Volume 2: The King's Way Chapter 179 Threat
A year later, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu attacked Shucheng again.
But this time, they were working for the target of the last attack, which made Zhou Yu a little unhappy...
Shucheng is now under the control of Liu Xun, who has a grudge against Sun Ce and Zhou Yu. When Sun Ce inherited the Overlord's legacy, he almost died at the hands of Liu Xun. Many Jiangdong young men who served as grassroots generals in the army were overdrawn by Yuan Shu and became "useless people", and Sun Ce also held half of the blame on him.
Liu Xun also knew that Yuan Shu had already fled, and even... when Hefei fell, Liu Xun had some ideas. Yuan Shu had informed Liu Xun before going north. After all, as the prefect of Lujiang, Liu Xun had many soldiers under his command. Even after Yuan Shu became weak, Liu Xun seemed to be more obedient to orders and ignored Yuan Shu's previous letters. He had no intention of joining forces at all.
When Sun Ce and Zhou Yu arrived at Shucheng, Liu Xun sent a letter saying that he wanted to surrender the city.
Historically, after Yuan Shu's death, Liu Xun did the same. He not only detained Yuan Shu's son-in-law and nephew, but also detained Yang Hong and others who came to him. Later, they defected to Cao Cao.
Sun Ce was somewhat indignant about this. He wanted to vent his anger by fighting with Liu Xun, but he still reported the matter to Bai Tu.
The old grudges between Bai Tu and Liu Xun were only about fighting on the battlefield, which was fundamentally different from Yuan Shu's behavior of looting the people.
Perhaps Bai Tu could not do what Cao Cao did in history, who accepted Zhang Xiu even though he killed his son, but he would not be unable to forgive him just because he had fought with him - as for Long Aotian, he would not be able to go far no matter how much black technology he had.
Although Liu Xun had little ability and surrendered only because he was forced by the situation, he did avoid a war.
Therefore, after asking Sun Ce and finding out that his second brother was not very vindictive, he ignored his third brother's resentment and promised to fight for the title of Guannei Marquis for Liu Xun.
Liu Xun also knew that Bai Tu looked down upon his abilities, and he also had a grudge against Sun Ce, so he would most likely be left idle, but being able to be granted a title of nobility was not bad, not to mention... it was impossible to win, and it was obvious that he would not be able to win!
Old man Lu Kang is probably on the way. If we want to hold on at that time, we must be careful of the "traitor" - Lu Kang's reputation in Shucheng was as good as Yuan Shu's reputation in Shucheng!
By then, the people in the city will be closer to the attacking army outside than to the army defending the city. How can they hold on?
In this way, Bai Tu has basically occupied all of Huainan. In terms of territory... if we don't take into account Jiaozhou, which has little presence nowadays, it is already larger than Eastern Wu.
The population is also slightly higher. After all, although most of the population of Huainan moved to Jiangdong in history, its preservation is definitely not as complete as it is now.
What is important is not just the size of the territory, but the geographical advantage. After occupying the area south of Huainan, Bai Tu will have an advantage over the Central Plains.
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The news about Shouchun spread to Huainan, Central Plains, Jiangdong, Guanzhong, etc. in a short period of time. I believe that Bashu and Xiliang will also get the news soon...
Yuan Shu, who was a descendant of three nobles for four generations, actually allowed his soldiers to plunder the people. This was even more shameless than his previous claim to be emperor.
However, Yuan Shu claimed that he was only prepaying taxes for the next few years... As for Shouchun, it had already escaped Yuan Shu's control, so he could only blame the later comers for continuing to collect taxes.
As for the problem of chaos caused by soldiers after the main force left, Yuan Shu directly pushed the blame on a few "rebel generals", ignoring the troops that later plundered the city. In fact, many of them followed Yuan Shu to cross the river to the north before Lu Bu arrived.
Of course, no one believed this statement...
It's just that Yuan Shu is now in Runan and still has 100,000 elite soldiers, all of whom are his confidants, so everyone is forced to convince themselves to "believe" him.
However, after losing Huainan, it seemed a bit difficult for Yuan Shu to feed these 100,000 troops.
Apart from verbal condemnation, most people were unwilling to confront Yuan Shu head-on, except Bai Tu and Cao Cao!
Bai Tu directly announced the situation in Shouchun to the court and issued a manifesto, declaring that those who participated in looting the people would not only swear to be irreconcilable with the false emperor, but also bluntly stated that those who surrendered to the looting people would not be pardoned and would be killed no matter where they fled!
Bai Tu's behavior of clamoring not to accept surrender before the war even started is definitely disadvantageous in military terms.
However, this time, none of the princes in the world, whether it was the suspicious Cao Cao or the "naive" Liu Zhang, showed too much doubt. After all... it was a blank map.
"Aren't all those who died his father? Tsk tsk tsk." Liu Zhang made a disdainful sound after learning the news in the governor's mansion.
Cao Cao also felt the threat implied in Bai Tu's letter after reading it. It seemed that if he accepted Yuan Shu's old subordinates who participated in the looting of the people, he would be targeted by him...
This is indeed the case. Bai Tu, who witnessed the tragic situation in Shouchun with his own eyes, decided to set an example and teach the world and crazy guys like Yuan Shu a lesson!
As for the soldiers under Yuan Shu?
When fighting on the battlefield, everyone serves their own master. Bai Tu will not kill surrendered soldiers or prisoners just because they were once enemies. However... Bai Tu will never let go of the generals who participated in the Shouchun disaster.
At the same time, Cao Cao also declared war on Yuan Shu. Compared with Bai Tu, Cao Cao's purpose was much simpler.
Runan is already north of Huainan. It is the most prosperous county in Yuzhou, which is fought over by Cao Cao and Yuan Shu . Moreover, if you stretch your hand upwards, you will reach the Yingshui River. North of the Yingshui River is Yingchuan County, and Xudu is right in Yingchuan!
Whether it was because he did not allow others to sleep soundly beside his bed, or to annex Yuan Shu's followers, or to compete with Bai Tu for Runan, Cao Cao would never let Yuan Shu go if he had the chance.
As for Liu Bei in Xuzhou... he is now out of reach. If he wants to attack Yuan Shu, he has to ask Bai Tu or Cao Cao for help.
Although Yuan Shu still has an army of 100,000, he is like a centipede that is dying but still alive, but...all he needs to do is wait for a few heavy rains in Huainan. Even if it is just an ordinary year next year, Bai Tu will be able to easily crush Yuan Shu in Runan.
After completely integrating Huainan, that is, Lujiang County, Jiujiang County, Guangling County, and even part of Xia Pi County and Jiangxia County, the population under Bai Tu's rule will reach one million households.
By then, in terms of population, he will be second only to Yuan Shao and Liu Zhang, becoming the top powerful prince of the Han Dynasty.
Yuan Shao starts as a Tianhu, with four states of Qing, Ji, You and Bing. Although Bingzhou has a sparse population and Qingzhou was severely damaged during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but... the total population of the four states is still nearly 10 million, or about 2 million households.
As for Liu Zhang, although he had limited abilities, he was born into a good family. Yizhou had been clearly integrated by Liu Yan before, and he was hardly affected by the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Even though Zhang Lu in Hanzhong was now "out of control", he still had a population of about one million households.
After Bai Tu completely took over Huainan, his population was almost comparable to that of Yizhou.
As for Liu Biao... the total population of Jingzhou was not inferior to that of Yizhou, but southern Jing ignored Liu Biao, and Zhang Xiu and Huang Zu only obeyed orders and not decrees. The actual population that Liu Biao could control for taxation was only about 600,000 households.
Next came Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Zhang Lu. The population of the three Central Plains states of Yanzhou, Yuzhou, and Xuzhou was basically divided 70% and 30% between Cao Cao and Liu Bei. Originally, Xuzhou had been severely damaged by Cao Cao's massacres of the countryside and overdraft of the city residents. However, Liu Bei had worked hard to govern the country and won people over with virtue in the past three years, and thus attracted a lot of refugees from Yuzhou and Yanzhou.
In comparison, Cao Cao's methods were too harsh. He often forcibly relocated the people and treated them like livestock. This is how he "drove" the population of Huainan to Jiangdong in history.
Of course, parts of Yuzhou and Xuzhou are not under the control of Cao Cao and Liu Bei... Don't ask, the only thing you need to know is that they were requisitioned by the General of Chariots and Cavalry.
As for Zhang Lu in Hanzhong, he was originally just a "puppet" of Liu Yan...
When Liu Yan wrote to the court to establish a governor, he had ulterior motives. After he arrived in Yizhou, in order to sever the court's control over Yizhou, he supported Zhang Lu to establish his own regime in Hanzhong - blocking the passage from Guanxi into Yizhou. After that, he pretended not to hear any orders from the court.
As a puppet, Zhang Lu naturally had hostages left in Chengdu. However, after Liu Yan's death, Zhang Lu was obviously not very convinced of Liu Zhang, so... Liu Yan's genius son Liu Zhang directly killed all of Zhang Lu's brothers, mother, and children in Chengdu.
After that, Bashu and Hanzhong became mortal enemies!
Originally, Hanzhong had less than 100,000 households. Even though the land was fertile, it could not accommodate the millions of people in Bashu. However... after Dong Zhuo and the princes of Xiliang took turns to make trouble in Guanzhong, nine out of ten households in Guanzhong were empty, and a large part of them migrated to Hanzhong.
Zhang Lu had become rich after this, so he challenged Liu Zhang . He had never expected that Liu Zhang would use the hostages as disposable items to vent his anger...
In terms of war potential alone, among the princes of the world today, Yuan Shao is considered to be top-notch, followed by Bai Tu and Liu Zhang, who are considered to be first-rate, Liu Biao, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Zhang Lu, who are considered to be second-rate, and the princes in Guanzhong can only be considered third-rate or fourth-rate. When they unite together, their military strength can barely be compared to that of second-rate.
Ma Teng and Han Sui of Xiliang are both third-rate individually, but if they can rely on the power of the Qiang people, they can also challenge the second-rate - the Qiang people are different from the Xiongnu and Xianbei. Although they often rely on looting Han people to survive the winter, they have long been accustomed to submitting to the strong among the Han people, so they can be used.
As for Gongsun Du of Liaodong and Shi Xie of Jiaozhou, their situations were similar. Although Gongsun Du was nothing compared to Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao, he won battles against Goguryeo and Wuhuan time and time again. The rulers of Buyeo, the predecessor of Baekje, were now Gongsun Du's sons-in-law and were nominally dependent on Gongsun Du.
When Shi Xie was in Jiaozhou, the number of Han people under his rule was no more than a few hundred thousand households, while there were hundreds of barbarian tribes of all sizes in Jiaozhou... But compared with the previous governors of Jiaozhou, Shi Xie was deeply loved by the barbarians.
Taking foreign players into account, the strength fluctuates greatly.
Yuan Shu, who was once the "number one in the world", may still have second-rate combat power in the short term, but he has lost the support of the people and is trapped in a cage. Most of Runan County cannot support his 100,000 elite troops, and he is sandwiched between Cao Cao and Bai Tu, so he is no longer a threat...
