A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 493: Nanzhong Rebellion and the Cruelty of Honorable and Powerful Officials

In the third year of Emperor Qian Yuan's reign, the southern barbarians in central Sichuan rebelled, looting prefectures and counties, plundering salt fields, destroying salt wells, and harassing the retreat of General Ma Heng who conquered the south.

Hundreds of thousands of mountains and endless jungles. In the endless uninhabited land, various birds, beasts, insects and ants are everywhere in the mountains and forests, and poisonous miasma and poisonous insects are hiding everywhere, waiting for the arrival of prey.

Ma Heng, the general who conquered the south, led the army to attack the southwest barbarians. At the beginning, the army made good progress. Daqian soldiers were invincible and invincible, and soon the mountain stronghold at the foot of the mountain was broken.

For this reason, the southern expedition army cheered like thunder, thinking that it would be possible to completely pacify the barbarians in the southwestern region within half a year at most.

But Ma Heng soon paid the price for this. The local people did not welcome the arrival of their army, and were even slightly hostile. It was difficult for the court to recruit civilians, and the place was poor. Food and grass supplies had to be deployed from Chengdu, so the army's progress was slow. .

Ma Heng had defeated Shanyue before and knew how difficult it was to fight in the mountains and forests, so he did not launch a large-scale attack. After several trials, although the army achieved some results, its losses were not small.

Later, the army's food and salary were repeatedly harassed by these barbarians, and they were even burned in the mountain road several times. Being provoked like this, Ma Heng naturally wanted to retaliate. Da Qian has been conquering the east and west for decades, winning hundreds of battles, and the army is even more arrogant. Now being provoked by a group of southwestern barbarians, the whole army is furious.

Even if Ma Heng forcibly suppressed it, the morale of the army was fluctuating, and various tribes asked for war. Seeing this situation, and the army has been in the southwest for half a year, the weather has turned cooler and the heat is no longer unbearable. Therefore, the army entered the mountains to completely wipe out the barbarians in the southwest. Even for the purpose of fighting in the mountains and forests, Ma Heng specially replaced the general's iron armor with iron-inlaid leather armor. Rattan armor to facilitate soldiers' movement.

Ma Heng recruited a large number of soldiers from the mountains and rivers to open the way. They cleared the mountains and built bridges when encountering water. They traveled all the way through mountains and rivers and broke down 17 camps. The morale of the army was high, and even Ma Heng felt that this battle was going to be won.

The southwestern barbarians, who had been defeated in consecutive battles, no longer fought head-on with Da Gan, and began to retreat into the mountains and forests. Seeing this, Ma Heng felt uneasy and did not dare to pursue any more, so he prepared to retreat.

But at this moment, the southwestern barbarians suddenly outflanked them from behind. Ma Heng knew that the mountains and forests were difficult to travel and supplies were difficult, so he left many strongholds on the march to transport grain and grass and protect the back road.

But he didn't expect that the southwestern barbarians would actually pay a heavy price in terms of casualties and lure the enemy hundreds of miles deep. Even if they left strongholds, the battle line would be too long. The barbarians from the southwest suddenly attacked and directly cut off the army's retreat. The 40,000-strong army was trapped in the mountains and forests.

After receiving the news, Ma Heng's expression changed drastically, and he quickly ordered his soldiers to block the news, and then led the army to retreat. But at this time, the southwestern barbarians began to use the jungle as cover to continuously harass and attack Daqian's army.

There were poisonous arrows and rocks in the jungle during the day, and there were attacks one after another at night. It was very difficult for the army to withdraw quickly. And the number of injuries is increasing.

Fortunately, Ma Heng was prepared in advance, and soldiers from the camp were there to meet him within a short distance of the journey. There was food stored in the camp, and the army was able to repair it with the help of the camp. Finally, with the help of these camps reserved in advance, the army retreated little by little.

In the end, the back roads cut off by the southwestern barbarians were forcibly opened by Ma Heng. However, the army continued to fight on their way, suffering heavy casualties and almost running out of food and grass. In this case, Ma Heng had no choice but to lead his army to retreat.

And those southwestern barbarians are also chasing and harassing them all the way. If this continues, without food and grass, the army will eventually be destroyed. Seeing this situation, Ma Heng immediately summoned 3,000 soldiers to fight back personally and launch a desperate counterattack against the pursuing southwestern barbarians. In one battle, he defeated the southwestern barbarians and killed thousands of enemies. Ma Heng did not pursue pursuit, but led the army to continue retreating. With no more pursuit from the southwestern barbarians, the army could finally withdraw in an orderly manner.

What Ma Heng didn't know was that just when his army was cut off, barbarians from the southwest gathered 100,000 people and came out of the mountains to attack the county. They even went north to capture Jingyan, plundering tens of thousands of rocks and countless grain and grass.

The population of Bashu is concentrated in the Chengdu Plain, and other areas are mostly mountainous. The roads are difficult to navigate and the population is not large. They are no match for the barbarians in the southwest. All the prefectures and counties can only defend the city. What's more, this time the barbarians looted Jingyan, it was not just barbarians.

The order issued by Wang Che made those local powerful nobles and officials take desperate risks. In order to destroy the evidence, these people directly cooperated with the southwestern barbarians and deliberately lax defense, allowing the southwestern barbarians to occupy Jingyan. In this way, even if the imperial court sent troops and officials, everything would be ruined and no clues could be found.

After Ma Heng led his army back, the entire Bashu land had been disturbed by the southwestern barbarians. Ma Heng quickly commanded the army to wipe out the southwestern barbarians. In the end, it took a lot of time to finally drive away the southwest barbarians, but the entire southern Bashu was devastated.

Although the towns were not captured, a large number of rural areas were plundered by barbarians, resulting in heavy casualties. Seeing this scene in front of him, Ma Heng had no choice but to write a letter to the emperor to apologize.

When news of the dramatic changes in the southwest came, Wang Che was very angry and immediately ordered to recruit warriors from Jinling and go retrograde to Bashu. At the same time, he dispatched inspection censors and embroidery envoys to the Chengdu garrison to go to the salt field.

At the same time, a more detailed report was sent up by the secret guard. After seeing the secret guard's information, Wang Che almost overturned the table.

He still underestimated those nobles, powerful men and officials. These people can be said to be extremely daring. After learning that the imperial court was inspecting the salt fields and reforming the salt policy, they directly joined forces with the southwestern barbarians to destroy the evidence and at the same time forced the imperial court to give up the reform of the salt policy in Bashu.

After investigation, the secret guards discovered that these people exploited with the help of salt. The area where the southwest barbarians are located has extremely low salt production, and most of the salt they need is imported from well salt. These people used salt to squeeze the southwest barbarians arbitrarily. In the end, the southwest barbarians couldn't bear the squeeze and turned against them.

Originally, these people were worried that the imperial court would come to thoroughly inspect the salt field. Seeing the rebellion of the southwest barbarians, these people immediately thought of a good way to deliberately leak the news to the southwest barbarians, lure them to attack the salt field, and use the southwest barbarians to destroy all evidence. And successfully pushed all this to the southwestern barbarians.

They even deliberately leaked the news about Ma Heng's army with these people, just to defeat Ma Heng and let the southwestern barbarians make the matter completely worse, forcing the court to deal with the southwestern barbarians.

If the imperial court wanted to wipe out the barbarians in the southwest, it had to rely on local snakes like them. They deliberately let the southwestern barbarians grow bigger. When the time comes, the court will need to send a large number of troops if they want to wipe them out.

They local snakes are familiar with the environment here, and the imperial court must rely on them to deal with the southwestern barbarians. Even if they know about the salt field, they can only let them go.

(End of this chapter)