My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 452: One hole has just been filled, another one is opened

After listening to Tian Chou's advice, Zhao Yun quickly advanced with his cavalry. Within just one or two days, he captured all the remaining camps of the Subuyan tribe and captured and controlled tens of thousands of Wuhuan herdsmen.

At the same time, Tian Chou on the other side did not dare to stop for a moment and immediately started his mediation work, helping Zhao Yun to "digest and absorb" these newly captured tribesmen, to win over and integrate the forces of the Wuhuan tribes, and to contribute to the subsequent war against Gongsun Du.

Tian Chou was worthy of the fact that he had been dealing with the Hu people in the northern border for many years. He had a very thorough understanding of the interests of each Hu tribe, and he himself was also quite respected by the Hu people.

Therefore, he finally came up with a very ingenious plan: he did not directly persuade Zhao Yun to reorganize these captured and subdued Wuhuan tribesmen into friendly forces and vassal troops and force them to fight Gongsun Du.

Instead, he used the method of adding sand to the situation, allowing Tadun and Louban to participate, and airdropped some people to take control of the defeated Supuyan tribe. At the same time, he asked Tadun and Louban to bleed a little and provide some direct troops to follow Zhao Yun to fight Gongsun Du.

This trick sounds a bit complicated, but it is easy to understand once you explain the principle behind it.

If Tian Chou directly promoted a guy who was willing to serve the court from the defeated Su Puyan tribe to be a puppet and controlled him to lead the surrendered troops to fight Gongsun Du, it would not be impossible, but it would plant several hidden dangers:

First of all, if this puppet had a distant relationship with Su Puyan before, he might not be able to convince the people. If he could not control the troops, there would be a risk of defection in the future war, which would lead to disaster. Such troops can only fight in favorable situations and have no ability to withstand pressure.

And if that puppet has a close relationship with Su Puyan, he can control the troops well, but Zhao Yun cannot guarantee whether his current obedience is just an act, and whether he has any resentment in his heart because of Su Puyan's extermination of his family.

Therefore, as long as Zhao Yun chooses to promote a puppet from within the Su Puyan tribe, no matter how close this person is to Su Puyan before, he cannot guarantee the stability of the troops. In this case, it is better to wait a little longer and change a route.

The final route chosen by Tian Chou was to quickly send an envoy back to tell Tadun and Louban: You were unwilling to participate in the extermination of Subuyan and did not want to start a civil war among the Wuhuan people, and the court could understand that. But now that Subuyan has surrendered, please send someone to discuss the issue of receiving and dividing Subuyan's inheritance.

Of course, Tian Chou also had to guard against Tadun and Louban becoming too powerful, so this kind of takeover was definitely not for nothing, but an exchange of interests.

For example, Tian Chou, under the pretext of Zhao Yun's order, asked Tadun and Lou Ban to each send at least two to three thousand cavalry reinforcements to serve under Zhao Yun and attack Gongsun Du together with him.

Zhao Yun did not want these cavalrymen for nothing. Whoever paid more would earn more in the future. Zhao Yun would distribute Su Puyan's people to the generals they sent at a ratio of two or even three times, and let them replace Su Puyan and be named the Lord of Liaoxi Wuhuan. This "Lord of Liaoxi Wuhuan" was officially canonized by Liu Bei and given an official seal.

In this way, Zhao Yun would not have to lead an unstable army that had just fought a battle and still had grudges to deal with Gongsun Du.

These unstable tribes were handed over to Tadun and Louban to divide up. However, the reliable Wuhuan troops who were originally friendly with Yuan Shao and Liu Bei had to be replaced from Tadun and Louban to fight with the army.

Although the newly sent Wuhuan generals to help in the war were previously followers of Tadun and Louban, they may not completely obey Tadun or Louban after being officially enthroned by the court in the future. They may also be divided and have their own interests.

In this way, the Wuhuan in the three counties can still be ensured to be divided into three parts, so as not to unite and become too powerful.

Lou Ban is still young, not yet an adult, so he may not be able to see the benefits behind this. But Tadun is already over thirty, so he can probably see it.

But Tian Chou was not afraid that Tadun would see through this and refuse to respond to the call. Because if Tadun did not respond, Lou Ban would respond, and then all the benefits of the replacement of tribesmen would be taken by Lou Ban, and Tadun would also worry about whether his current position as the first among the three counties of Wuhuan would be shaken.

Tadun was the nephew of Qiuliju, the leader of the three counties of Wuhuan, and Louban was Qiuliju's biological son. However, when Qiuliju died, Louban was still too young to command the people, so the tribes temporarily respected Tadun as their leader. Now that Louban is about to come of age, the power struggle within the Wuhuan may revive.

This kind of environment where there are conflicts of interest and mutual interference among the Wuhuan people is always what the Han court would like to see most.

Even if Tadun saw through it, it would be useless because there were plenty of people willing to do it if he didn't.

So in the end, after just a few days of emergency mediation, Tadun and Louban had no choice but to respond to the court's call. They also each nominated some trustworthy talents to help Zhao Yun in the battle and accept the remaining people of the Subuyan tribe.

In the end, the general and receiver put forward by Louban was Wusu, the envoy who had been sent to Yuyang to negotiate with the imperial court on border markets.

The Tadun tribe was not to be outdone and sent Wusu's cousin Wuyan to help Zhao Yun. The two of them each brought two to three thousand Wuhuan cavalry to help Zhao Yun.

As a condition of the deal, Tian Chou also gave half of the people of the Supuyan tribe that Zhao Yun had forced to land to Louban and Tadun for direct administration. He kept the other half and split it into two, giving them to Wuyan and Wusu respectively.

After all, Wuyan and Wusu will have to raise their own combat logistics in the future. They will each be given four to five thousand people to graze and provide cattle, sheep and dairy products to feed the two thousand cavalrymen.

In this way, the legacy of the Subuyan tribe was broken into pieces, with "controlling shares at each level" and sand being added to eliminate all the hidden dangers visible to the naked eye.

……

The splitting and mixing of the entire Subuyan tribe heritage will naturally take quite some time to complete and digest.

However, Zhao Yun does not need to wait until all the work is done before advancing to the next step of the war. He does not have that much time.

Therefore, he actually waited for only seven or eight days. After the Wuyan and Wusu brothers brought four or five thousand Wuhuan cavalry reinforcements and swore to obey his orders and help attack Gongsun Du, Zhao Yun resumed the frontal military advance. November 2 was also the eighth day after Su Puyan was beheaded by Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun's cavalry advanced steadily eastward along the Wuliao River, finally merging the Wuliao River into the Yu River, and then approached Changli, the gateway to Liaodong controlled by Gongsun Du's army.

Eight days is neither long nor short.

But considering that during this period of time, Zhao Yun also had to solve the problems of stabilizing the retreat, mediating and integrating the Hu people, contacting Tadun and Louban to negotiate the future division of spheres of influence in the grassland, and stabilizing the forces of all parties, this speed was already very fast.

Fortunately, Zhao Yun attacked from the upper reaches of the Wuliao River and the Yu River, from outside the Great Wall, and the various tribes on the grassland usually did not communicate with each other, so Gongsun Du's army was not warned until Zhao Yun reached the vicinity of Changli.

Gongsun Du's army's laxity was understandable. Since ancient times, Liaoxi had always fought Liaodong through the Liaoxi Corridor. Who would have thought that someone would fight through the grasslands outside the Great Wall?
Moreover, it was already early November. Given Gongsun Du's army's understanding of the Han people's logistical capabilities within the Great Wall, they had never expected that someone would launch a sneak attack in such a cold weather.

In this way, Zhao Yun's previous decision to postpone the advancement did not delay anything at all.

Early in the morning of the second day of the Chinese New Year, Zhao Yun, with more than 12,000 cavalrymen, divided into several groups, braved the wind and snow and appeared 60 miles upstream of Changli County, only to be discovered by the patrol scouts of Gongsun Du's army.

This is normal. We have come to this point, and it would be too outrageous if we don’t expose it.

After a short and fierce battle between the two sides, most of Gongsun Du's scouts were killed, wounded or captured, but they were not completely wiped out.

It was almost impossible to completely intercept a fast-riding light cavalry unit at the junction of the grassland and the Yanshan hills, so in the end, dozens of cavalrymen still fled and returned to Changli County to report the news.

Zhao Yun did not take it seriously and ordered his troops to speed up and try to arrive at Changli City at noon that day, surround the city with a small number of troops, and cut off the possibility of subsequent reinforcements from Gongsun Du's army to reinforce Changli.

Obviously, Zhao Yun wanted to use a deceptive tactic of "we only have the strength to besiege the city, but not the strength to attack it for the time being, and we need to wait for the arrival of subsequent reinforcements before launching a general attack", showing weakness to lure the enemy to reinforce.

Everything went smoothly, and by the afternoon of that day, thousands of cavalrymen under Zhao Yun's command had arrived in Changli.

The defenders in the city did not know the strength of the sudden attacking enemy, so they did not dare to go out of the city to meet the attack immediately, but chose to firmly defend the city.

Zhao Yun successfully surrounded the city, and then ordered the troops to find wood for setting up camp.

There are not enough trees in winter, and digging the soil is more difficult. Once the ground freezes, it becomes very hard and requires several times more physical strength to dig.

In this way, the labor required to build a solid camp would increase several times compared to summer and autumn. It seemed that it would be difficult for Zhao Yun to build a solid camp outside Changli City.

But Zhao Yun didn't care about it - if the camp could be easily built strong, the enemy would not dare to counterattack in the future.

……

Changli County is located on the banks of the Yu Shui River, near the confluence of the Big and Small Ling Rivers in later generations.

In autumn, the river water swells due to autumn rains, and the area between the Big and Small Linghe Rivers becomes a swamp due to the rising water level. The shallow area is impassable for vehicles and the deep area is too deep for boats. In winter, the water level drops and the river surface freezes, and the Big and Small Linghe Rivers become two distinct rivers again.

Going downstream from Changli County to the lower reaches of Yushui River, there is a county town called Tuhe where the river flows into the sea. Tuhe is the Jinzhou City in later generations, which is the throat gateway between Liaodong and Liaoxi.

As long as Zhao Yun captured Changli and Tuhe, he would be able to completely control the defense line of the Linghe River basin, successfully cross the 400-mile uninhabited area of the Liaoxi Corridor, and obtain several sea and land transportation docks at the mouth of the Yu Shui River.

By then, it would be completely impossible for Gongsun Du to rely on the logistical difficulties of the 400-mile uninhabited area in the Liaoxi Corridor to make Zhao Yun retreat.

Therefore, for Gongsun Du, Changli must be rescued and must be defended to the death.

Otherwise, his defense zone would retreat from the Xiaolinghe and Xiaolinghe River basins to the Liaohe River basin, and his capital Xiangping would lose its protection. The entire banks of the Liaohe River would be open to Zhao Yun to come and go, and there would no longer be any safe deep hinterland.

Gongsun Gong, the defender of Changli, also knew that the matter was serious, so he had an urgent discussion with his deputy general Bei Jian. Before the gates of Changli were surrounded by Zhao Yun's cavalry, they quickly sent a fast messenger to Xiangping in the rear to ask for help.

Xiangping was located between Shenyang and Liaoyang in later generations, and was only 400 miles away from Jinzhou area. Gongsun Gong's messenger rushed to Xiangping in two days and delivered the urgent military information to Gongsun Du himself.

Gongsun Du is now on his sickbed. When he heard that his second son was suddenly besieged in Changli by Zhao Yun who appeared out of nowhere, he was shocked and angry.

Despite his serious illness, he immediately summoned his eldest son Gongsun Kang and his main civil and military aides to discuss the rescue of Changli.

(End of this chapter)