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Chapter 29: Battle in the Forest (2) [2 in 1]

『PS: Recommended to a friend's new book "Floating Clouds", the grudges, love and hatred that light military forces have inflated history, and are getting better and better. Interested book friends may wish to go and take a look.』

————The following text——

In the forest where Lin Hu lived, the Wei court has now used it as a "county" to describe it. It is not difficult to see from this that the Wei court's enthusiasm for mastering this land.

Linzhong County, whose landform is composed of almost 70% of it belongs to plains, and is located in the center of the "ji"-shaped terrain of the big river (Yellow River), so it can also be called "Hejian". "Note: Don't mess with the "Hejian Kingdom (County)" of a certain Han Dynasty, these are two places."

The Hetao Plain can be roughly divided into three plains according to geographical division and the flow direction of the river, which is the "Linhe" in the inner corner of the upper left side of the "Ji" shape of the Dahe; and the "Ji" shape of the Dahe; and the "Yinchuan" on the left side of the "Ji" shape of the Dahe. "Note: Jiuyuan, during the Han Dynasty in history, the county government was changed to Wuyuan, and Lu Bu was a person in Wuyuan County, Jiuyuan County.

Lin Hu lives in these three plains all year round and among some forests between these three plains.

A few days ago, after capturing "Shangjun", the Wei army built a city-state in "Yulin" while continuing to lead their troops to advance northward. Then, at the intersection of Yulin and Hetao, they launched the most massive battle with Lin Hu so far. After half a month, they finally defeated Lin Hu and occupied this low hill covered with forests.

After deep thought, Zhao Hongrun, the prince of the Eastern Palace of Wei, prepared to build a new city-state here, because this position is in the hinterland of "Yulin", "Linhe", "Yinchuan" and "Jiuyuan". Whether it is to attack the three major plains next or to better control the entire Hetao area in the future, this place is a strategic place that the Wei State must occupy.

Therefore, under the order of Zhao Hongrun, the Wei army from all over the country gathered the defeated Lin Hu and other local alien soldiers and enslaved them to build a fortress-level city-state here. Zhao Hongrun named it "Fortress in the Yuanzhong".

In Zhao Hongrun's idea, with the power of Wei, it is obviously unrealistic to fully control the entire Hetao area. It is not that the Wei army cannot defeat the nomadic peoples such as Lin Hu who live here. It is mainly because after winning, it will not be able to make full use of this vast natural pasture in a short period of time unless the Wei State moves at least tens of thousands of citizens here.

But even so, it would probably take four or five years for Wei to make full use of the resources of the Hetao region.

Not to mention, how many Wei people living in the mainland of Wei are willing to move to the Hetao area?

Therefore, Zhao Hongrun decided to slow down and first move some people to the Yuanzhong Fortress. Most of these people would be prisoners and slaves. The court could use pardoning their crimes and granting them the identity of Wei as a temptation to allow these people to live here and slowly expand the influence of Wei in this area.

In addition, Zhao Hongrun also wanted to move the current "Jie Tribe" in Sanchuan County here to allow this alien race that currently surrendered to the Wei Kingdom to act like a guard dog in Linzhong County. After all, although the Hetao area is the most powerful Lin Hu, there are still many powerful nomadic peoples in the west of the Hetao area on the side called "Hexi Corridor (actually later Xiliang)". Zhao Hongrun did not want to drive Lin Hu away, but attracted a new wave of enemies. Therefore, it is also an effective way to keep the Jie tribe and its Jiejiao cavalry in the Hetao area.

Of course, this is just a tentative consideration.

"Population..."

In the small tent of the rear army, Zhao Hongrun sighed melancholy after staring at the marching map placed on the table for a while.

He increasingly discovered that population resources were really important. If Wei State had a population of tens of millions of people like Chu State, what would it be like to develop the Hetao area? It would be not enough to move a million people to Hetao? Moving another million more, and after a few times, will Linzhong County be completely incorporated into the territory of Wei State soon?

But unfortunately, Wei State is far inferior to Chu State in this regard. Now, it is full of plans. Wei State may only have more than one million households, or nearly ten million people. Although this number does not include slaves, then again, to be honest, if you want to fully develop the fertile land of the Hetao region based on this population base, you are really willing but unable to do it.

After conquering the territory but being unable to develop it, Zhao Hongrun suddenly discovered that Wei State is now facing a similar embarrassment as Qin State. Fortunately, Wei State does not rely on the "military merit system". Otherwise, if the Qin State is like Qin State, wars will be launched again and again to meet the needs of the people in the country for war, this will really become a meaningless war.

"It seems that we will encourage childbirth next..."

Zhao Hongrun muttered in a low voice, making Qin Shaojun and Zhao Que in the tent blush slightly.

"Report!"

Outside the tent, a soldier suddenly heard a notice.

After Zhao Hongrun's permission, the scout who was responsible for conveying the message strode into the tent. After secretly looking at Zhao Hongrun with a eager look, he reported to the report: "Your Highness, General Sima An, the guardian of Hexi, has led his army to "Yinchuan"!"

"I see."

Zhao Hongrun nodded and waved his hand to signal the scout to retreat. Then, he turned his eyes to the marching map on the table.

Judging from the current deployment of the Wei army, Zhao Hongrun is in charge of the "fortress in the forest" that has just begun construction, to be precise, belongs to the rear, because the court tried its best to oppose him personally participating in the war.

The reason is that when Zhao Hongrun led his troops to fight, he had a "bad" habit, that is, he liked to visit the battlefield in person, observe the reality of the enemy, and look for loopholes that can be exploited in the enemy.

Although as a general, this is a performance of duty, as the prince of the Eastern Palace of Wei, his move is enough to scare the ministers in the court to death. Especially after the "Ningyi Battle" two years ago, Zhao Hongrun's original formation was almost attacked by the generals of Han and the ten heroes of Beiyuan. If it weren't for the generals of the Wei and Qin coalition forces fighting bravely, Zhao Hongrun would have been captured by the Yanmen cavalry under the command of Han general Li Mu.

Therefore, in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again, although the court allowed His Highness Zhao Hongrun, the crown prince, to continue to stay on the front line, the court officials headed by the Minister of Rites Du You have long warned the generals of the Wei army from all over the country that they must not sit idly by and watch Zhao Hongrun, the crown prince of the East Palace, visit the battlefield in person.

So, like Sima An, guarding Hexi, Wei Ji, guarding Hedong, and generals of Wei State, including Zhao Hongrun's brothers, Zhao Jiang, and Huan's Duke Zhao Xuan, no one dared to take Zhao Hongrun, the prince of the East Palace to play on the front line. At most, he would inform the prince of his own actions, or report the war after the war, so that the prince could satisfy his cravings in the rear.

After Sima An, the guard of Hexi, sent a report to send troops to Yinchuan, Lintao Jun Wei Ji and Wei general Pang Huan also took action one after another. The former led the Hedong Army and the Shang Shui Army to advance towards the "Linhe", while the latter led the anti-rebel army to send troops to Jiuyuan. Only the commander of this military operation, General Shao Hu, led the Wei Wu army to guard the "Yuanzhong Fortress".

The rest of the troops, such as Zhao Jiang, Zhao Xuan, Zhao Shen, Zhao Tan, Zhao Han, Zhao Han, and Zhao Tan, the Marquis of Anping, also advanced into the "Linzhong County", making the entire "Linzhong Battle" present a situation of war on multiple battlefields.

Especially in order to seize the wilderness control of "Linzhong County", the Jiejiao Army led by Wei Fang Boxile had an encounter with Linhu Fang's nomadic cavalry almost every day. However, because of the Wei army's parallel propulsion strategy like bulldozers, the Jiejiao Cavalry could get strong support from the Wei army. Therefore, the Linhu Cavalry was defeated by the Jiejiao Cavalry and gradually lost control of this grassland.

Two days later, Zhao Hongrun received a war report from Sima An, guarding Hexi, who reported that his Hexi Army (formerly Dangshan Army) had officially broke out with Linhu in Yinchuan. In fact, the Hexi Army was blocked by Linhu in Yinchuan on the way to send troops to Yinchuan.

Upon receiving this news, Zhao Hongrun couldn't help but prepare to sneak into Yinchuan to observe the war.

But unfortunately, because the "yuanzhong" was stationed in 50,000 Wei Wu army, Zhao Hongrun had not even left his military camp, and the incident was discovered by Shao Hu, the chief general of the Wei Wu army.

However, the identities of the two are no longer the same as before. During the Battle of Northern Xinjiang, Shaohu was the head coach, and Zhao Hongrun was the deputy general of Shaohu. But now, Zhao Hongrun is already the crown prince of the East Palace, so Shaohu can't control the crown prince.

What's more, Zhao Hongrun also "instigated" Zhao Chengyue, the second son of King Yu Zhao Yuanqi. Not only did the latter not stop Zhao Hongrun, but instead led the 5,000 Wei Wujun from the Qu army under his command to Yinchuan under his command, under Zhao Hongrun.

After learning about this, Shao Hu had no choice. After all, the two masters, one is the current prince of the Eastern Palace and the other is the youngest prince of their prince. Can they really send troops to capture them back?

After thinking about it, Shaohu could only send someone to inform Sima An, the guard of Hexi, who is currently in Yinchuan, and let the latter take care of him.

When Zhao Hongrun and his cousin Zhao Chengyue led their army to Yinchuan, the Hexi Army and Yanling Army led by Wei general Sima An were fighting with the local Lin Hu.

Lin Hu in the forest, judging from the clothes and dress, is not much different from the ethnic groups such as Shinchuan County, such as Jie, and Hu. However, the cultures of the two sides are obviously different.

For example, the Jiezi people in Sanchuan County regard the "sheep-headed and human-body" sheep as belief, while the Hu people mostly believe in wolves, but there are also several tribes that also belong to Linhu, and regard "deer" as totems, such as Linhu in Jiuyuan.

In addition, there are various alien races that regard bears, tigers and other beasts as totems. Although these tribes are collectively called "Lin Hu" by the Wei people, in fact, Lin Hu is just a general term for these tribes and ethnic groups. In fact, the people of these tribes have other names for themselves, which is even more complicated than the composition of the three tribes, Shinchuan County, Jie and Shi.

According to Zhao Hongrun’s understanding over the days, the main components of Lin Hu are "Hu" and "Hu". "Hu" refers to the Hu people. In the entire Lin Hu people, it is equivalent to citizens, and has the right to own livestock, tents, women and wealth; while "Hu" refers to the descendants of the nomadic people of the Guyi tribe who defected to the Hu people. These people, together with the Shi and Jie tribes of Sanchuan County, belong to the same ethnic group, and they all belong to the descendants of the Guyi tribe who migrated south from the distant northern plateau. However, the Shi and Jie tribes did not live together. They moved south again to the current Sanchuan County, and the Hu people were descendants of the Guyi tribe who chose to live together with the Hu people.

Of course, this so-called "生" is just a scornful title for the other party by Bosil and other Sanchuan Jie people. Although the Jie people have now become hawks and dogs of the Wei Kingdom, the Jie people still regard themselves very high in the survival status chain of nomadic peoples, especially the descendants of the mixed-race of the Hu people and the Qi people who despise them as "生". These people have a lower status in the eyes of the Jie people than the Qi (Di) people.

After all, although the ancestors of the Clan were Hu people, they had accepted the culture of the Clan. Although the Clan and Jie tribes would feel unhappy, they could still tolerate treating the latter as a close branch of their own nation. Although the Clan and Jie tribes are both descendants of the ancient Clan, the former accepted the culture of the Clan and Jie tribes, so they naturally would not be accepted by the Clan and Jie tribes.

In this regard, it is quite similar to the values ​​of the Central Plains people.

In short, when Sima An, guarding Sima, Hexi, fought against Lin Hu, Yinchuan, the Jiejiao cavalry also gave great support.

These knights from the Sanchuan grassland waved bones and iron scimitars, whistling through forests, sweeping through one Linhu tribe after another in Yinchuan.

If the Linhu tribe he encountered was a soft persimmon, these Jiejiao cavalry would seem to have turned into vicious wolves, killing those Linhu tribes, slaughtering, and looting. In terms of ferocity, they are no less than Linhu who plundered Wei and Han countries. And if the Linhu he encountered was a tough stubborn, these Jiejiao cavalry would use fire arrows and wolf smoke to mark them so that Sima An, the Wei general behind, would lead the elite Wei army to flatten the Linhu tribe.

I remember that on the way to Yinchuan, Zhao Hongrun and his cousin Zhao Chengyue saw more than once the ruins of the Linhu tribe burned, killed and looted by the Jiejiao cavalry.

In Zhao Chengyue's view, in terms of ruthlessness, the Jie people are simply half a dozen compared to Lin Hu. The only difference between the two is that the Jie people have surrendered to the State of Wei, which is considered a tamed wolf, and can be regarded as a friendly army, while Lin Hu is an untamed wolf, foolishly choosing to be an enemy of Wei.

However, he still implicitly reminded Zhao Hongrun that he needed to restrain the massacre of Jie cavalry in Linzhong County. After all, no matter what, these Jie cavalry are now under the banner of their Wei State. If too many aliens are massacred, although it will not have much bad impact in the Central Plains, it will not be conducive to Wei State's future control of the Hetao region.

Zhao Hongrun agreed and sent someone to the Jie people's cavalry, the "Jiajiao Army", to Bosil, the leader of the cavalry, and did not say anything else. He just told Bosil that he intended to relocate the Jie tribe to the Hetao area to guard the natural pasture for the Wei Kingdom.

Bosil understood what Zhao Hongrun meant at a glance, and soon after, he ordered to restrain his cavalry.

After all, if we just plunder and go back to Sanchuan, then the Jie cavalry naturally did not need to hold back. But if the Wei State intends to let them stay in this grassland in the future and let them become the shepherds of Wei State grazing cattle and sheep, then Bosil naturally cannot create too many killings in this Hetao area.

After all, the Jie people themselves are not responsible for grazing. They are soldiers. If they kill all Lin Hu or cause too much murder on Lin Hu's side, it will not help them enslave the Lin Hu people to live on this grassland in the future.

However, although the Jiejiao cavalry gradually restrained a lot, Lin Hu from Yinchuan was still hit by a nearly devastating blow because they foolishly chose to fight the Wei army in the forest.

In fact, to be fair, Yinchuan Linhu was right. Since he could not defeat the alliance between the Wei army and the Jiejiao cavalry on the plain, it would be better to go into the forest to fight.

Unfortunately, Yinchuan Linhu's luck was too bad, because half of the Hexi army they faced were soldiers and generals from the former Dangshan army, who were best at fighting in the forest.

So, Lin Hu, Yinchuan, who originally planned to hunt the Wei army in the forest, was hunted by Wei soldiers of the Hexi Army. In just eight days, Lin Hu in Yinchuan was killed by tens of thousands of people in the forest by the Hexi Army. When Lin Hu, who was waiting for surviving Yinchuan, fled to the plain, was attacked by Yanling Army, which was temporarily under the command of Sima An, so that nearly half of the Linhu soldiers were destroyed.

In late July, Wei general Sima An led his army to the Yinchuan Plain.

After learning that his tribe was defeated, the Linhu tribe living in Yinchuan fled north in a hurry. However, because the Jiejiao cavalry intercepted the way to the Linhe Plain in advance, a large area of ​​the Linhu tribe in Yinchuan was surrounded by the Wei army.

If Sima An's temper was in the past, no one of these Lin Hu who had been surrounded by his Wei army would have to live, and all the men would be killed and women would be left as slaves.

However, this time, he still followed the words of Prince Zhao Hongrun and left a glimmer of life for these Lin Hu.

This surprised Zhao Chengyue, who was watching the battle at the time, after all, in his impression, Sima An had only one choice for treating foreign races, that is, killing. The saying "Kill all the people of my race" came from the mouth of this general.

So, while celebrating, Zhao Chengyue asked Sima An curiously: "Are you not afraid of these alien races rebelling again in the future?"

At that time, Sima An glanced at Zhao Hongrun and said calmly: "If you rebel, you will suppress it... As long as my Great Wei is strong, why should you be afraid of these foreign races' rebellion?"

When Sima An said this, he owned more than 100,000 alien slaves in Hexi County. It was these alien slaves' hard work day after day that Sima An quickly repaired several cities in Hexi County and laid a solid foundation for the Wei State.

I believe no one would have thought that this general who proposed to "kill all the people who are not my race" was now the largest slave owner of Wei, and he enslaved more than 100,000 foreign slaves.

After listening to Sima An's answer, Zhao Chengyue felt very surprised, but when he thought about it carefully, what Sima An said was indeed very reasonable - as long as the Wei Kingdom remained strong, how could these foreign races who surrendered to China dare to rebel? "Note: The essence of the Five Barbarians invaded China was that the main reason was the frequent civil wars, which made these Hu people who originally surrendered to the Central Plains have an inappropriate thought. Therefore, this was the problem of the Central Plains itself, and it was also a misfortune during the period of national integration. If the Central Plains were still strong, these Hu people could not find any opportunity to take advantage of and would inevitably gradually integrate into the Han people."

He didn't know that this was actually Zhao Hongrun's idea at first.

Then, those Yinchuan Linhu, who escaped the Wei army's encirclement, moved north frantically.

In response, Wei general Sima An did not pursue this, but led the Hexi Army and Yanling Army to defend the Yinchuan Plain. On the one hand, he searched for the Linhu warriors scattered on the nearby plains, and on the other hand, he followed the orders of Prince Zhao Hongrun to prepare to build a fortress-level city here, which was named "Yinchuan".

At the same time, around late July, Wei State defended Hedong, and the Lintao Jun Wei Ji also led the Hedong Army and Shang Shui Army to defeat a powerful Linhu tribe on the Linhe Plain.

In this "Walking in the River", more than a dozen tribes in the Linhu side participated, with a total force of nearly 100,000. On the Wei army, the total force of the Wei State has increased to about 150,000, as the Yanhou Zhao Jiang and Huanhou Zhao Xuan each led the Southern Yan army and the Northern Army to join, the total force of the Wei State has increased to about 150,000.

The 50,000 troops gap, coupled with the military gap between Lin Hu and the Wei army, Lin Hu finally couldn't hold on after holding on for half a month and moved to the north bank of the Great River.

Two days later, in early August, the Wei army advanced into the Linhe Plain. On the one hand, they pursued the defeated Lin Hu, and on the other hand, they followed the orders of Zhao Hongrun, the Prince of the Eastern Palace, and prepared to build a fortress-level city on the Linhe Plain.

This city was named "Shuofang" by Wei Ji, the king of Lintao, and the Linhe Plain was also officially renamed "Shuofang County".

At the same time, in late July, Wei general Pang Huan also led the anti-rebel army to advance to the "Jiuyuan". After spending a month, he defeated Lin Hu of Jiuyuan. He also prepared to build a fortress-level city in the local area according to the order of Zhao Hongrun, the prince of the East Palace, and named it "Jiuyuan City".

By this time, the powerful Lin Hu in the Hetao area had been driven by the more powerful Wei army to the top of the river's "Ji". Although there were still many Lin Hu forces remaining in the Hejian area, it was obvious that these Lin Hu forces were no match for the Wei army at all.

Of course, occupying the Hetao area does not mean that the Wei army can rest assured. After all, "Linzhong County" is just one of the lands that Linhu lives in. In "Linzhong County", on the plateau called "Yunzhong", there are also some Linhu tribes living in.

In order to prevent Lin Hu from counterattacking the Hetao area, Zhao Hongrun decided to build city blocks in Yinchuan, Linhe and Jiuyuan one after another.

Yulin, Yuanzhong, Shuofang, Jiuyuan, and Yinchuan, these five new cities are the first batch of fortress-level cities that Zhao Hongrun initially planned to build in order to master the Hetao area.

In his opinion, the Wei State currently has no power to completely control the entire Hetao area, so it can only adopt this kind of nail-like tactic to root the traces of the Wei army in these five places, build fortress-level cities here, and use these five cities to radiate the entire Hetao area.

As September approached, at the order of the Prince of the Eastern Palace Zhao Hongrun, hundreds of thousands of Wei troops crossed the river and continued to drive Lin Hu, with the purpose of driving Lin Hu who was unwilling to surrender to the Wei State to the distant northern plateau, so that Wei State could rest assured to develop this natural pasture in the Hetao region.

Suddenly one day, Zhao Hongrun suddenly received information from the Qingyao people sent to South Korea.

"... South Korea also secretly built tens of thousands of heavy cavalrymen, and used this heavy cavalry to severely damage Donghu...tsk tsk."

I have to say that this information surprised him and was happy.

What was shocking was that the confrontation between South Korea and Donghu was faster than he thought.

What’s so happy is that the Koreans finally fell into the trap he set back then.
Chapter completed!
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