Chapter 600: Finale of the Southern Expedition
Wuxi City is open on three sides, except for the east, which is a hilly depression covered with dense forests.
The three sides of north, south and west were naturally the focus of the barbarian coalition's attack. The main forces of the four tribes of Kangxi barbarians, Daixi barbarians, Huaxi barbarians and Xunxi barbarians were almost all stationed here.
As for the hilly depressions in the east, although they were not conducive to the deployment of the army, it was also not a good idea to leave them empty, so they were entrusted to the Tongxi barbarians whose strength had been weakened.
December 6th, end of the Shen hour, east of the city.
Manmuha, the young leader of Duosi Village, was standing outside the main tent of the central army with a gloomy face, tightly grasping a copper whip that he had looted from somewhere. He tried several times to pry open the felt curtain with the tip of his whip and rush in recklessly, but he lacked the courage in the end.
Suddenly, the heavy felt curtain was lifted from the inside, and then two short and strong figures walked out of the tent.
Manmuha quickly lowered his head to hide the anger on his face.
The two men didn't even look at him, they just untied the reins and rode away.
After watching the two men leave the Tongxi barbarian camp with resentment, Manmuha finally opened the felt curtain and stormed in, angrily saying, "Dad! You are the leader of the Tongxi barbarians now, how can you let a few bastards of the Kangxi barbarians order you around?!"
Sharifu, the head of Duosi Village, is only in his early thirties. Because he often came into contact with Han people from outside the mountains in his early years, his manners and speech are much more polite than those barbarians.
However, this may not be a good thing among the barbarian coalition forces, as they may be seen as weak and vulnerable.
Because of the rude remarks made by the two Kangxis just now, Sharif's face was somewhat gloomy, but seeing his son so irritable, he sat back behind the desk calmly.
“Dad!”
Manmuha became more and more anxious. He opened the felt curtain with his backhand and pointed outside, saying, "Look for yourself. How have we, the Tongxi barbarians, been bullied? It's clear that Kuilun is treating our Tongxi barbarians' warriors as lowly slaves!"
After the felt curtain was opened, the noise of countless knives and axes outside suddenly filled the tent.
It turned out that after being arranged in the forest depression in the east of the city, the other tribes pushed all the tasks of making ladders and supervising the production of battering rams to Tongxi Man.
The two Kangxi barbarians who had come to ask for weapons were ordering Sharif around like a slave.
You should know that just a few days ago, Duosi Village was elected as the leader of Tongxi Barbarians!
The pleasure of reaching the top had not subsided, but he was bullied and humiliated. How could Manmuha accept this?
Seeing that his hair and beard were shaking with anger, Sharif sighed helplessly and asked, "Then what do you think we should do?"
"Of course..."
Manmuha blurted out three words at first, but suddenly got stuck. After a long while, he finally squeezed out a sentence with a red face: "I listen to my father!"
Although he is young and hot-tempered, he is not a fool after all.
Among the Tongxi barbarians today, the most powerful Waleng Village and the richest Wuer Village have both suffered devastating disasters. Although Duosi Village was forced to become the co-leader of the Tongxi barbarians, its prestige is still far less than that of Waleng Village.
With so many external and internal troubles, how can we afford to fight against the other four tribes?
"Listen to me?"
Sharif felt somewhat relieved to see that his son still had some rationality. However, when he thought about the current situation, he really couldn't be happy.
Then he shook his head and sighed, "If someone had listened to me at the beginning, our Tongxi Man wouldn't have come to this point."
When Manmuha heard his father bringing up the old matter again, he couldn't help but become speechless.
When the five tribes met to discuss launching a rebellion, Sharif argued against it in front of the chief Yahamer.
The reason was that the Tongxi barbarians were too close to the Han people, and if the Han people retaliated, they would definitely be the first to bear the brunt.
Once their power is frustrated, the situation of the Tongxi barbarians, who were originally at the bottom of the Wuxi barbarians, will inevitably become even more embarrassing.
Originally, Manmuha did not take his father's cautiousness seriously, thinking that the mountain stronghold's geographical advantages would be enough to ensure that the weak Han government troops would never return.
But the recent fall of Wuerzhai, Walengzhai, and especially the holy land of Nahlan, has undoubtedly confirmed what my father said at the beginning.
perhaps……
Tong Ximan really shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place!
The father and son were just looking at each other in silence when suddenly there was a commotion outside. Manmuha lifted the felt curtain in dissatisfaction and was about to vent a few words when his eyes suddenly fixed and he blurted out, "Mutu, why are you here?!"
Wooden figure?!
Upon hearing his exclamation, Sharif couldn't help but jump up and strode out to meet him.
When he arrived at the door, he saw a strong and childish young man striding towards him. It could be his second son Mutu who stayed in the village, so who else could it be?
"Abba, Manmuha!"
Seeing his father and brother coming out to greet him, Namutu immediately scratched his head and smiled innocently, "I was really bored staying in the village, so I came here secretly without telling my mother."
After hearing this, Manmuha could not help but scold him, blaming him for his reckless behavior and making his mother worry.
But Sharif knew that although his second son looked honest, he was actually smarter than others and would never sneak out of the mountain just because he was upset.
So he hurriedly brought Mutu into the big tent and asked him what happened.
After this question, Mutu finally revealed the truth.
“Dad!”
He fell to his knees and said anxiously, "Our village has been destroyed by that three-eyed demon!"
"What?!"
Although he had guessed that it would probably not be a good thing, Sharif .
He retreated half a step dejectedly, and asked hurriedly: "What is going on? Could it be that the village... the village has been taken away... taken away... " by the government troops just like Wuerzhai and Walengzhai.
As he spoke the last part, his face turned purple and black, and he even had difficulty breathing.
"Don't worry, Dad!"
Seeing this, Mutu hurriedly comforted him, saying, "Although the village was destroyed by the government troops, it did not suffer much loss..."
"What the hell is this?!"
Manmuha said angrily: "Everyone knows that the three-eyed demon loves to devour human souls. How can he stop without killing three to five hundred people?!"
Sharif could vaguely sense that there seemed to be a chance for a turnaround. After a slight hesitation, he asked tentatively, "Could it be that the government troops want us to do... help with something?"
"It didn't say what we should do."
Mutu shook his head and said, "The three-eyed demon only said that our village has good feng shui, and he will come here often in the future. As for whether we should clean it up, it depends on whether you are a good person, Dad..."
After a pause, he quickly changed his words and said, "It depends on whether you know the current situation or not, Dad."
Although he changed his words in time, how could Sharif not guess that the Han general was talking about "a good dog"?
But he couldn't care less about these things right now.
It is obvious that the government troops want to use the future safety of the village to force the barbarians of Duosi Village and even the entire Tongxi barbarians to change sides.
Based on the strength that the government troops had demonstrated before, no matter how well Duosi Village defended itself, it would be difficult to resist the attack of the government troops.
However……
If they betrayed the coalition at this time, wouldn't Duosi Village be doomed?
Instead of doing this, it would be better to take the initiative to ask for help from Kangxi Man, lead a part of the troops to support Duosi Village, and then simply migrate the entire clan to the vicinity of Kangcheng.
In this way, the truth that the three-eyed demon is not in the city can be exposed, allowing the coalition forces to have fewer concerns !
Just as he was thinking this, Mutu suddenly said, "By the way, the three-eyed demon also told you to think about it more and not to rush into making a decision."
Think about it more?
Could it be that the government troops have prepared some backup plan?
Sharif hesitated for a long time, but finally did not dare to act rashly. He just quietly sent out spies to investigate any movement around.
That night.
Dozens of Huaxi barbarians fled to the eastern camp in a panic, saying that the government army destroyed two villages of the Huaxi barbarians in one day and killed nearly a thousand people.
The next day, news came that another Huaxi barbarian village had been destroyed.
The Huaxi barbarians were in a panic.
On the same day, the coalition forces launched a tentative attack on Wuxi City, but were forced back by the government troops using firearms.
The twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.
The coalition forces bluffed on the north, south and east sides, but launched a fierce attack from the west, occupying the southern section of the city wall for a time, but were eventually repelled by Lu Jianxing's troops.
The twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.
The coalition forces deployed their forces and launched a fierce attack from all sides. The casualties of the government troops increased sharply, and the people in the city became unstable.
On the same day, the news that two barbarian strongholds of Daixi were breached by government troops reached the coalition forces.
At the same time, the news that there were Tongxi barbarians serving in the Han official army gradually spread among the coalition forces, and the spearhead was directed at Duosi Village.
It was not until this moment that Sharif finally realized that the so-called careful consideration by the government troops was actually a deliberate trap.
However, it is too late to regret.
The 30th day of the twelfth lunar month is the Chinese New Year Festival.
The news that the Xunxi barbarian village had been breached arrived as expected.
The only two tribes left in the coalition that had not yet been harassed by the government troops were the Tongxi barbarians and the Kangxi barbarians.
On the same day, rumors spread that government troops had visited Duosi Village but had not harmed anyone.
That night.
Kui Lun, the chief of Kangxi Man, summoned the leaders of the five tribes to discuss matters, seemingly intending to blame Tongxi Man.
Sharif was afraid to go, so he secretly sent his son to spread rumors in the camp, claiming that the Kangxi barbarians bullied the Tongxi barbarians for their weak strength and intended to annex the Tongxi barbarians and force them to work as siege laborers.
The Tongxi barbarians had been suffering from exclusion in recent days, and the barbarians in various villages had long been resentful. When they heard the rumor, they actually believed it to be true, so the entire tribe abandoned the camp and left overnight.
Sharif even sent people to pile up and burn the siege equipment that was built in the camp along the way to stop the pursuit of the four tribes.
The morale of the coalition forces plummeted as a result.
The first day of the first lunar month in the twelfth year of Guangde.
The coalition forces started a dispute over internal resistance and external stability. Finally, the chieftain of Kangxi barbarians, Kuilun, overruled all opposition and led the coalition forces to continue attacking the city.
On the same day, the government troops captured two more castles in Xunxi.
The third day of the first lunar month.
Rumors arose among the coalition forces again, saying that Sharif, under the pretext of being ordered to return to pursue the government troops, deceived the Huaxi barbarians into occupying many villages and looted all the women and property.
On that day, many of the Huaxi barbarians fled secretly.
The coalition forces were in chaos and no longer had the will to fight.
The fifth day of the first lunar month.
The allied forces retreated in panic, and as they still had more troops than the rest, the government troops in the city did not dare pursue them. However, they clashed with the Tongxi barbarians many times along the way, and the casualties on both sides were incalculable.
On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Qi Mutuo, the chief of the Huaxi barbarians, was ambushed by government troops near his own mountain stronghold. Rocks and logs fell down, and more than half of his 1,200 men were killed.
Qi Mutuo led his defeated troops to escape into the stronghold, but was followed and defeated by the government troops. All of his family members were killed in one fell swoop. More than a thousand corpses floated in the upper reaches of Huaxi River, and the river was blocked to form a lake.
On the 18th day of the first lunar month, Sharif led the remaining 17 villages of the Tongxi barbarians and jointly surrendered to the imperial court.
At the end of January, villages of the Huaxi barbarians surrendered to the government troops one after another.
In early February, Sun Shaozong formally wrote to the court, saying that there was no need for a large-scale expedition, and that his own thousand-plus troops, together with the original garrison of Wuxi Prefecture, would be enough to wipe out the barbarians.
In March of the 12th year of Guangde, the court appointed Sun Shaozong as the fourth-rank recruiting and suppressing envoy, in charge of all matters related to quelling the rebellion in Wuxi.
After Sun Shaozong took office, he immediately recruited all the young and strong men from the Tongxi and Huaxi barbarians and used them as the vanguard of the official army, gradually invading the hinterland of the mountains.
The barbarians were forced to go completely on the defensive, concentrating their forces and relying on the rugged mountains to put up a stubborn resistance.
After that, Sun Shaozong was stationed in Wuxi City. The government troops often used barbarian spies to trick the village gates into opening, which made the barbarians suspicious of each other, and the strategy of self-protection of the village did not need to be broken.
And more isolated barbarians had no choice but to surrender to the government troops and beg for their lives.
By the autumn of the 12th year of Guangde, the military superiority and inferiority of the two sides gradually reversed.
The Double Ninth Festival in the twelfth year of Guangde.
The Recruiting Envoy Sun Shaozong met with Nahlan and gathered more than 13,000 barbarian vassal troops. He led 2,000 government troops to besiege Kangcheng, the last stronghold of the Wuxi barbarians.
After a hard battle from the end of September to October 26, Cannes was captured.
In this battle, both sides suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and the Wuxi barbarians were almost completely wiped out.
The commander-in-chief Kuilun committed suicide by taking poison while wearing the crown, and his wife and daughter were lost in the chaos of the army.
Afterwards, Sun Shaozong ordered the burning of Kangcheng, and the fire burned for two days before it was extinguished.
Since then, the Wuxi barbarian rebellion was basically suppressed, leaving only a few savages who hid in the poor mountains and bad ridges and stubbornly resisted.
In mid-November, Sun Shaozong requested an imperial decree to move the barbarians out of the mountainous area, select their best troops, reorganize them on the spot, and send them to serve in the Yunnan-Guizhou border army.
The rest were to change customs and habits, ban barbaric speech and language, teach Chinese characters, and change to Chinese names and surnames.
Also, because too many young and strong barbarians suffered casualties, those who survived were mostly sent to Yunnan and Guizhou. As a result, many women in the tribe took the Han people as wives and concubines, and lived together with them.
By the summer of the 13th year of Guangde, although Wuxi was not in great order, it was basically worthy of the word "stable".
At the end of July in the 13th year of Guangde, Sun Shaozong was summoned to resign and return to Beijing. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to see him off, including quite a few barbarians.
After leaving Wuxi City, he walked six or seven miles, collected eight umbrellas from the people, and left behind nine pairs of his beloved boots, and then he could continue his journey barefoot.
In the following years, many people in Wuxi Prefecture established shrines to Sanmu, especially the barbarians. At first, they only wanted to appease the Han people, but later they gradually forgot their original intentions and firmly believed that he was the reincarnation of a god, and worshipped him every day.
