My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 835: Zhao Ma attacked Jincheng on a snowy night, Cao Pi and Sima Shuang were trapped

Since the end of September in the second year of Zhangwu, when Liu Bei personally urged Gan Ning and Wang Ping to capture Chencang and Ji County, he led his troops back east, taking the main force of the army with him.

In the last three months of the second year of Zhangwu, there were no major events in domestic affairs. After the war, it was natural to let the people rest and govern by inaction.

Liu Bei held a grand banquet in Luoyang to celebrate the victory and reward people, but he was not in a hurry to deal with the matters of ennobling titles and promotions for the time being, as he planned to formally and uniformly confer titles next year.

The main reason was that the cleanup work in the west had not been completed. When Liu Bei left, he left most of the cavalry to Zhao Yun and Ma Chao, who continued to stay in Liangzhou for a year to pacify the Qiang people and the remnants of Cao's bandits.

Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and Gan Ning did not return to Luoyang, so it would not be a good idea for Liu Bei to promote others first. In this case, there is no need to wait for a few months, and deal with the relevant matters after the first month of next year.

In the past few months, we have continued to play music and dance with the civil and military officials to celebrate our success and relax.

As for the troops marching west, the logistical pressure would still be too great if they were all stationed in Luoyang, so they should continue to move eastward and station in Jizhou and Jingzhou in the south. This way, they would not have to squeeze into the Heluo Basin for food, and transportation losses would be much smaller.

At the same time that Liu Bei moved his army to Guandong, Shangshu Ling Zhuge Liang also publicly submitted a memorial, mainly suggesting that Liu Bei first reward ordinary meritorious soldiers.

Zhuge Liang believed that promotions to generals could be considered and discussed slowly, but rewards for ordinary soldiers had to be given as quickly as possible.

After the rewards were given, the soldiers had to be screened to see which ones did not want to be soldiers and wanted to return to farming. In this case, they would be given more travel expenses and money to settle down, or they could be distributed to widows and homeless women in the recovered areas. The distribution of land had also to be considered.

Liu Bei thought this suggestion was very correct, so he ordered Zhuge Liang to take charge of the matter and ensure fairness and justice.

To put it bluntly, the promotion and placement of military generals can be done slowly, but the disbanding of excess troops must be done as soon as possible. This is also to reduce the burden on the entire world, so that taxes and levies can be reduced and the people can get some rest.

The major wars have been fought, and although border defense will still be needed in the future, the demand for military size will certainly be far less than during the civil war.

During the war of unification, Liu Bei had more than 600,000 combat troops at his peak, not counting the prisoners captured from Cao Cao and the soldiers who defected and surrendered during the final two or three years of decisive battles.

At the end of Jian'an, before Cao Cao usurped the throne, he had an army of more than 300,000. If we calculate it based on the time before Cao Cao lost the three states of Ji, Yan, and Yu, Cao Cao had 470,000 to 480,000 troops at that time.

In other words, the total military force of Liu Bei and Cao Cao in the world once exceeded one million.

Later, a large number of Cao's troops were annihilated, but in many battles, only a small number were actually killed or seriously injured and disabled.

More than half of the soldiers who were annihilated survived.

Therefore, now that unification has been completed, there are still at least 800,000 surviving soldiers in the country. Those who fled during the war, changed their identities and restored their civilian identities are not included in this number.

After the war, it would be too expensive to support more than 800,000 people. We also cannot use all these troops to engage in farming, as that would make management too rigid and prone to problems.

Zhuge Liang had initially envisioned that all the soldiers who wanted to continue to live a stable life regardless of drought or flood could be moved to the northeast to cultivate the land north of Liaodong, which was the original Fuyu Kingdom and now the Fuyu County.

Anyway, both Cao Cao and Liu Bei were very familiar with the method of military farming, and Zhuge Liang himself was an expert in military farming management, enough to ensure fairness.

If there is government organization and unified provision of agricultural tools, seeds, and draft animals, the efficiency and risk resistance of military reclamation will definitely be much stronger than the small peasant economy where each peasant operates independently.

However, Zhuge Jin opposed him to do so immediately, thinking it was too hasty. He suggested that he should first dismiss some of the soldiers who wanted freedom and let them return to farming on their own, and then give them more benefits.

As for the reason, it was not because Zhuge Jin was afraid that the government organization was too rigid and believed in the "free market" - with Zhuge Liang around, Zhuge Jin believed that his second brother could handle even the most "planned economy" matters.

But that would be too tiring for the second brother. Given the Han Dynasty's technological conditions, information transparency, and methods of monitoring officials, if Zhuge Liang wanted to be fair and just, he would definitely be exhausted to death.

So there is no need to rush for quick success and instant benefits, just let nature take its course.

After listening to Zhuge Jin's private advice, Liu Bei also felt that it made sense, so he rarely listened to Zhuge Liang's advice on this issue. Zhuge Liang repeatedly advised him, and finally Liu Bei could not find an excuse, so he had to tell the truth:
"Don't mention this anymore. It's Tzuyu who is worried about your health and energy. The world has been settled. There is a lot of time. Just let it go. You are 21 years younger than me. The future crown prince will still rely on your assistance. It is the right thing to do to take good care of your health."

Liu Bei had said so much, and Zhuge Liang knew that it was his elder brother who stopped him, and that it was for his own good, so he naturally could not insist any longer.

Well, some things are not urgent, and it is better to take your time and do nothing. As long as you don't do nothing for too long and forget about it completely and don't want to move.

Since the official reclamation and development of the Northeast will not be carried out immediately, the work of demobilizing a large number of troops must be put on the agenda immediately.

In the last three months of the second year of Zhangwu, Zhuge Liang led a group of civil servants to draft a general charter.

The first step was to use material benefits to incentivize some soldiers to voluntarily return to farming. After discussion, the court set a condition that roughly drew a line based on years of service, number of meritorious services, and participation in combat.

The highest-paid soldiers were naturally the veterans who had followed Liu Bei during his time in Xuzhou and Yangzhou. Before that, there were no ordinary soldiers who had followed Liu Bei since his hometown in Youzhou or during the Pingyuan period. They were either dead in battle or no longer alive. As long as they survived, all the soldiers who had followed Liu Bei during the Pingyuan period had become officers, so there was no question of retirement.

The highest level of veterans, as long as they had enough combat experience, could be granted up to 500 Han acres of land (Han acres are about one-third of modern acres) when they return to their hometown, and a resettlement allowance worth ten pieces of wide Shu brocade.

Those with shorter resumes, such as those who followed Liu Bei in Jingzhou or after he entered Yizhou, who were willing to retire when they were old, would be granted three to four hundred acres of Han land and five pieces of wide Shu brocade as resettlement allowance when they returned to their hometowns.

Later, those who joined the army after Liu Bei's Northern Expedition to the Central Plains basically had no cash settlement allowance, and were granted land as usual. As for the Cao army captured in the last two years, they were considered prisoners of war, and it was good enough to release them directly. Even if they participated in the war after reform, as long as they had no obvious military achievements, they could only be granted 50 acres of land at most.

Unless they have shown signs of defection before surrendering, they can be treated the same as veterans of the Qing or You levels at our discretion.

In addition, Zhuge Liang was still obsessed with his "Northeast Farming Development Plan", so when he gave the conditions for the army's retirement, he added an additional general replacement decree:

All the soldiers mentioned above who were in the interior and returned to their hometowns to be granted land, as long as they were willing to go out of the interior to the Northeast, could be granted land three times the size of their original hometowns in the interior.

Of course, there are not so many cultivated fields in the Northeast now, so people have to open up wasteland by themselves. But the court can promise that for those who go there, no rent or tax will be collected for ten years.

The imperial court would lend seeds, farm tools, and draft animals to retired soldiers who volunteered to open up wasteland. During these ten years, the amount of "loan repayment" was equivalent to the rent and taxes that should have been collected.

In other words, a sum of money and grain still needs to be paid every year, but the pressure of the amount will not be greater than when you are in the interior, and the nature of the money and grain is "loan repayment" rather than "rent and tax."

After such a set of material incentives and voluntary choice measures, Liu Bei's army directly reduced its army of about 800,000 people to more than 100,000, and finally the country still had a standing army of about 700,000 people. The army will certainly continue to reduce its size in the future, but the pace cannot be too fast, otherwise it will easily cause instability.

The amount of material incentives offered by the court was not very high, because at least 50,000 to 60,000 people chose to go to the Northeast directly. Most of these people had no families, and it made no difference whether they returned to their hometowns or not. A bachelor could survive anywhere, so it was better for them to go to a place where the court gave them more land.

And the most crucial point is that in the process of unifying Guanzhong and Bingzhou, Liu Bei would also resettle the displaced people in the lands seized from Cao Cao.

Because Cao's soldiers suffered heavy casualties, leaving behind a large number of helpless widows and orphans. Under the productivity environment of the Han Dynasty, if women and children were left alone, they would easily starve to death, so the court organized a redistribution.

Don't think this is outrageous. Resettling widows was considered humane in that era. What should really be criticized is the "strange women" incident in Cao Wei in history. Those women who were not widows but left behind were redistributed by officials under Cao Cao.

Most of the retired soldiers who went to the Northeast did so because they saw that the court would give priority to widows in the Northeast and they could start a family again. Many of those who brought orphans with them were not despised by the retired soldiers in this era and were taken back to be raised.

In the next few years, the Han population in Northeast China will expand visibly, and then they will have an absolute population advantage over the local indigenous peoples such as the Buyeo and Goguryeo people. In less than a generation, those people will be completely assimilated.

As long as they adopt a farming production and living style similar to that of the Han people, they will inevitably merge. Only those tribes that insist on fishing and hunting in the mountains and forests will merge more slowly and more difficultly, but with the Zhuge brothers around, it will only take a few more years.

……

The winter of the second year of Zhangwu quickly ended amid the busy resettlement of retired soldiers.

During these three months, Liu Bei's army made some progress on the Liangzhou battlefield on the western front relying on a small number of cavalry.

Unfortunately, although Zhao Yun and Ma Chao easily won some battles and recaptured some counties, they were never able to annihilate the remaining main forces of the enemy on a large scale, nor did they kill Cao Pi and Sima Yi.

Zhao Yun and Ma Chao summed up and found that the main reason was that Cao Pi's soldiers had no fighting spirit and were too good at running. The Hexi Corridor was also a road extending there. If Cao Pi was forced to the Hexi Corridor, it would be more difficult to kill him in the future.

By then, we will fight and chase him all the way, and the enemy will always be able to escape to the west. Wouldn't that make us become Cao Zhang again?
Liu Bei's army now knows that Cao Zhang has gone to the Western Regions, but they don't know how far he has gone. Cao Zhang seems to have lost contact with the Central Plains dynasty.

But Cao Zhang had never been an emperor, so his escape would not have a significant impact on Liu Bei's prestige. Cao Pi was a fake emperor, so he must not be allowed to escape, otherwise Liu Bei would lose face.

Zhao Yun and Ma Chao knew that they had a heavy responsibility on their shoulders and did not want to rashly alert Cao Pi and force him to run further away, so as early as the end of October of that year, they discussed and decided on a strategy of pretending to suspend the attack - they did not decide it casually, and they would definitely report it after the discussion. The Zhuge brothers also listened to it and thought it was feasible, so they suggested that Liu Bei approve it secretly.

After Zhao Yun and Ma Chao received the authorization, they went ahead and did their job. They first controlled the front line to Tianshui and Nan'an in Longxi, and did not go beyond the Lintao/Didao line at any time. Then they used the excuse that it was winter and the northwest was extremely cold, making it difficult to deploy troops, so they prepared to clear the fields and fight again the next year.

For readers who are not familiar with these place names, it doesn’t matter. The Lintao/Didao area is roughly equivalent to the starting point of the Qin Great Wall, so it is also a marginal area where Han people live.

Therefore, it is reasonable for Zhao Yun to temporarily stop his attack here and rest for the winter.

In addition, the winter in the northwest region was extremely cold that year. Although Cao Pi, who fled to Jincheng (Lanzhou), had doubts and fears, after observing nervously for a while, he found that the enemy had indeed stopped attacking, so he relaxed a little.

As the saying goes, there are only thieves who can steal for a thousand days, but there is no one who can guard against thieves for a thousand days.

Cao Pi would indeed be nervous in the first ten days or half a month after Zhao Yun and Ma Chao spread the news, but he could not remain nervous for a month, two months, or three months.

After Liu Bei's army stopped the attack in October, they spent the winter peacefully for two months. Time passed quickly and it was the first month of the third year of Zhangwu.

Cao Pi finally relaxed completely. He thought, it was the New Year, so Liu Bei's army would not wait until November and December to mobilize troops, right? In another month or two, when the snow melted in spring, it would be more suitable for fighting, and Zhao Yun would probably take action at that time.

Unfortunately, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao chose to attack by surprise.

On a snowy day in the beginning of the first lunar month, they picked a time when the common people and even the Qiang herdsmen from the surrounding counties went back to their homes for the winter, and each of them led several thousand cavalrymen to start the attack.

Zhao Yun did not attack Jincheng County directly where Cao Pi was, because cavalry could not attack the city, and where Cao Pi was, the defense must be tight.

A rotten boat still has three pounds of nails. The civil and military officials who were able to follow Cao Pi to escape to Jincheng must be die-hard fans of the Cao family, or they had made too many enemies with Liu Bei's side in the previous years of unification war and could not let go.

Therefore, Zhao Yun took advantage of the snowy night and rushed thousands of miles to Lingju, Poqiang and other places further west than Jincheng.

Ma Chao took another route, going north from the east of Jincheng, crossing the Yellow River at Yanyin Ferry (now Jingyuan, Gansu), and outflanking Jincheng from behind.

There are very few Cao troops stationed in these two small counties. At this point, Cao Pi's camp no longer has the spare energy to hold the outer defense line.

In addition, the loyalty and morale of the soldiers who remained in these places were definitely far inferior to those troops left by Cao Pi. Therefore, even though Zhao Yun and Ma Chao had no ability to attack, they quickly captured the county town by deterrence alone.

With a foothold behind enemy lines, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao could then launch a counterattack and eventually trap Cao Pi in Jincheng County.

Cao Pi was frightened and failed to react in time. He did not dare to break out with his cavalry immediately and was eventually blocked by Zhao Yun.

Of course, it was the first month of winter in the northwest, and it was extremely cold, so it was still difficult for Zhao Yun to attack the city directly, and the last troops around Cao Pi would not surrender without a fight.

Zhao Yun could only block Cao Pi first, and then wait until the spring when the weather got a little warmer before fighting again.

At present, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao can only divide their troops in small numbers and set up camps to block all the gates of Jincheng. If Cao Pi wants to break out, he can only attack Zhao Yun or Ma Chao's camp by force.

Although Cao Pi still had the last 10,000 combat forces of the Cao family, and Zhao Yun and Ma Chao had only about 2,000 soldiers assigned to each city gate, Cao Pi obviously did not have the courage to fight Zhao Yun to the death.

Cao Pi and Sima Yi both knew very well that even if they concentrated 10,000 men to attack Zhao Yun's 2,000 cavalry, they would not be able to defeat the enemy, or even ensure that Cao Pi would break out alive.

The remaining combat power of Cao's army was too weak to fight in the field.

Cao Pi was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. After consulting Sima Yi, he finally could only think of one trick: secretly dig and dismantle the city wall from the inside of the city, and then wait for an opportunity to suddenly dig a hole, so that the last cavalry guards around Cao Pi could protect them in breaking out.

As for the method of using a rope to lower down from the top of the city wall, it is not impossible to consider it, but people can be tied with ropes and lowered, but horses may not be able to do so. In the cold winter in the Gobi Desert in the northwest, if you don't take your horse out, you can't run far, and you will definitely be chased to death by Zhao Yun.

(End of this chapter)