Tiger Guards

Chapter 211 Xizhou Envoy

Since mid-May, locusts have been swarming across large areas and the heat has become unbearable.

All parties had to cease fire, and the most unlucky ones were Lu Bu and Liu Bei.

The Yanzhou War, the Xuzhou Massacre, and the previous Yellow Turban Rebellion led to the destruction of a large number of water conservancy projects and the abandonment of farmland.

These wastelands became a breeding ground for locusts this year, and the entire Shanyang County where Lu Bu was stationed suffered a severe locust disaster.

The rice and summer wheat in the wild were all eaten up, and the situation in Yanzhou and Yuzhou was not much better.

The disaster moved westward along with the locusts, and Duan Wei, who was stationed in Huayin and Weinan, was no exception.

Perhaps due to the obstruction of the Qinling Mountains, the migration routes of a large number of locusts overlapped with Heluo, Hongnong, and Sanfu, and headed towards Liangzhou.

Wherever they passed, they ate all edible vegetation; people who starved to death on the roadside would also have their skin bitten by the crazy locusts and their flesh eaten.

Another group of locusts migrating westward passed through Nanyang and crashed into Wudang Mountain.

Zhang Xiu, who attempted to support himself in the Nanyang military camp, was also seriously injured, and his dependence on Liu Biao increased further.

The locusts from Guandong moved westward and arrived at Longshang, bringing Han Sui and Ma Teng to the brink of bankruptcy.

It's not just them. When the locusts pass through the border, they won't recognize you as the Western Qiang or the Northern Hu.

Just before the summer harvest, a huge amount of grain was destroyed by locusts.

Only Jiangdong is better. Yuan Shu's life is not easy either, even though Shaobi is next to Shouchun.

But Yuan Shu was not very good at management. Shaobi had no shortage of water and covered a vast area, making it an excellent national-level paddy field.

Under this huge locust plague, Yuan Shu could only barely make ends meet.

But all parties suffered huge losses, while he suffered little; conversely, it meant that he made huge profits, while all parties did not make any profits.

Under this special situation, Yuan Shu mobilized troops in Shouchun, preparing to go down the Huai River, and then go up the Si River from Huaipu and Xuyi to take Xia Pi directly.

Guangling County is located on the south bank of the lower reaches of the Huai River and the north bank of the Yangtze River. Most of the land in Guangling County is controlled by Yuan Shu.

It cannot be said that they had actual control. Liu Bei, Chen Deng, Chen Yu and others did not have actual control. They controlled the core strongholds, and the surrounding towns were all fence-sitters.

In order to prevent Yuan Shu's army from taking away most of the population of Guangling after arriving in Xuyi and Huaiyin, Liu Bei had no choice but to mobilize his troops in advance, go down the Si River, station on the north bank, and confront Yuan Shu.

The people of Xuzhou were determined to defend their homeland. Although this war seemed to have broken out suddenly, Yuan Shu had long intended to capture Xuzhou, and Xuzhou was also prepared to respond.

Both sides simply sent troops during a hot summer season that was not suitable for fighting, but they also had to abide by basic natural and objective conditions.

So from the beginning of the troop deployment, the two sides just confronted each other without taking any further action.

From all over the world, only here can we mobilize troops to fight against the enemy.

Elsewhere, there was no power to move.

Under such circumstances, Liu Biao, the governor of Jingzhou, also sent 5,000 soldiers without armor and escorted food north to Luoyang to assist General Wei Dong Cheng in building Luodu under the urging of Zhao Qi.

Cao Cao really wanted Cao Hong to lead his troops to Luoyang, but Dong Cheng declined again.

Yuan Shao began to exchange correspondence with the imperial court and also sent Ying Shao, the former governor of Taishan County, to Luodu with more than 2,000 soldiers.

Ying Shao also did not come empty-handed. He escorted a batch of grain and transported it directly to Luoyang City via the Yellow River.

At the same time, Ying Shao also began to sort out the etiquette of Han officials and the standards of various official documents and memorials based on his memory, and even rewrote the precedents of the Supreme Court.

In this scorching heat, Zhao Ji still inspected the camps all day long, participated in military training, and adjusted the positions of military officers from time to time, promoting squad leaders or laying off sergeants.

He is busy all day and has no time to take care of other things.

Watching the army begin to grow in the direction he expected, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction he felt was incomparable to anything an official position in the imperial court could bring.

It was only when he was studying the Art of War in the middle of the night that Zhao Ji would worry about the skill of 'Concentrating the Mind and Nourishing the Qi'.

He could bear it if it went slower, but he had finally experienced the exhilaration of "breaking through all obstacles" and gaining three liters a day.

Comparing the two, it's natural to feel anxious.

I had always thought that what was being concentrated was my spirit and thoughts, and that it was enhancing food digestion to accumulate 'qi', but now it seems that I might really need to look for consumables.

But the army that Jinyang is training is the foundation. It is impossible to take the army around rashly, nor can we abandon the army and go out alone.

Even more so, he couldn't send someone to invite his pen pal Cai Zhaoji. With so many troops in Jinyang enduring boring training, if he tried to be special and someone exposed him, it would be very detrimental to the morale of the army.

One reason is that he can share the hardships with the army and reduce their resistance during training. Training together also makes it easier for him to adjust the military officers.

Selecting talented people and appointing them to positions of power is just a daily task; the most important thing is to sharpen the spearheads and promote military officers from the ranks.

The eight hundred Hedong Tiger Guards are just his partners in interests, while the new Tiger Guards who are promoted step by step from the Tiger Infantry Army are the real wings of the Zhao family.

After the locust plague, the summer grain harvest was completed.

One day, Zhao Ji rode out of the military camp. A clerk came up to him quickly, bowed, and said, "Lord Zhao, Master Wenhe has brewed a jar of sweet new barley wine and sent me to invite you."

"Got it. I'll go see Mr. Wenhe after I wash up."

Zhao Ji agreed and drove his horse into the old city of Jinyang. The officials and civilians on the streets retreated to both sides of the road. Zhao Ji led his cavalry straight into the county magistrate's mansion.

There were two rows of large water vats on the martial arts field in the front yard of the county magistrate's mansion.

After a day of exposure to the sun, the water temperature is warm.

Zhao Ji and the others stripped off their simple leather armor and bathed barefoot in front of the water tank. Each of them was tanned, their muscles muscular. After washing inside and out, they put on their pants... The leggings had suspenders. In his opinion, if the shin guards were made of gauze with larger mesh, they would be perfect fishnet stockings with suspenders.

Therefore, the military uniforms distributed to the various armies in Jinyang now have replaced leggings with long pants.

Shin jerseys are easy to sew, but pants are more difficult.

After the powerful and wealthy women were captured, the weaving room they formed also had some free time, so they changed the leggings into trousers... It was they who were tired, not Zhao Ji, so Zhao Ji naturally promoted it.

The military naturally also liked baggy trousers, especially the knights.

The scraps of fabric left over from making military uniforms were also used to sew shorts, shoes, socks, gloves, etc.; in short, the captured women could not be left idle.

Like the other riders around him, Zhao Ji's boxer shorts and trousers were also crimson.

Then he put on a close-fitting fine silk lining, a short coat made of fine linen with an open front, and finally a pair of wooden clogs. With a sword hanging from his waist, Zhao Ji had completed his change of clothes.

At home, it is the hottest time of the year, and everyone wants to stay as cool as possible.

Clothes are consumables that will wear out... For ordinary people, as long as they don't freeze to death, the simpler the clothes, the better.

This is true for men, women, and children as well.

Since Zhao Ji didn't need to go out, he didn't need to wear the silver-gilt chain mail soft armor.

This set of soft armor, which was made of more than a dozen layers of silk stitched together, was not often worn. Zhao Ji would only wear it when he left the camp and walked on the streets or in the wild.

The scorching heat is unbearable, and even if there are assassins, they are lightly armed.

After washing off the sweat, Zhao Ji went straight to the west courtyard of the county magistrate's mansion, which was Jia Xu's office.

When he arrived, he saw Jia Xu and a few others sitting under the grape arbor chatting and laughing, and now they all stood up.

Zhao Ji walked closer to observe the three men. They were all middle-aged warriors. Although they were wearing old robes, they were strong. There was a strong murderous indifference and wooden aura in their gestures and between their eyebrows.

The three men were also observing Zhao Ji, but they didn't dare to look too closely. They all bowed and said, "Greetings, Lord Zhao."

"I knew that the master invited me here not just to taste the new malt wine."

Zhao Ji stepped forward to look at the sweet wheat in the wooden basin and waved his hand, "No need to be so polite, everyone. Since you are my friend, then you are my friend."

Jia Xu used a black pottery bowl to serve Zhao Ji half a bowl of sweet wheat and scooped more milky white sweet water.

He handed it to Zhao Ji with a smile: "Has Lord Zhao ever seen this?"

"I've seen it."

Zhao Ji took it with both hands, sat down at the main seat, took a sip and savored it carefully, saying, "The new wheat has a fresh fragrance, and it has more flavor than sweet rice wine or thick wine. It really whets my appetite."

This is new wheat that has been simply stripped of its bran. After being steamed, it is mixed with koji and brewed like rice wine.

"As long as the Marquis of Zhao likes it."

Jia Xu also sat down and introduced himself, "This is Zhang Heng, my fellow townsman from Wuwei, and also a friend of Liang Xing."

Zhang Heng stood up and bowed, "Zhang Heng greets the Marquis of Zhao."

Zhao Ji put down his bowl and bowed: "Sir, please sit down."

Seeing Zhao Ji looking at the man next to him, Jia Xu said, "This is Zhang Chang from Hongnong. He is here to see the Marquis of Zhao on the orders of Duan Zhongming."

Zhao Ji stood up upon hearing this and bowed, "Excuse me, sir."

Zhang Chang smiled wryly, "I've heard the Marquis of Zhao is a man of integrity. Why do you respect me so much?"

If people like Yang Biao knew about this, I wouldn’t know what to do with him.

He was the second son of Zhang Huan of Sanming in Liangzhou. The biggest decision Zhang Huan made when he was old was to ask the emperor to move his hometown to Hongnong, so that he could break away from the border county status of Dunhuang.

Because they were in Hongnong, the children of the Zhang and Yang families had easy access to school, and their academic attainments and calligraphy became relatively famous.

Zhao Ji smiled and said, "I'm not respecting you, sir. I'm respecting your father."

This was just what he wanted. Zhang Chang smiled indifferently, bowed in return, and then sat down. He looked much better.

At this time, Zhao Ji went to see the third person, and Jia Xu introduced him: "This is Li Ying from the north."

Li Ying bowed and said, "Your humble servant greets the Marquis of Zhao."

"sit."

Zhao Ji gestured with his arms, looked at Jia Xu and the other four, and suddenly smiled: "The affairs of Xizhou are here."

The fact that Jia Xu introduced Zhang Heng before Zhang Chang shows that Zhang Heng also had a strong military force in Guanzhong, and that the army was under Jia Xu's control.

Next was Zhang Chang. The two brothers Zhang Chang had completed the transition from a family of military merit to a family of famous scholars... but they had just changed their thorny skin when they encountered troubled times.

Li Ying was Li Jue's cousin and a former official of the Si Tu brothers Zhao Wen.

Since they were all gathered together, they naturally had to discuss how to divide Xizhou.

Anyway, Li Jue is a person who cannot be saved even by gods.

The imperial court could not tolerate him, and neither could Zhao Ji.

(End of this chapter)