Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 263: Ancient Yue Tribe
"Military Advisor! Those Shanyue people are ignorant and ungrateful. Why do you have to go there in person..." Zhang Liao said anxiously.
At this time, Zhang Liao and Chen Gong were stationed in a valley in Luling County, close to Guiyang County in Jingzhou.
Not far away is the Shanyue people’s base - now the number of Shanyue people there is no less than 100,000!
A normal Shanyue tribe would not gather so many people. These are the young and strong people from dozens of large and small Shanyue tribes, centered around the three major tribes deep in the mountains in the southern part of Luling County.
Not only Lujiang County, but also some Shanyue in Guiyang County are here if you look at the map...
Of course, the "map" is a map of the Han Dynasty, and the barbarians in southern Guilin and southern Luling are not divided according to the map of the Han Dynasty.
However, it is true that the two groups of barbarians in the east and the west have the intention of forming their own groups.
From a genealogical perspective, the barbarians in Luling County can trace their roots back to the ancient Yue people, so they are called "Shan Yue". The barbarians in Guiyang and southern Lingling of Jingzhou can trace their ancestors back to the "Jing Man", that is, the indigenous people of Chu before the Chu people came here.
Although other countries also contemptuously called the State of Chu "Chu barbarians", most of the Chu people, from the royal family to the nobles, were descendants of Zhuanxu. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, they fought with other countries in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and finally settled down in the area of present-day Jingbei. The Zhou Dynasty also recognized its status as a feudal state, and the original indigenous people here were the "Jing barbarians".
As for the barbarians further west, from the southwest of Lingling County to the south of Wuling County, they are called the "Wuxi Barbarians". The barbarians in the southwest of Wuling County plus the south of Yizhou are called the "Nanzhong Barbarians". Meng Huo, who has the most important role in the novel, is the strongest tribal leader among the Nanzhong barbarians.
The ancestors of Wuxi Man and Nanzhong Man were all descendants of Ba people. Ba people and Yue people were also the biggest obstacles to the development of Chu State from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period.
As for the Jing Man, they had been almost assimilated during the development of the Chu State, and the remaining tribes had become closer to the Ba people in terms of culture and customs.
Even under the unified regime of the Han Dynasty, these "barbarians" still existed. They would often cause chaos after a long period of peace. Once in chaos, they would cause harm for a while, killing tens of thousands of people before they could settle down again for a while.
Roughly speaking, from Bashu to Jiangdong, the barbarians in the south can be divided into three groups from west to east - Nanzhong barbarians, Wuxi barbarians, and Shanyue.
The barbarian tribes definitely fought each other more often than they bravely rushed out to attack the Han counties. After the State of Ba was destroyed by the Qin State, the Southern Barbarians were never unified again, but... it is true that the Shanyue tribes and the Wuxi barbarians were relatively more friendly.
Chen Gong wanted to use threats and inducements to get the Shanyue people to rush westward en masse. Even if the Shanyue and the Wuxi barbarians were evenly matched, it would still be beneficial to the General's Office. As long as they could send troops to the Jingnan area while the barbarians were too busy to take care of other things, the Third Army would have already been half successful.
As for the defense forces of the four counties in southern Jing...
To Chen Gong, their numbers were negligible. If it weren't for the mountains in the south, the combined military strength of the four counties in southern Jing would not be half of that of Nan County or Nanyang County!
However, now that Chen Gong had finally managed to bring the Shanyue tribe together and was preparing to advance westward, the other side put forward a new condition, which was that they hoped Chen Gong could command them in battle...
Nominally, as an ally, the General's Office should reduce their casualties and send "wise men" to assist them.
But in fact everyone knows that this is to take Chen Gong as a "hostage"!
At this time, Zhang Liao strongly opposed Chen Gong's going. Because of their past relationship, Zhang Liao was more accustomed to calling Chen Gong "military advisor".
"No, I am the planner of sending troops to the south. This is a risk I should take. Compared with previous expectations, we are already lucky." Chen Gong said.
Using food and fists, Chen Gong persuaded the Shanyue tribe to gather young and strong people and march westward. At least the first step had been completed.
"But... Military Advisor, those Shanyue people, especially those from the Xiushe Tribe, have never been willing to join. I'm afraid that if you go there, they will think that the General's Mansion is showing weakness, which will give them the confidence to rebel." Zhang Liao advised.
It would be understandable if the Shanyue people only wanted to "cooperate happily", but who can be sure that these Shanyue people did not want to retaliate, so they dragged Chen Gong to offer sacrifices to the sky first?
Using food to gather together the Shanyue people who were originally unable to be gathered together is a very dangerous task. If you are not careful, you may end up overturning.
The Yue people worship snakes and the Ba people worship tigers.
Most of the tribes of the ancient Yue people were named after snakes, and they had the habit of getting snake tattoos. Especially the barbarian soldiers who had been "transformed into barbarians" by the Yue princesses basically had snake battle patterns all over their bodies.
This is also the best way to distinguish the ancient Yue people, the Shanyue, from the "pseudo Shanyue" where the Han people live. Those Shanyue people who are still called Zhangjiagou and Lijiazhai are obviously Han people who went up the mountain...
The three major tribes that now own "Yue Ji" are all named after legendary snakes, namely Xiu Snake, Hook Snake and Ming Snake.
Among them, the people of the Xiushe tribe were the most hostile to the Han Dynasty, and a fierce conflict almost occurred when they first came into contact.
It was only after the negotiations that the people of the Xiushe Tribe seemed to have great enthusiasm for advancing westward, and even took the initiative to "help" the General's Mansion to contact other Shanyue tribes!
In comparison, the Ming Snakes and Hook Snakes seemed to have been successfully lured into the fray...
"Gathering a large number of Shanyue young men is dangerous in itself, but after all, they still have women, children, and the elderly left in the mountains. We are worried about their retaliation, but aren't they also worried about us cutting off their support?
As for the Xiushe tribe...although there is a conspiracy, in this case, I have to go there in person to prevent other tribes from being bewitched by them! Wenyuan, now Zhongda is leading the Xianzhen Camp to support the surroundings. After I go to the Shanyue people, the southern army will be handed over to you. "Chen Gong said calmly.
At the same time, in the Shanyue people’s base, the chief of the Xiushe tribe and three headhunters were plotting something in a separate tent - this tent was provided with "military supplies" by the General's Mansion.
One hundred thousand is just a small number for the "Shanyue" in the entire Jiangdong. When Dongwu was conquering Shanyue, it could get tens of thousands of soldiers by just fighting. In the early and middle period of the Three Kingdoms, it seemed like an inexhaustible "barracks" for Dongwu.
However, most of the Shanyue people in Jiangdong actually have nothing to do with the ancient Yue people. They are just farmers who have moved up the mountains. Even Yan Baihu called himself Shanyue when he occupied the mountain and became the king!
As for the real ancient Yue tribe, that is, the ancient Yue people in the southern part of Luling, these 100,000 people are more than 80% young and strong...
If Jia Xu was here, would he be taken as a hostage?
It is estimated that Jia Xu will withdraw his troops overnight, and then turn around and move all the old and young people left in the tribes of Luling County back to Yuzhang County. Those who are unwilling to move will be tied up and taken away as slaves. Those who resist after being tied up will never leave...
After that, we just need to fortify the cities and defend the several counties in the southern part of Yuzhang to hold off a few waves of backlash - if we are well prepared, it will be almost impossible for the Shanyue people to break into the city.
In this way, the southern army's westward advance may not be possible, but the most stubborn part of the Shanyue people, who are truly culturally different from the Han people, can definitely be dealt with completely!
Of course, Chen Gong is not Jia Xu, and the reason why he was able to "coax" so many Shanyue people out was thanks to the various trust-building actions that Gao Shun and Chen Gong had taken in Luling County on behalf of the General's Mansion. If it were the Eastern Wu... I'm afraid people wouldn't believe it.
In this case, the General's Mansion would not accept overdrawing its own credit in such a place.
"Chief, will the Han people come?" Si Tong asked the chief of the tribe.
Judging from their appearance alone, apart from their rougher skin and thicker joints due to frequent fighting, there is no essential difference between these people and the Han people. After all, no matter how remote the ancient Yue people were, they had already mixed with the blood of the "Han people".
They were just dressed a little weirdly, with animal skin vests and leather pants. Even though the people in Cheng Ji's world didn't dress very "properly", it was still rare to see such non-mainstream clothes in the Central Plains. On large areas of exposed skin, you could see tattoos... or battle patterns.
The headhunter named "Sitong" wore an extravagant horn necklace on his chest, and his waistcoat and shorts were decorated with various horn products like oranges.
Xi Yuan, who looked more rugged, said, "So what if they don't come? At worst, we can just kill them! There are treacherous cavalry on the plains, and treacherous city walls and bows and arrows in the city, but this is... the battlefield protected by our ancestors! Could it be that the brave ancient Yue warriors are no match for those Han people?"
The language of the ancient Yue people was somewhat monotonous, which led to the abuse of the word "sinister".
Xiyuan added a piece of animal skin on top of the leather vest, which looked like a cloak but only reached the waist and was covered with dense mane.
"Have you forgotten our purpose? If it weren't for those insidious Han people, we would not be able to gather so many warriors to regain the glory of our ancestors." The third headhunter, Tao Guang, retorted at this time.
Among the four, Tao Guang and the clan leader are the thinnest in terms of physique.
Among them, Tao Guang was a woman. In addition to a waistcoat on her upper body, she also had a piece of animal skin wrapped around her chest.
From a woman's perspective, Tao Guang is very strong...
It can also be seen from his surname that Tao Guang is not a traditional "hunter" in the tribe.
After Fuxi established human ethics, tribes basically had the habit of taking surnames, but the surnames of non-agricultural civilizations were not stable. Most of them still followed the previous naming rules and were often changed during the process of transmission...
For example, the surnames Si and Xi mean that their father, grandfather or great-grandfather had independently hunted rhinos and wild boars, and the surname Tao means that her family should be the one in the tribe that made pottery!
The more isolated and ancient the Gu Yue tribe was, the more it preserved this point. The Gu Yue tribes with Han surnames were basically located in the north and often interacted with the Han people.
The history of the ancient Yue people began in the Xia Dynasty, when a grandson of Dayu first established the "Yue Kingdom" as a fiefdom. Although according to the Eastern Han Dynasty or the ritual system, the ancient Yue people were not considered "the Xia people", there is nothing wrong with saying that they are descendants of Yan and Huang.
The era when the ancient Yue people were closest to the Xia people should be the more than 100 years during the Spring and Autumn Period when the Yue State was at its strongest, especially the years when Gou Jian defeated the Wu State and made the Yue State most prosperous. They also encouraged farming and actively interacted with the Central Plains countries...
At that time, the level of agriculture in Yue State was no worse than that of other vassal states.
However, in the early Warring States period, the aristocracy of Yue State was in chaos, and there were continuous internal conflicts such as "the Yue people killed their king three times". Finally, the land east of the Yangtze River was taken away by Chu State. After that, there was no land to farm, so they could only retreat to the mountainous Kuaiji area and fight guerrilla warfare with Chu State.
At this point, the Yue people missed the best opportunity to transform into farming and were eventually completely destroyed by the Qin State.
At the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Yue nobles did lead the Yue people and participate in the attack on Qin. They also successfully stood on the side during the Chu-Han War and supported Liu Bang from the very beginning. As a result, they retained the fiefdom of Ouyue. Later, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, King Ou took the initiative to propose that the whole country submit to the Han Dynasty and move to the Jianghuai area. However, there was always a part that existed in the form of a tribe and did not completely integrate into the Han Dynasty. After six or seven hundred years, they still mainly engaged in fishing and hunting.
The State of Ba actually had a similar experience, and it also participated in the campaign against King Zhou. It was one of the first vassal states recognized by the Zhou Dynasty, and theoretically it was also one of the "Xia". However, due to geographical reasons and its backward development, it was first defeated by the State of Chu and forced to migrate westward to the present Ba County area, and was finally destroyed by the State of Qin.
However, a part of the Ba people who did not completely transform into an agricultural civilization continued to migrate southward and became the current "Southern Barbarians".
As for why the level of civilization has "degenerated" so quickly?
In fact, it is not considered degeneration. After all, it was still a slave society during the Spring and Autumn Period. The popularization of iron tools during the Warring States Period began the transformation from a slave society to a feudal society. It was not until the Han Dynasty that the transformation was completely completed. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the existence of "slaves" themselves had not disappeared!
In fact, even if we change to the Central Plains countries during the Spring and Autumn Period, if the "people" of any country, that is, the people living in the city and the nobles in the opposition, were wiped out, the remaining savages would quickly return to the tribal era, not to mention the closed environments of Yue and Ba.
In a slave society, no matter how civilized the nobles package themselves, they have nothing to do with the vast majority of the lower-class people.
Whether it was the nobles of the Yue State or the King of Dong'ou, they represented the "top of civilization" among the Yue people, but the bottom class abandoned by them had never been exposed to civilization from the beginning.
When Xi Yuan heard Tao Guang scolding him so disrespectfully, he immediately glared and asked, "Are you saying that I'm insidious?"
"No, I mean you are stupid." Tao Guang curled his lips.
"Isn't it insidious..." Xi Yuan calmed down a little, but then corrected: "It's not okay to be stupid!"
"Okay, if the Han people really don't dare to come, we will think of other ways to delay them... At the same time, we must speed up the contact with the various tribes in Wuxi." Tribal leader Wangkong interrupted at this time.
"Chief...the tribes in Wuxi have always been at odds with us. Why don't we take this opportunity to destroy them directly?" Xi Yuan asked fiercely.
"Don't forget our real purpose! If they dare to cause trouble, they will be destroyed, but we can't let the Han people just watch the fun from behind!"
"So... Chief, you want to invite that Han man here for..." Xi Yuan looked at the chief in surprise.
The chief said with confidence on his face: "That's right! I want to compete with him in wits!" At this moment, the feather decorations on the chief's body became more colorful.
