Tiger Guards

Chapter 518 Key Nodes
At dusk, Zhang Liao sent men to escort the prisoners south from the Yulin pass.

The prisoners were mainly Xianbei people, who were fundamentally different from the Qiang people.

After a simple screening, the captured Han Chinese and their descendants were identified, and the remaining three thousand-plus Xianbei prisoners were driven into an empty camp.

Soon the empty camp was surrounded on three sides. Even though the Tiger Infantry and the Xiongnu Righteous Cavalry were exhausted, they were still wearing armor, had weapons such as spears and halberds in hand, and had bows and crossbows to suppress them, which effectively deterred the more than three thousand Xianbei prisoners.

These Xianbei prisoners were also exhausted. The more than 5,000 Qiang daredevils selected after an afternoon of screening were now being distributed with swords.

Under pressure from the Han army's crossbows, they broke into the small camp, brandishing their swords at the defenseless Xianbei people and vying for their heads.

The Qiang people who seize the head will take the opportunity to leave the battle, hand over the head, and receive a bamboo slip belonging to them. There are three copies of this bamboo slip, which contain their identity information, unit number, and records of merits.

In Zhao Ji's view, this was equivalent to giving these Qiang people a 10% discount shopping voucher.

Once you reach level nine, you can redeem yourself as a free citizen of the empire and enjoy the honor of priority in military service and being enlisted in the Tiger Steps; even if you are registered as a household, you will enjoy the full rights of an imperial citizen.

After distributing 10% off shopping coupons, as the number of meritorious deeds increases, the sunk costs of the Qiang daredevils' betrayal and escape will become increasingly large.

The original daredevils were also reorganized. Depending on their personal wishes, they were either reset to zero merits and reassigned as new recruits in the Tiger Step Army to fill vacancies.

They could either retire from the army and return to their hometowns, taking the rewarded horses with them, to participate in the escort of prisoners and retreat to the rear together. They would then become registered households in the three prefectures and be granted household land and land by the people.

If any of their family members were captured and reduced to government slaves, they would be released and allowed to return to civilian life; if they had no family members, they would be given priority to marry widows of Han border people who were subsequently rescued.

These daredevils, regardless of their origins, were all people who were used to the battlefield and had adapted to the battlefield and military life.

Apart from the wounded, almost all of them were immediately reassigned as new recruits.

After this evacuation, they will be incorporated into military households and enjoy annual military stipends, household land, and personal land; their families who were captured and enslaved will be released and become civilians; and single people will be matched with their superior military officers to form new families.

Even among the lightly and severely wounded who were evacuated, very few were willing to lay down their arms and serve the people after they recovered.

In the years of warlord conflicts, these people would not easily leave a powerful armed group.

Being in a powerful armed group ensures reliable personal safety and a standard of living.

Before midnight, more than three thousand Xianbei prisoners had been killed.

Those who captured heads and were officially incorporated into the suicide squad were immediately given armor and weapons and mixed in with the remaining suicide squad officers and veterans.

As for the Qiang people who did not capture any heads, they were still considered as reserve candidates for suicide soldiers and were responsible for carrying the corpses.

Whether they were Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qiang, or Han border people, they were all people who disliked waste.

Therefore, when moving corpses, these nearly frozen bodies naturally do not need any warm clothing.

In order to use these clothes to help more people, the reserve soldiers, prisoners of war from the border areas of China, and servants and auxiliary troops who were reorganized from their descendants began to recycle the resources.

Whether they were Qiang, Hu or Xianbei who had died in battle, they were simply piled up naked on the wooden palisade frame of the trench.

We were busy until the early hours of the morning before we finally lit the fire.

After a day and night, the towering flames reignited on the west side of the Qin Straight Road, southeast of Fushi City.

The firelight illuminated a vast area; even prisoners and wounded soldiers retreating south could see the clouds on the northern horizon glowing red with the firelight if they turned back.

Within Fushi City, the Qiang and Hu men and women lived in closer proximity.

You don't even need to go outside or to the city wall; just look up from inside your courtyard and you can see the clouds overhead illuminated by the firelight turning them orange-red.

More than 10,000 people from various tribes of the Lushui Hu, who were lying in ambush in the mountains on the west bank of the Sheyan River, also saw the flames that illuminated the night clouds. They scattered almost immediately, eager to return to their tribes so that they could make further plans.

In fact, most of the Qiang and Hu tribesmen did not have that sense of urgency, and even some Qiang and Hu nobles and chieftains did not have that sense of crisis that the life and death of their tribes were hanging by a thread.

In the past, the common practice for the Han army to win victories was to pacify and appease the Qiang people.

Therefore, after several rounds of back-and-forth, the various Qiang tribes felt a sense of security when they rebelled, believing that the Han court would bail them out. No matter how bad things got, they could simply surrender to the Han army, and the court would naturally appease and settle them.

The current situation is not going well, and there is a similar consensus among the Qiang and Hu people. Previously, Uyghur Dou had also expressed this sentiment, but he was persuaded by his worthless cousin-in-law Dou Jie. However, Uyghur Dou had the arrogance accumulated from the military victories of the Xianbei and wanted to take a gamble.

Because he felt that even if he lost, he would still have room to surrender and negotiate.

So, in the middle of the night, while the Han army camp was still testing their merits, Zhao Yun brought back the head of the Uyghur general, Dou, along with him.

After being identified by the Qiang nobles and chieftains who were under house arrest, the head of the Uyghur Dou was treated differently... It was cleaned with ice water by a prisoner, unlike the other Qiang and Xianbei heads that were piled up in a mound.

Inside the warm tent, the head of the Uyghur chieftain Dou was cleaned and presented on a plate, placed below the head of the chieftain, in the second-place position. The third-place position was occupied by the head of the northern Hu chieftain, Godan.

Those of lower rank than them were not qualified to appear before Zhao Ji.

After the guards who presented the severed head withdrew, Zhao Ji looked at the thirty-odd Qiang chieftains kneeling behind the curtain and asked, "Who can persuade Fushi City to surrender? I can guarantee that no one will be killed after the city is opened, but those who are not officials will be relocated."

A nobleman with blue lips from the cold looked up at Zhao Ji, then looked down again, cupped his hands, and asked in fluent Chinese, "I wonder what the meaning of 'no official position' is?"

"Similar to being appointed as the supervisor of the Imperial Garden, you will become the wealth of the shogunate, and local officials and powerful families will not bully you."

Zhao Ji patiently explained, "In the past, Dong Zhuo relocated the Qiang people to the Fen River, but I manage things here more strictly. In ten or fifteen years, they can also be registered as Han households. If you do not open the city gates, I will launch a full-scale attack tomorrow with my daredevil troops, and after the city falls, they will all be demoted to government slaves."

The nobleman with the coarse hair thought for a moment and then asked, "If we are persuaded to surrender this city, may we retain some of our wealth, people, and livestock? And will we be able to follow the Grand Marshal in the future?"

Before Zhao Ji could speak, Liu Qubei stood up abruptly, grabbed a lamb leg bone, and threw it at him, glaring and cursing, "Go and persuade them to surrender! It's already a mercy from the Celestial Empire to spare your lives! How dare this old slave ask for more!"

Seeing that the Grand Marshal remained unmoved, the other Xiongnu nobles grabbed the leftover bones and threw them at him, glaring and cursing.

How could the Qiang people be incorporated into the volunteer army?
If they were to truly form large groups of Qiang righteous followers, what would become of them?
After Liu Qubei finished his tirade, he turned to Zhao Ji and bowed, saying, "Grand Marshal, the more than 50,000 Qiang troops are so easily defeated, it is clear that they are truly useless. If Fushi City refuses to surrender, why rely on daredevils? I will personally lead my brave soldiers to capture this city for the Grand Marshal!"

“I know that the Right Wise King is loyal and brave. Now that the great battle has taken place, the brave warriors are exhausted and I really cannot bear to kill any more.”

Zhao Ji spoke gently, gesturing for Liu Qubei to sit down: "Give me some face and let the Qiang people choose whether to live or die. If they seek their own demise, it won't be too late to attack the city after the Right Wise King's troops have rested and recuperated."

"Yes, the Ruoqiang people are ungrateful. I beg the Grand Marshal not to delegate this opportunity to anyone else, but to give it to me."

Liu Qubei stepped back to sit down, turned his head to look at the Qiang nobleman, his expression extremely arrogant and fierce.

The Xiongnu nobles all had sneer expressions, as if they couldn't wait for the Qiang people to refuse to surrender so they could make a fortune.

There will be casualties during a siege, but the spoils will be divided proportionally after the city is captured.

The Qiang nobles dared not negotiate any further. They held these nobles hostage, knowing that the situation was hopeless.

If they do not take the initiative to persuade their own tribes to surrender or befriend them, their tribal strongholds will surely be breached by the Xiongnu or other reorganized enemy Qiang suicide troops.

When their tribal strongholds are captured, their noble status becomes meaningless.

They, along with the men and women of the tribe, will suffer immense hardship and find it difficult to recover.

Seeing that these nobles agreed to surrender, Zhao Ji looked at Han Shu, who had been temporarily transferred to his side: "Wenbai, arrange for carriages and horses to send them into the city. If the garrison of Fushi City refuses to open the city gates and surrender when the sun rises tomorrow, don't blame me for being ruthless."

"Here."

Han Shu bowed in agreement, picked up his helmet and put it on, then loudly urged the Qiang nobles to leave the tent, showing absolutely no respect.

These Qiang nobles, on the contrary, felt that this was normal and dared not delay or lose their temper.

Although many people have no connection with the Qiang tribe in Fushi City, they have no choice but to go there now.

Only by persuading Fushi City to surrender would they have the opportunity to persuade their own tribal strongholds to surrender. Only by persuading their own tribal strongholds to surrender could they enjoy some special treatment after entering the Han Dynasty.

Whether Fushi City can open its gates tomorrow will directly determine Zhao Ji's next move.

If the city is to be opened, then let Jia Xu be stationed there to oversee the final stages of the suppression of the Qiang tribes in the three commanderies.

He himself chose a carriage and rode towards the Xianbei Shuofang royal court!

(End of this chapter)