Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1365 Gathering
Yuan Xi's actions naturally caused a lot of controversy. Many court officials felt that Jin's continuous military operations, although not to the point of national exhaustion, were still a great pressure.

Yuan Xi knew that these officials were not acting out of selfish motives. After all, they had all been in Jicheng for many years and it was not like they could just stand back and talk without any worries, so he still patiently explained his thoughts.

Yuan Xi said to the officials: "I know that mobilizing so many troops is already considered as militarism, but I have reasons to do so."

"Some people ask me why we can't negotiate with the Xianbei like we did with the Wuhuan and Goguryeo. I can only say that when two equally powerful opponents want to negotiate, their purpose is just to rest and recuperate for a while, waiting to overwhelm the other side in the future."

"No one will be willing to be inferior to the other, so the day when the balance of power between the two sides is unbalanced will be the day when the two sides go to war."

"I cannot guarantee that there will be no loopholes or changes in the Jin State in the future, so I don't want to leave this hidden danger to future generations."

"If the Xianbei keep harassing us, Youzhou won't be able to develop peacefully. If that's the case, we might as well start a war early and weaken the Xianbei as much as possible."

After hearing this, all the ministers had some realizations in their hearts. But at this time, an official came out and said, "Your Majesty, we previously mobilized nearly 100,000 soldiers and civilians from Jianghuai. The journey was long and the cost was very high. And Youzhou has not yet been fully mobilized. Why not recruit soldiers locally? Wouldn't the money saved be used to recruit more soldiers?"

Seeing that he was from Jiangdong, Yuan Xi smiled and said, "For so many years, the north and the south have never gotten along well."

"The Central Plains in the north say the south is barbarians, and the south says the north does not give them the status they deserve."

"The North said that the South was hiding behind and not defending against the outsiders. The South felt that the North was justified and that it had nothing to do with them."

“This kind of confrontation is not good.”

"China is one people. If one suffers, all suffer. If one prospers, all prosper. When disaster strikes, no one can stay out of it."

"If we want the North and the South to be integrated, we need an opportunity, and fighting side by side against a common enemy is the most effective way."

"I just want to use the decisive battle with the Xianbei to let everyone in Jin know that when foreign enemies invade, no one in the north or south can escape unscathed."

"Those who thought that the North would be the first four and that they would pay some money and food to get through are not qualified to enjoy the equal treatment of Jin. Do they think that if the North is lost, the South can coexist peacefully with the foreign enemy?"

The official from Jiangdong felt a chill on the back of his neck and dared not say anything. Yuan Xi said to everyone in the hall: "I am in Jicheng to let the world know my determination."

"As long as the foreign barbarians are not eliminated, China will not be at peace. Only by dispersing and crushing them can China have peace for the next hundred years!"

In the days that followed, battles of varying sizes unfolded around the border of Youzhou.

At the beginning, both sides were somewhat restrained in their tactics, but as the Xianbei cavalry's attack became unsuccessful, they began to take extreme measures, such as killing prisoners of war and civilians, in order to undermine the morale of the Jin State. As a result, the Jin State received an order to retaliate.

The State of Jin began to use more mobile cavalry in combat. The order they received was not to make killing the main goal, but to inflict as many casualties on the enemy as possible.

For this reason, their arrows were coated with dirty things that could easily cause human infection, which was extremely effective against the unarmored Xianbei cavalry. The Youzhou cavalry armor could protect against most of the Xianbei arrows.

At the same time, gravel and iron sand began to mix into the Jin army's grenades. After the explosion, they were shot into the human body and were extremely difficult to clean, causing the wounds to become festering and infected.

It was already summer by then, the peak period for wound infection. Within just one month, a large number of Xianbei cavalrymen were wounded. At first they did not take it seriously, but as large numbers of people began to fall ill and lose their fighting ability, the Xianbei people realized something was wrong. They hurriedly sought out shamans and witch doctors to find a way to treat them, but it was nothing more than a few more battles.

At this time, the logistics and medical support technology of the two sides became a decisive difference. The medical system that Yuan Xi had purposefully cultivated over the past ten years became a reliance for efficiently handling wartime injuries and illnesses. Many Jin soldiers were injured in the battle with the Xianbei, but most of them received effective treatment before their illness worsened.

The situation on the Xianbei side was becoming increasingly grim. When they began to suffer large numbers of casualties, they did not take it seriously at first, and did not even provide the most basic isolation and solitary living for the wounded. As a result, there was a mixture of people, and in the increasingly hot summer with mosquitoes everywhere, epidemics began to spread.

When more and more people began to fall ill for various reasons, an old shaman doctor came out and said that these sick people were cursed by God, and that they should leave the camp and pray to God. Those with a sincere heart would be saved by God.

The tribes on the grassland have always had great trust in shamans, so many people moved away from their places of residence to fend for themselves. Soon the number of corpses increased, and the number of people dying on the ground increased day by day. Because the war was urgent and the Jin army was constantly harassing them, even healthy people had no time to collect their bodies, so they were left to expose their bodies in the wilderness.

This further led to the rotting of corpses, the pollution of water sources and grasslands, and the further spread of the epidemic. As a result, the hundreds of thousands of Xianbei troops were gradually mired in the quagmire amid the quiet spread of the epidemic.

This situation was naturally created deliberately by Yuan Xi. It is not that nomadic peoples are free from epidemic diseases, but their way of life can reduce the damage in some ways.

Most of the time, nomadic people live by following water and grass. The population density is not high and they migrate frequently, which allows for air circulation in their tents. This is an extremely effective way to alleviate possible epidemics.

However, now it is different. The Xianbei invaded in large numbers, and hundreds of tribes gathered on the border. The population density was extremely high, and human and animal feces piled up. In addition, the number of injured and infected people increased day by day, so the possibility of epidemics increased greatly. The people of this era did not understand the consequences of this unprecedented population gathering. However, Yuan Xi, the only one who knew, was still trying to make this result develop in the worst direction.

He intended to direct the Xianbei people to the narrow strip of land in Dai County, which had the most food and the least invasion pressure, in order to gather the Xianbei people together, and then use the forces from all sides to block them around Beixin City.

Because the summer harvest in Dai County was about to begin, the Xianbei people were unwilling to rush south. Their plan was to seize all the grain in Dai County for storage, and then open up the passage to Beixincheng in one go. So they wasted more than a month waiting for the grain to mature.

It was just this month that was Yuan Xi's expected plan. After all, the Xianbei people were not pigs. Even if they were killed standing still, the Jin army could not wipe out hundreds of thousands of people within half a year. But the epidemic was different.

In this era, except for the State of Jin, there was no effective way to deal with the epidemic. The major epidemics in the Three Kingdoms period of later generations could reduce the population of a city to only one-tenth or one-twelfth within a few months. This was the most terrifying way of killing in this era.

The Jin army made a relatively complete response, which the Xianbei people could not learn. Just the two points of disinfectant cotton balls and alcohol were enough to defeat the Xianbei people's witch doctors' herbal prescriptions.

The news of the large-scale illness of the Xianbei soldiers finally reached the Xianbei king's tent in the rear. Looking at the numbers reported, Kobe could no longer sit still and suddenly stood up and said, "Three hundred thousand vanguards, thirty thousand casualties in the past two months, and sixty to seventy thousand are sick?"

"If this continues, what's the point of fighting this war?"

"No, we can't delay any longer. We must break through Beixin City immediately and open up the passage to Jizhou!"

The tribal leaders and generals standing under the tent all looked unhappy. They thought that the Xianbei could take at least half of Youzhou with a powerful attack, but they didn't expect that they would be stopped by an epidemic.
Kirby looked at everyone in the hall coldly, and suddenly said to Jia Xu: "I heard that the King of Jin is good at magic, not to mention stargazing, but is this plague caused by him?"

After hearing this, Jia Xu laughed and said, "Master Chanyu, you are overthinking. If the King of Jin had the ability, he could just curse you directly. Why would he cast a spell on the Xianbei soldiers?"

Just as Ke Bineng was about to say this, he waved his hand and said to everyone: "You should understand that this epidemic is just an accident!"

"The Jin army also has an epidemic, maybe even worse than ours!"

"What we have to do now is to hold on. I have decided to move the camp and march the entire army to Dai County to fight the Jin State to the death!"

"The ancestors of the grasslands have blessed us. With our million-strong army, can't we destroy the hundreds of thousands of weak Han people in Youzhou?"

After hearing this, everyone roared in anger, "May our ancestors protect us and kill all the Han people!"

Kirby pointed at Sun Quan in the hall and said, "He was once the king of Wu, but was betrayed by a fierce tiger and attacked and destroyed!"

"Now he has surrendered to my Xianbei. If we can conquer Jizhou and occupy Yuzhou, he can return to Jianghuai and command the support of hundreds of people. By then, the Jiangdong nobles will surely follow him and join hands with my Xianbei to defeat the fierce tiger!"

"When the time comes, Wu will be restored and we, Xianbei, will be in the north and south. We, Xianbei, will occupy the Central Plains and Wu will occupy Jiangdong, dividing the whole world equally!"

"By then, you will all be able to get your fiefs. This is the prosperous Central Plains, the ancestral land of the Han people. If we Xianbei people can occupy it, we will surely surpass our ancestors!"

"The fact that more people died now is just a short-term pain. As long as we go to the Central Plains to plunder Han women, within ten years, our Xianbei people will surely increase exponentially!"

After hearing this, the crowd became even more excited and shouted, "We are willing to die for you, Lord Chanyu!"

Soon, hundreds of thousands of people near the king's tent began to move south, and behind them were hundreds of thousands of old and young, women and children, who were just waiting for the road ahead to be opened so that they could follow them into the pass.

These tribes did not dare to stray far from the king's tent. Over the past year or so, the Jin cavalry's sneak attacks on their rear had made them frightened birds, and they only wanted the war to end quickly.

Not long after, when Yuan Xi learned that the Xianbei had marched south in large numbers, he said to Ju Shou and Yang Xiu: "Ke Bi is willing to risk everything, which is courageous."

"But given the current situation, if Xianbei stays for another two months, I'm afraid they will all die of illness. By then, it won't really matter if Kobe is around or not."

Yang Xiu said: "But since Kobe can lead his army here, he definitely doesn't want to stay in Dai County. I'm afraid he wants to go south with all his strength."

"That's right," Yuan Xi said, "So what should we do next?"

(End of this chapter)