Zhutian: Starting from the Space-Time Merchant

Chapter 93: There are no heroes in the north, so this young man becomes famous!
"Those who communicate with the Hu people are thieves!"

"The noble families in Jiangzuo who tolerated the Hu people were all bandits."

"King of Wei?"

Lin Dao glanced at the envoy from Jiangzuo and said, "The defeated generals are all county dukes, so what use is there for the King of Wei!"

"The barbarians can all establish their own government and share the same rank with the three officials."

"I will not accept this King of Wei."

Inside the Xianyang Palace, the envoy from Jiangzuo stood there helplessly.

He really wanted to say directly, you are a prince, and the King of Wei.

Do you really not understand what the Jiangzuo gentlemen mean?

I guess this beggar guy doesn't come from a wealthy family, so he doesn't even understand this.

The aristocratic families in Jiangzuo all had collections of books in their homes and knew about the stories of the Three Kingdoms from a hundred years ago.

The current situation is so similar to that time.

Given the strong performance of the Qihuo Army, Cheng Han in Shu will fall into the hands of the Qihuo Army within two or three years.

After some bargaining, Liangzhou will certainly surrender to the Qihuo Army.

By then, the beggar army in the north will be unified. After ten years of population growth and ten years of training, will Wu become a swamp in twenty years?
After twenty years of recuperation, Jiangzuo will inevitably be unable to withstand it, just like the Eastern Wu in the past.

Compared with the Wei and Jin dynasties of the past, the only thing the Qihuo Army lacked was the emperor not being in their hands.

The gentlemen of Jiangzuo begged for their lives and presented themselves to the King of Wei. The meaning was very clear, that is, you can be Cao Wei and accept the abdication to take over.

Now is the contact and negotiation stage. If the conditions of the Jiangzuo gentlemen are met, the rest of the things will naturally be simple.

What the envoy didn't expect was that this beggar general would actually get entangled in such a trivial matter as the Hu Lu. He really had no big picture.

"Grand Governor."

The messenger looked around, hoping that someone capable among the Qihuo army would come forward to persuade them.

Unfortunately not.

He could only bow and say, "The affairs of the Qiang people are of no importance."

"Since the Former Han Dynasty, it has been customary to grant high nobility to those barbarians who come to China to surrender."

"How can these barbarians be compared with the Grand Commander?"

The practice of appointing high-ranking officials to the barbarians was already in existence during the Han Dynasty, similar to spending a fortune on horse bones.

In the eyes of the powerful, this is not a big deal at all.

It's so boring for a beggar who comes from the bottom of society to get entangled in this.

Lin Dao narrowed his eyes and said, "No need to say more!"

"Hand over all those Qiang people."

"Before that, I don't want to talk about anything."

He waved his hand and said, "Your Excellency, please return."

The envoy was secretly complaining, "These people from humble backgrounds are really not worthy of being on the stage."

"There are no heroes in the north, so this young man becomes famous!"

After the envoy left, the civil and military officials of the Qihuo Army echoed the commander-in-chief and denounced the small court in Jiangzuo.

Lin Dao glanced at Wang Meng and ordered everyone to leave.

The women in the palace were unaware of the changes in the outside world.

They dressed up gorgeously all day long, competing with each other in beauty, and tried every means to attract the Marshal's attention.

Only Xie Daoyuan could sense something was amiss.

Because his calligraphy was not good, Lin Dao asked Xie Daoyuan to write many documents for him.

From these documents, she realized that the Beggar Army was gathering elite troops and training them rigorously.

One can even detect a lot of clues from the words between the lines, such as strengthening water training by the river and lake, distributing medicines to prevent and treat some local diseases in Jiangzuo, collecting information on the mountains, rivers, customs and people of Jiangzuo, etc.

Xie Daoyuan did not say much about this.

When it is time to ghostwrite, continue to ghostwrite; when it is time to sleep with the emperor, sleep with him.

She wasn't like a time-traveling girl, eager to show herself off, and she certainly didn't leak anything to anyone.

Just like what she once said to her father.

Since you are from another family, you should consider your husband's family as your priority.

Not to mention Jiang Zuo, even if something happened to the Xie family, she wouldn't say a word.

If you don't understand these, you may not end up well.

Until one day, Lin Dao suddenly announced that he would go into seclusion, and all military and national affairs were handed over to Wang Meng.

Xie Daoyuan had a bold guess in her mind.

Lin Dao was not in seclusion, he was going to fight.

As for the target, it naturally would not be the Liangzhou Shu area where there are no big rivers.

Lin Dao brought the selected elite troops, lightly equipped, and marched quickly all the way to the bank of the Huai River.

In fact, except for the generals in the army, ordinary soldiers didn't know where they were going.

When we left the camp, they only said it was a long-distance march training.

Without the burden of logistical baggage, the elite troops marched at a very fast speed.

Relying on leggings, rubber shoes, and a large amount of high-calorie food, they marched more than a hundred miles every day.

It seems fast, but in fact it is still a little slower than Sima Yi who defeated Meng Da by marching 1,200 miles in eight days.

The vast northern land has experienced years of brutal massacres.

Now there are only a few million people left, and it can be said to be extremely deserted.

“After traveling a hundred miles, you will find a fortress.”

"Every three hundred miles, there is a city."

Lin Dao felt increasingly depressed after hearing what he had seen and heard along the way.

On the way south, it was surprisingly almost the same as on the way north.

There is no human habitation everywhere, and traces of human activities are being rapidly swallowed up by nature.

The forest that was once cut down has grown back.

The once fertile fields are now overgrown with shrubs and weeds.

Only ruins remain of the former villages and towns, covered with greenery and infested with foxes and rats.

Without humans, nature will take over again.

"Yi Di, a noble family."

"What a sin you have committed!"

Shi Hu was brutal, but he was not an isolated case.

Even many noble families are no less brutal than the barbarians.

"Perhaps only humans are so cruel to their own kind."

Lin Dao increasingly understood how difficult it was for civilians to survive in the apocalypse. Of course, in this world, even one extra day of life was considered a blessing.

There seemed to be flames burning in his chest.

The Marshal said nothing, but just urged them to move forward, wishing they could fly to Jiankang City immediately.

Do not enter fortresses or manors, and do not enter towns or cities.

It means moving forward at a speed of more than 100 miles a day.

After more than ten days of marching, they finally arrived at the north bank of the Huai River.

It was only here that the population gradually became dense.

There were even traces of business travelers.

The soldiers finally realized that this southward march was actually to attack Jiankang City.

In other words, Lin Dao, who could take things out of thin air, had this prestige, which made the soldiers believe that this battle could be successful.

If it were someone else, the soldiers would probably have mutinied.

"Master Lang."

Liu Hu asked in confusion, "Why don't we see any patrol officers?"

"In Jiangzuo, most of the soldiers are private soldiers." Lin Dao patiently explained, "There are indeed county and prefecture soldiers, but they are treated very poorly and are mostly elderly and weak."

"There are old men in their sixties and seventies, and children of eleven or twelve, and they make up the majority of the army."

"They have trouble with their daily lives, so how can they have the energy to patrol?"

The military system of the Jin Dynasty was very chaotic, especially after the Rebellion of the Eight Kings.

The able-bodied men were divided up as private soldiers by the wealthy families.

The county soldiers who nominally belonged to the imperial court not only had poor quality, but also had almost no treatment.

Who would be so diligent and responsible as to patrol all day long when they are too hungry to move?

Many so-called soldiers may fall asleep while patrolling and never get up again.

"Repair for a day and build a floating bridge."

"Gather the stragglers and eat some good food to replenish their strength."

Lin Dao instructed, "You must boil water for drinking."

He brought a large amount of wooden floating bridge equipment from the modern world, fixed it with iron chains, and connected it directly to the other side of the Huai River.

This year's drought has caused little rainfall, and the Huai River is much narrower than the Yangtze River, making it suitable for building a floating bridge.

It wouldn’t work if it were Dajiang.

Even for a large river during the dry season, building a floating bridge is an extremely huge project.

The soldiers were very tired after the long march, but fortunately Lin Dao had been motivating them with generous rewards.

"If we capture Jiankang City, the wealth and goods within it will be divided equally among the army."

It is useless to talk about justice and ideals with the soldiers.

Only tangible rewards can inspire their morale and will.

After a day of rest, hundreds of stragglers were gathered.

As for the more soldiers who fell behind, there was no time to wait for them.

The army crossed the Huai River and went straight to Bagua Mountain on the opposite bank.

The Shouyang City not far away had already closed its gates out of fear, and countless figures were looking around on the city walls.

"Just keep moving forward and don't worry about anything else!"

"Even if someone throws gold on the road, you are not allowed to pick it up. Just keep moving forward!"

"Two days, we must reach Xiaoyaojin in two days!"

"Five days! We must reach Ruxukou in five days!"

The beggar soldiers, with only short weapons hanging around their waists, rushed south along the Rushu River.

Their marching speed was so fast that even the messengers sent by the cities along the way were sometimes not as fast as them.

When the naval commander of Rushu River received the warning letter, his first reaction was to throw it back on the table.

"How can it be!"

There was no news at all before, and then suddenly it was said that tens of thousands of people were about to arrive at Ruxukou.

Of course the Grand Commander didn't believe it. Could it be that these people fell from the sky?

In ancient times, there were established rules for marching speeds. According to common sense, such a thing should not be possible.

Apart from anything else, how could they possibly run away with such heavy logistical supplies?

The commander-in-chief calmed down and picked up the letter to read it again.

"Forget it, I'll send someone to investigate tomorrow."

That night, the Ruxukou Water Village was unusually quiet, with only the sound of the river wind stirring the river water coming in waves.

Inside the water fort, large and small ships are densely arranged together.

The world is peaceful now, and the nearest enemy troops are thousands of miles away. There is no need to be vigilant in the military camp.

Even the night patrol sentries were listless.

"What sound seems to be coming from the sky?"

"The buzzing sound seems to be a bee~"

The sentries listened and indeed heard a faint buzzing sound.

Some people wondered, "This stinging insect is so hardworking that it comes out to pick flowers in the middle of the night."

'boom! '

A muffled sound was heard, and shouting and cursing were heard from the boat near the water camp gate.

When the sentries went over, they saw that many boats were covered with sticky substances.

The people on the boat who were woken up were cleaning up while cursing.

Not long after, another muffled sound was heard, and several ships not far away were also contaminated with these strange things.

The sentry became alert and reported to his superiors.

The reports along the way finally woke up the sleeping commander-in-chief.

The commander-in-chief with a dark face came out in his robe to check.

It was dark and windy, making it difficult to see clearly.

A captain came forward holding a torch and got closer to observe what were those things stuck to the boat.

The next moment, flames burst out.

"Ok?"

Lin Dao, who was operating the drone, saw the camp on fire through the camera.

"I haven't thrown the fire yet~"

(End of this chapter)