Jingnan Wang himself and his royal banner appeared.

At that moment, the rebel army also began to collapse.

Yan people don't like Jingnan Wang; they simply don't like him. But if you were to go into any teahouse or tavern in Yan and ask them,

asking them who is the best fighter in Great Yan, no, in the entire world,

you'd basically only get one answer:

Marquis Nan!

When saying this, there would still be pride in their hearts.

No matter what,

Marquis Nan is our Yan's Marquis Nan;

No matter what,

Marquis Nan is invincible against outsiders!

This fear mixed with pride, the former's meaning, was invisibly diluted a lot.

But for the Chu people, not to mention the distant past, Jingnan Wang's iron cavalry crushed Jin; in the recent past, there were the forty thousand Azure Luan Army soldiers who died beneath Jade Plate City…

That was a pain that the Chu people felt to their very core.

Furthermore, within Chu, setting aside the wars against the Mountain Yue tribes, the wars and conflicts between the Chu nobles would ultimately adhere to a certain noble decorum.

Because they lived in this "decorous" country, in this "decorous" environment, the Chu people naturally believed that the world should be this way.

Treaties,

torn up whenever they wished;

Captured soldiers,

killed whenever they wished.

The Great General of Chu's current generation, Nian Yao, though born a slave, had managed to capture those princes as easily as catching chickens during the rebellion of the princes, and the Chu people admired him for that.

But even Great General Nian could only cower within the city and passively take a beating from that Marquis Nan; even so, he couldn't stop the deterioration of the war situation.

Most despairingly,

Marquis Nan's terrifying strength, in one-on-one combat, had defeated Jin's Sword Saint. For a martial artist to achieve this was unprecedented in the martial world for a century.

Even the always "ambitious" blind man had once lamented that as long as Marquis Nan was around, he would never be able to rebel.

The shadow of the tree, the name of the man.

The Chu people within the city only knew that the Yan army had arrived, but most of them didn't know that the one leading the army deep into their territory was Jingnan Wang, the great marshal of Yan, himself.

Under the already oppressive atmosphere, the raising of Jingnan Wang's royal banner was like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

This group, made up of martial artists supplemented by some young, ambitious officials from the defeated army, could be considered the few remaining courageous people in Yingdu.

But now,

this courage,

because of that figure's appearance,

was lightly scattered.

Again, the Yan army came too fast, so fast that the vast Yingdu simply didn't have time to make any effective and practical response.

Even if the Yan army had delayed for a while after defeating the Chu army outside the city, that time was undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for Yingdu at this moment.

But regardless,

at any time,

those who are timid and fearful are always the majority, but there will always be righteous people who act with surging blood and generosity.

Great Chu's eight-hundred-year-old empire couldn't possibly be so incompetent.

Zhao Yuelin smiled nonchalantly,

holding a saber in his right hand and reins in his left, ignoring the dissuasion of his subordinate Qin Hai, and directly spurred his horse forward, wanting to charge up.

For no other reason,

than to seek death.

The ancestors of the Chu nobles followed the Marquis of Chu to open up new territories, driving all the original Mountain Yue tribes into remote mountain gullies and small puddles; their ancestors had come through hardships and thorns.

After hundreds of years of wealth and extravagance, even steel tempered a hundred times would rust, let alone human bones?

But when there's a lot of something, you can always find a few outliers.

Zhao Yuelin knew that he would surely die if he went forward, but he was smiling as he moved forward.

In the end,

he found that he still couldn't escape this romantic atmosphere that belonged to the nobility, belonged to Great Chu,

this kind of death,

was beautiful,

and also very romantic,

wasn't it?

However, Zhao Yuelin was not the one charging in the forefront.

At this moment,

with the overall situation collapsing,

Ma Laowu, Cui Fushou, and Chen Lianhua did not retreat.

Most of the martial artists around them had run away, but a small portion of them, after seeing these three "pillars" of Yingdu's martial world, also continued to charge forward, howling.

Back then, at Snow Sea Pass,

when Zheng Boye was drinking tea with the Sword Saint, he had imitated Jingnan Wang's tone and teased, "The martial world really can't be put on the table in front of the imperial court."

The Sword Saint smiled and replied,

"The imperial court is too high, in the sky;

the martial world is too low, on the ground;

the ones that are too high are like clouds, a puff of breath and they dissipate;

the ones that are too low are on the ground, and if you step on them, you're bound to get mud on your pants."

And right now,

these martial artists were undoubtedly the mud.

Because they were clear about how unbearable so-called martial heroes were in front of a proper military formation.

Ma Laowu's direct descendants and disciples had a tradition of joining the army; Cui Fushou's ancestors were even guards of the Chu Emperor. How could the two of them not know what kind of ending awaited them, these martial arts masters, once the elites formed their formation?

Everyone envied the Sword Saint for beheading a thousand wild barbarian cavalrymen before Snow Sea Pass,

but how could everyone be the Sword Saint?

Moreover,

since that day, had the Sword Saint ever replicated his former glory?

At that time, the disorganized and routed wild barbarian cavalry, after seeing Grim being beheaded, had long been panicked and collapsed.

Too many coincidences had created the classic battle, becoming a legend in the martial world that would be sung for sixty years.

The reason why a legend is a legend is precisely because it is unattainable.

As they swarmed up,

Jingnan Wang, riding on his Pixiu, did not move.

His gaze was very cold and detached, already skipping over the group in front of him and landing at the end of the imperial road extending from the city gate tower.

There,

was the imperial palace of Great Chu.

In the past, the Earl of Pingye had taken the princess to Yan's capital to meet the emperor.

The Earl of Pingye had smiled and told the Yan Emperor that the princess had said that the imperial palace of Great Yan was truly not as good as the imperial palace of Great Chu.

The Emperor was overjoyed!

The truth was, it really was so.

Qian was rich, with vast lands and abundant resources, and a dense population, but Qian had only been established for a little over a hundred years. Before that, for a long period of time until the collapse of Great Xia, that richest place had experienced the chaotic baptism of six dynasties and twelve kingdoms.

In contrast, Great Chu,

ever since the Marquis of Chu opened up new territories and the Xiong clan established the country, Great Chu had been constantly expanding outwards.

To the north, it bordered Jin; to the west, it bordered Qian.

For hundreds of years, Yingdu had always stood here peacefully and serenely, and this imperial palace was naturally magnificent, demonstrating the true imperial style.

But,

so what?

In the end, he had fought his way here.

The righteous people had already charged up,

and the knights beside and behind Jingnan Wang began to urge the warhorses beneath them, charging forward.

Thanks to the spaciousness of Yingdu's main road, the cavalry didn't seem too cramped or difficult to maneuver here.

After the black torrent collided, a rain of blood and carnage followed.

Humans were flesh and blood; even martial artists might have stronger physiques, but if they hadn't cultivated to that level, they couldn't really be considered anything special.

Most importantly,

if there were experts in the martial world, then how could there not be good fighters in the army?

After one round of charging, some of the Yan knights began to pursue those who fled, while others began to turn their horses around, preparing to plow the ground they had just plowed once more.

"Puff!"

Ma Laowu slashed off the arm of a knight with his saber, flipped over, pulled the Yan knight off his warhorse, and then mounted the horse himself.

"Shoot!"

On the city tower and at the city gate, the Yan archers at the rear drew their bows and nocked their arrows, seizing the opportunity after the two sides had passed each other.

Ma Laowu used his own qi and blood to block the arrows, but as the first arrow pierced his body, his body trembled, his qi and blood stagnated, and then came the second, third, and fourth arrows…

Soon,

Ma Laowu was shot into a hedgehog, and even the horse beneath him collapsed in a pool of blood.

In the previous round of charging, Cui Fushou had continuously shattered the internal organs of the warhorses beneath four knights with his palm strikes, and then he had even snatched a knight's saber with his bare hands and sent it back, piercing the knight's back with the blade.

But in the next moment,

a lieutenant in the army who used a meteor hammer directly threw the hammer, and the iron chain immediately locked around Cui Fushou's neck. The lieutenant's arm strength, coupled with the speed of the warhorse, lifted Cui Fushou's entire body up.

With his palms off the ground, he was like a duckweed without roots. The Yan soldiers, who had long experienced countless life-and-death battles, swarmed over, and sabers pierced into Cui Fushou's body, which wasn't even wearing armor.

Because Yingdu was just a city, the martial world of Yingdu wasn't big; but because there were many people in Yingdu, the martial world of Yingdu was very deep.

Just like how there were four great swordsmen in the martial world, Yingdu's martial world was also ranked as the four great sect leaders by busybodies.

Not the kind of roaming wanderers, but the kind who had to establish their own sect and recruit disciples to be on the list.

Why four great sect leaders?

You'd have to ask why there were four great swordsmen.

Anyway, there were four, exactly four, and the result was these four.

Ma Laowu of the Ma Family Saber, Cui Fushou of Fushou Street, Chen Lianhua of the Cao Gang,

and one more, Erchong Mei of the Qingxu Temple in Yingdu.

He was a qi refiner, named Erchong Mei (Double Eyebrows), because others had one eyebrow hanging, but he had two.

But today, he didn't appear.

Perhaps he was busy, perhaps he was sleepy, perhaps he didn't hear the commotion, or perhaps he heard it and pretended not to.

But now,

two of Yingdu's four great sect leaders were already dead.

On the other hand, Chen Lianhua's kung fu wasn't really that much better than the other two, but he had experience in battle formations. The other two had long been sect leaders for a long time, and they had connections in the palace or the army behind them. They hadn't neglected their kung fu and had been practicing diligently, but they had really lacked that kind of fighting experience in recent years.

Chen Lianhua was often sought out by his enemies or assassinated at the docks, so good skills combined with good awareness allowed him to perform more effectively.

After withstanding the first wave of cavalry charges,

Chen Lianhua still had some Cao Gang subordinates around him. They were gang death squads personally trained by Chen Lianhua, and at Chen Lianhua's command, they used their own flesh and blood to forcibly clear a path for Chen Lianhua.

The sword was danced with great agility, like a lotus flower in full bloom. However, Chen Lianhua's sword was not like the mainstream of Jin's Sword Saint and Qian's Baili Jian, which emphasized fatal moves, but rather three parts provocation, three parts parrying, three parts penetration, and finally, he could still leave one part to accumulate power.

The avenue was very wide, but the avenue was, after all, an avenue, so with one round of charging, the contact surface was only so much.

After his gang brothers had died almost completely, Chen Lianhua himself, with his long sword protecting him, broke through.

His target,

was the one under the royal banner.

Chen Lianhua didn't think he could defeat that person, so naturally he wouldn't presumptuously think he could kill him.

A peak martial artist,

how terrifying his physique was could make one's scalp tingle just thinking about it.

Even if the Sword Saint and Baili Jian were here, with their sword's sharpness, they would have to first whittle down his physique layer by layer before looking for an opportunity to strike.

Chen Lianhua knew that his sword was far inferior to the legendary four great swordsmen;

at the same time,

this wasn't a one-on-one duel.

But Chen Lianhua still wanted to fight desperately, break through the obstruction of these Yan knights, and thrust his sword at that person.

Zhao Yuelin was already dead,

having died early in the first wave of cavalry charges,

dying without a doubt.

His noble status, his ninth-rank martial artist status, in this situation, neither was enough to see.

But Zhao Yuelin, lying on the ground covered in blood, still had a smile on his face.

Yes,

this was the reason why Chen Lianhua was now striving to thrust out that sword.

Nobles had their romance;

literati had their romance;

what about him?

Looking back on the first half of his life,

he had killed many people who shouldn't have been killed, and he had done many things that damaged his virtue.

He knew that he couldn't be considered clean, and he didn't care about that seemingly clean appearance;

but just like his name,

a lotus emerging from the mud without being stained,

anyway,

he was definitely going to die, so he would satisfy his own blossoming before he died.

He came out,

he moved forward,

his movement was very fast,

stepping forward step by step, even leaving afterimages.

The personal guards beside Jingnan Wang raised their sabers and spurred their horses forward, attempting to block him, because after two rounds of cavalry charges, a stretch of open ground had been cleared in front of the Wangye.

However, Chen Lianhua didn't kill anyone, he just bypassed these several personal guards.

His purpose was very simple and direct, so he could be unconcerned, while the personal guards were thinking too much, which instead made them restrain themselves.

However,

just then,

a military officer holding a long spear suddenly stood in front of Jingnan Wang and thrust out his spear with an indomitable momentum.

This was an expert, an opponent not to be ignored; even if he left the army and went to the martial world, he could establish his own sect!

There were indeed many talents in the Great Yan army. In fact, the soldiers in the army also cultivated.

However, individual strength, in the face of the rules of the battlefield, was difficult to really exert a decisive effect.

Just like Cui Fushou and Ma Laowu, who had died so simply earlier,

they were all experts,

but they had died very neatly,

because the battlefield had its own rules, and they were facing the Jingnan Army's iron cavalry, which was good at forming formations and had been through many battles, and it was also a head-on confrontation.

Zheng Boye had once discussed with Liang Cheng the most suitable use of experts like the Sword Saint on the battlefield, in order to find the right direction for his future deception.

In the end, the conclusion was that the battle before Snow Sea Pass was too classic. If Liang Cheng hadn't arrived in time, the Sword Saint would have died there long ago. Too many coincidences had caused that battle to shine brightly, but it was difficult to replicate, and they were reluctant to replicate it.

And if the Sword Saint was thrown into the front line of the battlefield,

it would be like having a group of special forces soldiers or a group of soldier kings carrying the enemy's artillery fire and charging on the front line in later generations. Although revolution didn't emphasize division of labor, forcibly throwing them into the front line to experience equality among all was really too wasteful.

Therefore, the Sword Saint was now only responsible for Zheng Boye's personal security. Well, if necessary, he could be persuaded to get rid of a problem or the opponent's experts.

As for throwing him into a sea of soldiers to take a bath,

it wasn't that they hadn't tried it,

but the effect was really not good.

In the Battle of Dongshan Fortress, even if the Sword Saint had taken action, the impact on the battle situation was still very weak, far less than the sudden cut-in by Jin Shuike and his cavalry.

But you couldn't say that Cui Fushou and the other sect leaders were stupid, because they had originally planned to use themselves as surprise soldiers, to sneak attack the rear of the Yan army after leaving the city, but who would have thought that the imperial guards outside the city would be so easily defeated, collapsing directly, which directly led to them, this group of surprise soldiers, directly becoming a group of people standing at the very front.

At this time, the one blocking in front of Jingnan Wang, surnamed Chen, named Chong, was a descendant of the Chen Family Spear of Yan.

However,

Chen Chong thrust his spear forward with full confidence,

but was stunned to find that

Chen Lianhua didn't make any resistance.

"Puff!"

The long spear pierced into Chen Lianhua's body.

Chen Lianhua sent out his sword.

This wasn't a famous sword, it was just an ordinary sword that had been with Chen Lianhua since long ago, accompanying him in growing up and fighting for territory. He had a collection of swords made by the sword-makers of Great Chu, but he just collected them, didn't use them. Not because they weren't good, but because he wasn't used to them.

A sword,

flew out.

Chen Chong turned his head, and then, he was relieved.

Because the sword flew very fast, this was fast for ordinary people, but for a true expert, the speed of this sword wasn't fast.

In Chen Chong's opinion, the Wangye only needed to slightly turn his head to avoid this sword in the easiest way.

However,

Jingnan Wang didn't turn his head to avoid it in the easiest way,

but instead rose up from the back of the Pixiu,

the sword passed under him, but suddenly stopped.

Suddenly, the sword body stagnated, stopped, and then began to tremble, as if it was about to burst open.

That position was exactly the height of Jingnan Wang's head when he was sitting on the Pixiu.

Marquis Jingnan stepped on the sword body,

"Boom!"

The long sword was directly stepped into the ground.

The previous trembling and the feeling of about to explode on the sword body were gone, only streams of blood overflowed.

Not far away,

the roof of a civilian house cracked open, and a long-bearded old man flew out. On his face, there were two eyebrows, Erchong Mei.

He had come long ago,

he had come the earliest,

but no one except Chen Lianhua knew he had come.

Therefore, Chen Lianhua had used all his strength at the last moment to thrust out this sword, not hesitating to be pierced to death by a spear.

Because he was confident, confident that this sword, which had been tampered with in advance, had a chance to take the life of this Yan's Marquis Nan.

If,

the sword could explode next to the head of that Marquis Nan.

But,

there was no such "if."

The world knew that Great Yan's Marquis Nan was a peak third-rank martial artist with terrifying strength.

But very few people really knew that he actually knew a little about otherworldly arts.

The "a little" here was debatable, but Tian Wujing himself did think that he only knew a little.

The real skill he had learned was fighting wars. As for this martial arts cultivation,

well, he only knew a little as well.

Back then, the Sword Saint was forcibly sealed by Tian Wujing with magic arts at the last moment of whittling down Jingnan Wang's physical body, and had to retreat in defeat.

Although the Sword Saint had quickly emerged from the shadow of defeat, he didn't have that problem, he wouldn't go around telling people how he had been defeated by Tian Wujing.

And the people who knew about this were really few.

Zheng Boye knew, the Devil Kings knew, Li Liangting also knew, and the Seventh Uncle who had been protecting the Princess also knew.

But these people who knew wouldn't say it.

Because,

firstly, they were not people who could be tricked into talking, and secondly, there was no need to say it.

A peak third-rank martial artist was the standard configuration of Jingnan Wang's strength. As for those magic arts, they were really just small tricks, cultivating temperament.

Although, in the martial world, there were some rumors, because on the night that Tian Wujing exterminated his entire family, there had been fluctuations of qi refiners above the Tian residence.

But that really wasn't much evidence, and it couldn't definitively prove anything.

At this time,

in the warehouse of the Yingdu Phoenix Nest Internal Guard Bureau, there was still such a file.

That file recorded one thing.

Last year,

when the Princess entered Snow Sea Pass, it was rumored that she had suffered from the evil spirits within the Heavenly Fracture Mountains and had fallen unconscious.

Later, the Princess's carriage was sent to Fengxin City, seemingly to ask Jingnan Wang to take action to relieve it.

But later, the Princess's carriage left Fengxin City again, and in Yingdu, sought a sorcerer to cast a spell, and only after returning to Yan's capital did she fully recover.

Based on this information, the Phoenix Nest Internal Guard believed that Yan's Marquis Nan did not know these otherworldly arts, at most, he only knew some superficial knowledge.

Otherwise,

how would you explain that Marquis Nan would choose to stand by and watch the Zhenbei Marquis Mansion's Princess die?

In this world,

who could possibly make Marquis Nan willing to stand by and watch his niece die?

It was a pity that

the Sword Saint wasn't here,

otherwise, if he saw this scene, he would definitely laugh loudly. The Sword Saint also had emotions. Back then, he himself had been overturned by Tian Wujing's trick. Now, there was actually a fool who wanted to use this method to assassinate Tian Wujing.

This kind of assassination was actually extremely dangerous, because when you were thinking about assassinating someone, unless the other party didn't notice it at all, once they noticed it, or once the other party actually had the ability to use the same means to counter you,

then it would really be like actively handing over your heart to the other party's hands.

After flying onto the roof, Erchong Mei wanted to use his qinggong (light body technique) to leave again. It could be clearly seen that his stomach was very swollen, and his expression was also very painful. The distorted expression made his originally distinct eyebrows almost stick together.

Tian Wujing raised his foot,

the sword body below trembled, instinctively wanting to fly away, but it was suppressed by Tian Wujing's aura in an instant.

The foot,

fell again,

this time,

he was really exerting force!

"Crack!"

The sword was stepped into two pieces.

Erchong Mei, who had just flown up, had his stomach directly explode in mid-air, and a cloud of blood mist appeared in the air.

Tian Wujing bent down,

reached out his hand,

and dusted off the dust on his boot surface;

in Tian Wujing's eyes, the martial world had always been just a cold dish. Occasionally, some were exquisite and could be put on the table, seemingly entering the banquet, but they could never replace the status of the main course.

However,

the taste of Yingdu's martial world was not bad, quite appetizing.

Tian Wujing didn't turn around and sit back on the Pixiu,

but instead strode forward,

walking along the avenue.

Conquering the three great kingdoms and unifying Zhuxia was his lifelong ambition. For this, he had paid too much, sacrificed too much, and lost too much.

Now, he wanted to personally walk on the bluestone slabs of this Yingdu, to feel it, to step on it in a solid way, to measure this imperial capital that he had conquered.

Half a lifetime of hardship,

just for

this moment of sweetness.

The Jingnan Army knights who had followed their Wangye into the city reorganized their ranks, protecting their Wangye in the center.

One person walked,

thousands of soldiers walked,

heading far south along the avenue.

The sides of the avenue remained stable all along.

The journey was also a little too quiet. They could only vaguely hear the suppressed sobs of children and women, as if all the bloodiness of this capital city had been extracted cleanly at the previous city gate by the deaths of that group of martial artists.

Tian Wujing felt a little dissatisfied,

The Chu people always valued etiquette and emphasized antiquity;

First, regardless of whether he was a welcome guest or an unwelcome one,

at least,

visitors were guests.

To treat him in such a cold and indifferent way violated the Chu people's consistent self-proclaimed hospitality.

Tian Wujing stopped,

He was dissatisfied,

very dissatisfied,

Usually, he was a cold person, but he didn't like this kind of coldness, especially at this time;

It was a pity that

the Earl who understood him best wasn't here, otherwise, without him even speaking, he would have taken the initiative to urge them for him.

Therefore,

in the next moment,

the dignified Great Yan Jingnan Wang,

stood at the street entrance,

and shouted:

"Chu slaves, serve the dishes."