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"Alright, stop comforting me, I’m not a kid!"
After waving his hand, Yang Ge tried to rally his spirits, waved toward the strait entrance, and with all his True Qi shouted, "Brothers, gather the sleeping ones, gather the wokou’s belongings, let’s march back to Hangzhou with great fanfare. They are all heroes who fought against foreign invaders to protect our homeland, heroes should not silently depart to another world..."
Upon hearing this, all the fine lads on the beach roared their agreement.
Seeing those figures with heads held high, chests puffed out, and faces flushed with pride, even their own leaders found them unrecognizable.
How could a person who leads such a twisted life have so many willing to follow him? Even briefly following him seemed to become a matter of pride?
The crowd started to move, chopping wood to make stretchers.
Those uninjured carried their sleeping or severely wounded brothers.
The injured supported each other, arm in arm, following at the rear of the procession.
Laughing heartily, they bid farewell to the Five Peaks Fleet and set foot on the imperial road, marching through states and prefectures on their way to Hangzhou...
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The tattered wokou banners were draped over the donkeys carrying supplies, and when the donkeys were whipped and "woah"ed, "woah"ed in protest, they followed behind, laughing loudly and tirelessly.
Local citizens along the way, hearing the news, came to watch timidly from miles away, wanting to get a closer look but not daring to approach.
"Thieves comb through, soldiers scrape by, and officials shave clean."
Countless bloody lessons had taught them that staying away from large troops, be they military or bandits, was the safe option.
The large procession on the imperial road noticed the locals staring from afar. They neither explained nor drove them away, letting them gaze. Some even made faces to scare the bare-bottomed kids, then laughed uproariously at their panicked retreat...
When they arrived, they traveled day and night, mountain after mountain, waterway after waterway, reaching Zhoushan from Hangzhou in just a few days.
On the way back, they walked and stopped, a procession with the living and the dead, taking a full five or six days to finally arrive in Hangzhou.
The number of Jiangzhe citizens who came to watch grew more and more, from watching timidly miles away, to cautiously approaching once they confirmed the troop’s harmlessness, then to offering toast and waiting with food and drink by the roadside when they learned of the Massacre Pit of wokou in Zhoushan Strait before the troops did...
By the time they reached Hangzhou, what met them was a sea of people and a thunderous welcome.
Yang Tiansheng at first was laughing in the crowd like a blooming chrysanthemum.
But soon, his laugh became uglier than crying, and he turned around, grabbed Yang Ge by the neck, and shook him: "Yang Ge, you really deserve to die!"
Because some know-it-all had spread the nickname of the ’Five Zhoushan Braves.’
The eldest, Yang Erlang.
The second, Yang Tiansheng.
The third, Xiang Wudi.
The fourth, Li Jincheng.
The fifth, Zhou Fu.
This ranking, as soon as it was announced, received unanimous approval and praise from the people of Jiangzhe.
They understood nothing of the martial heroes’ lists.
They weren’t aware of the feuds between Lianhuan Fort and Jiangdong the Xiang Family’s old and new marksmen.
They couldn’t grasp how ridiculous it was to rank Ming Sect’s men alongside imperial soldiers.
But anyway...
As long as they ranked their Second Master first.
"Then we shall make a scene for him!"
Where is the storyteller? Add a performance for our Second Master!
And the opera troupe? Book the whole show for our Second Master!
Wang Zeng, roving the seas, when he heard this news, turned green with regret, wishing he could travel back to the day of the Battle of Bin Hai and yell at his past self: "Fire the cannons!"
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