People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 157 Xu Chen is so bad!
After the Yellow Turban captives were taken away, Gongsun Zan was amazed for a moment. In that era, it was already very rare for a group like the Yellow Turbans to even be able to read and write, not to mention that the Yellow Turbans also learned many things that were rarely touched upon by scholars.

Knowledge itself is an extremely precious resource. For a noble family, mastering the right to interpret scriptures is enough to pass it down to the family. If outsiders want to learn knowledge, they have to become a disciple and form a teacher-student relationship. Knowledge cannot be taught to outsiders casually.

This was the case even in the Eastern Han Dynasty, so it was so difficult to provide education for all in the pre-Qin period.

However, Gongsun Zan brought the captives with him not to tell Liu Yu this: "If the governor hadn't discovered it, I wouldn't have known that the Yellow Turban could read and write, but there are some things that the Yellow Turban didn't say just now."

Liu Yu's expression changed: "Bogui, please speak."

Gongsun Zan said: "According to what I have learned, all the soldiers and civilians of the Yellow Turban Army receive military pay during the war. If they are killed or injured in battle, the Yellow Turban Army not only provides them with pensions, but also gives them preferential tax rates."

Liu Yu was shocked and greatly surprised: "There is such a thing, Xu Chen is so willing to do it!"

Gongsun Zan nodded: "Not only that, the Yellow Turbans also set up stone tablets in Yuyang to commemorate the fallen soldiers. The homes of these soldiers are even called heroes' homes."

Liu Yu was stunned again and opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

Gongsun Zan continued, "Moreover, any Yellow Turban soldier who has made meritorious contributions can be admitted to the sect and become a formal Yellow Turban in the future. Yellow Turban is the threshold for being an official under the rule of the Yellow Turbans. Nowadays, all the Yellow Turbans, from the so-called battalion commander to the squad leader, are of Yellow Turban origin."

Liu Yu took a deep breath. Hearing this, he could no longer sit still. "No wonder the Yellow Turbans fought so hard. Xu Chen treated the soldiers like a benefactor, so how could the soldiers not die in return?"

Liu Yu was shocked, and Gongsun Zan was even more frightened. He had only recently found out about these things, and he had trouble sleeping since then.

Gongsun Zan rose to prominence in the military, and no one knew better than him how soldiers were treated and what they were thinking. If he were a Yellow Turban soldier and was treated like this by Xu Chen, he would fight to the death.

When he looked at the soldiers around him who heard these words, he saw that all of them had strange expressions. He was afraid that they were all tempted. If the Yellow Turbans were not rebels, they might have already started considering surrendering.

What Liu Yu was thinking was even more astonishing at the achievement of the Yellow Turbans' upward channel. This was truly the first upward channel opened up for millions of poor people in this generation. Liu Yu was sure that this was something unprecedented in history.

This reminded him of the military merit titles in the Qin Dynasty, but military merit titles were only granted, which was different from being appointed as an official.

"No wonder the Yellow Turbans' military strength is always limited. With this kind of consumption, it is already very exaggerated to be able to maintain an army of 20,000. This should be their limit."

After a brief consideration in his mind, Liu Yu came to an idea. He was certain that the Yellow Turbans could not further expand their military power with their current territory, and even the current scale could not be maintained for long.

But this did not make him feel at ease. It was hard to say which was more important, quality or quantity. But when the quality was as high as that of the Yellow Turbans, the effect it brought was definitely not something that could be compensated by two or three times the number of troops.

Just as in the past a few thousand officers and soldiers could even chase away tens of thousands of Yellow Turbans, now the gap between the Yellow Turbans and the officers and soldiers, even if it is not that big, is not small either.

Gongsun Zan sighed: "This battle is not easy to fight..."

Liu Yu deeply agreed with this. He knew that the battle Gongsun Zan was talking about was not just the current battle, but every battle in the future.

He didn't even dare to imagine how terrifying the Yellow Turban Army would be if they fought with all their might. This was a treatment he would have to receive even if his head was chopped off and then he would have to pick it up and put it back on before he could continue fighting.

The leader Xu Chen doesn't look like a rebel leader at all. Instead, he looks more like the sage king advocated by Confucianism.

Even a fool knows how good the Yellow Turbans' approach would be, but just because the Yellow Turbans can do some things doesn't mean the officers and soldiers can do them too.

How could Liu Yu not understand that the Yellow Turbans were able to achieve all this because they had reshuffled the entire area under their rule, all the aristocratic families and powerful people were wiped out, and all the social wealth was in their hands, which made it possible for them to do all this.

The officers and soldiers wanted to do this, but was it possible?

Liu Yu and Gongsun Zan felt extremely powerless, and a thought arose in their minds at the same time.

How can you be so nice to the soldiers? Isn't this putting us in a difficult position?

……

"Old Huang, why should we be kind to the soldiers? Because we, the Yellow Turbans, rely on them to conquer the world. So we must give priority to the military and make the soldiers willing and brave enough to fight."

In the Yellow Turban tent, Xu Chen looked at the casualty data compiled by Tian Shitou, turned around and spoke to Huang Long on the side.

Just now, Huang Long felt that the Yellow Turbans had too few troops and it would be better to expand the army and fight them out, even if it meant reducing the treatment of some soldiers.

Although the treatment of soldiers is good nowadays, Huang Long is still very anxious. He has never eaten good food in his life, and he can't get used to the sudden delicacies from land and sea.

"Of course, the soldiers go through life and death and experience the greatest dangers at the forefront of their careers. They deserve it. Even if we stop fighting in the future, their treatment cannot be reduced." Xu Chen added, leaving Huang Long speechless.

Huang Long originally thought that the Yellow Turbans were too nice to their soldiers, but when he saw that their own casualties in this battle were only over a hundred, he realized the value of it.

Huang Long, who devoted himself to study for two years to catch up with the Yellow Turbans, finally went to the battlefield again, and the fighting power of the Yellow Turbans once again refreshed his cognition.

The money spent on equipment and treatment has had real effects. With fewer troops, the officers and soldiers can be crushed, and even the casualty rate is unimaginably low.

This kind of combat performance is very exaggerated. It can only be said that the amplifying effect of equipment and training is far beyond Huang Long's imagination. The swordsman and shieldman in the front row are covered in iron armor with no gaps, so it is really not easy for them to be injured and killed.

The soldiers' will to fight is even stronger, and their sophisticated combat skills brought by intensive training are beyond the reach of soldiers serving in government service.

After fighting so hard for half an hour, only forty or fifty Yellow Turbans were killed and seventy or eighty were injured. Such a result could only make the officers and soldiers despair.

Huang Long was also completely convinced: "Master, you are right. The brothers fought bravely on the front line and deserve such treatment!"

In fact, Huang Long was also moved. He was a private soldier as well, and he knew the difficulties and dangers the soldiers faced.

I'm afraid there will never be another leader in the world who treats soldiers like family. It is undoubtedly a blessing for all the Yellow Turban soldiers to meet a wise leader like Xu Chen.

Xu Chen said: "We have rested for more than two years to have the confidence to fight today. Now the food and grass in the rear are enough to support a long battle for several months. We can fight the officers and soldiers slowly. They can't beat us."

Huang Long seemed to understand something and slowly became excited: "The leader is not only targeting Liaodong?"

Xu Chen smiled and said, "I have been dormant for two years. How can Liaodong quench my thirst? However, my army is short of troops. I will first defend the front and stabilize it. When General Wang takes Liaodong, we will join forces and attack together!"

Huang Long was greatly excited. He felt that the Yellow Turbans were not aggressive enough, and now the leader's idea was exactly what he wanted.

My good brother Zhang Baiqi is doing very well in business in Wuxing Mountain and is now a powerful force in Jizhou. I cannot weaken his momentum if I stay in Youzhou.

Now no one is more eager to fight and make meritorious deeds than Huang Long.

The tone of this battle was destined to be slow from the beginning. The real key was not in the Guangyang battlefield, but in Liaodong. When Wang Dang completed his task, the direction of the macro battlefield would be different.

Wang Dang, who was far away in Liaodong, arrived in Liaodong more than a month later, and then traveled for another half a month before finally finding the Wuhuan tribe. He then launched a surprise attack while Su Puyan was unable to react.

In this battle, the Yellow Turban Cavalry performed brilliantly. Two thousand heavy cavalry were the first to defeat the hastily organized formation of the Wuhuan, while three thousand light cavalry provided flank cover and forced the enemy's formation. As soon as they engaged the enemy, they disrupted their formation.

After much difficulty, Su Puyan paid a huge price and led his troops to break out from the Yellow Turban cavalry. But when he reorganized the formation, the Yellow Turban infantry also caught up with him.

At this time, the Wuhuan cavalry wanted to retreat, but they were caught up by the Yellow Turban light cavalry again, forcing them to engage in battle with the Yellow Turban heavy cavalry and infantry.

However, even if it was just cavalry against the Yellow Turban armored warriors, Su Puyan would find it difficult to attack them under their dense and strict formation, not to mention that there were light and heavy cavalry around who were eyeing them, which made it even more difficult for the Wuhuan cavalry to advance or retreat.

The final result of the battle was indeed Su Puyan's defeat. An army with coordinated infantry and cavalry must have better tactical capabilities than a pure cavalry team, and this battle is the best proof of this.

Things turned out just as Xu Chen and Wang Dang had predicted. The most difficult part of this battle was not fighting itself, but finding the main force of the enemy.

The Wuhuan tribe did not have a fixed place of residence; they could appear anywhere as the seasons changed. The Yellow Turbans spent a month and a half just traveling and searching for the enemy, but it only took half a day to decide the outcome.

Of course, although the outcome was clear, the enemies were all cavalry after all. Even if they were defeated by the Yellow Turbans, they were still able to escape from the battlefield.

Su Puyan broke through several times, reorganized his troops several times, and then resisted the pursuing cavalry of the Yellow Turbans, but he was caught by the cavalry every time. When the Yellow Turban infantry came up, he was defeated again.

After going back and forth like this several times, the Wuhuan cavalry finally could not hold on any longer and finally fled in all directions.

However, how could Wang Dang let them escape so easily? The Wuhuan army of Su Puyan fled in several groups. Wang Dang then divided his troops into several infantry and cavalry teams, each fleeing in the direction of the Wuhuan's escape.

In the chaos of the battle, Su Puyan and his more than a thousand cavalrymen disappeared, but eventually escaped the pursuit of the Yellow Turbans.

But Tadun from another group did not have such good luck. After an escape journey of running and fighting, three days later Tadun was caught up by the Yellow Turbans on the edge of Liaodong, close to Goguryeo. What made Tadun furious was that the people chasing him were also Wuhuan!

"Wuhuan people don't fight Wuhuan people, why are you helping the Han people? You are simply a disgrace to the Wuhuan people!"

(End of this chapter)