Han Ji

July of the ninth year of Xingping. Jiangdong, Wu Commandery.

The heat was like a sauna. Cicadas chirped deafeningly in the trees, and steam rose from the rice paddies outside Wu County. The rice ears, just beginning to fill out, hung heavy with their green hues. Farmers squatted on the ridges, fanning themselves with straw hats, beads of sweat dripping from their chins into the paddy water.

Sun Quan stood in the main hall of the governor's mansion, a map of the six commanderies of Jiangdong spread out before him. The map was held down by a paperweight, the bronze tiger left behind by Sun Ce. He wore a white robe with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his forehead was covered in sweat, which he did not wipe away.

Zhang Zhao stood on the left, and Zhou Yu on the right. Cheng Pu, Han Dang, Jiang Qin, and Zhou Tai were also present.

"The Shanyue have rebelled again." Sun Quan's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear. "The Shanyue people in Danyang, Poyang, and Xindu counties have risen up simultaneously. They came out of the mountains, burned down the granaries in three villages outside Poyang city, and robbed a copper mine in Danyang. The Shanyue people in Xindu are the most vicious; they killed the county magistrate and hung his head on a tree outside the city gate."

Zhang Zhao frowned. "This is the third time this year. Twice last year, and three times this year. The Yue people hide deep in the mountains and forests. When the government troops come, they run into the mountains, and when the government troops leave, they come out to plunder again. If we don't subdue them, Jiangdong will never have a stable rear."

Sun Quan said, "Fight! This time, we won't rest until we've fought our way into the mountains."

He raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the faces of the generals below. "Lord Cheng, you will take five thousand men into Danyang Mountain. Demou will go with you. You will enter the mountain via the Liyang route and force the Danyang Mountain bandits to the foot of Huangshan Mountain. Don't let them run towards Xindu."

Cheng Pu said, "Danyang is a large mountain; five thousand people are not enough to cast a net."

Sun Quan said, "There's no need to cast a wide net. If you seize their water source and block their way out of the mountains, they'll have no choice but to retreat deeper into the mountains. The deeper they retreat, the less food they'll have stored. After two or three months of this, when they're almost starving, some of them will naturally come out and surrender."

Cheng Pu clasped his hands in a fist salute. "I accept the order."

Sun Quan then looked at Han Dang. "General Han, take three thousand men to Poyang. The Yue tribes of Poyang have just seized the granaries and are busy distributing the grain. Intercept them before they can transport the grain into the mountains."

Han Dang clasped his hands in a fist salute. "Yes."

Finally, he turned to Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin. "You two go to Xindu. The mountain tribes of Xindu killed the county magistrate, which is a slap in the face to the imperial court. You don't need to be polite to them. After entering the mountains, kill anyone who resists with weapons. Those who lay down their weapons and surrender should be moved outside the mountains and resettled with land. Those who can't take anything with them should also be given a way to live."

Zhou Tai nodded. Jiang Qin, standing beside him, asked, "My lord, what should we do with the prisoners?"

Sun Quan said, "The able-bodied men should be incorporated into the army, while the elderly, weak, women, and children should be relocated to areas outside the mountains. Give them land to cultivate and food to eat. After the battle, no looting, burning, or killing of surrendered soldiers is allowed. Anyone who breaks the rules will be punished according to military law."

The generals clasped their hands in obeisance and filed out.

Zhou Yu remained in the main hall until everyone else had left before speaking. "Zhongmou, your campaign against the Shanyue this time is different from my late brother's."

Sun Quan asked, "How is it different?"

Zhou Yu said, "My late brother attacked the Shanyue by suppressing them. You, on the other hand, use both suppression and appeasement. My late brother only attacked and never submitted, while you, after the campaign, still provided them with land and grain. The Shanyue people aren't fools; they know who they can follow to survive."

Sun Quan placed his hand on the map. "The Yue people are from Jiangdong. They hid in the mountains and rebelled not because they wanted to rebel, but because they had no land to cultivate and no food to eat. I moved them out and gave them land, so they became registered citizens. Registered citizens pay taxes and serve in the army, which is the foundation of Jiangdong."

Zhou Yu glanced at him. This young man had only been in power for a little over a year, and his voice no longer trembled as it had when he knelt before Sun Ce's bed.

Cheng Pu and Han Dangdang set off with their troops the next day. The mountain tribes of Danyang were the most difficult to fight. They hid in the dense forests of the Huangshan foothills, stored food in caves, and set up rolling stones and traps on both sides of the mountain streams.

Cheng Pu's troops suffered a loss just three days after entering the mountains. A small vanguard squad stepped into a trap, and seven or eight men fell into a pit filled with bamboo skewers, their legs pierced. Cheng Pu ordered the wounded to be carried back, without rushing back in.

He divided his five thousand men into ten teams, each team occupying a stream at a mountain pass, effectively controlling all the water sources in Danyang Mountain. The Yue people stored grain in the mountains, but they couldn't store water.

Half a month later, some people began to come out of the mountains in search of water, but were caught by Cheng Pu's patrols. Another half month passed, and the first group of leaders of the Yue tribes came down the mountain in person, willing to surrender.

Han Dang fought swiftly in Poyang. The Yue tribes had just looted the granaries, and the grain was piled up in several fishing villages by Poyang Lake, not yet ready to be transported into the mountains.

Han Dang sneaked to the lakeside in the middle of the night, set fire to three bamboo rafts carrying grain, and blocked the road into the mountains. The Yue people's grain transport team was intercepted halfway and abandoned their grain, fleeing into the mountains. Han Dang seized all the grain.

Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin fought the fiercest battle in Xindu. The mountain tribes of Xindu, having killed the county magistrate, knew the government troops would arrive and had prepared rolling stones along the mountain paths. Zhou Tai's vanguard was killed by more than a dozen rolling stones as soon as they entered the mountain pass.

Zhou Tai did not retreat. He ordered Jiang Qin to lead a team to circle around to the back of the mountain, while he led the rest to charge up the mountain head-on. Once the mountain bandits had stopped rolling down the rocks, Zhou Tai's men charged forward.

The hand-to-hand combat lasted for nearly an hour, until Zhou Tai personally beheaded the leader of the Shanyue. The remaining Shanyue either fled or knelt down to surrender.

By the end of September, the three routes had been basically pacified. More than a dozen tribes, large and small, had surrendered from Danyang Mountain. Cheng Pu compiled them into a register and selected three thousand strong men to join the army.

The mountain tribes of Poyang were starved for a month after Han Dang intercepted their food supplies. Their tribal chiefs led their entire tribesmen down the mountain to surrender. The mountain tribes of Xindu suffered the heaviest casualties, but Zhou Tai still managed to recruit more than a thousand people.

Sun Quan put Zhang Zhao in charge of resettlement. More than 30,000 people from the mountain tribes migrated, mostly women, children, the elderly, and the infirm. Zhang Zhao allocated wasteland to them in the three commanderies of Danyang, Wu, and Kuaiji, giving each person 20 mu of land and exempting them from taxes for a year. The able-bodied men were recruited into the army, forming a new army of about 8,000 men.

Sun Quan later inspected these new recruits outside the city of Wu Commandery. Eight thousand men were arranged in a square formation, wearing newly issued coarse cloth uniforms and carrying newly issued spears.

The soldiers stood in somewhat disarray, but their eyes were bright. Sun Quan stood on the reviewing stand for a while, then turned to Zhou Yu beside him and said, "These are all good soldiers."

September. Yuzhou, Yingchuan.

Liu Bei returned from Hebei and rested for less than a month before setting off again. This time it wasn't for war, but for a southern tour. He was going to Yingchuan and Runan to check on the state of the military settlements, inspect the military equipment in various counties, and meet with the local taxi drivers.

Yingchuan was Xun Yu's hometown and also the place where the most prominent gentry families in the Central Plains were concentrated. The Zhong, Xun, Chen, and Han families, these great clans, had been deeply rooted in Yingchuan for hundreds of years.

Xun Yu wrote back ahead of time, telling the various tribes not to make a big fuss about welcoming him, but to let Prime Minister Liu see the true situation in Yingchuan.

When Liu Bei arrived, it was early September, and the sky was high and the clouds were light. The rice paddies on both sides of the official road outside Yingchuan City had already turned yellow, and some fields had been harvested. Farmers were bending over to cut the rice, and the harvested bundles of rice were spread out on the ridges to dry.

Liu Bei rode his horse along the official road, the hooves crunching on the dried rice husks. He wore no armor, only a blue robe, and was covered in dust. Jia Xu rode beside him on a gray horse, still clutching the same chess piece in his hand. Zhang Fei remained in Hebei to guard the area and did not come; Zhao Yun accompanied him with three hundred cavalrymen as his bodyguards.

Zhong Yao, the governor of Yingchuan, greeted Liu Bei at the city gate. Zhong Yao was in his fifties, thin, with graying hair and beard, and wore a worn-out black robe. He bowed to Liu Bei and said that the elders of Yingchuan had all been waiting in the city upon hearing that the Prime Minister was coming.

Liu Bei dismounted, returned the greeting, and said he would go into the city first.