My younger brother Lü Fengxian

Chapter 293 Only the tool and the name can be used, not the fake person
In early February, Zhang Jue, seeing that his plans had been exposed, decided to start the rebellion ahead of schedule.

All of a sudden, the eight states of Qing, Xu, You, Ji, Jing, Yang, Yan and Yu all responded.

Zhang Jue divided the believers who had revolted in various states and counties into thirty-six factions according to the size of their tribes, and appointed a general to lead each faction.

There are tens of thousands of people in the big square and thousands of people in the small square.

In an instant, hundreds of thousands of believers gathered.

Among them, the Yellow Turbans in Jingzhou, Yuzhou and Jizhou were the most powerful.

Zhang Mancheng, the Yellow Turban chief, led his army to occupy Nanyang, Jingzhou, and killed government officials.

Qu Shuai Bocai led his army to plunder around Yingchuan in Yuzhou

The two brothers Zhang Jiao personally stationed in Jizhou, the headquarters of the Yellow Turban Army. Zhang Jiao ordered his third brother Zhang Liang to station troops in Xiaquyang, while he himself led his second brother Zhang Bao and most of the Yellow Turbans to station in Guangzong, remotely commanding the battles in various places.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion shook the imperial court.

Emperor Ling was so frightened that he no longer had the interest to continue running naked in the Nuyou Palace. He immediately summoned General He Jin to ask for countermeasures.

He Jin advised Emperor Ling to pardon the party and release the party members, and suggested that Huangfu Song, Zhu Jun and Lu Zhi should still be the commanders to fight against the Yellow Turbans.

Emperor Ling was so panicked that he had no time to continue fighting with the scholars and could only adopt He Jin's suggestion.

Therefore, the three fire-fighting teams at the end of the Han Dynasty were once again entrusted with the task and led an army of 40,000 to go to war.

Among them, Huangfu Song led his troops to attack the Yellow Turban Army led by Bo Cai who were wreaking havoc in Yingchuan.

Zhu Jun directed his attack directly at the Yellow Turban Army led by Zhang Mancheng who were entrenched in Nanyang.

As for Lu Zhi, he was entrusted with an important task by Emperor Ling and led his troops to attack the Yellow Turban Army's base camp in Guangzong.

As for the Yellow Turbans that were wreaking havoc in other provinces and counties, the imperial court was also unable to conquer them.

Emperor Lingdi had no choice but to issue an edict, allowing each state and county to withhold taxes and recruit soldiers locally to protect their own territory and people and fight against the Yellow Turbans.

Confucius said, "Only tools and names cannot be lent to others; they are the province of the ruler."

Liu Hong is usually not diligent in his work and does not care about the people. He only thinks of cramming when the crisis is imminent.

He thought that he could use the power of the scholars in various states and counties to fight against the Yellow Turbans, but he didn't realize that he was giving them the thing that the scholars had wanted most since Emperor Guangwu.

Once ink drops into a clear spring, once it spreads, it will be difficult to return it to its original state. Once the power of the emperor and the court is dispersed, the authority of the emperor and the country will also be greatly damaged.

Liu Hong's move is nothing but drinking poison to quench thirst. Even if the Yellow Turbans are destroyed in the future, the world will not belong to his descendants!

Faced with the crisis of the empire's imminent collapse, the court was unusually efficient.

At the beginning of February, Emperor Ling issued an edict.

By the middle of the month, Lu Yi, who had been sharpening his sword in Bingzhou, immediately received an imperial edict from Emperor Ling.

As soon as he got the emperor's edict, Lü Yi immediately disguised himself and summoned all 10,000 Bingzhou cavalry.

In addition, Lu Yi also recruited auxiliary soldiers whose number was no less than that of combat soldiers to take over the duties of the combat soldiers and guard the cities in various places.

Lu Yi was ready to lead the vacant Bingzhou cavalry to take the initiative to attack and suppress the Yellow Turbans.

Bingzhou is vast and sparsely populated, lacking the basic conditions for missionary work.

Therefore, unlike the other eight states where the Yellow Turbans wreaked havoc, there were only scattered small groups of Yellow Turbans in Bingzhou.

It was difficult for them to avoid being suppressed by the government and the gentry, let alone conquering cities like the great generals like Zhang Mancheng and Bo Cai.

If the historical trajectory had continued, only after Zhang Jiao was wiped out the following year, the remaining Yellow Turbans would be leaderless, and Yellow Turban generals like Zhang Niujiao and Chu Feiyan would appear in the counties near Jizhou.

After the two of them joined forces, they formed the Black Mountain Yellow Turban Army, which is as famous in history as the Qingzhou Yellow Turban Army and the White Wave Yellow Turban Army. Even when Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao in Hebei, the Black Mountain Army was still entrenched in the deep and dangerous Taihang Mountains. Its leader Zhang Yan was active even longer than most of the princes in the late Han Dynasty.

Today, Bingzhou is as solid as a rock, and Yanmen County controlled by Lu Yi is even more stable than a mountain.

The stable internal environment allowed Lu Yi to boldly go out to fight the Yellow Turbans.

Now Lu Yi has a total of seven battalions of combat troops under his command.

They are the Tianlang Camp led by the main general Lu Bu and the deputy general Wei Xu.

The Xianzhen Camp was led by the main general Gao Shun and the deputy general Song Xian.

The Yanbei Camp was led by Commander Cheng Lian and Deputy Commander Cao Xing.

The Xiaoyao Camp was led by Commander Zhang Xun and Deputy Commander Hou Cheng.

And the Flying Tiger Battalion, which he commanded himself and whose deputy general was Gao Lan.

The last two were the newly established Xiaodao Camp and Yanyun Camp for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.

Seven battalions, each with one thousand Bingzhou cavalry, plus another three thousand central troops, are all the military forces that Lu Yi has now.

Although the number of soldiers under Lu Yi's command was far less than the 40,000 troops of the imperial court.

However, Lu Yi's army consists of the elite among the elite armed cavalry.

Even if he faced off against the 40,000 Han troops led by Lu Zhi, Zhu Jun, and Huangfu Song, Lu Yi could not say that he would definitely win, but he would definitely not lose!

Moreover, it was different from the imperial army which was heavily constrained and suffered from serious internal friction.

All the Bingzhou cavalry under Lu Yi's command obeyed him alone, and the generals within were all Lu Yi's trusted confidants.

Even if there are factions and disputes again, Lu Yi is fully confident that he can easily control them with his own methods.

Therefore, when Lü Yi was in command, his combat effectiveness was far greater than that of the Han army of the same level and number.

Now Lu Yi’s main target is not the Zhang Jiao brothers in Guangzong.

The Yellow Turbans of Nanyang and Yingchuan were also not in the Central Plains.

Although these large targets have the most military achievements, they are also the hardest nuts to crack. If you are greedy, you may lose a lot of good teeth if you are not careful.

In history, Zhang Mancheng caused Zhu Jun a lot of trouble.

However, in the early stages of the battle between Huangfu Song, the first God of Fire in the late Han Dynasty, and Bo Cai, it was Bo Cai who was defeated several times in a row.

As for Zhang Jue, Zhang Liang and others, Lu Zhi was helpless at the beginning. Lu Zhi himself was even held accountable by Liu Hong for failing to defeat Zhang Jue on schedule. He was driven back from the battlefield in Hebei in a prison cart and sent all the way to the Luoyang Prison. He was completely humiliated.

It is true that the Yellow Turban Army was a motley crowd, but it also depended on who was leading it.

Moreover, those who join the Yellow Turban Army now are the people who are forced to survive by the imperial court.

As the saying goes, an army that is in despair will surely win. Although these Yellow Turban soldiers had simple weapons and equipment, were weak in physique, and were not as good as the government troops in marching and deploying battle formations.

But they were determined to die. It was not so much that they joined Zhang Jue's army because they wanted to have a better life and prospects for survival, but rather that they wanted to take revenge on the corrupt court and this damned world at the cost of their own lives.

Therefore, in the early days of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the government troops, who had not yet reacted, were defeated by this fearless mob.

Not only were flames of war raging across the nine provinces, countless strong cities were swept away and destroyed by the Yellow Turbans, and even countless prefects and county magistrates in various states and counties were killed. Even two unlucky princes with the surname Liu fell into the hands of the Yellow Turban Army and became the highest-ranking prisoners.

According to the historical course, the Yellow Turban Rebellion would last at least another year before it could be barely quelled.

This lasted several months longer than the time the Xianbei invaded and wreaked havoc.

There was no need for Lu Yi to use his hard-earned wealth to defend Liu Hong from the sword at the beginning of the war to deplete the strength of the Yellow Turban Army. Lu Yi pessimistically estimated that as long as Zhang Jue was alive, the spiritual banner of the Yellow Turban Army would not fall.

Then the Yellow Turban Army would be almost impossible to destroy and kill!
Therefore, Lu Yi's attack this time mainly prioritized his own interests.

It has been seven or eight years since Lu Yi traveled through time.

He always planned before taking action and had already made arrangements for strategic policies.

During the Yellow Turban Rebellion, he had three main goals.

First, the population was plundered on a large scale.

Whether it was the captives who surrendered after defeating the Yellow Turbans, or the civilians who were held hostage by the Yellow Turbans.

As long as Lu Yi could eat it, he would never spit it out.

The territory can be conquered slowly in the future.

However, population is a scarce resource, although it cannot be completely said to be a non-renewable resource.

However, once the population is drastically reduced due to natural disasters or man-made calamities, it will be extremely difficult to increase it again.

How many offspring can a woman give birth to in her lifetime?
In this ancient time with backward medical conditions, how many of these descendants could grow up safely and then remarry and have children?
The reason why Zhuge Liang failed to successfully launch the Northern Expedition and recover the Central Plains.

The difficulty of the road to Shu is definitely not the only one.

It should be noted that man can conquer nature. No matter how difficult the road to Shu is, a genius like Zhuge Liang will always find a solution or alternative.

But he is not a real god, and he does not have the magical power like Nuwa who can bring people back to life by just shaking some mud.

The disadvantage of Shu Han is that its population base is too small.

Even if Cao Wei in the north had to pay several times the price to exchange pieces with Shu Han every time, it would not suffer any loss in the end.

On the other hand, although Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions were always fruitful and he almost always won with a smaller force, his army became weaker and weaker as the war went on, and it became more and more difficult.

However, Zhuge Liang could not give up and completely lie down, because once he lay down, Shu Han would completely degenerate into a separatist regime in a corner. Even if Cao Wei could not enter Sichuan, Shu Han would completely lose the last slight possibility of leaving Sichuan again and sweeping the world.

This is also the reason why Zhuge Liang continued to go to war despite his repeated failures, and why in the end he even fell ill in the army despite being a prime minister.

Because he could not afford to delay. The longer he delayed, the more difficult it would be to cross the population gap between Shu Han and Cao Wei.

If it is delayed until later, even if Shu Han puts all its efforts into it, it may not be able to shake Cao Wei's territory, let alone defeat Cao Wei's entire territory?

This is also the reason why Sima Yi was determined to remain a coward even when faced with the humiliation of Zhuge Liang sending women's clothes.

If he just honestly used the tactic of procrastination, he could drag Zhuge Liang to death.

Why bother to go to so much trouble to fight a monster like Zhuge Liang?

Now the chaotic times at the end of the Han Dynasty have arrived.

The power and influence of the emperor and the court quickly declined throughout the country's prefectures and counties due to the sudden emergence of Zhang Jue and the Golden Army.

A power vacuum has emerged.

The new power class that will fill the vacuum, that is, the future princes, has not yet appeared on the scene.

The present era is the easiest time to plunder population.

God is jealous of talented people. Zhuge Liang had political strategies that were unrivaled by the world, but he lacked the right time.

Although Lu Yi did not have the extraordinary talent of Zhuge Liang, he had the best luck.

Therefore, it was natural for him to plunder the population on a large scale.

Now he had a million soldiers and civilians under his command, which accounted for one-fiftieth of the total population even during the most prosperous period of the Han Dynasty.

As long as he could climb a few more steps up the ladder of this chaos and absorb a few more fiftieths of the population by relying on the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

There is also the so-called destiny, just like Sima Yi.

The second goal is to send troops to Zhuo County to protect it.

Although Zhuo County can resist the Hu Lu in the north and connect to Qing and Ji in the south, it is a city with an extremely important geographical location.

However, Lu Yi's purpose of sending troops to Zhuo County was not to seize a bridgehead in Youzhou.

Today, Liu Han is weak, but he has not lost his mandate of heaven. It is not yet the time to completely break off relations, overturn the table, and annex and secede.

In fact, the reason why Lu Yi was willing to spend all his own wealth to defend Zhuo County was just to protect one person in Zhuo County.

This person is a relative of the Han royal family and a key figure in opening the prelude to the Three Kingdoms era.

Although Liu Bei was also in Zhuo County at this time, he was not the person that Lu Yi wanted to protect.

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the starting point of Liu Bei's journey to the top was because of the conscription documents issued by this man.

Without this document, perhaps Liu Bei would have had to sell straw sandals for the rest of his life and would have missed out on becoming Emperor Zhaolie, the founder of the Han Dynasty.

This is different from Liu Bei, who always claimed to be a relative of the Han royal family but was not recognized by Emperor Xian until more than ten years later.

The family lineage of Liu Yan, the current governor of Zhuo County, is clear and he is clearly a relative of the Han royal family.

There is absolutely no need for the emperor's recognition.

The reason why Lu Yi attached so much importance to this person was not because he had any friendship with him.

Rather, this person was the most direct driving force behind Liu Hong's establishment of the provincial governor system.

Although after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the remnants of the Yellow Turbans continued to rise one after another and the imperial court was completely unable to suppress them, it was an inevitable trend of history that military and political power fell into the hands of the prefectures and counties.

Even if Liu Yan had not made the suggestion, there might have been advice from Zhang Yan and Wang Yan. In history, although Zhuo County suffered successive attacks from Yellow Turban leaders Zheng Zhiyuan, Deng Mao and others, it still stood firm. However, Lu Yi did not want to take the risk.

Years of planning have enabled him to accumulate a first-mover advantage that others cannot match.

Only a gambler who is desperate to lose all his chips will put all his chips at the table.

Lu Yi now has so many chips on the table that he can win all by just using probability. Why should he go all-in every time?
Historically, Zhuo County was preserved because of the heroic efforts of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.

But now, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei have been tricked onto the ship by him, and Liu Bei is alone and powerless. Zhuo County may not be preserved as in history.

Therefore, Lu Yi of Zhuo County was determined to win.

Even if Zhuo County could not be retained, Lu Yi would do his best to protect Liu Yan.

If the conditions were right, Lu Yi would also like to establish some relationship with him, so as to become one of the first governors on the list in Emperor Liu Hong's imperial edict.

The above two goals will never waver for Lu Yi.

As for the last goal, it is actually dispensable.

Although Lu Yi had once promised the Zhen clan leader that he would do his best to protect the Zhongshan Zhen clan if a war like the Xianbei invasion occurred again.

But if he is limited by trust and promises, it only shows that Lu Yi's ability is not enough.

……

(End of this chapter)