There were corpses everywhere inside and outside the city.
Wu Juyuan, together with other civilians, was ordered to clean up various battlefields.
"Did the army massacre the city?"
"have no idea."
"I heard that the Uighur soldiers were killing them indiscriminately."
"We brought Uyghur soldiers, and there are also Uighur soldiers here. How come they are so ruthless in killing members of their own race?"
"Hey, you don't know. The Uighur soldiers in Gaochang Kingdom believe in any religion, and the Gaochang court doesn't bother to care about it. But Qiuci Kingdom can only believe in Tianfang religion, and those who don't believe in that religion will be killed. Both sides
There is a lot of hatred, especially over Yanqi, where the Black Khanate often leads Qiuci soldiers to kill them."
"How do you know this?"
"There are businessmen in our village who have made a lot of money in Gaochang and have recruited many fellow villagers to work as caravan workers. This is what they told when they went home to celebrate the New Year."
"Is there anything else strange?"
"Hey, the strangest thing is the wife guest."
"What wife guest?"
"When you are a guest in a Gaochang people's home, they will use their wives and daughters to entertain the guests."
"Hosting like that?"
"It's what you think. This is the tradition of the Uighurs. Not only the Uighurs in Gaochang, but the Uighurs in Shaanxi and Ningxia also use their wives and daughters to entertain guests."
"Then what should we do? The government wants us to marry Uighur women. I would rather marry a widow who has killed several husbands than a slut who has been slept with by many men!"
"..."
The topic soon shifted from the massacre of the city to the strange news about his wife's guest, and he was panicking because he was about to marry a Uighur woman.
They had little idea of what was going on.
In fact, the Uighur army that followed the Ming army was not allowed to enter Kucha City at all, and they had long been prevented from massacring or looting the city.
But these Gaochang Uighur troops were ordered to pursue the defeated troops in the west.
Those defeated troops were all holy soldiers from Dongkara.
The Gaochang Uighur officers and soldiers hated them so much that they would kill them if they caught up and not take any prisoners. Although they themselves had never encountered a holy war, their grandfathers had dealt with those holy soldiers.
At that time, Gaochang and Qiuci were still one family, and the two Uighur kings ruled together.
For more than a hundred years, Kucha has been the target of the Eastern Kara Holy War. Gaochang nobles often led troops to rescue, and various massacres were widely spread.
Even if the Kucha royal family was forced to convert, the holy war in East Kara was still not over.
Because there are still a large number of civilians in the Kucha Uighur territory who believe in other sects, Eastern Kara must kill them until all of them convert.
The complete end of the jihad was not due to the conversion of the Uighurs, but to the fact that the Eastern Kara Khanate was too decadent to be defeated.
As for the rumors about the city massacre that the people heard, it was because the Ming soldiers were angered by fanatics.
When the Ming army attacked the city, a large number of defenders abandoned the city and fled, but there were still many defenders who fought to the death. They could not withstand the Ming army's front, so they withdrew to the inner city. Due to the lack of unified command, they were quickly defeated by the Ming army.
Capture the inner city walls.
In the evening, the fighting was basically over.
Huang Zuo ordered the army to eliminate the remaining enemies and maintain law and order, but he was a little crazy and gathered believers to attack the Ming army patrolling the city at night.
Several Ming troops were attacked, and they were immediately defeated and hunted down. However, those guys fled into civilian houses and were often hidden by the owners during the search. Afterwards, they came out to engage in various actions. Some even deliberately set fires to create chaos.
Who is Huang Zuo?
General under the command of Zhong Xiang!
They got their start through the Manichaean rebellion and massacred countless monks, Taoists, and Confucian scholars. How could they not understand the path of those Tianfang believers?
Huang Zuo directly ordered that the troublemakers be killed wherever they fled. If they escaped into a private house, the owner would kill all the men inside without handing them over.
Moreover, Huang Zuo personally led his troops to massacre the temples, and all the Tianfang temples inside and outside the city were massacred by him.
The next day the civilians entered the city and saw corpses everywhere, so there were rumors of a massacre.
In fact, there was no massacre of the city. Most of the soldiers and civilians in the city were still alive. The captured soldiers could survive as long as they did not cause trouble.
When the fighting lasted until midnight, the residents in the city were already very "cooperative". Once troublemakers broke into their homes, they would take the initiative to capture them and send them to the Ming army, insisting that they had nothing to do with the troublemakers.
Wu Juyuan was cleaning up a temple when he suddenly heard someone behind him say: "Several large temples inside and outside the city have all been converted into Manichaean temples. Please invite some eminent Manichaean monks from Gaochang. All the people of Qiuci must also be converted into Manichaean temples."
If you believe in other sects, I will be annoyed when I see Tianfang believers!"
The person who spoke was none other than Huang Zuo.
Although the teachings of Gaochang Manichaeism and Han Manichaeism are so different that they are two completely different religions. But Huang Zuo himself was a Manichae, and he had a natural affinity for Manichaeism, so he simply took the opportunity to develop Manichaeism in Kucha.
teach.
Of course, Huang Zuo did not dare to go too far. He only supported Manichaeism and allowed people to convert to Buddhism, Nestorianism, and Zoroastrianism.
After inspecting various parts of the city, Huang Zuo headed to the royal city.
The members of the Kucha royal family have been taken into custody and are now being brought to see the Ming generals.
"Xiao Wang pays homage to General Tomorrow!" Kuma Yu dragged his fat sick body to kneel down, and his wife, children and grandchildren also knelt down.
Huang Zuo glanced at them and said, "Take them all to Gaochang and hand them over to Wu Duhu for disposal."
He no longer paid attention to these people, but personally led the troops to escort the prisoners to the desert not far to the west.
The prisoners, as well as the Han people, were carrying a large number of corpses.
Countless big holes were dug in the desert.
Huang Zuo said: "If you dare to raise troops to fight against the Ming Dynasty's army, the outer city has been breached, and you still rely on the inner city to continue to resist. All the Kucha Uighur nobles should die. Except for women and children, all those nobles were executed and buried. Han'er immigrated
Come and carry out the execution, let you also get your blood, and there will be many battles in the future!"
Wu Juyuan was singled out as one of the execution representatives.
The nobles of Kucha and the male members of their families were trembling with fear and kneeling on the ground, begging for mercy.
The Han people in charge of the execution also had earth-colored faces.
Under the urging of the officers, some civilians closed their eyes and charged forward with their guns drawn, while some of the civilians waved their swords and slashed randomly.
Wu Juyuan, however, pulled out his sword, held down a nobleman's head and wiped his neck, and then kicked the twitching corpse into the sand pit.
Huang Zuo saw it clearly and said with a smile: "Call the young man."
Wu Juyuan was quickly taken away.
Huang Zuo asked: "What's your name? How old are you this year?"
Wu Juyuan saluted with a military salute: "Reporting to Lieutenant Commander, my name is Wu Juyuan, I am eighteen years old, and I live in the suburbs of Kaifeng."
Huang Zuo was very happy when he called him "Taiwei" and continued to ask: "What do you do at home? Is there any engagement?"
Wu Juyuan said: "My family owns more than 200 acres of thin farmland, runs an oil press, a brewery, and raises dozens of pigs. I am already engaged."
Huang Zuo nodded in approval: "He is also a good family man. Have you ever read a book?"
Wu Juyuan replied: "I started learning at the age of five and have been studying hard for more than ten years."
Huang Zuo asked again: "Can you know martial arts?"
Wu Juyuan said: "He is proficient in riding and shooting, knows a little about swords and guns, and knows some fists and feet."
Huang Zuo said: "Yesterday's attack on the city caused some casualties among my soldiers. You can come in as new recruits. Remember, a good man should make achievements. You should not marry a wife for the time being. If you can't help it, you can take a concubine."
"Ah?" Wu Juyuan didn't understand.
Several soldiers nearby were suppressing laughter, knowing that their commander-in-chief was looking for a son-in-law again.
Huang Zuo's little daughter was extremely favored. Although she was not ugly, she was not beautiful either, and she was not at all ladylike in dancing with knives and sticks since she was a child.
His other two daughters have already married the sons of other generals, but this youngest daughter is reluctant to marry and insists on choosing a talented and beautiful husband herself.
Wu Juyuan was well-educated, good at martial arts, and handsome, so he had caught the eye of Huang Zuo.
However, it is still in the investigation stage and the character must pass the test.
There were two backup candidates before, but they were given up during the review stage because their character was not up to par.
Wu Juyuan became a recruit in a daze, but he didn't know which battalion he belonged to, and Huang Zuo didn't let him leave, so he just stood there and watched the fun.
All the captured Kucha nobles have been executed, followed by the captured soldiers.
Huang Zuo first executed the captured soldiers with lashes out of ten, and then asked the terrified survivors to insult the gods. Those who were unwilling to curse the gods were immediately executed and pushed into the sand pit.
After a few days, we continued westward.
There was no time to divide the fields, so only part of the army was left to garrison Kucha City.
As soon as the army crossed the Gobi Desert, King Ibrahim of Eastern Kara ran away.
This Khan, who could not even suppress the rebels, fled with a large number of corrupt nobles and treasures accumulated over hundreds of years, abandoning his own people.
They also took away the most "elite" troops. With these troops as bargaining chips, they could get preferential treatment in Xiliao, which lost many troops and generals.
There are also people who don't want to leave.
A young noble general named Fatima called on all soldiers and civilians to rise up to resist, and gained support from the clergy.
He announced that the land left by the escaped nobles would be distributed to the local people, and he also promised to reduce taxes. For a time, he was regarded as a great hero by the people, and his prestige far exceeded that of the escaped king.
From Kashgar to Hotan, countless people enlisted in the army and gathered under Fatima to resist the Ming army.
Although these armies have poor weapons and equipment, their combat effectiveness and morale are far higher than before, because they are really defending their homeland and not fighting for those corrupt nobles.
But the will to fight must ultimately comply with objective rules.
Even if the Ming army did not have firearms, these troops, which lacked training and had uneven armor, were far from being able to match the fully armored Ming army.
Wu Juyuan was incorporated into the light cavalry unit, and his leather armor was replaced by light cotton armor.
This kind of cotton armor is only lined with a few iron sheets on the chest and abdomen, and the rest of the armor is pure cotton armor. It weighs ten kilograms.
A few dozen miles east of Kashgar, Wu Juyuan experienced his first riding battle in his life.
The light cavalry unit he belonged to was sent to investigate thirty miles away from the main army, and encountered a reconnaissance cavalry of the enemy.
The captain and Wu Juyuan rushed forward to shoot arrows and fight.
Wu Juyuan shot and wounded an enemy soldier dozens of steps away. Then he shot and killed an enemy rider twenty steps away. When he rode around to the side again, he shot two enemy soldiers again.
Such a record made his captain smile crookedly, and he directly led the soldiers to charge into close combat.
After a battle, only three of the enemy's reconnaissance cavalry squad escaped in panic, and the rest were killed by the Ming army's light cavalry.
As the Ming army continued to advance, a decisive battle broke out on the outskirts of Kashgar.
When the troops were continuously defeated by firearms, Fatima was not frightened and ran away, but led his own troops in a suicide charge.
But dozens of steps away, he was hit by artillery shells. He was injured, fell off his horse, and was trampled to death.
Huang Zuo repeated what he had done in Qiuci in Kashgar and Hotan, and soon became the devil who could stop Xiao Er from crying at night.
He doesn't care about this, he killed a lot of people in Hunan back then!
Huang Zuo wrote an urgent letter to Wu Jie, saying that the territory in Kashgar was very large, and that he had killed many die-hards, and asked the court to immigrate another 10,000 people.