Tiger Guards

Chapter 182 No retreat
On the west bank of the Fen River, Wang Rou, the General of the Central Army of the Xiongnu, was sent to set up camp.

He sat in the tent playing chess, hesitating over a black piece.

The person who played chess with him was Xun Ban, which can also be written as Xun Ban, and was of the same clan as the Xun family of Yingchuan.

The Gou clan in Hedong, Taiyuan, and Henei were also members of the Xun clan. They changed their surnames to Xun to avoid exile. Later generations did not change their surnames back to Xun to remember the favors they received during their refuge.

Seeing Wang Rou's hesitation, Xun Ban said, "My lord, I have observed that the Marquis of Zhao is a fierce and unruly figure, disrespectful to the Emperor and his ministers. Now that he has joined forces with Zhang Yang, he is like a tiger and a wolf, intent on devouring us."

"I know, but I'm worried that this person is at the end of his rope and will inevitably harbor evil intentions to harm the emperor."

Wang Rou put down the chess piece in her hand with no expression on her face. The rise and fall of the family would depend on these few days.

The Wang family of Jinyang was not well-known before. The two brothers were the third and fourth children in the family, and they became famous thanks to the appreciation of the famous scholar Jiexiu Guo Tai from the same county.

Later, when Wang Yun came to power, people from Taiyuan suddenly came to power. The three prefectures were all controlled by people from Taiyuan. Even the brothers Wang Rou and Wang Ze, who were from the same clan and distant relatives, were promoted to important local positions.

Dai County was close to the old Xianbei royal court, and during the Xiongnu's migration, Wang Rou worked and was stationed in the neighboring Xihe County.

After the Xiongnu coup, they took the new Chanyu Huochuxuan and Chanyu Wang Ting to Taiyuan Zishi, and Wang Rou returned to his county to work.

The Wang brothers and Zhao Ji had the same idea in using the power of the Xiongnu and Xianbei to influence and consolidate the family's leadership position in the county.

The process of the Wang Rou brothers taking office was not very smooth, after all, Wang Yun was defeated too quickly.

In order to stabilize their official positions, Wang Rou and his brothers abandoned the inherent prejudices of Han scholars and married into the Xiongnu people.

As for the arms smuggling and human trafficking that Zhao Ji hated, these were not considered moral issues at all in the eyes of the powerful people in the border counties, but were just illegal.

From the perspective of the people of Taiyuan, the migration of the Xiongnu, including a series of arms transactions and human trafficking, was nothing more than their exploitation of the Xiongnu. So far, the initiative has always been in the hands of the people of Taiyuan.

For example, by allowing the Huns to continue migrating south, an isolation zone was created between the Chang'an court and Taiyuan very early on.

With Queshu Valley there, even if the Xiongnu people in Pingyang area failed to kill the imperial envoys, as long as the imperial envoys showed up in Queshu Valley, the nearby Huochequan would be responsible for finishing them off.

If you do this kind of thing too many times, it doesn't matter whether you hide it or not.

Therefore, when the imperial court went on a northern tour to Taiyuan, Wang Rou had to panic!

Zhao Ji attacked the Xiongnu in Hedong too quickly and pacified them just as quickly. He even reached an agreement with Zhang Yang, who arrived with his army, and led his troops directly north, giving the people of Taiyuan no time to react.

Moreover, the Hedong side was too well prepared, gathering too many ships and marching both by land and water. This method of marching caught the Huns off guard.

The result was that the emperor went north out of Queshu Valley, and more than 10,000 infantry and cavalry from Hedong and Henei appeared on the east bank of Fen River. The five counties on the east bank fell easily into Zhao Ji's hands. Even the powerful people and scholars in Taiyuan hoped to join the court and try to serve as officials.

After all, it was Wang Rou who arranged, condoned and acquiesced to the Huns blocking the road. In the whole of Taiyuan, only he, Wang Rou, was suitable to bear this responsibility.

It's impossible that the scholars in Taiyuan are collectively so crazy that they would do such a thing, right?

The Wang family of Jinyang had only produced a county magistrate before, and it was only from their brothers that they were promoted to the rank of two thousand stones.

If they retreat now, they will have nothing and there will not be another Wang Yun to support them.

The situation forced Wang Rou to give in.

But if he succeeds, replaces Zhao Ji, gathers the people of Taiyuan to obey the emperor's words, uses the material resources of Taiyuan to gather the people of Yanmen and Daijun, it will not be difficult to subdue Hedong and Henei, and he will be able to achieve something in the future.

In terms of emotion, reason and personal qualifications, it is only natural for him to be one of the Three Dukes, be in charge of the affairs of the Secretariat, and continue the work that Wang Yun had not finished.

Wang Rou had made up his mind and said, "The emperor's mother, Wang of Handan, is of the same clan as me. Now she is being held hostage by the treacherous minister Zhao Ji. I have decided to kill Zhao Ji, rescue the emperor, and support the government!"

Relative by marriage, he can also be a relative by marriage!

Xun Ban took a deep breath, stood up, and bowed deeply: "Ming Gong is wise and wise!"

Wang Rou raised her hand to support Xun Ban. "Tomorrow, I will cross the river with the Chanyu to pay my respects to Your Majesty, following your imperial decree. The Xiongnu cannot be counted on. We must rely on the brave men of this county to execute the traitorous ministers before your steps."

Xun Ban immediately said, "I understand. Let's select the best men in the camp. If we can get thirty of them, we can accomplish the task."

Zhao Ji was born into a family of mountain hunters and was only good at archery.

Without Zhao Yan's guidance, he would be nothing more than a reckless man and a rough draft. What would he have to worry about?
Xun Ban is already in his fifties and has had a difficult career. He has been in the officialdom for more than twenty years and also knows Zhao Yan.

Not many people in the Xun family of Taiyuan praised the "Eight Dragons of the Xun Family", so he entered the officialdom late and was promoted slowly.

Fortunately, his official position was relatively low and not very prominent, so Wang Yun did not have time to promote him. Therefore, he was able to escape back to Taiyuan during the coup in Chang'an.

But he simply couldn't wait any longer. With such a golden opportunity now before the Taiyuan people, if he didn't take a chance, he feared he'd be dying in bed, looking back with unbearable regret and leaping with rage. While Wang Rou sharpened her blade, Zhao Ji sat in the barracks, carefully polishing his sword.

Since the emperor bestowed upon him the imperial sword, he was theoretically in a position of authority when it came to executing officials.

Officials with a rank lower than 600 shi could be executed on the spot if the reason was justified.

Any of his swords can be called a Shangfang Sword when used to kill people.

Unfortunately, this kind of authorization from the emperor does not have the power of "imperial majesty", and it can only scare honest people.

But how many honest people can make it into the officialdom?
After the sword was maintained, Zhao Ji led a team of Tiger Guards to inspect the night curfew in each camp.

The fleet also took the tributary of the Daze Lake and was now anchored outside the embankment on the west side of the camp. The night wind was quite strong and the fleet had no lights at night, so it was pitch black.

The reeds inside and outside the embankment have been harvested, and the visibility is good.

Every thirty to fifty steps there is a campfire.

The Henei troops were in Jiexiu, the Hedong troops were in Zhongdu, and the Hedong knights commanded by Xu Huang were stationed in Qi County in the north.

Between these three counties from north to south are Jingling and Wuxian, each of which has sent 500 tiger infantry soldiers to garrison.

The five counties on the east bank of the Fen River have suffered almost no drought or locust plagues, and are well-stocked with supplies, looking like a paradise in troubled times.

Zhao Ji was so embarrassed that he felt embarrassed to take action.

But if we don’t break through here, in another month, a large number of people in Hedong and Hanoi will starve to death. If only 20,000 to 30,000 people don’t starve to death, can it be considered a natural disaster?

Hedong even mobilized an army beyond its capacity. If it could not get the food from Taiyuan, 50,000 to 60,000 people would starve to death.

This was an era of scarcity of supplementary food. A heavily armored soldier had to eat eight liters of rations a day to ensure sufficient physical strength. When experiencing war, nutrition supplements were even more necessary.

During the war, soldiers with relatively light work also had to eat seven liters of rations.

One liter of rations is infinitely close to 200 milliliters.

Even if Zhao Yan had oil and water to supplement his life, he still needed to eat nearly six liters of food.

Zhao Ji had side dishes with every meal, but even so, his daily staple food consumption was about one dou and six or seven liters.

A soldier needs to eat three stone of grain a month.

When the war is over, except for a few regular soldiers who can guarantee rations, most soldiers will be like ordinary people, probably eating only three or four liters of rations a day, barely enough to avoid starvation.

The result of the lack of food is that the people are weak, and even if they survive to the next year, it will affect the efficiency of farming.

It doesn’t mean that agriculture will recover quickly if the weather is good next year.

Therefore, if we want to quickly restore production in Hedong, we must seize enough food to feed the army and the people so that we can meet next year's production tasks in a complete state.

Only when people are well fed can we produce agricultural tools on a large scale in the fall and winter to ensure the needs of agricultural production next year.

There aren’t enough plows, how can you farm?

Zhao Ji stood on the observation deck, quietly looking at Wang Rou's camp at the other end of the lake through the night, and could vaguely see the campfire there.

The terrain here is low-lying and the night winds are particularly strong.

From time to time, sparks from the campfire were blown by the wind, lighting up a bright red burning trail, and then extinguished in the air.

Zhao Ji took a deep breath, and the food in Taiyuan was secured.

We can't wait for Wang Ze and Shentu to prepare. The longer we delay, the greater the variables will be.

As long as Wang Rou is killed and the powerful people in the five counties of Zhongdu are exterminated first, relying on the grain reserves of these five counties, he will have the confidence to resist the siege of the Xiongnu, Daijun and Yanmen!

The food we snatched was to save our families.

Every Hedong person will fight to the death. As long as an all-out war breaks out, Hedong reinforcements will continue to advance.

The people of Taiyuan?

Nothing is more important than food. Only when we get food can we have the morale of the army and the people.

(End of this chapter)