Chapter 173: Chapter 132: Dongting Savior

Translator: 549690339

So upon hearing the news of the rebellion, the court officials all had one thought.

That is… suppression, it must be suppressed.

Never let these rebels build up momentum, so that they can join forces with the Xi Shu rebels.

Otherwise, by that time, with the joint forces of both parties, an army of three to four hundred thousand can be formed.

At that time, it would be truly an endless task for the court to suppress the rebellion, eliminate Xi Shu, and recover the Xichuan Prefecture.

Seeing that the court had just begun to show signs of revitalization, and that he himself would also leave a glorious name in history for assisting in this revitalization.

How could the court officials bear to watch the Miao Rebel Army destroy everything they had achieved?

No need for further discussion.

The moment the news of the rebellion was received, Emperor Hongdao issued an edict, ordering Marquis Wuan Bai Mengyang, who was resting his army in South Sea Prefecture, to depart immediately and head to Dongting Prefecture to stabilize the situation.

As for the 50,000 Pingnan Army who were in the midst of rest and recuperation, they no longer had the leisure to continue, but instead were immediately redeployed to march northward, rushing to Dongting Prefecture to quell the rebellion.

After all the arrangements like this had been made, the court officials and Emperor Hongdao could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

With Bai Mengyang, a Second Realm Inborn Grandmaster, present, it was enough to make up for the loss of high-level combat power in Dongting Prefecture caused by Li Gui’s absence.

The subsequent 50,000-strong army was also elite, having fought both northward and southward. Last year, it even annihilated Jinghai Country, making it a well-acclaimed fighting force.

With such an elite army in place, combined with local prefectural and county soldiers in Dongting Prefecture, it should be no big problem to suppress the Poison Sect’s rebellion.

However, not many days had passed since these deployments were arranged when, on the first day of the third month, an urgent report arrived from Wushan Prefecture in Xichuan Prefecture, stating that the Shu thieves and their Emperor had led a hundred thousand enemy soldiers in invading Guan City.

Nowadays, there were continuous firefights under Wushan Pass.

Wushan Prefecture defenders, whether they could be considered village braves or not, only numbered over twenty thousand, facing an enemy five times their number, they simply could not support for long, begging the court to quickly send reinforcements.

But now where could the court find any reinforcements?

More than three years of war had long since drained the treasury. Out of the nine prefectures of Da Yue, except for the occupied Xichuan Prefecture, five of the remaining eight prefectures had been completely ravaged.

As for the better-off three prefectures, they had already been levied one after another, with some of the more extreme areas being taxed up to ten years in advance.

The people could not bear the heavy burden, and many were already fleeing.

Under such circumstances, where could the court find the money and food to form a large army, and where could it find the spare capacity to support the front line?

In the end, with no other choice…

Emperor Hongdao had to issue an edict, allowing local officials and gentry in Dongting Prefecture to organize their own militia corps to defend their hometown.

As for these local militiamen, they were all officially recognized by the court.

At the same time, the wealthy gentry who had organized the militia were also granted corresponding official positions one by one.

The bottom line that the court originally insisted on, not allowing the local regions to raise private troops, was broken in the crisis of Miao rebellion and Xi Shu’s eastward expedition.

Once this door is opened, the Dongting Prefecture localities, which already showed signs of warlordism due to the recruitment of village braves, may not take long before regional militias become ubiquitous. But the court could not care so much anymore.

Let there be regional militias everywhere.

No matter how unruly those regional militias may become, they still obey the orders of the court.

Handing Dongting Prefecture over to them would be better than to the Poison Sect and the Pseudo-Shu rebels.

So after issuing this “local self-recruiting militia order,” the court left the matter to the original Dongting prefecture magistrate and ordered him to handle local affairs properly and fully support Marquis Wuan’s anti-bandit campaign.

After that, the court let go of the rebellion in Dongting Prefecture and the eastward expedition of Xi Shu thieves.

With no money and no troops, they couldn’t manage it at all.

Everything was left to the local authorities of Dongting Prefecture to decide.

Just as the uncertain nobles in the court were having a headache over the increasingly worsening situation in Dongting Prefecture…

At Dongting Prefecture, the prefecture government was also having a headache over the increasingly deteriorating situation below.

The current magistrate of Dongting Prefecture was named Lu Fangai. Being able to hold the position of head of a prefecture and rule over thousands of miles of territory, this Magistrate Lu was naturally not an ordinary person.

He was born in the Jinling Lu family, a family of prominent nobles in the capital, who had inherited the title of Ning Guogong for generations. They were among the top nobles in Da Yue.

Lu Fangai was the current Ning Guogong, and it was precisely because of this illustrious title and the fact that the Lu family shared the same fate with the country that he was able to sit in the position of prefecture magistrate.

Otherwise, for other people, let alone whether their background was prominent enough, even the issue of loyalty alone would make the court worry.

Originally, Lu Fangai was quite satisfied with his current position.

After all, although a prefecture magistrate is only a local post, it ranks as high as the second rank, and is not far off from the capital’s various department secretaries. Although the city of Baling, the seat of Dongting Prefecture, is not as prosperous as Jinling City, it is still a famous city in the world and will not be too far off.

What was even rarer was that in Dongting Prefecture, Lu Fangai was the highest-ranking official, and nobody could control him.

It was not like in the capital, where although he was also a top gentry, there were many other dukes of the same rank, princes above him, and the emperor above him, making him feel completely uncomfortable.

Therefore, Lu Fangai was quite happy about his appointment to Dongting Prefecture.

But since a few years ago, this kind of happiness has been gradually diminishing.

The rebellions and wars in various parts of Da Yue made the situation in this dynasty increasingly show signs of its final days.

As the Ning Guogong, who shared the same fate as the country, Lu Fangai naturally watched this scene with worry in his heart.

Unfortunately, although he was not a prodigal son, he had some knowledge, but he still couldn’t do anything about the current collapsing situation in the world..</p