Xu Ziling learned about this shocking news on the second day of Fang La's uprising. At that time, he was in Deqing County, assisting Bai Mei and Fang Jie in completing the final work of the Manichaeism mission.

He knew that Fang La might have an uprising in advance, but he never expected that it would happen so quickly, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

Of course, for him, the success or failure of Fang La uprising was not the most important thing. He just wanted to save Fang Baihua's life. But this alone is enough to show that he would inevitably stand on Fang La's side and even make efforts for him.

As far as he knows, the timing of Fang La Uprising in history was unbiased, and it happened to be a critical period of the Northern Expedition of Emperor Huizong's court. It can be said that the failure of the Northern Expedition later was due to the Fang La Uprising.

The taxes in the wealthy Jiangnan land accounted for more than half of the entire Song Dynasty tax. As soon as the emperor learned that Fang La was uprising in the south, he immediately ordered the cessation of the Northern Expedition and allowed the army that was originally used to deal with the Liao Kingdom to go to Jiangnan to fight against Fang La.

Even though the uprising was early, the chances of victory were still very small. However, now that things have come, Xu Ziling has to act with Fang Jie first.

Since Fang La killed Gu Xiuxiu's escort, Gu Xiuxiu painted his face and posted it on the notice board in Hangzhou City. Before Fang La's army arrived in Hangzhou, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, he was unwilling to go back, so he ran to Fang Jie in prefectures and counties near Hangzhou to complete the order sent by Fang Baihua.

What gave him a headache was that Yao Mengling, who had originally planned to send Fang Baihua to the place, was unwilling to go to Hangzhou and wanted to follow him no matter how hard he had to ask Bai Mei to find a female Manichae disciple to take care of her.

Fortunately, the girl was quite sensible and ran around with him, but pretended to be deaf and dumb about what he and Fang Jie and others did, and ignored him, even if she guessed that it was not a good thing.

A few days later, on October 19th, the news of Fang La's uprising had reached Hangzhou. The magistrate Gu An ordered the city gate to be blocked, and at the same time began to summon the Xiang army from nearby county towns and the township troops entered the city to guard it.

Xu Ziling and Fang Jie also received news from Fang Baihua at this time, asking them to go to Taizhou to help Lu Shinang, who was responsible for the missionary and response in Taizhou.

Mr. Lu is the head of Manichaeism in Taizhou. His status in Manichaeism is a local envoy, slightly lower than that of the deputy leader.

He was accidentally discovered by the Secret Investigation Department while collecting food and preaching in Taizhou. He was assassinated by a group of masters in Taizhou's government and almost killed many times. Xu Ziling and Fang Jie's mission was to help him resist the government's search until Fang La's army arrived to respond to the uprising.

The Secret Investigation Department is an intelligence agency under the jurisdiction of the Secretariat Province. It is under the jurisdiction of the Right Prime Minister. It is responsible for supervising local people and officials, collecting various intelligences. When encountering people or matters that violate the court, it has the power to request local governments to cooperate in handling it.

When Xu Ziling and his friends arrived in Ninghai County, Taizhou, it was already two days later. Under the leadership of the Manichaeus, they met Master Lu in an inn in Ninghai County.

He was a man of about forty years old. He was burly and rough, but his clothes were neat, decent and literatily, and he had the style of a scholar. He could tell at a glance that he was a brave and resourceful person, otherwise he would not have been valued by Fang La.

When he learned that Xu Ziling was sent by Fang Baihua to assist him, he was very excited and told the two of them truthfully what they thought.

In fact, Master Lu was not afraid of the assassination of the Taizhou government and the Secret Investigation Department. Although his martial arts are not as outstanding, it is easy to protect himself.

But he couldn't wait for Fang La's army to come, because the Taizhou government office was forcing more than a thousand civilians to transport grain for the court, and transported them from Xianju County to Sanmenwan. One-third of these civilians were Manichaeists.

According to the news from them, in order to transport the grain and grass to Sanmenwan as soon as possible, the officials in charge of escorting the grain and grass to Sanmenwan often beat and scold the people who transported the grain. The people were overwhelmed and had deep resentment. As long as they killed the escort officer, they could lead these people to respond to Fang La.

He wanted to do something earlier, but because the Secret Detective Department was always paying attention to him, he was not convenient for him to do something for the time being. However, with Xu Ziling and Fang Jie helping him, he could implement the plan in advance.

The plan was that Xu Ziling and his two men would take the 500 Manichaeites under Lu Shinang to wait near Datian County, where the grain transport route must be transported. At that time, as long as the officials who transported the grain were killed and the oppressed civilians were led to the uprising, they could take the opportunity to capture Datian County.

Xu Ziling and the others thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. He also knew that since the uprising was announced, they should make the momentum bigger as soon as possible and attract more people to join in.

When the time is right, Lu Shinang will deliberately appear in Ninghai County to attract the secret investigation department and the government to reduce the danger of Xu Ziling's actions.

As he was about to go to the front line, Xu Ziling and Yao Mengling explained that she had to stay in Ninghai County first, while he and Fang Jie took the Manichaeans to Datian County.

...

Hangzhou City, in Wuxian Building.

Fang Baihua looked at the news about the rebels presented by the shopkeeper, and a relaxed smile appeared on her face.

The shopkeeper next to him was also full of smiles. The rebels defeated the five thousand soldiers of the official army in one fell swoop. There was nothing more exciting than this.

"You go and write a few letters to tell Yuezhou and Mingzhou's special envoy," Fang Baihua said softly, and looked at the door of Wuxian Building, "You can start the action."

The shopkeeper responded, bowed slightly, and turned around and left. While he left, an old, two young and three people walked into the door.

Fang Baihua pretended to be careless and looked at the old man walking in casually, but saw the old man suddenly turned his head to look at her, and then she turned her head to the other side.

Two girls were followed by the old man, one of whom looked thirteen or fourteen years old, and seemed to be a maid.

After finding a table to sit down, the old man called the waiter and asked the woman next to him to order food. He asked casually: "Do you know where there is news about Manichaeism?"

The waiter was stunned and replied, "Old man, this Manichaeism is a cult now, how can I know about them?"

The old man smiled, turned his head and said loudly: "Then have you seen a boy named Xu Ziling, about seventeen or eighteen years old?"

Fang Baihua raised her eyebrows when she heard this, turned her head and saw the old man looking at her with a smile.

The waiter saw the old man directly meeting Fang Baihua, and pressed his heart to be surprised and replied: "Although there are many people coming to the store on weekdays, many of them are seventeen or eighteen years old, but not many people know the name. The old man is looking for Xu Ziling, who is young, really has no impression of it."

"It's okay," the old man turned around and waved his hand, "You go down and prepare the meal."

The waiter nodded and left, and when he turned around, he saw Fang Baihua coming.

"Senior is the famous 'iron arm' Zhou Ti?"

The old man looked at her sitting on the empty chair next to her and sighed softly: "I have retired for so many years, but I never thought that anyone would remember this title."

Fang Baihua looked at the old man and said, "You were a member of the entire martial arts world back then. Who doesn't know your name when you are a martial artist who is hiding in the world?"

The old man smiled and didn't say anything.

But when the woman next to her suddenly asked, "You are Sister Baihua, aren't you?"

"You are Sister Mingxia, right?" Fang Baihua looked at her for a few seconds, nodded and said, "It turns out that she is as beautiful as a flower."

Mingxia chuckled softly: "I often hear Ziling mention you, sister, saying that her sister is extraordinary and is not as good as a woman. Today, she is really like this. But do you know where Ziling is? We have been searching in this city for several days without any news about him."

"He is not in Hangzhou now," Fang Baihua looked a little unnatural and said softly: "He has helped me out for business."

After hearing this, the old man's face became gloomy and said coldly: "You have been planning for so long. There are many masters in Manichaeism. There are not many more people than him, and there are not many less people. Why should I pull him in? Tell me where he is and I will go find him."

Feeling the strong aura of the old man, Fang Baihua frowned and said, "He did these things voluntarily, not what I forced him to do."

The old man's fist under the table slightly condensed and said in a deep voice: "You just need to tell me where he is?"

Seeing their tense look, Mingxia hurried to the old man, hugged his arm and persuaded: "Master, Ziling should have his reason for his ability to do these for Sister Baihua. Don't make things difficult for Sister Baihua."

The old man looked at Fang Baihua and snorted coldly: "I hope you can come to Hangzhou as soon as possible." As he spoke, he withdrew his breath.

...

A few days later, to the east of Datian County.

A winding grain transport team was walking slowly on the post road.

In the middle of the team were the civilians who were pushing grain trucks, and on both sides were the officials responsible for escorting. At the front of the team, there was a man riding a horse and turning back and cursing from time to time.

The scolded officials would vent their anger on the villagers who were pushing the grain trucks and whip them with a whip. The villagers would suffer pain and would not be willing to endure humiliation. They would occasionally swear a few words, but once they heard it by the officials, they would be pulled out and beaten.

When the team passed by a forest, there was a gust of cold wind.

The escort officer saw a faint figure moving in the nearby woods and ordered the officials to stop.

The adjutant next to him asked, "Sir, what's going on? Why stop here?"

The escort officer looked at the forest and said, "Look at the other side, are there many people there?"

The adjutant looked at it and said with a smile: "Why should you worry too much? It's just a thief fighting in the mountains. Even if you have any intentions to us, my five hundred officials will not be able to join us."

The escort officer nodded: "That's right. But I saw that the mountains and forests here were so evil that they told these untouchables to move quickly and leave the mountains and forests earlier."

"Okay," the adjutant responded and shouted to the back: "It's all right. If anyone delays the big deal, he will deduct his rations."

The villagers suddenly felt a lot of complaints. The government and military branches had not much food ration and they were not well equipped, and transporting food was a physical job. If the food was deducted, it would be like half of their life.

"What's the noise? Go away quickly!" The adjutant whipped a whip at a talker next to him. "Stop talking nonsense, put all your strength into your legs. If I find that I'm talking here again, it's not as simple as eating a whip."

The civil servant nodded repeatedly: "What the official said is that the young man dare not."

The adjutant took back the whip and shouted: "Hmph, just be tactful. I hope you can understand it. If you don't obey, it will be difficult for me to do it."

Suddenly, a sharp hissing sound came from the sky.
Chapter completed!