Chapter 60: Preparing to Rebel

Meng Dayong frowned, paced back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back, and then said with some difficulty: "Yifan, why don't we two just run away? Let's flee to a place where no one knows us and start a new life."

Meng Dayong thought that it wouldn't be long before the government came to make arrests; if they surrendered then, they would certainly be beheaded, and if they resisted, that would be rebellion.

The two words "rebellion" were as heavy as a thousand catties; they were easy to say, but far too difficult to carry out.

The Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty had lasted for over a thousand years; it wasn't as if no one had ever rebelled before, but they had all been ruthlessly suppressed.

There was once a prince with illustrious military achievements who was dissatisfied with the Emperor of that time; he publicly declared his intent to "clear the side of the monarch" and raised an army to rebel.

At the very beginning, the prince's army had great momentum and was unstoppable, occupying several provinces, but once the imperial court reacted and concentrated the nation's strength to dispatch its most elite legions to encircle and suppress the prince, the two sides went back and forth for four years, and in the end, the imperial court still won and suppressed that highly prestigious prince.

Even a prince who possessed his own guard army failed in his rebellion; could he and his son succeed if they tried? No matter how one looked at it, it seemed like they were seeking their own deaths.

Meng Dayong was not a timid man, but when it came to actually going through with a rebellion, he still couldn't help but feel his heart tremble.

The Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty had lasted for over a thousand years and was a behemoth; Meng Yifan and his father were merely two insignificant ants in the face of such a behemoth.

That behemoth could crush these ants into fragments with a single casual strike.

Meng Dayong had served as a soldier in the Divine Machine Battalion and knew that the elite legions of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty were incredibly formidable; the possibility of him and his son succeeding in a rebellion was almost zero, and unless it was an absolute last resort, he really did not want to rebel.

Meng Yifan gave a bitter smile; where could they even run to? Outside the city, Demon Beasts were running rampant; he had killed a Flying Tiger Demon and still had a Tiger Mark on his chest, so if he left Luolong County, he might face attacks from Demon Beasts.

Meng Yifan also knew that the path of rebellion would certainly be difficult to walk, but he had carefully analyzed the current situation.

This time, the Demon Beasts of the Ten Thousand Demon Kingdom had invaded the eastern part of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty on a large scale; it was said that in many places, just like in Luolong County, outside of the city walls, it was the world of the Demon Beasts, and the common people had been reduced to "two-legged sheep," left to be devoured by Demon Beasts and Wild Beasts.

With Demon Beasts running rampant and killing so many common people, logically, the Emperor should have long since dispatched elite legions to slay the demons, but it had already been a month, the common people were still living in dire straits, and the great army had still not appeared within the borders of Dongchuan Prefecture.

This indicated that the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty was already beset with difficulties; the elite legions must have been transferred to other more critical locations, and the imperial court could no longer spare any attention for Luolong County, or even Dongchuan Prefecture.

This gave Meng Yifan an opportunity; he speculated that even if he really killed officials and rebelled, the imperial army would be unable to attend to him for the time being; at the very least, before repelling the invasion of the Ten Thousand Demon Kingdom, the imperial army should not come to attack Luolong County.

Meng Yifan had a Game Panel; as long as his Experience Value was high enough, his strength would certainly advance by leaps and bounds; what he needed was time, and by the time the imperial court turned its attention to Luolong County, Meng Yifan might already have the strength to challenge the imperial army.

Meng Yifan was gambling; if he guessed right, he and Meng Dayong would both rise to greatness, but if he guessed wrong, neither of them would escape death.

Meng Yifan didn't want to rebel either, but Lv Fugui was aggressive and had sent people to kill his father and him; were they supposed to just stretch out their necks and let themselves be slaughtered? Since they had already reached this point, they might as well forge ahead; there was nothing to regret.

A real man shouldn't be afraid of wolves in front and tigers behind, or he would never achieve anything great; in his past life, Meng Yifan had dared to join a mercenary group for money and had spent five years crawling through a hail of bullets, and in this life, Meng Yifan would dare to rebel for the sake of his own life.

If you die, you die; if you don't, you live for ten thousand years—what was there to be afraid of?

"When things come to a head, one must be bold! Father, we have no path left to flee." Meng Yifan's words were resonant and his expression was firm, radiating an aura of fighting to the death.

Meng Dayong was stunned, as if he were seeing his son for the first time; ever since Meng Yifan had met the white-bearded old immortal in a dream, not only had his cultivation speed advanced by leaps and bounds, but his personality had also undergone a huge transformation.

The original Meng Yifan had a weak personality and didn't even dare to kill a chicken, but the current Meng Yifan was decisive in killing and held grudges; when Lv Fugui sent people to kill him, he dared to wipe out Lv Fugui's entire family, and when the County Magistrate Lu came to arrest him, he dared to rebel.

It was a normal state of mind for Meng Dayong to be hesitant when facing a major event like rebellion, but now that Meng Yifan had made his decision, he could only nod.

He and Meng Yifan were father and son, and the two were tied together; since his son had chosen this path of no return, as his father, he could only accompany him in this madness.

"Father, prepare for battle; have people set up more traps and mechanisms. While the government hasn't tracked us down yet, I need to go buy more supplies."

Meng Dayong arranged for people to continue setting up traps and mechanisms, while Meng Yifan took the Silver Notes and went to the city's timber market, buying up all the elm wood suitable for making Elm Cannons; the elm wood wasn't expensive, costing only one hundred and fifty taels of silver in total.

Once these thick elm trunks were taken back and processed, they could be used to manufacture thirty-five Elm Cannons.

Meng Yitong and the other fourteen young men, along with the three teenagers Meng Qingshan, Meng Qinghe, and Meng Qingyu, were the foundation of Meng Yifan's rebellion; Meng Yifan gave each of them a Condensing Qi Pill to assist them in cultivating True Qi, and after half a day of cultivation, Meng Yitong and Meng Qingshan had already condensed their first wisp of True Qi, barely counting as the lowest-level First Grade Lower Stage Martial Artists.

Being able to cultivate the first wisp of True Qi in half a day, although aided by the Condensing Qi Pill, also showed that Meng Yitong and Meng Qingshan had very good aptitude; as long as they were given time and sufficient cultivation resources, their strength would soon improve.

But for now, the strength of these young men and teenagers was still too weak; in the coming great battle, relying on their meager strength would be almost useless; to win the war, they had to rely on Bird Guns and Elm Cannons.

Elm Cannons could be made by themselves, but gunpowder was a bit troublesome; Meng Yifan knew how to formulate gunpowder himself, and Charcoal and Sulfur were easy to find, but the problem was Saltpeter, which was a military supply that the government restricted, and ordinary people couldn't buy it at all.

To obtain enough Saltpeter, there were two methods: one was to manufacture it oneself, and the other was to buy it on the Heishi.

Meng Yifan could collect Earth Saltpeter from near toilets and cesspits to refine the Saltpeter he could use, but time was too tight, and Meng Yifan didn't know when the yamen runners would come to make arrests, so he decided to prepare for both possibilities.

On one hand, he arranged for people to collect Earth Saltpeter, collecting as much as they could, and on the other hand, he prepared to go to the night market to buy some once it got dark.