Chapter 302 Things are changing

Chapter 302 Things are changing

Chapter 302 Things are changing

"Open the door!" Outside the fortress of the Xie family in Yangxia, several people wearing turbans and leading horses covered with sackcloth came.

They shouted loudly and claimed that they were sent by Lu Shijun of Xiang County to travel between counties and issue orders.

After checking the handwriting and seal on the letter, the family generals invited them in.

Xie Pei, who was teaching students at home, went to the main hall to greet him personally.

"I am Chen Tonggen, a servant of the Marquis' Mansion. Nice to meet you, Lord Xie." Chen Tonggen bowed and said.

"Who are you to be Chen Du of the Changjian Army?" Xie Pei glanced at him and asked.

"My brother."

Xie Pei nodded and asked, "Why did the envoy send you here?"

"The envoy once said that people depend on grain for their survival. Now locusts are harming grain, which is harming human lives." Chen Tonggen said, "Grain is precious. You should make it your priority to protect grain and people, and not aid the enemy. If anyone violates this, the day the Lord of Chen returns, he will be held accountable. The destruction of the He family is a lesson not far away, and you should think carefully about it."

After listening to this, Xie Pei was silent for a long time.

Chen Tonggen didn't rush them. He left after conveying the order. He was in a hurry to go to the next house and had no time to chat with them.

Xie Pei stood quietly at the entrance of the hall. After a long while, he gave a bitter smile and said to himself, "Lu Zidao's words are impolite, but he has the capital to do so. The locust plague is everywhere, and people are suffering. To ask for food is to ask for life. Who can hand it over readily?"

After saying that, he shook his head, feeling very worried.

He has been in a very heavy mood since the beginning of this year.

On the one hand, they felt the gradual collapse of the order in the north, and the power of the nobles began to fade. At this time of great change, food and military strength became more important, and the importance of fame, official position, and family began to decline, and a large group of people began to rise.

Shao Xun is just one of the representatives.

Didn't his people rise up? Twenty or thirty years ago, they would never have thought of getting an official position. Even without going so far, just look at how difficult it was for Shao Xun to get an official position six or seven years ago.

If he had not achieved the great feat of capturing Sima Yi in the palace, he would never have been the one to be awarded the title of Xiaolian in Donghai County.

But what about now? Farmers, soldiers, butchers and even bandits have all become officials, which is like monkeys in human form.

On the other hand, Xie Pei was seriously discouraged by the successive wars and disasters in the north, and many scholars shared the same view. In the correspondence, Xie Pei saw too many disappointed people, and the number of people who wanted to cross the river to the south increased sharply.

No one doesn't like to live in a stable environment.

Luoyang was besieged twice, wars broke out every other day, droughts and locusts came alternately. Whoever wants to stay in the north can stay there, but I won’t stay there anyway - this is what many people think.

Xie Pei was also somewhat moved.

My elder brother Xie Kun has already arrived in Jianye and found a position in the court of Prince Langya and settled down.

He brought with him his children, relatives, servants, retainers, and farmhands totaling more than 3,000 families, and they were settled in the Jingkou area. It was said that they would be moved to other counties in the future, and that they would be given a piece of land to build an estate.

As for the common people, I heard that the King of Langya tried to set up overseas counties and prefectures to resettle them, so that they would not interfere with the local people in Jiangnan.

Anyway, the south is barren and there is plenty of vacant land. It is not difficult to resettle people there as long as you are willing to reclaim the land.

"One falling leaf heralds the coming of autumn..." After Xie Pei said this, he shook his head and sighed before leaving.

He also had to study and teach students - of course, they were children of the gentry.

If we go to the south in the future, these children of the aristocratic families who have a teacher-student relationship with us will be a great help to the Xie family.

******
Just as Yuzhou Governor Lu Zhi sent a large number of messengers to various counties to convey the order to fortify the city and clear the fields, fierce fighting had already begun in the southern part of Chenliu County, the western part of Liang State, the northern part of Chen County and even in the northwest of Yingchuan.

After suffering a loss, Tao Bao regrouped and defeated Qihuo's army in Suiyang.

When the Qihuo army retreated, Tao Bao attacked Liangguo County City directly and took it down in three days, burning, killing and looting.

Sima Xi, the Prince of Liang, was in Luoyang, but his fiefdom was in ruins. Sima Rong, the former Prince of Liang, died in the first year of Tai'an (302) without a son. Sima Xi, the grandson of Sima Yi, the Prince of Langya and the son of Sima Dan, the Prince of Wuling, was adopted as his successor and inherited this fiefdom of more than households.

Kui'an hesitated in the area of ​​Yangxia and Fugu and made no progress.

First, cavalry were sent to the walls of each fort to issue a message and order them to offer food and fodder, but no one responded.

So they gritted their teeth and sent their infantry to break through a few earthen walls and small ramparts, but the gains were extremely limited. They then turned to attack the forts built by powerful people, but after several days of failure, they lost more than a thousand soldiers.

When he saw the soldiers secretly hiding the bodies of the dead on both sides, he was devastated...

On May 20, Zhi Xiong besieged Weishi County in Chenliu and captured the city in one day, but suffered heavy casualties when besieging the strongholds of the gentry and powerful families headed by the Ruan family in the countryside of Weishi.

After several days, they only broke through two barriers and obtained 25,000 hu of grain, which was enough for them to eat for a few days.

With no other options, they could only slaughter all the men, women, old and young who had breached the fort and make jerky out of them.

Their behavior naturally made the people in other fortresses more united, and they defended the fort with all their might and refused to compromise.

Things seem to be changing slowly.

On the 25th, the army arrived at Yanling County. At this time, the number of locusts had decreased, but they were still overwhelming and could be seen everywhere.

The reason for the decrease in locusts is that they have eaten up all the food. They either starve to death or migrate to other places. This is not a problem for them who fly 150 kilometers a day. They must eat up all the food.

Yu Liang stood on the wall of his own fortress, staring into the distance.

He was wearing a shiny Ming Guang armor, holding a bow in his hand, a knife on his waist, and a spear on his back, looking very majestic.

Behind him stood a hundred warriors, each holding an iron armor, fully equipped with weapons, and in high spirits.

If Shao Xun saw this, he would definitely feel that the gentry was still rich and had a lot of good things hidden in their homes.

Compared with the warriors behind Yu Liang, the hundreds of troops their family sent to Guangchengze were definitely not elite.

The Yu family was large and powerful, with many branches.

Some distant branches may have only a small house at home. In this case, they would either defend the house behind closed doors, or gather in a large fort with relatively complete defensive facilities, or simply escape.

Yu Liang and his family hid in the fortress of his uncle Yu Hua.

Thousands of families were packed into the fort, so it was almost full that there was no room for them. As a last resort, they dug a second trench outside the fort, built a mud wall, and sent all the adults outside, each of them was given a simple weapon, to serve as an outer barrier.

"After this year, no one will live in the manor no matter how comfortable it is, right?" The enemy had already started to circle around, looking for weak points in the defense, but Yu Liang blurted out this sentence.

Cousin Yu Mie (son of Yu Gun) just came up from downstairs and heard what Yu Liang said. He immediately sneered: "The fort is dark, damp, narrow and cramped. Who would like to live there? It is not convenient for entertaining guests. Over time, its reputation will not spread."

"You can only choose one between destiny and elegance," said Yu Liang.

Yu Mie took a look at his cousin and didn't expect that he had changed so much.

This kind of words should come from someone like him who has been traveling around with his father since he was a teenager, building forts, and farming and fighting. It seems that Yuan Gui has learned a lot after following Chen Hou for so long, and is no longer the boy who can only talk about classics and abstruse theories.

"The enemy is attacking." Yu Mie reminded.

Yu Liang looked forward and saw more than a thousand bandits lined up at the back, driving thousands of men, women, and children forward.

A sparse number of arrows flew out.

After all, the aristocratic tribes were not official troops, they were not as regular as the government troops, and they did not have as many bows, crossbows and arrows, so the arrows they shot were not dense.

But even so, a large number of the thieves who rushed over fell down, and quite a few of them collapsed while walking - perhaps they fainted from starvation.

After men, women, young and old had used up a wave of arrows, they rushed to the earth wall.

There were shouts from behind the earth wall, and spears, swords and even sticks were swung down, and another bloody massacre began.

The bandits took advantage of the situation and attacked.

They had some organization and were well equipped. After suffering certain casualties, they broke through the earth wall in one move and drove the guests from Yujiazhuang away in all directions.

A large number of arrows fell from the top of the wall, and a large number of the bandits who had just displayed their great power fell down.

The leaders of the Yujiazhuang guests took advantage of the situation and rushed out with the reserve troops, engaging in a battle with the bandits.

Their skills were unskilled and their equipment was poor, but after the locust plague, their fighting spirit was strong, so they killed the chaotic bandits and forced them to retreat step by step.

Everyone knows that they are now fighting for themselves and for their families to have food to survive.

So many people died in the turbulent times, and even those who survived did not look like human beings, not much different from being dead.

I am not afraid of living, so why should I be afraid of death! If I chop off a head today, I can get three dou of grain. If I chop off a few more, how can I face my hungry parents, wife and children when I go back?
The battle soon entered a white-hot stage.

Inside and outside the earth wall, blood and flesh were flying everywhere, and corpses were scattered all over the ground.

Yu Liang rubbed his eyes subconsciously.

After the locust plague, not a blade of grass grew, and the land was barren for thousands of miles. At this moment, more than 2,000 people from both sides were crowded together, fighting desperately, and he could hardly tell whether the land was originally this color, or it became this color after being drenched in blood.

"Ding ding..." The sound of a gong was heard from the rear of the enemy army.

The morale of the guests in Yujiazhuang was greatly boosted.

Hundreds of relatively capable private soldiers rushed out of the fort and bravely pursued the enemy with the farmhands, killing them all the way to within an arrow's reach before slowly withdrawing.

The battlefield soon returned to calm.

Some enemy soldiers wanted to come and collect the bodies, but a shower of arrows fell from the top of the city wall, killing seven or eight people, and the rest of the crowd fled in panic.

Yu Liang withdrew his gaze and looked into the distance.

There were dozens of flags of various sizes standing there, and it seemed that there were thousands of bandits.

They were hesitating whether to continue to invest strength and launch a new round of attack.

This is not an easy decision to make.

Yingchuan is a place where aristocratic families gather together, and it may be the place with the least self-cultivating farmers in the whole of Yuzhou. There are hardly any earthen walls or small forts to be seen, and there are only large manors and big forts.

The manor was easier to attack, but it also had walls and trenches, and the resistance was very fierce.

This locust plague seemed to have greatly boosted the determination of the people of Yuzhou to fight to the death, causing their troops heading south to run into obstacles everywhere, and every time they conquered a place, a large number of good soldiers were killed or injured. Even if Latin soldiers could be recruited to make up for the losses, how much combat effectiveness would the new recruits have?
As for morale, it is extremely low.

Perhaps, it's time to withdraw our troops. This battle shouldn't have been fought in the first place.

The general should be thankful that his entire army did not march south.

Otherwise, the 80,000 infantry and cavalry would struggle in the locust plague, not having enough food to eat, and would continue to bleed when attacking the fortress wall, with low morale. At this time, if they were attacked by elite troops who had gathered their strength, they would be in danger of being annihilated.

"Boom, boom, boom..." A burst of exciting war drum sounds rang out on the western horizon.

I don’t know how many people came from the other side.

I don't know how strong they are in combat.

I don't know what their morale is like.

However, the bandits who were stationed outside the Yujiawu Fort withdrew directly without even thinking of fighting.

"Yuan Gui, you are the commander-in-chief, you should send troops to pursue." Yu Mie reminded from the side.

Yu Liang turned his head to look at Yu Mie and suddenly realized.

Yu Mie lowered his voice again and said, "I heard that there are many concubines from noble families in the Chen Marquis's mansion, and they have made great contributions. Although Sister Wenjun is the legal wife, she has a softer personality and may not be able to control them. At this time, it is time for the people from her family to contribute."

Yu Liang nodded and gave the order immediately.

Soon, hundreds of soldiers and two thousand farmhands came out shouting and chasing after them.

"Yuan Gui, it's better to send people to the Xun family, the Zhong family, the Chen family, and the Yin family." Yu Mie said again: "After fighting to this point, the bandits should have little morale. If all the families gather together, it won't be a problem to send 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers. The bandits are short of food, their morale is low, and they have come from a long way, so they are panic-stricken. I think few of their horses can run. It's not risky to chase them now. After the war, we will discuss the merits. Yuan Gui, you are the first to initiate this matter, and you will definitely be favored by Lord Chen."

"Brother, what you said makes sense." Yu Liang bowed deeply and said sincerely.

Yu Mie waved his hand and said, "We are all family, why do we have to do this?"

There are many branches of the Yingchuan Yu family. Take his father Yu Gun's branch for example. Because they were away from home all year round, in recent years they even built a fort in Linlu Mountain in Ji County, where they cultivated their own crops. They became much more alienated from their hometown, and many descendants didn't even recognize them.

But things in the world are so wonderful. Because of Shao Xun, their branch has more frequent interactions with their original family and their relationship has become closer.

This is not a bad thing. Yu Mie also wants to return to his family, although his father would rather spend the rest of his life in the mountains.

A moment later, the people coming from the west had arrived outside the fort.

Yu Mie and Yu Liang looked around and saw a troop of about 5,000 people.

Walking in the front were more than two thousand iron-armored warriors.

They carried heavy swords, crossbows on their backs, and led war horses covered with sackcloth, and chased in the direction the bandits fled.

The Long Sword Army! The brave warriors under Lord Chen's command, with strong fighting power.

Yu Liang breathed a sigh of relief, the battle was won.

(End of this chapter)