Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 65 The Army Divides North and South
In the summer of the 30th year of the Tianli calendar, a new batch of grain carts and soldiers heading north entered Tianchi City. Accompanying them was a new group of officers from the Wu family clan. Upon entering the camp, they heard accents completely different from their native tongues, permeating every camp. Furthermore, after meeting Wu Hanluan, they discovered that even Wu Hanluan's son, Wu Hengyu, had been influenced by these outsiders in his accent.

As one of the direct descendants of the Wu family army, Wu Fei's cousin, who had done odd jobs in the Battle of Yongji Pass and had driven chariots to charge the barbarians outside the pass, muttered to himself after arriving at this camp for six days: "Courageous and righteous, but lacking in discipline."

In his tent, he kept in mind Wu Fei's instructions on the drill ground before he left: "Observe more to gain clarity, never act impulsively, and always adhere to the rules and regulations."

…Wu Fei's version of "On Military Affairs"…

At this point, the attributes of the northern and southern armies had already diverged.

The Southern Army was formed 26 years after the founding of the Wu family. Wu Hanluan moved the main force of the Wu family army to the north, and Wu Fei used the soldiers from Yongji Pass as the backbone, promoting his old subordinates from previous battles to create a new family army. Although it was new in terms of age, in the eyes of the Wu family, it was more in line with the values ​​of a family private army.

The Southern Route Wu Family Army, as a local force, had a very strong sense of community and kinship. Wu Fei had no intention of severing these clan ties. Because, after all, there was no television advertising or similar forms of propaganda in ancient times.

Historically, talented individuals recruiting soldiers couldn't attract followers without the help of local brothers of the same surname to vouch for them and then volunteer themselves as shills. As for modern propaganda teams actively recruiting in various counties and townships, well, if they dared to challenge the authority of the county magistrate appointed by the emperor, the imperial censors and local officials would definitely step in and kick them while they were down.

Among Wu Fei's most elite soldiers, 30 percent are from the Wu family. Although most of them are distant relatives, they all acknowledge Wu Fei as their "family member," just like Ah Q recognized Master Zhao as his family member.

After the Battle of Yongji Pass, every year a large number of young men from the same village would seek opportunities from Wu Fei. After recruiting them into his army, Wu Fei used these fellow villagers to organize "hometown associations," handling the most troublesome grassroots tasks such as pensions and the remittance of military pay, thus ensuring the distribution of war spoils.

Xuan Chong added helplessly: "Without the hometown association, it would be very difficult to carry out the relief work."

If the official in charge of providing relief is not a member of the hometown association, but rather an outsider to the area, and travels back and forth to the hometowns of the fallen to distribute the large sums of money, there will be two scenarios.

Firstly, if the military pension officer is too easy to talk to, he will inevitably encounter some shrewish women from the countryside who will throw tantrums, demand more, and even steal from him. They will hold the pension officer back and prevent him from leaving, causing a huge scene. And since the villagers see that this person is easy to talk to, they will also ask the pension officer to give him a little more as "reasonably" as possible, otherwise they will threaten to spread rumors in the surrounding villages to discourage people from joining the army.

Second: The officials in charge of compensation are vicious and difficult to talk to; they become like the corrupt officials of Shihao, their faces like demons. But if they use the "corrupt officials of Shihao," how much of the compensation will actually be paid out?
Only by having a fellow villager as a comrade-in-arms official can a certain degree of control be maintained, curbing those unreasonable and unruly people in the village. At the same time, since they will eventually return to their hometown to be buried in the ancestral graves, the people of Da Yao still believe in ghosts and gods. If they don't want to be sued by their brothers in the same grave in the future, they are unlikely to be blinded by greed.

Therefore, Xuan Chong now roughly understands why the six generations of the pre-Qin period were able to steadily promote the Qin legal system, and why it suddenly crashed after the First Emperor unified the world.

That is, the implementation of Qin law took several hundred years. During this long period, Qin culture and Qin law co-evolved, much like the co-evolution of large animals and Homo sapiens on the African savanna, which allowed diversity to be preserved. After Homo sapiens left, the diversity of other continents collapsed.

The people of Qin villages and the local officials must have found a way to survive under Qin law by using a grassroots system of governance similar to the "hometown associations" that they are now exploring.

The Qin ruling class, through Legalism, treated the people like machines, pushing them to their limits without realizing that Qin culture had been distorted and distorted by exploitation, adapting itself to Qin law. Therefore, forcibly transplanting the Qin legal system, which had evolved over hundreds of years, to the other six states was tantamount to directly transplanting the First Emperor's Qin law to the era of Shang Yang—it would inevitably collapse.

The Wu Family Army's Southern Route Army was actually a "Qin Army," but when Wu Fei implemented Legalist rewards and punishments in important national affairs such as war and sacrifices, he also reserved certain human rights for the village elders. These village elders were those who had earned titles on the battlefield and remained loyal. When Wu Fei implemented the Legalist system, he did not use "punishment" to punish these village elders.

After acknowledging the necessity of the "village elders" system of governance, Wu Fei strictly controlled the "quota" and the "qualification threshold" for becoming a village elder. Every village elder's words and actions could not violate etiquette, and anyone with any scandal was not allowed to hold the position. For example, those officials who returned to their hometowns to provide relief had to strictly adhere to etiquette during their return journeys.

Note: Wu Fei will absolutely not engage in any shady practices such as "diversifying the team" or "adding more distinctive voices." This is because it involves "discretionary power," which absolutely cannot be wielded by those who are "too free and whose bottom lines are too flexible"! Only those who are strict with themselves are worthy of wielding this sacred power of "discretion."

Wu Fei: I am a liberal. The requirement of "rites" is limited to scholars and will not be applied to every commoner.

In contrast, the Wu family army's northern route was a "Chu army" that upheld righteousness and faith.

In terms of manpower, the soldiers Wu Fei sent to the Wu Hanluan Northern Route Army through the recruitment system were different. As mentioned earlier, when recruiting soldiers in the Donghua County camp, those with families were enslaved after entering the soup kitchen and sent to the south. As for those without families who came to serve alone, Wu Fei packaged these atomized individuals together and sent them to the north.

As for why the two armies exhibit such differences, it all comes down to personnel.

Unlike General Haotian in the north, Wu Fei didn't yet have the concept of "selecting the vanguard," but based on his habitual work practices, he subconsciously chose people he thought were easy to manage, while assigning the difficult-to-manage people to Wu Hengyu.

After those families who had fled together were captured, Wu Fei had to arrange land, livestock, and labor for them, because he knew their "weak points."

These immigrants were all slaves under asylum. In the future, if they could have permanent property registered in their own names, that is, if they successfully registered their household, they would have the need to go to the battlefield to gain merit, even if it was the second or third generation.

Wu Fei was certain he was twenty years old this year. The children brought by the immigrants were all seven or eight years old, and could become soldiers in ten years. Even if they had children immediately after settling down, and the next generation grew up in twenty years, Wu Fei could wait. Wu Fei was confident and capable of suppressing the various "profit-seeking" forces within his violent machine, drawing upon enough channels for advancement to ensure the growth of his combat power.

As for those atomized young adults who fled alone.

Wu Fei commented humbly on this group of young men who had come from the north: "There are many brilliant minds here. It would be difficult for me, with my own intelligence, to come up with a solution that conforms to the feudalistic values ​​of this era and satisfies them all." In truth, if the era were irrelevant, the ideas Wu Fei could propose would be quite attractive. But Wu Fei dared not say so.

However, this is not a problem for Wu Hengyu. While he may lack brains, he has the power to win people's hearts and minds.

With such a division of troops, the northern and southern routes of the Wu family army developed very different cultures.

…Unlike the Wu Fei-Gong-Li Alliance, Wu Heng-Yu is now united by a shared sense of righteousness. …

Within the Northern Route Army, there were two distinct classes. For example, if the roster listed one side with proper names like Wang Yanli, Zhou Dewei, and Ge Congzhou, while the other side used village nicknames like "Straw Rope," "Hemp Stalk," and "Black Pig," it would make one wonder if they were keeping separate records.

Those with names and surnames were the sons of the sponsors Wu Hengyu had brought in through a backdoor listing, namely the powerful families of the two states after the initial suppression of the rebellion in the prefectures of Zhou and Zhu. Furthermore, a group was recruited in Donghua County. It's worth mentioning that among the group Yu Li brought in, many were actually from humble backgrounds.

These sons of wealthy families, though they also tilled the land, at least had grandfathers who spent their lives in schools. Having grown up surrounded by such influences, they knew they shared the same ancestor as those young masters, only the latter were legitimate sons, while they were illegitimate. They were dissatisfied with their current situation. Now that they had joined the army, they were far more ambitious than those laborers whose ancestors had been farmers for generations. And coincidentally, the Wu family army was currently a rising stock, offering them opportunities to climb the ranks.

These local powerful clans' collateral branches and poor families were clearly the backbone of Wu Hengyu's forces; at the very least, they could all write their own names! When Wu Hengyu lacked common sense and only provided the military framework, these skeletons filled in the details of management themselves.

However, Wu Fei, as an outsider, could sense that although these people were cheerful and talkative, seemingly living for the moment, they were actually quite empty inside. During the few times he delivered supplies to the Northern Route Army, Wu Fei discovered that these key military personnel mostly talked about idealistic topics like "returning home in glory."

…The dividing line between idealism and realism…

The soldiers in Wu Fei's Southern Route Army were pragmatic. Rank matched land ownership and the bureaucratic training system; meritorious service meant returning home to redefine order. There was no need to proclaim their return in fine clothes and on a tall horse. Military ranks were recorded in the local bureaucratic system, enjoying priority and privileges in various adjudication mechanisms. Their merits reached their hometowns before they even returned. In other words, only when the hometowns couldn't understand the benefits of military achievements would soldiers need to return home to show off.

Twenty-nine years after the founding of the Tianli era, seventy percent of the mid-level officers in the Wu Family Army's northern route were from these collateral branches and humble families.

Take Zhou and Zhuzhou as examples. They invested in Wu Hengyu because they couldn't allocate a title to their local collateral branches. So, can we expect to redistribute the wealth of these two places through military achievements? Impossible. No matter how well these collateral branches fight outside, bringing assets and women, it will only give their own clans an opportunity to offer incense. But the direct descendants of the clan remain the direct descendants.

This is a huge problem! A group of knowledgeable, idealistic, proletarian youths, whose perseverance is uncertain, have merged with a large number of similarly atomized lower-class youths. In Xuan Chong's previous life, regardless of the region or country, these attributes would have been undeniably destabilizing factors.

What kind of leader do these people expect? — Wu Fei: I know the answer to this question. It requires a superhuman figure to appear out of nowhere, someone with a strong and powerful persona, to lead them in breaking the existing order.

If the Southern Route Army was a piece of iron, then the Northern Route Army was explosives.

Just as Wu Fei had managed the Southern Route Army like an iron barrel, the Northern Route Army was completely under Wu Hengyu's control.

Wu Fei excels in logistics, but because of the overwhelming brilliance of "Brave Champion" within the Northern Route Army, no matter how many other military achievements Wu Fei makes, he will always be second in command and will never be able to shake Wu Hengyu's control—because he cannot satisfy the hearts of these idealists within the Northern Route Army.

Wu Fei dared not replace Wu Hengyu. Wu Fei said, "They (the Northern Route Army) are like bombs. They may seem to have lofty ideals, but in reality, they have very high aspirations. They are not people who can be given a reclamation point and then simply dismissed. They are a group of men who are determined to take charge and make their own decisions."

Wu Fei's attitude towards the Northern Route Army was: "Gentlemen, please go your way. Our little temple can't accommodate all of you big shots. Of course, we can still scrape together enough money for your travels. Head north to find Da Yao to seek your ideals and ask for a future."

…From “knowing everything” to “not understanding anything”…

Thirty years later, Wu Hanluan met with Wu Hong, a member of his family, in the army and listened to his report. But as he listened, the smile on his face turned into an expression that seemed to say, "I want to catch a little devil."

Wu Hengyu, who was standing to the side, was also very happy to see his cousin. The reason for his enthusiasm was simple: the Northern Route Army was growing stronger and stronger, but there were not enough disciples from the main family.

In terms of personality, Wu Hengyu is more inclined to be family than Wu Fei.

Wu Fei showed no favoritism towards his own people when it came to rewards and punishments; among the generals under his command, very few bore the surname Wu. The surname Wu was more commonly found in the rosters of his personal guards and the Security Bureau.

After listening to Wu Hong's account of family matters, Wu Hanluan nodded. He learned that Wu Fei had crossed Yongji Pass, opened a new city, and begun using swords to guide the southern tribes in farming.

Because Tianchi City and Yongji Pass have been stockpiling and collecting grain very quickly this year, he was worried that his hometown might be starving.

After all, judging from the tax revenue, the three southern prefectures in his hometown were sparsely populated and poor in the eyes of the imperial court, but the amount of grain and fodder that Wu Fei raised far exceeded the amount that the three Donghua prefectures paid to the imperial court.

Considering Wu Fei's exploitative practices elsewhere, he was worried that his own family might have already incurred the wrath of both heaven and man.

Oh, now that I know everything is alright back home, and that the foreign serfs have cultivated vast amounts of farmland and flooded areas, supplying the local population with wild potatoes and taro, I can finally relax.

After Wu Hong returned to the camp.

Wu Hanluan sat down and said to his son Wu Hengyu, "It seems we'll have to go north ourselves."

When the Northern Route Army was stationed in Longyou County, Wu Hanluan could guess that the court wanted to mobilize him.

As for why the army was sent there, the court didn't say explicitly, but it's easy to guess: it was for the King of Bo to flee there and establish a "pseudo-Kuan" state, as well as the King of Lelang in Zhenzhou, which was adjacent to the pseudo-Kuan and extremely unstable.

Wu Hanluan rambled on, "I originally wanted to wait for Yuan Chang to come along, so the three of us could go north together. That way, things would be 90% stable. But he's very busy there, and he can't be left without his family."

Wu Hengyu frowned. Although he agreed with Wu Fei, he couldn't bear to hear Wu Hanluan make Wu Fei sound so important.

Wu Hengyu then said, "Father, we don't necessarily need to be so cautious this time on the northward march. Our army has been sharpening its skills and concealing its strength for a long time! Moreover, we have many mages assisting us. It is really difficult to be defeated."

Wu Hanluan nodded, then asked, "And then what?"

Wu Hengyu: "After winning, of course we must capture the leader of the bandits!"

Wu Hanluan looked at his son and smiled wryly. He certainly had some talent for fighting and charging into battle, but he simply didn't understand politics! If Wu Fei were here, he probably would have thought of this long ago. That is, the Wu family army's establishment of a large camp in Donghua County had already aroused some suspicion from the court. After directly conquering Guan Kingdom and making a great contribution, how should the court reward them?

Wu Fei no longer reports the number of people on the border, because he knows the court won't be rewarding him at this point. Theoretically, he could exchange his title for a peerage, but in reality, it has long reached the court's psychological limit. The court doesn't want to honor it, but if it has to, it will only reluctantly grant the title while remaining extremely vigilant.

The imperial court now wants the Wu family army to be used as a millstone to gradually crush the false regime, and then the imperial court will send a large army to capture the "Prince of Bo" and reap the credit.

Wu Hanluan said to Wu Hengyu, "Arrange for the vanguard of the army to clear the way. Remember to go slowly, stopping frequently. Avoid any conflict with King Lelang."

(End of this chapter)