Three Kingdoms: I am not Liu Bian

Chapter 187 My generals know nothing about the economics of war!
Your subject Bu respectfully reports:
I led my troops out of Luoyang on the 26th of the third month, traveling 70 li a day and resting every six days. It took 32 days to travel and 5 days to rest, a total of 37 days, covering more than 2,200 li. We arrived at the Southern Xiongnu royal court at noon on the 5th of the fifth month.

His Highness Prince Lai is blessed with boundless good fortune, and the Han dynasty is prosperous. In this battle, he has captured and killed nineteen Xiongnu nobles, including the Xiongnu old king, Puleigai (father of Xubuguduhou), the Right Guli King, the Left and Right Grand Generals, the Left Guduhou, the Right Grand Qiequ, the Left Chancellor, the Haosu King, the Rizhu King, the Aojian King, the Lutu King, the Xiutu King, and the other nineteen others. There are also 50,898 heads in the tent.

Of the 7,000 elite cavalrymen under my command, 517 were lost, of whom 306 died from exhaustion from falling from their horses and from acclimatization problems.

Now, the army is preparing to march north to Wuyuan to annihilate the 30,000-strong force of the Right Wise King.

I humbly request Your Highness to take good care of your health and not to overwork yourself day and night, so as to ensure the safety of the nation.

Your humble servant, Lü Bu, Colonel of the Yue Cavalry, bows twice.

In the Yong'an Palace in Luoyang, the bronze palace lamp cast a warm yellow glow on the desk. Liu Bian held the edge of the bamboo slip with his fingertips, staring at the numbers on the memorial. Suddenly, he fell silent, and the smile on his face vanished instantly.

This made Gao Wang, who had brought the good news, feel a pang of anxiety.

The postman said it was a victory report, not a defeat report. Could it be that although the battle was won, some general died unexpectedly in battle?
Liu Bian took a deep breath, somewhat dissatisfied with the figures in Lü Bu's victory report.

"Your Highness?"

Jia Xu, who was reporting on government affairs, slightly raised his half-closed eyes and caught a glimpse of the Crown Prince's expression out of the corner of his eye, causing his brows to furrow slightly.

Luoyang, the capital city, has now become the logistics hub for the two armies from Liangzhou and Bingzhou that quelled the rebellion. Jia Xu, the governor of Henan, is naturally busy, reporting daily to the crown prince on the amount of grain and fodder transported from various prefectures and counties, as well as the number of laborers conscripted.

Seeing Jia Xu's curiosity, Liu Bian simply handed him the news of victory. For a moment, Jia Xu wanted to slap himself for saying that extra word and adding unnecessary work for himself.

However, after receiving the battle report, Jia Xu also fell silent.

Lü Bu beheaded more than 50,000 Xiongnu people in the Southern Xiongnu royal court. To put it another way, at the end of last year, after the Xiongnu General and the Qiangqu Chanyu checked the figures together, the confirmed population of the Southern Xiongnu was 320,000.

Dong Zhuo and Ding Yuan jointly submitted a memorial, confirming that the number of Southern Xiongnu rebels who invaded Taiyuan Commandery was about 60,000, while another 30,000 Xiongnu under the command of the Right Wise King invaded Wuyuan Commandery. According to the rough analysis, the Xiongnu royal court had about 10,000 Xiongnu rebels, and the rest were the elderly, weak, women and children.

During the reign of Emperor Xiaowu, the Xiongnu conscripted soldiers based on a ratio of one soldier for every five people. However, the Southern Xiongnu did not have the more than three million people that the Xiongnu had at their peak. With only 320,000 people, they were already conscripting soldiers based on a ratio of one soldier for every three people, which meant that almost all the male Xiongnu men had been mobilized.

This is why these nomadic peoples could do this: nobles, the elderly, women, and children would stay at home while able-bodied men plundered supplies from the Han people to support their tribes.

If the looting is successful, then everyone can survive.

If the raid fails, the remaining food in the tribe is enough to sustain the survivors.

Lü Bu led 7,000 elite cavalry to conquer the Xiongnu royal court, which had less than 10,000 Xiongnu rebels, and beheaded more than 50,000 Xiongnu people. The source of the remaining 40,000 or so heads is self-evident.

Oh, Your Highness, you felt the efficiency was too low.

Indeed, seven thousand elite cavalrymen penetrated deep behind enemy lines and beheaded fifty thousand people. Even he would be dissatisfied with Lü Bu's efficiency.

He can't even manage a group of elderly, weak, women and children. What kind of person is Lü Bu?
But it's okay, he has a way to fix it!

Jia Xu bowed and addressed Liu Bian, his eyes filled with ruthlessness and his face beaming with eagerness. He said, "Your Highness, I have a plan to annihilate the Xiongnu, but it will slightly offend the will of Heaven!"

Liu Bian paused slightly, his gaze towards Jia Xu somewhat blank, before realizing that Jia Xu had misunderstood him. "Wenhe, you're too radical!"

"Aren't the Xiongnu people human?!"

Liu Bian suddenly stood up, pointed at Jia Xu, and unusually became angry with Jia Xu, which immediately attracted the attention of the Crown Prince's household retainers in the side hall.

Some people wanted to advise the crown prince that the dead were just the elderly, weak, women and children of the Xiongnu, and that the lives of the Xiongnu people were not considered deaths.

Scholars and literati who have long believed in the concept of great revenge would not have any objection to Lü Bu's actions. They would say that slaughtering unarmed old, weak, women and children was called "expelling the barbarians"!
At least during the Han Dynasty, scholars, with the exception of a very few anthropomorphic individuals, generally maintained a fairly sound set of values ​​when facing issues related to foreign ethnic groups.

Emperor Xiaowu of the Shizong clan, in particular, almost said, "Since ancient times, people have valued the Chinese and despised the barbarians, but I alone value the barbarians and despise the Chinese."

After all, the heads of the Xiongnu were really valuable!
Do you understand what "one Hu is worth five Han" means?

This fostered the Han people's concept of equality towards barbarians, namely, to equally discriminate against every barbarian, equally regard every barbarian as a noble person in their lives, and equally cherish every barbarian's head.

However, just as the Crown Prince's retainers were about to rise and advise him, Liu Bian put down the bamboo slips in his hand and let out a long sigh.

Before the battle, these generals were tasked with dealing with the captured Xiongnu rebels!
So they ended up cutting it down, huh?
What's wrong? People from Bingzhou and Liangzhou can't understand Henan accents, huh?
"My generals know nothing about the economics of war!"

What the crown prince said next was quite eye-opening. After all, although Emperor Xiaowu valued the heads of the Xiongnu, he also treated the Xiongnu prisoners well. He even killed powerful families and seized their wealth to provide these Xiongnu prisoners with homes, in order to undermine the fighting spirit of the Xiongnu tribes on the grasslands.

However, their crown prince had a more far-sighted vision than Emperor Xiaowu. He hoped to help the Xiongnu learn to be self-reliant on the land of the Han Dynasty!
If you give him a bucket of fish, he can only eat fish for a few meals!

Give him a fishing rod and he can eat fish every day!

In order to help the Xiongnu captives adapt to life in the Han Dynasty and teach them a survival skill, His Highness the Crown Prince is prepared to mercifully give them a chance to live by having them work on building irrigation canals and cultivating wasteland!
Of course, this is a embellished version of the story.

After that, Gao Wang dismissed the eunuchs and maids around him and closed the palace doors, not daring to let these words spread.

What a fine labor force! How cheap are the three meals a day consisting of two meals of bran and one whip, and yet I can exploit them without any moral burden!
what?
What if I work myself to death or starve to death?
Give him a proper burial; burying him will fertilize the land!

I would even rather let them rest in peace than turn them into soap!
As for those who didn't die from exhaustion or starvation, they were naturally thrown into the next place to repair irrigation canals or reclaim wasteland, and given a meal of bran and two beatings!

They can atone for their sins through labor and learn a way to make a living. Isn't that a win-win situation?

What now!
On the fourth day of the fifth month, Dong Zhuo arrived outside Jinyang City during the day and attacked the camp of 60,000 Xiongnu rebels at night. In one battle, he beheaded a total of 21,397 Xiongnu rebels. Ding Yuan defended the city for more than a month and killed about 3,000 to 4,000 Xiongnu rebels.

That's 25,000 Xiongnu soldiers killed in action!
Lü Bu then dealt with 10,000 able-bodied Xiongnu men, as well as more than 40,000 Xiongnu elderly, weak, women, and children!

Once Lü Bu finishes off the 30,000 Xiongnu laborers in Wuyuan County, Dong Zhuo will not let go of the remaining 30,000 Xiongnu laborers under Xubu Guduhou. The entire Southern Xiongnu will be left with only 180,000 old, weak, women and children, and they will probably be wiped out in a few years!

This is absolutely cruel!

(End of this chapter)