Ji Han Da Sima

Chapter 375 Escapement and Concentration

During the Warring States Period, Wuling County was formerly known as Qianzhong County, named after Qianshan Mountain. However, after the founding of the Western Han Dynasty, Qianzhong County was changed to Wuling County.

Where did Wuling come from?

Because the boundary of Chenyang County is connected with the Wuxi Barbarians, the Han army defeated the barbarians, and Liu Bang hoped for peace in the world. He took the meaning of "to stop the war and turn it into a force, and Gaoping is called Ling", so Qianzhong County was changed to Wuling County, and Qianshan County It can also be called Wuling Mountain.

The Yuan and Li Streams of the Four Waters of ‘Yuanzhililan’ flow through the Wuling Mountains. The middle and upper reaches are difficult to navigate due to the rugged terrain of the Wuling Mountains, numerous mountains and high river drops. Therefore, only Linyuan (today's Changde City) and Li County, located downstream of the Ershui River, were located in the plains and were inhabited by many Han people and were relatively wealthy.

Wuxi is mostly the tributaries of Yuan River and Li River, distributed among the mountains of Wuling. The Wuxi barbarians mostly live in the fragmented mountain valleys. They live in the valleys by farming with fire and water, and near the rivers they make a living by fishing and cutting down forests.

Zhuge Liang stationed troops in Linyuan. After thoroughly understanding the terrain of Wuling Mountain, he decided to divide his troops into two groups.

Jiang Wan and Zhu Huan, the prefects of Wuling, led an army of 6,000 people up the Lishui River, passed through Chongxian County and Lianyang, and entered the mountains, which later became known as Zhangjiajie, to conquer the barbarians.

Zhuge Liang led Huang Zhong and Taishi Heng to lead a large army, marched up the Yuan River, entered Hutou, and surrendered most of the Wuxi barbarians.

At the end of September, the two armies advanced.

Jiang Wan and Zhu Huan marched smoothly. Under Zhu Huan's command, they defeated the Lishui barbarians and many of them surrendered.

Regarding the main road, Zhuge Liang thought deeply about geography, understood the distribution of Wuxi barbarians, and decided to recover Yiling County, a county that had been abandoned for hundreds of years.

During the Western Han Dynasty, Wuling County was governed in Yiling. However, due to the prosperity of Wuxi barbarians, they invaded the county, killed officials, and occupied the city. Yiling City was abandoned by the Western Han Dynasty, and its subordinate townships were managed by Chenyang.

In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Wuxi barbarians rebelled again. General Liu Shangzhong of Wuwei used a strategy to lure the enemy and ventured into the depths of the Yuan River. As a result, the entire army was annihilated due to lack of food and grass.

Ma Yuan requested to go to war, so he led an army of 40,000 to march south, and defeated the Wuxi Barbarians at the Yuanshui River. He wanted to take advantage of the victory and pursue it, and went straight to Xupu, the main stronghold of the Wuxi Barbarians. However, they were blocked by the Wuxi barbarians at Hutou Mountain and found it difficult to advance. In the end, the battle ended in a tug-of-war, and Ma Yuan also died of the summer epidemic.

After hundreds of years of development, Xupu has become the main seat of the Wuxi Barbarians, led by Shamoke, who calls himself the Barbarian King.

Zhuge Liang learned from the experience of the defeats of Liu Shang and Ma Yuan. In order to prevent Samoko from uniting with the Wuxi barbarians and guarding the mountains and rivers, he decided to go up the Yuan River and quickly march towards Xupu.

However, the upper reaches of Yuanshui River were mostly inhabited by Wuxi barbarians. The news that Zhuge Liang had crossed Hutou Mountain and marched towards Xupu reached Shamo Ke'er.

Samoko gathered ten thousand barbarian soldiers from various tribes and went out from Chenxi to fight Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang sent Huang Zhong and Xizhen as the vanguard, defeated Samoko and captured more than 2,000 people.

Samoko was defeated and led his army to retreat. He sent people to ask for troops from the Wuxi barbarians to guard the mouth of the river and prevent Zhuge Liang from taking Xupu.

After Zhuge Liang defeated Samoko, he released thousands of captives and said that he wanted the Wuxi barbarians to come out of the mountains to live and teach the Han people advanced farming techniques and advanced textile techniques. He only had to pay half of the Han people's taxes. Will exploit them.

The barbarians fled back to Dajiangkou and told the story to the tribesmen of the same ethnic group, allowing the tribesmen to understand the preferential treatment policy of the Southern Han Dynasty for the first time.

After half a month of hard work, Shamoko gathered tens of thousands of old and weak barbarians to force Zhuge Liang to retreat.

Zhuge Liang confronted Samoko at the mouth of the river for half a month. Due to Zhuge Liang's policy of favor, he received the support of the Chinese barbarians and revealed the trail into Xupu to Zhuge Liang.

Zhuge Liang appointed Huang Zhong and Xizhen as generals and selected 5,000 men to bypass the river mouth through the stream path and attack Xupu City.

Shamoko heard about Huang Zhong's move to attack his lair, so he urgently led his troops to return for reinforcements. Huang Zhong led his troops in formation to return and encountered Shamoko. Five thousand elites fought against 20,000 barbarians, and Huang Zhong defeated them.

Shamoko returned to the mouth of the river. Unexpectedly, the mouth of the river had been captured by Zhuge Liang, and Shamoko was captured on the spot.

Zhuge Liang tried to persuade Samoko to surrender, but Samoko was unconvinced and said that there was a traitor who betrayed him, so he failed.

In order to completely eliminate the Wuxi Barbarians, Zhuge Liang ignored everyone's advice and released Samoko from the camp, allowing him to return to the Wuxi Barbarians to gather barbarian soldiers for battle.

Seeing that Xupu was no longer in his possession, Samoko decided to go upstream on the Yuan River, gathering defeated soldiers along the way, and led more than 3,000 people to Wuxi to seek refuge with the Wuxi barbarians (today's Huaihua City).

In the Battle of Dajiangkou, Zhuge Liang surrendered nearly 20,000 barbarians, conquered Xupu City, and recovered the old city of Yiling, which had been in a foreign land for 400 years. He gathered more than 50,000 male and female barbarians and established troops on the spot.

Yiling old city, Han military camp.

In the big tent, Zhuge Liang and his men, civil and military officials, discussed matters.

"Military advisor, after Samoko's defeat, he took refuge with the Wuxi Man. Today, we are together with Shi Zipi, the leader of the Wuxi Man, with a crowd of nearly 20,000 people, far away from the dangerous mountains. How can our army fight?" Xizhen said.

The two victories made the generals of the Han army quite proud, and they all asked Zhuge Liang to fight. Zhuge Liang lowered his feather fan, indicating that everyone should not be anxious, and said: "Although Samoko was defeated by our army in both hands, he is not a scheming person. He will definitely take a warning. How can he win easily? If he is greedy for merit and rushes forward, he may be seriously injured. Follow the mistakes of those who came before us.”

Even Ma Yuan, an expert in suppressing barbarians, died in the conquest of Wuxi barbarians, which forced Zhuge Liang to treat them with caution.

After saying that, Zhuge Liang looked at Ma Di and asked, "You Chang, do you have any insights?"

Ma Di pondered for a while and said: "Our army has penetrated thousands of miles. Now if we want to conquer the Wuxi barbarians, we need to advance hundreds of miles. It is difficult to get in by boat and the transportation of food and grass supplies is long. Looking at Liu Shang's defeat, it was mostly due to lack of food. As a result, the entire army will be defeated. Our army must ensure adequate food supplies to avoid being defeated by Samoko."

"good!"

Zhuge Liang looked approvingly and said: "You Chang's words are exactly the words of a military strategist."

As he spoke, Zhuge Liang looked around at the crowd and said: "The land of Xupu, with fertile water and soil, has been taken by our army, and the foundation of Samoko has been lost. Although they and the Wuxi barbarians have heavy troops, but with the bright view, their food and grass I’m afraid it won’t last long.”

"According to the current situation, Samoko's retreat is dangerous. He must be trying to lure our army to go deep, and then take the opportunity to cut off our food routes and annihilate our army."

Huang Zhong stroked his white beard and asked: "In the opinion of the military advisor, how should our army advance?"

Zhuge Liang stroked his fan and smiled softly, and said: "Since Samoko has this wish, how can our army not march to fight!"

"Military advisor, how should we treat the Wuxi barbarians who were captured in Xupu?" Xi Zhen asked.

After thinking for a while, Zhuge Liang said: "Most of the barbarians in Wuxi are innocent people. They surrendered as a favor and cannot be harmed. Now we can leave five thousand soldiers under your control. According to the customs of the Wuxi barbarians, we can organize the people into households and build buildings." In the township pavilion, seals and ribbons are awarded to express official positions, and the emperor must not rule them strictly."

"No!" Xi Zhen responded.

Since Liu Bei took charge of Wu and Chu, not only the Jiangzuo gentry were appointed, but the Jingchu gentry were also promoted. The Xi family is a Jingchu gentry that has emerged in recent years. Due to their relationship with the Pang family and the Ma family, they have gradually appeared in the political arena, among which the three are represented by Xi Zhen, Xi Zhen, and Xi Hong.

As an official from Jingchu who had taken refuge with Liu Bei in the early days, Xi Zhen has now become the governor of Yuzhang. And Xizhen has also been worshiped as Fuman Zhonglang General, and follows Zhuge Liang to conquer Wuxi Barbarians.

Now Zhuge Liang re-employs Xi Zhen and orders him to stay in Xupu. After the war is over, he should be re-employed.

Two days later, after Zhuge Liang informed Xi Zhen about the details of the governance of the Wuxi barbarians, he led his army upstream of the Yuan River and traveled about 400 miles through the river valley. He met Sergeant Shamoko who controlled the mouth of the Hongjiang River.

Faced with Zhuge Liang's invitation to fight, Shamoko and Wuximan refused to fight, and seemed to intend to hold on for a long time. However, the actual situation is, as Zhuge Liang said, it is difficult for the allied forces of Shamoko and Wuxi Man to maintain food and grass for a long time. Now they lure Zhuge Liang to go deep, with the intention of cutting off Zhuge Liang's food route.

The confrontation lasted for about ten days. Samoko learned that a batch of grain and grass was shipped to Zhuge Liang's camp. He was overjoyed and led five thousand elite troops in the coalition to take a detour and try to intercept the grain. However, this was Zhuge Liang's plan.

When Shamoko was cutting off the grain, Zhuge Liang's ambush troops rushed out and killed Shamoko and was defeated. Shamoko took advantage of the geographical advantage and tried to escape back to the camp at the mouth of the Hongjiang River.

However, when the camp at the mouth of the Hongjiang River was led by Samoko to intercept grain, it was attacked by the Han army on the mountain. With the advantage of bows and crossbows, they conquered the mouth of the Hongjiang River and surrendered Shi Zipi, the leader of the Wuxi Barbarians. Shamoko was desperate and asked Zhuge Liang to surrender.

But Zhuge Liang didn't seem to be satisfied with Samoko's surrender. He found an excuse to let Samoko live and drove him to the border of Xiongxi Barbarians (today's Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County), so that he could fight with the Xiongxi Barbarians again. .

Samoko really didn't want to fight, but seeing Zhuge Liang's attitude, he had no choice but to travel across mountains and rivers to find the Xiongxi barbarians.

When looking for Xiongxi barbarians in Samoko, Zhuge Liang surrendered more than 30,000 Wuxi barbarians and established Huaihua and Hanwei counties on the banks of Wuxi.

Huaihua became a county, and the Wuxi barbarians organized households and unified the people, and set up townships and pavilions to govern them; Hanwei was the Tao, and the Wuxi barbarians Shi Zipi was appointed as the king, and he received the official seal and ruled hereditary.

Zhuge Liang stayed in Huaihua for more than a month, favoring the Wuxi barbarians and teaching them advanced Han production techniques such as smelting, tea growing, and breeding. For the barbarian tribes in the deep valleys, Zhuge Liang gave them ribbons and seals and erected monuments and oaths of alliance with them.

In the twenty-first year of Jian'an, Zhuge Liang set out for the Xiongxi Barbarians, trying to eliminate the last barbarian among the Wuxi Barbarians.

The Xiongxi Barbarians are deep in the Wuling Mountains, among the barren mountains and rivers, with few contacts with the Han people, and the barbaric winds are fierce. Zhuge Liang turned four hundred miles to the border of Xiongxi Manchu, and saw Shamoko leading his troops to surrender. This made Zhuge Liang and everyone in the Han army dumbfounded.

It turned out that Samoko led more than a thousand of his cronies into Xiongximan, thought deeply about the situation, and noticed something was wrong with his IQ. Gradually I guessed that Zhuge Liang wanted to use his hand to wipe out the barbarians.

After figuring this out, Samoko lured the leader of the Xiongxi Barbarians to come, took the opportunity to kill him, and then controlled the Xiongxi Barbarians with his personal force and more than a thousand of his subordinates, waiting for Zhuge Liang's arrival.

Seeing that Samoko was so wise, Zhuge Liang didn't treat him harshly. Thinking of the unfavorable situation of the Xiongxi barbarians, they were in remote mountains and rivers, making it difficult for the Han people to control them. So he appointed Samoko to govern the Xiongxi barbarians, gave him the title of General of Fu Yi Zhonglang, and sent troops to follow Samoko to conquer the leaderless barbarians in Xiongxi.

(End of this chapter)