People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 66 You surrendered too?

After changing their allegiance, many Han officials not only lost sympathy for their original groups, but became even more harsh and strict. This kind of attitude is undoubtedly disgusting.

Ju Su was not happy, but he understood the other party's mentality.

Surrender itself is a dishonorable thing. Once a scholar does such a thing, he will have no face to face the scholar group he once was. Moreover, the more Ju Su and others grit their teeth and hold on, the more it appears that the surrendering people are weak-willed, right?
In this case, it is not difficult to understand why the emotions in their hearts changed from shame to hatred. They couldn't stand the toughness of Ju Su and others, as it would only highlight their own shame.

I have already surrendered, how can you still remain chaste? Is this appropriate?

Ju Su slurped the porridge and finished it in just two mouthfuls. He licked the bowl clean with satisfaction, and the fatigue in his body was relieved a little.

This little food is not enough to sustain the heavy physical labor in the afternoon, and a new torture will soon begin.

Honestly speaking, Ju Shou felt that the Yellow Turbans were going too far. It was okay to make people work, and it was not unbearable to be tired, but at least they should be able to have a full meal. Doing this was really deliberately torturing people.

But when he thought about his identity as a prisoner, all these thoughts disappeared. He was a prisoner and could not ask for any more. It was good enough to be alive.

Even though he was physically exhausted, Ju Shou still maintained an upright posture during this short rest period. No matter the dirt on his body from the field mud, the rough and tattered linen clothes, or his current miserable situation, they could not make him give up the self-demand of a scholar.

Not only should one maintain a scholar's decent demeanor externally, but one should also maintain his noble character internally.

It is impossible to surrender. Once you betray, you will be unworthy of being called a gentleman.

Of course, this is the superficial reason. The deeper reason is that he has not seen any possibility for the Yellow Turbans to succeed so far. Even though these Yellow Turbans have a special style and even though they have begun to seek development, it is still a long way to go for them to conquer the world.

Even though the Han Dynasty is riddled with holes, it is still big enough.

The so-called main enemies of the Yellow Turbans were the aristocratic families, and they were spread all over the world in countless numbers.

Let’s look at the Yellow Turbans now. After all, they have only a few thousand soldiers and occupy only one county.

Although the county is now well managed, it is still too small. In front of the Han Empire, it is just a tiny ant.

Perhaps the Yellow Turbans might really overthrow the Han Dynasty in the future, but Ju Shou has not seen this possibility yet, so he will definitely not tie himself to the Yellow Turbans' broken ship.

Now he just wants to be his own prisoner peacefully. He will get used to the hardship and fatigue. It is better than losing his life.

Just as he closed his eyes to rest, a tall man came over. It was Fu Xie, who was undergoing labor reform with him. Like Ju Shou, he was also working hard and had no intention of surrendering.

"This land reclamation work is really terribly tiring. Can Gong Yuke still bear it?" Fu Xie was worried when he saw that Ju Su looked pale.

Ju Shou opened his eyes and looked at him, then nodded calmly: "Although I am not as strong as Nan Rong, I am not weak either. I am just tired suddenly and it is difficult for me to adapt. I will get used to it after a while."

Fu Xie felt relieved after hearing this, but then he leaned against the wall under a tree and began to sigh.

In fact, his condition was not much better than Ju Shou's. Although his tendon muscles were much stronger than Ju Shou's, they were trained for battle, not for holding a hoe.

After working like this for ten days, he really wanted to die, and he hated Xu Chen even more. In his opinion, this kind of labor reform was a complete humiliation and torture, but what he thought was torture was actually just the daily life of the working people.

"The Yellow Turbans are staying in Yuyang. Do they really think governing a place is that easy?

They were just a bunch of peasants who couldn't even read a word. Such simple tasks as measuring the land, registering household registration and distributing the land were done for them by those bastards after they surrendered.

Such a makeshift team is a joke no matter how you look at it, and no one knows when it will collapse."

As Fu Xie spoke, he looked at the surrendered Han officials who were shouting and yelling and the Yellow Turbans who were supervising them, his tone was full of disdain and contempt, and his eyes were full of resentment.

It can be seen that he was looking forward to the collapse of the Yellow Turbans' governance. By then, there would be no need for the Han army to come and attack them, and the bandits would meet their end on their own.

However, Ju Shou was not as optimistic as him. His eyes fell on the silent Yellow Turban.

He was not just working hard these days, but also carefully observing the Yellow Turbans' every move. In fact, he found that these Yellow Turbans were not a makeshift group as Fu Xie said.

The Yellow Turbans made use of the surrendered officials from the Han Dynasty, but they were also very wary of them. It was always the Yellow Turbans who decided what to do and then let the surrendered officials do the work. The surrendered officials could not become officials and could only be used as clerks. The initiative was completely in the hands of the Yellow Turbans, which was enough to deal with some simple matters.

Of course, this is nothing. Anyone with a little bit of intelligence can also think of this method to prevent and utilize.

What really worried Ju Shou was that the Yellow Turbans seemed to have begun to slowly develop their organizational structure.

In fact, these days, the smooth progress of land surveying, field division and production organization is inseparable from the role played by the Yellow Turbans.

Nowadays, there are Yellow Turban teams entering every village under Yuyang, and each village can be effectively organized to do various things. This kind of organization is very unified in the macro sense.

For matters like measuring land and dividing farmland, each village can carry out the work simultaneously without interfering with each other. For larger projects like building work sheds and water conservancy projects, the scattered manpower from various places can be organized and dispatched in a unified manner without affecting the production activities of each village.

From these clues, Ju Su could easily judge that the Yellow Turbans actually had sufficient control over their territory.

This must mean that they already have a rough organizational structure, but the specific content of this organizational form is not something he can know.

Rather than expecting the Yellow Turbans to collapse on their own, it would be more realistic to expect the Han court to come to its senses sooner and crush them to death.

"Nan Rong should calm down. You and I are not as favored as Zhong Jing. We can only be good captives and wait for the heavenly army to rescue us."

As Ju Shou spoke, his eyes turned toward two figures in the distant village. One was the Yellow Turban leader Xu Chen, and the other was their old friend Zhang Zhongjing.

Fu Xie turned his head and saw Xu Chen and Zhang Zhongjing accompanying each other and giving advice on state affairs, and his eyes narrowed suddenly.

"Zhong Jing, this guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, is so close to the bandit chief. Could it be that he has also betrayed the Han Dynasty?"

(End of this chapter)