Goose Three Kingdoms

Chapter 537 No retreat

Zhuolu, Zhang Fei took a detour when he arrived here.

After he settled his troops, he took a dozen cavalrymen to conduct reconnaissance nearby.

"Xianyu Fu has at most 10,000 troops, and the rest should be from Kebineng's tribe, with at least 20,000."

Zhang Fei made a judgment and asked Zhang Te, a younger member of the same clan who was accompanying him, "How many people do you need to deliver this message to Lord Xuande?"

"Too many people is not good, just give me two people."

Zhang Te thought for a moment and said, "I need another letter from Lord Xuande. I will pretend to be a messenger and go east. Even if I am intercepted, I will only be imprisoned or expelled."

"I don't have any letters from home. I can only give you some paper."

Zhang Fei said without hesitation: "I know some Jinjian calligraphy. When you are arrested, just say that Xuande is studying Jinjian calligraphy. This is a family letter, so it is normal not to have a seal on it."

"can."

Zhang Te agreed immediately, and Zhang Fei took out pen and ink from his harness, and immediately imitated Liu Bei's tone and wrote a letter to Mrs. Gan in golden calligraphy.

The content was simple, asking Madam Gan to persuade Madam Mi not to feel any pressure because of Mi Fang's affairs, and to wait until he returned to Ji County to discuss other matters.

As the weather improved, the Xianbei scouts' blockade became more and more intense, which was different from when Zhang Fei came.

Now Zhang Fei can only move eastward. If he retreats, he will still be discovered by the Xianbei scouts.

Ke Bineng and Xian Yu Fu on the opposite side did not stop either. They led the guards to investigate the surrounding terrain. This was a huge valley.

In fact, Daidi is also a valley terrain, but this valley is particularly huge.

Like Tian Yu, they also faced the hidden danger of a shortage of reserve food and fodder.

This is also a common problem among the coalition forces of the various Hu peoples and powerful families. Let them form groups to plunder other places and fight to support the war, so that they can maintain a long-term military group.

However, if they were to engage in local defense or confrontation, it would be difficult to obtain supplies after the food and fodder brought by the initial participants were all used up.

You let them slaughter cattle and horses?

It's no different than killing them.

Except for Yuan Shang who has stable logistical supplies, no one else participating in the war has a reliable source of supplies!

As for Liu Bei, the official warehouses in the counties and prefectures under the jurisdiction of the General Zhenbei's Office could not be easily mobilized.

The officials who participated in the rebellion had the courage to open the warehouses and take grain at the beginning of the war, but if these county officials were given another chance now, they might not dare to open the warehouses and take grain.

If you join the rebellion, you will only be caught and beaten by the Grand Marshal. When you are beaten black and blue, the General Zhenbei can still come out to persuade you.

But you opened the warehouse of General Zhenbei, and General Zhenbei, according to the Han law, could really punish your entire family.

Besides, joining the rebellion is something only rich people do. There is no shortage of poor officials in each county. Opposing the Grand Marshal is the business of the local tyrants. What does it have to do with the county magistrate who is from another place?
If the county magistrate disagrees, it will be difficult to take the grain out, let alone transport it to the front line, unless the county magistrate is killed.

Conscripting corvée labor and organizing civilians to transport grain to the front lines were things that only a serious county magistrate had the prestige to organize and execute.

As for the three local elders coming forward to recruit people's strength... don't even think about it. So many people have fought until now and still haven't defeated Da Sima. The three elders are not stupid, and the people are not stupid either. They will not do such a thing to take the blame on themselves.

As long as Liu Bei did not show up, the rebels would not be able to mobilize further and tap into Youzhou's war potential.

They are like a piece of dry wood, which burns violently and leaves only a pile of ashes.

The Grand Marshal, who is far away from Guanzhong and running around alone in Youzhou, seems to be a tree without roots, but as long as Liu Bei still recognizes the Jian'an era and the counties have not received any notification, the Grand Marshal Black Bear can requisition food and recruit soldiers.

There is no need to spend money to requisition food, just stamp it and it will be done; to recruit soldiers, you need to pay a settling-in fee, and if you are conscripting soldiers, you only need to leave a stamped conscription list for the county.

As the war continued to this stage, Xianyu Fu had no way out, and Ke Bineng had even less.

Since last year, he knew that he was the next target, but the affairs of Yizhou and Jingzhou had tied up too much of Guanzhong's energy.

As for surrender...it is not a question of whether Kebi Neng is willing or not, nor is it a question of whether Guanzhong accepts it. This involves the source of Kebi Neng's own power.

His power was not inherited. He won the support of surrounding tribes through his long-term performance. He also received support from Xianyu Fu, Yan Rou and others. Only then did he become the recognized Eastern Lord by the Xianbei and Youzhou powerful people.

Therefore, once he loses the support of the Han nobles and the support of the tribe, he will become a small leader of his tribe, and such a small leader is worthless in Guanzhong.

From the fundamental point of view of his own existence, he is incompatible with Guanzhong, and Guanzhong cannot accommodate a second nomadic hero like him who has extensive friends and is as wise as Tan Shihuai.

Ke Bineng was very active in this war and was very close to it, so he completed the war mobilization as soon as possible.

Judging from the disastrous defeats of the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Hexi tribes, Kebi Neng did not think that his small army could consume the enemy, so he continued to call on the army.

The Xianbei tribes, who did not have a household registration system, still dared to send troops at this time.

Although Budugen was called the Xianbei King, his prestige and ability were no match for his two deceased brothers; moreover, he surrendered and relied on the Han army, which greatly violated the ethnic spirit of the Xianbei.

Their ethnic spirit was shaped by Budugen's grandfather, the great Xianbei leader Tan Shihuai. If he had not been assassinated in his prime, he would have been a nomadic genius, like the Xiongnu's Maodun Chanyu.

Because of Budugen's cowardice and fear of death, the Xianbei people under his command naturally yearned for Kebi Neng.

The reason why Budugen was not abandoned immediately was that Guanzhong was too strong and the Xianbei in the central part and the remaining Xianbei tribes in the west did not dare to defect.

Therefore, the current situation is both a crisis and a huge opportunity for Kebineng.

As long as he can defeat or even resist this Guanzhong Sima, he will become the successor of the Xianbei spirit and become the recognized leader of the Xianbei after Tan Shihuai!
Therefore, when patrolling the surrounding terrain, Ke Bineng was in a very good mental state.

Unlike Xian Yu Fu, who had a wooden expression on his face to suppress his inner sorrow.

The defeat on the front line put a lot of pressure on the Youzhou coalition forces.

What they fear most now is not the arrival of reinforcements from Guanzhong, but the promise made by the Grand Marshal not to pursue the rebels. If things go wrong, the powerful people who joined the rebellion might sell them out together.

The Youzhou tyrants would have no concerns about doing such things.

Survival is the eternal theme of this earth.

As for moral integrity, it has always been a taboo on the battlefield.

Therefore, Xianyu Fu was worried that the Grand Marshal of Guanzhong would abandon his previous integrity and give way to the Youzhou tyrants; he was also worried that the Youzhou tyrants did not have this loophole and would take the initiative to create such a loophole.

No matter how big the hole is, others can escape, but Xian Yu Fu cannot.

In this situation, Xian Yu Fu was already weak.

If he was really strong, he would not have been suppressed by Yuan Xi for so long and would have become the successor to Gongsun Zan's career long ago.

Ask yourself, who among the powerful people in Youzhou does not want to inherit Gongsun Zan's ambition?

Everyone wants to, but they don’t have the ability!
Ability determines everything, so from the very beginning, Black Bear did not take the Youzhou heroes seriously.

At the beginning of the chaotic times, there were very few examples of killing local powerful people like Gongsun Zan. Looking at the various states and counties, there were very few such examples.

From this we can see the background of the Youzhou local tyrants. There is really no need to take it seriously.

As for moral integrity, it is not worth throwing away for such a person.

Five days of continuous rain exposed too many things.

The rebels are lacking in stamina and are no longer a concern.

(End of this chapter)