Tang Dynasty: After dominating Rome, I counterattacked Chang'an

Chapter 57: Where is the poisonous general's bottom line? What do the people of Dayan think?
These words,

The commander of Tianquan Camp paused.

He originally thought,

When we arrived in the East, in the Tang Dynasty, which was once a place of mutual support, our generals' methods became gentler.

And it turns out that this matter is not groundless.

According to the letter from the Yaoguang Camp in Wangshiwan, General Yaoguang's methods were somewhat gentler, only because his opponents were Han Chinese, not Westerners, and he had a sense of attachment to his homeland.

But his own general did not have it.

Our general has not changed, and it seems that he will never change. He always puts victory first.

During those ten years of fighting in the West,

Our general may not be the most powerful star general in commanding troops in battle, but he is definitely the most insidious and vicious.

That was a gift from those Westerners. Not only did they think so, but the people of Dayan also thought so.

Every time it comes to their own general, he will do anything to achieve his goal, even if it means defeating Western civilians, and even wins in this way. Although most of the people of Dayan celebrate the victory, there are actually many people who look down on their own general.

Yes, look down upon.

Real contempt.

Some people may be confused and wonder why General Tianquan fought for Dayan and won, but was still looked down upon by his own people.

But it exists.

There are countless kinds of human nature, and everyone has a different view on a matter.

General Tianquan won the victory, but his victory was not fair! He won by using the enemy's civilians. Those who have "righteousness" in their hearts absolutely look down on General Tianquan.

And in history, there have been many such incidents.

For example, during the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty,
The famous general Zhang Xun was surrounded by enemies on all sides while defending Suiyang. Suiyang was an important city. Once it was lost, the road behind it would be flat and the people of the Tang Dynasty would suffer countless casualties.

This city cannot be lost.

Zhang Xun was also determined and had no confusion. He defended the city to the death and fought for the thousands of Tang people behind him.

He guarded this city and Suiyang with 7000 men. Facing 18 rebels, with no food or reinforcements from outside, he defended Suiyang, which served as a barrier to the southeast, fought more than 400 times, killed more than enemies in total, and slowed down the rebels' advance southward.

Without food, they ate tree bark, paper, horses, sparrows and mice…
Zhang Xun executed his concubine and forced the soldiers to share the food, killed slaves for military rations, and then killed the civilians in the city for military rations...
After defending the city for 10 months, all 3 civilians in the city were killed or wounded. When the city was completely defended, there were only 400 soldiers left. They were so hungry that they could not stand, and all the defenders were executed.

Sui Yang City held out for ten months, allowing the Tang Dynasty to recover. Ten days before the city was captured, Guo Ziyi recaptured Chang'an, and ten days later, he recaptured Luoyang.

It can be said,
He had a perfect military record and made outstanding contributions to the Tang Dynasty. If it were not for him, it would be hard to say who would have won or lost the Anshi Rebellion.

But such a general is still criticized.

Just because he was bullied, he used vicious means!
Many people scolded him during the Tang Dynasty, and the same was true in the following dynasties. Even in later generations, when one casually opened social software to search for Zhang Xun, there were still so many people scolding him.

Those who cursed him, don’t they see how many lives the people of the Tang Dynasty would lose after the city was broken?

They also couldn't see Zhang Xun's almost perfect record.

They could not see that the Anshi Rebellion changed because of Zhang Xun.

They only saw what was in front of them, and could not see what might happen in the future. They only saw one thing: Zhang Xun led his army to a defeat.

This is against morality, so we should criticize it.

Another example is Cao Cao's camp during the Three Kingdoms period. It is well known that Cao Cao would do anything to achieve his goals, but there were people under his command who were more proficient in this.

This person's name is Cheng Yu.

Cheng Yu advocated that those who were infected with the plague in the army should be killed and then thrown into the water, so that the enemy troops downstream would drink the water and get sick, and thus victory could be achieved without fighting.

Cheng Yu not only dared to eat re.n, but also dared to expose 300,000 corpses to the sun for a few days and use them as jerky as military rations. Every thing refreshed his worldview, but he did this for only one purpose, to win the final war!

He always won the battles, but Cao Cao did not dare to use him. The people in Cao Cao's camp even regarded him as a cancer.

He had brought them so many victories, but they still thought so, just because he did something immoral.

Killing civilians for military rations has been criticized by many people. There are many such deeds in history, but those who do so have a very bad reputation, just like today's Tianquan General Xue Wanche!

In that great flame,

There are some people who, no matter how perfect a victory Xue Wanche achieves, they only see that Xue Wanche won by using civilians, and they are insidious people.

Not only did they see it themselves, they also told others about it and told them everything about Xue Wanche.

In this era, most people are not enlightened.

In addition, Confucianism and morality have been the roots of the Chinese people for thousands of years, so they believed it, which also caused Xue Wanche's reputation to become worse and worse.

associated,
Many soldiers of the Tianquan Camp did not dare to wear their military uniforms when returning home to avoid causing trouble.

The bad reputation also led to...Tianquan Camp being the camp with the least troops among the seven camps.

Li Chengdao once led people to conduct a census among the people, asking more than a thousand soldiers of the Great Yan Army where they would like to go if they could join the Seven Camps.

As a result, the number of soldiers who chose Tianquan Camp was the least!
none of them!

Sometimes, when the Tianquan Camp suffered casualties on the front lines and was short of men, the rear could not recruit anyone to fill the gap, so Li Chengdao had to send his own troops to fill the gap.

Tianquan Camp,
Among the seven camps of Dayan, Xue Wanche suffered the least casualties and can be said to be the safest because he would do anything to achieve victory.

Sometimes,
Xue Wanche could bring back as many people as he took out to start a war, without any loss of personnel.

But even so, not many people wanted to join the Tianquan Camp, simply because he would do anything to achieve his goals, even using civilians. Soldiers of later generations would despise this, and people in ancient times were even more disgusted by this because they were taught the beliefs of propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame since childhood.

"General, I understand. I will use the people of the Tang Dynasty as human shields to cover our army's retreat."

The commander of the Tianquan Camp bowed in response.

Xue Wanche nodded.

The commander of the Tianquan Camp saw this and turned around and left.

But when he was about to leave the room, Xue Wanche stopped him.

Xue Wanche said, "Wait."

The commander of the Tianquan Camp turned around and asked: "General, do you have any other instructions?"

Xue Wanche thought for a moment and said, "What do you think about the Yaoguang Camp's expedition to the Qingzhou Camp of the Tang Dynasty?"

this matter,

In fact, all the commanders of Tianquan Camp knew about it two days ago, and Xue Wanche was still reading the letter today because he would take it out and read it whenever he had time in the past two days.

Through that letter,

Be alert to yourself and realize how wrong you were in letting the Roman soldiers escape.

He is a criminal and should be remembered forever!
"General Yaoguang is... too impulsive. I think we should lie low and wait for the arrival of Your Highness and my Great Yan army of one million."

The commander of Tianquan Camp expressed his views.

Xue Wanche exhaled: "We must fight against the Qingzhou Camp of the Tang Dynasty. We must show the courage and strength of our Great Yan."

"But... we shouldn't beat him like Pei Xingjian did."

(End of this chapter)