Feng Yanlu crossed the river overnight. In order to show the urgency of the situation, Judge Feng even added a scene for himself.

So when the boat passed Caishiji, Feng Yanlu, who cared about his country, fell into the water in great anxiety and almost died for his country.

This move was very dangerous, because Feng Yanlu almost didn't get rescued.

But correspondingly, the rewards are also great.

As soon as Li Jing saw Feng Yanlu's drowned appearance, he immediately believed what Feng Yanlu said. Zhou's army and thousands of cavalry had already crossed the river. The Lord of Zhou was even furious because he refused to go to the country, and detained Sun Cheng and Han Xizai.

Something happened.

Caishiji is only sixty miles down the river to Jiangning. Wanqi has already crossed the river and can reach the Qinhuai River in an hour at most.

If we add in the forceful crossing of the Zhou army from Yangzhou, the eastern capital on the other side of the river, there will be no suspense about the outcome!

In the past, Li Jing seemed a little confident. That was because he still had a way out. In the worst case, if he went to Hongzhou, who would be afraid of whom?

But now that his escape was blocked, he immediately felt uneasy. After all, no matter how important the country, wealth and face were, they were not as important as life.

So Li Jingsui couldn't run away. Since the Lord of Zhou asked for an important person to talk to him, only His Royal Highness Prince Qi could go.

Li Jing quickly held a simple ceremony and appointed his second brother, King Qi Li Jingsui, as the crown prince, and asked him to take his place and go to Caishiji to beg for peace with the Lord of Zhou.

In Hezhou, Sun Cheng and Han Xizai, who were detained, were really frightened.

Because Zhang Zhao had to act like he wanted to know the inside story of Jiang Ning and was very eager to defeat Jiang Ning and capture Li Jing alive.

Otherwise, Feng Yanlu would be easily exposed, and Zhou Zong, that old fox, had already laid down and closed the door to create villains.

The only person Zhang Zhao knew well was Feng Yanlu, and Feng Yanlu was survived by his elder brother Feng Yanji.

So on the first day, Sun Cheng and Han Xizai were starved for almost the whole day, and they only had a bowl of milk water at noon.

In the early morning of the next day, Zhou Zhisi, commander of the Jinyi Guards, and Shicheng Hou Zhang Liecheng personally took the imperial cook and served lamb wine to persuade them to surrender.

Although Sun and Han were exhausted from hunger, they still did not give in.

Among them, the stubborn Sun Cheng kept silent and refused to cooperate at all. Han Xizai ate a lot of meat and drank a lot of wine, but when asked about the information about Jiangning City, he didn't say a word and was prepared to be severely punished.

Seeing that this method failed, Zhang Liecheng immediately started the most common method - torture.

Of course, this would not be torture for Sun Cheng and Han Xizai. In that case, it would be too rude.

Zhang Liecheng brought the two bandits caught by the Jinyi Guards in front of them.

These two bandits were both from the vicinity of Hezhou. After the governor of Hezhou ran away in the Southern Tang Dynasty, these two men led a group of bandits and ruthlessly robbed the people who escaped from the city outside the city.

In total, he raped more than ten women, injured dozens of others, and looted nearly 500 pieces of property. It can be said that the crime was extremely heinous.

Zhang Zhao has always severely punished such shameless evil elements.

Even in his army, looting, raping, and beating civilians will all lead to loss of heads, let alone mountain bandits.

It's just that these two leaders were unlucky. The second before they were beheaded, they were pulled by Zhang Liecheng to kill the chickens and scare the monkeys.

The so-called torture is also very simple, it is nothing more than fingernail pulling and tiger bench.

But for literati like Sun Cheng and Han Xizai, it seemed too terrifying.

When the leading bandit had all the nails on his hands pulled out in front of Han Xizai, Han Xi was so frightened that he was on the verge of collapse.

Because this was not a simple matter of pulling out the nails, the torture experts of Zhou Guojinyi's bodyguard first used bamboo sticks to slowly pry around the nails, exerting huge psychological pressure, then thrust them in suddenly and then slowly peeled them off.

Amidst the bandit's earth-shattering screams, the entire nail cap was completely peeled off. The nail was in perfect shape, without any damage, and there was not even a trace of flesh and blood on the root of the nail.

After peeling it off, the torturers would use spirits and fine salt to repeatedly smear the wound to prevent it from rotting.

Each nail represents a pain, and there will be about thirty breaths between every time a nail is pulled out, because this interval is just enough for people to barely adapt to the pain in front of them.

And after thirty breaths when the pain subsides slightly, the severe pain and terrifying screams will start again.

Even though the bandit was a very strong man, he almost fainted due to pain and fear before all ten nails were pulled out.

The torture expert saw that the bandit was about to pass out, so he turned around and looked at Han Xizai with some lingering thoughts.

"Do you know, sir? I, the royal guard in Jinyi, serve in the Pharmacy Department and have invented a new type of golden sore medicine. It has miraculous effects on stopping bleeding and making flesh. It is a supreme treasure.

There is also a legend from a saint that sheep intestines can be used as thread to remove evil spirits, disinfect and suture wounds. However, a certain family used this method to treat hundreds of warriors whose chests and abdomens were cut open, and only three people survived."

As he said this, the torture master seemed to be thinking hard, "If this method is useless, no two or three warriors will be able to survive. If it is useful, why can't it even achieve 10% of the effect?"

I think the medical masters that the saint saw must not be ordinary people. It is a pity that ordinary people in a certain family cannot be proficient in this skill.

After thinking about it, is it possible that a certain family doesn't know enough about the internal organs? Or is it true, as the sage said, that there are three to sixty-nine kinds of human blood, and if you study it carefully, you can really take blood to exchange for life?"

After saying that, the torture expert looked at Han Xizai and said, "I heard that Zhi Zhi Gao is a learned man from the South. Do you know the secret of human blood?"

Han Xizai's eyes widened in fear, amidst the victim's shrill screams, in this cell filled with the smell of blood.

A terrifying torturer wearing a white robe with his hands stained with blood spoke of cutting open a person's belly in such a casual way.

It's as if the morality and laws in the world no longer exist. In his eyes, people are no longer human beings, but just like pigs and sheep.

The confined space, the blood that broke the bottom line of human morality, made Han Xizai's mind seem to be overloaded. The muscles on his face were twitching unconsciously, and he could not speak.

When the torturer saw that he was silent, he shook his head in disappointment and said, "Now that I have remembered it, I know that Zhigao is a person who has read the books of sages, so he will definitely disdain to talk to someone like this.

Then I won’t ask for advice. Tomorrow, someone will cut open this person’s chest and abdomen and check his internal organs.

Then we find other thieves and test it repeatedly with human blood, chicken blood, dog blood, and rabbit blood, and we can always get results, but it's a pity that there are too few thieves and there is not enough blood!"

As he said that, the torturer regretfully made a small stroke on Han Xizai's belly.

Han Xizai suddenly felt a tightness in his anus, as if he was about to burst out, a sudden cold on his belly, and an earth-shaking pain in his internal organs, as if his belly had been cut open.

When Li Xiaojie saw Han Xizai's appearance at the door, he quickly walked in. If he continued to be frightened, something might happen, but don't scare him crazy.

Seeing Han Xizai being carried out with a chair, Li Xiaojie raised his thumbs up to the torturers with satisfaction.

"The Eighteenth Prince is very capable. Not only is his medical skills superb, he is also very good at scaring people."

This torturer was Zhang Zhao's nephew, who was born in the eighteenth year of his life, so he was called Shibalang.

Shiba Lang looked at Li Xiaojie strangely, looked at Li Xiaojie with his somewhat cloudy eyes, and said strangely.

"Who said I was trying to scare him? Please ask the deputy commander to complete the necessary knife as soon as possible. I will start the caesarean section tomorrow.

That's right! We've also recruited all the noon workers from the states along the Yangtze River. Maybe one of these people knows some grotesque caesarean surgery."

At this time, the bandit, who had fallen into a coma due to severe pain, woke up. Hearing Shibaro's words, he screamed again and passed out.

Li Xiaojie suddenly felt a little cold. Looking at Shiba Lang, who seemed to have lost all human emotions, he shuddered violently, without even raising his hands, and said, "It must be done as soon as possible," and ran out immediately.

While running, he looked at the two Qianhu beside him and said, "These are not fucking human beings. I'm taking the lead. You two and I will report to the commanding officer, the Marquis. We must remove the Medicine Department from our Jinyi guards."

Eliminate it.

What we want is a master of torture, not a ghost who has lost his human touch. I doubt that one day he will be disemboweled and someone will cut him open."

The two thousand households nodded their heads like chickens pecking at rice, and they agreed repeatedly.

On the other side, Sun Cheng was watching the execution of the Tiger Bench.

The painful part of this kind of punishment is that it squeezes the person's legs to the limit. The pain is not a temporary pain, but a lot of continuous pain.

Sun Cheng, on the other hand, was well-informed and could not stand up to anyone, but he could still look at the executioner with a pale face and ask.

"A certain year ago, I saw tooth soldiers chopping people into pulp in Tokyo Prefecture. Can this kind of pain be compared to the pain of chopping people into pulp?"

Unexpectedly, before the executioner could answer, the tortured bandit couldn't stand it any longer. He screamed sharply, and tears flowed down his twisted cheeks.

"When chopped into pulp, the pain only lasts for a while. The pain lasts forever, how can it be compared to being chopped into pulp?"

After hearing this, Sun Cheng turned pale and stopped talking.

.

.

Later in the evening, Zhang Liecheng personally took the two men to a secret room, held a banquet again, and persuaded them carefully.

"My father, Emperor Shaoming, inherited the virtues of the Tang Dynasty and obeyed the people's wishes.

In the past, there was great chaos at the end of the Qin Dynasty, and wars broke out, and the emperor of the Han Dynasty invaded all directions.

The Rebellion of the Eight Kings of Jin also caused turmoil in the world. The north and the south were at odds for four hundred years. Therefore, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty briefly unified the world, and then the great dynasties unified China and revitalized the Central Plains.

It has been two hundred years since the Yan rebels invaded China. It is the right time for my father, Emperor Shaoming, to unify the world. Don't you two want to join in this great event and benefit all people in the world?

When the time comes, not only will I be a high-ranking official and be remembered in history, my Lord Li Jing will also have the blessings of Emperor Huai of the Han Dynasty.

Although the emperor is furious and has put the two of them in jail today, if they can abandon the darkness and turn to the light, and tell the truth about Jiang Ning one by one, they can escape from the prison and be my guests in the Great Zhou Dynasty."

After the two of them listened, they remained silent. Han Xizai's heart was broken, but he couldn't do it even if he asked him to sell his goods for glory.

Just as he was about to reply to Zhang Liecheng's words, he saw Sun Cheng getting up and became furious.

Because Zhang Liecheng threatened and even forced him to starve, Sun Chen couldn't help but think of the bad deeds of the five generations of the Central Plains. At this moment, the anger in his heart had been ignited and he could no longer hold back.

"It is not righteous for Emperor Shaoming to detain his envoys! It is not loyal to force his ministers to betray the emperor! It is not benevolent to think of destroying Jiangling when Yangzhou, the eastern capital, will lead to the loss of life!"

If you want to conquer Liuhe and unify the world, if you don't practice loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, even if you get a magical weapon, it will be just as short-lived as the violent Qin Dynasty.

The two of us are ministers of Jiangnan, and we will never betray the master of Jiangnan."

Zhang Liecheng was extremely angry, laughed, and then walked away.

Zhang Zhao was waiting for him not far from the secret room. He looked at Zhang Liecheng and his face was red with anger, but Zhang Zhao didn't care at all.

Not to mention that Sun Chen and Han Xizai were unwilling to surrender, even if they were willing, Zhang Zhao was not prepared to take it now.

Because although Sun Chen has a reputation of loyalty, he is actually not very capable.

This is a loyal minister who is loyal, cautious, able to keep secrets, and can also complete the king's tasks in a strict manner.
To be continued...