Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1158 Hidden dangers
Zhao Yun saw the miserable condition of the Xiliang cavalry in the field. Only then did he understand why Yuan Xi had not made all-out efforts to expand the army, especially the cavalry, in recent years.

When in Jicheng, counselors and officials including Ju Shou once proposed that in order to restrain Cao Cao's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, it was necessary to greatly increase the number of cavalry. It would be best to organize more than 50,000 cavalry. In this way, in the confrontation with Cao Cao in the Central Plains, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry could be completely suppressed, thus establishing the cavalry advantage.

The mobility of cavalry is so important in warfare on the Great Plains. The ability to limit the enemy's mobile forces while exerting a diversionary effect on one's own mobile forces has always been the key to major wars.

Although 50,000 cavalry may seem like a lot, it is not necessarily impossible to achieve. Among them, there are no more than 10,000 armored cavalry, who are used for attacking and charging, and the rest are light cavalry composed of nomads, who are used for engaging and mobilizing. With the economic capacity of Yuan Xi's territory, such a combination can still be achieved if he tightens his belt.

Although the economy in Yuan Xi's territory would likely be greatly affected in the years after the war, it was still a sure win compared to seizing the three Central Plains states from Cao Cao.

But what puzzled Zhao Yun was that Yuan Xi seemed to have great concerns about this. He summoned back Tian Feng and Zhuge Liang, together with Ju Su, and the four of them discussed the matter for a full month, and finally rejected this plan.

Yuan Xi naturally had lessons from the past. It was feasible to mix the main force of his army with the Hu people from the border areas within a certain number, but once the proportion was exceeded, it would cause extremely unpredictable consequences.

The most typical counterexample is the successive failures of the Tang Dynasty's military service system and the recruitment system.

When the Tang Dynasty was established, foreign ethnic groups were not weak. On the contrary, they threatened the territory of the Tang Dynasty. In order to expand and maintain stability, the Tang Dynasty absorbed a large number of foreign mercenaries, among which the famous ones were the Shatuo people, the Uighurs, and so on.

On the one hand, the Tang Dynasty took advantage of them to expand its territory, and on the other hand, it had to give them the benefits it promised. In the end, these forces gradually became too powerful to be controlled, and turned around to bite back at the Tang Dynasty, causing many tragedies.

In fact, in the late Han Dynasty, the living environment in Youzhou was not good. Even the Jicheng, which was carefully built by Yuan Xi, was quite different from the old big cities like Shouchun. This made Feng Shi, Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao, who were born in Jianghuai, quite uncomfortable when they first came to live in Jicheng.

Yuan Xi naturally understood these situations. The reason why he insisted so much was naturally to maximize the deterrence against the Hu people in the border areas. Only in the areas where his lord was located could the Hu people be made more honest.

The emperor is far away and the border is difficult to govern. It is because transportation is underdeveloped and information is not convenient. It may take several years for the royal decree to reach the border. In this case, the central power is weakened to the greatest extent, and the emperor can only be forced to hand over most of the governance power to the local landlords.

But these big landlords naturally put their own family interests first and would not care about the lives of the people. Once natural disasters or man-made disasters occurred, the people would rise up in rebellion and become bandits, which in turn endangered their fellow civilians.

Most of the bandits in the north are horse thieves. Because the environment in the north is harsh, there are not many places for them to hide after looting. If they run to the outside of the Great Wall, they may be robbed by others.

So although there was banditry in Youzhou, it was not the most serious. In addition, Yuan Xi intended to control it, so the Hu people were relatively honest under his rule.

However, if the Hu and Han bandits grow to a certain scale, they will be very difficult to control, especially if the soldiers and bandits are one family. The cavalrymen who are temporarily recruited must not be retained after the battle. If they are allowed to return home, these armed groups will become a hidden danger of unrest.

Yuan Xi, who had read thousands of years of Chinese history, understood this point deeply, so he did not dare to set this precedent. Banditry in Youzhou had occurred many times, and each time it caused great damage to the local people's livelihood and morality.

Moreover, the banditry in Youzhou is not the most serious one. In the past two thousand years, there is a place where the banditry is dozens of times worse than that in Youzhou.

That was the southern barbarians that Zhuge Liang conquered during the Three Kingdoms period, and it is also the direction that Liu Bei is preparing to expand in now.

When Yuan Xi heard the news, he even worried for Liu Bei, because with Yuan Xi's strength, he still didn't dare to set foot in this area.

There is no other reason, because this area, now called Nanman and later called Nanzhao, is really too terrifying.

It is difficult for people in later generations to imagine how serious the banditry was in that place. The Nanman region, which was the southwestern mountainous area in later generations, was inhabited by barbaric and warlike Wuman people. The terrain in the area was complex and extremely conducive to hiding. What's more, this place also produced good horses.

This place looks relatively backward, but it is just backward. In fact, it has used the advantages of tribal slavery to gather a large number of soldiers and absorbed the technology of the Central Plains, so its armor and weapons are not bad.

In later generations, when Zhuge Liang was alive, the threat from the Southern Barbarians was already very great, and Zhuge Liang spent a lot of effort to quell the rebellion. But this was not the peak of the Wuman people. It was during the Tang Dynasty that they became truly feared.

They introduced Tibetan weapon technology and created sharp weapons, which were the predecessors of weapons such as the Miao Dao. The Tang people were terrified and called it "it can penetrate anything it points to". They were also violent and bloodthirsty, and plagued the Tang Dynasty for more than a century, leaving the dynasty helpless.

At its worst, they attacked Chengdu several times, plundered various counties in southern Shu, and abducted hundreds of thousands of women to Yunnan. The captives and livestock were slaughtered for hundreds of miles, and the area was completely depopulated for hundreds of miles. Hundreds of thousands of Shu people died, so that the Shu people "flew in panic as soon as they saw the barbarian flags raised." According to records from the Five Dynasties, a single barbarian soldier could scare a Shu village of several hundred people into fleeing, "and they fled like a collapsing wall."

The Tang Dynasty actually had no way to deal with the Shu people. The people there were fierce and everyone was a bandit. The Tang Dynasty could only transfer border troops from the north to the south for defense. However, the border troops from the north were also bandits and they also started a mutiny, which indirectly led to the collapse of the Tang Dynasty.

Therefore, later generations commented that "Tang Dynasty fell because of Huang Chao, and the disaster originated from Guilin."

This chaotic, bloodthirsty and strong-dominated culture has led to a relatively low moral bottom line in the area. The originally mellow customs have completely disappeared, and people have become more and more brutal and barbaric. Men do not learn poetry and books, but choose to join the army in rebellion, or occupy the mountains as bandits. "They are more wild and brutal than the barbarians, and both villains and gentlemen call them the land of barbarians." It has become an example of moral degradation caused by refusal to accept education.

This situation continued for many years with the ups and downs of the dynasties, and its duration was beyond anyone's imagination. When Yuan Xi saw it at the time, he was also greatly shocked.

Yu Chenglong, who was known as the most honest official in the world in the early Qing Dynasty, wrote in the official documents he submitted when he was serving in Guangxi: There are mountains everywhere, there are caves in the mountains, and there are bandits in every cave.

Later, during the Republic of China, the Guangxi warlords adopted a policy of autonomy and trained more than 300,000 village heads and chiefs. These people were officials during the day and bandits at night. They were the main force of the Homecoming Corps.

After the defeat of the Kuomintang reactionaries, these people, together with the Kuomintang defeated soldiers, recruited local people and formed a homecoming group of up to 500,000 to fight back. Their methods were extremely brutal and horrific.

Later generations adopted a lenient policy, but the Homecoming Corps was not grateful, and instead intensified its revenge.

It was not until several years later, after a large-scale campaign to suppress banditry, that the problem of banditry was gradually quelled. It was more than a decade later that things gradually returned to normal.

What they did was exactly the same as what Ma Chao's Xiliang Army did when they massacred the people of Jizhou. So when Yuan Xi saw the tragic condition of the village, he was aroused with anger and took extreme measures to retaliate.

Yuan Xi deeply felt what terrible things would happen when the lower-class people were far away from education. This kind of banditry could last for more than two thousand years, and it would take several transformations to turn them into human beings. Yuan Xi was living in a chaotic world. If he allowed the border army to be plagued by bandits, it would be a huge hidden danger for future generations.

So no matter what, Yuan Xi didn't want to repeat the same mistake, so he could only think of another way.

Fortunately, technological advances have given him more choices. Although these crossbow vehicles and rocket launchers, which were modeled after later tanks, still have many shortcomings, they can greatly reduce the number of soldiers needed.

Ma Chao launched several charges in an attempt to destroy the chariots, but was defeated every time by the cavalry led by Zhao Yun. This made Ma Chao realize that the enemy had already prepared a response. The combination of chariots, cavalry and infantry cooperated with each other, and even with three to five times the number of troops on his side, they were unable to break through!

He looked at the Xiliang soldiers who kept falling, and knew that if this continued, all his troops would be killed!
Han Sui deployed defenses in Huaicheng and did not suffer any loss of troops. Now that he had lost his main force, how could he suppress Han Sui in Liangzhou in the future?
Thinking of this, Ma Chao gritted his teeth and retreated with the remaining soldiers together with Ma Dai. Zhao Yun would naturally not miss this opportunity. He took advantage of the situation and attacked Ma Chao. After chasing him for two days, he drove Ma Chao out of Changshan and retreated towards Weijun. Only then did he build a defense line on the spot to prevent Cao's army from counterattacking.

After Ma Chao fled to Wei County, he counted the remaining soldiers and found that there were less than 5,000 of them. You have to know that more than half a year ago, he came with a full 20,000 people!
Ma Chao's heart was bleeding, but he had no choice but to retreat south. Less than half a day later, he came across Cao Ren's camp.

Ma Chao entered the camp and told the battle situation, naturally his face was not bright. After listening, Cao Ren was surprised that Yuan Xi had come up with something new, and at the same time comforted Ma Chao, saying: "General, don't blame yourself. Zhao Yun was a fierce general, and the weapons of Jin were indeed strange. If it were me, I might not be able to do better than you."

Cao Ren was kind-hearted. Ma Chao was relieved when he heard that he did not pursue the matter. He said, "The Jin army's trenches and chariots are advancing in formation. The cavalry is helpless. What should we do next?"

Cao Ren thought for a while and said, "It is indeed troublesome, but according to what the general said, this chariot is quite heavy. It just so happens that you have a strategy to deal with the trenches, and it can be used to deal with the chariots."

Ma Chao was delighted and asked, "What's your plan, father?"

Cao Ren said a few words and Ma Chao was stunned.

Wild water attack?

How do we distinguish between friend and foe?

(End of this chapter)