People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 12: The Family of the Lost
After hearing Ju Shou's words, Fu Xie suddenly felt as if the clouds had been cleared and the doubts he had just had disappeared in an instant.

Yes, equality for all, regardless of social status, sounds nice, but it is destined to be just the luxury of the common people.

How can I, a royal family, aristocratic clan, be equal to you common people?
Although Xu Chen could use this kind of rhetoric to consolidate the faith and unite the followers, the price he paid was that he would naturally stand in opposition to the world's aristocratic families.

At least from Fu Xie's point of view, this kind of slogan is totally unacceptable. It is much more hateful than "The blue sky is dead and the yellow sky should be established."

When he was made equal to these peasants, his first feeling was a huge humiliation.

Scholars are actually a very awkward group. They can fight and work hard for the concept of "people" in a broad sense. This is part of their self-cultivation and the specific requirement put forward by Confucianism for scholars. It is precisely to cultivate oneself, govern the country and bring peace to the world.

But once this "people" is specific to a certain individual or a group of ordinary people, most of them will not regard these ordinary people as human beings. This is an inherent gap due to the huge status difference between the two sides.

This was true for Fu Xie and Ju Shou, but only Zhang Zhongjing was a kind-hearted doctor who showed compassion and sympathy to the common people.

In this era, scholars were almost equivalent to aristocratic families, so it was obviously impossible for them to agree with Xu Chen's ideas.

Without the support of the aristocratic families, even the emperor would not be able to sit firmly on the throne, let alone a mere traitor.

In this case, Xu Chen is indeed not worth caring about.

Fu Xie felt relieved. He just wanted to watch how this evil Taoist Xu Chen came to his end.

Now that the Yellow Turbans have been largely pacified, what kind of trouble can they, with only 4,000 weak soldiers and generals, really cause?

There is no need to wait long. As long as General Huangfu Song hears about the movements of the remnants of the Yellow Turbans, he will certainly send troops to encircle and suppress them. At that time, this evil Taoist will have no chance of survival, and he can be rescued.

Fu Xie's prediction was very accurate. When King Xu Chen led the remaining Yellow Turban remnants out of the forest, Huangfu Song, who had returned to Julu, had already received the report.

Huangfu Song was enjoying a happy time in his life at this time, and thanks to his effective efforts in suppressing the rebellion, the imperial court naturally lavished rewards on him.

As soon as Zhang Jue died of illness and Huangfu Song defeated the Yellow Turbans, the imperial court's reward was already on the way and has now been delivered to Huangfu Song.

Not only was he granted the title of Left General of Chariots and Cavalry, he was also appointed Governor of Jizhou and was granted the title of County Marquis. It can be said that the emperor's favor was great.

It was indeed because Huangfu Song's battle record was too dazzling, and it seemed that he could turn the tide.

Before he led the army to war, the Yellow Turban Rebellion was underway and the eight states responded vigorously. Wherever the Yellow Turbans passed, all the places surrendered, and the Han Dynasty looked shaky.

After he, Zhu Jun and Lu Zhi either divided their forces or attacked together, the seemingly powerful Yellow Turbans were defeated in one fell swoop, so that less than a year after Zhang Jiao raised the flag, the Yellow Turban Movement came to an end.

Having reversed the situation so quickly and resolved the great crisis of the Han Dynasty, any reward from the emperor would not be excessive.

However, Huangfu Song did not expect that when he was feeling proud and satisfied, he would immediately hear some bad news, which undoubtedly ruined his mood.

"What? The remnants of the Yellow Turbans not only survived the plague safely, but also ambushed Fu Xie's troops, and even Fu Xie himself was captured?" Huangfu Song was a little bit unbelievable. He even suspected that he had heard it wrong.

Any information in this message is something that should not happen in his eyes.

How did the Yellow Turbans survive the plague safely? Could it be that Taoist Zhang Jiao was blessing them from heaven?

Even so, how could they defeat the elite Han army? Even if they only had a thousand cavalry left for Fu Xie, they could attack or defend, so there was no way they could be ambushed by the Yellow Turbans, not to mention that they had captured Fu Xie himself.
"Fu Nanrong is a good warrior, and he had made great achievements in suppressing bandits before. How could he be suddenly defeated by such a small number of remnants? What happened?" Inside the government office, Huangfu Song stared at the soldier in front of him with his fierce eyes full of confusion.

This Han soldier was a scout from Fu Xie's unit. He was originally patrolling far away in the forest, so he did not participate in the battle, but he witnessed the entire process.

He was careful not to be discovered by the Yellow Turbans and then brought back the news.

After Huangfu Song asked this question, he finally told the whole story. After Huangfu Song finished listening, he was silent for a while.

"How could Nan Rong be so careless? With his abilities, he shouldn't have been ambushed."

Huangfu Song waved his hand to send the scout away. He sighed at first, but then thought that perhaps Fu Xie could not be blamed. After all, no one could have imagined that the Yellow Turbans could survive the plague.

I have no idea how the Yellow Turbans managed to do this, and Huangfu Song naturally finds it incredible.

It was hard not to be careless in this situation. Even if it were him, he would probably be deceived. The loss of a thousand elite cavalrymen made Huangfu Song feel a little painful.

No matter what, the bandits had to be eliminated and Fu Xie had to be rescued. Huangfu Song did not think about it for long and quickly stood up.

"Pass on my military order. Gather 10,000 elite soldiers and follow me to hunt down the remaining Yellow Turbans!"

Now that he is the governor of Jizhou, he must ensure the stability of Jizhou. If these thousands of bandits are ignored, they will become a huge disaster.

Although a few thousand soldiers are not many, they are still not something that the lower counties and towns can handle.

In the Han Dynasty, the garrison force of an ordinary county town was no more than a thousand men at most, and perhaps only a few hundred men at the least.

Unless the county governor unified the troops of all the counties under his jurisdiction to suppress the rebellion, or the local magistrate united the local powerful and rebel soldiers, the general county would have no way to deal with the bandits with 4,000 troops.

As a result, Huangfu Song decided to lead the army himself to completely eliminate this group of Yellow Turbans.

He thought that he could easily defeat this group of remnants with his 10,000 elite soldiers, but when he arrived at the location, the Yellow Turbans had already disappeared.

Even after a thorough search, there was no trace of the Yellow Turbans.

After a fruitless search, Huangfu Song realized that the Yellow Turbans had probably left Jizhou, but he didn't know where they had gone. As a result, he had no way of chasing them and had to give up.

"I want to help, but the thief is cunning. I'm afraid Fu Nanrong can only hope for the best."

Huangfu Song thought about it for a while, and finally decided to give up for the time being. He sighed for Fu Xie in his heart, and could only lead his troops back home helplessly.

No matter where the remnants of the Yellow Turbans fled to, as long as they were not in Jizhou, it was not something that I, the governor of Jizhou, should be responsible for. Others would be able to worry about it.

After the Yellow Turban Rebellion was quelled, there was a lot of work to be done. The most important thing for him to do now was to recuperate and restore people's livelihood, and it was time to stop the war.

Huangfu Song led his army through the Jingguan built by tens of thousands of Yellow Turbans. After returning to Julu City, he immediately submitted a memorial to the court, requesting the exemption of one year's land rent in Jizhou, so that the hungry people in Jizhou had a chance to breathe.

The people of Jizhou were extremely grateful to Huangfu Song and even composed songs to praise his kindness.

(End of this chapter)