Chapter 358: Martyrdom
The next morning, the mist in Guangning City began to dissipate, and Li Yongfang's newly recruited soldiers began to gather in the city's large campus, waiting for his chief commander to review and give his first month's military pay to buy military spirit.
But when the sun had already stepped on the city wall, the gorgeous morning glow in the sky turned into white clouds, swimming in the sky that had turned from gray to blue and bright, Li Yongfang still did not appear.
Seeing this, Li Yongfang's general thought that his head coach might have been too tired for days and forgot about this, or maybe it was because he had not tasted meat for several days, which caused him to have too much fun last night. After all, I heard that the Mongolian woman Saiya, who had been coveted by the coach for a long time, seemed to have been secretly summoned into his private residence by his coach Li Yongfang.
Therefore, Li Yongfang's generals tactfully pulled the new recruits back, and Li Yongfang's prince's mansion was still as calm as before. No one dared to ask where their prince had gone, because that would be considered to be ulterior motives and was a spy from the Jinyiwei and was executed immediately.
In the end, Li Yongfang's body was only revealed on the third day after his death, because according to past practice, no matter how serious it was, Li Yongfang would stay for at most one day outside, and often did not stay for two nights. Although the Mongolian woman named Saiya was indeed quite beautiful, she never made Li Yongfang's people think that Li Yongfang would be fascinated by her for several days and didn't want to return home.
Li Yongfang's son Li Rutai was the first to come to Li Yongfang's private residence. When he arrived, he realized that he had experienced a fight here. Most of the powerful guards around his father were shot in the forehead. It seemed that the enemy had mastered extremely powerful firearms and could kill people in a moment.
The body without a head and wearing his Qing Dynasty uniform was his father. Li Rutai couldn't help but shed tears, but there was no corpse named Saiya in the yard. He guessed the truth of the facts. He couldn't help but feel very angry and immediately shouted: "Closing Guangning City immediately! No one is allowed to leave the city. Strictly search everyone in the city. Be sure to find the Mongolian woman named Saiya, yes, her brother named Batuer."
Although Li Ruitai is Li Yongfang's eldest son, he has always been good at poetry, songs, and does not practice riding horses and archery. He has no prestige in the army. His younger brother Gangbatai, who was in charge of martial arts, has also been elusive by the Jinyiwei Xiao, so now that Li Yongfang dies, he is unable to restrain his father's subordinates at all.
In addition, Li Yongfang was also so careful, and he was contacted by Ning Wanwo, Fan Wencheng, Li Yongfang's son Gangbatai, and Wu's father and son. These former officers of the Liaodong Ming Dynasty who followed Li Yongfang to join Jiannu have become frightened birds and are beginning to get up all day long, and therefore they become more depressed and their military discipline is corrupt.
Although it was just a strict search, as soon as Li Yongfang died, the eight Han bannermen who had become a mess turned this strict search into a large-scale robbery.
They did not notice the First Brigade of the First Army of the Imperial Guards and the First Brigade of the Third Army of the Imperial Guards who were secretly marching outside Guangning City, nor did they immediately strengthen the city defense. Instead, they rushed into the homes of the people who were appeased by them with swords and guns. They thought that these traitors who surrendered to the Tartars were really undefeating to them, but they did not expect that they were jackals, tigers and leopards like the Tartars.
Li Yongfang's army had become a situation where the army was dispersed and the military discipline was damaged. However, the imperial guards who rushed over hid in the dense forest outside Guangning City with the help of the local people and set up artillery fire.
With a loud bang, a shell blew up a wall of Guangning City. But when it was shocking, most of Li Yongfang's soldiers of the Han Eight Banners had already gone to the city to make money, and they did not turn their attention outside Guangning City because of a cannon.
The First Brigade of the Imperial Guards was useless even when the gas prepared was used. Seeing that no one appeared in the city wall, he rushed over directly. Seeing that there was no one on the city wall, he simply climbed in along the broken city wall and then opened the main gate smoothly.
The cavalry of the Third Brigade rushed in directly, but they were also surprised. What happened to Li Yongfang's Eight Banners? Why was it not guarding the city gate?
However, at this moment, he had several Han Eight Banner soldiers who had shaved their heads and were the same as those of the Tartars, dragging a girl with dark skin but pretty faces towards him. One of them was holding a chicken in his hand. The brigade generals of the Third Brigade were very surprised when they saw this, but then they understood why the defense of Guangning City was so relaxed and rushed towards these Han Eight Banner soldiers.
In a battle with no technical content, five or six soldiers of the Han Eight Banners were different in this way.
At this time, the infantry of the First Brigade also rushed into the city with a cavalry. He did not wait for the cavalry to disperse the enemy's formation first, because the Han Eight Banners soldiers in the city now have almost no formation. A soldier holding a musket and entering a house casually could kill several Han Eight Banners traitors.
However, these soldiers of the Han Eight Banners who were crazy about robbing people's wealth were still somewhat conscientious, but some veterans rushed to the Esun Mansion and told Li Lutai, the only one who could make the decision.
But Li Shutai was just a literati, and he didn't know how to integrate his forces to find ways to break through, or to defend the inner city and ask Huang Taiji for help. After all, for the strategic position of Guangning City, Huang Taiji would not be saved by death, let alone Li Yongfang can be regarded as a royal relative.
However, Li Shutai's performance was that he sat directly on the ground and said to his father's general dejectedly: "It seems that the situation is over now, so you can find a way out."
Li Yongfang's generals were considered veterans who had been through the battlefield for a long time. They were determined to fight to the death with their eldest son. After all, they had been with me for so many years and still had to be sympathetic. But they did not expect that the eldest son was so pessimistic and negative, so they directly let them disperse themselves.
In this way, the generals who wanted to fight with Li Rutai for Li Yongfang's sake suddenly lost their will to fight, so they dispersed and prepared to contact the Imperial Guard officers who came to Guangning City to surrender or find a way to break out.
However, in fact, Li Lutai is very calm now because he is a literati, so he also pays more attention to the integrity of literati, which means that he wants to win the reputation of loyalty and righteousness.
For a person like Li Lutai who has become pedantic about studying, this is a rare opportunity to achieve a good reputation, so he feels calm inside.
Without asking the Imperial Guards to take action, Li Shutai ordered his housekeeper and said, "Go and call your wife, grandma, and the young masters and ladies in the mansion."
The so-called wife is Li Lutai's mother, and the eldest grandma is his own wife. Li Lutai called them all at this time, but he did not want to escape with his family members, but to let them complete the great mission of sacrificing their feuds with him.
In Li Lutai's opinion, it seems that he died of loyalty and righteousness alone, and it seems that Tai is not enough to shock the world and cry out!
Therefore, he wants his whole family to complete this great cause with him.
Therefore, while he ordered people to gather all the relatives in the family, he also ordered people to prepare a bowl of wine for everyone in the mansion and ordered his servants to add arsenic to each bowl of wine!
However, Li Lutai himself would not use this method of drinking poisonous wine to fully use his name of loyalty. He was already ready to end his life with a white silk and prove his innocence.
Li Yongfang's family was summoned. Now that Li Yongfang is dead, they have already started to wear mourning, so when they gather, they are mostly sad.
But they didn't know what Li Lutai was going to do. However, Li Lutai's stepmother, Li Yongfang's wife, Li Yongfang, the daughter of Belle Abatai, showed clues, pointed to a white silk on the beam of the room, and asked, "Tai'er, what are you doing?"
"Mother, I have been in the Qing Dynasty for three years, but the national fortune has begun to decline, because I, the Qing Dynasty, still have no loyalty and good backbone to be fully righteous! Today, let me, Li Rutai, be my first minister of death in the Qing Dynasty. My mother, you are the daughter of Beile, and you are from a royal family. You should be the name of being fully loyal. Since the rest of you are the members of the Li family, you are also the ghosts of the Li family, and you should also go to the national crisis with us in this way!"
As Li Shutai said that, he personally brought a bowl of poisoned wine to his stepmother: "Please drink it, mother!"
"No, no, I won't drink, Li Lutai, you are simply crazy. If you want to make the name of full loyalty and righteousness in the Qing Dynasty, you just die by yourself, why do you want to bring us together!"
Li Yongfang's wife obviously did not want to die with Li Lutai, but Li Lutai seemed unwilling to give up. She actually pinched her stepmother's throat and poured it in: "Forgive Mother, since my father has died for the Qing Dynasty, you, as a royal noble, should not leave any stigma."
Li Yongfang's wife swallowed a few times, wailed a few times in pain, and then stared at Li Shutai with her eyes open.
However, Li Shutai was unmoved at all, and still had a smile on his face. He seemed to be very satisfied with it. He turned his eyes to his wife, Ye He, the daughter of a certain Beller. Ye He, who has always relied on being the daughter of a nobleman and has some characteristics of a Hedong lion, felt fear for his cowardly husband for the first time, and he could not help but retreat a few steps: "Master, I won't drink, I won't drink!"
"Yuan Liang, go and feed your mother to drink it, which will be considered as your last filial piety!"
In Li Lutai's view, maintaining integrity for the Qing Dynasty is a good thing, and such a good thing should not be born in himself, but should allow people who are close to him to have such glory.
It is best to ask the son to help his mother complete this great action of keeping the ritual. His son has done his best to his mother's filial piety, after all, this is a complete mother's reputation.
So despite being dissatisfied with her stepmother, Li Lutai still chose to fulfill this great filial piety in front of her.
Li Yuanliang, the son of Li Rutai, was now just a child, who had to serve as the Minister of Revenue in the Qing Dynasty in history, but under Li Rutai's words and deeds, he was already an extremely obedient child. Li Rutai said that he would give him the poisonous wine to Ye He, and he honestly presented it to Ye He: "Mother, please die for the throne!"
Ye He's tears were thundering. She couldn't figure out how this result happened now. Her biological son would actually come to her with a bowl of poisoned wine and let her drink it.
Li Shutai’s request was allowed to refuse, but she didn’t know how to refuse the poisonous wine brought by her son. And she took the poisonous wine in a silly way and nodded and said, “Okay, okay, mother, I’ll drink it!”
Ye He raised his head and choked a few times before falling back.
Li Yuanliang was already crying in his eyes, and turned to Li Shutai and said, "Father, let the child go with his mother."
Li Lutai nodded with relief: "It's so great, it's not in vain that your mother has raised you for so many years, nor is it in vain that the way of being a son taught to you for your father."
Li Yuanliang didn't say anything, but just picked up a bowl of poisoned wine and drank it and lay in Ye He's arms.
The same is true for other relatives, and they all chose to commit suicide under the coercion and temptation of Li Rutai.
After a long time, the entire master of the prince's mansion fell to the ground in a row, but Li Shutai still smiled.
As a guardian, he was very satisfied with his masterpiece. He made the entire Li family sacrifice his life for his Qing Dynasty. In addition, he was about to choose to commit suicide. Such a move will definitely be recorded in the history of the Qing Dynasty and will be remembered forever.
Because everyone knows that in Guangning City, there was once a loyal Qing minister named Li Shutai who chose to die in his family before the foreign enemy invaded.
As a deeply educated Confucianism, Li Lutai did not think there was anything wrong with this. Moreover, in his eyes, his master was the Qing Dynasty, and he should be the ghost of the Qing Dynasty.
But what disappointed Li Lutai was that the moment he put his head into the white silk, the soldiers of the Imperial Guard had already rushed into the prince's mansion and decisively rescued Li Lutai.
Li Lutai, who had always wanted to die for his Qing Dynasty, couldn't help but be furious because these Ming people stopped him from his great ideal of dying for the throne, which was more uncomfortable than killing him.
However, when Li Lutai thought that since he could not commit suicide, it seemed that he would die because of scolding the enemy. So Li Lutai cursed at the soldiers of the Imperial Guards again: "You dog thieves occupy the land of the Qing Dynasty and plunder the people of the Qing Dynasty. They are really like jackals. I wish I could not drink his blood and eat his flesh!"
"Dog thief? You are the dog thief, the dog traitor, how many benefits are the Tartars giving you? You are so loyal, just a few people who forget their ancestors!"
An Imperial Guard officer scolded Li Lutai a few words back. Li Lutai wanted to scold again, but at this time the soldiers of the other Imperial Guards all started to curse: "Dog traitor, you are a dog traitor!"
"Traitor?"
Li Lutai was scolded so much that he didn't dare to retaliate. He didn't expect that he would get the title of "traitor", which may be a bad reputation.
Chapter completed!