Chapter 1胤黎 Arrives in Danyang

When Yin Li arrived in Danyang, Tan Xiaopei, Zhuo Mang, and other core ministers were waiting for him at the airship mooring station. The members of the delegation who would return to Xiling with Yin Li had also assembled. While Tan Xiaopei and Zhuo Mang were holding talks with Yin Li and the others, Ye Tao was directing and coordinating the airship squadron for the final preparations. This time, Danyang directly dispatched a total of forty-four airships, including Yunzhou Number One, to deliver a large number of personnel directly into the heart of Xiling. The various arrangements along the way were quite complex.

For ease of communication, Yin Li and two attendants boarded Yunzhou Number One directly. Only after the airship took off did he discover that Ye Tao had already fallen asleep from exhaustion. Yin Li didn't know much about Ye Tao, but he had a good feeling about him. Even the attendants around Ye Tao seemed to have been influenced by Ye Tao's family for many years, and their treatment of others always revealed a sincere taste that made people feel very comfortable. Feng Zi, who was accompanying them, was responsible for answering some of their questions, and for the content that was not convenient to tell them, Feng Zi always explained seriously and calmly why. If it couldn't be said, it couldn't be said, but he didn't beat around the bush to shirk responsibility. After Feng Zi's explanation, Yin Li had a certain understanding of the situation. In addition to sending a delegation to Dongping for talks, the Yin family naturally had to make various arrangements within Xiling, contacting families with sufficiently close and reliable relationships, and dividing and disintegrating various enemies and friends who might have an impact on their surrender. However, someone finally realized that Prince Yin Li had been missing for a long time, as well as a large number of people in key and sensitive positions, and even Yin Ying. Yin Ying's appearance in Danyang may also be a flaw. Some of Xiling's spies could recognize the princess, but these spies were not entirely under the direct control of the Yin family.

The court situation had not changed much, but some aristocratic families had begun to gather military strength, and horizontal contacts had also increased. This state of self-protection did not worry the Yin family too much. Fearing being betrayed and becoming bargaining chips, it was understandable that these families would make such a gesture. This situation was not impossible to resolve. The Xiling ruler had his nephew visit several patriarchs, which slightly eased the atmosphere. But just five days ago, Yin Zhi's party was ambushed and the entire army was wiped out. Yin Zhi's life and death were unknown. It seemed to be the Daoming Sect that attacked them. The Daoming Sect then began to attempt direct control over the three states over which it had a profound influence. The Daoming Sect could be said to be deeply rooted in Xiling. In terms of influence alone, it was still much stronger than the Leiyin Demon Sect, which had been established for a shorter time, especially with the continuous infiltration of several generations. That kind of loyalty and fanaticism, combined with the煽动力 (inflammatory power) of religion, was truly a very terrifying force. The Daoming Sect even began to take a series of measures such as assassinations and kidnappings to directly control the power of some families. The attack on Yin Zhi's party had a very 'the dagger is finally revealed' (idiom: the real intention is revealed) feeling, the final moment to see the truth. The military force they now directly controlled had exceeded 150,000, and there were three times as many trained, equipped, and religiously devoted soldiers. There was already a vague sense of threatening Anqing.

The Daoming Sect seemed to have a bit of an intention to break away from the Xiling royal family and establish its own country. They were not without confidence. Once they used religion as a call to arms and launched endless harassment warfare, Dongping might not be willing to pay the price of hundreds of thousands of casualties to fight them head-on. The Daoming Sect's senior leaders believed that as long as they didn't fight a frontal war with Dongping, relying on the strategy of全民皆兵 (all people are soldiers), they should still have a chance. They were very clear that once Dongping entered Xiling, the Daoming Sect would face a comprehensive purge.

When Feng Zi chatted with Yin Li, he told Yin Li that many forces had already infiltrated Xiling territory. In addition to a small number of garrisoned forces at Ye Family Fort and guards for Ye family members, 1,400 members of Ye Tao's Guards Camp had entered Xiling. A total of 4,000 members of the Special Operations Camp's main combat team and reserve team had all entered Xiling. The inner court guards and the secret camp established by the Tan family, composed purely of martial artists from all walks of life, also had considerable strength in Xiling. Someone was already responsible for finding out Yin Zhi's whereabouts. Once it was confirmed that he was still alive and under the control of the Daoming Sect, there would be corresponding rescue operations immediately. This efficiency also startled Yin Li somewhat. Being able to react so quickly meant that there was a fast channel for direct communication with Dongping within Xiling. He didn't know that these intelligence personnel were the first to start using wireless telegraphs, how could there be such fast communication, in his opinion, it was a mystery.

It was understandable that Ye Tao went to Anqing himself to control the overall situation. What surprised Yin Li even more was that Tan Weixin and Dai Yun had also come along. It was normal for Dai Yun to follow. Ye Tao needed someone completely reliable and capable to command the army, and they had to be meritorious and able to convince the public. Perhaps she would have to temporarily command Xiling troops to fight. In this regard, although Dai Yun was a woman, when it came to military achievements in recent years, there were few in the world who could compare with her. But Tan Weixin's arrival made him a little confused.

The airship squadron rushed to Xuanshan Pass at full speed, resupplied, and joined another airship squadron. All of those airships were full of people. The thirty airships carried nearly eight hundred elite soldiers with only simple weapons. In this way, all in all, Ye Tao was able to directly command more than 7,000 elite Dongping troops in Xiling. It was also a fairly strong army. What about the equipment for these eight hundred people? Yin Li didn't even think about asking. The other side had sent thousands of people to sneak into Xiling, what was it to bring in a few hundred sets of equipment? Fortunately, he was cooperating with Dongping, otherwise, he would have been furious just knowing these things. Several thousand people, what a storm they could stir up.

In fact, Ye Tao was still hiding a little information. His men had already started taking action in Xiling. Since they knew that the Daoming Sect was starting to stir things up, they would naturally do their best to attack the Daoming Sect. The Zongmo Troupe entered the Daoming Sect's controlled areas in small teams to carry out large-scale destruction. Those guys from the Guards Camp were even more afraid that the world wouldn't be in chaos. They had only taken action for two days, and they had already killed four of the twelve major bishops of the Daoming Sect. This was also thanks to the sniper rifles, which allowed them to attack from hundreds of feet away and then retreat calmly. After the deaths of the four bishops, the Daoming Sect was still not very clear about what was going on. But the deaths of so many high-ranking clergy had greatly affected their grand strategy. The structure of the Daoming Sect was not quite the same as that of the Leiyin Demon Sect. The Leiyin Demon Sect adopted a system in which clerical, military, and political affairs were separate. The names were the same, but in reality, they were not under each other's jurisdiction. Each had its own specialization, and then they could coordinate with each other. This was also because the Leiyin Demon Sect had a strong bond of interests that allowed the followers to follow, and it was not entirely based on religion and idol worship. But the Daoming Sect was different. A bishop was a local ruler. Of course, he had to obey the main altar, but the power under his control was all up to him. The sudden death of one-third of the bishops caused a great shock within the Daoming Sect.

The airship squadron stayed at Xuanshan Pass for a day, and then set off at night, flying directly to an imperial manor outside Anqing. Yin Li was worried all the way. Xiling also had an airship squadron, but night flight was very unsafe. The flight itself was not a big problem, but without ground reference objects, it was too easy to get lost. Now, except for one hydrogen airship and one helium airship in Yunzhou used for technical verification, they were all using the hot air airship technology pioneered by Ye Tao, which was constantly being developed and improved. In fact, it was just a disguised hot air balloon, and the range was still limited by the fuel carried. And getting lost would have extremely serious consequences.

The interior of the airship was passable, which gave Yin Li the opportunity to observe the demeanor of Dongping's ace pilots. As he watched, he also saw some clues. In order to avoid being observed and discovered from the ground, the airship squadron basically operated with all the lights turned off, and only carried out minimal contact with each other, using lightbox signals that were subject to directional isolation treatment. But the direction of the airship had always been very stable because there was guidance on the ground. Along the way, flashing light signals could be seen on many hilltops. Yin Li couldn't help but feel a little depressed again. Dongping was scheming and preparing everything. If a war really broke out, how could they deal with it? However, many years ago, when airship technology was not very advanced, Ye Tao used Xiling to bomb them. Now, so many years have passed, with Dongping's technological system, it's really not difficult to do this now.

The imperial manor had naturally been prepared long ago, but Ye Tao's men also left a deep impression on the Yin family of Xiling. To receive such a large team and moor so many airships, there naturally had to be considerable preparation. The imperial manor, which was originally only used for leisure and summer retreat, could not possibly have this kind of preparation, and it would be easy to startle the snake if some airship troops were transferred over. Originally, the guy in charge of this matter had a headache. Unexpectedly, three days ago, a team of nearly three hundred people appeared at the gate of the imperial manor, entered the imperial manor with the agreed-upon password, and then stated their identity: The Logistics Brigade of the Special Operations Camp directly under the Northern Xinjiang Pacification Office... And what was even more depressing was that at the same time as revealing his identity, Dai Hong, who led this troop, also stated that in order to prevent the people in the imperial manor from leaking the news, someone else had already controlled the periphery of the entire imperial manor.

Although there would still be secret envoys who would pass this situation on to the Xiling ruler, this deployment had already allowed the Yin family to see Dongping's capabilities.

The airship squadron naturally landed on time and did not attract anyone's attention. Ye Tao certainly had to keep a low profile. He was here to solve the problem, not to put himself in a siege. And in this imperial manor in Xiling, he was actually in a heavy encirclement of forces with various unknown stances.

"Airborne flow is really not that fun," Ye Tao only had this comment on this. From the expression on his lips, it could be seen that he didn't really think there was much danger. This was also the case. If there was really a great risk, how could Tan Xiaopei let him, Tan Weixin, and Dai Yun come to Xiling together? This account was easy to calculate. As long as Ye Tao and Tan Weixin were there, no matter what, conquering Chunnan and Xiling was only a matter of time. But without these two people, even if Dongping continued to rely on its huge combat advantage and the inertia of its national strategy to conquer Chunnan and Xiling, there would be no such geniuses to guide and assist Dongping in steadily developing for decades to come. Only a handful of people in this country know how much Dongping relies on Ye Tao and Tan Weixin's various ideas.

The imperial manor had become Ye Tao's temporary command post. Wind turbines and wireless telegraphs were quickly set up. Another morning arrived, and various troops sent out communications according to the scheduled time. This method of communication shocked those Xiling generals, including Yin Li, so much that they didn't know how to react. But what shocked them was not only this. An airship from the interior of Xiling also arrived at the imperial manor. The airship, with only three crew members, carried huge wooden boxes. When these wooden boxes were opened and the contents were taken out and pieced together, they formed a total of four sets of sand table models: the entire area of Xiling and its surrounding borders, northern Xiling, southern Xiling, Anqing and its surrounding areas... The detailed survey of Xiling's terrain by Dongping made the high-ranking military officers who were loyal to the Xiling royal family silent after seeing it. It should be known that even the Xiling Royal Palace had a relatively rough but accurate depiction in that sand table of Anqing and its surrounding areas... If there wasn't a Dongping spy proficient in surveying and mapping mixed into the Royal Palace, then it should have been viewed from the air... Neither was a pleasant thing.

Fortunately, Dongping was at least not their enemy at the moment. After seeing these things, the Imperial Guard generals loyal to the royal family began to accept the dual command of Dai Yun and Yin Li without any doubt. And basically with Dai Yun as the main one.

"Niu Tou Stockade is already in our army's control." A telegram arrived at the imperial manor that night.

Yin Li asked strangely, "Niu Tou Mountain? Where is that?"

"The third highest peak of Motian Ridge." Dai Yun replied concisely, "It's 344 li away from here as the crow flies, and 592 li by road."

"Where is that?" Yin Li still didn't understand. But the faces of the two Imperial Guard generals beside him had already turned ugly.

"Your Highness, that's something that the family generals released by the Qi family did. They occupied the mountain as their own... but although that place is not far from here, it's still relatively remote, and it's in the deep mountains with only one road. The Qi family operated in Anqing, so we didn't care about it," the general surnamed Li explained in a low voice.

"Then why did they occupy that place?"

"Tomorrow, thirty airships will stop at Niu Tou Stockade. If all our deployments are unsuccessful, at least everyone can retreat there and fly directly to Dongping. There's a way out. No matter what, these hundreds of li are passable," Dai Yun said indifferently.

"This..." Although he also wanted to praise the foresight in planning for defeat before victory, Yin Li couldn't say it.

"Your Highness doesn't need to take it too much to heart. The family generals released by the Qi family were already emptied by our people three years ago. Slowly infiltrating and replacing them, Niu Tou Stockade originally only had more than 3,000 people, plus more than 10,000 mountain people who depended on the stockade to cultivate the land. Among those more than 3,000 people, 2,000 have already been replaced by our people. This kind of small formation is not worth mentioning," Liu Yong added with a smile on the side. Shen Luoying, his closed-door disciple who first ran over to be the second-in-command and empty out the boss of Niu Tou Stockade, is only just over thirty years old now and has a bright future. Moreover, Guan Huan, Ye Tao's good friend, is also there to assist him. As for those mountain people, they are now loyal to Shen Luoying. Shen Luoying taught them mountain forest planting techniques, organized them to contract and cultivate terraced fields, and established a fairly fair distribution system, allowing everyone to live much better. For the mountain people who were originally so poor that they had nothing but their lives, even the kindness of recreating them was not enough to describe their feelings. The mountain people originally had poor information channels and a low degree of recognition of Xiling, and now they don't even take the court's orders seriously. Niu Tou Stockade has thus become the most ideal retreat.

As Dongping's various deployments gradually fell into place and arrangements that had been foreshadowed for many years surfaced, the situation became more and more controllable. The Yin family continued to guide the court situation quietly, but the security of the Royal Palace was more than a notch higher than before, and the control of the Anqing garrison was also tightened.

"If you want to continue to contact those people you trust, who else can be of use?" Ye Tao asked.

"Yin Zhi, he is now... Alas, if he were here, he would be the most suitable. Smart, young, and brave... It's a pity..." Yin Li thought for a while and still felt a little regretful. "Does he have any news at all now?"

"It's not that..." Ye Tao held the latest telegram in his hand and pointed and drew two lines below, one line was the characters directly translated, and the other line was the telegram deciphered according to the characters. "My people have already rescued Yin Zhi. But his leg was broken by the Daoming Sect... It's probably not appropriate to let him run around again, right?"

"What?" Yin Li snatched the telegram and read it carefully.

Rescuing Yin Zhi can be called a stroke of genius, and was the result of the joint efforts of the Guards Camp, the inner court guards, the Special Operations Camp, and the Zongmo Troupe. Although Yin Zhi's party was attacked, Yin Zhi's role was very valuable, and after he was captured, he was locked up in an industry controlled by the Daoming Sect. Originally, the Daoming Sect was carefully guarded, but after the four bishops were assassinated, the main altar ordered Yin Zhi to be transferred to the main altar, which allowed the Zongmo Troupe, which knew the Daoming Sect's style of doing things like the back of their hand, to discover the clues. The Zongmo Troupe quickly coordinated with the other parties to formulate an action plan.

The Leiyin Demon Sect has never lacked people who are extremely煽动力 (inflammatory). It's no problem to use them to attract the followers on their side, but they are also very skilled at dressing up as Daoming Sect priests and煽动力 (agitating) the local area. Six warriors changed their clothes and acted separately, and in less than a day, they had pulled in five or six thousand people from the surrounding villages, carrying simple weapons, and going to "support" the main altar. They happened to bump into the team escorting Yin Zhi and blocked the road. It seemed that these were all genuine people from their own side, and the escort team was unable to recognize the people from the Zongmo Troupe among these thousands of people. Instead, they were attracted by the various rewards provided by the friendly followers and camped together to rest. And on this night, the people from the Zongmo Troupe, together with other assistance, launched a concentrated attack with three times more elite troops. On average, two people stared at one person and solved 80% of the entire team in just an instant. After a very brief battle, they took Yin Zhi away. However, the team naturally could not carry a telegraph machine to travel. They took Yin Zhi for more than 200 li before arriving at the contact point and sending out this telegram. They also called for an airship at the same time, but to wait for the airship to arrive and bring Yin Zhi here to the imperial manor, they would probably have to wait a while. The main reason was that the nighttime light guidance along the way had to be rearranged once.

However, rescuing Yin Zhi relieved the Xiling royal family. This was not only because Yin Zhi was a member of the royal family, but also a capable and promising one. It was also because they could not allow the Yin family's contact with Dongping to be exposed. If Yin Zhi was not rescued, they would rather Yin Zhi die directly in that attack. Under severe torture, anything could be asked.

However, after this, the situation in northern Xiling became further entangled. The Daoming Sect was aggressive, and coupled with the fact that it had suffered not small losses all of a sudden, it was like a wounded beast, wanting to bite everything around it, and began to constantly launch attacks on aristocratic family manors, constantly coercing more and more followers and unaffiliated civilians, accumulating power. They also launched a large number of assassination, kidnapping, and attack terror offensives, and their attack targets were not only the Leiyin Demon Sect and families loyal to the royal family, but also those who simply disagreed with the Daoming Sect's strategy. In the entire area under their control, there could only be one voice!

Faced with the aggressive pressure of the Daoming Sect, the Leiyin Demon Sect finally made a direct response. They formally took over all local political and military power and fully moved the Guardian Army south, forming a strong defensive barrier in the control area intertwined with the Daoming Sect, and advancing steadily. The Zongmo Troupe continued to seek opportunities to assassinate and attack, constantly causing greater and greater pressure on the Daoming Sect. The entire northern Xiling was no longer something that the Yin family could control.

The situation developed in a worse direction. Several ministers and military generals close to the Daoming Sect made a desperate gamble and finally joined the Daoming Sect under various threats and inducements. The more than 200,000 troops who were originally undergoing combat readiness training fell into the hands of the Daoming Sect in an instant with the guidance and cooperation of the Daoming Sect, and those aristocratic families loyal to the Yin family, located in the mountains and dangerous areas with strong martial power, were still able to defend their strongholds, while those with weaker strength had no choice but to be coerced in order to save their lives. In this bad situation, Dongping's several ambush troops were unable to contact the imperial manor on time. But at this time, after careful consideration, Dai Yun decided that she could mobilize all her forces to solve the problem once and for all. The Daoming Sect had exposed all its evil faces, from originally persuading people to be gentle and kind and making people believe in cause and effect to now embarking on the road of religious terrorist rule, even those forces that were originally wavering should now understand who they could live with and live well.

The Xiling ruler was "greatly angered" and imprisoned all the ministers who were still stubbornly supporting the Daoming Sect in the court, and then issued an order to mobilize troops to conquer the Daoming Sect. The power he could gather in his hands was not enough. The Xiling royal family could directly and indirectly control less than 200,000 troops, which, although with considerable combat power, could not compete with the opponent's regular army and auxiliary religious mobs of nearly 1.5 million. Even if the garrisons stationed in various places were loyal to the Xiling royal family, it was impossible to gather them together now. Fu Sinian led his army to protect the king, and 30,000 troops blocked the north of Anqing, firmly resisting the Daoming Sect's infiltration and invasion. The Royal Palace silver vault was opened, and the rewards for the capture of the Daoming Sect's high-level leaders and the rewards for military merits were clearly marked and would never be shirked. The Imperial Guard and the Anqing garrison spent a full four days cleaning Anqing City, driving all the followers of the Daoming Sect out of the city, enclosing them in a designated area to live, and controlling them. After fully controlling Anqing, ensuring that the capital was completely safe and would not leak information, Ye Tao and his party moved the command post into Anqing.

After seeing Ye Tao, the Xiling ruler expressed his hope that Dongping could advance its troops as soon as possible, pacify the rebels, and restore peace to the world. Although the current situation was much more chaotic than initially expected, Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, and Dai Yun were all people with strong nerves and a hundred plans in one step. After Ye Tao clarified the Xiling ruler's attitude and had no more scruples, he immediately ordered the border defense army stationed in Zhenzhou, the tribal cavalry, and the various new army brigades that were being reorganized to assemble and go south. A fast airship carried the ruler's secret envoy and sent the decree to cooperate with the Dongping army to Lei Huang, asking him to coordinate the relationship between the Leiyin Demon Sect and the Zhenzhou army, and to not let any more disturbances arise at this time.

Upon receiving such a "reasonable" decree, Lei Huang and his brothers who had been lurking for many years laughed heartily, finally waiting for this day. Originally, the Leiyin Demon Sect's control over the local area and its followers was not at the same level as that of the Daoming Sect. Now that there was a legitimate decree to dispel the doubts of some of the followers, what else was there to say? Two high-ranking priests immediately contacted the Zhenzhou army liaison officer, who was waiting at the main altar, to communicate the combat strategy, while Lei Huang immediately went to deploy the general mobilization of the Leiyin Demon Sect.

The alarm bells of the Leiyin Demon Sect distributed in various villages and towns were sounded at the same time. Pious followers and villagers took out their hidden weapons and armor, or gathered with simple food and water, and rushed to the nearest Leiyin Demon Sect altar. A large number of weapons were distributed, and teams were formed. Although the Leiyin Demon Sect only occupies one state, Taizhou, their mobilization efficiency and the combat power of their followers far exceeded that of the Daoming Sect. Within five days, 290,000 followers had been organized into the Guardian Army and rushed to the front line. In these few days, the Benlangyuan cavalry, which served as the vanguard of the Zhenzhou army, had also arrived at the southern border of Taizhou and directly engaged with the Daoming Sect. In the half a month that Ye Tao had been in Xiling, he had finally allowed Dongping to seize the initiative in the process of controlling the overall situation in Xiling.

Two days later, the army of more than 300,000 men, which had just been assembled and prepared to deal with the Dongping army, was subjected to concentrated airship bombing over the mountains. Although the Daoming Sect had a considerable scale of regular army, they also had an airship force, but they could not compare with the elite of Yunzhou in terms of airship tactics. In the air, the Daoming Sect collapsed almost at the first touch, but the results achieved by Dongping's bombing were also quite limited. After all, this was already the hinterland of Xiling, and the Zhenzhou army could not build an airship mooring station to the front line, nor could they carry out fuel and ammunition resupply for the airships nearby. They could only rely on a limited number of long-range airships to carry out bombing, and the intensity was quite limited, so the impact on the Daoming Sect's morale far exceeded the actual casualties.

But on the ground, the first cooperation between the Leiyin Demon Sect and the Zhenzhou army was quite coordinated. The two armies covered each other, retreated steadily, and took the opportunity to launch counter-attacks from time to time, scattering the Daoming Sect's army more and more. They ate away at the scattered enemy troops piece by piece... The battle lasted from dawn to nearly midnight, and both sides were exhausted...

At the same time, Dai Yun personally led 3,000 Dongping Guards and Fu Sinian's 30,000 troops to attack north all the way. And Yin Li followed Dai Yun as a special envoy of Xiling. Dai Yun did not want to defeat the Daoming Sect all at once, but to disperse and break through the Daoming Sect's many blockades and connect all the forces supporting the Yin family. Only by gathering enough combat power could they carry out a frontal assault to the north without being too far away from the Daoming Sect's military strength. After much thought, the Xiling ruler simply made up his mind and squeezed out 8,000 elite Imperial Guards from Anqing's limited military strength to support Dai Yun. It should be known that Dai Yun had too few troops in her hands, and even if she broke through the mountain villages and farms of the families one by one, it was impossible to gather too many troops. They always had to divide their troops to garrison. This made the combat power in her hands even more stretched. With these 8,000 more Imperial Guards, she would be much more relaxed.