My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 467 This place can grow vegetables, of course it belongs to the Han people

The second day of the third month, the tenth year of Jian'an.

On the west coast of Han Lelang County, along the coast of the unknown Ongjin Peninsula.

Hundreds of ships with flags flying and sails fluttering, carrying 20,000 naval troops, appeared on the surface of the Yellow Sea in a mighty force.

The largest sand ship-type warship has a tonnage of 600 tons and is also the strongest flat-bottomed sand ship built by Liu Bei's camp in recent years.

The ship floated up and down in the Yellow Sea with the undercurrents. On the top of the mast was a large flag with the word "Zhou" on it. It was two meters square and the words on it could be vaguely seen from more than ten miles away. It was very intimidating.

There is no doubt that this fleet was Zhou Yu's troops. They received Liu Bei's military order conveyed by Zhuge Jin in late February, and then made some preparations in Dashi County. They first sailed south to Donglai, replenished some food, and then headed straight east to cross the sea and arrived at the Korean Peninsula.

Zhou Yu personally stood on the lookout of the mast, holding a copper-tube telescope polished with crystal from Donghai County in his hand. He looked to the northeast and then to the southeast, and a heroic feeling suddenly rose in his heart.

"Only by following Brother Ziyu to build a career can I live up to the reputation of a Han official. Back in Minyue, although I also rectified the barbarians and wiped out the Shanyue, it was ultimately a small-scale operation. How could we build ships relying solely on the power of Jiangdong? How could we have such good ships? How could we expand the sea thousands of miles away and expand the territory of Han?

Lelang County was established during the reign of Emperor Xiaowu, and Daifang County was established by Gongsun Du. Since Gongsun Du could establish a new county in a desolate frontier area, why can't I, Zhou Yu?

"This Lelang area looks like it has mountains in the north and the roads are difficult to travel. But after passing the Lelang mountains and reaching Daifang, there are such flat and fertile plains, which should be cultivated and lived by us Han people! How can we leave it to Han Ye!"

Zhou Yu was alone in the lookout. Because the space was small and there was no one around, he looked around and muttered to himself. The sea breeze was so strong, and anyway, the people below would not hear him, so he would not be embarrassed.

In recent days, Zhou Yu had tried out the latitude navigation method that Zhuge Jin had taught him last time twice when he was crossing the Yellow Sea. He had made his navigation skills more and more proficient in practice. It was also a way to overcome his inner demons and improve his courage in naval battles and leading fleets.

After all, few people dared to aim at a constant north-south direction, heading east or west into the deep sea without looking back. Most people would be worried about deviation, and they would be scared if they could not see any land in the vast ocean for several days.

Previously, only Bu Zhi and Lu Yi had done such a straight-line voyage of more than 500 miles across the sea when they were looking for the Linyi Kingdom in the South China Sea. In the Yellow Sea, this was Zhou Yu's first time.

In addition to gaining a lot of sailing experience and courage, this cross-sea march also enriched Zhou Yu's geographical knowledge, which gave rise to the heroic ambition he had just now.

It turned out that in Zhou Yu's own imagination, he felt that the land of Liaodong, and further east were vast mountains, all inhabited by barbarians, with the land worthless, and only some Buyeo people who made a living by fishing and hunting in the mountains.

However, after personally circling along the coastline, Zhou Yu discovered that the geography of Lelang and Daifang was just as his brother-in-law Zhuge Jin had told him. After passing the "Changbai Mountain" where the Buyeo fishing and hunting tribes lived, there were countless flat river alluvial plains. The land was as fertile as that in the Central Plains, and the cold and hot weather in the north and south was similar to that in Qingxu.

At this moment, his fleet was located at the Ongjin Peninsula in later generations. This is the most westerly protruding area of the Korean Peninsula. There is a small concave bay on the north bank of the peninsula, which is the delta formed by the flow of the Paesui River (Taedong River) into the Yellow Sea. There is also a similar small concave bay on the south bank of the Ongjin Peninsula, which is the delta formed by the flow of the Daishui River (Han River) into the Yellow Sea.

This delta alluvial plain terrain is naturally the most fertile agricultural area. When Zhou Yu's fleet sailed along the coast, they could see green rice and wheat seedlings on the shore, just like the Qingxu area in the Central Plains.

How can such good land be left to the barbarians! The barbarians only deserve those rotten lands that can only be used for fishing, hunting and herding sheep!
This place can be used to grow vegetables, so of course it belongs to the Han people!
He came down from the mast contentedly. The two lieutenants, Xu Sheng and Jiang Qin, who were on the same ship, were already waiting by the side. They also knew that they were about to land, so they were waiting for Zhou Yu's order.

Because there were no signs of enemies on the shore, the atmosphere on the battleship deck was very relaxed. Jiang Qin, who was born a river thief and had little education, could not help but ask Zhou Yu:
"General, how did the princes know that Lelang and Daifang also have such fertile fields that stretch as far as the eye can see? They encouraged us to expand the territory for the court. When I went to Liaodong with you and fought for more than a month, I thought that from Xiangping to the east, it was all mountains and dense forests."

Zhou Yu heard this, his face showed a little bit of arrogance, and he said as a matter of course: "I told you to read some books, but you refused to listen. Although the situation of the Dongyi tribes was not described in detail in the "Book of Han", there must be notes by other ancient people, perhaps in the "Dongguan Hanji" of this dynasty.

How much has the prince read? Is there anything in the world that he doesn't know? Thanks to our good advice, we didn't underestimate the remote and dangerous land of Dongyi. In the future, we will gain a piece of fertile land for the Han Dynasty, which will surely go down in history. The enemy in this battle is not expected to be strong. The garrison left by Gongsun Kang is probably undernumbered. If not now, when will we make a contribution? "

After hearing this, Xu Sheng and Jiang Qin's enthusiasm for making achievements was also aroused. Zhou Yu struck while the iron was hot and assigned combat tasks: "Xu Sheng, Jiang Qin, listen to my orders!"

Xu Sheng and Jiang Qin: "I am here!"

Zhou Yu: "Xu Sheng, you take 5,000 men and land on the south bank of the Peishui River estuary ahead, and conquer various counties along the way. If the enemy dares to attack, you can retreat to the riverside and I will support you.

Jiang Qin, you take 5,000 men and 80 warships and sail southeast into Daishui. If any county along the river is willing to surrender, you can garrison there with 1,000 men per county. When your force is less than 3,000, you can stop advancing and stay where you are, waiting for Xu Sheng and I to advance.

I will take the remaining 10,000 people with me and go up along the Pei River to Chaoxian County. This is the seat of Lelang County, and the main force of the garrison left by Gongsun Kang must be here. "

Xu Sheng and Jiang Qin: "Yes! I will obey your orders!"

Zhou Yu waved his hand, and the fleet divided itself up and advanced in unison in a very ostentatious manner.

He originally wanted to be more cautious, but after sailing to the east coast of the Yellow Sea, he did not see any strong enemies on the shore for a day or two, and there was no navy to intercept him. This made him have a new assessment of the enemy situation, thinking that the enemy should be very weak and he could advance more aggressively.

As expected, in the rest of the day, Xu Sheng and Jiang Qin each made smooth progress. After Xu Sheng landed, he advanced ashore for dozens of miles and encountered two coastal counties, Changcen County and Zhaoming County, which were easily captured.

There were only a few hundred local soldiers, many of whom were native soldiers of Han and Ye, with low combat effectiveness. The weapons used by these local soldiers were similar to those of the Central Plains army, all of which were swords, spears, bows and crossbows. However, the rate of wearing armor was extremely low, only officers had leather armor, and ordinary soldiers wore coarse linen protective gear, and no iron armor was seen at all.

More importantly, the county town here does not have a proper city wall, but only a few bare rammed earth walls more than ten feet high. There are no parapets, battlements or other shelters on the top of the walls. They are just higher and equipped with wooden watchtowers for archers to shoot arrows from them.

As soon as they saw the Han army invading, the local soldiers went up to the tower and shot arrows. These Dongyi people were good archers and very accurate, but the material of their arrows was not good.

When Xu Sheng encountered resistance, he temporarily retreated to reorganize his troops and let the armored soldiers go first. The Dongyi native archers were frightened when they saw the armored soldiers and shot wildly, but they only shot the people like hedgehogs, but did not cause any casualties at all.

The armored soldiers, whose armor had dozens of arrows embedded in the surface, set up simple ladders and climbed up to the top of the wall. The Dongyi native archers collapsed and fled.

"Are these Han people human or ghost?! No matter how hard we shoot, they can't be killed?"

Xu Sheng launched a fierce attack and captured both county towns in one go.

"After fighting Cao Cao's elite troops for so long in the Central Plains, it's like I got my credit for nothing when I came to this barbarian land. It's a blessing that these barbarians dare to defend the city! Next time, we don't need to surround three sides and leave one behind. Just surround them from all four sides!"

Xu Sheng led his troops into the county government office and accepted the surrender of the local county magistrate, but he still felt a little unsatisfied and couldn't help but think to himself.

This battle was too unpleasant and unchallenging.

Lelang County had seven counties with more than 20,000 households. According to the Han system, only large counties with more than 5,000 households had county magistrates, while small counties with less than 5,000 households had only county heads.

On average, each county in Lelang had only more than 3,000 households, so six of the counties were not qualified to have a magistrate. Only the county with more than 5,000 households in Chaoxian County had a magistrate, which was called Pingrang in later generations.

Of these seven county towns, two are located on the coastal plain of the Ongjin Peninsula, three are located along the Peishui River, and the last two are located along the Peishui River (Yalu River) in the north and in the Changbai Mountain area.

Daifang County in the south now has only four counties, with a total of more than 20,000 households, two counties on each of the north and south banks of the Dai River, roughly equivalent to the Han River Plain in Seoul and Kaesong in later generations.

If the entire plain farming area along the Yellow Sea coast of the Chosun Peninsula is taken over, a total of 50,000 registered agricultural households will be added, as well as tens of thousands of unregistered fishing, hunting and animal husbandry natives in the surrounding area, which can be considered a significant boost.

If it were in the Central Plains, a county would probably have at least 100,000 households, and a large one could have hundreds of thousands. A county like Lelang and Daifang, where only 20,000 households were established, would only appear in extremely remote places.

Xu Sheng's progress was so smooth, so Zhou Yu and Jiang Qin's routes were certainly not challenging at all.

Jiang Qin only led 5,000 men, and with the threat of the news that "Gongsun Du was dead and Gongsun Gong had surrendered", he was able to capture most of Daifang County.

Haiming County, which was equivalent to Kaesong in later times, was captured after only a small-scale battle. The other two small counties upstream of the river, Tixi County and Hanzi County, did not even fight, but surrendered directly after being frightened.

The only thing left in Daifang Commandery was Daifang County (Hancheng), located on the south bank of the Dai River. It was garrisoned by Gongsun Kang's direct troops, and the Han troops from several surrounding counties were gathered together in advance in an attempt to hold out and wait and see.

Since Daifang County at least had a regular city wall, Jiang Qin's quick attack was ineffective, so he could only surround the city and slowly build siege weapons.

The situation along the route where Zhou Yu was in charge was similar. They basically advanced one county every two days, and only encountered fairly resolute resistance in Chaoxian County, the capital of Lelang Prefecture.

Chaoxian County was actually garrisoned by Bing Yuan, one of Gongsun Du's main staff members, and a famous scholar, and was also supported by several generals of the Gongsun family. Bing Yuan had a very high prestige in the northeast, and both the Hu and Han people were willing to serve him. As long as he refused to surrender, the city would be able to hold on.

When Zhou Yu heard that Bing Yuan was in the city, he was also confused. In his impression, shouldn't Bing Yuan stay in Xiangping? Why did he come here after not seeing him for several months? Could it be that Gongsun Kang took advantage of the fact that Liu Bei's army did not surround Xiangping in the winter and sent Bing Yuan to break out of Xiangping and come to Lelang in a big circle? But this place should not be that important.

Zhou Yu thought about it and decided not to commit more murders, so he ordered several ships to cross the sea and find some of Bing Yuan's friends to persuade them to surrender.

“Send a few ships to Donglai and Dashi respectively to pick up the two people, and then return as soon as possible.

I went to Donglai to look for the famous scholar Liu Zheng. I heard that Liu Zheng was also a famous scholar in Liaodong. He was hunted by Gongsun Du. Bing Yuan risked his life to protect him and then sent a ship to send him away from Liaodong to live in seclusion in Donglai to avoid disaster. I heard that the ship that sent Liu Zheng back to Donglai was still driven by Ziyi. Ziyi was the one who returned to Donglai from Liaodong that time, so we can be considered friends.

On the way to Dashi, I found another famous scholar from Liaodong, Guan Ning. Guan Ning and Bing Yuan are equally famous, and they have been friends for more than ten years. I must tell Guan Gong that it is not that I cannot conquer Chaoxian County, but I just don’t want to kill more people. In this remote place full of barbarians, if Bing Yuan and I fight, all the people who die are Han people, and it will lead to the barbarians becoming more powerful in the future. Why bother? "

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PS: There is nothing much to write about the Chaoxian Peninsula, so I will just go through it briefly. These places were all places that the Gongsun family had fought before, and they were already familiar territory, so there were not many scenes of integrating the Hu people and promoting Hanization, and the internal affairs scenes were not well written, so I won't write about them.

(End of this chapter)