Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1114 Beast
Pound's first reaction was that he had heard it wrong.

In fact, most of the princes in the world have done things like massacring cities, not to mention Cao Cao and Sun Quan, and the Western Liang Army. It was like a common occurrence for them. Even when Yuan Shao was in power, it happened once or twice.

Although Yuan Shao was retaliating against the Black Mountain Army's sneak attack on Ye City, no matter what, he also slaughtered a lot of people when he later broke into Black Mountain. This is why Yang Feng has always been resentful towards the Yuan family and has not been able to let it go completely.

But over the years, there were very few princes who had never done such things as massacring cities, including Liu Bei and Yuan Xi.

Therefore, before Ma Chao's army entered Jizhou this time, their mentality was actually quite relaxed. After all, if the other side did not massacre the city, it meant that they were not ruthless enough, and if they were not ruthless enough, they would not be able to gain any advantage in front of the Xiliang Army!

However, the subsequent development of the situation was completely different from what Ma Chao and Pang De had expected. Yuan Xi's army resisted extremely fiercely and caused considerable losses to the Xiliang army.

That would have been fine, the Xiliang army was no pushover, and when the two sides started fighting fiercely, neither side gave in, but Ma Chao and Pang De were both very confident.

They believed that fighting in Jizhou was equivalent to a life-and-death battle between the two sides in the opposite house. Yuan Xi's army had reservations, but the Xiliang army did not. If the two sides continued to fight, the side with more reservations would gradually fall into a disadvantage and ultimately fail!
However, what the two men never expected was that the other party was so unethical that they joined forces with the Qiang people to launch a sneak attack on their hometown and even resorted to such a despicable method as massacring the city!
Pang De's body trembled and he asked, "Is this news true?"

“Could it be a miscommunication?”

Ma Dai handed Pang De an urgent report, "General, please read this."

Pound took the urgent message, took just two glances at it, and almost fainted.

Not only did it say that after thousands of Qiang people entered the city, they not only slaughtered more than a hundred members of the Ma family, but also killed and robbed many people in the city. At the end, it also specifically said that Pang De’s two sons were both killed by the Qiang people, including the one-year-old Pang Hui, whose body was hung on the top of the city wall. This was all witnessed by the Xiliang army who rushed there later!
When Pang De saw this, he could no longer bear it. He spat out a mouthful of blood and fell to the ground.

Someone came to support him quickly, but Pang De looked like a madman. His eyes were filled with tears, and his eye sockets were broken due to excessive anger. Blood flowed from the corners of his eyes.

He pounded the ground with his fist and roared, "Fierce tiger, fierce tiger!"

"Beast, beast!"

"This feud is irreconcilable. If I were to capture you, I would cut you into pieces and make your life worse than death!"

"And his family too, all will die!"

"Kill them all!"

Everyone present had an extremely grim look on their faces. Not to mention the Ma family, as a member of Ma Chao's clan, who massacred people in Jizhou, they would definitely be retaliated against. Pang De was Ma Chao's most capable general, and the one who worked hardest to massacre villages, so naturally his family would not escape either.

Judging from the letter, the families of the other members of the Xiliang Army are probably in great danger. Since it is a massacre, they naturally won't be divided too clearly. This is especially true for the families of Ma Chao's soldiers. I'm afraid their fate will be worrying!
Ma Dai said angrily: "I didn't expect the fierce tiger to be so cruel!"

"We just killed some Jizhou animals, and he took revenge on our people, and even said that the disaster will not affect the family. Is this fierce tiger so shameless?"

"Brother, what should we do now?"

Ma Chao had not said a word so far. Hearing this, he slowly stood up and was about to speak when he felt dizzy and almost fell to the ground. Ma Dai hurried over and supported him.

Ma Chao seemed to have aged several dozen years at this moment. He choked up and said, "Hundreds of people, hundreds of people!"

"I will never reconcile with that beast Xiong Hu!"

"Now we have two choices. One is to fight the tiger to the death, kill it, and offer its head as a sacrifice to the tribe!"

"Second, we will return to the army immediately and skin and behead all the rebellious Qiang people to vent my hatred!"

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment, and finally Ma Dai said in a hoarse voice: "Brother, the war situation is tense right now, I'm afraid the King of Wei will not agree to let us go back, right?"

One of the generals said, "But if the soldiers knew that their families were killed, they would rush to seek revenge, or they would retreat. It is unknown."

"According to my guess, the latter possibility is even higher."

When these words were spoken, everyone was stunned, because what the general said was right. To survive in Xiliang, one cannot just be stubborn and tough. The way to survive is to bully the weak and fear the strong.

The soldiers of Xiliang were more ruthless than the enemy, so the enemy would naturally retreat, but the enemy would not come up to die just because they could not win. The same was true for the soldiers of Xiliang. When they saw that the situation was not good, they had to run away and preserve their strength. This was their survival strategy. If they had come to die even though they knew they could not win, they would have been killed long ago.

Pang De stood up shakily at this time and roared: "I, General Pang De, am willing to lead the troops to attack Jicheng and kill the family of Xionghu!"

"The general has great prestige among the Qiang and Hu people. How could the Qiang people massacre the Ma family? It must be the Xionghu's men pretending to be him!"

"He is so immoral, we must give him a tooth for a tooth and make him pay for his blood debt with blood!"

After hearing this, everyone echoed in agreement. In their opinion, the massacre of Ji County was definitely done by the fierce tiger soldiers themselves!

In Yijing City, Yuan Xi held up an urgent report and said to Lu Lingqi, "This time, Gao Shun was actually hesitant about whether to massacre the city until the last moment, but the Qiang people were more proactive than him and rushed directly into the city."

"They are not Gao Shun's generals, so Gao Shun cannot control them, so they will follow them."

Lu Lingqi said: "I am a little confused."

"It is said that Ma Chao's mother was a Qiang woman, so Ma Chao had a high prestige among the Qiang people. Why would the Qiang people help to slaughter the Ma family?" Yuan Xi looked strange, "You have been in Jiuyuan for two years, and your brain seems to be not so sharp anymore."

Lu Lingqi was furious, "What's wrong? What's wrong? I gave birth to your child, and you still insult me ​​like this!"

"Isn't it just his last name Lu? At most I can give birth to two more to compensate you. If you still don't want to, at most I can make him change his last name back!"

Yuan Xi suppressed his laughter: "That's not what I meant. You got the wrong idea."

"Let me ask you, when you were in Jiuyuan, were the Southern Xiongnu tribes around you united?"

Lu Lingqi said unconcernedly, "Of course they are not united. There are hundreds of tribes, and they are just a pile of loose sand!"

"If they unite, it will be difficult for my husband to deal with them."

She suddenly realized, "I'm afraid the Qiang people are the same!"

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "Of course it is."

"The Xiongnu are like this, the Qiang people are like this, and in fact, the Han people are like this too."

"I once told you that most of the time, class conflicts are greater than ethnic conflicts. Unless the other party wants to destroy your nation and race, the different classes within the nation can temporarily unite, but this does not mean that class conflicts do not exist."

"At the same time, there is not only this layer of contradiction within the ethnic group, but also various contradictions between groups and caused by historical issues, which will exacerbate the outbreak of this contradiction."

"The Qiang people are like this. Although they have always had conflicts with the Han court, their internal conflicts have always been great, and they have only been covered up temporarily."

"Just like the saying that Ma Teng has a high prestige among the Qiang people because he married a Qiang woman, it is just a self-flattering statement. He only married a woman from one tribe. What benefits did other tribes get?"

"Not only that, Liang Province is poor, and the tribes often fought wars for water sources and land. Ma Teng, Han Sui and others were powerful, and they united some Qiang and Hu tribes and drove away other Qiang and Hu people, forcing them to move east and settle in the two counties of Anding and Beidi in the easternmost part of Bing Province."

"That place is close to the Southern Xiongnu tribe of Bingzhou, so conflicts are inevitable. The Southern Xiongnu are as ferocious as the Qiang and Hu. Who would be willing to be their neighbor unless they have no choice?"

"Over the past few decades, these Qiang and Hu people who were forced to migrate have suffered a lot. Moreover, as the losers in the fight against the Ma family, many of them had their families killed and their wives abducted. How could they not hate the Ma family?"

"Now they have a good chance to take revenge, and they can also get a lot of benefits I promised for free. Do you think they are willing?"

Lu Lingqi suddenly realized, "No wonder the negotiations went so smoothly when my husband sent someone over, so this is the reason!"

"But what surprised me was that these Qiang and Hu people were able to break through Ji County with just cavalry. I never thought of that."

"Could it be that the trap formation trained by Uncle Gao helped?"

"But from what my husband said just now, it seems that Uncle Gao didn't do much?"

Yuan Xi smiled, "You guessed right. This time, Ji County was not taken by force, but other methods were used to break into the city."

Lu Lingqi was puzzled. "Another way?"

"Siege equipment?"

"No, Liangzhou is a hard place to get to, and these things are extremely heavy and difficult to transport."

"Fire attack?"

She clapped her hands and said happily, "It's probably true. Wuwei has oil. The Xiliang Army has never heard of this thing. They will suffer a great loss if they see it for the first time!"

Yuan Xi couldn't help laughing, "Your idea would be a good strategy under normal circumstances."

"I take back what I said. Your brain has improved a lot in the past two years."

After hearing this, Lu Lingqi was about to start fishing with a proud look on her face, but Yuan Xi's words immediately made her face fall, "But this time, I really didn't use this thing."

"The decisive factor in the fall of Ji County was the traitor."

Lu Lingqi thought about it carefully and suddenly said, "No wonder my husband sent someone from the Procuratorate to preside over it. So this is how it is!"

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "That's right. I actually had this traitor planned a few years ago, but I didn't expect it to be used at this time. It can be considered a pleasant surprise."

Lu Lingqi was shocked and said, "It is extremely difficult to develop spies in a place like Ji County. In recent years, my husband's prosecutor's office has really been very powerful."

Yuan Xi said, "Lu Yu, whom I sent over, is certainly capable, but a good cook cannot cook without rice. He was able to succeed because the other party had something to hold against him."

Lu Lingqi knew there must be something going on, and couldn't help asking, "What's the evidence?"

(End of this chapter)