After leaving the city for several miles, Deng Ming and others stopped. Tonight, the wind was strong and the clouds were dense, and the moon and stars could not be seen. A storm seemed to be brewing in the dark sky. Deng Ming kept looking at the direction of the way he came. In the deep night, he could only vaguely see a few red dots, probably the torch lit by the Kunming guards on the top of the city, and nothing else could be seen.

Suddenly, it seemed like a flash, but it was not the white light that usually flashed suddenly, but a red mist suddenly rose in the endless darkness, and half of the sky was reflected in red. Before the red light appeared, the surrounding scenery was hidden in the night when you couldn't see your fingers, but the red light shone the mountains, lakes, plants, and also reflected the gray city towers and walls in the distance. The outline of Kunming City emerged, followed by a roar like a thunder. The horses sitting down were uneasy and sniffed one after another.

"Good guy!" Zhou Kaihuang was already a little impatient in the darkness and was waiting anxiously all the time, but when this moment finally came, he felt that the earth around him seemed to tremble for a moment.

In the Qing army camp next to the arsenal several miles away, the soldiers' feelings were completely different from those of Zhou Kaihuang.

Before, when people outside the city had not noticed it, the night watchmen and patrol team of the barracks found that the arsenal seemed a little abnormal. They saw a red light coming out from the back of the warehouse area - the warehouse storing leather, cotton, and clothes. The fuse was much shorter, and their incense candles were lit first, which caused the fire. The warehouse that installed leather caught fire the earliest, and the roof was quickly burned through. At this time, the incense candles used to ignite the gunpowder candles had not yet burned to the end.

The patrol soldiers noticed the strange thing and discussed for a while, feeling that the red light coming from behind the walls of the warehouse didn't look normal. An officer thought about it and took a few people to the warehouse gate to ask, but no one inside answered. At this time, several warehouses had already begun to burn, and the fuse of the gunpowder warehouse also burned into the warehouse. However, the Qing soldiers outside the gate did not know the danger. They saw that the red light became thicker and thicker, and there were still smoke rising, and knew that something was wrong in the warehouse.

After shouting a few more times, the officer ordered people to push the door, but the heavy door did not move at all. The officer knew that there was a side door in the warehouse area that allowed people to enter and exit temporarily, but the side door was actually locked. Seeing that both doors were not connected, no one answered. The officer no longer hesitated and decided to order to climb over the x-wall and open the door - he didn't know that the door bolt inside was also locked by Deng Ming.

The officer also turned around and ordered a soldier behind him to run back to the battalion, and woke all the soldiers of the battalion to prepare to help put out the fire. As the army stationed next to the warehouse, the officer knew that there were water tanks in the warehouse that stored a large amount of cold water, and many water wells specially dug out. Each well had a small pedal-picking water truck.

Several soldiers stacked up the wall and tried to climb over the wall. Another soldier also understood the officer's orders, turned around and ran towards the barracks. At this moment, the officer suddenly felt that the world around him seemed to have become extremely bright in an instant, as if it had suddenly reached noon from late at night: the stones on the roadside, the streets around him, the clothes and faces of the soldiers seemed as clear as in broad daylight...

Before the officer could be confused about the vision in front of him, he felt as if he suddenly had a cloud of mist, his head rumbling, and the scenery in front of him changed rapidly and twisted. It seemed like a piece of light around him, and it seemed like it was pitch black and nothing could be seen. When the officer regained his ability to observe the surroundings, he found that he was lying on the ground, and his chin felt sticky. He reached out and wiped it. With the light around him, he saw that his hands were covered with blood - his own blood, but he did not feel the pain.

The officer tried hard to stand up, but his waist and legs felt weak, which was a bit like the feeling after being drunk. While he was struggling on the ground, he saw the soldiers around him rolling on the ground one by one. The soldiers who were about to climb over the x-wall just now were lying on the ground motionless. Someone was lying on the back with his back facing the sky, and his facial features were bleeding. There was also a soldier with a bruise and blood on his face as if he was shouting something at him. The officer could only see the soldier opening his mouth and making some moves, but he couldn't hear a word. There seemed to be several big bells ringing in his head. Not only could he not hear anything, but these big bells made the officer soft and almost fell to the ground again.

At this time, the officer felt strange, why was it so bright around? He looked up at the sky and saw that fireworks were set up above the warehouse area, and clusters of fireworks rushed into the night sky from time to time. After the first big explosion, a series of explosions began, with residual gunpowder and other warehouses containing saltpeter and sulfur following closely. Now the warehouses that store cloth and cotton have also begun to explode.

But now it is not as amazing as the first explosion. The violent explosion at the first shock caused the entire gunpowder warehouse and the roofs of several small warehouses around it to fly away together. A cannon weighing a thousand pounds in the next gun cannon warehouse was also sent to the air by the shock wave. The cannon flipped and flew in the air, flying all the way through the exterior wall of the warehouse area and landed on the far side of the city.

Other gunpowder bags thrown into the air, sulfur flew dozens of meters high, exploded and burned in the air, turning into a rain of fire, pouring down. At this time, the ground was surrounded by these hot fire particles. On the top of the warehouse area in front of him were fire lights soaring into the sky, blowing hot winds around, and the continuous explosion of the warehouse sent more fireworks into the air. The entire warehouse now looked like an erupting crater, constantly spitting red light, smoke and fire rain that illuminated the night sky.

After being scalded by the fire particles falling from above, the officer struggled to stand up and looked at the flickering Mars on the ground - these flashing red particles covered the entire earth. No one knew how much the explosion just now sprayed. There were also many falling on the streets behind the officers. The thatch and wooden boards on the roofs of these uninhabited houses were emitting a burnt smell. The smell quickly became thicker, mixed with the sulfur burnt smell that spread in the air. In fact, these fire particles fell from here to a few blocks, but the density was different.

He raised his head again, and the officer looked at the sky in the reservoir area where the fire was still spraying rain, knowing that he must start putting out the fire as soon as possible. However, before he could call out this order, the officer who had just stood up straight felt that there were several big bells in his head, and the rumbling suddenly made him kneel down to the ground again. He held his hands on the ground, and the officer felt a violent nausea rushed straight from his abdomen to his chest, and then gushed out of his throat. The officer, like several soldiers who tried to stand up, were lying on the ground and vomiting. As they began to vomit, their feelings recovered slightly, and now their whole body began to hurt.

In the direction of the military camp behind this officer, there were also figures of Qing soldiers. They were far away from the explosion site, but they looked tilted, shaking like a group of drunken people, and had to support the things around them to maintain balance. These were other patrol soldiers and guards on the barracks. Although some people felt nauseous after they stood up, most of them had not vomited yet. They wanted to come over to see what they were doing, but they just couldn't get out of a straight line.

...

Hong Chengchou's mansion.

Shocked by the roar, a general stuck out his tongue: "What a loud thunder, today's rain is hard to light."

But just after speaking, the general felt something was wrong. He ran to the window with another general in the house and opened the window to look into the sky. He could see the clouds rolling in the sky, but he did not see a raindrop, nor did he see the silver snake rushing between the clouds. Why could he see the clouds? Because the sky was dyed with a layer of red, and the red light seemed to be emitted from the other side of the house.

"Not good!" The mind of the two who didn't go to drink was quicker. He shouted and left the window and ran to the other side of the house. The other man was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly turned around and left, helping Hong Chengchou out of the room and rushed to the outdoors.

When he left the room and came to the other side of the house, Hong Chengchou could already see the red light and fireworks rising in the night sky, as well as the colorful fire meteor showers in the air.

"ah!"

"ah!"

Seeing that the fire had already reflected the red sky, the officers and soldiers of Hong Mansion screamed. The loud noise just now had not been long, so why did the fire ignite so quickly?

"Is this the direction of the arsenal?" Hong Chengchou recovered his judgment ability as soon as possible among the people. He asked loudly, but no one answered. Everyone around him looked at the red sky above his head in a daze. The illuminated night sky was expanding rapidly and became brighter quickly. The development of the fire exceeded everyone's expectations. Seeing this, Hong Chengchou knew that he could no longer delay, he cursed in a low voice: "Two wine bags can't harm the country!"

When Hong Chengchou just heard that Mr. Baoning went to the arsenal late at night, he felt something was wrong. However, this man was so brave that he set fire in the arsenal, which was beyond his expectations. In Hong Chengchou's opinion, this kind of destruction was similar to suicide. Of course, it was probably very cost-effective to exchange a few lives for the military warehouse of more than 100,000 troops.

"Go to the arsenal to put out the fire immediately." Hong Chengchou felt that the arsenal was so big that it might not be burned out for a moment. The large amount of materials stored in it were very important. Many of them were produced for many years and transported to Kunming with the army after hard work. The primary goal now is no longer to arrest people. Hong Chengchou reassigned tasks. He asked a general to immediately take everyone in his hand to rush to the arsenal, call all the Qing soldiers he encountered along the way, try to put out the arsenal fire as soon as possible, and rescue the supplies as much as possible.

In addition, Hong Chengchou sent two teams to patrol the blocks around the arsenal. He felt that after the other party blatantly set the fire, he probably did not want to leave alive, and might ignite more fires around him. Hong Chengchou sent people to search carefully in these places, and if he saw someone setting fire, he would capture the prisoner and put out the fire.

After completing these deployments, Hong Chengchou ordered several soldiers to inform each city gate with his command arrows, strictly prohibiting anyone from leaving Kunming City. Even if he claims to be Wu Sangui's personal guard, he must detain him first if he encounters such a person and then send someone to verify his identity from the Pingxi Palace.

Hong Chengchou is not very pessimistic. He had encountered many fine arsons in the past. Even if hundreds of fine arsons were taken together, he was controlled by Hong Chengchou and could not cause much noise. Today, the other party did not have too many people. Although the sound of thunder just now gave people an ominous premonition, Hong Chengchou felt that although there were not many guards in the arsenal, there was a barracks nearby, and the fire should be controlled quickly - the loss would definitely be very large, but it might not be able to be compensated.

Seeing his subordinates, the soldiers in Qi's mansion led the team out of Hong's mansion, Hong Chengchou looked at the fire again. He didn't look very sincerely, because his eyes were already very bad - it became very difficult to read the text, and it was often like a layer of mist was covered in front of him. Hong Chengchou ordered people to inform Wu Sangui, but he decided not to mention his judgment on Mr. Baoning Qian. At this time, the priority was to put out the fire rather than distinguish responsibilities. Moreover, Hong Chengchou believed that Wu Sangui could guess what was going on soon, and he did not need to make King Pingxi angry. In the news he sent to Wu Sangui, he just asked the latter to mobilize all his subordinates to participate in the fire extinguishing as soon as possible.

After issuing this series of emergency orders, Hong Chengchou thought about it and decided to go ahead in person to supervise his generals close to put out fires, so as not to make mistakes at this time and bring unnecessary losses to the Qing army in Yunnan. It is about to launch a comprehensive attack on Li Dingguo's troops. At this time, every piece of material is very important, which can allow the Qing army to achieve a decisive victory earlier and destroy the last Han court. Hong Chengchou has been looking forward to this day for many years, and this dream has always inspired him to work harder. Thinking of this, Hong Chengchou hurried back to the house to change his clothes.

However, the fire developed much faster than Hong Chengchou imagined. No one could enter the fire scene. It was also questionable whether it would be meaningful to enter the original site of the fire after the explosion. Hong Chengchou had high hopes and was separated by a wall from the arsenal. At this time, many camps began to catch fire. Because the distance was too close, the camp was almost bathed in a fire meteor shower. After the soldiers who were sleeping in a daze were awakened by the loud noise, they saw some red sulfur particles burning through the tent above their heads and falling directly onto their bedding.

For a moment, people were yelling loudly in the barracks, and some people were so scalded that they were yelling. The soldiers who were not scalded also jumped up one after another, and beat many suddenly rising flames in the camp full of sulfur and gunpowder. The officers rushed out to maintain order. Many of them and the soldiers stared at the flames rising from the sky next door in a daze. No one knew what was going on.

In the two or three streets around the warehouse, Mars fell more or less on the houses. Most of the Mars that were sprayed into the air were extinguished in the air, and most of the remaining gunpowder that was swept into the air also turned into blue smoke. As for those Mars that were not extinguished when they landed, most of them burned out on their own.

But there are also some Mars that scorch the thatch on the roof before it is extinguished, or smoke the boards out of a black circle. Gradually, smoke rises from the yellowed curved thatch and charred wood, and then emits bright flames.

The entire circle of streets closest to the warehouses rose from various places at about the same time. Unlike the barracks full of soldiers, no one cared about the flames in these residential areas without residents. Soon the small groups of flames formed large groups of flames, or merged, and began to swallow these unattended houses.

While the fires in the first circle of streets continued to grow, the houses on the streets that were farther away from the warehouse began to be illuminated by fire. The density of Mars fell on the roofs of these streets was less, and the flames appeared were much sparse and they did not quickly converge, but they continued to burn as time went on. In farther places, there were flames in the east and west, but their density was small, and most of them were burning alone. Perhaps in several houses, there were a bunch of inconspicuous flames, which were slowly licking the paper on the windows and the thatch on the roof.

The neighborhood closest to the warehouse area was already filled with fire. The flames on the fiercely burning large houses were several meters high, making crackling sounds. The fire area produced a strong and powerful hot wind, blowing bundles of burning thatch and wooden strips into the air. These things were blown further away by the strong wind in the air and spread to a larger range.

Seeing such a fire, the Qing soldiers who had originally planned to go to the warehouse area to put out the fire, at least to save their camp, made a quick decision and immediately gave up these unsuccessful neighborhoods and their barracks, quickly retreated to the upwind area, and no longer controlled the increasingly fierce fire.

The flames spread rapidly in the empty residential areas, and soon swept across several blocks, and a stream burned straight towards the granary in Kunming.

The loud noise also alarmed the guards of the grain warehouse and the five hundred soldiers stationed beside the grain warehouse. At first, they felt that it was nothing to do with them. They looked at the fire in the distance and talked about them, expressing their speculation about the incident. Some harsh officers in the barracks ordered the soldiers to return to the camp immediately and wait for orders.

But to everyone's surprise, before they could wait for the order to put out the fire, the fire came straight to their camps and warehouses.

The fire dragon, which was not obstructed and controlled, swept hundreds of houses. The surging fire wall was more than ten meters high. It was still far from the barracks at this time, but the soldiers had to look up at it. The wind whistled in their ears. The soldiers saw that the fire dragon threatening the warehouse and the camp had not arrived yet, but they could see the miscellaneous items thrown by it - chairs, tables, door panels, thatched roofs, and countless things were burning and flying in the sky, rushing towards the camp, and the warehouses had blocks around them.

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Chapter completed!