Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1366 Infection
Yang Xiu and Ju Shou were also unsure when facing Yuan Xi's questions. After all, they were facing an unprecedented number of one million Xianbei people entering the pass. That alone would have been fine, the most important point was that they guessed their lord's true intentions.

Let those who come never return, and no matter how many come, they will die.

Thinking of the outcome of millions of people lying dead in the wild, Yang Xiu couldn't help but feel his scalp tingling. Your Majesty's hatred for the Xianbei was too intense!

He thought for a moment and said, "If you want all the Xianbei to die in Youzhou, there is only one prerequisite, that is, they have completely lost their backbone. In other words, there is no one to command them."

"Otherwise, they can still pose a huge threat to Jin with just one order. After all, there are hundreds of thousands of people. How can they just sit there and wait for death?"

Ju Shou agreed, "That's right. No matter how many Xianbei people we kill, we still can't avoid a decisive battle with them in the end. After all, they are determined to enter Youzhou, and nothing can stop them."

"What worries me is that the Central Xianbei alone is fine, but the Eastern and Western Xianbei are obviously also watching, so they are not doing their best. Sulibudugen obviously has his own thoughts."

Yuan Xi said coldly: "Those who are not of my race must have different hearts. I have expected this."

"Even among the Han people, there are still some who are disloyal, let alone outsiders. This time we can only use thundering means to intimidate them, so as to pave the way for the future."

"The following offensive and defensive battles are extremely bad, so I can talk about my key ideas for the next stage."

"We can't count on the food in Dai County and its surrounding areas this summer. The Xianbei will fight to the death to snatch this crop of food away."

"I have already ordered Beixincheng and other places to fortify their walls and clear the fields, and have made preparations for defending the city. It is not so easy for the Xianbei to steal food because I took precautions last year and planted all wheat."

Yang Xiu reacted the fastest, and suddenly said, "Wheat is planted in autumn and harvested in summer. It also needs to be threshed and ground. It is not so easy to eat!"

"That's right," Yuan Xi sneered, "I have moved all the millstones outside the city. Now if the Xianbei people want to eat wheat, they must first find tools to harvest it, and then find millstones. If they can't find any, they can only make their own mortars and pound the wheat by hand."

"For them who have been herding for generations, I don't think they can master these methods that have been accumulated over hundreds of years in a short period of time."

"It's true that they have a lot of people, but more people means more food. Although they brought a lot of livestock, don't forget that apart from a few horse farms, most of the grasslands in Youzhou have been turned into farmland."

"Their cattle and sheep can't find pasture. I want to see how long they can hold out."

Ju Shou also sighed: "No wonder most of the horse farms in Youzhou have been moved to Bingzhou in recent years. It turns out that the lord had foreseen it!"

Yuan Xi said, "I have been vigorously developing farming and water conservancy facilities in recent years to create conditions where people can make a living by farming but not by grazing."

"For the Xianbei people who were not proficient in farming techniques, the vast amount of farmland and ditches were like a mountain of treasures in vain, but they could only watch helplessly."

"Of course, this is not the most important thing. Even so, the Xianbei people can hold on for at least a few months."

“So I still have a trump card.”

Ju Su smiled bitterly and said, "I can no longer keep up with your majesty's thinking. Can De Zu see that?"

Yang Xiu thought about it, then shook his head hesitantly, "Although I have guessed a little, I can't be sure."

"My lord, your move is obviously to cut off the Xianbei people's food supply. If you want to do it, you must do it thoroughly. Is this trump card also related to food?"

He suddenly thought of the actions of Jicheng and other places in the past two years, and said in a lost voice: "Could it be the water source?"

Yuan Xi said: "Yes, water source!"

"In the past few years, I have had my craftsmen study well-drilling technology, and we have made progress in impact drilling. If the conditions are right, the highest depth can even reach nearly a hundred feet!"

"I had people dig many deep wells in the major cities of Youzhou, and use the well water as a daily supply."

"Now there is enough firewood and water in the city, so defending the city is not a problem. So we have to destroy the water source and leave the Xianbei people without water to drink!"

Impact drilling technology was not a very complicated thing in ancient China. During the Song and Ming dynasties, Sichuan well salt was drilled through impact drilling technology. The deepest was more than 1,000 meters, and even natural gas was drilled out.

Therefore, in Yuan Xi's era, wells more than 100 meters deep could be dug, which was sufficient for water sources. In addition, there was sufficient fuel to boil water, which could also prevent the spread of epidemics.

Yuan Xi's destruction of water sources did not mean destroying the water outflow of the river, which was obviously difficult to do. The more effective approach was to dig up the river bank and throw animal carcasses upstream.

Yuan Xi had discussed with his advisers countless times how to kill the Hu people outside the Great Wall as much as possible. In the end, he concluded that if the enemy was only focused on harassing but not actively attacking, the goal would not be achieved.

Unless the other party takes the initiative to attack and steps into the trap set for them in advance. Therefore, in order to lure the Xianbei people to take the initiative to attack, Yuan Xi has been actively making plans over the years, pretending to be determined to fight to the death with the Xianbei people and not to negotiate sincerely at all.

The north has become colder in recent years, and the Xianbei people will only become weaker and weaker facing the bloody tactics of the Jin State. They will either freeze to death on the grassland or migrate. But for Kobinen, the only direction he can choose to migrate is south, because all other directions are blocked by the East and West Xianbei.

After many battles, hints from spies and other arrangements, Kobe finally made the seemingly best choice of heading south to the interior of the country and having a decisive battle with the State of Jin.

But this is only the first step. The next step is to let the Xianbei people die in Youzhou. However, Kobe is a man of great talent and strategy. It is extremely difficult to defeat him in military affairs. After all, he has hundreds of thousands of people under his command.

This invisibly cut off the possibility of many strategies. Finally, Yuan Xi thought hard and decided to adopt an unprecedented approach, which was to take advantage of the opponent's blind spots in knowledge and destroy the vitality of the Xianbei tribe from the most fundamental level.

Yuan Xi had no psychological burden regarding such extreme measures as spreading the disease. If there was a civil war in China, he would not use it. But if the other side was the Hu people who wanted to destroy the Han nation and exterminate the Han people, that was another matter.

This is also the reason why he sent Zhuge Liang to Guanzhong to deal with the Wei State. Zhuge Liang could deal with the enemy in an upright manner. As for the dirtiest things, Yuan Xi could just take them on himself.

Soon, the Jin army to the west of Dai County received an order to destroy the embankments and river banks upstream of the Dai County River, as well as all drinking water sources.

When they received this order, Zhang Liao and Gao Lan were preparing to send troops to harass the Xianbei, so they had to temporarily change the order and send the cavalry out with engineering equipment.

On the way, Zhang Liao looked at the crisscrossing fields and neatly arranged ditches, and could not help but lament, "After so many years of management, it is destroyed in an instant. What a pity."

"Your Majesty is really decisive in doing things."

Gao Lan smiled bitterly and said, "So he is your Majesty, the person who has the greatest hope of unifying the world."

"Although the construction of water conservancy facilities is indeed troublesome, I have been supervising the excavation of the project most of the time in Jicheng over the years, which is indeed a lot of effort."

"But there is gain only when there is sacrifice. If the Xianbei army of one million were to fight in a normal way, at least half of the people in Youzhou would have to die."

"And with the steam engine, the excavation works have been much faster. It will also be much easier to defeat the Xianbei and recover."

"But what we are facing now is how to make the Xianbei people collapse completely at the lowest cost."

Zhang Liao listened and nodded, saying, "Indeed, as generals, what we have to do now is to do our duty well. I agree with your Majesty's point of view. The Xianbei are just like the Xiongnu. Once they become strong, they will sooner or later bring disaster to the Central Plains. This is a knot that cannot be untied inside and outside the Great Wall."

"Since both sides have staked everything, let's take a few more heads of Xianbei generals!"

Zhang Liao was filled with heroic spirit, but Gao Lan smiled bitterly in his heart, thinking that the next battle might be a bad one.

If the river is dug, Dai County will be full of swamps and rotten land. In this case, the cavalry on both sides may not be able to perform to the fullest, and the two sides may end up in a ridiculous mud fight.

In the following month, with the arrival of midsummer, the situation was just as Gao Lan had expected. The soldiers on both sides no longer even had the desire to fight.

As the river channel was destroyed and dug up, the entire Dai County became a huge swamp. The hot summer made the sewage flowing everywhere become even more turbid and smelly. Hundreds of thousands of Xianbei people had to struggle in this muddy land.

Human and animal feces mixed with sewage, and human and animal corpses floating down from time to time, made the entire living environment extremely bad. The Xianbei generals looked at the energetic Jin army soldiers on the Jin army city wall in the distance and wondered how could the other side be okay?

Just looking at their mental state, why are both sides still fighting? Our side's morale is about to collapse!

In the Xianbei camp, the epidemic that had been spreading since the beginning of summer not only did not ease, but became more and more severe. More and more people died, most of whom were the elderly and the young who could not fight off the disease. The Xianbei people could not even find a place to bury the bodies, so they could only throw them into the water. This action undoubtedly aggravated the epidemic in the downstream Xianbei tribes.

Some Xianbei chieftains with a keen sense of smell had already sensed the impending disaster. They were unable to break through the Jin army's defense line, so they sent envoys to ask for help from the Xianbei royal tent behind them.

Now Kobinen's royal tent is located in Dai County, the seat of Dai Commandery. At that time, Kobinen's army came and attacked with all their might. The Jin army was unable to resist and retreated, so Kobinen took advantage of the situation and occupied it.

There are many wells in Dai County, so Kobe and others can still get drinking water, but the same cannot be said for the soldiers outside the city, and many of them die every day.

When Kobe received the call for help from the tribal leader, he felt a sense of regret. If he had known the scene would be like this, he would never have chosen to attack the pass!

The Xianbei were so proud of their 300,000 soldiers, but nearly 100,000 of them had died of illness before they even had a chance to fight the Jin army!
He called Jia Xu, Sun Quan and others and asked them directly: "This epidemic is definitely caused by the Jin State!"

"how to respond?"

(End of this chapter)