The Sui Dynasty's chess game

Chapter 812 Garrison in Tamna
Xiao Xia nodded, "It's not impossible for you to go to war against Silla, but you need to be prepared to be stationed in Silla for a long time."

Luo Shixin said, "Your Majesty, I am still young and do not wish to retire so early. I still wish to serve Your Majesty and am willing to stay in Silla for a long time."

Xiao Xia walked to the wall, pulled back the curtain, and saw a map of the Andong Peninsula on the wall. The Andong Peninsula was the name given to it by the Sui Dynasty. The Andong Governor-General's Office was located in Pyongyang, and Li Luming was the third governor-general at the time.

Xiao Xia pointed at Silla with a wooden pole and said, "Silla is just the first step. My goal is to destroy Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo in a year. Now it's just the two of us. Let me tell you something: all the nobles of the three kingdoms, except for the women, will be executed. No matter how old or young, all the men will be executed. You may be branded as a butcher."

Luo Shixin nodded, "Your humble servant is not afraid of bearing the blame. For the sake of a century-long plan, we must nip it in the bud!"

Xiao Xia smiled. "But you can think of a way, for example, if the ship sinks due to a storm, do you understand what I mean?"

"Wei Chen understands!"

Xiao Xia then instructed, "During your tenure as governor, you must burn all the documents and archives of the Three Kingdoms. All scholars must be relocated to the Sui Dynasty. As long as the common people have enough to eat, they won't care what nationality they are. However, you must still implement a policy of replacing the population with Han Chinese over twenty years."

"Your Majesty's plans will be strictly implemented!"

The counterfeit money case has finally come to an end. All three hundred-plus people involved in the case have been beheaded, and most of them were from Silla.

But pulling up the radish also brought up the mud. In addition to uncovering the major case of counterfeit money in Silla, the Inner Guard also received a tip-off and cracked down on thirteen counterfeit money dens, seized more than 30,000 strings of counterfeit money, and arrested nearly two hundred counterfeiters, including craftsmen.

All of these counterfeiters were publicly executed, and their families were exiled to the frontier.

Time flies, and it was early spring in February of the following year. At this time, the ice and snow on the Western Sea Plateau had not yet melted, and Qin Qiong's army had not yet set off, but the south wind was strong at sea.

In early February, Luo Shixin led an army of 30,000 men, a navy of 20,000 men, and more than 200 civil officials, sailing in a grand procession on thousands of warships to Tamna Island.

Prior to this, General Yunhui and General Tianjingwei Fei Qingnu had already led 5,000 naval troops to Tamna Island, where they established shipping routes and military camps.

The Tianjing Guard is a naval force. Currently, the Grand General of the Tianjing Guard is still Lai Huer, but Lai Huer is in a semi-retired state. The Tianjing Guard is supported by four Tianjing Generals: Fei Qingnu, Lai Yuan, Zhou Shaofan, and Shen Guang, with a total of 50,000 naval troops and nearly 2,000 warships.

Tamna Island is today's Jeju Island. The island is high in the middle and low around the edges. It has been famous for growing rice and citrus since ancient times. The citrus produced there has thin skin, large size, juiciness and sweetness. It has always been popular in the Jiangnan region of the Sui Dynasty. However, people in Jiangnan did not know that there was a Tamna Island. They called this kind of citrus "Silla Orange", which actually has nothing to do with Silla.

That morning, Luo Shixin's army slowly arrived at Tamna Island. Tamna Island has several natural harbors, and the natural bay in the south can accommodate thousands of large ships. The sea is very calm and there are never any storms or waves.

Luo Shixin landed on the shore, where Fei Qingnu greeted him with thousands of troops. Fei Qingnu knelt on one knee and saluted, saying, "This humble servant greets the Great General!"

"General Fei, please rise. There's no need for such formalities!"

Fei Qingnu was also very senior. He had served as the Governor of Liaoxi, which was the Governor of the Liaodong Peninsula. His naval rank was second only to Lai Huer and Zhou Fashang. Although Luo Shixin was one rank higher than him, he was still very polite to him.

Luo Shixin looked at the large ship, where warhorses were being led off one by one, and asked again, "Is there any news from Silla?"

“There are some. I sent a merchant to Silla, and he came back and told me that Silla’s army is basically deployed in the north and west, totaling 60,000 troops, with 30,000 deployed on each side. There are no soldiers in the south. Their capital has some troops, about 10,000.”

"So, they have a total of 70,000 troops?"

"Almost there!" "Any other intelligence?" Luo Shixin asked again.

"There is also the small country of Silla, which has a strict hierarchy and implements a bone rank system, which is actually a ranking system. The Kim and Park families are the true bone rank, which is the highest rank. The other six families, Choi, Jeong, Lee, Seol, Bae, and Son, are mainly nobles and ministers, and the rest are ordinary commoners."

Luo Shixin had never cared about this social hierarchy before, but since the emperor gave him a secret mission, he began to pay attention to the nobility.

How many of these nobles are there?

"Several thousand people! They never intermarry with outsiders, so the noble population is small and prone to extinction."

"What about weapons and equipment?"

"Similar to Goguryeo, they only have spears, swords, and leather armor. Their combat strength is also average, slightly weaker than the Goguryeo people."

Luo Shixin nodded and then asked, "How much do you know about Baekje?"

Fei Qingnu laughed and said, "These three kingdoms are actually quite evenly matched. Goguryeo used to be the strongest, but after we completely defeated it, it has now become the weakest. Goguryeo had no choice but to join forces with Baekje to fight against Silla. It is said that Japan and Baekje have close ties, and pirates often harass Silla."

"How does this involve Japan?" Luo Shixin frowned.

Fei Qingnu laughed. As the naval commander, he was very familiar with the three small countries on the Andong Peninsula.

“Japan and Silla are very close, only three or four hundred miles by sea, with many large islands in between for supplies. Japan has always dreamed of occupying the Andong Peninsula. They tried every means to infiltrate the peninsula. Later, they established a very close relationship with Baekje. The royal families were related by marriage for generations. So when Baekje could not defeat Silla, it would ask Japan for help. This is what I just mentioned about pirates harassing Silla. In fact, it was a warning. Silla immediately stopped the war.”

"What if Baekje and Wa joined forces to destroy Silla?"

Fei Qingnu smiled faintly: "There will definitely be such a day. The Silla people themselves know this, but what they don't know is that the first to destroy them is the Sui Dynasty."

Tamna was a small country with a population of only four thousand, of which about nine hundred were able-bodied men and the rest were the elderly, women and children.

In an effort to increase the population, Tamna Kingdom desperately tried to have more children, but the birth rate was very low and the child mortality rate was very high. In addition, there was a lot of consanguineous marriage, and a woman would have seven or eight children in her lifetime, but only one or two would survive. Due to the lack of medical care and medicine and the scarcity of resources, the lifespan of ordinary people was mostly between thirty and forty years old. Those who lived to be over fifty were considered elders.

Women in Tamna liked to seek out Han Chinese merchants for offspring to ensure their children would grow up healthy. As a result, about half of the adult young men had Han Chinese ancestry.

In late December of last year, when Fei Qingnu led 5,000 troops to garrison Tamna Island, the people of Tamna were overjoyed. For them, everything else was secondary; population was the most important thing.

Currently, the leader of Tamna is a queen around forty years old. The royal family has no male heirs left, with only one daughter remaining. After the king's death, the daughter became queen.

The most critical issue is that the Queen currently has no children; both of her children died young. Now that the Queen is forty years old, it is impossible for her to have any more children. Once she dies, the royal family of Tamna will be completely extinct.

After the 50,000-strong army was stationed, Luo Shixin went to meet Queen Tamna.

(End of this chapter)