novelAbuy Chapter 1392 Killing and Punishing the Heart
Chapter 1392 Killing and Punishing the Heart
Chapter 1392 Killing and Punishing the Heart
An internal conflict broke out among the Xianbei people who stayed on the east side of the trench.
Some of them wanted to surrender, some wanted to escape, and some wanted to fight back.
But those who want to fight back are ultimately a minority, and those who dare to fight back are even fewer among the minority.
The Hu people are just stupid, but not fools.
Anyone who faces an armored monster head-on on the grassland will feel powerless.
As for escaping, when the snow has not melted yet, even though the grassland is vast, where can you escape to?
If I escape from here, how can I survive the next month?
With the persuasion of Tuoba Shamo Khan and the leadership of Tuoba Luguan and Wuhuan King Kuxian, the surrender faction finally prevailed.
Dozens of tribal leaders dismounted and came forward to kowtow. Even General Zhendong, who usually kept strangers away, made a rare appearance in person to appease the leaders.
After receiving the Han general's personal promise in public, the leaders who had been a little uneasy finally felt relieved.
While everyone was moved to tears of gratitude, there was also a roar of praise, “The Emperor of Han is so kind, and the general is so gracious.”
Even though General Zhendong always appeared aloof and aloof, he couldn't help but curl his lips when he saw so many people calling him "sir", and he couldn't suppress it no matter how hard he tried.
There is no other reason, because this may be the largest group of laborers that the Han Dynasty can obtain for at least the next ten years.
Whether they surrendered voluntarily or were forced to surrender, there was not much difference in essence between them and the captured laborers. The difference in superficial treatment could not change the fact that they were all expendable and disposable laborers.
——Quotations from slave owner Feng.
Ninety-nine percent of them have no way to change their fate.
They will all contribute to the Han people in different ways, and as long as they can't kill him, they will work them to death.
People like Duanmu Zhe are only a few exceptions.
Only when their descendants receive a certain level of education and acquire a certain level of literacy can they be considered labor force rather than laborers.
Of course, even if they become laborers, they are just being treated like beasts of burden in a different way.
As productivity increases, their treatment may improve and their living standards may change, but the class remains the same.
No matter how many channels there are for upward mobility, it is still a single-plank bridge for thousands of people to cross.
The children of noble families are eyeing it covetously, the children of poor families are fighting for it desperately, and the Hu people... should die first!
Oh, you can't die. The real way out is to herd cattle and sheep and shear wool for the court.
Only by doing what you are good at can you live a more relaxed life, right?
As the wife of the world's largest labor trafficker, Guan's father often carries with him the Feng family's secret notebook, so he can naturally guess some future trends.
But that didn't stop her from being happy.
Anyway, it's not her son who has to be treated like a beast of burden.
On the contrary, the more cattle and horses the Han had, the greater benefits her son could enjoy.
As a powerful Han noble and a representative of the emerging aristocracy, Guan's father naturally possesses the attributes of power and capital.
As for the possibility that her descendants might be hanged on the roadside in the future, Guan's father has not yet realized this.
And she probably won't have the chance to see that day.
She only knew that the big man's desire for labor was now endless.
In the past, except for special cities like the capital that gathered the support of the whole world, each county, a prefecture, and even a state had an upper limit on the population that it could accommodate.
This upper limit is determined by land output.
There is a reason why agriculture is the primary industry.
Even if someone like Feng, who possesses the secret technique of slaying dragons, wants to advance in technology, the first step is to honestly come up with various new farming tools and techniques, improve food production, and try to increase calorie intake before he can proceed to the next step.
Instead of being like those protagonists who carry a white-bearded grandfather with them, they can transform into the void with a "ding" sound.
As for the worry that these new things might be copied by enemy countries...
You have to believe in the speed of spread in the era when imperial power did not go to the countryside.
This was an era in which it took more than a hundred years for the horse iron hoof to spread from the Hexi Corridor to become popular in the Central Plains.
Moreover, the northern part of the Central Plains is the birthplace of agriculture. It is a joke that they would steal the farming technology of a small country in the west!
Not to mention that as a modern person who has received a complete military and political education, if he is timid even when using some farming equipment, then what is the point of pursuing technology?
Wouldn't it be better to have a beautiful wife and concubines, a warm bed, many children and grandchildren, and a lot of wealth?
The rapid development of the primary industry over the past twenty years has provided the Han Dynasty with sufficient surplus food - at least for the current population.
In addition, some people secretly fanned the flames, which led to the initial establishment of a factory social organizational structure in many places.
Even in a factory society, no matter how low-level and inefficient it is, its population capacity far exceeds that of a small peasant society.
The demand for population also far exceeds the small peasant social structure.
In various plantations in the south, various workshops in the north, pastures on the grasslands, mines in various places, etc., laborers are buried underground every day.
Some are dead and some are alive.
There is one black and one white. If we really want to say who is the best laborer, it is actually the Han people who come from an agricultural society.
Take the most representative textile workshop as an example. A Han woman who enters the workshop to work, with just a little training and familiarity with the machines and equipment, can start working independently in ten days to half a month at most.
Men farm and women weave, this is a very normal phenomenon.
Therefore, whether it is rebel prisoners of war or laborers from criminal families, they are all the most popular.
However, the imperial court has always exercised strict control in this regard.
If it were an Yi woman from Nanzhong or a Qiang woman from Liangzhou, it would basically take three months of internship.
This was the result after Nanzhong accepted the teachings of Grandpa Zhuge and moved to the flat land to learn farming.
As for the Qiang and Hu people in Liangzhou, they were originally half-farmers and half-pastoralists.
But if they were replaced by pure Hu girls from the prairie, it would be impossible for them to master it on their own without more than half a year of training.
This is also the reason why the price of labor has not increased too much over the years.
The quality of labor is different, so the market pricing will naturally be different.
Of course, the fact that slave owner Feng was kind-hearted and couldn't bear to make money from his friends was also a very important reason (black whistle).
But even so, the emerging dignitaries and new families are still extremely hungry for labor on the grassland.
There is no other reason.
Because the Han people are protected by Han laws, they have to be paid if they are asked to work.
Skilled female workers are even more expensive.
The annual income of a skilled female worker with advanced skills is enough to match the income of a family of five working in the fields.
Even if she is an ordinary female worker, the income from her labor is better than that of her husband who farms at home.
Although the barbarian girl's wages are less, who asked her to recognize the prime minister as her grandfather?
The Prime Minister erected a monument in Nanzhong, and the Ghost King also testified at the time, acting as a guarantor, and he also took in two barbarian girls in his backyard.
Of course, you can't squeeze it too much.
As for the Qiang and Hu people in Liangzhou, although the people they cling to are of lower status, such as the Zhang family of Dunhuang and Liu Hanzi and the like.
But during the more than 100 years of the Later Han Dynasty, they did at least demonstrate the value of united front work.
Moreover, the Han and Qiang peoples are of the same origin, and they were the first targets for Ji Han to implement the national policy of uniting Han and Yi in the north after he went north to Qishan. Therefore, we must be cautious.
Only the Hu people in the northern grasslands are the natural enemies of the Han Dynasty.
It allows the upstarts to have no psychological pressure and no moral bottom line, without having to worry about the criticism of moralists, and they can even take the opportunity to gain military merit.
Do it!
Fuck it!
Grab the wool, grab the population, grab the pasture!
It may take a year to train the stolen labor force, but it takes at least fifteen years to wait for a labor force to grow up.
The quality of the labor on the grassland may not be that good, but the upstarts can still figure out the simple arithmetic of which is more cost-effective, one year or fifteen years.
It is precisely because we know how much the Han people desire labor, and how much value such a large number of laborers will create for them.
That's why General Guan couldn't suppress his smile.
The idea of rebuilding the Han Dynasty with the flesh and blood of foreign races originated from a ghost king who wished to reveal his name and used the flesh and blood of the barbarians in the south to water Hanzhong.
This is a path that no one had ever imagined before.
This is the path that Alang pioneered.
She is proud of General Guan.
"General, Chief Hu seems to have escaped."
Zhao Sanqian thought he could charge again, but didn't expect it to end so abruptly in the end. He wandered around idly, then ran back to remind General Guan.
The Hu chieftain that Zhao Guang mentioned was certainly not Tuoba Liwei.
After all, Tuoba Liwei had been trampled into a pulp by horse hooves, and there was no way to piece together a complete corpse.
He was talking about the person who, after Tuoba Liwei's death, temporarily served as the black-clad butler who issued orders on behalf of Dakehan.
"General, that man doesn't look simple. Can I take some people to chase him?"
Zhao Guang said as he rubbed his hands.
General Guan glanced at him and said calmly:
"Someone has already gone after them. This is not something you should worry about."
You are at least the leader of one of the eight armies in Guanzhong, can you be a little more promising?
Then General Guan frowned slightly and said, "Also, why did you take off your outer armor?"
Zhao Sanqian had been beaten by Sister Guan since he was a child. Even though Sister Guan's brows were only slightly frowned, it made the devil in the eyes of the grassland horse racing man's heart inexplicably jump.
"Well, sister, isn't this over? This outer armor is too heavy, and I find it troublesome, so I took it off. But don't worry, sister, I haven't taken off the thin armor inside yet, so it won't be a problem..."
Zhao Guang thought Sister Guan was concerned about him, fearing that he would get "armor-removing wind" if he took off his armor in such a cold weather after charging into the battle, so he quickly explained that he had not taken off his inner armor yet.
Unexpectedly, General Guan said:
"Did I ask you to take off your armor? Who told you it was over?"
As he spoke, he raised his chin slightly, indicating the noisy Hu people in the distance:
"Did you see that? These people still have strength left, so why did they dismount and surrender so easily? Do you think they really want to surrender? They surrender because they know that the Tiger Cavalry cannot defeat them by force and they can gain benefits."
"The Tiger Cavalry must not slack off until all these people have been gathered. Otherwise, they will see that your troops are in disarray and will be disrespectful. How can we, with so few people, control hundreds of thousands of people?"
"If something changes, even if we can escape unscathed, we have gone deep into the desert this time, wasted countless food and livestock, and returned empty-handed. How can we face your brother?"
"And if we fail to achieve anything in this frontier defense, and we completely dislike these Xianbei Hu people, they will frequently harass the frontier defenses in the future, preventing the imperial court from concentrating on fighting the rebels. How will the emperor punish them?"
After these words, Zhao Guang lowered his head in shame, nodding his head and not daring to say more.
Seeing this guy still standing here and annoying him, General Guan couldn't help but scold him:
"Why don't you put your armor back on?"
Zhao Guang did not dare to delay and immediately took the order and went down.
The Han army won this battle by surprise and gained a lot, and everyone was very happy at the moment.
When someone is happy, naturally someone else is sad.
On the vast grassland, the black-clad butler was fleeing eastward in a panic under the protection of wolf slaves.
When Tuoba Liwei died under the iron hoof, he knew that the battle was hopeless.
The reason why he tried so hard to gather the remaining remnants to the edge of the last trench was to see how many people would obey his orders.
Second, he needed to find a way to escape with these remnants as a capital for his future rise.
If Tuoba Shamohan's inducement to surrender still gave him a glimmer of hope.
Then the appearance of Tuoba Luguan and the sudden rebellion of Wuhuan King Kuxian completely cut off his hopes.
When the internal strife first broke out and the country was in chaos, he acted decisively and let the wolf slaves fight their way out. This also meant that the Han family had to abandon Tuoba Xianbei.
Even though the wolf slaves were fearless and brave, most of them still died while protecting him and escaping in the chaos.
Looking at the remaining ten or so wolf slaves who had never abandoned him, the black-clad butler was filled with grief and indignation:
"Feng Yong! You are so vicious! I will never coexist with you!"
The huge Tuoba Xianbei, the tribe that the Han family had painstakingly managed for decades and the largest force on the grassland, disappeared in an instant.
Not only kill people, but also destroy their hearts.
If the black-clad butler had not been so strong-willed, an ordinary person would have been driven crazy the moment Kuxian rebelled.
Even in the midst of ice and snow, they dared to send a large army quietly into the desert.
I don't know what means were used to lure the Meiluhui tribe into surrender.
It is also unknown what means were used to make Ku Xian defeated in the battle and secretly surrender.
Even Da Kehan's own son would betray him for no reason...
Dakehan personally went to the battlefield and died inexplicably.
This Han army was like evil spirits from underground. Anyone who came into contact with them would either lose their mind or have their soul taken away by them.
Xiao Wenhe, Feng Guiwang, really lives up to his name. If he doesn't take action, it's fine. But once he does, he won't leave anyone any way out.
Thinking of this, the black-robed butler suddenly felt a chill on his back:
Feng the Plague God...can't he really be able to summon ghosts and gods?
Otherwise, how to explain this completely incomprehensible Han army?
Just when he was filled with hatred, fear, grief and anger, the wolf slave leading in front suddenly made a strange sound and slowed down.
The black-clad butler, who had been in a state of high tension, raised his head and looked forward almost at the same time.
"Hahaha! Brother, why did you come just now? I've been waiting for a while!"
A hearty laugh rang out.
Then there was the sound of horse hooves, and a man riding a tall horse came over to greet us.
Behind him, there was a knight standing with a lance in his hand.
It was the disciple Yi-ear Liu Hun.
Seeing the person coming, the black-clothed butler's pupils suddenly contracted and he said in a lost voice:
“Han Long!”
Han Long replied in a relaxed tone: "It's me. I didn't expect that we would meet again."
The black-clad butler looked around nervously, but when he saw the snow-covered ground and the only people standing in front of him were the master and his disciple, he felt relieved.
"Han Long, how did you know I would pass by here?"
"That's my guess. Brother, are you planning to go to Liaoxi to look for the Buyao tribe?"
The Buyao tribe is a Xianbei tribe that moved to western Liaoning in recent years.
After Tan Shihuai unified the Xianbei, he divided them into three parts: Central, Eastern, and Western.
After his death, the three factions split and fought against each other.
Not only did the three tribes fight against each other, but they were also constantly divided and fighting each other.
Later on, Dahan Labor Company's business expanded to the grassland.
The first to suffer misfortune were the Western Xianbei, especially in the Battle of Guanzhong, where a certain Feng led a large army from Liangzhou, going in the opposite direction of Huo Piaoyao's battle in Hexi, and almost wiped out the entire Western Xianbei.
Next came the central Xianbei, including Kebi Neng, Budugen, Xieguini and others, who either died or surrendered under the direct or indirect attacks of the Han army.
Now Dou Bin led the entire tribe to surrender, Tuoba Liwei died on the battlefield, and the fate of Tuoba Xianbei was determined.
Only the Eastern Xianbei were temporarily safe because they were far away from a certain plague god.
There are three tribes of Xianbei: the central, eastern and western tribes. The central one is the strongest and the eastern one is the weakest.
Unexpectedly, the weakest one is the one that exists the longest.
Among the existing Eastern Xianbei, the strongest is the Buyao tribe, but they are still slightly weaker than the Meiluhui tribe.
Hearing Han Long reveal his intentions, the black-clad butler's face suddenly became extremely gloomy:
"Han Long, do you think that you two can stop me?"
No matter how powerful the master and disciple on the opposite side were, they could not defeat the more than ten wolf slaves around him.
I only heard Han Long sighing slightly:
"Han Chou, our two clans are originally from the same lineage, but we have been fighting for hundreds of years. How about we end it today with you and me?"
Upon hearing this, the black-robed butler burst into laughter, almost crying:
"Han Long, do you think you are stupid or I am stupid? I have more people than you now, what qualifications do you have for me to end it alone with you?"
As he spoke, he waved his hand, and all the wolf slaves growled and pressed forward together.
The defeat of Tuoba Xianbei made the black-clad steward so angry and grief-stricken that he almost went crazy.
Unexpectedly, in the end, Han Long actually came to join in the fun and told himself a joke.
Seeing the wolf slaves approaching, Han Long nodded and pointed at the black-clad butler:
"Okay, this is what you said."
After saying that, he pressed his arm down.
All that was heard was the sound of "bang bang bang" breaking through the air.
All of a sudden, dense array of arrows shot out from the snow, covering all the dozen or so wolf slaves.
In just a blink of an eye, each wolf slave was hit by at least five or six arrows, and none of them survived.
The most tenacious wolf slave only staggered forward two steps with a roar, and finally fell to the ground.
After the roar, the scene became extremely quiet.
Then a hundred or so archers wearing white cloaks and holding heavy crossbows stood up silently from the snow.
For a long, long time, only the sound of whistling wind in the distance could be heard.
Until the black-robed butler let out a shrill cry that broke the silence:
"No~~~"
His eyes suddenly turned red again:
"Han Long! Han Long, I want to enter you..."
The last bit of capital in his hands was destroyed in front of him, and the black-clad butler went completely crazy.