My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 714 Let the Young People Try It First

Gan Ning received the most comprehensive logistical support from Zhang Yi, and the old soldiers under his command and the rest of Liu Zhang's former surrendered troops also had their equipment upgraded.

After more than half a month of emergency running-in and training, as well as rewards and emphasis on military discipline before the war, the troops were given both kindness and severity.

By mid-October, the coldness of early winter had completely replaced the rich autumn atmosphere, and the continuous autumn rains finally stopped.
The mountain road from Zhuti in the south of Qianwei County to Zangke County also recovered from its muddy state. The warm sun of early winter dried up the scattered water left by the autumn rain in just a few days, and the land became hard again.

The right time and right place all support Gan Ning's military operations, so there is no need to be polite.

On October 18, Gan Ning reviewed the troops for the last time in Zhuti County, checked for omissions and confirmed that the logistics and armaments were in good condition, and then announced the order to go to war.

This battle was mainly to train the surrendered former subordinates of Liu Zhang, so most of the generals accompanying the army were also surrendered generals under Liu Zhang.

Therefore, Gan Ning directly appointed Yan Yan as his deputy general, and some young surrendered generals who were still unknown as the backbone. As for Gan Ning's own old generals, he only brought Jiang Qin.

This was also to give them the opportunity to make meritorious contributions so that these former generals of Liu Zhang could be promoted.

If a general serves under Liu Bei, and the only reason he is promoted/appointed is because he surrenders to Liu Bei, then it will be difficult for such a person to display his talent as a general, and his morale will remain depressed.

They must be given a chance to prove themselves in foreign wars. This is also a truth that rulers who are good at employing people can easily think of.

It is just like in later generations, when troops surrendered from internal fighting in their own country, they had to be quickly pulled out to fight against foreign enemies such as the Japanese and the Americans. The originally disorganized and loose troops would immediately change their spirit.

As the military supervisor, Zhang Song also prepared a manifesto for this battle in advance, recounting the crimes of Zhu Bao, who had seized the territory of Zangke County, and his hypocrisy in the past decade against Liu Zhang and Liu Bei, the two rulers of Yizhou, and his refusal to obey the king.

However, due to Zhang Song's short stature and lack of ability to intimidate people far away, the task of reading the manifesto in public was entrusted to another young accompanying civil servant, Liu Yong from Lingling, and Zhang Song did not go on stage in person.

Liu Yong is now in his twenties and not very famous, but he looks pretty good, tall and a bit majestic. He and Jiang Wan are from the same hometown of Lingling. Liu Yong is a few years older than Jiang Wan. Historically, the two knew each other in their early years and followed Liu Bei into Sichuan together. After Liu Bei pacified Yizhou, he split Qianwei County and established Jiangyang County. Liu Yong was appointed to govern Jiangyang.

At this moment, Liu Yong, entrusted by Zhang Fujun, naturally did not dare to be negligent, and read with great passion and intonation.

The proclamation not only described the problems that Zhu Bao and others had been facing for many years, but also vividly added several of their latest crimes, mainly blocking the Qianzhong Road, intercepting and killing messengers and official merchants who were contacting local areas of the imperial court, etc.

After hearing this, the soldiers of the three armies were naturally very grateful and their morale was high.

After all, in order to motivate the troops to fight hard and make the local people support the government's use of troops, not only those old reasons that have lasted for more than ten years are needed, but also some fresh and explosive news.

Otherwise, people will become numb and habit will become natural. Zhu Bao, Yong Kai and others have been disobeying Liu Zhang and Liu Bei for more than ten years. Everyone will think, it's not the first day, why didn't they fight earlier or later, but now? Why can't they be patient and delay it now?
Therefore, a good declaration of war must cover both the long-term and short-term causes.

The remote cause is used to pave the way for the macro narrative, and the immediate cause is used to trigger emotional points and to add to the question of "why is it at this moment?"

The latest crimes of Zhu Bao mentioned in the manifesto written by Zhang Song this time were certainly not fabricated. They were all things he actually did, and this is absolutely true.

However, when it comes to specific details, it actually has some meaning of fishing, otherwise Zhu Bao would not have happened to fall into the trap.

The specific strategy of fishing was thought up by Liu Ba, who was still in Chengdu assisting Zhuge Liang in governing Shu and reforming the country. It was not written by Zhang Song. Zhang Song just wrote the relevant situation into the manifesto at the end.

Liu Ba was also from Lingling County. He was quite famous in the local area in his early years. Jiang Wan, Liu Yong and others from the same county were just "studious juniors" in front of Liu Ba. They had also visited this famous scholar many times, but they recognized Liu Ba, but Liu Ba was not familiar with them and could not remember so many young people.

In history, when war broke out in southern Jing, Liu Ba chose to take the Qianzhong Road to Sichuan to seek refuge with Liu Zhang. In this life, because Liu Bei's conquest of southern Jing was smoother and Liu Bei's reputation was better, Liu Ba tried to enter Sichuan but failed, so he stayed in Lingling and waited for Liu Bei to recruit him.

But just one attempt that year was enough to make Liu Ba realize that the Qianzhong Road was dangerous and difficult to travel in this era.

The geographical environment of Qiandi was extremely bad, with rugged mountains and rivers. After Zhu Bao and other forces took over the area, they refused to obey the king's will. The area was poor and lacked financial resources, so it was common for them to kill envoys and merchants passing by.

Because Liu Ba knew this, when Zhuge Liang was looking for a fuse to officially start a war, he suggested fishing, and in the end he caught something.

This is not to discredit Zhu Bao. Older and more knowledgeable readers in later generations know that, let alone 20 years ago, even in the 80s, foreign merchants carrying large sums of money to remote local areas to do business might have safety issues.

In this way, both the long-term and short-term causes of the war were present. Seeing that the morale of the army was good, Gan Ning thought, what was there to hesitate about?
After being fully reorganized, the troops immediately set out and quickly entered the territory of Zangke County, launching a quick attack on Zhu Bao.

……

Although the area of Zangke County was vast, roughly equivalent to half of the area of Guizhou Province in later times, it was remote, poor and dangerous, and there were no strong cities.

Moreover, the terrain where "there is no flat ground for more than three feet" does not require very high city walls. Most county towns rely on the natural terrain of the mountains, and adding a ten-foot-high wall is enough to ensure good defense.

Almost all tourists who travel to Qianzhong in later generations have heard the locals’ self-mockery: the largest plain in the province is the Longdongbao Airport in the provincial capital, and this is an artificial plain formed by flattening a bunch of hills.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, even the county seat of Qilan County had a wall that was only about 15 feet high and was made of pure red soil. Every year during the rainy season, when there were a few heavy rains, some loose holes would appear, which had to be filled in and repaired occasionally.

The rainy season in Qianzhong is concentrated in summer and autumn. Now it is early winter and the autumn rain has just ended.

Many red clay walls were eroded and had no time to be repaired during the winter farming season. Gan Ning took advantage of this critical moment to attack, further reducing the difficulty of the attack.

After Gan Ning entered Zangke from the Zhuti area, he quickly advanced along the Yanjiang River, passed through Pingyi, Yelang and other counties (roughly equivalent to today's Bijie, Liupanshui and other places), and quickly advanced to Zhu Bao's hinterland.

Zhu Bao was unable to organize any effective resistance in the outlying counties such as Yelang, and they were all easily captured by Gan Ning within a few days.

Zhu Bao claimed that he could gather 30,000 to 50,000 barbarian soldiers, but those were usually a combination of soldiers and farmers, and hunters, and were not regular reserve troops.

The southern barbarians are naturally fierce and unruly. The south is humid and hot, with abundant natural resources. The locals do not need to spend much time on farming, collecting wood and hunting, so they have plenty of free time. Once the chief/barbarian king calls for action, everyone can become a soldier.

The so-called thirty to fifty thousand barbarian soldiers were nothing more than the young and strong population in the county that Zhu Bao could gather and who were willing to obey his orders.

The peripheral counties such as Pingyi and Yelang have only about 3,000 to 4,000 young and strong people who can be mobilized, so their combat effectiveness is not very strong.

Gan Ning brought 18,000 regular troops into the country, but they crushed the enemy directly. There is nothing to elaborate on the process. What really caused trouble for Gan Ning was the difficulties of marching in the mountainous areas and logistical supplies.

Because the area of Zangke was too vast, after Gan Ning took over a county, he would definitely leave a small number of people to garrison.

What is more crucial is to leave soldiers to maintain the food supply route to prevent the southern barbarians who "transform into good people when they see the army coming, and turn back into bandits when the army leaves" from becoming jealous of the army's supplies and ready to steal them at any time.

Therefore, after advancing all the way, although Gan Ning's troops did not suffer much casualties, they left one or two thousand men in each place to protect the grain route. When they arrived east of Yelang, the main force available for attack was reduced to about 12,000 men.

……

Gan Ning captured two counties and successfully advanced into the heart of Zangke County, which was enough to shock Zhu Bao who was in Qilan County.

Qilan County was located near the eastern border of Zangke County, and Gan Ning attacked from west to east along the later Liupanshui River, so a slightly slow reaction speed was inevitable.

Facing a powerful enemy, Zhu Bao's first reaction was naturally to be shocked, and then he summoned his trusted generals and chieftains to discuss countermeasures. In order to establish his authority, Zhu Bao first officially raised the flag of rebellion, and the first thing he did was to kill the nominal governor of Zangke County appointed by Liu Zhang. He directly promoted himself as the governor on the spot.

Over the past decade, Zhu Bao has been in power in Zangke, and the governor sent by Liu Zhang is just a puppet, for the sake of appearance, to show that he has unified the whole Yizhou. After Liu Bei came, he did not change Liu Zhang's appointment, but directly recognized all the old vested rights of the original Nanzhong local officials.

So this prefect who didn't deserve a name could be killed, as he was not a member of Liu Bei's faction.

After killing the governor and establishing himself as emperor, Zhu Bao immediately declared passionately:

"Zhuge Village Man is really despicable and shameless! Now it seems that those fat sheep merchant caravans last month were deliberately released by them for us to rob and kill in order to provoke a war! They just robbed a few merchant caravans transporting steel, Shu brocade and salt. If it were in previous years, there would be no need to mobilize troops for this!

Besides, those merchants didn't claim to be officials and merchants at the beginning. Who knows that they were directly run by the salt and iron officials sent by Zhuge Cunfu! Everyone, at this critical moment, all departments must work together to fight the enemy.
Otherwise, we, the Zangke tribes, will never be able to live peacefully again. We will have to pay tribute to Zhuge the Village Man and have our children serve as soldiers for the Han people!"

Faced with Zhu Bao's pre-war mobilization, the chiefs of various tribes did not openly oppose it.

After all, Zhu Bao had accumulated power for more than ten years, and everyone was worried that if they jumped out now, they would be the first to be criticized, like the late prefect, whose head was hung directly at the gate of the government office.

After everyone whispered for a while, Zhu Bao asked them how to fight this battle. After a brief discussion, everyone ruled out the option of defending the city to the death.

"My Lord, I heard that after Gan Ning entered the country, he stationed troops at various places along the way. I'm sure the main force will become weaker and weaker. Why don't we seize the opportunity and find a place with dangerous mountains and take the initiative to fight him before he arrives in Qie Lan or even Guang Tan!
If the situation is delayed for too long, and Gan Ning clears out the rear areas, he won't need to keep so many people to protect the food supply route, and the number of troops available for the decisive battle on the front line may increase instead of decrease."

Zhu Bao was a native of Nanman and had no strategy, but after listening to it, he was easily persuaded and felt that it made some sense.

But soon, another relatively timid tribal chieftain advised him: "Although Gan Ning's troops have temporarily become fewer, I heard that they are extremely elite and their weapons and armor are also very sophisticated. Previously, our defenders in Yelang and other places were completely unable to stop Gan Ning.

If we hastily engage in a decisive battle with them, we may lose. It is better to continue to defend the city and clear the fields, so that Gan Ning will go deeper and deeper, exhausted and hungry. Moreover, we are familiar with the terrain, so we can divide our forces to go around and concentrate on attacking Gan Ning's food supply route.

Gan Ning's rear troops left along the way may be able to hold off the scattered tribes, but they are definitely unable to stop part of our main force from intercepting us. As long as his food supply is unstable, it won't be too late to fight him then!"

Zhu Bao had no opinion of his own and after hearing these views, he soon wavered. Thinking that this was a safer approach, he nodded.

Seeing that persuasion was ineffective, the quick-war faction shook their heads. The various factions quarreled with each other, causing chaos for a while. Zhu Bao could only use force to suppress one of the factions and force them to carry out this order.

"I have made up my mind. Although Gan Ning's main force is increasingly dispersed, we still cannot underestimate the enemy. We should first use the advantage that our army is more familiar with the terrain and more suitable for raiding in mountainous areas, and separate a part of the main force to intercept Gan Ning's food supply route!"

After deciding on the strategy, Zhu Bao had to select officers to carry out the task of dividing the troops and cutting off the food supply.

However, the tribal chiefs either felt that they were unreliable and wanted to avoid fighting and were unwilling to accept the important task, or they were not trusted by Zhu Bao and were afraid that something unexpected would happen after they were sent out.

After much pushing and pulling, Zhu Bao had no choice but to ask his eldest son Zhu Wen to divide more than 10,000 troops to carry out this task.

Before leaving, Zhu Bao personally instructed: "Gan Ning came from the west. Before reaching Yelang County, he could use the Yanjiang River (Liupanshui) to transport grain. After reaching Yelang County, he needed to use oxen and horses to transport grain over the mountains to Guangtan County (Anshun).

Our army can divide its troops and go around the mountains from the south, set up an ambush in the remote mountain area east of Yelang County, cut off Gan Ning's food supply, annihilate part of the enemy's grain protection army, and shake the morale of their entire army. Then, you and I can join forces to fight Gan Ning again! Only then can we win a complete victory!"

Zhu Wen naturally would not question his father's orders.

Soon, a detachment of more than 10,000 people, all of whom were young and strong men from the headquarters who were temporarily recruited as soldiers, were assembled. They took simple weapons and went south along the mountain road to carry out this task.

The main forces of both sides were naturally still advancing and retreating on the front battlefield, and delaying among the mountains.

Given the complex terrain of Qianzhong Road, it would be very difficult for Zhu Bao to defeat Gan Ning head-on, but it would be very easy to hold Gan Ning back for ten days or half a month. He thought he could easily buy an opportunity for his son to take action.

……

Zhu Wen followed his father's orders and headed south, winding his way over the mountains and heading towards the key mountain road between Yelang County and Guangtan County.

Because the southwest is remote, the distance between these two neighboring counties is nearly 200 miles (now Liupanshui is about 100 kilometers away from Anshun, and a county in Qian during the Eastern Han Dynasty was basically equivalent to the area of a prefecture-level city in later generations)
Therefore, there are large areas of barren mountains between counties with complex terrain. Except for the main mountain roads, the surrounding areas are even uninhabited.

Zhu Wen marched for several days and had clearly arrived at the destination, but he could not find Gan Ning's grain escort team for a while - Gan Ning's army did not need grain transportation all the time. It was every three to five days, or even six to seven days, for an army to pass by to escort grain.

So Zhu Wen stayed in the mountains for three days before he finally found a target.

It was also thanks to the fact that he brought local soldiers from the Southern Barbarians, who were very capable of carrying heavy loads and climbing mountains. They had enough dry food with them and were also very capable of surviving in the wild, so they could find food for themselves in the tropical rainforest.

If any northern army were to carry out such a mission, they would probably run out of food and retreat before they could intercept the enemy's food train.

After Zhu Wen discovered the target, he saw that the enemy had only two or three thousand people. He could no longer bear it and immediately ordered his troops to rush down the hillside to intercept and kill the enemy's grain protection team.

Although this grain-protecting team looked different from the merchant and grain-protecting teams he had encountered before, Zhu Wen did not think much about it. As the son of a southern barbarian chieftain, how much knowledge and strategy could he have? Even if he saw some details that he did not understand, he would not take them to heart.

……

The officer commanding the grain protection team was not a well-known person, so he was a little panicked when he saw the Zangke barbarians attacking the grain route.

The transport supervisor of this grain team was Gong Chen, a grain official of Qianwei County, who was in his thirties and a subordinate of Zhang Yi, the prefect of Qianwei County. After Zhuge Liang asked Zhang Yi to be in charge of the logistics and military supplies of Gan Ning's army, Zhang Yi sent all his subordinates to help Gan Ning with logistics.

The grain team also had a military commander and several officers at the level of Quchang who were responsible for armed protection. These officers were also from Bashi. Some of them were Qiang people who had followed Wang Ping in battle, and some had worked under Yan Yan.

The military commander was named Zhang Yi, less than 20 years old, and a member of Wang Ping's clan. Among the several Quchang, there was one named Gong Lu, only 18 years old, the son of the grain supervisor Gong Chen, and a friend of Zhang Yi since they were young.

These people were the ones who had followed Yan Yan to join Liu Bei's camp. After they arrived, they did not accomplish anything. Their only achievement was to abandon darkness and join the light.

At this moment, seeing the enemy troops coming in large numbers, Zhang Yi only had two thousand soldiers and one thousand civilians pushing carts and driving cattle. It was impossible for him, a young military commander of twenty years old, not to be nervous.

At Zhang Yi's age, it was obviously abnormal for him to be promoted to military commander without any merit. He relied on his high status in the clan. His father was also the chief of a Qiang tribe. He was able to take the first step in his official career by relying on his bloodline. This was very similar to the situation of his friend Wang Ping.

However, regardless of bloodline or following Yan Yan in turning from darkness to light, these experiences can only earn one a higher starting point for his official career.

After being given a starting point, how high one can climb and how much one can achieve depends on one's true ability.

If it's a loser like Xiahou Meng, if the starting point is too high at the beginning, he won't be able to achieve anything and will only fall harder.

Zhang Yi and Gong Lu both knew that this was the first step to prove themselves. After the initial brief panic, Zhang Yi took a few deep breaths, quickly calmed down, drew his sword and gave a stern order:

"Don't panic! Arrange all the wooden ox carts on the spot! Archers on the carts! Axemen to block the entrance! The hillside here is not steep, the enemy army can't have much advantage from a high position! These rabble, no matter how many there are, are not to be feared!"

(End of this chapter)