Although Gao Ding now has both conditions, he does not dare to continue to go south and stretch out his hand to Linyi State, the reason is very simple, Linyi State is also an independent regime, and the army is strong.

Gao Ding's troops had fought 30,000 of them before, and the result of a disastrous victory was evident, since that battle, more than half of his troops have been damaged, and they have not yet recovered, and they can no longer withstand a tough battle like that.

But he didn't dare to fight the idea of Lin Yi Kingdom, he still had other methods, and there were many Yi tribes around here! Gao Ding went all the way south along the east coast of the Indochina Peninsula to the south, he walked out of a narrow strip of land, and the later generations of Annam also relied on a narrow strip of land on the east coast, and there was a vast world in the west of this narrow strip.

However, this vast world is not easy to access, and there are also large and small kingdoms scattered here, such as Chenla (in present-day Cambodia), Luchenla (in present-day Laos), Funan (about present-day Cambodia and the southern part of Laos, southern Vietnam, and southeastern Thailand), Siam (Thailand), etc.

Although these countries are small, Gao Ding does not dare to touch them, first, these countries have strong armies, and second, westward into the middle of the Indochina Peninsula, the environment is even more sinister. The rainforest there is unbearable even for the well-equipped Western troops and devil troops in later generations, and with the current level of equipment and technology, venturing into the rainforest is no different from looking for death.

However, there was still a blank space between Annam and these countries, during which many Yi tribes were scattered. It was the idea of these tribes that Gao Ding fought.

These tribes are small in number and do not have too strong combat power, and it will not take too much effort to deal with them. The point is that they do not have much contact with those countries, and dealing with them will not touch the nerves of those countries. As for the sinister environment, Gaoding also has a way to deal with it, that is, to raze it.

He selected some of the best men from among the Yi people to form an army, and gave them a good reward to deal with the tribes. At this time, even if it is a Han people, not many people may have a concept of nation and country, not to mention these uncivilized Yi people, under the heavy reward, many Yi captives are willing to do this kind of mutilation of their compatriots.

Accustomed to fighting in the rainforest, this is their home turf for them, and for the Han Chinese, these hostile conditions do not pose any obstacles to them.

Taking a step back, even if they die too much because of the harsh environment, it has nothing to do with Gao Ding, they are not Han Chinese, and their death has no pressure on Gao Ding. This trick is indeed very effective, Gao Ding does not need to send a single soldier, he can get a large number of Yi prisoners.

His logging business was relaunched, and although there were not many Yi people captured from each tribe, the small amount added up, and as more and more tribes were defeated, he captured more and more Yi people.

Slowly, he re-assembled a logging brigade of tens of thousands of people and started the timber business again. At the same time, he also provided many slaves to Fei Yi, who used these captives to continue to cultivate grain in various places and expand the supply of military food.

is still the same sentence: "The good times don't last long", just when Gao Ding wanted to expand the results, the epidemic still inevitably happened. A plague quickly swept through the southern county, and the plague was menacing, first with some civilians being infected, and finally, with cases even in the army, which was supposed to be taking strict precautions.

Liu Hou once formulated a very strict sanitary discipline for the army, especially when he entered the Nanzhong region and conquered the Nanban, the troops did a good job of mosquito prevention measures, so as to avoid a large number of non-combat attrition of the troops.

However, most of Gaoding's troops were captured from Eastern Wu, and many of them did not have the good habits of the original Shu army, and Liu Hou did not accompany the army, and there was no strong figure to supervise the implementation of various health measures, so the sanitary discipline of this southern expedition team gradually relaxed.

Especially after the war with Linyi, they stayed in Ninan County to recuperate, due to the emergence of a large number of wounded, a large number of medical resources were tilted to treat the wounded, the usual manpower and material resources for prevention became less, and the epidemic prevention measures were more lax, and finally the ubiquitous mosquitoes took advantage of the loopholes, and the epidemic also quietly became epidemic among the troops.

At first, Gao Ding thought that this epidemic was nothing more than malaria, and did not pay attention to it, because they had already mastered the treatment of malaria and could easily cope with it. However, they soon discovered that the plague, although it also had a high fever, was very different from the symptoms of malaria.

Malaria is a fever that lasts for a period of time and then goes away for a while, but this disease is a persistent fever, and the patient will have redness in many parts of the body, rashes, and pain here and there, which are all symptoms that malaria does not have.

This is obviously not malaria, but a strange disease that has never been seen, and later with the military doctor, after asking the locals, only to know that this disease is called "three three diseases", and that "swing disease" (malaria) are common diseases in the local area.

Doctors tried their best, but they could only slightly improve the symptoms, but could not change the course of the disease. This disease has its own natural occurrence and development laws and processes. As the joke goes, if you don't see a doctor, you can get better for a cold, but if you go to the doctor, you can get better in a week.

It's the same with this disease, if you stay up for enough time, you will naturally get better, of course, if you can't survive it, you will die. Fortunately, the mortality rate of this disease is not high. Most people have a common type of illness, and the symptoms are relatively mild, and they can basically survive it. However, there are also a small number of people who are seriously ill, and the mortality rate of severe patients will be much higher.

Severe patients are also called dengue out ~ blood fever, these seriously ill patients are generally children, the elderly, and the infirm. They were ultimately defeated in the fight against the virus, and as a result, they lost their lives.

Xu Jing is one of these losers, he is very old, and after coming to Rinan County, he worked a lot, but he couldn't afford to get sick, and soon died.

The army is full of strong men, and the resistance is relatively high, because the number of deaths from this plague is not large, but this plague still affects Gaoding's journey.

When the plague occurred, the people would naturally be in turmoil, but Xu Jing, the civil affairs chief of Ninan County, also contracted the disease and died. With his death, Nichinan-gun fell into a leaderless situation, and the officials below could be said to be six gods without masters, unable to effectively organize disaster relief and peace of affairs work, in this case, it is easy to have big problems.

Fortunately, Gao Ding's army was there, and at this juncture, Gao Ding had to mobilize the army to maintain order until the new civil affairs officer took office. In addition, although few soldiers died of illness, many of them fell ill, and those who fell ill had high fever and muscle and joint pain, and obviously lost their combat capability.

Under these circumstances, Gao Ding and his southern expeditionary army could only change from an offensive posture to a defensive posture, not only to prevent the emergence of a popular uprising, but also to prevent unfriendly countries such as Linyi from taking the opportunity to fish in troubled waters.