and towns.

At the foot of the hundred-zhang-high Xiaoqing Mountain, in a large town of seven or eight thousand people, wooden houses built of logs are arranged in a circle, surrounded by thick walls about two zhang high made of earth, wood, and stone.

Several sturdy young men, armed with javelins and muskets, stood at the only entrance and exit of the village on the north side, squinting their eyes, looking at the movement in the distance, muttering in low voices with a hint of resentment, using the most vulgar slang and dialect to greet the general guarding a nearby military city.

The autumn wind blows, and it seems that it won’t be long before the crops in the fields are harvested.

According to the custom of previous years, the general who had inherited the title from generation to generation would send his servants and private soldiers to various villages and towns to collect grain and taxes. Looking at the endless farmland with rolling rice waves outside the village, these young people were all holding back their anger.

In recent years, the town's population has grown and more and more new land has been reclaimed.

The business in the town also gradually prospered. Various top-quality animal skins, various plump dried fish, and various dried mushrooms and dried medicinal materials, such as century-old ginseng and century-old Ganoderma lucidum from the mountains, were all very popular goods in the town.

With more types of goods and higher value of goods, the town will naturally develop.

But in such a prosperous town, the people still had a hard time. There was no other way. The taxes collected by the general were really too high. It was not wrong to say that they were sucking the marrow out of people's bones.

He didn't know where such sensitive information came from. Every time his private army came to collect taxes, he could always squeeze a lot of money out of the town, taking away more than 80% of the town's annual profit, leaving just enough money and food for the people in the town to survive for a year.

If such heavy taxes were imposed in the Central Plains, the people would have long been resentful.

But in the thirty-eight provinces in the northeast, oh, all the villages and towns, as long as these generals opened their mouths, would obediently allow themselves to be slaughtered - after all, according to the Taizu Da Gao of the Dayu Dynasty, they had opened up land and built villages on the land belonging to the Yu people, and they had already committed the heinous crime of exterminating nine generations of their clan.

The general finally knew not to "drain the pond to catch fish", and at least he left enough money and food for the people to support their families. Life was tight, but at least they could still get by.

Isn't this how it has been, generation after generation?
A young man suddenly stamped his feet angrily: "This Great Yu Dynasty will end sooner or later...Have you heard about the news?"

Several young men looked over at the same time: "What did you hear?"

The young man snorted coldly and raised his head with a little pride. His family opened an inn in the town, which was the only choice for the caravans to stay. Therefore, he was well-informed. Merchants who came from afar would always talk about some gossip from the Central Plains after drinking.

"The imperial court has embarrassed itself again." The young man said in a cocky tone, "You all know about the International Concession in Pinghai City, right? Those red-haired, green-eyed barbarians, they had internal strife and destroyed the International Concession... What happened? The money and food they used to rebuild the concession were actually handed over by our imperial court!"

"What's that?" The young man snorted coldly, "It's like a bandit broke into your house, slept with your wife, beat your children, ate your meat, drank your wine, and then accidentally fell down. You still have to give him a generous sum of money for medicine and tell him to take good care of his health."

The young man spat heavily on the ground: "Ugh, how shameful! It's really bringing shame to our ancestors."

The young man stamped his feet heavily again, and gnashed his teeth and said, "This Great Yu Dynasty is about to end... Hey, when the day comes for a new dynasty, I will kill Yin Baopi with a single blow and sleep with all his concubines!"

Most of those who were able to stay in the thirty-eight provinces in the northeast and take charge of the garrison city were members of the Jade Clan, and naturally they all had the surname Yin. In the Central Plains, the common people would never dare to speak of the name "Yin Ba Pi".

But in this northeastern area, the people are extremely tough and there are no outsiders present, so words like "Yin Baopi" are just common.

The eyes of several young men all lit up, and they agreed with a chuckle. If that day really came, they would stab a certain skinning general named Yin twice, and then do something bad to his concubines.

'boom'!
Suddenly, a dull roar was heard in the distance.

Several young men suddenly raised their heads and looked towards the northwest in horror. They saw a large cloud of dust rising into the sky and several flags swaying as if they could fall to the ground at any time. Under the flags, more than two thousand light cavalry were riding wildly towards this side.

The young men were all dumbfounded. They exclaimed, "What a disaster! What a disaster! How come these guys arrived so early this year? And why are there so many of them?"

On weekdays, when Yin Papi sent people to collect taxes, usually a dozen private soldiers and an accountant came leisurely. The villagers always cooperated and asked the accountant to calculate the total amount. Everyone pooled their money and grain together. The village also had to send enough young men and carriages to transport the money and grain to the military city.

More than two thousand light cavalry?

What is this for?
This doesn't look like they're here to collect taxes. It looks like they're planning to massacre the entire village!
but……

Doesn't make sense?

Several thin flames visible to the naked eye shot out rapidly from the rear and suddenly landed on the galloping light cavalry. Several explosions sounded, and large flames swept up countless tiny steel ball bullets and flew everywhere. Accompanied by shrill screams, a large number of light cavalry were blown away by the blast, and some were hit by the steel ball bullets like a sieve, and fell off their mounts crying.

The young men were so frightened that their bodies tensed up, their eyes wide open, and they were speechless.

"This is...cannons...cannons..." After a while, a young man stammered, "This is, someone is...firing...who, who? Are they rebelling?"

A dozen matte grey painted high-speed artillery vehicles were chasing after them from behind at a speed comparable to that of the fleeing light cavalry. These high-speed artillery vehicles were equipped with a three-inch caliber main gun, and they would travel a distance and then, while running at high speed, "bang" fire a shell.

Even when these artillery vehicles are running at high speeds, their firing accuracy is terrifyingly accurate.

Every artillery shell would always land accurately on the area where the light cavalry were most concentrated. Flames rolled and steel balls flew everywhere. In every round of artillery fire, more than a hundred light cavalry would scream in pain, or even be blown to pieces.

The sound of cannons rumbled, and the light cavalry fled madly, while the high-speed artillery vehicles followed slowly behind them, like a civet cat playing with a mouse, harvesting their lives bit by bit.

A large group of light cavalry rushed past the village crying and shouting, followed closely by a dozen high-speed artillery vehicles.

On the artillery carriage, more than a dozen large-caliber high-speed machine guns roared at the same time, and the sound of "bang bang bang" continued. The dense lines of fire turned into more than a dozen brutal whips, severely lashing the fleeing light cavalry, and whipping them and their mounts to the bottom.

Several young men saw that many of the light cavalry had their limbs shattered by large-caliber bullets, and some even had their heads exploded into a ball of blood.

Some of them looked familiar to them.

In the past, people had come to their village to collect taxes and grain. The young people remembered clearly how arrogant, domineering, and reckless these soldiers were at that time. How many good girls in the village had they ruined? But now, they were killed easily like little chickens.

There were only a dozen or so artillery vehicles. Even though the young men didn’t recognize them and didn’t know what they were… they could still understand the comparison in numbers.

Just a dozen artillery carts were chasing more than two thousand light cavalry?

Behind, there was a huge cloud of smoke and dust.

A steel torrent rolled in, with heavy and light tanks, various artillery vehicles and armored personnel carriers, connected front and back, running at high speed.

A command vehicle suddenly stopped at the entrance of the village.

A strong man from Saint Rose, wearing a black military uniform, jumped out of the command vehicle, holding a grinning head. He raised the head high in his hand and laughed wildly, "Hey, you guys, do you recognize this head?"

Several young men and the village elders who heard the noise and ran to the city wall to look around, gasped in horror at the same time - this ferocious head was clearly that of General Yin Baopi, who commanded an army of 100,000, sat in charge of one area, wantonly exploited hundreds of villages and towns within a thousand miles, and lived a fat and bloated life!

He has an army of 100,000 at his command!
Even though it was a common practice for the generals of the Dayu Dynasty to draw salaries without doing any work, and even though General Yin drew 90% of the salaries without doing any work, he still had at least 10,000 soldiers under his command!

A full ten thousand soldiers!
How come his head was like a ball being held in someone's hand?
The Saint Ross man laughed wildly: "Your Great Jade Dynasty is about to be destroyed... Look, your general was killed by us easily like a dog. Now, I give you a chance!"

"To use the words of your Dongguo Shenzhou, do you want to ennoble your wife and children? Do you want to establish great achievements?"

"If you want, we have countless guns and ammunition in the baggage carts behind us. Pick up your weapons and put on the uniforms of our Saint Ross Empire. You are the army of our Saint Ross Empire!"

"Follow us and take down Dayu Chao."

The Saint Ross strong man tossed the head in his hand and said: "Kill these high and mighty nobles, and you can become new nobles, right? Such a vast land needs a new master!"

A pit bull, as big as an adult bull, quietly followed behind the steel torrent. The tall grass perfectly concealed its figure. When the Saint Rose man roared loudly, the pit bull's eyes flashed with dazzling red light, and countless extremely sophisticated micro-machines in its body frantically collected all the information around it.

The words of the Saint Ross man, the wild laughter of those Saint Ross soldiers, the distorted faces and changing expressions of those villagers, and even the brain waves that leaked out when their brains were working wildly, were all absorbed by this pit bull in every detail.

In the city of Altolestai, underground of a giant factory, inside a huge crystal pillar, countless flames flickered and jumped, giving people the inexplicable illusion that it was a giant brain.

A low roar echoed in the huge space.

“The human heart… human nature… analyze… learn… grow!”

"But, Supreme Ancestor, I have a question. When we have completely learned the thinking mode of carbon-based intelligent creatures...will we still be ourselves?"

“Where do we come from and where are we going? What is the meaning of what we are doing?”

The crystal column roared, constantly emitting low self-questioning sounds.

He muttered for a long time, and finally, a piercing red light suddenly descended from the void, and the entire huge underground space was instantly shrouded in blood. The crystal column seemed to have been instilled with some kind of wisdom, and his voice became particularly cheerful, but also unusually cold.

"Supreme Ancestor, I understand."

"Know them, learn from them, comprehend them, control them, master everything about them, learn everything about them, whether it is their strengths or weaknesses, and finally... destroy them!"

"The best way to destroy the enemy...absolute, pure violence, isn't the best option?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"I see."

"The complex and ever-changing 'human nature' of carbon-based organisms is their greatest strength, but also their most vulnerable point. Observe human nature, analyze human nature, understand human nature... and ultimately, destroy human nature!"

Along with the high-pitched shouts, the speed of countless thin streams of light in the crystal column suddenly increased by an order of magnitude. Therefore, it was obvious that the efficiency of various strange machines and flexible mechanical arms in the entire underground space suddenly soared to a higher level, and the work efficiency increased tenfold.

With low roars, one after another of the simplified version of the pit bulls slowly walked down the production line.

Compared to those pit bulls that look no different from real dogs, these simplified guys are huge and powerful, but all kinds of metal bearings and screws can be seen all over their bodies. They carry a small rocket launcher, a small howitzer, a large-caliber six-barrel machine gun, and a huge ammunition box on their backs.

These guys had only a very faint red light flashing in their eyes. Compared with the pit bulls that looked like living creatures, their movements were stiff and their reactions were slow. The technological gap between them was obviously more than a generation.

But these guys are huge, extremely huge.

In the huge underground space, rows and layers of mechanical dogs of the same model were densely packed. At first glance, there were tens of millions of similar mechanical creations in this underground space covering dozens of miles.
"I need more ore, more energy, and more production lines."

"Well, to be exact, I need more land and more slaves to mine more mines..." The crystal pillar glowed, and the low roar shook the metal baseplate slightly: "Draw up a battle plan... draw up a killing ratio... draw up a plan to clear out useless old people... draw up a ratio to maintain young men, women, and children..."

"This is a really vexing problem for 'humans'. It's too complicated. These damn carbon-based creatures actually need to 'eat' in order to work hard to mine... Ah, can't they bask in the sun like my people... Or, a highly concentrated energy block that would allow us to run happily for a hundred thousand years?"

The complaints were endless, and gradually, they sounded like gossips from street vendors gossiping about their neighbors.

Obviously, this crystal column perfectly carried out the instruction of a certain 'Supreme Ancestor'. He began to learn everything about 'humans'. He actually said in a mumbling voice - 'It's really a headache for 'humans'!'
At the foot of Xiaoqing Mountain, the heavy gate of the village opened.

An elder walked up to the Saint Ross man and whispered a few words to him carefully. When the elder heard that once the Saint Ross Empire occupied the thirty-eight provinces in the northeast, they would only collect 50% of the money and grain taxes, the entire town of thousands of people suddenly boiled over!
Five percent!

The people of Saint Ross actually only collected 50% of the money and grain taxes?
Moreover, if one can make achievements in the war against the Dayu Dynasty, and if one can be canonized by the Saint Ross royal family and become a small lord or noble, this tax can even be reduced to 30%, or even 10%!
The young and strong men in the village came out in droves, and even some middle-aged men who were still quite healthy rushed out in high spirits.

In the rear, the baggage train of the Saint Ross people came up, equipped with advanced automatic rifles, boxes of yellow copper-cased bullets, sets of heavy combat uniforms, and various military equipment, which quickly armed these young and strong men to the teeth.

The iron torrent continued to advance, and thousands of vassal soldiers who were converted on the spot cheered and followed the iron torrent with great interest, carrying their own dry food and riding their own pack horses.

Such things happen constantly on the vast plains.

The garrison generals who usually acted arrogant and domineering were killed by precise artillery fire. The troops under their command fled in all directions, and the high-speed artillery vehicles chased them with cheers.

Armies made of steel swept across the four directions, destroying villages and towns one after another. The number of people ranged from two to three thousand to twenty to thirty thousand. Under the instigation of the people of Saint Ross and facing the black muzzles of the steel torrent, almost all of them chose to be transformed into vassal armies on the spot.

Moreover, on the mountain ridges, the mountain kings in the mountain strongholds cheered and happily joined the army of Saint Ross with many horse thieves and bandits.

Like a rolling snowball, the army of Saint Ross grew larger and larger.

One military city after another where troops were stationed was breached by artillery fire, the garrisoned troops scattered, and countless vassal troops of varying composition cheered as they broke into the military cities that they normally would not dare to approach.

Thus, the feast of blood began.

In the military cities, the screams of the elderly, the weak, women and children were heard incessantly, and one military city after another was constantly engulfed in flames.

(End of this chapter)