Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1078 Loss
At this time, Yuan Xi was not in a hurry to leave, but was in Weili City, asking Tian Yu to send people to do the aftermath work.

Conquering foreign races and winning battles is only the first step. There are countless troubles waiting behind, and they are linked together. One careless move may lay long-term hidden dangers that will erupt at some point in the future, causing the situation to return to the starting point, or even worse.

This was the case during the Three Kingdoms period in later generations. When Zhuge Liang was alive, the barbarians in the south rebelled repeatedly. In order to ensure the stability of the rear of Shu Han, he requested an army to march south in 225. After Nanzhong was pacified, Shu Han controlled the area and implemented policies at the same time.

Inevitably, they encountered resistance from the local people along the way. This was because the Han Dynasty had never effectively ruled the Nanzhong region before, so the local people were fierce and, from the Han court's perspective, they were unwilling to be educated.

However, Zhuge Liang did not take drastic measures to suppress the rebellion. Instead, he appeased the local tribesmen and adopted a lenient and benevolent policy, which achieved quite good results and made him deeply loved by the local people. During this period, the rebellion in southern Xinjiang began to decrease significantly.

Since then, Zhuge Liang focused on the Northern Expedition, and Shu Han officials had repeated changes in the implementation of the South Central Policy, which led to occasional rebellions among the South Central Barbarians. But in general, Shu Han, which continued Zhuge Liang's policies, gradually reduced the rebellions among the South Central Barbarians in the next decade or so, and there were almost no rebellions after 240 years.

According to records available in history books, there were 214 large-scale rebellions in Shu Han between 263 and 227 AD. Among them, three rebellions were committed by officials and civilians, and all occurred before years ago. The rest were rebellions by foreign races. This shows that Shu Han's governance policies were stable and improving, and at least in the general direction they were correct.

During the same period, there were 38 uprisings in the Wei State, most of which were rebellions by officials and foreigners, and there were fewer civilian uprisings. This cannot be attributed to Cao Cao's policy of collective responsibility under the military farming system. In any case, it was effective in controlling the lower classes in some ways.

How many people are there in the State of Wu?

The answer is 61 times, and there were 35 civilian uprisings, which is more than the total number of Shu and Wei. This also shows that most people in Jiangdong did not live very well.

This is still a polite statement. In fact, according to the Wu bamboo slips unearthed in Zoumalou, harsh policies and torture were commonplace during the reign of the Sun family. The people's plight was so miserable that even Cao Wei was dumbfounded. Even the officials in Jiangdong could not stand it and defected to Shu and Wei.

Moreover, this statistics only covers the period from 214 to 263. There are no statistics on the period before that when Sun Ce and Sun Quan attacked Jianghuai, and the later period of Sun Hao's tyranny, because it is impossible to keep track of them all.

The fact that the Jiangdong Sun family was not well received can be seen from another perspective. The areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian have a long tradition of building temples for celebrities. They built temples for King Qian, Zhang Shicheng, and even for the pirate Sun En, but they never built one for Sun Quan. This shows that the locals also knew what Sun Quan had done that angered the people.

With these lessons learned from the past, Yuan Xi attached great importance to the post-conquest policy of foreign territories. Compared with continuing to attack the city, he would rather spend more time pacifying the people. So these days, he asked the soldiers to help the people repair the houses damaged by the war. At the same time, he opened the granaries to release grain and provide relief to the victims in order to appease the local people.

This move did have an effect. Weili City restored most of its order within just a few days. Moreover, in this era, massacres after taking a city were commonplace. The local people had originally expected to die, but the result surprised them greatly, causing many people to spontaneously salute Yuan Xi's soldiers when they met them.

Yuan Xi was quite satisfied with the current situation, but he knew that the superficial peace did not mean that there were no problems underneath. This was a long process. If later officials overturned previous practices or even caused civil unrest due to ill-considered considerations, all previous efforts would be wasted.

At this time, he was saying to Tian Yu: "Although Baekje is also a Hu people, since I have proposed that the Hu and Han people in the border areas should be one family, I naturally have to stick to it."

"These people just lack education. In a hundred years, if the Han and the Hu can be integrated into one, they can be turned into a part of China forever."

"And it is most appropriate for the country to let you do this kind of thing. In the future, from the Three Kingdoms of Korea to Goguryeo, this approach will be adopted. One day, this vast land will be completely incorporated into the territory of China."

Tian Yu felt a great sense of responsibility, so he solemnly replied: "I am appreciated by the lord, and I will act with awe and will not let the lord down."

Yuan Xi nodded and smiled, "According to the time, they are almost ready to start."

"Let's rush to the capital of Baekje tomorrow. After watching the show, I will return to Qingzhou and settle the previous accounts with Cao Cao."

He had previously ordered Zhuge Liang not to attack Baekje, but to attack from Qingzhou with all his might.

Cao Cao's surprise attack on Qingzhou almost caused Yuan Xi to fail, which made Yuan Xi very angry. He also understood that Cao Cao was not someone who could be easily fooled, and he would definitely not let him occupy the Korean Peninsula smoothly next time.

Yuan Xi thought to himself, since you don't let me play, then no one should play. Anyway, the Korean Peninsula issue cannot be resolved in a year or two. After taking down the bridgehead of Baekje, he will hand over the follow-up work to Tian Yu. It will not be a problem to spend ten or eight years here.

He had to rush back to the Central Plains, mobilize all the manpower, start the war in advance, and give Cao Cao a big gift.

Yanzhou, Sili, and even Jizhou are all points that can be attacked. Since Cao Cao has taken action, there is no reason for me to endure it. With a battle line of thousands of miles, I already have most of the water transportation. Let's see who can last longer.

Inside the Baekje capital, Qiu Tai saw Jia Xu being carried in, covered in blood and looking grim, and said, "Sir, you have lost the battle."

Jia Xu reluctantly raised his hands from the stretcher and said in a hoarse voice: "I really failed the king's trust and escaped with the audacity. I just want to apologize to the king. I hope the king will punish me. I have no complaints!"

When Qiu Tai heard this, his expression changed, and he put on a smiling face and said, "Sir, you have done your best. What crime have you committed?"

"Come here, heal the master's wounds." Jia Xu said quickly, "Your Majesty, I have already applied medicine before, so please don't worry about it."

Qiu Tai raised his eyebrows, "Why, sir, you don't believe in the imperial physician's medical skills?"

Jia Xu quickly smiled and said, "No, no, thank you very much, Your Majesty."

Immediately, several court doctors came forward, tore off the bandages on Jia Xu's body, and began to apply an unknown ointment on his wounds.

Qiu Tai looked carefully and saw that Jia Xu had several deep wounds, with flesh and blood rolling up and still oozing out. He immediately felt relieved and sighed hypocritically, "Sir, you have suffered this time. I will remember your contribution."

Jia Xu smiled on the surface but cursed in his heart, "Of course you suffered, damn it, all these wounds were inflicted by my men!"

He went through the motions in full, and in order to make his performance realistic, he spent a lot of money and had people actually slash him a few times, and he almost fainted from the pain.

Fortunately, Yuan Xi's military Chinese medicine skills were top-notch. After cleaning the wound and applying special ointment, Jia Xu actually didn't feel much pain, and the wound healed quickly. If this continued, after a month or two of recuperation, the wound would be almost healed.

But Jia Xu saw clearly that the bastard Qiu Tai was still worried. In order to verify whether his wound was real, he found an excuse to remove his bandages for inspection.

That would be fine, but the key is that in a barbaric place like Baekje that is still under the tribal system, what kind of good medicine can you make? You want me to apply it on my wounds, as if you are afraid that I won’t die fast enough?

Moreover, the ointments applied by the Baekje doctors were extremely irritating. After applying them, Jia Xu felt so painful that his eyes went dark. He thought to himself, could it be that you are using garlic to make medicine?
After a lot of treatment by several doctors, Jia Xu, who originally had half of his life left, lost half of his life in an instant. He was sweating profusely from the pain and almost fainted.

He endured the pain and said goodbye and left, and had someone carry him all the way back to the mansion. As soon as he entered the door, he had someone clean his wound and apply medicine again.

After all this trouble, Jia Xu was already convulsing all over and half of his life was gone. He lamented in his heart that he had lost a lot in this deal!

When Cao Ang heard the news, he rushed to visit Jia Xu. He was surprised to see Jia Xu in such a state. However, Zhang Rang and Yang Feng on the side showed an expression of gloating. They all had grudges against Cao Cao, and many of their subordinates died in the battle with Cao's army. Naturally, they would not sympathize with Jia Xu who wanted to surrender to Cao Cao.

Yang Feng briefly asked about the situation and said, "I will go out after dark. You stay here and don't go out."

Cao Ang and Jia Xu still didn't know Yang Feng's identity, but since the fierce tiger could entrust him with such an important task, he must be no ordinary person, so they agreed honestly.

For the next two days, Yang Feng went out at night to arrange spies and pass on messages in preparation for Yuan Xi's arrival. On the third day, news came from the city that Yuan Xi had led his soldiers and set up camp fifteen miles west of the Baekje capital, and at the same time sent someone to deliver a letter to Qiu Tai.

After reading the letter, Qiu Tai's face looked very unhappy. The words in the letter were very impolite, and he was almost pointing at him and cursing.

It said that Qiu Tai was treacherous and instigated bandits to attack the merchant caravan of King Jin, which really angered God and people. Now King Jin ordered Qiu Tai to leave the city and surrender. He would forgive his past mistakes, otherwise he would have no control over what happened after the siege.

Qiu Tai began to hesitate. Naturally, he was unwilling to surrender.

He had heard about the strength of the Jin army before, but he still had a fluke mentality when going to war, wanting to see if his soldiers could win by relying on the terrain and the city. However, Weili City made him realize that the Jin army was indeed no match for Baekje.

However, Qiu Tai still refused to give up. He did not want to be inferior to others, so he had only two options.

One is to abandon the capital and flee, but if he does this, his subordinates will definitely not be convinced by him as a king, and there is a possibility that he will be overthrown.

The second is to rely on the capital to resist stubbornly, and then ask for help from the Three Han. If Yuan Xi's army is stopped, the situation will most likely turn around.

After much deliberation and consultation with a few close ministers, he decided to send the Youzhou troops who had defected from Cao Ang as the vanguard to see if they could get out of the city and launch a surprise attack on Yuan Xi's camp.

He immediately called Cao Ang and told him his thoughts. Cao Ang listened quietly and then said, "I am grateful to the king for taking me in. It is time to repay him."

"Mr. Wenhe has brought four or five hundred soldiers, who can serve as the vanguard and help the king to raid the Xionghu army camp."

(End of this chapter)