Jinting Han people

Although there is no immediate concern about engaging in battle with the enemy, the situation of the soldiers in the Chaoge rebel army can be described as extremely dire.

When Liu Xian took over the Chaoge camp, it was already in a terrible state of disrepair.
The antler-shaped palisades outside the camp were almost completely dismantled; armor, weapons, and flags were scattered everywhere, and even the bodies of some soldiers mistakenly killed in the mutiny were present. Most critically, much of the camp's accumulated provisions and supplies had been looted by the fleeing soldiers, leaving almost nothing behind. At this point, order, while not entirely nonexistent, was barely achievable.

Liu Xian had originally considered whether to launch a night attack on Ji County, but faced with this situation, he had to put it aside and do some emergency work. He gathered the remaining supplies in the camp, re-erected the deer antlers and flags, and finally collected and buried the remains of his comrades in the camp, so that the camp was not in a terrible state and could barely be considered a camp.

However, he was not an officer of the Northern Expeditionary Army, so the rest of the work had to be left to Lu Zhi.

To be honest, after hearing Zhang Bin's assessment of the situation, Liu Xian was prepared for the vanguard's defeat. But human imagination is always limited, and Liu Xian still hadn't anticipated that the impact of the defeat would be so significant.

When he spoke with the soldiers remaining in the camp, almost every one of them showed an expression of fear of the enemy. The first question was always the same: "His Highness the Prince of Chengdu has left, when can we retreat to Ye City?" And when Liu Xian replied that they would not retreat for the time being, but would first gather the defeated soldiers for rest, these people would always show expressions of disappointment and fear, which they could not hide.

Liu Xian thought to himself: This battle has truly broken the backbone of the righteous army. If we cannot adopt effective measures to boost morale and only rest and regroup before fighting again, we will probably find it difficult to win against the Zhao King's army no matter how many there are.

However, on the other hand, Zhang Bin made two misjudgments about this defeat and misjudged two people.

The first person he misjudged was Sun Hui. Sun Hui was ultimately ignorant of military strategy. Although this defeat was devastating, even resulting in a mutiny unprecedented in Liu Xian's life, it wasn't crippling. To completely replicate the great victory at Kunyang, Sun Hui would have needed to relentlessly pursue the enemy until complete victory. Unfortunately, Sun Hui squandered this opportunity, choosing instead to celebrate his victory on the spot.

The second person he misjudged was Lu Zhi. Zhang Bin was too arrogant, believing there were no capable people in the Northern Expeditionary Army. But as it turned out, Lu Zhi's wisdom was no less than Zhang Bin's. He actually received news of the vanguard's defeat immediately, and that very night, he tirelessly mobilized the remaining troops in Ye City to stabilize morale, successfully intercepting Sima Ying, who was abandoning his troops and fleeing, thus keeping the losses from the mutiny within a controllable range.

From this perspective, he had no opportunity to carry out an assassination to seize power.

Whether the rebel army can regroup and regain its strength depends on Lu Zhi's abilities.

After all, there were nearly 100,000 defeated soldiers scattered between Wei and Ji commanderies. If handled carelessly, these soldiers might become bandits or defect to the King of Zhao, becoming a new source of unrest and triggering wave after wave of peasant uprisings. In fact, everyone felt this matter was troublesome and no one wanted to deal with it. Given Sima Ying's incompetence, the only one qualified to handle this matter was undoubtedly Lu Zhi.

Lu Zhi's performance was undoubtedly outstanding. He not only responded extremely quickly, but also very reasonably. Before the fleeing soldiers had a chance to escape for long, they soon encountered the network of checkpoints that Lu Zhi had temporarily set up for them, blocking them layer by layer in the southern part of Wei Commandery.

Some of the more disorganized deserters were persuaded to stay; after all, in the face of an organization, an individual without organization is insignificant. People only feel powerful within a collective, and people yearn for a collective, so they were easily persuaded to relent. However, such people constituted only a minority among the deserters.

Mutiny is not simply a spread of panic, and people rarely follow blindly; at least a reason is needed. Therefore, fleeing soldiers often come in large groups with complex and intertwined relationships: they might be fellow villagers, relatives by marriage, masters and servants, or even leaders of an entire rebel army responding to the call to serve the king. After this battle, many felt the odds of victory were slim and simply took advantage of the mutiny to try and leave the rebel army.

The leader of this force was Gao Yuan's. Gao Yuan himself was the Chancellor of Zhangwu, and most of his troops were also from Zhangwu. After their defeat, they were terrified of being held accountable by Sima Ying. When Gao Yuan issued the order to withdraw his troops, one of his men, Wen Ding, was Gao Yuan's military advisor and a well-known powerful figure in Zhangwu.

After a moment's thought, Wen Ding realized this was a golden opportunity to seize power. He immediately devised a plan: spread rumors of an enemy attack to incite chaos within the army. In the midst of the disorder, he would launch a surprise attack, leading his servants to assassinate Gao Yuan. He then gathered over six thousand defeated soldiers from Zhangwu, intending to slip away back to the kingdom. He told the soldiers that the righteous army had suffered such a crushing defeat that King Zhao was certain to win. They could return to Zhangwu first, then surrender to King Zhao, seize territory, and become local emperors of Zhangwu.

However, it took Wen Ding a great deal of time to gather the fleeing soldiers. By the time he wanted to head north, Lu Zhi had already set up numerous checkpoints to the north. How could a checkpoint with only a dozen or so men possibly hold off such a large number of fleeing soldiers?

Wen Ding had accomplished little in the Battle of Huangqiao, but now he displayed extraordinary prowess, breaking through five checkpoints in one go. However, Lu Zhi had naturally received news of this momentum long ago. After receiving the military report of the routed soldiers breaking through the checkpoints, he did not rush to send troops. Instead, he waited until the enemy was about to reach Dangyin before suddenly joining forces with Liu Tun to lead the Bingzhou army to intercept Zhang Wu's army.

The Bingzhou army, experienced and well-rested, needed little tactical maneuvering against the starving and thirsty Zhangwu army. Liu Tun led his troops straight in and captured Wen Ding within a quarter of an hour. The remaining routed soldiers, seeing their leader captured, immediately abandoned their troops and surrendered.

After a brief investigation and learning the cause and effect, Lu Zhi calmly ordered: "You have disrupted the morale of the army, murdered your superiors, and killed your colleagues. The evidence is conclusive. Considering the ignorance of the soldiers, you can be forgiven, but officers of the rank of platoon leader and above are all unforgivable! You shall be executed by being cut in half at the waist!"

So, in a single day, more than a thousand of the six thousand routed soldiers were cut in half at the waist. This was not the only time that routed soldiers were treated this way. Over the course of five days, Lu Zhi beheaded more than three thousand people and sent their heads back to the Chaoge camp. The heads were so numerous that they filled an entire street in front of the camp, and the soldiers were filled with awe at the sight.

Lu Zhi appeared gentle and refined, his words and actions always conforming to propriety, and he usually cared for his colleagues. But who could have imagined that he would suddenly resort to ruthless methods and kill so many people this time?

On the other hand, Lu Zhi was fair and impartial in his dealings. After the routed soldiers were dealt with, Lu Zhi did not discriminate against them, but provided them with normal supplies and treated the wounded as usual. He simply completely disrupted their organization, rebuilt them into several units, and then redistributed them to the vanguard generals such as Zhao Xiang and Shi Chao, who had suffered heavy losses. If any mistreatment of routed soldiers was found in the army, he also dealt with the officers who committed the mistreatment in a normal manner.

In just six days, Lu Zhi brought all 100,000 scattered troops back to the Chaoge camp. Everyone looked at him with new respect, and they whispered among themselves, "At first glance, Chief Secretary Lu was just a pale-faced scholar. We thought he was weak and powerless, but now that we've met him, we don't even dare to breathe!"

However, just as Lu Zhi had predicted, merely gathering the defeated soldiers was not enough to restore the fighting spirit of his troops.

Eight days after the Battle of Huangqiao, Sun Hui in the south finally realized that the rebel army in the north was in chaos. Heeding Shi Yi's advice, he sent Shi Yi with 10,000 cavalry across the Qingshui River to launch a night attack on the Chaoge camp.

As a result, while reorganizing the routed troops, Lu Zhi rebuilt the Chaoge camp. Two new trenches were dug outside the camp, and chevaux-de-frise were erected at the camp gates. Shi Yi circled the camp but found no weaknesses, so he attempted to set fire to the camp to incite chaos. As soon as the fire started, the newly established night patrol system in Lu Zhi's camp came into play, and several hundred men immediately came to defend it. Although the soldiers were afraid to confront the enemy, they could still manage to shoot arrows from behind the wooden walls.

However, Shi Yi fought bravely, and the morale and equipment of the two armies were vastly different. After half an hour, the Zhao King's army managed to forcefully break through the outer palisade. Once the palisade was breached, the courage of the rebel soldiers plummeted, and they dared not engage the enemy. Even though Lu Zhi repeatedly sent troops to resist and personally supervised the battle from the rear, the rebel army still suffered a series of defeats and considerable casualties. Fortunately, before the Zhao King's army could advance further, Liu Xian's troops came to their aid from the northern camp. Seeing the risk of being attacked from both sides and considering his own small number of troops, Shi Yi ultimately chose to retreat.

Since the enemy had withdrawn, and considering the unclear enemy situation and unfamiliar surroundings, Liu Xian did not intend to pursue them relentlessly. He simply followed behind, and after confirming that the enemy was thirty miles away from Chaoge, he returned to the southern camp by the same route.

Lu Zhi tallied the casualties that night. Within half an hour, Zhao Wang's army had left more than 160 corpses at the camp, but had killed or wounded nearly a thousand men. The casualty ratio was more than one to five. Although it was better than the result of the Battle of Huangqiao, considering that this was achieved without a large-scale rout, it made the soldiers even more hesitant.

The next day, Lu Zhi convened a military meeting to discuss the matter and summarized the lessons learned, saying to everyone: "The problem of the defeated soldiers has been resolved, but after the previous defeat, the morale of the army has truly been lost. If this problem is not resolved, when will we be able to enter the capital to rescue the emperor?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than Zheng Yan, the Right Chief Secretary, retorted: "With the army's morale in such a state, it will be difficult to resolve in a short time. Brother Zidao, you still want to take this opportunity to march on Luoyang? Isn't that just wishful thinking? In my opinion, we should withdraw to Yecheng as soon as possible and train your troops properly before making any further moves."

This remark was echoed by the generals of the Northern Expeditionary Army.

This southward campaign to defend the emperor left many generals in a sorry state. Defeat in battle was one thing, but the mutiny shattered their dignity. Under the cover of darkness, they either fled with the routed troops or hid in some desolate wilderness until Lu Zhi took over the Chaoge camp before returning. From that moment on, none of them wanted to stay there again. They claimed to be returning to train troops, but in reality, they wanted to go back to Ye City for pleasure.

How could Lu Zhi not understand this? He publicly refuted Zheng Yan, saying, "Do you think raising an army is child's play? Since Your Highness has raised the banner of loyalty to the emperor, you should bear the hopes of the world! How can you break your promise at the first sign of setback? Now the two sides are locked in a fierce battle; it's either him or me who dies. Showing weakness halfway is digging your own grave!"

Zheng Yan understood this principle, of course, but he was so tired of fighting that he still mocked, "One must be down-to-earth in doing things; success cannot be achieved by sheer courage. Cao Cao fought a bitter battle at Xingyang, but didn't he eventually become a traitor to the Han?"

This statement is extremely malicious. Attacking Lu Zhi is a political show, a living Cao Cao trying to enrich himself.

Lu Zhi simply chuckled and seized the opportunity to retort sarcastically, "Cao Cao was indeed a traitor to the Han, but could it be that Yuan Shao surpassed the traitors of the Han?"

Upon hearing this, everyone present couldn't help but secretly admire Lu Zhi's quick wit. Regardless of how one attacks Cao Cao's character, the fact remains that among the Guandong coalition forces, Cao Cao, who advocated for loyalty to the emperor, was the most successful. If Lu Zhi's ideas were Cao Cao's strategy, then the others were even inferior to Cao Cao, so why should their ideas be trusted?

Zheng Yan, of course, understood this as well, and for a moment, he stammered and was at a loss for words, clearly having reached the point of being at a loss for words.

However, the tense atmosphere was not conducive to discussion, so Liu Hong took the initiative to smooth things over, saying, "Both of you have used inappropriate analogies. The most urgent task is to comfort the soldiers and repair the camp. Since Zhao has not succeeded, he should not come again in the short term. We can discuss the matter of boosting morale in a long time."

Seeing this, Lu Zhi knew that nothing would be accomplished by continuing the discussion, so he simply adjourned the meeting. He left only a small group of people, including Sima Ying, Liu Xian, Liu Hong, and Sima Yi, to hold another small military meeting.

He first emphasized to Sima Ying: "Your Highness, now that we have raised the banner of righteousness, we must absolutely not withdraw our troops from Ye City. Otherwise, we will be breaking our word and will have no standing in the world."

Sima Ying's resolve was indeed shaken, but he was unwilling to say it openly. Instead, he hesitated and asked, "But how do we solve the morale problem?"

Upon hearing this, Lu Zhi knew that Sima Ying was still undecided. At this point, one person's words carried insufficient weight, so he turned to Liu Xian and Liu Hong, who were standing nearby, and asked:

"Lord Liu, Duke of Xuancheng, you are both renowned generals who have fought countless battles. You must have experienced similar situations before. Surely you have a way to deal with this!"

Liu Xian glanced at Sima Ying and said thoughtfully, "The soldiers' morale is actually not difficult to remedy. It is said that the generals are the courage of the army. Now that the soldiers are afraid to fight, it is actually a reflection of the generals' fear of fighting. If even the generals are not courageous, how can we expect the soldiers to be brave on their own?"

Liu Hong nodded slightly, stroked his beard, and agreed, "Solving this problem is indeed not difficult. As long as His Highness the Prince of Chengdu appoints a few virtuous and exemplary warriors as military commanders, and the soldiers believe that he will definitely fight bravely in the face of a major battle instead of abandoning his men and fleeing, morale will naturally be restored."

Upon hearing this, Sima Ying blushed deeply. He naturally understood that their words were a veiled criticism: the army's morale was low, and the responsibility lay primarily with him, the commander who had abandoned the army. This sense of shame prompted him to reply, "Please rest assured, gentlemen, I will certainly persevere in serving the emperor to the very end!"

Then he asked Lu Zhidao, "Zidao, in your opinion, who should be appointed as the Protector of the Army?"

In theory, the three Lius (Liu Xian, Liu Hong, and Liu Tun) under Sima Yi were all suitable candidates. However, since the two sides belonged to different factions, appointing a staff member from the Prince of Changshan's residence would undoubtedly be a disguised sign of weakness. Therefore, Sima Ying still wanted to find someone from within the Northern Expeditionary Army.

Does such a person really exist? Even Sima Ying herself had some doubts and could only hope that Lu Zhi would give her a good answer.

Fortunately, Lu Zhi lived up to his expectations and replied, "Your Highness, time is of the essence, it seems we have no choice but to employ this person!"

"Who?"

"Liu Yuan, Liu Yuanhai." (End of Chapter)