Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 288 Gongsun Clan
When Gongsun Du heard Gan Ning talking about business, he immediately became interested. The alcohol in his eyes that had been overflowing before also dissipated for a moment...
It seems that Bai Tu is not giving him anything for nothing!
“Well … Yuan Shao is expanding aggressively right now, which has greatly squeezed the pastures in Liaodong. Moreover, there is a war in the north, and war horses are essential. In fact, my war horses are also in short supply…” Gongsun Du knew that Bai Tu would not give him the supplies for free, but he still wanted to lower the price.
"Oh, aren't the Xianbei and Goguryeo people grazing horses outside the Great Wall? We can rob... ahem, trade with them at any time, how could we be short of war horses?" Gan Ning said disdainfully.
Gongsun Du was speechless for a moment. He wanted to "trade" horses with foreign tribes at every turn. Was he really from the General's Mansion? Wasn't it said that the General's Mansion always won people over with virtue? Could it be that the rumors spread by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were true?
"General Gan, you are joking... Goguryeo and Xianbei are not easy to deal with. It is not that easy to trade with them." Gongsun Du said with a wry smile.
"They are just defeated generals of the Huns. If you are in trouble, just give way and we will trade with them." Gan Ning's dog-faced attitude came up again.
Seeing Gan Ning being so arrogant, Gongsun Du's two sons, as well as his confidants like Yang Yi and Liu Yi, all glared at them angrily. However, Gan Ning seemed not to notice and continued to eat and drink as usual with an air of disdain.
He had no awareness that he was in the "enemy camp" at all, and those who didn't know would have thought he was having a banquet in his tent!
"Gan Dudu has lived in the south for a long time, and he doesn't know that since the Northern Xiongnu was defeated and retreated from the northern desert, and the Southern Xiongnu moved to the Hetao area, the Xianbei has become the leader of the northern tribes, especially when their Khan Tan Shihuai was still around more than 20 years ago , he defeated Buyeo, Wuhuan, and Goguryeo successively, expanded to the west and defeated Wusun, and to the north defeated Dingling...
He even went south to plunder the counties of the Han Dynasty. At that time, the Han army went out to fight him and was defeated. If he had not died early and the Xianbei had not had a Khan who could command the people, I am afraid they would be even more fierce than they are now." Gongsun Du said with a look of nostalgia.
Gongsun Du's words were half true and half false...
Like the Wuhuan, the Xianbei are descendants of the Donghu who were defeated by the Xiongnu hundreds of years ago. The descendants of those who retreated to the Xianbei Mountains are the current Xianbei people, and the descendants of those who retreated to the Wuhuan Mountains are the current Wuhuan.
The former is in the northern part of Greater Khingan Range, and the latter is in the southern part of Greater Khingan Range.
However, after the Xiongnu were defeated by the Han army, the Xianbei tried their best to expand over the next few hundred years.
Especially when Tan Shihuai was still alive, the Xianbei were indeed very ferocious during their first unification. Gongsun Du was already a minor official in Liaodong at that time, so he was naturally deeply impressed by this. As a young man, Gongsun Du still remembers the days when the Xianbei people went south to plunder Youzhou almost every year.
Tan Shihuai was also born extraordinary - at that time, Tan Shihuai's father "worked" for the Xiongnu people in Luhou. After serving in the army for three years, he returned home and found that his child was already over one year old...
His mother claimed that a piece of hail fell into her mouth after it fell from the sky, and then she became pregnant. However... Tou Lu Hou laughed and said, "Get lost..." and still abandoned Tan Shihuai, so Tan Shihuai was raised by his grandfather.
During the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, although the court was in chaos, the Han Dynasty still had a great deterrent effect on foreign tribes. Both the Southern Xiongnu and the Qiang were subdued.
However, after Tan Shihuai unified the Xianbei, he expanded rapidly, and his territory was comparable to that of the previous Xiongnu. Tan Shihuai divided the Xianbei into western, central, and eastern regions, and appointed "adults" directly under him in each region. Emperor Lingdi wanted to make him a king as a way of appeasement, but Tan Shihuai refused. He was preparing his troops and horses, ready to become the "second generation of Xiongnu".
Indeed, they defeated the Han army outside the Great Wall.
Moreover, in history when there was no white rabbit effect, in the nearly three hundred years after the Western Jin Dynasty was destroyed by the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, the Xianbei people were also the foreign ethnic group with the strongest presence in the north.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, several regimes in the north were established by the Xianbei, and were also the fastest to be sinicized. The Northern Zhou regime that Yang Jian usurped when he founded the country was a Xianbei regime. The maternal lines of the royal families of the Sui and Tang dynasties also had Xianbei ancestry.
To what extent was it localized in Chinese at that time?
Both the Yang and Li families insisted that they were of Han Chinese descent. After Yang Jian usurped the throne of Northern Zhou, he did not cause much backlash from the Xianbei nobles in the court due to ethnic issues. After the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, the Xianbei Yuwen clan, Dugu clan, etc. were still powerful, which also laid the foundation for the open attitude towards the outside world during the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Gongsun Du didn't know the future, but when he was young, Tan Shihuai did cast a considerable shadow on him.
But Gongsun Du didn't tell the truth...
Less than two years after Tan Shihuai defeated the Han army, three years before the start of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Tan Shihuai, who was in his forties, died of illness. The Xianbei tribes, who were not used to unity, simply disbanded.
The Western Xianbei, whose control over the royal court was already weak, directly broke away from Tan Shihuai's plan and started to play their own games. The southern part of the Central Xianbei regarded Budugen as the "Master", and the northern part regarded Kebi Neng as the "Master". The two attacked each other , and although Kebi Neng was stronger, he could not do anything to Budugen for the time being.
As for the part of Xianbei that Liaodong directly faced, they were the former Eastern Xianbei. Now there was no "master" who could command the people, and each tribe was in disarray.
The Xianbei, who once frightened the young Gongsun Du, can now only appear in his dreams. As for the real Xianbei tribe, Gongsun Du can fight them however he wants, as long as he pays attention to the scale and does not cause them to panic or unite.
Gan Ning had also done his homework, and upon hearing this, he said directly: "If that old man Tan Shihuai is still alive, it would be worth my expectation. As for the Eastern Xianbei now... haha."
At the beginning, Taishi Ci also "fled for fear of crime" in Liaodong for a period of time. Guan Ning and Bing Yuan were also invited back from Liaodong by Taishi Ci. Therefore, Gan Ning also asked Taishi Ci for advice before setting off.
However, Gongsun Du felt a little disdainful of Gan Ning's wild words. After all, in his opinion, the Southern Army was not good at fighting in the North, and they were coming across the sea. The length of the logistics supply line was enough to kill them.
But Gongsun Du was unwilling to fall out with Gan Ning. After all, if they really challenged him, the other side would send tens of thousands of people. Would he give way to them? He had heard of the tactic of attacking Guo through a false route.
Moreover, Gongsun Du is now hoping to get support from the General's Mansion...
After all, Gongsun Du had already seen the goods brought by Gan Ning.
Not to mention the hard currency "food", there are also those "excellent" weapons and armor of the Han army... These days, food and armor can be directly regarded as "troop numbers", and over-recruiting manpower is just a common thing!
"General Gan, don't be anxious. I wonder how much food, cloth, weapons and armor you have brought with you? How long will it take to go back and forth?" Gongsun Du asked tentatively.
Gan Ning was not sure if he was drinking happily at this time , but pretending to be arrogant. He had changed from kneeling to lying on his side with his legs crossed and said, "Five thousand armed men are enough for Brother Gongsun... and if we want to deal with each other, it will not be a one-time or two-time thing. Do you know that Zhouhu can be reached in half a month by sea? The Zhouhu people are now under the command of the General's Mansion. We have a large area of land and ports in Zhouhu, and transportation is very convenient. Even... maybe we can help Brother Gongsun in the future, you don't have to think too much."
The address was a little enthusiastic, but he did not forget to brag - those who didn't know would think that Zhou Hu had already surrendered to the General's Mansion and built a large number of ports...
He said "don't think too much", but what he said made Gongsun Du think too much!
