Chapter 2: The Southern Barbarians Rebellion

As mentioned last time, Cao Pi and Liu Bei successively became emperors, and Sun Quan also casually made a king of Wu. Liu Hou resumed his monotonous life in the Ministry of Industry until June, when news of Meng Huo's rebellion with Yonghong came.

Meng Huo was a native of the Yi tribe and was one of the leaders of the barbarians in the southern and central regions. Later generations believe that his name is no stranger to him, and everyone knows that his story is in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he was captured by Zhuge Liang and surrendered.

However, many people who study history believe that the story of the Seven Captures and Seven Verticals is fictional, and it was fictionalized by Luo Guanzhong for the myth of Zhuge Liang, and some people think that the Seven Captures and Seven Verticals Meng Shu is a zài, but the pig's feet are not Zhuge Liang, but Li Yan, Li Hui and his son.

And Yonghong is a native of Jianning (Qujing, Yunnan), Han nationality. Min is a big surname in Yizhou, and he is very influential in the local area. Historically, after Liu Bei's death, he surrendered to Eastern Wu and was named Yongchang Taishou by Sun Quan. In the third year of Jianxing (225 (Yisi year), he and Meng Huo raised an army to attack Shu Han.

Meng Huo was very appealing among the Yi people, and he gathered many Yi commanders to make a rebellion together. Yonghong, Zhu Bao, and Gao Ding's subordinates were all Meng Huo's guide officers and attacked Yongchang County. Zhuge Liang personally led his troops to defeat them, and used a counter-strategy, so that Gao Ding's subordinate Qu Ehuan stabbed Yonghong under the horse with a halberd and showed his head to the public. In the end, E Huan led the sergeants to surrender to Zhuge Liang.

It turned out that Meng Shu and Yonghong, who had only rebelled in the third year of Jianxing (225), why did they rebel four years earlier and in the first year of Zhangwu (221)? Of course, this is Liu Hou's butterfly effect again.

Liu Hou and his Hong army displayed terrifying prowess in the two battles of Jingzhou, which made Cao Wei and Sun Wu feel deeply jealous. Although Liu Hou felt sorry for himself and felt that his 5,000-strong army was not enough in front of the enemy's 100,000-strong army, it was not the case from the perspective of Wei and Wu.

The Wei State was personally led by an old fox like Sima Yi, with 100,000 soldiers and horses, and a total of more than 50,000 losses were lost, and more than half of the battle losses were terrifying. If it weren't for Sima Yi's ability to command the troops, the remaining soldiers and horses would have collapsed long ago.

Although Jingzhou City is also in danger, although Sima Yi believes that if he gives himself a few more days, he will definitely be able to break through Jingzhou City, but failure is failure, and there is nothing to say.

If it was defeated in the hands of a world-famous wise man like Zhuge Liang or in the hands of a hero like Liu Bei who has been fighting for decades, it would have been just a defeat, but it was defeated in the hands of Liu Hou, a teenager with a yellow mouth.

If the strength of the two sides is equal, or the difference is not big, then it will be forgotten, but, on the contrary, the disparity in the strength of the two sides, the total strength of the Shu army is only about 10,000, with ten to one, if you add the 30,000 people added by Dongwu later, with thirteen to one, you can't even take a Jingzhou city.

It's embarrassing. Such a record shocked the court of Cao Wei, and finally the monarchs and ministers of Wei reached a consensus, they believed that the crown prince Liu Chan was a thorn in the side of the unhappy. We must not hesitate to cut off this scourge by any means, and we must not let him grow up.

The Eastern Wu court's understanding of Liu Hou is similar, starting from Liu Hou's sabotage of Lü Meng's "white-clothed crossing of the river" to attack Jingzhou, to defeating the Eastern Wu naval army with one enemy and a thousand, to rescuing Guan Gong from Sun Jiao's pursuit, and finally to the siege of Jingzhou City in the Second Jingzhou War, the losses of the Eastern Wu army were no less than those of Wei.

There were 30,000 prisoners who were captured in the "white-clothed crossing of the river", and the number of casualties later was more than that, not to mention that Soochow also lost several ships. Looking at the battle damage figures reported by his subordinates, Sun Quan was so hateful that his silver teeth were crushed.

The Eastern Wu court also agreed that Liu Hou is already so powerful at such a young age, and when he grows up, he will be able to pay it back, this person cannot stay, and must be strangled in the cradle. So, the two countries sent envoys to each other to lobby each other's monarchs, expressing their willingness to cooperate against Shu Han.

Just like the concubine who met the rouge, the two countries hit it off, formed an alliance, and decided to deal with Shu Han together, completely eradicating Liu Hou, an outlier that frightened them.

As a result, both countries will have heavy troops on the border of Shu and Han, and make a posture of attacking at any time, which makes Liu Bei very nervous, and the soldiers and horses within Shu are evacuated, and they go to the border between the two countries to confront them.

Then there was Lu Xun, a yin man, who made another strange plan, and he proposed yì to oppose Yonghong and Meng Huo, and instigated them to attack Shu Han from the south. Sima Yi highly praised this strategy and gave strong support to Cao Pi.

So the grain and weapons of the two countries were continuously sent to Yonghong and Meng Shu, and they sent people who could speak well to lobby the two, lying to them that the internal forces of Shu were empty, and as long as they sent troops, it was easy to fight under the city of Chengdu.

In the end, he also issued a big blank check, saying that as long as they captured Chengdu, the entire Yizhou and Hanzhong belonged to them, and when the time came, the two of them would be the Yizhou Mu and the Han Zhongmu.

Hanzhong was originally not a state, and there was no state pastor, but Wei and Wu fooled Yonghong and Meng Huo, saying that after defeating Liu Bei, they would divide his territory into two and set up two states, one was still called Yizhou and the other was called Hanzhongzhou, and these two places were divided between the two of them.

If it is a knowledgeable person who hears it, he will know that this is fooling people, the land of Hanzhong is extremely important, it is the birthplace of the Han Dynasty, and it has been known as the "land of abundance" and "the land of fish and rice" since ancient times, and it has always been a place where soldiers must fight. Is it possible for such an important piece of land to be divided among others?

However, Yonghong and Meng Huo, the two fools, believed it, and the two countries gave a lot of material support, which made their ambitions infinitely inflated, and finally took advantage of the empty internal forces of Shu to attack Shu.

When Liu Hou received the news, Yonghong had already killed Yizhou County (not Yizhou, Yizhou County is in Yunnan, and the county is in Dianchi County) Taishou Zhengang, and the new Taishou Zhang Yi was tied up and sent to Wu to be dedicated to Sun Quan. Then he raised troops and called on the four counties of Nanzhong to rebel against Shu Han. As a result, Gao Ding, the chief of Yueshan County, killed Gong Lu, proclaimed himself king, and responded to Yonghong's rebellion with Zhu Bao, the Taishou of Yuexian County.

Now, the Yonghong rebels are besieging Yongchang County day and night, and Yongchang County is waiting for Chengdu to send troops to rescue under the tenacious persistence of Gongcao Lu Kai and Fucheng Wang. But they didn't know that Chengdu was now empty of troops, and it couldn't send a single soldier to rescue them.

Not only could Liu Bei not be able to send anyone to rescue them, but now he even felt difficult to defend the city. Chengdu now has only 10,000 garrisons, but Meng Shu led 100,000 barbarian troops to cross the Lushui and rush towards Chengdu. Once Meng was sent to the city, it was unknown whether Chengdu could hold it.

When Yonghong first raised his army, he hoped that the barbarians in Nanzhong would support him, but the chieftains of the various tribes did not obey him. Meng Huo was a powerful man in the Nanzhong region at that time, and was deeply convinced by the local aborigines and Han people. Yonghong recruited Meng Huo and asked him to lobby the chiefs of various tribes.

Meng Shu then lied to them and said: "The imperial court wants to levy 300 black dogs, and the chests must be black, and there are also 3,000 broken trees (chopped wood) with three mite brains and three zhang long, can you take them out?" ”

The black dog and mite brain were originally difficult to find, and their broken wood (斲木) was very hard and crooked, and it was impossible to be as high as two zhang long, and the local natives believed in Meng Shu and thought that the Shu Han regime deliberately made it difficult to oppress them, so they were very dissatisfied and joined the rebels

In this way, Meng Shu easily gathered 100,000 barbarian soldiers and horses, and rushed to Chengdu.

Just when Liu Bei Zhan Weiwei didn't know what to do, Liu Hou ran to Liu Bei and automatically asked Ying, saying that he was willing to lead the troops to defeat Meng Huo and Yonghong. At first, Liu Bei disagreed, saying that Chengdu could no longer send troops and horses, and he did not want his son to take risks.

So Liu Hou said to him: "Father, why did you forget that I still have 10,000 Hong troops?" I led 10,000 Hong troops over, enough to sweep through Nanzhong. ”

Liu Bei said: "Even if you have 10,000 horses, but there are more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, how can you beat it with one enemy and ten, the emperor, you still don't take risks, let your father urgently transfer your third uncle to lead the troops back to King Qin. ”

"The third uncle is far away in Hanzhong, how can he have time to return to the division, besides, the border of the Chen soldiers of the Wei State, once he wants to return to the division, he will be pursued by the Wei army, which is inappropriate, inappropriate. The father doesn't need to worry about the child, how are Meng Huo and Yonghong compared to the Wei army? It's better to have more, 100,000 Wei troops besieged Jingzhou, and it didn't kill more than 50,000 for me. The barbarian army is not to be worried. Liu Houdao.

"Having said that, but the barbarian army has always been brave and good at fighting, and the southern and central areas, mostly mountains and forests are treacherous places, the most suitable for these barbarians to fight, our Han army is used to fighting in the plains, there is no way to do anything about the mountains, my son is alone in the depths, a careless, the consequences are unimaginable.

For the sake of safety, let's defend the city in Chengdu. Although there are not many defenders in Chengdu, they are better than the high walls of the city, and it is no problem to defend them for a few months. When the time comes, the crisis will be resolved. Liu Bei said.

"Father, please rest assured, Erchen's troops are the best at escaping, and Cao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry can't catch up with us. When the time comes, we will run away, believing that they will not be able to catch up with us. Liu Hou took out the escape theory again to convince people.

"Besides, we also have two artifacts, the musket and the thunderbolt, and we will be able to defeat those barbarians easily." Liu Hou swore that he was authentic.

In this way, the two of them went back and forth, persuaded each other a lot, and finally Liu Bei couldn't resist Liu Hou and agreed to let him lead the troops to the battle.

Liu Hou was ordered out of the palace and hurried back to the Ministry of Industry to prepare for the expedition. The reason why he took the initiative to fight for the opportunity to go out this time was not that his new Hong army had already been trained, on the contrary, because the training time was not long enough, so he had not been able to become an elite. He believes that the best way to quickly grow a unit is to fight in real combat.

He figured out the brutal actual combat, so that the troops grew up rapidly, and became his strong support. Although there were 10,000 people this time, because the training was insufficient, Liu Hou was not as confident as he was in front of Liu Bei.

Whether this army can become the elite of the top ten depends on the test of this expedition. After Liu Hou returned to the Ministry of Industry, he quickly organized the troops to set off. Due to the problem of the production of muskets, only about 5,000 people can be equipped at present, and the other 5,000 can only be used as cold weapons troops.

This time, Liu Hou tried his best to bring the good things that the Ministry of Industry had researched and produced in the past few years, and brought enough food, gunpowder, and ordnance. Due to too many materials and great pressure on logistics and transportation, Liu Hou recruited 20,000 people to serve as baggage soldiers. Of course, unlike the people in other countries, Liu Hou's people pay wages, so it should be said that it is more appropriate to hire 20,000 transport workers.