Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 449. Sword Pointed at Japan

No matter what happened in the original timeline in 224 AD, the current situation is like two non-intersecting railway tracks, going in different directions from the original timeline.

Soon after Meng Jie contacted Chengdu, he received a handwritten reply from the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, Zhuge Liang, praising Meng Jie's contribution to the finale of Meng Huo's rebellion. At the same time, he expressed regret for Meng Jie's current situation, and welcomed Meng Jie and the tens of thousands of people in Yinkengdong to move to several counties in southern Yizhou.

Those counties are already somewhat urban-centric, with most of the population concentrated in the county towns, so it’s a good thing that there is some manpower to fill the gap.

Moreover, Zhuge Liang had heard from Feng Xi about the physique of the people in Nanzhong and their ability to cross mountains and ridges. He planned to follow Feng Xi's previous suggestion and recruit some strong young men from these mountain people to form a "special force" that specializes in fighting in the mountains.

Feng Xi's arrangements were well organized, and Zhuge Liang's Sichuan was no less impressive. Zhuge Liang made arrangements early on, ordering Wei Yan stationed in Hanzhong and Ma Chao, who was eyeing Liangzhou from Wudu County, to cultivate the land in the area to avoid a shortage of food and grass when his side was forced to march north.

As for Nanzhong, Zhuge Liang also followed Feng Xi's advice and used various means such as luring, suppressing, and bribing, and managed to deceive and lure many strong laborers from Nanzhong to Sichuan.

After the trap set by Feng Xi and the tactics used by Zhuge Liang, Nanzhong, which had a population of one million at its peak, now has a population of 30% leaving due to endless political infighting and disagreements, mainly caused by Meng Jie and Yang Feng.

There were still some remaining caves, mainly because they were either excluded by those factions, or because they envied the life after the two caves left. In short, they all went their separate ways and joined the Han Dynasty, leaving fifty or sixty caves in Nanzhong to continue playing their political games.

Needless to say, some people in these fifty or sixty caves will inevitably leave in anger because they are dissatisfied with the current situation. This is what Feng Xi hopes to see. He originally created the parliamentary system with loopholes everywhere for this purpose. If someone gains, someone will lose. If you lose too much, you will naturally not hang yourself on a tree.

It is estimated that it will not take long for the small countries in Nanzhong and its surrounding areas to be completely included in the sphere of influence of the Han Dynasty. Among them, Wugu, the king of Wuguo, has sent a letter to Chengdu to express his sincere submission. Zhuge Liang was also very kind. He forgave Wugu for assisting Meng Huo and was willing to exchange food for minerals and rattan armor with Wuguo, which eased the situation of Wuguo and made life less difficult.

As for the rattan armor traded, Zhuge Liang's Yizhou army must have intercepted a lot of it, and only one or two thousand could be provided to Jingzhou every month. Feng Xi also had the corresponding production methods, so he didn't care about it.

The progress on Izu Island was also quite good. After building a fairly solid city, General Pang Lin led the navy north and returned to the Zhoushan Islands, preparing to explore in the northeast direction to see what the Japanese island mentioned by the commander-in-chief was like.

There were also some ignorant natives on Izu Island who thought the Han army was some foreign force and dared to invade with the intention of looting the city. The result was that hundreds of almost naked savages were killed on the spot by more than a hundred Han soldiers. Most of the heads were used by the Han army to build two Jingguans, and some were strung together on wooden stakes.

The leader, according to Old Man Cui, was the most powerful hunter in another local tribe of 3,000 people. He was shot into a hedgehog by the Han army's enemy-killing crossbow, and then hung under the Han army's flag to dry. Even the arrows on his body were not removed.

Facts have proved that blindly being tolerant will only make people think that you are easy to bully, while appropriate use of force can prove that you just don't want to take action.

After the Han army easily defeated the natives, the tribe where Old Man Cui used to live came to the city named "Yibei" by Feng Xi without saying a word. They realized how tolerant the Han army was to them. Although they were not like the Han people who could judge the situation and analyze the advantages and disadvantages, a dog seeing a man crush a dog much bigger than itself with his bare hands should know that it is definitely not the opponent of this man.

The Han army also struck while the iron was hot and ordered Old Man Cui to teach the Han army a few words of the native language to persuade other natives to join them and provide them with safe shelter and food.

Many small tribes with sparse populations were already struggling to survive, and now seeing how powerful the Han army was, they decided to give it a try and had the entire village, young and old, join Yibei City.

The Yibei City, which originally had not many people, soon had thousands of residents. However, these people could not speak Chinese at the moment, so they had to rely on Old Man Cui and some Han soldiers who were more talented and learned the native language quickly to communicate.

After returning to Jiangdong, the three generals Pang Lin will bring with them the people who are willing to immigrate to Izu Island and teachers of culture to educate the local natives.

It is estimated that within a generation, the natives here will begin to become assimilated to Han Chinese. After all, the Han Chinese still have a strong sense of national identity in this era, and countless foreigners are proud to be Han Chinese. These people will also become part of them, and then slowly be assimilated, until they finally lose their own language and completely become part of them.

Because Feng Xi knew from the report that the spoken language of the natives of Izu Island today can hardly be called a language, because they have no writing system of their own and no history of their own, and many things can only be passed down orally.

Languages ​​that cannot be written down will disappear the fastest, which is why Feng Xi is certain that these natives will be completely assimilated by the Han people within two generations.

As the days passed, in early summer, in Jingzhou and Jiangdong, under the coordination of Feng Xi, shiploads of arrows, weapons, and armor were sent to Jiangdong, ready to be loaded onto ships.

According to Zhang Nan's report, the Han army now has a general understanding of the hydrology of the Yellow Sea, and the sailors have been trained at sea for nearly a year, so going to sea is not a problem.

Feng Xi's target this time was the Japanese island of Wa, which had already been discussed. According to Feng Xi's memory, Japan was still in the midst of a civil war, similar to the so-called "Warring States Period" of the future Ming Dynasty, but it was more chaotic at this time, more like an early tribal fight.

Feng Xi was confident that it would be very easy for the Han army to participate in this kind of tribal fighting. At the very least, taking Kyushu Island as a stepping stone would be more than enough.

Feng Xi himself was even more eager to lead the army to the battle. After all, Feng Xi, who had memories of the future, had an inexplicable paranoia about personally setting foot on the land of Japan.

(End of this chapter)