My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 448: Warm up with Su Puyan
In late October, there had already been two winter snowfalls on the Liaoxi grassland.

Now is just a few days after the second snowfall. The surface snow will melt again under the influence of sunlight and sea breeze, but the snow water that seeps into the ground will form frozen soil, which is estimated to melt only in the early spring of next year.

The Northeast of the Han Dynasty was naturally very cold. However, the Northeast is very large. The distance between Harbin and western Liaoning is more than 1,000 kilometers, so the winter temperature can naturally differ by more than 20 degrees.

In the western Liaoning region, because it is still a coastal area and is occasionally affected by warm and humid air currents from the sea, the snow that falls from the end of October to the beginning of November in the lunar calendar may still melt. After the middle of November, it basically will not melt.

During the days when the snow melts, the weather will be colder than when it snows, and the melting snow will absorb a lot of heat. After melting, the temperature will rise slightly, which is also slightly helpful for marching and fighting.

Moreover, because the snow water that seeps into the ground will not melt again, but will form permafrost, the geographical environment at this time is more conducive to the maneuver of large troops than in late autumn. In autumn, the water that seeps into the ground from the grassland cannot freeze, but will form mud, which can easily sink horses' hooves.

Originally in history, Cao Cao would attack the Wuhuan three years later. At that time, Cao Cao sent troops in autumn and encountered this problem during the march. In the end, it was Tian Chou's "not selling Lu Long" that showed him the way and he avoided those problems.

In this life, Zhuge Jin was well versed in weather and geography, and had also paid attention to these details. He found Tian Chou in advance, combined with the historical climate experience of the three counties of Youzhou, and made careful plans in a targeted manner.

I helped Zhao Yun design such a marching route and specially picked the right climate and timing for the attack, so in the end everything naturally came to fruition.

Zhao Yun's march was very smooth. He walked all the way to the grassland area in the northeast of Liaoxi County without encountering any unexpected difficulties. He had a smooth journey.

As a result, there were no accidents worth mentioning during the whole process. This can be regarded as the best doctor to cure the disease before it occurs and the best fighter to have no great achievements.

……

It was already October 22nd. Zhao Yun had led seven to eight thousand elite cavalrymen, each equipped with two horses, and with a small number of auxiliary soldiers such as grooms and cooks. They had been marching for six or seven days.

The first three days were spent marching inside the pass, where we could find places where Han people lived to rest for the night. The next three days were spent entirely on the grassland, where we could not find any ready-made accommodation.

There was no landmark on the map for last night’s campsite, it was just an unnamed grassland, but it was roughly located outside the Great Wall to the north of Liucheng.

In the early morning, Zhao Yun woke up in his simple felt tent. He glanced at the sky through the leaky gap, then stood up and casually brushed off the broken grass and water stains on his armor and jacket.

Zhao Yun did not have a separate tent. In this tent, which was less than two meters long and wide, there were seven or eight personal soldiers and two deputy generals. There were several felts on the ground, and people basically slept next to each other at night. Even turning over might crush comrades.

The height of the tent is also very low. To get to the center of the tent where the two thin wooden pillars are supporting it, you have to bend down.

As for the "beds" that have no support at the edges, the felt cloth that serves as the tent wall may cover your face when you lie down to sleep. You have to sleep on your side to avoid this, or simply lean your knees and elbows against the tent wall to relax at night.

The conditions were so difficult that they naturally wanted to reduce the logistical pressure of this raid as much as possible, bring less unnecessary items, and increase the suddenness of the attack.

As the main general, Zhao Yun's conditions were better than those of ordinary soldiers. Although they lived in the same place, he had auxiliary soldiers to serve him. When he got up, the auxiliary soldiers would help him fetch water and wash.

In the past two days, Zhao Yun had been washing with cold melted snow water. Today, when he put his hand into the soldier's iron helmet filled with water, he was slightly stunned because there was hot water.

"Where does the hot water come from? Wouldn't it be a waste to use it for washing?"

The auxiliary soldier who served him said quickly, "Our leader, Tian Juncheng, said that we are likely to encounter the enemy today, so we should let the brothers have warm food and drink. So we sent people to collect some dry grass last night, which can barely make a fire. The sheep we got when we passed through the territory of the Tadun tribe the day before yesterday can also be cooked."

While the auxiliary soldier was explaining, Zhao Yun had already washed his face and subconsciously wanted to take out some dried meat from his bag to eat.

After hearing this and realizing that it was Tian Chou's idea, he withdrew his hand and waited to eat the freshly cooked meat.

Tian Chou's current official position is Youbeiping County Magistrate. This position was given to him by Zhuge Jin in recent months in consideration of his hard work in connecting the three counties' Hu tribes with the imperial court for trade.

Before going into battle this time, Zhao Yun needed a guide to accompany the army, who would be responsible for surveying the weather, geography, and roads, so he asked Zhuge Jin for permission, and temporarily gave Tian Chou an additional title of military officer.

At this moment, Zhao Yun was thinking to himself: "Thanks to the fact that we are going out in early winter, we can still gather some dry grass to make a fire. If it was a month or two earlier, the grass on the grassland would not have dried up yet and would be full of moisture. I am afraid it would be difficult to find fuel and I would have to eat raw and cold food all the time."

Several years ago, Zhuge Jin required Liu Bei's army to strictly implement the military hygiene management system and avoid drinking raw water if possible, in order to prevent the outbreak of plague in the army to the greatest extent possible.

This kind of requirement can at least be implemented in the southern interior where supplies are abundant.

When we got to the grassland, we couldn't find any trees to chop wood, and there was no crop straw from the farmers, so we could only rely on dry grass as fuel.

It is inevitable that we will suffer a little more in these details during this battle.

After a while, the auxiliary soldiers brought Zhao Yun a helmet of boiled mutton with hot soup, and other soldiers in the same tent also went out to get the meat.

Because water was precious, the sheep were simply slaughtered, cleaned of their dirt, and then cooked.

As for the operation of slowly soaking until the blood is fully extracted, it is definitely impossible in the grassland army. If the large pieces of sheep carcasses are not soaked in blood or blanched, they will produce a huge amount of blood foam when directly cooked, and there are no cooks to skim off the foam, so they are directly distributed to the soldiers.

But no one, including Zhao Yun himself, showed any disgust for the inch-thick fishy and bloody foam on the surface of the mutton soup. They all drank it up without leaving any.

There were no spices to suppress the odor in the broth, only salt and lamb, and there were no wild chive flowers to be found in this season.

It is so difficult to march lightly on the grassland. Being able to drink smelly hot mutton soup is a rare enjoyment. At least it is much better than eating cold and hard jerky.

After eating and drinking, most of the soldiers did not have enough clean water to wash their helmets, so they just grabbed some dry grass to scrape the inside of the helmets clean and then put them back on their heads.

Only senior generals like Zhao Yun could enjoy the treatment of washing their helmets with cold water before wearing them.

After the troops were ready, they mounted their horses and formed up in battle array. Zhao Yun was also in high spirits and made a final inspection, shouting out orders to boost morale:
"Soldiers, General Tian has already found the road. We may encounter the outer camp of the Subuyan tribe today! At this time, the Subuyan people must be camping along the Wuliao River. We only need to rush to the Wuliao River and march along the river to find the enemy!

Everyone cheer up! If we fight well in this battle, we will be able to enjoy the camp of the Subuyan tribe, with enough cattle, sheep, firewood, and clean water!"

All the soldiers shouted in unison, and the cold seemed to be dispelled a little. Zhao Yun then pointed his spear and ordered the troops to continue moving forward.

The horse's hooves galloped on the semi-frozen soil mottled with dead grass, and the wind whistled past. However, Zhao Yun did not feel the cold was unbearable, but was quite satisfied with the cold-proof effect of his equipment.

Not everyone in their army wears iron armor. Only the heavy cavalry responsible for charging and killing are equipped with iron armor, while the archers who are purely for harassment and fighting are equipped with light armor, so as to ensure that the horses are not too loaded.

Even the heavy cavalry would not wear armor when marching. Instead, they would tie up their armor and carry it on the backs of spare horses.

At this moment, Zhao Yun was also wearing a double-layer jacket similar to leather armor, which had a very good warmth-keeping effect.

The outer layer of the coat is freshly tanned sheepskin, which is more flexible than the coats made of raw leather by the Hu people, and can be preserved for a longer period of time. The lining of the coat is cooked silk satin. Of course, if it is a leather coat for ordinary soldiers, the lining is cheap raw silk coarse cloth.

The filling material between the inner and outer layers is wool that has been washed, cleaned, and then dried. When Zhuge Jin asked the military tailors to make this batch of padded jackets, he initially thought of filling them with cotton. Unfortunately, cotton was not yet popular at that time, and even the ornamental crop "white floribunda" could not be found in many pots. So he had to give up and finally used dried and fluffy wool instead.

The warmth-retaining effect of wool as a filling is definitely no worse than that of cotton. It’s just that wool, as an animal protein product, costs much more than plant cellulose products.

To produce the same amount of wool and cotton, the land area required can differ by 10 to 20 times. The amount of cotton grown on one acre of land is equivalent to the wool sheared from sheep raised on more than 10 acres of grassland.

However, current conditions do not allow for cotton production. In addition, Yuyang Border City has received a lot of wool this year, but the wool textile industry has not yet started construction. It is a good opportunity to divert some of the wool and accumulate technology for the future mass production of cotton-padded jackets.

There was no such thing as a cotton-padded jacket in China before. Even if cotton is available in the future, it will take time for tailors to adapt to this craft. This year, we will practice with wool filling and train a group of tailors, which can be regarded as making up for the shortcomings in technology and skills in advance.

Zhao Yun and his troops were also the first beneficiaries of the "wool jacket". If they did not have such equipment, they would definitely be frozen by the strong wind when traveling on the grassland in early winter in October.

Now, Zhao Yun is very sure that this jacket is more cold-resistant than a coat made of woolen sheepskin. Although Zhao Yun does not understand the principle, he does not know that this is because "the area filled with wool in the interlayer no longer has air circulation, which can better keep heat from dissipating."

Zhao Yun's cavalry marched in this way, and in just half a day, they finally arrived at their target, the Wu Liao River.

As soon as he arrived at the river, Tian Chou hurriedly determined the direction by looking at the sun and estimating the time, then observed the direction of the river flow, and then advised Zhao Yun to search downstream along the river.

"General Zhao, our journey these past few days should have been a little to the north, and our current location is further upstream than initially expected. As long as we search downstream along the river, we will definitely encounter the Su Puyan tribe.

Every early winter, the Subuyan tribe would camp along the rivers, including the tributaries of the Wuliao River, to obtain water during the dry season. We came from the grassland in a roundabout way and did not encounter any enemies along the way. Subuyan certainly would not have expected that we Han people could march like this."

Zhao Yun nodded and said, "Okay, let's do as you say. We will search along the river. However, the troops are already exhausted from the journey, so let's take advantage of the hot midday weather to let the soldiers rest for an hour or two, and let the auxiliary soldiers take river water to kill and cook a batch of sheep."

Zhao Yun was very cautious, as he knew that if he continued chasing he might encounter the enemy at any time. After walking for half a day, he quickly replenished his strength and ate a hot meal of meat to boost morale.

In the early winter, you can sleep in the sun without setting up a tent, which can save a lot of trouble. If you wait until night, you have to set up a tent, otherwise you may freeze to death or get hurt.

Since it is time for battle, Zhao Yun must take even these details into consideration in order to have a greater chance of winning.

……

That evening, in a camp somewhere on the middle reaches of the Wuliao River.

The chief of the Subuyan tribe, Subuyan himself, was in a large tent with earthen walls, wooden pillars and a thick tarpaulin roof. He was drinking and having sex with two captured Han women, without any sense of defense at all.

"Come on, my beauty, have another drink with me. If you behave yourself, your family won't have to herd horses tomorrow, and they can have mutton for every meal!"

The Han woman must have been captured not long ago, and she was still somewhat resistant. But if she hesitated for a moment, Su Puyan would change his expression and threaten to severely punish her family, so the woman had no choice but to continue drinking.

The other woman next to him was a little smarter. In order to avoid being humiliated, she reminded him, "I heard that you have offended the Han government in Youzhou because of Gongsun Du. You should be more alert recently and pay more attention to military affairs.

"My Lord, how dare I disobey you? But if I make mistakes and get blamed by others, I can't afford to be blamed."

(Note: During the Han Dynasty, Han people would not call their elders "Sir", but the Hu people on the grasslands had such a tradition. Generally, tribal chiefs could be called Sir, so it is not a Ming and Qing Dynasty title that has traveled through time.)

Upon hearing this, Su Puyan looked a little disappointed and said, "What is there to worry about? Zhao Yun is indeed brave and powerful, but Cao Cao has sent Zhang He to guard the Yishui River with heavy troops. How dare Zhao Yun act rashly and risk a war between the two sides?

Besides, if it was July or August, I would still be more cautious. But now it has snowed, and the Han people are not familiar with geography, do not know the roads, and it is difficult to transport baggage. How can they come and go as fast as us grassland people?
I have assigned tribes to monitor the road from the Wuliao River downstream for hundreds of miles to the Liaoxi County Pass! If the Han people dare to leave the Liaoxi Yangle County, I will know immediately!"

Su Puyan originally didn't want to say so much. What could he explain to a slave girl who was captured to warm the bed?
He was also feeling a little guilty, so after he started talking, partly to comfort himself, he talked more and more.

In the end, I finally put those annoying thoughts behind me, regained my interest, and focused on the trivial things on the bed.

In the end, the two beautiful maids were unable to divert attention and avoid Su Puyan's ravages by their verbal attacks.

Su Puyan shouted loudly and fought fiercely for half the night, making the two slaves faint. Then he also shouted loudly and fell into a deep sleep.

As the saying goes, what goes up goes down. In the past half month or so, the people at the top have become more and more lax, thinking that the dangerous period of this year has passed. Naturally, the middle and lower-level officers and leaders of the various departments below are not much better.

Some were drinking, some were sleeping, and none of them felt there was any danger to be wary of.

(End of this chapter)