I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 256: The Sword Will Not Be Shelved for Three Days After the City Is Conquered
After arriving at Puyang City, Duan Xing and other generals including Yuan Shu inspected Puyang City together and found that the rebels had completely retreated their defense lines.

Outside the city, there were chevaux de frise and pits everywhere, the wells were blocked and polluted on a large scale, the roads were severely damaged, and the surrounding forests were completely cut down.

Many farmers' villages were razed to the ground, causing heavy population losses. A few farms survived and reported to the Han army a series of violent actions taken by the rebels.

Through the reports from these surviving farms, Duan Xing judged that the rebels in Puyang City were probably determined to hold on, so he implemented the measures of clearing the countryside instead of considering surrendering or moving to other places.

He was a little worried about this.

"The rebels are indeed a mob. If they were on the plains, even if they had 100,000 men, I wouldn't be worried. I would lead the troops to break through the enemy lines myself! But the problem is that they are defending the city, with sufficient troops, food and supplies.

In a short period of time, we may not be able to take this city. If time goes on, I am very worried that there will be some changes in the court, or some disloyal people in the world will be affected, and the situation will become more complicated at that time!"

Yuan Shu also shared Duan Xing's concerns.

It has always been difficult to capture a city that is well defended by troops. That is why the art of war says that attacking a city is inferior to conquering its heart, and it is never recommended to attack a city by force.

According to some calculations of ancient military strategists, in order to capture a city, the attackers must have at least six times more troops than the defenders, so that they can be sure of conquering it.

But now the number of rebels in the city is greater than that of the Han army, so this condition cannot be met at all.

Moreover, it was the dead of winter, and the Han army consumed much more supplies than in warmer times. In order to ensure that the soldiers had sufficient combat effectiveness, the expenditure on food and cold-proof supplies also brought a relatively large burden to the Luoyang court.

Duan Yu was very worried that Yuan Feng would not be able to withstand the huge expenditure pressure, and thus asked them to end the battle as soon as possible or retreat temporarily. In this way, the previous series of victories would be meaningless.

Duan Xing's concerns were not excessive, and even Yuan Shu had similar concerns.

He was also worried that if the siege continued for a long time, the Luoyang court might not be able to bear the pressure of expenditure. Yuan Shu was also relatively clear about the financial situation of the Luoyang court. He and Yuan Feng had checked the accounts together before, and then they divided up the meat on the eunuchs and ate it.

However, there are more cases of tax embezzlement that they cannot touch for the time being.

The eunuchs enjoyed eating their meat, but only a small amount was left for the court to use. What would they do if the court really couldn't sustain the financial crisis?

In response to this, Duan Xing convened a military meeting and everyone brainstormed.

During the period, Yuan Shu raised two key points.

First, the siege cannot stop, and we must continue to put pressure on the rebels in the siege.

Second, the persuasion for surrender cannot stop. They must find ways to let everyone in the city know that their main goal is to kill the rebels headed by Liu He. As for the soldiers and ordinary people under them, the Han army can let them go.

This division of the defensive forces in the city put rebel leaders such as Liu He in a very embarrassing position, thereby intensifying their internal conflicts and striving to break through Puyang County from within.

Duan Xing expressed his objections to the opinions raised by Yuan Shu.

Duan Xing believed that sending troops to fight in the cold winter was a very painful thing. Now that the New Year was approaching, it was unlikely that the war would be ended before the New Year. The soldiers would inevitably feel resentful, and if there were not enough rewards, the morale of the army would be very low.

Therefore, Duan Xing thought that there was no need to persuade the city to surrender. The possibility of Puyang City voluntarily surrendering was not very high. He did not hold out any hope. Instead, he might as well promise the Han soldiers that they would not lay down their weapons for three days after they broke into the city.

Let them do whatever they want within three days, burning, killing, looting and whatever they want, and then tidy up Puyang City after three days.

Most of the generals agreed with Duan Xing's proposal, and they also thought that this arrangement was the best.

People are not allowed to go home during the New Year holidays. They have to have something to make them happy, otherwise the soldiers will become restless and affect morale, which will cause big problems.

Yuan Shu was a little dazed at first, but he soon realized that this was too normal for the current period. Before, he had always led his troops to fight in the field, and the cities he conquered surrendered voluntarily, so there was naturally no such thing as massacre.

In addition, the Isshinkai armed forces he led had very strict discipline requirements since their establishment, and the same was true for the entire Isshinkai. And because most of them were educated people who followed their conscience to the end, their moral standards were far superior to those of ordinary people.

Basically, they would do whatever Yuan Shu ordered them to do. They would never do anything that Yuan Shu did not allow them to do. As for things like massacring the city, they would not do it even if Yuan Shu did not say so.

But this is only limited to the Isshin Society.

The Yi Xin Hui armed forces led by Yuan Shu only had 6,000 people in this army, which was not the majority. The majority of the troops were the regular army of the Luoyang court and the mercenaries from good families in the Sanhe area.

These classical armies still abide by the old law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak, and they do not think there is anything wrong with massacring a city after winning a battle.

Moreover, according to the social situation in the Eastern Han Dynasty where counties were regarded as countries, the people of the two counties would regard each other as foreigners who had nothing to do with them, and most people did not have the so-called "national vision."

Therefore, these soldiers from the Sanhe area would have no moral burden at all when they were asked to slaughter the "rebels" in Dongjun, Jiyin County and other places, and would just think it was natural.

Among this group of people, except for a very small number of people who have reputation or status needs, or have relatively high personal moral standards, they will express dissatisfaction with such behavior and may not join in.

But for most people, they never planned to get any official position by going to the battlefield. They also knew that the possibility of getting an official position was too low, so they just wanted money, lots and lots of money!
It doesn’t matter if you can’t get an official position, as long as you can grab the money.

They would rob some money on the battlefield, and when they returned from a victory, they would receive another wave of rewards from the court. With two waves of money taken back, they could generally support themselves for two to three years. If they were lucky, they could even support themselves for five or six years.

In their eyes, fighting is about making money.

The same was true for the Eastern Han court.

If we want to mobilize a standing army, we will have to bear the cost of their daily meals and pay them military salaries. The court will also have to be responsible for daily miscellaneous expenses, and even pay pensions when they die. How much money this costs!
The Han-Qiang War lasted intermittently for more than a hundred years. The treasury of the Eastern Han court was so empty that it could run horses. It was certainly unwilling to maintain a standing army, so it "integrated soldiers into the civilian population" and summoned these people when it was time to fight. How much money did this save?

As for the civilians in war zones, they have never been considered by the masters.

You are all rebelling, how can you still be our Han people?
Must hit hard!

Kill ruthlessly, burn ruthlessly, let everyone in the world know what the consequences of rebelling against the imperial court will be!
Then they would give their property as rewards to the mercenaries and let them rob on their own. In this way, the rewards and pensions that the court needed to give after the war would be greatly reduced, and the court could save money.

So this is a win-win situation for the Eastern Han court and these mercenaries.

As for livelihoods in the devastated areas...

That is the business of the next governor, prime minister and local tyrant.

The imperial court had no reason and no way to prevent this situation from happening, and Yuan Shu felt very sad about this.

However, he did not explicitly raise his objections at the military meeting. Instead, after the meeting, he found Duan Xing alone and pleaded with him, hoping that Duan Xing could restrain the soldiers and not massacre the city.

Duan Ying found this very strange.

"Zijia, why do you have such thoughts? The Yuan family is originally from Runan, and you studied under a master in Youfufeng. I think it's understandable that you are interceding for the people from these two places. Dongjun has nothing to do with you, so why are you interceding for the people of Dongjun?"

Yuan Shu did not say anything about the great principles like God is merciful and kind, and there was no such thing as human life being of paramount importance these days. He knew that saying such things was pure nonsense and useless, so he just spoke more directly.

"Because I want to win people's hearts and minds, I want to gain a reputation for kindness. I want everyone in the world to know that the army I lead will not harm innocent people when conquering places, and my army has strict military discipline. This will be of great help to me in my future ambitions to achieve great things."

(End of this chapter)