Chapter 332: Chapter 189 Breaking through the Innate_2
Translator: 549690339
With these thoughts in his heart, Lu Yuan remained calm.
On the other hand, Sun Siwen, after hearing Lu Yuan’s request, carefully considered it and said, “The southern three prefectures are full of mountains and dense forests. If we want to keep it hidden, we can build an altar in the mountains.
As for the builders, we can use those captured Miao prisoners.
Once the altar is built, we can dispose of them to prevent leaks.”
At this time, Sun Siwen, who was originally compassionate, had become ruthless and heartless for the sake of his friend.
Of course, it could also be because he did not see the Miao people as human beings at all.
After all, the destruction and killings caused by the Miao people in Dongting Prefecture over the years were all too evident.
The once prosperous and peaceful Dongting had been ruined by them.
Anyone with a conscience would feel unable to bear such resentment upon witnessing this.
It was not strange for Sun Siwen’s attitude to change as a result.
As for Lu Yuan, he cared even less and decided to accept the plan, saying, “Let’s do it this way.”
To him, building the altar at the expense of some Miao people’s lives was nothing at all.
Perhaps the death of these Miao people would bring even more stability to the local area.
This could be considered a good way to make use of them.
With this in mind, the construction of the Heavenly Pillar Altar was left to Sun Siwen to execute.
Thus, the cultivation of the Taiping Dao Book finally took its first step.
The door to the Immortal Method was not far away.
Although the construction of the Altar for Worshipping Heaven has begun, it was destined to be a lengthy process.
As Sun Siwen later reported, the location he chose was indeed secluded, but as a result, the transportation of various materials was extremely inconvenient.
Moreover, in order to avoid drawing attention, the number of builders could not be too large.
So in the end, only one thousand Miao prisoners were chosen, sent into the depths of the mountains under the supervision of Lu Yuan’s trusted men, and began the construction of the altar.
At this pace, it was estimated that the altar would not be completed until two years later.
For the time being, relying on the cultivation of the Taiping Dao Book was wishful thinking.
So, aside from devoting some effort in the beginning to pay attention to the situation, Lu Yuan didn’t show much interest in the later stages, and instead focused his energy back on military matters.
Now, with the arrival of officials like Sun Siwen in the three prefectures, local governments were gradually reestablished, and the basic order was maintained by slowly recruiting grassroots officials and official workers.
Meanwhile, as Lu Yuan spent more than two months suppressing and purging the Miao rebels entrenched in the vicinity, who openly opposed the local government, these Miao rebel villages were eradicated one by one.
Except for a few Miao people who were hiding in the mountains and were difficult to eradicate, there were no organized Miao rebel armies left in the three prefectures.
The remaining Miao people hiding in the mountains numbered only a dozen or so, and this small number posed little threat.
Thus, after assisting the local government in establishing militias in the prefectures and counties, the task of eradicating the Miao rebels in the mountains was gradually handed over to the local government.
Lu Yuan’s primary focus was then on reorganizing his army.
As the local situation gradually stabilized, the fifty thousand civilian workers from Luyang and Hengyang Prefectures had long been released by Lu Yuan, allowing them to participate in spring farming.
Of the thirty thousand soldiers under his command, ten thousand veterans were dispatched northward to join Zhou Qing, assisting him in encircling and suppressing the Miao rebels in Wuling Prefecture, as soon as the situation in the southern three prefectures stabilized two months prior.
As it turned out, this move proved to be extremely effective.
Because within the last two months, as news of the southern three prefectures being pacified reached Wuling Prefecture, it caused a tremendous psychological shock to the Poison Sect Miao Rebel Army.
Upon learning that he had been played, Lan Zhaoyun felt both ashamed and deeply worried for his future prospects.
So, in order to seek survival in the midst of death, Sect Leader Lan, upon confirming that Lu Yuan’s elite troops were indeed not in Wuling Prefecture, immediately led his big forces in a massive attack against Zhou Qing’s army.
With the aid of the defenders in Chenxi County, Zhou Qing suffered several defeats after several battles.
His civilian workers drafted from Hengyang Prefecture were utterly useless and terrified of the Miao people like they were of fierce tigers, often crumbling at the slightest touch.
If it were not for the thirty thousand newly recruited soldiers supporting him, Zhou Qing would have most certainly faced a total defeat.
However, even with the substantial reduction in his forces after tens of thousands of civilian workers were killed or dispersed by the Miao people, Zhou Qing was still forced to remain on the defensive and led his remaining forty thousand plus soldiers to stay in their camp, never daring to engage the Miao people in a direct battle.
Nevertheless, Zhou Qing still felt somewhat overwhelmed in the face of the Miao people’s ferocious onslaught.
After all, while the soldiers under his command were called soldiers, they were, in fact, merely new recruits who had only been trained for three to four months.
Aside from the title, they might not necessarily be stronger than the Miao people.
As for the remaining civilian workers, they were even worse off.
Although the Miao people had also suffered considerable losses after several major battles, leaving only over sixty thousand troops, Zhou Qing only had a camp to rely on, not even a city wall.
Although he was on the defensive, his advantage was actually not significant.
Under these circumstances, holding out was incredibly difficult.
At the time, he had even made up his mind to lead his troops to retreat to Shaoyang Prefecture and hold out there.
Fortunately, at this moment, the ten thousand elite veterans sent back by Lu Yuan had a lifesaving effect on the situation.
These ten thousand elite soldiers of Lu Yuan were veteran troops that had been in the army for several years and had fought in more than a hundred battles.
In terms of strength, they were in no way inferior to the world’s powerful armies.
The arrival of this army immediately cheered Zhou Qing up.
He abandoned the camp defense, rebuilt his forces, and directly used the veteran soldiers as the backbone and the new soldiers as wings, leading a total of more than thirty thousand troops to formally engage with the Miao rebels of the Poison Sect .