Chapter 82: Chat Group Exchange

After more than two months of arduous travel, Zhang Chu'an and Zhang Xiaofan finally arrived in Shandong, the place where the Red Coat Army uprising would later erupt.

During the rise of the Mongol Empire, the Jin Kingdom was attacked multiple times by the Mongols and forced to cede territory and pay indemnities. The exploitation and oppression of peasants by Jurchen nobles and the landlord class of various ethnic groups grew increasingly severe. Peasants in Shandong and Hebei rose up in resistance; the rebels wore red coats as a mark, hence the name "Red Coat Army."

Among the larger rebel armies, Yang An'er was in Yidu, Shandong; Li Quan was in Weizhou (modern-day Weifang, Shandong); Liu Erzuyu was in the Yimeng Mountains; and Zhou Yuan'er was in Hebei.

The scale of this uprising was immense, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. The reason such a fierce uprising erupted, besides the Jin Kingdom's defeat at the Battle of Yeluling, was that the contradictions in this region had become extremely acute. Otherwise, why was the Red Coat Army uprising never suppressed, first being co-opted by the Song Dynasty and later by the Mongols?

As for why the Red Coat Army betrayed the Song Dynasty and surrendered to the Mongols, it was none other than Qin Hui's strategy of "Southerners return to the South, Northerners return to the North," which pushed North-South antagonism to its extreme. The scholar-official groups in the South simply did not care about or accept the peasant uprisings from the North.

Li Quan, Yang Miaozhen, and others ultimately thought too highly of the Great Song. In the eyes of bureaucrats and landlords, resisting exploitation was a crime and deserved death; your suffering and helplessness were far less important than their romantic pursuits and leisure.

How many organizations besides Li Quan and Yang Miaozhen's Red Coat Army suffered betrayal? Wasn't the Beggar Sect of the Northern Beggar, Hong Qigong, one of them? Before Hong Qigong joined the Beggar Sect in his youth, during the fall of the Northern Song, he and his family were captured by the Jurchens and became their slaves.

During the Huashan Sword Contest, after Hong Qigong earned the title "Northern Beggar" through his superb martial arts, he led the Beggar Sect in resisting the Jin troops. Meanwhile, the Quanzhen Sect of Chongyang True Man had been spreading its teachings and inciting uprisings.

Hebei, being near the Jin capital, would see the Jin mobilize large armies to suppress any sign of unrest. Shandong, however, was far from the Jin political center, possessed many proletarians like Li Quan and Guo San who could be developed as comrades, and could even ally with anti-Jin forces like the Beggar Sect and the Quanzhen Sect.

Just as they arrived in Shandong, Nie Huaishang and Guo Jing sent messages.

Nie Huaishang: "Zhang Chu'an, Zhang Xiaofan, pay close attention to ideological education when establishing revolutionary base areas. There is a pleasant surprise waiting."

Zhang Xiaofan: "What pleasant surprise? Not to criticize you, Huaishang, but can you stop speaking only half of what you mean?"

Guo Jing: "Simply put, if you propagate Marxism-Leninism during the process of establishing revolutionary base areas and cultivate firm Marxists-Leninists, you will earn points, and quite a lot of them."

Zhang Chu'an: "Quite a lot of points? How many?"

Guo Jing: "How to put it? Cultivating one proletarian revolutionary roughly earns fifty points."

Fifty points? Zhang Chu'an and Zhang Xiaofan were shocked. On their way to Shandong, they casually killed Sha Tongtian, the River Yellow Gang leader known as the River Yellow Ghost King, the Four Ghosts of the River Yellow, Hou Tonghai, and the Thousand-Handed Butcher Peng Lianhu, yet they only earned seven hundred points in total.

This was because the Four Ghosts of the River Yellow had once attempted to assassinate Temujin, so each of the four earned one hundred twenty points. The Thousand-Handed Butcher Peng Lianhu and the River Yellow Gang leader Hou Tonghai earned eighty and ninety points respectively, though Hou Tonghai only had fifty points.

Initially, they were quite satisfied with these prices, because basic living supplies and modern firearms were very cheap in the System Mall. A Type 56 semi-automatic rifle cost only two or three points, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition for various guns cost ten points.

Rice, pork, and other goods were calculated by the ton; seven hundred points were absolutely enough as their startup capital.

The only regret was that such valuable experts were too few. Although their performance in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" could be called clownish, there was no choice; constantly fighting those in the top ten inevitably made one look like a clown.

But from the perspective of ordinary people, these few were somewhat terrifying.

At the small temple in Jiangnan, Hou Tonghai, worth fifty points, easily suppressed Lu Guanying, the head of the Taihu Bandits, and Cheng Yaojia, a disciple of Sun Buer of the Quanzhen Seven. It was only after Yin Zhiping, a representative of the third generation of the Quanzhen Sect, joined the fight that the three of them finally defeated Hou Tonghai.

And his senior brother Sha Tongtian's Wu Gong was far superior to his. At least, Huang Rong, when she first entered the Jianghu, could tease Hou Tonghai but could not tease Sha Tongtian. Sha Tongtian's "Shadow-Shifting Step" could completely block the light-footed Huang Rong.

The Thousand-Handed Butcher Peng Lianhu was a fierce bandit in Hebei and Shanxi, with a vast number of underlings, and was even capable of injuring Ma Yu with poisoned needles in a sneak attack.

The reason they seemed like clowns when watching "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" is that you were viewing it from Guo Jing's perspective. If you looked from the standpoint of an ordinary person, Peng Lianhu, Sha Tongtian, and others were the top bosses of the number one underworld organization in their own provinces, protected by the Sixth Prince of the Great Jin. Across the land, no one dared to trouble them except the Five Greats, the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan, and the Quanzhen Seven.

Such experts worth points were estimated to be no more than five per province. Originally, they were worried about how to purchase firearms to fully arm their troops, but Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang gave them such a huge surprise. Compared to killing experts like Sha Tongtian, the path of developing their own comrades to earn points not only aligned with what they were doing,

but the source of points might be more stable and even yield increasing returns.

Zhang Chu'an: "Whoa, Brother Chu'an, Brother Huaishang, it seems you've earned quite a few points. I recall that in the System Mall, a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle costs only two points, ammunition is ten points for ten thousand rounds, and basic living supplies can be bought by the ton. Yet cultivating one Marxist-Leninist earns fifty points. With so much surplus, shouldn't you support your brother a bit?"

Nie Huaishang: "Is it useful to support you now? You haven't developed a single comrade yet; giving you supplies would be useless. Besides, once you cultivate them, you won't need our help anyway. Moreover, we still have to deal with Temujin. He is a once-in-a-generation genius who conquered the entire continent of Asia. We currently have only five hundred men, while Temujin already has tens of thousands."

Zhang Chu'an: "Then let's forget it. After all, dealing with Temujin involves too many variables. His strategies and generalship are almost at the peak of human capability. Most crucially, in the strict sense, Temujin is the true protagonist of this era. Even if your weapons, equipment, soldier quality, and organizational strength crush him, he might just pull a 'meteor from the heavens' on you, just like the Great Magus Liu Xiu."

Meteor from the heavens? Seeing this, Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang couldn't help but feel a chill in their hearts. Normally, a gust of wind, a rain shower, or a lightning strike wouldn't matter, but a meteor from the heavens? That would be too disgusting!

Nie Huaishang and Guo Jing couldn't help but look up at the sky. You wouldn't pull that move on us, would you?