Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 44: Sunken Grain
"Your Majesty, are you worrying too much?" The Minister of the Central Secretariat Sun Zi stepped forward to comfort the emperor.

"The Xiegu plank road has been destroyed, so it's impossible to transport food and fodder back to Xiegu.

"If the Shu invaders send a small group of troops out of Xiegu to attack our camp, aren't they afraid of being attacked by our main force?
"And if their army of tens of thousands were to march out, wouldn't that cut off our route back?
"If the Shu invaders dare to do so, Your Majesty should order the Right General, the Governor of Yongzhou, and the General of Anxi to lead their troops to attack together!
"The Shu invaders have just won, and are becoming arrogant! Now that their route back is cut off, the Wei will surely be able to turn defeat into victory!"

"How much food and laborers are left in the Qinling camp?" Cao Rui ignored Sun Zi, who was talking about war on paper, and looked at Du Xi coldly.

Du Xi, Marquis of Wupingting, who once served as the chief secretary of Prime Minister Cao's residence and was known as one of the four famous scholars of Yingchuan, felt his heart burning and was uneasy at this moment.

"Your Majesty, there are still over ten thousand civilians and thirty thousand tons of food and fodder there."

He spoke with difficulty.

The general led an army of 30,000 from Meiwu, and nearly 20,000 civilians were involved in transporting food and fodder.

Thirty thousand shi of grain is enough to feed fifty thousand people for half a month.

The Shu invaders still had 10,000 to 20,000 dan of grain in their Xieshui camp.

If all of it were obtained by the Shu bandits, it would be enough for 30,000 to 40,000 Shu bandits to spend for one or two months!

How can this be called a blocked path?
This is being fearless!

Cao Rui pondered for a moment, then asked, "If the Shu invaders attacked our camp tonight, could we hold it?"

Before Du Xi could shake his head, Jiang Ji, the Eastern Army General, suddenly thought of something and spoke out:

"His Majesty!
"Don't worry about this!
"Let me return to Chang'an first!

"The moonlight is pleasant tonight, but what if the Shu invaders, as you say, march out of Xiegu but don't attack those two main camps, but instead send a light force to attack Meiwu? What should we do?"

There are only a thousand guards in Meiwu now. If it is really surrounded by the Shu bandits, then they and His Majesty will probably die here.

"No, no one knows I'm here."

The plank road was destroyed and the Shu army could only move out in small groups.

A small group of Shu troops could not surround Meiwu. As long as they did not know that Cao Rui was here, they would not come. The best strategy was to attack the camp and seize the food.

"Your Majesty!" Jiang Ji was extremely anxious and did not want to take such a risk.

"Yin Damu, you must ride quickly to the camp to pass on the order immediately." Cao Rui continued to give orders.

"First send soldiers to dismantle another mile or two of the plank road.

"Then order the soldiers and civilians there to set fire to the warehouses and to unpack the grain on the boats and sink it into the river.

"Finally, he led his troops back to Meiwu.

“All the civilians will stay there.

"After you cross the river, tear down the bridge."

If you want to go from Weibei to Weinan, the distance is a hundred miles from east to west, and there are only two wooden bridges on the south side of Meiwu to cross.

"Yes!" Yin Damu, whose head was covered in dried blood, walked out straight away after receiving the order.

"Your Majesty, don't you want those tens of thousands of dan of grain and ten or twenty thousand laborers?" The Minister of the Central Secretariat, Sun Zi, was shocked.

Guanzhong is already sparsely populated, and food and these civilians are almost non-renewable resources!
Unlike Sun Zi's shock, General Du Xi, the military advisor, nodded repeatedly in approval of the emperor's actions.

If we can successfully throw all those tens of thousands of stones of grain into the river, the Shu invaders will never be able to come out of the Xiegu Pass to threaten Meiwu and Chang'an again.

"Your Majesty, what if the Shu invaders don't come? Or what if they come later?" The Minister of the Central Secretariat Sun Zi even wanted to go out and chase Yin Damu. He was still heartbroken about those resources and felt that they could still be saved.

"Then we lost so much food and so many civilians in vain?"

At this moment, the Minister of the Central Secretariat Liu Fang also hurriedly echoed:

"Your Majesty, think deeply!

"We transported 30,000 to 40,000 dan of grain from Hanjia Granary in Luoyang to Meiwu over a thousand miles. The food consumed by the men and horses along the way must have been far more than 300,000 dan!
"The 40,000 to 50,000 dan of grain and fodder before our eyes is almost equivalent to the rent and taxes of a large province in Guandong for one or two years!"

It’s not that the rent and tax revenue of a state is only 40,000 to 50,000 shi in one or two years.

Instead, if 40,000 to 50,000 shi of grain were to be transported from Luoyang to the Guanzhong front, the amount of grain stored in Luoyang Hanjia Granary would not be reduced by 40,000 to 50,000 shi, but by 200,000 to 300,000 shi, or even more.

When transporting grain from other major states to Hanjia Granary in Luoyang, there was also a certain amount of loss.

"Okay, I have made up my mind!"

Cao Rui's determination was not small. Not everyone can be so resolute in the face of such a huge loss.

War is all about logistics.

Once the Shu army lost its food and grass supply, it would be impossible for it to station a large army in Xiegu.

Only in this way can we return to Luoyang calmly.

"Your Majesty, I and your servants will be in charge of Meiwu. Please return to Chang'an with the Eastern Guards General."

Du Xi received Jiang Ji's hint and hurried forward to persuade him.

"I'll come back tomorrow." Cao Rui still ignored the dissuasion.

"Leaving now, do you want me to show off in the fields?

"Am I already Liu Xie?"

This is really a sad and angry statement.

If we leave under the cover of darkness, we will have to sleep outdoors in the latter half of the night.

The emperor was allowed to sleep in the fields, a treatment only enjoyed by the last emperor, Liu Xie. When news of this was brought back to the court, it was considered a great damage to the emperor's prestige.

Ignoring the crowd, Cao Rui silently climbed to the highest point of Meiwu, trying to see the lights of the two camps of Shu and Wei at the foot of the Qinling Mountains.

But the mountain fog had risen at night, and Meiwu was low-lying. It was still twenty-four or twenty-five miles away from the Wei army camp, and more than thirty miles away from the Shu army camp. Even if there were lights there, it would be difficult for Cao Rui to see them.

...

midnight.

Cao Rui was awakened.

The eunuch Bixie reported to him that Yin Damu had returned to Meiwu with more than 2,000 Wei soldiers.

"How is it?" Cao Rui sat down with his clothes on and looked coldly at Yin Damu who was almost exhausted.

Sun Zi, Liu Fang, Jiang Ji, Du Xi and others were all here. They simply stayed up for half the night, waiting for news.

"Your Majesty, the Shu invaders have indeed arrived!" Yin Damu looked dejected, his voice weak, "There are about three to four thousand of them!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Sun Zi and Liu Fang, who had previously urged the emperor to rescue food and grass, turned pale and broke out in cold sweat.

"Has the plank road been demolished?!" Cao Rui ignored the two of them.

"Your Majesty, no!"

Yin Damu bowed his head in sorrow.

Cao Rui's brows were already furrowed.

"Your Majesty, according to the soldiers defending the camp, four to five hundred Shu invaders broke through the plank road entrance this afternoon, and we have been sending people to guard that place ever since!
"We also sent people to drive away the laborers, and drove the thousands of laborers who were originally from the Shu bandit camp to move food to our camp to the north bank of Xieshui!

"The nearly 1,000 soldiers we have left in the Shu bandit camp have already been frightened out of their wits!
"As soon as those hundreds of Shu bandits appeared at the entrance of the plank road, they all ran back to our own camp!"

Cao Rui's expression became increasingly bleak.

I thought my handling of the situation was cruel and appropriate enough, but I never expected that the Shu invaders would come so quickly.

"Where's the food in our Wei army camp? Did it burn? Did it sink into the river?!"

"Your Majesty... they came too quickly..." Yin Damu was in tears and felt extremely helpless.

"As soon as I arrived at our camp, I ordered the burning of the granaries and the sunken grain. However, by then, the Shu invaders, holding who knows how many thousands of torches, had already reached two or three miles from our camp.

"The civilians who sank the grain on the ship...

"When the soldiers saw the Shu invaders coming with a large army, they only cared about escaping and didn't care whether the civilians had sunk their food supplies or not!
"The granary was close to water, and the fire was put out shortly after it started by the Shu bandits and civilians who arrived."

Cao Rui felt faint: "Where's the bridge? Has the Wei Bridge been demolished?"

"Tear it down!" Yin Damu said.

"Your Majesty...the Shu bandits who surrendered to Lai Yi were halfway through their escape when they suddenly kidnapped Lai Yi and then defected back to the Shu bandits!"

　Hey everyone, Happy New Year!!!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)