My younger brother Lü Fengxian

Chapter 170: Xianbei Invasion of the South
Han Dynasty, the end of the second year of Guanghe.

Tan Shihuai, a Xianbei man, ordered the western, central and eastern Xianbei tribes to launch attacks simultaneously, with 100,000 men in each tribe, totaling 300,000 men. The 800,000-man army marched southwards and approached the Great Wall.

The Southern Xiongnu royal court, which was entrusted with important tasks by the Eastern Han court, was simply unable to resist the Xianbei people, who were at the peak of their power.

After several hasty battles, the Southern Xiongnu suffered heavy casualties. Not only were all the remaining grasslands outside the Great Wall occupied and seized by the Xianbei, but no less than 50,000 people were killed or injured.

The Southern Xiongnu people had a small population to begin with, and now after suffering such a tragic defeat, they immediately sent a request to the Eastern Han court for help, allowing them to go south to the Great Wall to avoid the Xianbei.

The Eastern Han court was shocked upon hearing the news.

Emperor Liu Hong listened to the advice of his ministers and, on the one hand, agreed to the Southern Xiongnu's request to move completely south to the Great Wall. On the other hand, he summoned a large army and prepared to send it to Bingzhou and Youzhou to resist the massive invasion of the Xianbei people.

However, it takes time to assemble troops, prepare combat supplies, and transport food and fodder. The Xianbei people were well prepared and immediately launched a fierce attack on Bingzhou and the Youzhou Great Wall.

Although most of the Han generals guarding the passes vowed to resist the invasion of the Xianbei people to the death, some passes with weak defenses were still breached by the Xianbei people.

After the Xianbei people suffered heavy casualties and opened a breakthrough, they did not bother with other unbroken checkpoints.

After leaving 100,000 troops to besiege the Great Wall pass and leaving a retreat for themselves, the remaining 200,000 troops, led by the leaders of the three Xianbei tribes, attacked Bingzhou, Youzhou and other places respectively.

Bingzhou was mainly attacked by Budugen, the leader of the western Xianbei, who led an army of 60,000.

Budugen directly divided his troops into several routes, each led by a leader or the patriarch of a large tribe to invade various counties in Bingzhou.

These troops numbered from tens of thousands to a thousand. They would spare any fortified city they encountered and loot the countryside.

Countless ordinary Han people were ruthlessly looted by the Xianbei people because they did not receive the news and warnings and had no time to take their property and relatives to the county towns for escape.

Not only did the Xianbei people take away the food and livestock that the Han people had worked hard to accumulate over a year, these beasts in human skin also ruthlessly insulted Han women.

To them, even middle-aged Han women looked more pleasing to the eye than the ugly and coarse young women in their own tribe, so everyone from old women to little girls were insulted by them at will.

Countless chaste Han women chose to die to preserve their reputation after suffering humiliation.

After these Xianbei people looted all the property and women, they directly raised their knives to the elderly and the weak who were of no use to them.

To them, these old and weak people could not be exploited as slaves, and keeping them alive would waste precious food rations, so they were all killed.

As for the rest of the young and strong men, except for those with strong character who would rather die than surrender, who were killed in public as a warning to others, the rest were captured and enslaved by them without exception.

They would either be taken back to the frontier as slaves in the future, or be used as cannon fodder to consume the defenders' supplies when attacking the city, or they would risk their lives to carry away soil and sand, or even be forced by the Xianbei people to use their bodies to fill the moat.

This time the Xianbei invasion was far more severe than in previous times, and Tan Shihuai was determined to use a victory far beyond history to divert the increasing number of contradictions in the Xianbei's fragile political system.

Therefore, even though some famous generals and capable ministers partially defeated the Xianbei invasion and temporarily maintained peace in some areas, they were unable to stop the Xianbei people's overwhelming momentum in the overall situation.

The entire Hebei area instantly fell into Shura hell.

Jiuyuan, located in the border fortress, was facing the threat of Budugen's cavalry. Hutuo, the chief of the Hutuo tribe, was ordered to lead 5,000 people from his own tribe to attack Jiuyuan County.

Jiuyuan County is just a small county and does not have many armed forces.

Moreover, Zhang Xun had just taken office and could not directly command all the forces in Jiuyuan County. The main fighting force in his hands came from the 200 descendants of the Zhang family whom he brought from Mayi to Jiuyuan.

Fortunately, these people were all from the Zhang family, and they had been trained during their business trips outside the Great Wall over the past year. Their combat capability was far greater than that of other armed forces in Jiuyuan County. They played a huge role in defending the city and managed to withstand Hutto's first wave of attacks.

Unlike other counties that were captured in a hurry, Zhang Xun had already been aware of the impending invasion of the Xianbei people.

Although he has only been in office for a month, Zhang Xun is actively preparing for battle.

Not only did he repair the damaged city walls of Jiuyuan County, he also directly used Zhang's resources to stockpile a large amount of war preparations.

In addition, Zhang Xun, following Lu Yi's suggestion, directly took all the people outside Jiuyuan County into the emergency plan. Before the Xianbei people broke through the Great Wall, Zhang Xun forcibly used the county magistrate's order to force all the people of Jiuyuan County into Jiuyuan County.

The people of Jiuyuan, who had originally been complaining about Zhang Xun, immediately dispelled their resentment and began to praise Zhang Xun after learning about the tragic fate of the people in the county town of Wuyuan County when the city was breached due to the carelessness of some people.

Faced with the butcher knives of foreign races, the people of Jiuyuan City actively responded to Zhang Xun's call and joined the army defending the city.

Zhang Xun immediately received three thousand strong civilians to defend the city.

Although he now had a reliable force, it was difficult for him to form an effective command in such a hurry.

It was Lu Yi who foresaw the situation of his elder brother-in-law and sent Hou Cheng, who was relatively quick-witted, to accompany Song Xian and Wei Xu to assist Zhang Xun.

The three have received great training from Lu Yi this year. One month of traveling outside the Great Wall to do business, and one month of training in Luwu have greatly improved their abilities.

Three thousand strong Han people were immediately reorganized into an army according to the Han military system and received preliminary training.

Over the past few months, Lu Yi has been training them in Luwu to defend the city, so the three of them are already considered semi-experts.

Although they cannot be compared with the famous generals who defended cities in history, don’t forget that the Xianbei people were even less adept at attacking cities.

With Hou Cheng, Song Xian and Wei Xu leading 3,000 strong Han people to defend the city, the Xianbei people would need at least five times the number of troops and suffer one to two times the casualties of the defending soldiers if they wanted to capture Jiuyuan County, which had plenty of food.

However, the Hutuo clan, which was ordered to attack Jiuyuan, had only 5,000 men and women, including the old and the weak.

Therefore, no matter how many times they tried, they were unable to shake Jiuyuan County.

This made Hutuo, who was originally full of confidence and wanted to rob a lot to raise the Hutuo tribe to the next level and reach the leader-level tribe with tens of thousands of mercenaries, very depressed and caught in a dilemma for a while.

The food he brought was limited and could only last for a month or two.

If he cannot get subsidies, let alone plundering to expand himself, even the 5,000 elite tribesmen he brought with him will starve to death!

(End of this chapter)