"Hoo! Hoo!" Peng Ju couldn't help but exhale loudly, but then he covered his mouth and nose with his left hand and slowly lay on the ground. He was on a small hillside at this time. This small slope was about five or six feet high.
The area is only three to four feet in diameter, but fortunately there are a few stones two to three feet high at the top that can be used as shelter.
Compared with the last time he escaped from the east side of Qingcheng County, Peng Ju's face turned slightly blue and his clothes were looser. But he didn't care about these. He just had a livid face and glanced around to see all around him.
There were soldiers of the Ming army wearing red clothes. They said with a wry smile: "Is it possible that I, Peng Ju, will die here today?"
Three more days have passed since he escaped from the east of Qingcheng County on the tenth day of the first lunar month with the sacrifice of two bodyguards, Zhang and Liu. At that time, he had escaped several miles away and could not see the small forest.
He didn't catch up, thinking that they wouldn't pursue him. After all, he was only alone. A rash pursuit might destroy the search plan, causing loopholes to allow more White Lotus cultists to escape. So that night, he safely sneaked into a village and hid.
Sleeping in a dilapidated house.
But what he didn't expect was that before dawn the next morning, he was about to sneak away while most of the villagers were still sleeping in their beds. Suddenly, there was the sound of people shouting and horses neighing from the end of the village. Out of caution, he
He hid in the dilapidated house where he was hiding and looked outside through a gap in the wall that was still intact.
Then something even more shocking happened to him. A group of Ming army soldiers walked through the village, and a man in Feiyu uniform shouted loudly: "Quickly, search the entire village! The person you want to search is the same age.
He is a man in his forties, with a Chinese character face, thin lips, neither fat nor thin, a strong body that looks like he has practiced martial arts, and a height of about seven feet. Also, this man has been sleeping in the open air for the past few days, and his complexion is probably scorched."
"If anyone can discover this person, he will be promoted to the third level and will be rewarded with one hundred taels of gold!"
When the soldiers present heard the last sentence, they all responded with joyful faces, and then dispersed and began to search the village. Naturally, the houses where the villagers lived were also to be searched, and suddenly there was the sound of chickens and dogs jumping.
There were also soldiers cursing and talking.
"Old man, it's probably because the people in the village don't want to be searched. This officer can understand. After all, it's still early and it's winter and most people haven't gotten up yet. But this matter is of great importance. Even the emperor in the capital is very concerned.
I have no choice but to disturb the people's dreams. But don't worry, I will punish them severely if they dare to do other things!" said the man in the flying fish suit.
"This is about the White Lotus rebel bandit. Students should cooperate and shoulder their responsibilities." A man who looked to be about fifty years old, probably an elder in the village, said.
Peng Ju did not hear the conversation between the Jin Yiwei and the village elder, but he was shocked when he heard what the Jin Yiwei shouted loudly before: "This is clearly what I look like. Since the government has suppressed my White Lotus Sect, in the old village of Binzhou
There is also my portrait. Knowing my appearance is not surprising, but why would you guess that I am in this area? If the whole of Shandong were searched like this, the search would not be completed in a year.'
'Yes, Tang Shipeng must have defected to the government and told them that I was in Putai Xiguan Village the day before yesterday. After that, the government people determined the places where I could probably escape in the past two days, and sent Jin Yiwei and guardsmen to search. Damn it.
Tang Shipeng, if I can escape and ascend to heaven, I must make the Tang family regret what I did today, even if Tang Jingyu is still working as a spy in the capital!'
Peng Ju gritted his teeth for a while and realized that several soldiers were slowly approaching the dilapidated house. They would soon search for it. He quickly put aside this idea and concentrated on thinking about how to avoid the search. He thought for a while and looked at the squatting house.
He lowered his body, slipped out of the gap in the other wall, and saw the opportunity when the two soldiers on the other street turned around. He quickly walked to the opposite side and hid in a toilet they had just taken a look at. This toilet was underground.
The cesspit was full and the stench was overwhelming, but Peng Ju had no time to care. He stared outside through the gap in the middle of the wooden board. At the same time, he took out the dagger from his body, waiting to fight to the death if anyone came to see this toilet again.
war.
But probably because the soldiers didn't want to smell the smell anymore, no one looked at the toilet that had already been taken a look at. The soldiers who searched the house where he originally hid were just looking to see if anyone was hiding and didn't pay attention.
The footprints allowed Peng Ju to escape disaster.
After the Ming army left the village, Peng Ju thought about it and finally decided to leave the village. Although the village had already been searched, and it was unlikely that he would be searched like this again, he not only needed a place to hide, but he also needed to be able to avoid being discovered.
A place to get food. It's winter now, there are no edible wild vegetables, and you can't go to the fields to get food. You can only buy or steal it. In such a small village, everyone is an acquaintance, and suddenly a stranger appears to buy food.
Yes, the villagers will definitely report it when they think of the previous searches by the government; as for stealing food, there are no very rich people in this village. If there is no food, they will definitely find it. Let the dog out, and he will definitely be found as long as he is still in the village.
.Two ways, either way will be discovered.
So after Peng Ju stole a piece of cake from a family, he quickly escaped from the village and continued to Jinan. Although his portrait must be posted at the city gate of Jinan, he could not enter the city, but the people near the provincial capital
There will be many rich people in the village. He will find a wealthy family to hide in and steal food, and wait until the government stops the crackdown on the White Lotus Sect. This is his plan.
Originally, he might have been able to reach Jinan City safely, but in the early morning when he planned to sneak into a village to steal some food, he accidentally disturbed a family's dog. The dog screamed suddenly, waking up the family.
Master, the dog next to me also started barking immediately.
Peng Ju immediately killed the dog with a knife, but he did not dare to stay any longer. He climbed over the wall and was about to escape. But then the owner of the house shouted loudly: "Catch the thief!"
With this shout, countless families were awakened, and countless dogs were awakened. The richest household in the village immediately turned on the lights, and several people ran out with three or four dogs.
Peng Ju immediately ran away. However, he was chased by several dogs. Even though he killed them all quickly, he was still bitten and had to endure the pain to escape.
The villagers stopped chasing him after he escaped for several miles from the village, but immediately sent someone to tell the Jinyi Guards who were guarding nearby. The Jinyiwei immediately mobilized the guards to round him up. Even though he stopped bleeding, he still could not escape the pursuit. In the end,
At this time, he was surrounded on this small slope.
Peng Ju glanced at the surrounding Ming army soldiers, which totaled two to three hundred people. Knowing that he would not be able to survive, he put down the knife, took out the dagger, and quietly hid behind a stone. Although it was impossible for him to survive.
, will not surrender to the court, but instead of committing suicide, it is better to seize the opportunity to kill a few more people when the Ming army attacks, and recruit a few more people to be buried with him!
He waited like this for a while and heard footsteps coming from below, but the sound was very lonely. It sounded like there was only one person walking towards him. 'Why is there only one person going up the slope? Yes, they want to persuade me to surrender.
Let me surrender to the Ming Dynasty.' Peng Ju thought.
"It just so happens that they took the initiative to send one person up to die. I can drag one more person to be buried with him." Peng Ju sneered again, raised his dagger and squatted down. Then, after seeing the figure of the man walking up, Peng Ju grabbed him
His shoulder, the other hand stabbed towards his heart.
But just when the dagger was less than an inch away from the man's heart, the dagger suddenly stopped there, and Peng Ju's expression instantly became very strange, and he froze in place. Because the man shouted something
: "Brother Peng", because Peng Ju knows this person!
"Brother Peng, long time no see." This man saw that Peng Ju had no other reaction for a long time, nor did he struggle. He just said again in as relaxed a tone as possible.
Hearing this, Peng Ju came back to his senses and pushed the man to the ground, but the dagger was still pointed at his heart. At the same time, he said in a low and angry voice: "Jing Yu, why are you here!"
This person was of course Tang Jingyu. After he heard that Peng Ju had been found, he immediately applied to participate in the roundup of him, and rushed over immediately after Deputy Commander Fei, who was in charge of the suppression of the White Lotus Sect in Shandong, agreed. After surrounding Peng Ju today,
Lu Qianhu let his soldiers rest for a while, and then ordered to rush up the slope to capture or kill Peng Ju. But at this moment, Tang Jingyu suddenly said that he wanted to go up and try to persuade Peng Ju to surrender. Although Lu Qianhu didn't think so
Peng Juneng was persuaded to surrender, but Tang Jingyu was a Jinyiwei (Tang Jingyu was wearing Jinyiwei's Feiyu uniform at this time, and most people didn't know that he was a White Lotus cultist anyway), so he didn't feel bad even if he died, so he nodded and agreed.
"Brother Peng, at the beginning of last year, I accompanied His Royal Highness Prince Runan on a tour of Nanyang. Brother Peng, you know this. At the end of last year, I returned to the capital with the prince and passed by Suzhou. The local Jin Yiwei and the police station discovered the identity of the Dan family disciples and wanted to
The Dan family was to be raided. The Dan family bribed a person in the Jinyi Guards and learned the news in advance. Then they rebelled and tried to capture the prince alive. But in the end they failed. Although I did not participate in the rebellion because of my duty as Brother Peng sent me to the capital, there were people in the Dan family.
Being captured alive, my identity was also known to the government. The government threatened me with the lives of all my Tang clan members to rebel. In order to save the lives of my clan members, I had to take refuge with the government." Tang Jingyu's words were relatively simple, half true and half false.
He told Peng Ju why he rebelled, and his tone was calm, and he did not use a more intimate self-portrait.
"The Dan family's identity was discovered? Then they rebelled and failed to reveal your identity as a believer?" Peng Ju was very surprised. "Why didn't I know about this? There was no news at all."
"After the incident happened, the imperial court quickly sealed the city. The entire Suzhou capital was surrounded. No one was allowed in or out. People who wanted to cross the Yangtze River would also be strictly investigated. The White Lotus cultists should not be able to get through, so the news never spread.
Come here." Tang Jingyu said calmly.
"What happened to the Dan family? Where are the other six people who went to the palace with you?" Peng Ju asked again.
"I don't know about the four people sent to the Zhou Palace in Kaifeng. Among the three sent to the capital, Mo Li and I defected to the court, while Xiang Yuanhong died in the chaos." Tang Jingyu replied.
Peng Ju didn't speak for a while, but after a while he said: "Jing Yu, since the government is threatening the lives of your entire family, I won't blame you for rebelling. But what are you doing here today? You want to persuade me and you to surrender.
Join the imperial court together?"
Peng Ju had a sarcastic smile on his face. "You are an incense owner, and you are the first incense owner to surrender to the imperial court. The imperial court wants to use you to wipe out the White Lotus Sect, so your surrender will be of use to the imperial court, and the imperial court will tolerate you."
, and may even absolve you of your sins and appoint you to an official position. But what good can I gain by joining the imperial court?"
Peng Ju's sarcastic smile became even more intense. "I am originally the leader of the Shandong Altar of the White Lotus Sect. The Shandong Altar is the most powerful one. Now there is no leader, so I am the number one figure in the sect. People like me,
The imperial court will definitely want to capture me alive and learn the secrets of the religion from my mouth, but then I will definitely be executed. Since I will definitely not survive, why should I surrender?"
"You want to use the lives of my wife and children to persuade me? As the leader of an altar, I must kill everyone in my family. Even if you want to deceive me, you can't deceive me. As for those distant branch clan members, I don't care whether they can
Alive. So, how do you plan to persuade me to surrender to the imperial court?"
"Brother Peng," Tang Jingyu only said three words before being interrupted by Peng Ju. "Don't call me Brother Peng anymore." "Yes, the altar master. The altar master is right. If it were in the past, I would definitely not
I came here to persuade the Altar Master to surrender. But things are different now, and His Majesty is also different from the late Emperor."
"What's the difference?" Peng Ju continued to mock: "He can still kill every White Lotus sect, and even no longer regard the White Lotus sect as a cult?"
"Although the Altar Master's guesses are not all correct, some of them are right," Tang Jingyu said, "His Majesty always attaches great importance to the population. He feels that the population of the Ming Dynasty is too small, so he tries to kill as few people as possible. This time, as long as the people who surrender to the imperial court are killed, all the people will be killed."
If they don’t kill, all the sins committed during the Hongwu period will be forgiven; even those who don’t want to surrender will only have themselves killed, not even their wives and children, but will be exiled overseas.”
Hearing this, Peng Ju was stunned for a moment, looked at Tang Jingyu's face carefully, and then said: "Looking at your face, you are probably telling the truth. But after all, I am different from others. I will probably still be there after I surrender."
You can't save your life. Even the lives of your wife and children may not be saved." But even if he said this, his tone was no longer as sarcastic as before. He still firmly believed that he would die, but since the wife and children of those who did not surrender would not die, if he surrendered
, his wife and children may also be saved.
'Do you want to surrender to the court? If you surrender, your life will not be in your hands. Even if you want to die after being tortured, it will not be easy. But is Tang Jingyu telling the truth? Even if he is telling the truth, did he tell him this?
People are deceiving him?' Peng Ju thought in his heart.
He was just thinking when he heard Tang Jingyu say again: "As for the White Lotus Sect being regarded as a cult, it may not be cancelled. The court may recognize that the White Lotus Sect is a religion similar to Buddhism and Taoism and can be spread openly and honestly."
"What? The imperial court may admit that White Lotus Religion is a religion like Buddhism and Taoism that can be spread openly and openly?" Peng Ju exclaimed, then immediately shook his head and said: "Don't believe it, I don't believe it." If it is said that it is out of the perspective of caring for the population, it is not
He can still believe in killing people, but this is absolutely unbelievable. After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he immediately banned the spread of the White Lotus Sect and strictly controlled it. How could His Majesty lift the ban now? How dare he lift the ban?
"I didn't believe it at first. But..." Tang Jingyu suddenly whispered something in Peng Ju's ear. Hearing this, Peng Ju stared at Tang Jingyu with wide eyes for a while, and finally said: "Okay, I