Chapter 172 The End of Swordsman
Yuan Sumei and Shi Mengyuan traveled the world as a team. Not only were they both outstanding in appearance, but they were also very skilled in martial arts. One of them was good at Xuanwu swordsmanship, and the other was good at Guanqi swordsmanship. After cooperating for a long time, the two of them actually figured out a set of combined swordsmanship.

This set of combined sword techniques was extremely powerful. The battle that made them famous in the martial arts world was when they faced You Gongquan, the King of Hell, who was one of the ten new elders of the Sun Moon Sect. The two young female disciples joined forces to kill You Gongquan, which immediately made them famous female heroes in the martial arts world and gave them the nickname: The Twin Beauties of the Sword Sect.

The Seven Sword Masters are extremely famous, but other Sword Masters are no less famous, for example the Spring Breeze Swordsman Mu Changjun, the Dragon of the Sword Master Tao Zhongke, the Haoran Sword Master Ji Wenshen, the Canglong Swordsman Hua Lizheng, the Thousand-foot Tong Mu Xiji, the Lan Ke Swordsman Zhu Qingxuan and so on, there are seventy or eighty famous people.

By this time, the Huashan Sword Sect had already become the largest of the Five Mountains Sword Sects. Even the disciples of the Songshan Sword Sect were inferior to those of the Huashan Sword Sect.

Seeing that the sect's foundation was solid, Xin Zhen felt completely relieved and began to travel the world on his own.

The first stop was to go to Songshan Sect to challenge Zuo Lengchan. Zuo Lengchan accepted the challenge and Xin Zhen defeated him in ten moves.

The second stop was Wudang. He first challenged Qingxu and Xuangao's Liangyi swordsmanship, breaking them with just a glance; then he challenged Taoist Chongxu and defeated him within a hundred moves;
The third stop was Shaolin, where Xin Zhen challenged the 108 Arhats of Shaolin alone and broke their formation within 100 moves. He then challenged Master Fang Zheng, who said that as a monk he was unwilling to fight, so it was a pity that he could not fight.
At the fourth stop, Xin Zhen went to Black Wood Cliff to challenge Dongfang Bubai. He seriously injured Dongfang Bubai within a hundred moves. Originally, he had no intention of killing Dongfang Bubai, but not long after he came down from Black Wood Cliff, he heard that Ren Woxing had regained power in Sun Moon Sect.

Xin Zhen truly became the best in the world, and the name of the Huashan Sword Sect became known to everyone in the martial arts world.

Xin Zhen returned to Huashan, and then created the Huashan Sword Sect's own combined sword formation based on the Arhat Formation and the Liangyi Sword Technique, named Jinsuoguan.

The so-called Golden Lock Pass is a stone archway built at the mouth of the Three Peaks, which is the throat of the road leading to the East, West and South Peaks through the Wuyun Peak. After the pass is locked, there is no way to pass.

The "arrows lead to a gate to heaven" in Du Fu's poem "Viewing the Mountain" refers to this place. Taoists believe that Huayue is the home of the gods and that only after passing through the gate to heaven can one enter the fairyland. Therefore, there is a folk song that says "After passing the Golden Lock Pass, there is another world."

Xin Zhen named this sword formation "Jinsuo Pass", which means "after passing Jinsuo Pass, there is another world".

After he passed the Golden Lock Pass to his disciples, he passed the position of the head of the sect to Chen Zichi. He, Ren Yingying, Feng Qingyang and others lived in seclusion in the Wuliang Temple on the top of the mountain and rarely went down the mountain.

However, Huashan's development was rapid and did not stagnate just because Xin Zhen did not pay much attention to it.

In the tenth year, Jiang Zicheng went to Songshan Sect to challenge Zuo Lengchan. He defeated Zuo Lengchan with only eight hundred moves, which immediately caused an uproar in the martial arts world.

At that time, Japanese pirates invaded the coastal areas. Yan Xianglin was furious at their brutality, so he went down the mountain in anger and joined Qi Jiguang. He took part in the war against the Japanese pirates, killing countless of them and making them tremble with fear.

In the twentieth year, Xin Zhen ordered all the first-generation disciples to go down the mountain to set up their own schools, and to find famous mountains and rivers to recruit disciples and pass on their sects.

In Xin Zhen's opinion, it is a bit ridiculous to have so many talented people crowded on Mount Huashan. It would be better to let them go down the mountain and start their own business, so as not to waste their talents.

So hundreds of true disciples of the first generation came down the mountain. They were all people who had a deep understanding of worldly affairs and knew that strength should not be too dispersed. So they basically gathered several true disciples who had good relationships with each other and worked together to run the new sect.

So within a few months, hundreds of sects emerged in the martial arts world, and many of their names were place names + the word "Sword Sect", such as the Luofu Sword Sect, and the Longhu Mountain Sword Sect and so on. They all recognized the Huashan Sword Sect as their ancestral home, and Xin Zhen was regarded as the founder of the Sword Sect.

Among Xin Zhen's seven major disciples, Qu Feiyan, as the chief steward of the Sword Sect, basically did not move from his position, Chen Zichi was the head of the sect, and the other five major disciples joined hands to occupy a peak on the Taishi Mountain in Songshan, established a mountain gate, and named it Songshan Sword Sect.

The Songshan Sect was naturally not happy about this, but the five founders of the Songshan Sword Sect came to the gate of the Songshan Sect with swords in hand to challenge them. The two sides agreed to have five battles to decide whether the Songshan Sword Sect could be established in Taishi Mountain.

In this battle, Songshan Sword Sect fought against Songshan Zuo Lengchan and the Thirteen Guardians. They won all five battles, especially the battle between Xu Jianping and Zuo Lengchan, which was extremely exciting.

Thus, Zuo Lengchan was defeated by Feng Qingyang throughout his life, then defeated by Xin Zhen, and later defeated by his fellow apprentice brothers Jiang Zicheng and Xu Jianping respectively.

Zuo Lengchan died of depression at the age of 80. It is said that he cursed Huashan Sword Sect before his death. But it doesn't matter. Songshan Sword Sect has taken root in Songshan anyway and became the third sect besides Shaolin Sect and Songshan Sect.

The following year, Muzong ascended the throne. He redressed the unjust imprisonment and announced that "from the 16th year of Zhengde to December of the 45th year of Jiajing, all ministers who had offended others by giving advice" would be "recalled to employment if they are still alive, and given relief if they are dead."

He ordered people to go to Mount Huashan to invite Xin Zhen to the court, but Xin Zhen refused on the grounds that he had lived in remote areas for too long and was no longer familiar with court affairs.

Muzong then gave Huashan to the Jian Sect as its mountain gate.

A few years later, Emperor Muzong suddenly passed away, and the nine-year-old Crown Prince Zhu Yijun succeeded to the throne and changed the reign title to Wanli.

Due to his young age, the Empress Dowager was in charge of the regent. Gao Gong, an important official, was dismissed from office for opposing Feng Bao, a eunuch trusted by the Empress Dowager. Zhang Juzheng received Feng Bao's full support.

During his administration, Zhang Juzheng went to Huashan several times to invite Xin Zhen to come down the mountain. Although Xin Zhen did not agree, he asked his Huashan disciples to assist Zhang Juzheng in stabilizing the society and to provide local support when Zhang Juzheng implemented the Single Whip Law.

After Zhang Juzheng's death, he was purged by his political enemies, who trapped Zhang Juzheng's family in his mansion, intending to starve them to death. Huashan disciples entered the mansion to rescue his family and sent them overseas.

Time passed slowly, and in the blink of an eye Xin Zhen was already nearly a hundred years old. During the reign of Emperor Chongzhen, he was eager to achieve good governance and wanted to make a difference.

However, due to the numerous contradictions and deep-rooted problems, the political situation cannot be fundamentally improved in the short term.

Zhu Youjian was stubborn, impatient, suspicious, and eager for quick success, so he made many big mistakes in state affairs.

Because of his dissatisfaction with the ministers of the outer court, after eliminating the eunuch party headed by Wei Zhongxian, he reused another group of eunuchs.

Eunuchs were given the power to supervise the army and command the Beijing camp. A large number of eunuchs were sent to important local towns, and they were above the local governors. Eunuchs were even sent to manage the two ministries of household and industry, while the ministers of household and industry were put aside, which led to the increasing expansion of eunuchs' power and the increasing contradictions among the ruling group.

The Ming Dynasty was full of contradictions. Wang Ziyi, Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasants revolted. Later, Li Zicheng led his army to the north to capture Datong, Xuanfu, Juyongguan, and finally Beijing. Chongzhen hanged himself in Coal Hill, and the Ming Dynasty fell.

Huang Taiji of the Qing Dynasty took the opportunity to enter the pass and wanted to seize the world of the Han people. At this time, Huashan was already the fifth-generation disciple Xin Chunyi as the head of the Sword Sect. Xin Chunyi was the great-grandson of Xin Zhen. Seeing the chaos in the world, he asked his great-grandfather Xin Zhen for advice. Xin Zhen said: "How can the land of China be trampled by foreign races?"

So three thousand disciples went down from Mount Hua, and the Fuwei Escort Agency mobilized all 100,000 escorts, raised their arms and formed an army of 200,000. In the Battle of Shanhaiguan, they defeated Huang Taiji. Later, they supported the grandson of the Zhu family to succeed to the throne, defeated the army of Li Zicheng and others, and rebuilt the Ming Dynasty.

Xin Zhen returned to the court at the age of 100 and straightened out government affairs as the imperial teacher. Although the court was still the Ming Dynasty, the power of the original civil officials had weakened after the foreign invasion and internal peasant uprisings. Xin Zhen cleansed up the accumulated evils and brought the dynasty back to life.

Xin Zhen vigorously encouraged science and technology, encouraged maritime trade, redistributed land, opened up overseas territories, established an invincible fleet, and made the Ming Dynasty the most powerful country in the world.

Xin Zhen died of natural causes at the age of 120. The Ming Dynasty gave him the honorific title of Wen Zheng and invited him into the Confucius Temple. The people also revered him as a deity and built countless national temples to worship him.

The final chapter of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.

Preview: The next chapter is "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber"

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