The elite did not migrate south

Chapter 562 Barren Land
South China.

Jianning County.

"General!!"

When Huo Yi jumped off his horse, several rough generals had already come forward to pay their respects.

This is Dianchi County of Jianning County.

The county town is not big and is located in the mountains and forests. Half of it is directly surrounded by the mountains and forests, and even the city walls cannot be seen.

The city walls are relatively short and mostly made of wood. The city gate is very desolate, with not many people coming in and out, and not even a carriage can be seen.

The terrain here is really difficult to walk on, almost the same as the no-man's land that Deng Ai passed through. Carriages cannot pass through at all, and some places even require ropes to pass through. If Huo Yi had not surrendered, even if Wei State had captured Chengdu, it would be difficult to capture this place.

Huo Yi led these people into the county town, and many generals followed behind him. Among these generals were both Han people and local barbarians.

The so-called handsome guy.

After arriving in Nanzhong, Huo Yi demonstrated his extraordinary martial arts and broad moral character.

He was different from the generals of the past. He would not deliberately force the local barbarians to rebel for military merit, nor would he exploit the local natives in order to collect enough taxes for the court.

Huo Yi was a relatively upright person. When Chengdu had issued several orders for him to collect taxes from the local area, he had stubbornly refused.

He believed that the people here were already penniless, and had been paying taxes frequently over the years, with almost no way to make a living. If you still asked them to pay taxes, the consequence would only be a rebellion throughout Nanzhong, and the cost of suppressing the rebellion would be higher than the current gains!

Huo Yi was not wrong. Frequent rebellions began here in the Fei Yi era.

Although Zhuge Liang's southern expedition made them completely surrender, even if they surrendered, they could not withstand your collection of taxes twice every three days.

In order to maintain its own army, the Shu Kingdom constantly collected taxes from all over the place and exploited the people's power. In order to ensure that its core areas would not be affected, it set its sights on the barbarian gathering areas in the south. Since they were not its own people, it would use your materials to maintain its own army and also weaken the barbarians. Isn't that wonderful?
In the eyes of Chengdu’s top leaders, this is simply killing three birds with one stone.

It solved the problem of food and supplies shortage, weakened the barbarians, and did not affect its core areas.

But to these barbarians in the south, this is so fucking inhumane!
Since Prime Minister Zhuge Liang, they've been very obedient, paying taxes on time, contributing troops when wars break out, and doing everything they should. And yet you're still going to raise taxes on us alone?
The rebellion in Nanzhong could not be stopped from then on, and the situation was not gradually brought under control until Huo Yi came to power.

Huo Yi forcefully rejected the imperial order, which earned him greater respect from the locals.

This time, he led everyone into the county town. There were not many people in the county town, and there was no bustling scene of people coming and going. Occasionally, a few hunters could be seen dragging their prey towards their homes.

The entire county town has a population of no more than 20,000.
A single county couldn't even muster 80,000 people.

The entire Nanzhong defense force is about 30,000.

There are more than 4,000 people stationed in this county town.

Huo Yi led everyone into the mansion. When he sat in the seat of honor, everyone couldn't help but ask questions.

"General, has the Han Dynasty really perished?"

"Where's the Emperor? How is he?"

Everyone started asking questions at once.

Their expressions were very different. The scholars who came here to serve as officials mostly looked frightened and uneasy, while the local natives had a look of secret joy on their faces, but they did not dare to show it too obviously.

Huo Yi said solemnly, "It is the Great Wei Dynasty now. I am the Governor of Southern Central China appointed by His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Wei!"

"From now on, we must adopt the calendar of the Great Wei Dynasty and remember the taboo words."

As soon as Huo Yi opened his mouth, he talked about the earth-shaking events outside, and everyone was shocked.

Because of the roads, news from the imperial court was always received very late. Many people only knew that Chengdu was surrounded, but they were not very clear about what happened afterwards.

Huo Yi spoke at this moment and officially announced the demise of the Han Dynasty and the rise of the Wei Dynasty.

The Han officials were immediately panicked. They asked, "General, what should we do?"

Huo Yi looked at them and said seriously, "Don't worry. Your Majesty has been treated very well in Luoyang. He was given the title of Duke of Anle and has never been looked down upon. I have already made inquiries."

The officials immediately acted as if they were very concerned.

In fact, this is not what they want to ask at all!

Even in Shu, being sent here to serve as an official is almost the same as exile. Those who can come here basically have no backing in the temple or have offended important figures.

They don't care whether Liu Chan lives or dies.

What they care about is what to do with themselves. The Han Dynasty has directly become the Wei Dynasty. Then what will become of them, the officials of the Han Dynasty, in the future?

Should we send them back home where we are, or...
Huo Yi talked for a long time before he took out a lot of documents from his sleeves and placed them in front of him.

"Your Majesty allowed me to appoint local officials myself."

Everyone gasped and looked at Huo Yi in disbelief.

Did you help Deng Ai capture Chengdu?

What kind of treatment is this?

Huo Yi himself didn't know what kind of treatment he was receiving. He was the last to surrender, so the emperor didn't punish him, and without even meeting him, he hurriedly sent him to Nanzhong to serve as the governor. He then ordered him to arrange for local officials, train the army, and hand over all military and political power to him.

This was a right that he could not have obtained when Liu Chan was still alive.

Huo Yi didn't know why the emperor favored him so much, but he had made up his mind to do something.

Cao Mao gave Huo Yi a letter, in which he expressed his love for Huo Yi and also told him that the general was most familiar with the affairs of Nanzhong, so the general should handle it himself!
Cao Mao expressed his ambitions in his letter.

Cao Mao's ideas were completely different from Liu Chan's.

Liu Chan's expectation for Nanzhong was that there should be no chaos. As long as the local people were honest and obedient, he had no other requirements.

But Cao Mao was not like that. In his letter, Cao Mao mentioned that he wanted Huo Yi to think of ways to govern Nanzhong well, increase the local population, improve the economic level, etc.

Huo Yi was stunned.

When did Nanzhong become qualified to be governed?

The new emperor is indeed different from the previous one.

He actually wanted to govern Nanzhong well.

This is a difficult challenge for Huo Yi, but also a rare opportunity.

It is easy to maintain stability here, Huo Yi can just sit here, but if you want to develop this place, that is a different matter.

Huo Yi surveyed the crowd before him and spoke slowly, "Everyone, I hope you can help me govern the area. I will commend your contributions to His Majesty. When I arrived, I heard that Jiaozhi was in rebellion, and His Majesty requested that I go to their aid."

"Let's start organizing the army now. I will go to Jiaozhou in person."

Everyone said yes.

But at this moment in Jiaozhou, the situation is extremely embarrassing.

Wen Qin stood on the city wall, looking a little at a loss.

Lu Xing stood beside him.

"What does the Wu people mean by this? Have they completely given up on Jiaozhou?"

"Still looking down on me?"

Wen Qin led his troops to break through and directly entered Jiaozhou. His original idea was to mobilize the entire Jingnan army and let them disperse their forces to this place, reducing Wang Ji's pressure and allowing Wang Ji to take over all of Jingnan.

But the situation changed somewhat differently from what Wenqin had expected.

Because Guanqiu Jian was approaching Jianye, the Wu people did not dare to send too many reinforcements here, which was a good thing. However, the Wu reinforcements stationed in Jiaozhou and defending the surrounding areas also withdrew, which made Wen Qin a little confused.

He found that a large number of reinforcements were gathering towards Wang Ji, while Jiaozhou became empty.

What does it mean?

Tempting me to take the initiative to send troops?
Lu Xing, who was standing next to Wen Qin at this moment, also couldn't understand.

He gazed into the distance and asked hesitantly, "Perhaps we want to join forces to deal with General Wang?"

Wen Qin stroked his beard again, he was a little unsure now.

The enemy's posture seemed to have given up everything and was determined to fight Wang Ji to the death.

Faced with such a crazy opponent, Wen Qin was a little afraid to fight. Jiaozhou was now empty, but if he ignored the situation in Jingnan and attacked all parts of Jiaozhou wholeheartedly, would Wang Ji be surrounded?
Will it ruin the good situation in Jingnan?

Wen Qin pondered for a long time before speaking: "Send people to Jingnan now to investigate the situation and ask how long it will take Huo Yi to arrive. If Huo Yi arrives, we can give Jiaozhou to him."

This time, Lu Kang adopted a rather crazy strategy, changing from comprehensive defense to one-sided output, and launched a fierce attack on Wang Ji. Shi Ji and Ding Feng attacked from two directions, making Wang Ji somewhat confused about the current situation.

At the same time, Lu Kang set out from Ba Qiu, and his warships came directly to the vicinity of Jiangling. At this moment, the Cao Wei army stationed there was so frightened that they almost jumped up.

They never imagined that the Shu army, which was under pressure, would actually have the idea of counterattacking Jiangbei.

So, scouts began to fly around everywhere, and Cao Wei and Eastern Wu were constantly exchanging information and changing their strategies.

When Wang Ji learned that enemy navy appeared in Jiangbei, he was shocked and angry.

He once again tightened his defenses, this time even giving up many areas that had already been captured.

His army began to arrive at the riverside, ready to respond at any time.

Shi Ji took the opportunity to conquer a large amount of territory.

Wen Qin was still attacking Jiaozhou at this moment.

The situation on the battle finally changed. Lu Kang single-handedly turned the hopeless crushing situation into a 4:6 or 3:7 situation.

The Cao Wei army was already exhausted, and it would not be easy to attack again.

But at the same time, those people from Jianye were completely crazy.

(End of this chapter)