Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 337: 270,000 for One
Sima Fang wanted to appease Zhang Yan, but Zhang Yan ignored him and accepted all the "sweet treats" given to him, but turned a deaf ear to his request to stop.
Not only did he pass directly through Henei County, but Zhang Yan personally led tens of thousands of Yellow Turban troops to besiege Huaicheng, the seat of Henei. On the one hand, he pretended to attack the city in the name of "Sima Fang was rude and neglected Cao Gong's distinguished guests", and on the other hand, he ordered other troops to continue to harass the people in the wild as they passed by...
Compared with Cao Cao's massacre of Xuzhou and Yuan Shu's massacre of Shouchun, the only difference between the Yellow Turban Army is that their goal is not to kill people, but to live!
However, now is not the time when the Yellow Turban Rebellion just broke out. Not only has their instigation become less effective, but the real Taiping Dao preaching is no longer popular, and the people who are forcibly coerced often escape...
During the Yellow Turban Rebellion, veteran generals such as Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun still adhered to the iron-blooded approach of suppressing rebellions during the period of great unification.
In addition to the fact that the Han Dynasty won a great victory in the Battle of Guangzong, the main force of the Yellow Turban Army was defeated, and Zhang Jue had died of illness, Huangfu Song requested to pardon a group of Yellow Turbans. When the Yellow Turbans were still powerful, those who followed the bandits were exiled and forced to do hard labor after being captured, which means that the manpower was completely overdrawn, and most of the time no prisoners were left...
This is to the greatest extent possible, deterring the rebels who appear during the unification.
In other words, as long as you are coerced and your name is on Huang Tianji's list, and you disappear from Chengji, you will be considered a rebel.
Although it is very deterrent, it also forces the people who are being coerced to follow suit and rebel!
However, now that the princes are fighting each other, who would kill young and strong men just for the sake of labeling them as "rebels"?
In order to expand his military resources and the population under his rule, Cao Cao sent troops to Qingzhou to "hunt in the wild", not to capture cities, but to defeat the various Yellow Turban tribes and collect their people...
Therefore, the effect of coercing the people is much worse now - as long as there is a chance, the princes from all places will accept them again!
Although the local princes may not necessarily treat the people under their rule as human beings, at least they have a choice but to follow the Yellow Turbans to the end.
Sima Fang also focused on this point. He did not fight with the main force of the Black Mountain Army. He notified all cities to close their gates and defend themselves. Zhang Yan did not dare to attack by force!
At the same time... Sima Fang sent people everywhere to intercept the "Yellow Turbans", and his "savings" were mainly based on persuasion!
Sima Fang was naturally smart as he could give birth to a child like Sima Bada. After Cao Cao drove away Zhang Yang, he entrusted Henei to the Sima family, who were close to him.
Although Sima Fang's tactic of persuading people not to fight completely delayed the spring ploughing in Hanoi, it made Zhang Yan feel even more uncomfortable, as if he had eaten the essence of a farmer...
There are millions of people, and they are not an army, but migrant workers. You can imagine how difficult it is to command them.
Zhang Yan basically only brought his own troops with him, and then entrusted the leaders of other troops to work out a general route, and then they set out together. Zhang Yan also volunteered to take on the role of intimidating the defenders in various places.
In terms of combat, there were almost no hard battles. The Hanoi defenders "pretended" that they were defending the city - they did not gather the civilians outside the city at all, and the army simply defended the city.
As for the surrounding towns and villages, their defense capabilities were almost non-existent.
However... when Zhang Yan was about to leave Hanoi, the number of Yellow Turbans still under the name of Heishan Ji was only about 700,000!
Instead of increasing due to the coercion of Hanoi residents, the number of people there decreased a lot...
Only then did Zhang Yan realize that Sima Fang was hiding from his main force and sending people to either secretly contact the leaders of various tribes or directly instigate the Yellow Turbans to rebel against their leaders!
As a result, there are now more than 200,000 more people on Henei Ji’s household register - obviously many people are unwilling to travel a long distance with Zhang Yan.
Zhang Yan did not dare to dwell on this, otherwise he might become even thinner. The reason why were still under the command of Black Mountain Princess was not because of their firm beliefs, but because no one had tried to persuade them!
Moreover, the reinforcements from Yanzhou are about to arrive. If they run into Cao Cao’s main force, then it won’t be a matter of being “thinner”…
However, given Zhang Yan's personality, it is clear that he is not the kind of person who would swallow his anger.
He simply let the large group continue to move south, while he himself led a light group of men on horseback, all the way to Wen County in Hanoi.
Wen County is located in the south of Yewang County, and is only separated from Luoyang by Ping County. Yewang County is Zhang Yang’s hometown, and Wen County... is Sima’s hometown!
After Zhang Yan arrived in Wen County, he did not go to the county town with city walls. Even though there were not many defenders, it was not something that his light cavalry could capture. Instead, he headed straight for the Sima clan's territory.
Of course, Zhang Yan was not so crazy as to massacre the entire clan. He just wanted to vent his anger on Sima Fang's close relatives.
After all, such a large clan often has tens of thousands of people, and Zhang Yan now considers himself a person of "status", unlike when he just started the rebellion, when those barefoot were not afraid of those wearing shoes.
Now Zhang Yan is also wearing shoes and has not been forced to take them off.
What's more... there is the threat of the General's Mansion!
However, at this time, the core members of the Sima clan had basically retreated to various Wu forts, and were obviously prepared for Zhang Yan's attack!
"Shuda" among the Eight Sima brothers, that is, the third brother Sima Fu, came forward to speak to Zhang Yan and explained the pros and cons to him - the general meaning was: if you don't leave quickly, Hulao Pass will be closed for you, and then you will be trapped in a jar!
Zhang Yan saw that he had no chance, so he retreated on the surface, but actually sent a few trusted men to sneak in after the army left...
This is no longer the ability of a scout, but the way bandits go down the mountain to kidnap people - Zhang Yan has this kind of sneaky "talent" under his command!
However, it was not smooth sailing. The older ones among the Eight Sima were both talented in literature and martial arts. How could a few petty thieves kidnap them?
Of course... it really can!
The others are both good at literature and martial arts, but there is one person who has rheumatism and is lying in bed and can't move easily...
Sima Yi was also in a difficult position and had no choice but to either be kidnapped or... expose his pretense of illness!
After hesitating for a long time, Sima Yi still chose to be kidnapped. After all, if it was exposed now that he was pretending to be sick, his whole family would be in trouble!
At the same time, it was also because Sima Yi temporarily persuaded the "kidnappers" and made them temporarily have no intention of killing. Sima Yi also had the confidence to persuade Zhang Yan. From the fact that Zhang Yan had not attacked and massacred the members of the side branches before, it was known that he also wanted to "put on shoes" now.
So he was carried and brought to Zhang Yan...
Fortunately, Sima Yi's rheumatism, a disease similar to gout in later generations, was fake, otherwise he would have been in so much pain that he would have died.
Sima Yi arrived before Zhang Yan and gave him an impassioned speech, explaining the situation clearly and advising him to either surrender or let Sima Fang redeem him, and not to act on impulse.
Zhang Yan saw that you are such a talkative little mouth, why don’t you stay by my side and talk to me more in the future!
After being tricked by Sima Fang this time, Zhang Yan also learned his lesson and felt deeply inconvenient without a think tank around him, so... he ignored Sima Yi's resistance and forcibly took him away, even ignoring his current disability of mobility!
In order to show his respect for the wise and humble, he even gave up his carriage to Sima Yi to lie down...
"Hahaha, great! The old thief Sima cheated me of 270,000 people of the Yellow Emperor. I, King Yan, will not bother with him. Anyway, he has also given me a military advisor! Come, carry Mr. Sima to my carriage and let him lie down!"
Sima Yi: ???
