The Revolt of the Three Feudatories: All-in at the start in Beijing

This burly man was Yarha, a member of the Solon tribe. He was a centurion promoted by Aguda and was skilled in hunting. When fighting in Korea, he was particularly adept at raiding cities.

Standing behind Xu Chuang, he was over 1.8 meters tall, with broad shoulders and a thick back. His arms were thicker than an average person's thighs, and when he stood at the bow of the ship, he looked like half an iron tower.

He was wearing a set of blue cloth armor with copper studs on the chest plates, a short axe and a long knife hanging from his waist, and a meteor hammer slung across his back.

"Yarha, Kyushu Island is now in your hands." Xu Chuang turned around and faced him directly. "Is everything prepared? Once you land, you'll have to rely on yourselves for everything. You'll have to fight for your own food, use your arrows sparingly, and find a way to take care of the wounded. The various vassal states have tens of thousands of troops, and they won't show any mercy in their encirclement and suppression of you."

Yarha grinned, revealing a row of teeth stained yellow by smoke: "General Xu, you're being too polite. Encirclement and suppression? Who's encircling and suppressing whom is still uncertain. When we Jurchens were lurking in the forests of Changbai Mountain, not to mention soldiers, even tigers and black bears would avoid us."

Yarha patted his armor as he spoke.

"The equipment the imperial court has prepared this time is quite impressive. If it were a few years ago, and our tribe had these three thousand sets of armor, would wild boar hide even think of enslaving us?"

"Don't underestimate them." Xu Chuang lowered his voice. "These Japanese devils may be short, but they are all very vicious. Besides, you only have three thousand men."

"General, three thousand men is not a small number." Yarha took the short axe off his waist and weighed it in his hand. "In our Heilongjiang region, when one tribe fights another, three or five hundred men is considered a great force."

"Moreover, I brought a thousand top hunters this time. They are all old hunters who have been chasing roe deer and wild boars in the snow since they were young. It is common for them to squat in the forest for three days and three nights without moving. As for the other two thousand North Sea savages, as long as there are mountains in Kyushu Island, they can be sent out as three thousand wolves."

Xu Chuang glanced at him and nodded. "The imperial court has decreed that as long as you can create chaos throughout Kyushu Island, the court will designate a county for you on Kyushu Island, allowing your tribe to relocate and recuperate. At that time, the Japanese pirates in this county will also be under your jurisdiction. Whether they farm, pay taxes, or perform corvée labor, it will all be up to you."

Yarha's eyes lit up, but he didn't reply immediately. He quickly did some mental calculations: even a small county on this Japanese island was far better than his place in Heilongjiang.

For half the year, Heilongjiang is frozen, making farming impossible and leaving people to hunt. In years of famine, when no roe deer can be hunted, people in the tribes will starve to death.

He had seen the sea of ​​Japan, and the wind in the west was warm. He guessed that the rice in the fields was like that in Korea, and could be harvested twice a year. For the Jurchens, such a place was paradise.

When he returned to Heilongjiang to recruit people, many hunters, upon hearing that they could go to the Japanese islands to plunder goods in exchange for land, rushed to sign up.

This also shows that even with subsidies for food from the Han people, life in the mountains was still difficult.

"I, Yarha, am willing to die for His Majesty the Emperor." With this thought, Yarha knelt on one knee and pounded his chest with his right hand.

Xu Chuang reached out and helped him up, glancing at him: "Aren't you afraid?"

Yarha was taken aback by the question: "General, last time in Yizhou City, when you were recruiting our Jurchen warriors, you asked us this question in front of hundreds of us. I said then that if we were afraid of death, we wouldn't have come."

"Alright." Xu Chuang released his hand and patted his shoulder. "Jia Battalion, dock."

As the flags waved, ten large Fujian-style ships sailed out of the formation and slowly approached the desolate shore.

When the ship was still about a hundred meters from the shore, the sailors threw all the small boats tied to the gunwale into the sea. There were ten small boats in total, each capable of carrying thirty people, and the sound of them hitting the water was deafening.

The wild men of Beihai couldn't wait any longer. They slid down the ropes in groups and jumped into the small boats with strange cries.

Their hairstyles were the same as the Jurchens: bald in the front and with a small braid at the back of their heads, and they were shouting in a language that Xu Chuang couldn't understand.

Someone swung too hard on the rope and fell into the sea. When he popped his head out of the water, he didn't curse or get angry. Instead, he yelled and pulled his companion into the water, which made the people on the boat laugh.

"These savages," Yarha muttered awkwardly, standing next to Xu Chuang.

"As long as you know how to fight, that's enough," Xu Chuang said.

The small boat carried people back and forth for three quarters of an hour, and all three thousand people were on shore. Yarha was the last to get off the Fujian boat, and he stood on the small boat and waved back at Xu Chuang.

"Good luck to you." Xu Chuang stood on the ship's railing, looked at Yarha, and waved.

After all three thousand people entered the dense forest, the coastline returned to its desolate state, as if no one had ever been there.

"Change course. Head to Honshu Island."

With Xu Chuang's order, the fleet slowly turned around, and the coastline of the Fukuoka Domain grew smaller and smaller behind the fleet.

After a short while, the entire northern coast of Kyushu Island returned to calm, with only the wreckage of the smashed fishing boats still floating on the sea.

Yarha stood deep in the forest, watching the fleet disappear through the gaps in the tree trunks, and then turned around.

"Listen carefully." Yarha raised his short axe. "I just told General Xu that three thousand men is not a small number. This isn't for the general's ears, it's for all of you!"

"You hunted wild boars in Heilongjiang, and dealt with ferocious beasts in Beihai, because you had plenty of energy but nowhere to use it. Now it's different. This is Japan, where there's food everywhere, and people everywhere!"

"His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Han Dynasty said that everything we have seized this time, including grain, gold, silver, and women, will belong to us. We can even transport the loot to Tianjin and exchange it for Great Han gold coins and land in Liaodong."

"What can we exchange the Japanese women we kidnapped for?" a short, stocky man from the North Sea asked, raising his hand and revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth with a grin.

Yarha glanced at him: "You can keep the Japanese woman you captured or sell her. But I advise you to bring fewer women with you; a woman on a march is a burden."

"Leave one person to cook," said the wild man from the North Sea.

"I'll leave you two, and even sew the shoes for you." Yarha stopped arguing with him. "Let's get down to business. The three thousand men will be divided into three groups, and the hunters from Heilongjiang will be divided into two groups, pushing south from the west and east, with five hundred men in each group, to find out where the main roads and granaries are."

"Two thousand savages from Beihai walk in the middle. You have the least work. Burn whatever you see. Burn the villages, trample the crops, and throw dead pigs into the wells."

"The sole purpose is to leave the Japanese with nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Remember, when the samurai from the various domains come, fight if you can, and run away if you can't. Go back into the forest and they won't be able to catch you. Sleep during the day and come out at night. Do you understand?"

"Understood!" the three thousand people roared in unison.

"Let's go." Yarha cleaved his short axe and led five hundred men into the mountains.