The Ming Sect has always been a family of rebels.
Their rebellion setup was quite comprehensive, including strategists, scouts, and quartermasters.
Of course, these roles weren’t called by these names within the Ming Sect. For example, strategists were known as "White Paper", and scouts as "Straw Shoes"... but their functions were clearly defined, and they were highly skilled in their trades.
After taking charge, Yang Ge, based on the intelligence collected and organized by Gu Tong, began performing precise surgical strikes on the Dongying ronin who had already landed.
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The process wasn’t particularly noteworthy; the Dongying ronin who initially landed along the Southeastern coast were a disorganized bunch, numbering from a few dozen to at most several hundred. They aimlessly looted towns and villages along the coast, not daring to touch even slightly more populous counties.
With accurate intelligence, cleaning up these rabble by Yang Ge was all too easy.
If there were fifty Dongying ronin, the Ming Sect would send two hundred troops.
If there were a hundred Dongying ronin, the Ming Sect would send five hundred troops.
If there were two hundred Dongying ronin, either Yang Ge or Yang Tiansheng would personally lead the charge.
The idea was to deploy an overwhelming force to utterly crush them, leaving no chance for them to turn the tide!
In this process, Yang Ge mobilized the Ming Sect’s forces, bolstering the intelligence gathering system. He brought Ninghai’s three guards under the command of the Prince of Ning, the various influential officials in Jiangzhe, the Jiangzhe Naval Forces, and some influential local gentry into the surveillance system, tightly guarding against their internal and external collusion...
Once the two Yangs took action, heads rolled along the coast!
They didn’t just kill the Dongying ronin; influential gentry who were remotely controlled by the Zhedang faction, colluding with the wokou pirates and providing shelter to the Dongying ronin, also fell to the Yangs’ blade without hesitation!
They didn’t stop at killing—they would gather the local villagers to publicly denounce their crimes and destroy their ancestral halls with a single fire after wrapping things up!
In just five or six days, more than two thousand Dongying ronin who had landed earlier were almost wiped out by the two Yangs. The remaining either fled into the mountains in complete despair or crawled and scrambled back on their tiny boats to the sea to feed the fish.
Of course, the two Yangs neither flew the banner of the Ming Sect nor promoted the name of Yang Erlang.
They simply said they were local militiamen who had banded together to expel the wokou pirates and protect their homeland...
But secretly, the names of Yang Erlang and the Ming Sect began to spread throughout the Jiangzhe region.
No matter how the two Yangs tried to justify themselves to the public, the people of Jiangzhe would respond with a knowing look: "I get it, I get it, it’s just a new alias of Second Master Yang!"
Suddenly, phrases like "newcomers must try the local wontons, vinegar fish, and soup dumplings" filled the land.
Every young person with an out-of-town accent received the greatest kindness from the locals...
In the face of Yang Erlang’s rising and soaring reputation, the officials from the Prince of Ning’s estate and the Zhedang Party faction were not without their countermeasures.
The Prince of Ning’s estate sent several experts wearing Nine-Tube masks to commit atrocities and deliberately leave behind the name of Zhang Mazi, causing a stir at the local magistrates’ offices!
But the people of Jiangzhe simply did not believe it!
Whenever the people of Jiangzhe heard such news, they would immediately say without thinking: "Definitely, some villains are impersonating Second Master Yang, trying to tarnish his name!"
The officials of the Zhedang Party resorted to their patented methods of resisting the law and taxes—crying at temples and holding meetings to wildly distort the truth, attacking Yang Erlang for murder, corruption of court conduct, and creating chaos in relationships between men and women...
But their patented methods were ineffective this time.
The people of Jiangzhe watched on with arms crossed, as if watching a monkey show, watching their tearful and loud performance, then smilingly saying to their familiar companions after it was done, "Look, they’re desperate!"
They might not have been clever.
But they had memories; they hadn’t forgotten the hardship of grain merchants driving up prices the year before last, nor had they forgotten the countless crimes of the corrupt officials executed in Yangzhou last year...
They held onto their fixed beliefs!
Yang Ge was protecting the people here in his own way.
In return, the locals were protecting Yang Ge in their own way.
Many plots against Yang Ge didn’t even reach him before they were blocked by these people...
With Grain Rain approaching, news of the wokou pirates’ main force growing closer kept being delivered into the hands of the two Yangs.
The two Yangs knew a greater storm was coming...
...
"We’re still shorthanded,"
Yang Tiansheng looked up from the map, rubbing his temples, "Otherwise, I could go back once more, see if I can plead for more reinforcements…"
Yang Ge, holding a charcoal pencil, sighed lightly, "Those willing to come would have already arrived; you going won’t make the unwilling come, we shouldn’t embarrass ourselves further..."
After a moment of silence, Yang Tiansheng said, "If my face can secure one more person, then losing face is worth it!"
Yang Ge looked at him and pressed his lips tightly, whispering, "I’ll make a trip to the Jiangzhe commander’s office myself!"
Yang Tiansheng frowned, "They would love to skin you alive, and you want to beg them?"
Yang Ge smiled faintly, "They would love to but lack the guts to lay a hand on me; it’s fine, when I go, they’ll have to show me some respect whether they want to or not. If they dare not, I’ll put a knife to their throats!"
After a moment of silence, Yang Tiansheng sighed and patted Yang Ge’s shoulder.
The task was difficult.
More difficult than they had imagined.
But neither had the slightest thought of backing down.
Because in these past few days, they had seen too many towns and villages ruined by those Dongying ronin...
You could say they were naive or you could say they were noble.
But they couldn’t stand it; they wanted to do something.
Their blood was still hot...