Guo Bin and Dong Xing'er talked and laughed, and slowly came to the vicinity of the camp, and after greeting several waves of scouts, Guo Bin turned over and beckoned Dong Xing'er to gallop into the camp together. After arranging for her to return to the camp where the Yue cavalry camp was located, Guo Bin ran to the Huangfu Songshuai tent. Horses are not allowed in the camp, otherwise Guo Bin would have ridden his horse directly.

Zhang Jiao's death is a big matter, which is directly related to the balance of strength between the official army and the Yellow Turban Army, and Guo Bin must report it to Huangfu Song in time. Moreover, he also reminded Chu Yan and asked him to persuade the 150,000 Yellow Turban Army in Guangzong City to surrender. Otherwise, Zhang Jiao is dead, the Yellow Turban Army is leaderless, and the command must be confused. If the official army takes advantage of the situation to attack the city again, Guangzong City will inevitably be captured, and the elite of the 150,000 Yellow Turban Army will fight to the death, and the casualties on both sides will be extremely heavy.

Historically, when Huangfu Song was ordered to attack Guangzong, it coincided with Zhang Jiao's illness and death, and the rebel army lost its commander and suffered a demoralization. In this unfavorable situation, Zhang Liang continued to lead the righteous army to fight fiercely with Huangfu Song. The Yellow Turban Army was brave and brave, Huangfu Song besieged for more than a month, still could not win, the battle lasted until October, the Yellow Turban Army defeated Lu Zhi and Dong Zhuo one after another, and Huangfu Song was also unable to attack for a long time and relaxed its vigilance. Huangfu Song took the opportunity to restrain the troops at night, and the rooster crowed to attack the position of the Yellow Turban Army. The Yellow Turban Army rushed into battle, and the battle lasted until noon, and was defeated. Zhang Liang was killed in battle, 30,000 people were killed, and more than 50,000 people went to the river to die. Huangfu Song entered Guangzong, captured the families of the righteous army, burned a large number of baggage, and "dissected the coffin and poked the corpse, and passed on the head of the Beijing division".

This is recorded in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, of the 150,000 elite Yellow Turban soldiers, 80,000 were killed, and the rest either fled or were captured. These 150,000 people have been in battle for a long time, and even the main force of the Han official army of the Great Han Dynasty, which conquered the east and west, defeated the Xiongnu, and broke the Xiqiang, could not help them, which shows the strength of their combat effectiveness.

However, the significance of this victory in history is also extraordinary. The Battle of Guangzong was one of the important turning points in the late Han Dynasty and the early Three Kingdoms, where the main force of the Yellow Turban Army was wiped out, although the historical records are not detailed, it can be seen that this battle is undoubtedly an important turning point in the history of the Three Kingdoms.

Just look at the two battles with strategic turning significance in history, the Battle of Changshe and the Battle of Guangzong, both commanded by Huangfu Song, we can see the prestige of Huang Fu Song in the court after the war. He was the real hero of the country who turned the tide and helped the building to fall, so that the peace period in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was extended to the death of Emperor Liu Hong of the Han Dynasty, that is, in April of the sixth year of Zhongping (189 AD). Calculated that this year is the first year of Zhongping (184 AD), Huangfu Song extended the foundation of the 400-year-old Han Dynasty by five years. The chaos that followed five years later, although it seemed very chaotic, was actually the result of a power struggle between the central government, and the direct cause of the rebellion between relatives and the civil service against the eunuchs was the direct cause.

Despite this, it is an indisputable fact that the Yellow Turban Rebellion has come to an end, and what Guo Bin wants to do is to minimize the damage caused by the Yellow Turban Army to the Han nation. After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the reason why the five chaos occurred in China, and the nomads in the north entered the Great Wall, causing devastating damage to the economy, population and infrastructure of the Central Plains, the fundamental reason was that the Central Plains chaos caused a sharp decline in the population of the Han people.

Now that the Yellow Turban Rebellion has occurred and its damage to the Central Plains has been caused, Guo Bin's main goal at present is to stop the loss. is not only to stop the loss for this decadent and degenerate dynasty, but also to stop the loss for the Han nation. Only by working hard to stop losses at this time can it be possible to avoid the collapse after the Wei and Jin dynasties.

Prior to this, including the end of the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty was in a position of suppressing the surrounding ethnic minorities because of its advanced culture, developed economy, prosperous population and strong military strength. After the Wei and Jin dynasties, it was not until the Sui and Tang dynasties that the Han dynasty in the Central Plains stood up again, and this period experienced nearly 400 years of ravages and foreign invasions.

After the Battle of Changshe, Guo Bin saved the lives of 200,000 Yellow Turban captives and sent them to the northern border to build a city, which was one of the means to stop the loss.

However, the damage of the Yellow Turban Rebellion has already been done. This kind of harm is not only the casualties of the official army and the Yellow Turban Army of the Han Dynasty, but also the population loss of the Han nation, which is only the most superficial. The greatest harm that the Yellow Turban Rebellion brought to the Han Dynasty was that it changed the inherent mode of power distribution from top to bottom.

The sudden outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion caught the Eastern Han government off guard, and in order to exterminate the Yellow Turban Army in various places, and in order to make up for the disadvantage of insufficient number of officials and soldiers, the imperial court ordered all states and counties to prepare for battle, train soldiers, count weapons, and gather rebel troops. It was this edict that led to the emergence of a large number of rebels from all over the Central Plains after the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

These rebels may have been part of local wealthy families, and some were soldiers gathered by heroes like Liu Bei who were sponsored by wealthy merchants. Through this edict of the imperial court, the tribes of the wealthy families became the "righteous army" recognized by the imperial court, and most of the heroes like Liu Bei were unable to pay the salaries of the soldiers after the war, so they had to be dismissed. Therefore, although the Yellow Turban Rebellion shattered countless landlords and powerful people, its greatest effect was to accelerate the accumulation of the power of the surviving local wealthy clans.

These places are strong, the small ones dominate the county, and the big ones cause chaos in the world. Once this situation is formed, it is irreversible and will gradually snowball further into it. The last formative period was the "Abolition of History and Pastoral Husbandry" incident in the fifth year of Zhongping (188 AD).

The so-called "abolishing history and establishing pastors" was Liu Yan, who was too regular at the time, proposed to Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty to use the clan and important ministers as state pastors, to override the assassin history and the Taishou in the local area, and monopolize power to stabilize the people. The imperial court adopted this suggestion, but the result was the formation of warlords in various regions, and the state ministers, including Liu Yan, were basically no longer under the control of the imperial court after taking office.

The source of this decision-making, which led to an imbalance of power between the central and local governments, came from the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

Because after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the county guards and county commanders in various places were responsible for guarding the territory, and the power in their hands expanded from the original administrative power and judicial power to military power. The local magistrates actually became the local emperors who combined the power of the military regime. Therefore, the weakening of central power and the strengthening of local power became the basic trend of the distribution of power in the Eastern Han Dynasty after the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

In his previous life, Guo Bin saw many historians say that although the Yellow Turban Rebellion was unsuccessful, it fundamentally dealt a heavy blow to the decaying Eastern Han Dynasty and sounded the death knell for the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty. At that time, he didn't understand that the real Yellow Turban Rebellion was just two major battles between Changsha and Guangzong, which can be said to have been extinguished by the official army that year. The Eastern Han Dynasty obviously fell to the central power struggle five years later, why did the Yellow Turban Uprising five years ago bring down the Eastern Han Dynasty?

It wasn't until after he was reborn that Guo Bin put himself in his shoes and observed this problem from a first-person point of view, and it suddenly dawned on him.

It was precisely because the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke the balance of power in the Central Plains that the Eastern Han Dynasty came to an end step by step. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand Wang Fuzhi's "the country will perish with weakness, and the Han will die with strength". It's just that the Han Dynasty was not strong by the central government, but by local separatist forces. Until the history of Cao Cao coerced the Son of Heaven and ordered the princes, the Central Plains Dynasty was still extremely strong against the surrounding nomads, the most well-known example is the battle of Cao Cao's northern expedition to Wuhuan after the Battle of Guandu.

Even so, it cannot be said that Guo Bin's efforts are useless, at least so far, he has saved more than 200,000 lives. And Guo Bin went to Huangfu Song this time to save the lives of the 150,000 Yellow Turban soldiers in the city.

Entering the big tent, Huangfu Song was discussing the military situation with his staff.

When Huangfu Song saw Guo Bin arrive, he didn't raise his eyes, lowered his head and asked, "Did you go out to run a horse?" ”

Guo Bin's old face suddenly turned red, it has been a month since he arrived in Guangzong, and everyone in the army is either frightened or busy, only Guo Bin is the most idle. Neither has to worry about Huangfu Song taking off his official position, nor does he have to be busy getting familiar with the new work, strengthening the control of his subordinates, and handing over the task of training the troops to Xi Zhicai and Guo Jia, Guo Bin took Guan Zhang and Dong Xing'er out of the camp every day until it was dark before returning to the camp.

Although Huangfu Song didn't say anything, Guo Bin still felt a little embarrassed when he was in person. But then he said solemnly: "Zhonglang, there is an important military situation in the lowly position, and I have to report to Zhonglang alone." ”

Seeing Guo Bin so solemn, he knew that although he was used to being free and lazy, he was never ambiguous in major matters. Knowing that something big was going to happen, he waved his hand and ordered everyone in the tent to retreat. After everyone was gone, Huangfu Songfang said: "Tell me, what is the big thing that can make you Guo Qianyang so solemn." ”

Guo Bin came to Huangfu Song and said in a low voice: "Zhonglang, Zhang Jiao is dead!" ”

This sentence almost shocked Huangfu Song to the ground. Busy holding the table, he sat down slowly, and after a while, Fang said: "Is the news true?" ”

Guo Bin said: "It's true, when Zhang Jiao died, his subordinates were on the side. ”

Huangfu Song was taken aback again and said, "Oh? Why is that? How do you recognize Zhang Jiao? ”

Guo Bin took out the black sword worn by Tang Zhou from behind him, handed it to Huangfu Song, and said, "Can Zhonglang recognize this sword?" ”

Huangfu Song stretched out his hand to take it, held the hilt of the sword and slowly pulled it out, and after carefully examining it for a while, Fang exclaimed: "This, is this it?" ”

Guo Bin said: "Zhonglang's expectation is good, this sword is the Zhongxing sword created by today's son. There were four of them, and one was lost later, and this is the thing. ”

Huangfu Song glanced at Guo Bin and said, "Could it be that this sword was stolen by Zhang Jiao?" ”

Guo Bin said: "This sword was carried by Zhang Jiao's junior brother Zhao Sheng, and Zhao Sheng also used this sword to assassinate Zhang Jiao." Zhonglang may not know that this Zhao Sheng is Tang Zhou who went to the General's Mansion to report the Yellow Turban Army's plan. ”

Huangfu Song was shocked, this matter was even implicated by the general He Jin? At the moment, he stabilized his mind and said, "Does the general know about this?" ”

Guo Bin hurriedly said: "Tang Zhou is his pseudonym, and he has been hiding in the Taiping Dao for more than ten years, just to destroy the Taiping Dao. Therefore, no one in Taiping Dao knew his name, and Zhang Jiao only found out today. In the opinion of his subordinates, Zhao Sheng always concealed his true identity everywhere, and the general probably didn't know about it. ”

Hearing this, Huangfu Songfang breathed a sigh of relief and said, "It seems that Zhao Sheng went to the palace to steal this sword in order to assassinate Zhang Jiao." Seeing that he can endure for more than ten years, no one knows his true identity, so he knows that he must be a scheming person. After a deep sigh, Fang said: "However, this can really be regarded as a hero." ”

Guo Bin listened, breathed a sigh of relief, and hurriedly said: "Zhonglang Mingjian, according to his subordinates, it must be as Zhonglang expected." ”