Chapter 647: Sweeping

The once loyal minister and good general Bai Lang, the Grand Guardian Bai, who had protected the royal court so many times, had accumulated a lot of unpleasant energy—seeing the rebellious thieves living so comfortably, Bai Lang, who protected the dragon court, although they were not on the same path, still felt a little bit that this didn't seem bad. Accumulated until now, it was time to vent it out. Taking advantage of the opportunity of his martial arts being broken and then established, he reduced these bad thoughts at once.

Bai Lang was very careful not to end up like his own thief-matching master. This monster had been eating and doing things for a long time, and had spent most of his life in the bitter kiln. He was either squatting in the bitter kiln or on the way to squat in the bitter kiln. Bai Lang didn't want to live such a day. His current actions were definitely a candidate for the bitter kiln, the kind that should be killed by the whole family, but now he was killing other people's whole families.

On the table in front of Bai Lang was a letter of persuasion, and the writing could be said to be extremely simple—three of the Hanlin scholars who drafted it were cut down, and finally someone was willing to write it, but it was definitely impossible to let him write it like a flower. So Bai Lang let him copy one, which was to change the names and the dynasty. Next was to let the soldiers catch the civil and military officials and nobles in the Capital, and let them come up one by one and sign the letter of persuasion.

On the other side, blood flowed on the ground, and soldiers were washing it with water—this was the place where the captured reinforcement troops were killed. The bodies had been thrown out to be cut and fed to dogs, and the heads had been piled up outside the city to build a Jingguan. Bai Lang sat there, watching the officials come over to sign one by one, and the knife was placed next to him. Anyone who refused to sign was directly cut to death and thrown aside. Such violent behavior was only seen by the officials in history books, and they didn't expect to see it again today.

From morning to night, only six officials refused to sign, and they were all small officials. Bai Lang didn't be polite and killed them, then said, "These people don't know how to live or die. You are all people who know the times, so don't forget to come and see me early tomorrow!" After saying that, he waved his hand and let these people go, "Watch them, don't let them run."

The next day, two-thirds of the people came, and one-third tried to run and were being raided. Bai Lang didn't talk about any ceremony, "The late Emperor was unwell and was unfortunately angered to death by the Retired Emperor. So I came to be the Emperor. As for the late Emperor's Crown Prince? That one also went because of excessive sadness. Then from now on, the imperial court will be called Qin. The capital remains the same, and all officials will be promoted by one level. Then I am the Taizu. Everyone, rise."

Bai Lang generously rewarded his troops. These people were enfeoffed with titles and merit fields—but Bai Lang also said well, the area of the merit fields would not change from now on, it would not increase or decrease, and the tax-exempt area was also fixed. At the same time, Bai Lang directly issued an edict, "Officials and gentry should serve and pay taxes together, and cancel the head tax." With his authority, at least around the Capital, no one dared to oppose—Bai Lang wanted to clear the fields, who dared to hide it?

With Bai Lang's martial arts, if he wanted to re-verify, he could roughly confirm the area at a glance. If the error reached a certain proportion, he would kill the officials responsible for the audit. If there were illegal matters involved, the colluding parties would all be killed. Because Bai Lang had just killed the reinforcement troops, for a time, there was no one in the north who could block his army—even if there were only a few thousand people. Bai Lang ordered Bai Bao and Bai Biao to lead their main forces expanded to ten thousand, one to the north to Liaodong and one to the east to Shandong, to occupy these two places first.

He himself led troops to Hebei, from Hebei into Shanxi, the land of mountains and rivers. This route was relatively difficult, so Bai Lang went himself. The two younger sisters naturally guarded the Capital. Since Bai Lang defeated the reinforcement troops, the situation he faced had become very good, and after he usurped the throne, the situation became even better—those officials should have quickly figured it out. The Emperor's line was almost dead, and the new monarch had ascended the throne and was a person without his own team. Why didn't they take the opportunity to join and seek the interests of civil officials?

It's just that the Emperor in front of him was too cruel, similar to Ming Taizu and Ming Taizong, and the tax law he pushed didn't give civil officials and scholars any face at all. Even if you became the chief assistant of the cabinet, you had to pay taxes on how much land you had at home, and not a grain of rice was allowed to be less. Fame could not be tax-exempt. Not only could it not be tax-exempt, but even commercial taxes were raised a lot, and the law on official property declaration was also proposed. Of course, the Jinyi Guard and the Eastern Depot were also on Bai Lang's plan...

The march to Liaodong and Shandong was like a march. As long as Bai Lang's Qin army arrived, all places opened their gates and surrendered. Bai Lang's own Hebei-Henan-Shanxi trip was also very smooth, and no one dared to block him. Bai Bao encountered trouble in Liaodong. He was blocked by the Jurchen people. These Jurchen people took the lead to occupy Liaoyang and other places to resist the royal army. Bai Bao's attack on the city was unfavorable, but self-defense was no problem.

After receiving the news, Bai Lang ordered Bai Bao to lead the army to Shanxi, and he personally led a thousand cavalry to Liaodong.

The reinforcement army of the Prince of Nan'an did not continue to move forward. He stayed at the Yangtze River and didn't go north. It looked like he was going to rule across the river. Especially after hearing the news of the Emperor's death, he cried bitterly and found a young vassal prince to be the new monarch, claiming to crusade against the treacherous thief Bai Lang who usurped the throne, but in action, he was vigorously building a navy and establishing a defense line. The Capital was still in Nanjing, but to hold Nanjing, the Prince of Nan'an had to push the defense line north.

It had to be pushed to the Huaihe River line before the Yangtze River defense line could be called relatively stable, and Nanjing would have value. But when advancing, what the Prince of Nan'an feared most was the Xiliang elite cavalry in the north—now the elite cavalry of Bai Lang's Xiliang Qin army had been blown to the sky, along with Bai Lang's own martial bravery. And Bai Lang knew this, and he didn't go to Liaodong, "Bai Biao, you guard the Shanhai Pass well. After I kill the Prince of Nan'an's army in the north of the river, I will go to Liaodong to kill all the Jurchen people!"

Bai Lang marched to Hebei, replenished horse feed and horses, and then quickly went south, killing toward Huaibei with great momentum. At this time, the Prince of Nan'an's army occupied Xiangyang and went north, and the Nanjing army also crossed the Yangtze River and occupied Xuzhou. And Bai Lang's thousand cavalry fully armored with large carriages directly crashed into Xuzhou. "Surrender quickly! If not, not even a chicken or dog will be left!" Bai Lang ordered his subordinates to call for battle. This guy didn't even set up a camp, but just surrounded it with large carriages.

"This is called occupying while marching!" This guy could still say this. But it was about the same. Since the Prince of Nan'an's army and the civil and military officials of Xuzhou closed the gates and didn't surrender, Bai Lang was not polite at all. He looked at Xuzhou and there were no woods to cut down to build scaling ladders, so he had to do it himself. "You wait at the city gate, I'll go open the gate!" This Bai Lang put on his helmet and armor, held his big saber, and charged toward the city wall first... ===== CHAPTER 648 =====