Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 214 The Third Army
When Cao Cao pushed the court to confer the title of nobility on Bai Tu and grant him the Nine Gifts, he did not have a good idea.
The title was still "Marquis of Chu" - Chu. Although some areas of Yangzhou were once part of the Chu State in the pre-Qin period, especially after the destruction of the Wu State, most areas of Yangzhou did belong to the Chu State, but... the core part of the Chu State is still today's Jingzhou, especially the area of Jingbei.
In everyone’s impression, Yangzhou is the "Wu land" and Jingzhou is the "Chu land"!
Although Bai Tu had not yet accepted the Nine Gifts, he had already been granted the title of Marquis , which also meant that the Bai-Cao alliance had been initially established. After the spring plowing, Yuan Shao had assembled his troops and was preparing to march south to the Central Plains.
Cao Cao was "playing with" his relationship with Liu Bei - attacking Liu Bei at this time would undoubtedly play into Yuan Shao's hands. Liu Bei had been in Xuzhou for five or six years now, and it was impossible for Cao Cao to take him down in a short period of time.
However, Cao Cao was not at ease just leaving it like this, so he invited Liu Bei to the court on the one hand, and hoped that Xuzhou would also send troops to resist Yuan Shao's pressure.
Bai Tu was determined to move westward and attack Jingzhou...
At this time, the two armies that had been decided to enter Jing were to attack Jiangxia along the Yangtze River and to attack Nanyang along the Huai River, that is, one from the south and one from the north, one by water and one by land, bypassing the Dabie Mountains.
Chen Gong suggested that there was actually another army that could be used - south of the Yangtze River, between Jingzhou and Yangzhou, separated by Mufu Mountain, Jiuling Mountain, and Luoxiao Mountain...
The mountains are so high and steep that it is impossible to deploy troops. The terrain requires one to imagine "Death Stranding".
However, if you continue to go south, you will reach the Wuling Mountains or the Nanling Mountains. In the early Qin and Han dynasties, all the mountainous areas in the south of Chu were collectively called "Nanling Mountains", but now it specifically refers to the Wuling Mountains.
Although there are five high mountains in between, it only makes it inconvenient for the army to transport troops and makes it difficult for the cavalry to march, but it does not mean that it is completely impossible to send troops.
South of the Five Ridges is the "Lingnan" region, which is now Jiaozhou.
At the end of the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo established his own regime in Lingnan, subdued the local Yue people and founded the Nanyue Kingdom. It was not until the reign of Emperor Wu of Han that it was taken back and Jiaozhi Prefecture was established. There was no such thing as provincial governors at that time. "Prefecture" referred to the Inspectorate, and the Inspector only had the power of supervision. The administrative level of Jiaozhi was lower than that of a prefecture, but it also had a "Inspectorate". It was not until a few years ago that the nine counties of Lingnan were divided into "Jiaozhou".
Today, the Shi family is deeply loved by the people of Han and Yue in Jiaozhou. Although their resources and population are limited and not enough to make progress, neither Bai Tu nor Liu Biao are interested in this hard bone without meat.
Chen Gong's third army did not go through Jiaozhou, but wanted to go through the Wuling Mountains. If you draw a map at this time, the Wuling Mountains are between Yangzhou, Jingzhou, and Jiaozhou, but... apart from coloring, the three armies have no control over the deep Wuling Mountains, where there are not even county towns, and they are mainly occupied by barbarians.
Whether they were called Shanyue or Wulingman, if they marched normally, they would have to pass through many tribes of Guyue and Wulingman, almost crossing the core area of the barbarians.
If you force your troops to fight, you will have to fight with the barbarians and suffer heavy losses before you even see the enemy...
Among the Shanyue people captured by Zhang Ling before, there were already real barbarians - that is, barbarians who were "transformed into barbarians" by Yue Ji.
Although they are not the barbarians of the ancient Yue tribes deep in the Nanling Mountains, they are at least truly related to the Shanyue people, and are not ordinary mountain people!
As for the Nanling barbarians, those in Jingzhou were called "Wuling barbarians" because the Nanling Mountains were located south of Wuling County in Jingzhou, while those in Yangzhou were called Shanyue.
When dealing with the southern barbarians, the Han Dynasty always implemented the monarchy system - recognizing their internal chiefs, and then governing these barbarian tribes by intimidating and appeasing their chiefs.
The chief of the Shanyue tribe was called "Zongshuai", while the chief of the Wuling barbarians was called "Jingfu", which were similar.
In fact, there are farming activities in people's livelihood, but because they live in the mountains, fishing, hunting and gathering are also important supplementary means of farming.
The structure is similar to the slavery system of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The chief has supreme power within the tribe. The difference is that they believe in violence more. Many tribes have the custom of supporting individuals to seize the position of chief by their bravery.
Compared to the Han people who came from a purely agricultural civilization, they were more brave and aggressive. Most importantly, they were familiar with the mountain environment and had adapted to living in the mountains as their main battlefield. If they were pulled to the plains, they were no match for the Han army equipped with armor and forming battle formations. But in the mountains... not only was the Han army unable to form a battle formation, the mosquitoes and miasma alone took away half of their combat effectiveness!
Therefore, everyone before assumed that this area was "blackened" - it was impossible to march and there was no need to consider it.
However, after seeing that the Shanyue people in Zhangling County had been making frequent appearances, causing chaos, being captured, and being fed... Chen Gong came up with a "good idea".
Aren’t the Shanyue people short of food?
They could just clear them out and drive them away while using food as mercenaries and at the same time establish a prisoner-of-war army, using both soft and hard tactics to drive them westward.
Simply put, it is to chase the tiger and devour the wolf...
This is the third army!
However, Chen Gong's suggestion was not ultimately adopted by Bai Tu, on the grounds that whether it was hiring food or driving them away with violence, there was no guarantee that the destructiveness of the Shanyue army would not get out of control during their march.
However, Chen Gong obviously did not give up and brought up the matter with Bai Tu again.
"The problem of Shanyue causing trouble that Mr. Bai is worried about is indeed something I neglected before... but it can be slightly modified . Shanyue can advance westwards to Wuling, with Wuxi as the boundary. As long as Shanyue and Wuling barbarians... communicate, then everything will be fine," said Chen Gong.
That is to instigate and force the Shanyue and Wuling barbarians to kill each other, and our army will follow behind and attack the four counties in southern Jingzhou. With the technical support of the medical school, our army should be able to cross the Nanling Mountains and enter Jingzhou without worrying about attacks from the barbarians.
However, Bai Tu shook his head and said, "Whether it's the Shanyue or the Wuling barbarians, their culture is very different from ours. If they are the first to cause chaos, we should kill them or take them prisoner. Of course, we don't need to be lenient. But... in order to fight with Liu Biao's princes, instigating the barbarians to kill each other is even more barbaric than the barbarians themselves."
"To attack the weak and ignorant, to take advantage of the chaos and humiliate the destroyed, this is also the way of a benevolent person!" There were no outsiders present at this time, and Chen Gong did not back down.
Chen Gong was referring to the content of the Book of Documents - which holds that it is just for the strong to annex the weak, the civilized to attack the ignorant, and the chaotic and perishing countries to be swallowed up.
Ritual and civilization have to have dignity, wars must be waged under a legitimate reason, and the role of this one, to put it bluntly... is to provide an excuse that can be used when there is really no reason to be found.
"To attack the weak and ignorant is not to bring destruction and pain to the weak." Bai Tu still shook his head.
"But this can reduce the casualties of our soldiers." Chen Gong said seriously.
Bai Tu's eyes moved slightly when he heard this...
"I am willing to issue a military order and go to the ancient Yue tribes in Wuling to persuade them to submit to the Wuling barbarians."
Bai Tu remained silent.
"If things go wrong, I can lead the army with Wenyuan and Zhongda to supervise the battle."
Bai Tu remained silent.
"The barbarians in the mountains are also Han people. If the general wants to borrow the road, they should cooperate. This is reasonable."
Bai Tu… hesitated and then said, “Remember your words. The reason you have the right to ask them to make way is because they are also Han Chinese. Since they are Han Chinese… they are also subject to military regulations. I will not give the Nanling army any leniency in military regulations.”
Chen Gong smiled when he heard this and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Bai. I will remember this."
"In addition... tell them that not only will the previous conditions for going down the mountain remain unchanged, but we also promise to build a city to worship Yue Ji. As long as they abide by the law and respect the rules, we will not force Yue Ji to convert to Chinese culture." Bai Tu added.
"What does it mean to build a city and offer sacrifices to it?" Chen Gong asked with some confusion.
In fact, in the world of Chengji, the main contradiction between Yi and Xia lies here...
Those so-called Yue Ji and Hu Ji existed as "tribal Ji" and did not enter the "city Ji" system of the Han Dynasty.
Therefore, even for the tribes that surrendered to the Han Dynasty, the deployment of manpower and material resources was the responsibility of their own tribes. The most "obedient" were the commanders and elite men, who paid a sum of tribute to the Han Dynasty every year. These people would not be included in the hometown of Cheng Ji.
At the same time, what they resisted the most was the incorporation of tribal concubines into the Han Dynasty. It was obvious that ordinary tribal members were no different from the slaves of the chieftain, and their oppression of the people was much greater than that of the officials and local tyrants of the Han Dynasty. However, they all felt that without the protection of their own tribal concubines and chieftains, the Han people would kill their entire families and feed them to dogs...
"We still need to discuss the specific matters with the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. We will come up with a general charter in the next few days. In short... when you go on a diplomatic mission, first of all, you must pay attention to your own safety. Second... remember one thing, whether it is the Yue people or the Wuling barbarians, they are also Han people..."
Chen Gong was a little impatient - didn't he just say that? Do I need to emphasize it again? But when he heard Bai Tu remind him of the safety issue first, he still felt a little warm in his heart.
However , Bai Tu's expression changed slightly. He came closer and whispered, "That is to say, they are also protected by Han laws. If someone treats ordinary Han people like cattle and horses, how can we just ignore them? We need to make them understand the benefits of abiding by the law."
"What Mr. Bai means is..." Chen Gong seemed to have thought of something.
"Be careful of the scale. Those people are difficult to reason with. Sometimes it is harder to gain their trust than to destroy their bodies, but I hope you can use a more difficult method to solve the problem." Bai Tu said.
That's right, Bai Tu didn't believe that ordinary barbarians would be so bad-tempered that they would rather be slaves in the mountains than be ordinary Han people with enough food and clothing... Why? Just because of their temper?
Bai Tu doesn't believe that this is called "unruly and unruly". There are only two reasons. A small part of the reason is the mutual exclusivity of the two sides, and the majority of the reason... is still the "monarchy system".
The reality is that the Shanyue and barbarians trust their chiefs more, but these chiefs care more about whether they can continue to live freely and occasionally plunder.
Sometimes, it is not just Bai Tu who tells Shanyue empty words that your life will be better if you come down, but people will believe it.
During the Civil War, the Southern Army was composed entirely of serfs and cannon fodder, with only officers being white...
If it's that easy to explain the truth, then there's no need to fight. Why don't we all turn against them together?
The Han Dynasty understood that this logic did not make sense, so they simply used a simple method - directly recognized their "monarch system", and the so-called acts of gratitude and "rewards" were given directly to the chiefs.
Chen Gong understood what Bai Tu meant. Although he didn't say it explicitly and couldn't say it now, he actually wanted to make some changes in the monarch system. His mood suddenly became complicated - persuading Bai Tu to raise the third army was a happy thing for him, but... Bai Tu had posed a difficult problem!
However, on the surface, Chen Gong was still full of confidence. He issued a military order and would bring Zhang Liao to support Gao Shun.
