Chapter 399 : Propaganda (7)

Escorted by the maids, Cheon Ryang and Yang Gwang made their way to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's branch office.

"Welcome."

"What's the occasion?"

"Has some sort of trouble come up?"

In response to Cheon Ryang and Yang Gwang's questions, Il-mok told them about the letter that had flown in from Shaanxi.

"Word has come that the main force of our Divine Cult has crushed both Zhongnan and Mount Hua in Shaanxi."

"Then it's time we seized control of the government offices in Shaanxi as well."

The two had already been given the broad strokes back when they were working on the Provincial Military Commander, so they were able to follow the flow of things without much difficulty.

"That's what I wanted to ask, have you more or less wrapped things up on your end?"

The Left Commissioner and the Provincial Military Commander both nodded at Il-mok's question and pulled out letters of their own. Each of the letters contained a list of names written on it.

This too was a kind of death list.

Now that they had taken Lanzhou, they had to bring the rest of Gansu's counties fully under their control.

Among those, those who'd play along and those who weren't too dirty got to live. Meanwhile, the ones who'd push back and the worst of the bloodsucking magistrates were getting the axe.

"Then we'll start moving on it first thing tomorrow. I want you two to pick out a few of your most trusted men and send them to Shaanxi. Especially you, Lef Commissioner. I'd like you to lead them and go to Shaanxi yourself."

"You mean to bring the officials there into the fold as well?"

Il-mok nodded.

Unlike in Gansu, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had no ties whatsoever in Shaanxi.

Far from having ties, they had just burned down Mount Hua and Zhongnan, the very places they had originally been tied to.

So if they want to rope in the officials in Shaanxi, they need to send officials of a certain status to Shaanxi to show that they at least have some sort of connection to their counterparts there, however thin that connection may be.

"The situation in Shaanxi is rather different from Gansu, so it likely won't be easy."

"I know. I'm well aware that it won't even be easy to approach them in secret as we did in Gansu. So instead of secretly cozying up to the top brass and roping them in, I'm thinking we just strong-arm them into surrendering."

"Hohoho. So that's why you want to send me there in person."

Il-mok nodded at the sharp-eyed Cheon Ryang's statement.

Il-mok wants to make a statement to the officials in Shaanxi that even someone who had crossed over by surrendering could be entrusted with an important role.

And Cheon Ryang himself would be the living proof of that statement.

Ideally, Il-mok would have loved to send the Provincial Military Commander along too, but the man still had too much on his plate here.

The next day, Lanzhou was already buzzing from the crack of dawn.

The warriors of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult began to move out throughout Gansu along with the soldiers of the Provincial Military Commander in order to execute Il-mok’s plan.

Meanwhile, the Left Commissioner set out for Shaanxi with a handful of military and civil officials by his side.

To avoid any complications or misunderstandings, a handful of the Divine Cult’s warriors were also assigned as escorts for the Left Commissioner's party.

Once they left Lanzhou, each group set off toward its own destination.

The soldiers set out for counties across Gansu and basically kicked down the doors of every local government office.

"For the crime of falsifying the lawful tax rates and bleeding the people dry, you are hereby sentenced to death!!"

For the local officials inside, it was a lightning bolt out of a clear sky.

"Wh-what is the meaning of this?!"

"Death, over something like this?! Are you serious?!"

Obviously, they raised their voices and protested their innocence at the top of their lungs, but it didn't really mean anything.

The guys coming from Lanzhou outranked them by a mile, and they had the Surveillance Commissioner’s stamp of approval to back them up.

The local guards and soldiers had no choice but to obey the orders of their superiors.

While some places put up a resistance, they were quickly turned into mincemeat by the army and the Cult warriors. And in the cases of local magistrates whom the leaders had already decided to spare, the process concluded smoothly. The troops just walked in like friendly neighbors, dropped off a letter from the top brass, and called it a day.

Once they had completely hijacked the local governments, they busted open the corrupt officials' vaults.

After that, the soldiers and Cultists began going around the counties, scattering pieces of paper, old cloth, and woodblock prints all over the place, and hanging things up on sturdy walls.

These were the propaganda flyers and posters that had started in Pingliang County and had been multiplied dozens of times over in Lanzhou.

To sell the propaganda, Cultists who used to be entertainers put on street plays and belted out hymns.

"Anyone who can copy these posters and flyers will be given a share of rice!"

With them yelling that from the street corners, every peasant in town was suddenly tripping over themselves to copy the propaganda.

Once word got around that you could earn money just from drawings and writing, there were occasionally those who tried to push their luck.

"Sorry, but this work is only open to the elderly, children, and women."

"This is just a relief effort to keep people from starving, so you would be better off just going back and tending your farm like you usually do.”

"Look, if you hate farming that much, how about joining the army? Prepare yourself and head over to Lanzhou.”

But healthy young men trying to cash in was the least of their problems. Half the time, people would just rip the original posters when they thought no one was looking and claimed they’d copy them on their own.

It got so bad that the Cultists actually had to stand guard over the leaflets and posters they'd scattered around.

But aside from the occasional headaches, the propaganda worked like a charm.

"I can't believe they're actually paying us just to copy this stuff."

"Praise be to the Maitreya Luminous Cult! I mean, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult!"

"The Heavenly Demon Descends! Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!"

Beyond being grateful for receiving aid for such a task, another sentiment began to take root.

"You know, the Cult is great and all, but the Imperial Family is just pure evil."

"I can't believe they’ve been pulling this shit!"

The longer they stared at anti-imperial slogans and political cartoons, the fiercer their hatred of the current Imperial Family became.

The original batch of flyers shipped from Pingliang had multiplied by the dozens in Lanzhou. Now that it had hit the rest of Gansu, it was multiplying by the hundreds in a matter of days.

It was going viral, just like a chain letter.

***

A few days later.

Just as their propaganda campaign was going viral across Gansu, a sudden shout broke the peace.

"Young Master Il-mok!!"

The Provincial Military Commander came rushing to the branch office of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. He even went so far as to use his lightness skill to run faster.

"Did something go wrong?"

When Il-mok asked with a puzzled expression, the Provincial Military Commander shook his head and produced a letter from his robe.

"A dispatch just flew in from the Western Military Command! It's an imperial decree to mobilize troops from across Gansu and attack the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. It says that the Western Military Command is also gathering its forces and marching straight for us!"

Il-mok's face turned rather grave at the news.

He opened the letter the Provincial Military Commander had handed him.

'So the time we'd bought has finally run out.'

Once he finished his reading, Il-mok turned his head and gave the Provincial Military Commander his orders.

"Call in every soldier in Gansu. We will also recall all of our martial artists scattered throughout the province."

The Provincial Military Commander nodded with a complicated look in his eyes.

Although he had already decided to throw his lot in with the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the thought of clashing directly with the Imperial Army seemed to make the reality that he was now truly a 'traitor' sink in.

Shortly after the Provincial Military Commander left, couriers from the Provincial Military spurred their horses and set off in every direction across Gansu.

Armed with letters stamped with the Commander’s official seal, they spread the news and started to gather soldiers in Lanzhou.

Following the couriers' alerts, the Cult’s warriors stationed out in the counties packed up and headed back to the capital as well.

A few days later, some fifty thousand soldiers had assembled in Lanzhou.

Il-mok shook his head slowly at the numbers gathered before the gates of Lanzhou.

Pulling these kinds of numbers in just a few days... The scale of the mainland really is built different.

Of course, the actual standing army among them numbered only around twenty thousand. The remaining thirty thousand were essentially a reserve force. The other thirty thousand were basically the militia, civilians called in for basic training during the farming off-season or when they had free time.

Even then, they had to cap the militia at thirty thousand since that was the limit of their stockpiled gear and rations.

If an all-out war actually broke out and they imposed a forced draft, raising an army of a hundred thousand would be a walk in the park.

Obviously, conscripting people who hadn't even received any military training in normal times would basically just give you a rabble.

‘If the rest of the Central Plains mobilized like this, pulling together a million-man army would be as easy as turning one’s palm.’

Even if they were just a ragtag mob, fighting a million of anything was a nightmare. There was a reason 'human wave tactics' was an actual military strategy.

"Winning over the Provincial Military Commander really was a stroke of genius."

Hearing Il-mok’s murmur, Jin Hayeon replied, "Indeed. If we had to fight a local army of that size, only for the Western Military Command to attack right after, our casualties would have been immense."

Il-mok nodded and added, "On top of that, a fair number of those men are just innocent commoners who are only here because they were ordered to be by the people above them. Killing people like that day after day would take a heavy toll on our minds."

"It's a relief that we won't have to spill innocent blood."

The warriors of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult who were listening behind them nodded in agreement at the conversation between Il-mok and Jin Hayeon.

Meanwhile, while Il-mok’s group was busy inspecting the troops, the Commander was up on stage delivering a rousing speech to the men.

He was trying to boost morale before the war.

The Provincial Military Commander laid out the horrific deeds committed by the Supreme Eunuch, the Eastern Depot, and the Imperial Family had been doing before finally screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Wicked eunuchs the likes of the Ten Attendants are toying with the nation, and I can no longer simply stand by and watch! Together with all of you, I will rise up against them!"

The second the words left his mouth, the tens of thousands of troops roared right back at him.

"Drive out the eunuchs!!"

"The Heavenly Demon Descends!! Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"

Shockingly, the vast majority of the soldiers were chanting the slogans of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

But when you look at their background, it’s not that shocking.

They had been called up from every part of Gansu, and Gansu had been under the care of the Maitreya Luminous Cult for the past several years.

The majority of them were either people who had received direct help from the Maitreya Luminous Cult or people whose relatives had received help from them.

Throw in the massive propaganda campaign they just ran, and these men already knew how evil the eunuchs and the Emperor were before the Commander even opened his mouth.

Watching a government militia passionately chant the Cult’s slogans, the Commander awkwardly swallowed his confusion and slowly looked over his shoulder.

Il-mok and his warriors were standing right behind him.

"Young Master."

Il-mok was actually just as flustered as the Commander.

When he looked at Jin Hayeon who was standing behind him, she looked back at him with a rare smile on her face.

"I don't think they're here because the Commander ordered them to be, Young Master. I think they came to fight with us."

It was a rare smile for her, but it suited her perfectly.

And it wasn't just her.

Standing beside her were his other maids and the warriors of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

Each one of them looked incredibly moved, with some even looking on the verge of tears.

Seeing the pride on their faces, Il-mok nodded and stepped up to the front.

As Il-mok walked up to the stage, the Commander wisely took a step back and gave him the stage.

Now standing alone on the platform, Il-mok shouted out toward the fifty thousand troops.

"I am Il-mok of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the man who came to deliver you from your pain under the name of the Incarnation of Maitreya!”

"!!!"

Backed by his powerful Qi, his voice boomed across the entire field.

The soldiers stared up at him in shock, and one by one, they dropped to their knees and started chanting.

"The Advent of Maitreya!!"

"Salvation for All!!!"

They were faithful believers who had personally experienced salvation at the hands of the Maitreya Luminous Cult. 

Il-mok swept his gaze over the crowd and looked at them in the eye one by one. He then cupped his hands in a martial salute and spoke, “It is an honor for me to fight in battle with you all. To repay that courage, I shall make you one promise. I will, without fail, strike down all evil and build a new world, a better place where our children and we can live in peace!”

“WAAAAAH!!”

As he looked one by one at the men shouting and waving spears or shields they hadn't even gotten used to handling, Il-mok made a vow within himself.

'I will never let any of you die in vain.'