Chapter 1136: Jianghu Strife

This time, the merit and reward ceremony was grand and imposing.

Chen Bushi, as Commander of the Martial Guard, led the troops of Nan Jun, commanding the garrison commanders of Gu Qi and Shendu.

Chen Li served as Central Guard Commander, overseeing the Central Army.

The original commanders of each camp in the Central Army were all promoted to Central Lieutenant General, with various deputy commanders and training officers established beneath them.

Chen Luozi, as Pacifying East General, temporarily took charge of military affairs in Nanyue Commandery.

The Pacifying East General is one of the Four Pacifying Generals, primarily responsible for pacification and governance.

Currently responsible for suppressing bandits and stabilizing the region in Nanyue Commandery, as well as overseeing matters in the Eastern Region and others, the position is fixed, but the duties are temporary; once affairs in Nanyue Commandery are settled, these matters will gradually be transferred to local authorities.

Yang Pojun was appointed as Pacifying West General.

The Pacifying West General is one of the Four Pacifying Generals, primarily responsible for pacification and suppression.

These four individuals held the highest ranks in this ennoblement.

After them, Chen Wuji, as a miscellaneous-title general not commonly established in the Han dynasty, was granted wartime ennoblement, bestowing rewards upon Chen Baojia and others.

Third-rank miscellaneous-title generals: Chen Baojia as Commander of the Garrison Army, Xie Fengxian as Pacifying the Multitudes General, Qian Fugui as Subduing the Barbarians General, Feng Linchuan as Garrison-Protecting General, Lv Ji as Pacifying Bandits General, Cao Mu as State-Assisting General.

Fourth-rank miscellaneous-title generals: Hu Bugui as Establishing Might General, Wu Bu Yong as Establishing Martial General, Qian Yong as Arousing Martial General, Chen Ruoshui as Broad Might General, Chen Lang as Tremendous Might General.

This large-scale promotion marked the first time Chen Wuji's forces truly achieved balance in meaning, and it declared that Chen, the rebel leader, had truly rebelled.

This time, he no longer needed the Emperor to give him any cover.

As long as he wished, he could now grant himself titles like Pacifying West King or Shu King, clanging and resounding.

However, Chen Wuji declined to bestow rewards upon himself.

The title Marquis Zhenyuan still sounded quite pleasant and agreeable; for now, there was no need to bother with changes.

……

While Chen Wuji rewarded the three armies and settled this series of complicated affairs, some interesting events occurred outside Jiannan Commandery and Shangfang Commandery.

Recently, some impatient jianghu people formed small groups of three or two, already cursing as they approached Jiannan Commandery and Shangfang Commandery, then walking on… walking on, and then they vanished.

No one knows what happened, but the people simply disappeared.

From grand masters down to even those with only internal energy martial artists, as long as they were heading toward Jiannan Commandery and Shangfang Commandery, whether they truly came to assist the Taiyuan Sect or merely came to watch the spectacle, once they neared these two commanderies, the people vanished.

Whether in groups of three or five, or teams of eighty or ninety, as soon as they approached these two commanderies, they disappeared without a trace, not even a corpse left behind.

At first, aside from Chen Wuji's spy camp, no one noticed this matter.

Until the number of missing persons kept increasing, this news gradually spread through the jianghu.

Then…

Chen Wuji inexplicably took the blame again.

Jianghu people all believed Chen Wuji feared that these people entering Jiannan Commandery and Shangfang Commandery would harm him, shatter the territory he had painstakingly built, and had already begun assassinating them from outside.

Thus, the indignant jianghu people reacted even more strongly.

Chen Wuji rose to the top of various big and small lists, suddenly seeming to truly become the public enemy of the jianghu, becoming the target that jianghu people must kill.

Although there were also some differing voices in this.

But these voices were very weak, almost as soon as they were spoken, they were drowned out by the furious shouts of killing.

This shows the determination of jianghu people to kill Chen Wuji.

Because of this inexplicable matter, Chen Wuji's proclamation to the world lost its effect.

Jianghu people all said Chen Wuji was hypocritical, clearly just wanting to trample the jianghu and destroy them, yet still blamed the Taiyuan Sect and other sects, utterly shameless.

Chen Wuji's proclamation successfully reached various places, but his name did not gain legitimacy; instead, it provoked a fiercer reaction from martial artists, instantly making Chen Wuji the greatest villain in the jianghu.

But how to say it? When one window closes, another door must inevitably open.

Chen Wuji's proclamation stirred up the jianghu people, yet it also earned praise from the common people of the world and many scholars; in the jianghu, with surging momentum, they used their own ways to gather friends and form teams, preparing to go to Jiannan Commandery to destroy Chen Wuji, when scholars began to exert their strength.

These scholars holding brushes, indeed worthy of holding brushes, within just a few days, countless articles emerged across the world, all condemning the martial world for bringing disaster to the state, seeking to chaos the world, their words grand and righteous, each word occupying the high ground of justice.

Martial artists and jianghu sects, under their brushes, became like wild dogs pretending to be divine spirits on Mount Tai, indiscriminately urinating and defecating to claim territory, beast-hearted humans trying to enter the Jingji Forbidden Province to care for their own reproduction.

The weapons of jianghu martial artists are visible and tangible blades, but these scholars holding brushes, raising their brushes is like drawing a sword; those article after article that emerged, Chen Wuji's desire to clear his name unexpectedly succeeded in this way.

Although it was delayed by several days.

But the result, unexpectedly, came as a fortunate accident.

Jianghu martial artists broke through their defenses again.

Thus, the two sides began cursing at each other across the distance.

The jianghu martial artists, accustomed to killing entire families at the drop of a hat, and the scholar group, who argue with words but not with hands, unexpectedly engaged in a cross-domain linkage in this manner: today you send one article, tomorrow I send one article, the battlefield unclear wherever it is, but the cursing was intensely fierce.

The jianghu people also seemed truly worked up.

Although these people also indulged in elegance, when it came to writing, they were basically insulated from it.

They could write, but wrote extremely little.

Because of this quarrel, the world saw a division of forces not tied to region.

Clans that combined power, knowledge monopoly, and martial inheritance, as well as some special sects that engaged in both academia and martial arts, began to speak out one after another, drawing clear boundaries from ordinary martial world sects.

When these forces spoke up, the jianghu martial artists again, damn it, broke through their defenses.

Immediately followed by another performance, a frenzied outburst.

No one knows how they matched themselves to their opponents, but the cursing was equally brutal, and it even rose to offline sparring; no one knows which side first lost their temper, but inexplicably, they started fighting.

The jianghu sects and Chen Wuji's conflict had not yet truly begun in earnest; under the verbal and literary condemnation of the scholar group, they themselves first underwent a splendid and varied internal struggle.

Recently, Chen Wuji has greatly enjoyed reading the reports from the spy camp; although he is confused, it is truly exciting, like reading gossip, and he remains fervently passionate.

"Sir, quickly look, quickly look, how did even the bald donkey join the fray? It seems no one was scolding them? How could they also break through their defenses?"

In the study, Chen Wuji held the report just delivered by the spy camp, laughing so hard his face almost twitched.

Today's first topic is the Confucian-Buddhist debate from the Half-Month Talk.

Buddhist warnings tell scholars not to slander the Buddha, or else hell will be their eternal destination, and then literati shout in reply, Laborers study the Way of Confucius and Mencius, I believe in Ascension but not in hell, Tu Lu, Silence Order.