Chapter 301 A Funny Beginning

Chapter 301 A Funny Beginning

Chapter 301 A Funny Beginning

"In May, Shi Le attacked Ji County and captured the governor Hu Chong. He then crossed the Yellow River to the south. Pei Chun, the governor of Xingyang, fled to Jianye. Strong winds broke trees. Earthquakes occurred. Locusts ate grass and trees in six states, including You, Bing, Si, Ji, Qin, and Yong. The hair of cattle and horses was completely gone."

Of course, the above is what happened in history, and the current time and space has changed a lot.

But details can be changed, but the fundamental strategy does not have the decisive force to overturn it, such as the Huns' attack on Luoyang.

After last year's failure, this year their main tactic was to cut off the food supply to Luoyang. This was an important reason why Shi Le went south in history.

He succeeded, and Luoyang fell into a severe famine. Sima Yue was forced to lead his troops to garrison the outer vassal states to relieve the food pressure in Luoyang. However, Luoyang, which was short of soldiers and generals, still fell in the early summer of the following year. The Xiongnu even took it with only 40,000 troops, less than one-third of the first force.

Their tactics were successful.

But when Shao Xun saw Yang Bao returning to Ao Cang with an empty boat, he was confused again.

So the Xiongnu completely ignored the grain transport? That's not right.

If you continue like this, when I have shipped shiploads of grain back to Luoyang, it will be of no use for you to come again this year.

The imperial guards still have more than 26,000 infantry and cavalry. If they temporarily recruit able-bodied peasant soldiers, it will be no problem to gather 40,000 to 50,000 people.

These people are certainly not good at field combat, but what can you do if they defend the city?
Shao Xun even thought at one point that the Huns might have given up.

Otherwise, how do you explain that they haven't taken any action on the water transport nodes so far?

No one attacked Junyi, which was guarded by the beggar general Chen Wu.

No one attacked Guandu City which was guarded by the Yamen Army.

No one attacked Ao Cang City where a large number of troops and ships were concentrated.

No one attacked Licheng where the Yicong army was stationed.

No one even entered the Luoyang Basin to harass the water transport nodes such as Gongxian and Yanshi, and there was no sign of building a pontoon bridge to cross the river to the south.

What a bird fight!
Since he didn't know what they were doing, Shao Xun decided to take the initiative and take the main force of the Silver Spear Army and all the movable cavalry - including his personal soldiers, there were almost a thousand cavalry - to the north across the Bian Canal, first to Yangwu, and then send Dongyan and Baima to attack Wang Mi's troops.

This tactic is called "startling the snake by striking the grass", which means to expose the enemy's tactical intentions.

Some things cannot be guessed. The only way is to take the initiative, mobilize the enemy, and then analyze them from the clues to draw relatively reliable conclusions.

He now even suspected that Shi Le and Wang Mi had disobeyed orders and failed to comply with the overall strategy of the Liu Han court.

But this kind of disobedience has its limits. The two of them are still unable to break away from the Liu Han court and have no ability to be independent. This situation cannot last long.

When the furious Liu Cong issued orders one after another, they would eventually be unable to withstand the tremendous pressure and get back on track.

Let’s see who can consume more!

But just after starting out, he was forced to stop...

The overwhelming swarms of locusts have become a common sight in Henan.

They were green at first, and birds, chickens and ducks ate them happily. But when the locusts gathered together and met each other, they began to become ferocious and violent because of the competition for food, and their body color changed from green to brown.

As a result, swarms of locusts began to take off and "move" to various places.

There is no way to deal with the locusts that have taken off. Their bodies contain toxins, and even their natural enemies will be mildly poisoned if they eat them.

It’s okay if a few people eat a little, but if you eat too much, you’ll have to take care of yourself.

"Man Yu, Gao Yi, you two send out the cavalry and keep watch from a distance. Come back and report immediately if there is any situation. The rest of you should rush to harvest the wheat." Shao Xun gave the order as he looked at the locusts that were gradually increasing in number.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether people are sent or not. Such a severe locust plague may be rare in history, and it has reached the point where it hinders people’s travel.

As far as he could remember, the only time people and horses couldn't travel was during the Yuan Dynasty.

"In May, locusts covered the sky in Shandong, Hedong, Henan, Guanzhong and other places. People and horses could not move, and the ditches and trenches were flattened."

"All the crops and grass have been eaten. The sun is blocked everywhere, and people and horses cannot move forward. The pits and trenches are filled."

This shitty world!
Shao Xun sighed, put down his butcher knife, picked up his sickle, and went into the fields despite the locusts.

Xingyang was a county under Sizhou. When Wang Yan pushed for winter wheat planting in the autumn of the year before last, Sizhou was not very enthusiastic, and there were not many farmers, forts, and manors planting it.

But when a severe drought struck, resulting in a large-scale reduction in spring-sown millet yields or even a total loss, many people woke up.

Then, without anyone urging, at least 40% to 50% of the farmland was planted with winter wheat last autumn, and the harvest began one after another after May.

A few days ago, the earliest batch of wheat had even been harvested and dried.

In recent days, some farmland has started harvesting.

Shao Xun never thought that one day the war would be interrupted by a severe locust plague.

There are so many surprises in this war!
******
Kui An took off his battle robe and carefully covered the back of his mount with it. He even felt that it was not enough, so he tore off some pieces of brocade that he had just looted and carefully covered the BMW with it.

But unexpectedly, the exquisite silk was also covered with locusts.

Kui An was stunned as the locusts even ate silk.

He raised his head and looked up at the sky again.

Swarms of locusts covered the sky and took off, swarming over farmlands, grasslands, and woods in search of anything edible.

To be honest, he had seen locust plagues before, but he had never seen one as severe as this one.

There are too many!
I don’t know about Hebei, but I guess it’s not much better, or even worse.

As a result of the locust swarms, all the millet seedlings planted in spring in Hebei and Yuzhou were destroyed!

food!

Kui An was suddenly shocked. The most important thing now is food. Whoever can occupy more food can survive!

The sound of horse hooves in the distance.

Kui An looked through the dense swarm of locusts and saw that they were his own cavalry.

There were many locusts on the horse's body, and it raised its hooves nervously, and even threw the person off.

What a beast! You even eat horse hair! What a beast! Kui An was so angry that he grabbed two locusts and tried to stuff them into his mouth.

"General, you can't eat it." The soldiers quickly grabbed his hand and advised: "You will get sick."

"Get lost!" Kui An cursed, "I heard someone tell a story about Yuan Shu in Shouchun before, and it mentioned that the people were starving and poor, and they ate mulberries and locusts as dry rice. Is that true?"

"General, you really can't eat it." The general wiped his face, pulled off a locust, and said, "This thing is green at first, it can be eaten. If it turns brown, it can't be eaten. If you are really hungry and force yourself to eat it, it's best to steam it before eating, but eating too much will still make you sick."

"I'll eat it!" Kui An glanced at the two locusts still struggling in his palm, quietly threw one away, stuffed the other into his mouth, and began to chew it. While eating, he said, "I've even eaten fucking human flesh, so why can't I eat locusts?"

The general was speechless.

According to legend, locusts can be eaten while they are on the ground, but once they change color and take off in swarms, they must not be eaten unless they are about to starve to death.

After eating the locusts, Kui An suppressed his nausea and looked at the two people following the general. He asked curiously, "Aren't you two following Tao Bao? Why are you back with injuries?"

"General Tao led his troops to Meng County, but was attacked by the Qihuo commanders Wang Ping and Qi Ji, and was defeated for a while. He sent me here to inform you."

"Is Tao Bao a waste? He has three thousand cavalry, but can't defeat Wang Ping and Qi Ji?" Kui An scolded.

"General, look at these locusts all over the sky, whose horse can run?" The visitor said aggrievedly, "When the horses and draft animals were agitated, the beggars rushed out from the fort, and our army was defeated, with more than 3,000 casualties."

Kui An was speechless and didn't know what to say for a moment.

This is like when two armies are facing each other, and a sandstorm suddenly blows up, causing the disadvantaged side to become restless and be taken advantage of.

This battle is fought!

"General, we can't graze horses outside. Food is of vital importance. We must get it as soon as possible." The general stepped forward and reminded.

Kui An was even more speechless.

Today is not the same as it was decades ago, or even ten years ago.

There are fewer and fewer villages, but more and more earthen walls, fortresses and even large docks. The trend of people living in docks is very obvious.

If several thousand cavalrymen could not graze in the wild while marching south, the consumption would be too great when food was extremely scarce.

Then, they could only attack the fortress wall to obtain food - this was why they had to take the infantry south.

Small earthen forts with dozens or hundreds of households were easy to capture, and even without fighting, the cavalry could just circle around and scare the swarms to get food. But they were too small to quench their thirst.

If it is a large fortress, tens of thousands of cavalry may be able to scare them and make them voluntarily hand over food, but thousands of cavalry should go to bed as soon as possible. He is sure that you cannot capture his own fortress, or thinks that you are reluctant to use precious cavalry to attack the city, so he will not pay attention to you at all, and you must use infantry.

Thinking of this, Kui An became more and more irritated.

He found that this battle was far from what he had planned before setting out.

He even felt that after the locust plague, the commanders of the fortresses were even more unwilling to give in. Every grain of food was very precious. To take their food was to take their lives.

In short, it's not as easy to talk to as before.

He was kind of thinking about retreating.

Shao Xun is so lucky, your mother is a servant! This battle is so frustrating!
******
On the Guangchengze pasture, all livestock were driven into the pens and the doors and windows were closed to prevent locusts from getting in.

In the past, people had only heard of locusts eating plants and trees, but this was the first time they even ate livestock hair.

In fact, this is the first time in history that "all the hair of cattle and horses was gone", and the second time was in the first year of Zhenyuan in the Tang Dynasty (785), "wherever the locusts went, there was no grass or animal hair left, and the dead bodies of starving people lay on the road."

Every time the locusts gather, they become a little more irritable.

When they gather together more often and become extremely violent, they will not only eat livestock hair but even leather.

The ducks swimming on the Guangcheng Lake quacked and ate the locusts. They could resist a little bit of the polycyanate in the locusts - the lethal dose is 1mg/100kg - but they couldn't eat too much. It would be a big deal if a duck ate locusts a day.

Chen Yougen felt anxious as he looked at the civilians and soldiers who had been urgently mobilized.

They used many methods to kill locusts.

Like lighting a bonfire at night.

For example, digging trenches in the fields and then burying densely packed locusts.

For example, use a cloth curtain to build a fence along the wind.

But it seems to be just a drop in the bucket, better than nothing.

He saw with his own eyes that a wide and deep trench was dug, but it was soon filled with locusts.

God wants to kill someone!

Fortunately, the locusts in Guangcheng Lake flew in from somewhere else and arrived a few days later. Half of the ripe wheat in the field had been harvested, and although the loss was still very heavy, some grain had been harvested.

After sighing deeply, he took the urgently recruited soldiers and followers, covered his horse with sackcloth, and walked to Liang County to assemble.

There are a total of ten defense troops in the five counties of Liang, Yangcheng, Luyang and the southern edge of Guangcheng Lake. There are 3,000 soldiers on paper, but in reality only less than 2,600 can be mobilized.

Two thousand men had already been recruited. After receiving the news that Shi Le's troops were heading south, another five hundred were urgently recruited, almost all the men who could go into battle were transferred here.

The five counties of Changsha, Xuchang, Xiangcheng, Yangdi and Liang prepared some replacement horses and horse feed in advance.

Yesterday, Li Chong sent back an order to mobilize all the horses in Guangcheng Lake that could be used for transportation, and strive to ensure that each of the 2,500 soldiers has two horses.

He understood what Li Zhong meant.

With two horses per person and horse feed prepared in advance in various places, their rapid mobility will far exceed that of Shi Le's troops - he did not believe that Shi Le could make all the cavalry under his command ride two horses per person.

This time they really spared no expense. Even if a bunch of horses had to die or be broken, they were determined to capture Shi Le's soldiers and beat them up severely.

It’s a pity that the mission started off badly!

The overwhelming locusts greatly disrupted the rhythm of the government soldiers, making it impossible for them to gallop freely in Xiangcheng and Yingchuan areas and capture and annihilate Shi Le's infantry and cavalry.

Shi Le is so lucky, your mother is a slave! This battle is so frustrating!
As the sun set, Chen Yougen, with his soldiers and followers, headed towards Liang County, driving away the locusts that were flying around him, carrying a heavy sword and a crossbow, and leading a "fully armed" warhorse.

No one expected that the war would unfold in such a ridiculous way.

(End of this chapter)