Chapter 2376 Difficult to advance or retreat
December.
It''s snowing around Xiapi.
Although the snow is not very heavy, the temperature is getting lower and lower, and ice is seen in the wild. Under such circumstances, Sun Jun had no way to attack, and it was a bit of a breather for the people in Xiapi.
The Han Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, known as Sangluan, the lord of the state and county, like things changing and stars moving, but the elite of the gentry is as immobile as a mountain.
Among them is the Xiapi Chen family.
Judging from the records in the historical books, the Chen family''s political stance in Xiapi seems to be very vague, either attached to Yuan Shu, or attached to Lu Bu, or flirted with Liu Bei, then abandoned Liu Bei in a blink of an eye and fell into Cao Cao''s arms .
When it comes to the Chen family in Xiapi, most people in later generations may only remember Chen Gui and Chen Deng, but in fact there are still many members of the Chen family, such as Chen Qiu, who was called "the descendants of the public family" with Yuan Shu. We have a good relationship, and we often swim together with our arms in Luoyang.
The Chen family in Xiapi has great power in Xuzhou. Chen Deng, the son of Chen Yu, is considered a junior of the Chen family, and he dared to directly insult Tao Qian as "the other state", accusing Tao Qian of being "a trusted villain and alienated from a gentleman". No gentry demeanor, and so on.
The reason why Chen Deng has such courage is because the Chen family''s private soldiers exceeded 50,000 in their heyday!
It is known as a hundred thousand people!
Well, not as famous as Sun Shiwan.
Of course, these numbers include the old and weak, women and children, which is similar to the calculation method of the Yellow Turban Thieves at that time. Moreover, these private soldiers of the Chen family were not useless. Whether it was against Lu Bu at the time, or against Sun Quan after he voted for Cao Cao, they all played a certain role.
Sun Shiwan missed the Guangling-Xuzhou line, and it wasn''t just a day or two. He came here once before and was beaten away by Chen Deng.
At the time of Chen Deng''s "Megatron Jiangdong", although he gained a lot of fame, it also made Cao Cao extremely jealous. He transferred Chen Deng back from Guangling. Chase", the grand occasion is very similar to Liu Bei''s "Crossing the River with the People" in history.
In the end, Cao Cao compromised and repatriated Chen Deng to Huixiapi as the prefect of Dongcheng. Dongcheng County was temporarily established by Cao Cao. It is next to Xiapi in Linhuai. It can be seen that Chen Deng''s Dongcheng prefect is actually the Xiapi prefect, but it was specially set up by Cao Cao. On the one hand, he would not wrong Chen Deng''s status as a wealthy family, and on the other hand, he would avoid the restrictions of the "three mutual laws" of the big Han.
Chen Deng died within a year of serving as the prefect of Dongcheng.
Although everyone rumored that the sashimi was the cause, and the official said that Chen Deng died of illness, but he couldn''t find a good doctor, but considering that Chen Deng was still alive and well a year ago, he led the Chen family''s private soldiers and defeated Jiangdong. Sun Jun''s attempt to march into Guangling...
But in any case, after Chen Deng died, the Xiapi Chen family inevitably declined.
After Chen Deng''s death, the Chen family was deliberately suppressed by Cao Cao. Chen Deng''s younger brother, Chen Ying, was sent to a small coastal county to be the county magistrate. Chen Deng''s son, Chen Su, was historically the Twenty years later, he was named a doctor.
So from this point of view, Cao Pi is really a prodigal son. His father finally took precautions and suppressed the local tyrants and noble families for more than ten or twenty years, and then Cao Pi forgot about it in order to become emperor. Of course, at that time, Cao Pi may also have felt that if he did not advance, he would retreat, and he was stuck in the middle. He did not have Cao Cao''s brilliant wisdom and indomitable determination, so he chose a logical path that seemed to be "happy for everyone"...
But at the moment, Man Chong has a headache. Although Sun Jun did not continue to attack because of the weather, and Xiapi''s city defenses were also repaired and strengthened as soon as possible, but Jiangdong''s soldiers are coming in menacingly. If they don''t use Chen''s power, they may not win for a while, but once they are used, they will be defeated. If he wins, he will be in trouble. I am afraid that he will be overwhelmed by Boss Cao?
Man Chong is from a poor family, his parents and grandparents have never had any big names, and he is completely incomparable with the Xiapi Chen family. So when Man Chong arrived in Xiapi, especially when he knew that Man Chong had to withdraw to Xiapi because he had no way to resist the Jiangdong soldiers in Guangling, hehe, that expression, let alone how gratifying it was.
Man Chong also wants to scold Bi Qimian!
Guangling experienced war before, and then the population was brought back to Xiapi by Chen Deng, so that Guangling was almost abandoned. How could Manchong defend and withstand it?
Take the Tianling cover to top it?
Although it is said that Man Chong has been constantly recruiting new recruits and letting Yin Li go to the training of recruits, in fact, regardless of Yin Li’s background as a Taishan thief, in fact, his force is very limited...
In history, Yin Li was killed by a not-so-famous Quan Cong, and he won first and then lost, and died at the hands of his pursuers when he was evacuating.
There are soldiers of the Chen family, but obviously, the Chen family will not take them out. Those are the private soldiers of the Chen family. In other words, they are equivalent to the Chen family''s own property. It is a very serious and serious matter, and it cannot be done casually.
What''s more, if Man Chong asked to come to Chen''s place, and Chen really sent troops to defend Xiapi, then what is the value of Man Chong''s existence? If at that point, they can only rely on the Chen family to defend the city, then in turn, the Chen family will find an excuse to kill Man Chong, and Cao Cao will finally have to pinch his nose to admit it, just like letting Chen Deng bear it back then. The same as the prefect of Dongcheng.
Man Chong stood on the city wall of Xiapi, looking at the vast expanse of whiteness, his face turned pale unavoidably.
Internal and external troubles, a dilemma...
Cao Cao did not give new instructions, which means that here in Xiapi, Man Chong must find his own way.
『Come on! Go invite Chen Shizi to come! ’ Man Chong ordered loudly.
Because of the war, the Chen family has basically retreated to Xiapi. Of course, there are many more in the Wubao of the Chen family. In terms of the continuous repair and construction of the Chen family, these forts are even comparable to the defensive power of a small county town to a certain extent. Generally speaking, unless it is absolutely necessary, the soldiers of the Sun family will not spend time attacking these forts.
It''s very simple, the input and output are not directly proportional. Once one of them is attacked, the rest of the docks will become hostile. If they don''t attack, then not only will they be able to obtain a small amount of supplies for free, but after conquering the central city, These surrounding Wubao will also immediately express their surrender in name...
In the era of cold weapons, it is more cost-effective to use a relatively soft approach to these docks than to directly attack them one by one.
The capital of the Chen family is here. It not only has a long-term business foundation in Xiapi City, but also has a Wubao system in the surrounding area. Of course, it is precisely because of this that the Chen family ignited the war against Man Chong to the surrounding areas of Xiapi. , more or less dissatisfied...
Not long after, Chen Ke came.
Chen Deng is the eldest, Chen Ying is the second, Chen Ke is the third, and Chen Ke has a younger brother.
"Someone received an urgent report..." After Man Chong met Chen Ke, he didn''t have any politeness, or it was foreplay, but he directly entered the theme. Of course, this is also in line with the habit that Man Chong has created all the time. Iron-blooded, ignorant of human feelings, even without much humanity, "I hereby inform you that there is chaos on Mount Tai!" 』
Chen Ke was taken aback, and turned his head to look into the city, because he had just met Yin Li, a member of the Taishan Army.
Man Chong added, "The person who caused the rebellion is not Zang Xuangao..."
Chen Ke breathed a sigh of relief. Zang Ba, Sun Guan, Yin Li and others are in the same wave. Zang Xuangao is not a rebel, so it means that Yin Li is relatively safe, which may be the reason why Man Chong has not arrested Yin Li...
Chen Ke was thinking, and suddenly he realized a new problem, since it wasn''t Zang Ba who caused the rebellion, then who else is in the Taishan Army? Who else will be specially marked and paid special attention to?
Minister of the East China Sea, Chang Xi!
And Donghai County is just north of Xiapi!
Then this means that Xiapi has no retreat at all right now. There are Jiangdong soldiers in the south and Taishan rebels in the north!
Xiapi has become an isolated island!
Chen Ke''s complexion finally turned ugly...
...(／_＼)...
Xiapi is not the only one suffering from internal and external troubles.
Deep in the desert, a raging white disaster is also destroying the original ecosystem in the desert.
In the face of natural disasters, farming peoples obviously have more endurance than nomadic peoples, and have a higher endurance. Of course, whether these endurance or endurance is good, they are all experiences gained from disasters.
In Dahan, if there is such a natural disaster, the court will come forward to provide relief, such as opening Changping warehouses, etc., to relieve the victims, to exempt the disaster area from taxes, etc. After all, these are established rules. Things are still done by some people. This is the function of the dynasty.
Of course, in the feudal dynasties, no matter how perfect the rules and laws were, it would be because of the differences in the governance of officials in different places, which would lead to great differences in things among the people. Under the banner of disaster relief, the local government doubled down on exploiting and distributing wealth to the country...
In addition to the court''s disaster relief, in Huaxia, the stabilizing effect of local powerful households will also be exerted during this time period. After all, sometimes the court''s actions are too slow. If you really wait for the court for everything, it is often Far water cannot quench near thirst.
Although the local clan system is inconsistent in closeness and virtue, but in the face of disasters, there will still be some elders who will stand up, command the village, and help poor households, but there is no free lunch in the world. After the disaster subsides, most of these guys will eat He took the land of his poor relatives and turned them into tenant farmers.
A small local tyrant often grows stronger in disasters.
Compared with the Han land, these tribes in the desert do not have these two layers of protective nets.
『The weather is so weird...』
『I asked the elder a few days ago, and the elder said that he also found it strange that the snow is almost non-stop...』
『Yeah, it was a burst before, it seems like it’s taking so long now! 』
『People can still hold on, but the big and small animals at home...』
"Ugh…"
The temperature drops.
Whether it is a river or a water park, it is all frozen into ice.
Several shepherds looked at a piece of white, talking to each other listlessly, worried.
But what these shepherds didn''t expect was that on the other side, the white-bearded elders and tribal chiefs also showed an almost pale complexion.
"White Disaster" is not the scariest thing yet.
The most terrifying thing is the "black plague".
The snow on the ground was dug a hole, exposing the frozen hard land under the snow. And in this gray-black land, the elder picked up a few almost transparent objects...
"Look... the grass roots here are also frozen..." The elder''s voice was hoarse and full of sadness, "Even if it''s spring, the snow has melted, and there will be no grass growing here... there is only a piece of black soil... this It''s a black disaster...」
Generally speaking, there is snow and soil as the spacer layer, and the grass roots inside the soil are not easy to be damaged by freezing, but it is not absolute, like this, it is covered by snow for a long time, because there is no air circulation and continuous low temperature, after the grass roots are frozen to death , this area will form a large grass-free area.
At that time, even if people know how to migrate and go to a place with long grass, the livestock will not understand. These large and small livestock are used to digging with hooves and offering food with their noses and tongues, and the grass roots that freeze underground not only cannot Bringing food supplements to these large and small animals will cause frostbite to varying degrees on the hooves, snouts, and tongues due to these actions.
At the same time, freezing the rotten grass roots will also destroy the stomachs of these large and small animals...
People can give orders, but what can they do in the face of these livestock? If you can save one end, you cannot save the other end, and if you hold this end, you cannot hold the other end.
『If it’s spring, these guys will be irritable if they don’t have grass for three days, and if they can’t eat for ten days, the ewes won’t produce milk, and then the lambs...if there is no grass for a month...』
For nomadic peoples, the number of livestock is often dozens or even hundreds of times that of the population. Under normal circumstances, these large and small animals will find food on their own and do not require much human care. But now if nature does not give a new season of grass, It means that these people not only have to eat themselves, but also be responsible for the food and grass of all animals!
『Migrate! 』
『However, if you migrate in such weather, you will freeze to death! people! Livestock! They will all freeze to death! 』
『But to continue here is to wait for death! 』
『…』
The opinions of the elders and chiefs are difficult to unify.
Whether to choose to freeze to death or wait to die has become a difficult problem.
Although the debate between the chief and the elders is limited to a small area, this kind of thing cannot be hidden for long, and other herdsmen will soon know about it.
After the white disaster, there will not be many livestock surviving. If there is another black disaster, there will be no grass, let alone livestock, and people will not be able to survive.
This is the ecosystem of the desert grassland.
Don''t look at these guys'' southward invasions again and again in history, but in the face of natural disasters, these guys are even more powerless and vulnerable than farming peoples.
For this kind of tribe in the desert, there is no government at the top to coordinate disaster relief, and there is no help from the clan and neighbors at the bottom. They believe in the law of survival that the weak eat the strong, and the old and the weak deserve to die. All the tribes have to endure the disaster by themselves, and no one will help them at all. As for the so-called brother tribes around, they are all like enemies at this time. It is already quite good if they don’t take advantage of the chaos up.
If it was before, the disaster relief strategy in these grasslands and deserts was to organize the "ethnic integration" activities going south, and transfer the internal disasters to the farming peoples in the south. After the tribal royal court was taken over in one pot, there were no organizers.
Scattered tribes, no one trusts anyone, without credibility and binding force, there will be no basis for cooperation at all.
Such a snowflake from the Little Ice Age has become a mountain that crushes the backbone of these nomadic tribes in the grassland desert.
Many old men in the tribe have died.
These old people, either actively or passively, became the first group of dead people in the tribe, "returning to the embrace of the gods".
Every day, there are several, more or less, in front of tents that cannot last, someone will carry their old father and mother on horseback, and let the horse lead them step by step into the wilderness and go.
When the old people leave, they are often still blessing their children...
『Live well...』
『Son, live on...』
This is the rule of the grassland and desert.
If a disaster occurs, and the men are over 60 years old and the women are over 50 years old, they will be wiped out by themselves.
These elderly parents, they would pick a place, dismount, and drive the horse away.
The horses will find their way back, and they will never have to.
Either freeze to death in the cold, or be swallowed alive by hungry wolves, or be eaten by wild animals after freezing to death.
After a few days, these old people often only have a **** skeleton left. If they had the heart, they would pick them up and bury them, but most of them let their parents throw their corpses into the wilderness.
The living are too busy to take care of themselves, how much more dead?
Some may not even have a horse, so they can only go out with their elderly parents on their backs, find a rock without dirt and corpses, put their parents on it, and then abide by the rules of no turning back, and leave quickly, as long as The old father, the old mother, did not cry or howl, so it is not a sad thing.
Life is bitter, death is also bitter.
All living beings suffer!
So many people in the nomads think that it is better to die in battle than to be abandoned when they are old, but now they don’t even have the chance to die in battle...
The class solidification of the nomadic people is even more serious than that of the Han people.
Ordinary herdsmen are always just ordinary herdsmen, and they may not even understand the most basic counting. Ordinary herdsmen can argue about how many fingers there are on both hands and feet, because some people will freeze their fingers in the snow...
The lowly ordinary herdsmen don’t need knowledge, they just need to work and be silly.
Those who have knowledge, only the superior. This is a necessary condition for tribal leaders, or chiefs, elders, wizards and a series of superiors to maintain their continuous "superior".
But now these "superior people" are also facing a crisis.
Because the inferior people began to decrease.
The elderly parents in the family died, and their own animals fell ill one by one.
Even if there are various reasons, various rules, and various measures, the inferior people still have emotions, can be sad, and can feel pain. These emotions accumulate, like magma under an extinct volcano. At some point it will erupt.
Must find a way.
Internal and external troubles, a dilemma.
In the smoky tent, the elders and chiefs of the tribe touched their heads together, enduring the smoke formed by the ignited damp firewood, "A decision must be made...or else..."
『Go south! If you stay here, you will die sooner or later! 』
『It can only be a struggle...』
Say goodbye to the old and welcome the new!
Wishing you all the best in the new year, everything goes well, the country is peaceful and the people are safe!
(end of this chapter)