Daily Life In Qin Dynasty

  Chapter 271 The Huns (two chapters in one)

   "Isn't the food delivered yet?"

   "Return to the general, not yet. There is a word from the imperial court that the grain collection this year is not going well because of the snow disaster last year, and the army's grain may take some time to arrive."

   "The grain requisition is not going well... Heh!"

  In the main tent of the Zhao Guojun camp, Li Mu listened to the report of the quartermaster under his command, and sneered slightly with a bit of sarcasm from the corner of his mouth.

Taking advantage of the aftermath of last year's heavy snow disaster, Qin State gave Zhao State a difficult problem of "choosing one or the other" during this year's autumn harvest. More absurd than they imagined.

  Because Zhao Guo didn't choose any of them.

   This year's autumn harvest, Zhao Guo neither used it to support the army, nor used it to restore the vitality of the people at the bottom.

Even though the country is in crisis now, the high-ranking officials and nobles in the Zhao Kingdom still maintain their original style of painting. They collected a large amount of food from the bottom in the name of "collecting military food", but did not send it to the front line immediately. Instead of supporting the army, they retained it by themselves, and withheld some of it privately for pleasure and to satisfy their own desires.

  The other part was deliberately withheld by some people in Zhao Guochao Hall and used to beat Li Mu.

right.

   You heard me right.

   is used to beat Li Mu.

   These words may sound a little funny, after all, they are desperately defending the Qin State’s iron cavalry on the front line, and the person guarding Zhao State is Li Mu.

   But this is reality.

  Although Li Mu is dedicated to serving the country and has made numerous achievements, when most people think of Li Mu in the court of Zhao State, the first thing that comes to mind is not how much he has done for Zhao State, but his "great achievements".

  Even the current king of Zhao, after the start of this war, the first question he thinks about is not how powerful their opponent Qin is, but how he should deal with Li Mu if this war wins again.

  Li Mu now has too much military power in Zhao State, even to the point where King Zhao can hardly sleep or eat.

   So when this autumn harvest comes.

  In the whole court of Zhao Kingdom, most of the courtiers, including King Zhao, almost unanimously temporarily withheld the front-line military rations. The purpose was to beat Li Mu and restrain Li Mu's military power by the way.

  What these people want to express is simple:

  Although you, Li Mu, now command hundreds of thousands of troops, without our support, you and your hundreds of thousands of troops will starve to death in minutes.

  Li Mu has been a soldier all his life. Although he is not very good at this kind of power struggle, after all, he has been in court for so many years, and he can still see this simple truth.

   And because of this.

  At this moment, even Li Mu himself didn't know how to describe his mood at the moment.

   "Go down first!"

  Li Mu rubbed the space between his brows, and waved his hands to make the quartermaster retreat first.

As Lord Wu'an of Zhao State, Li Mu never cried out that he was tired even when facing the 400,000 Qin army with sharp armor and fierce generals, but this wave of backstabs from a group of "pig teammates" behind him made him feel tired. For the first time, Li Mu felt a trace of indescribable tiredness.

   This is the first time that Li Mu feels a little envious of Qin Guo who is opposite him.

  He is not envious of Qin's current abundance of food and grass. In fact, although Qin is now abundant in food and grass, in terms of overall national strength, Zhao State does not lose much to Qin State.

  At least in terms of the current war, in terms of logistics, Zhao State is no different from Qin State.

  This is the accumulation of past heritage.

  Zhao State is located in the Central Plains, and its geographical advantage is much better than that of the former Qin State. On the other hand, Qin State migrated from the barbarian land to the Central Plains.

  Until the arrival of Lord Mo, Qin State was also known as "the strongest of the Seven Kingdoms", but at that time, Qin State was more like an empty shell with a strong outside but a strong inside.

  Actually, in terms of background, there is always a big gap between Qin State, Zhao State, and Chu State.

   That is to say, in recent years, a "Shengping Lord" suddenly appeared in Qin State, which led to the rapid growth of Qin State's various basic national strengths, which gave Qin State a real potential for a "hegemony".

  However, although Zhao Guo has a strong foundation, these foundations cannot be used for front-line warfare, because these "history" of Zhao Kingdom have long been occupied by the major nobles and are regarded as their own.

   Unusable 'reality' means no.

   On the other hand, Qin State, although it is an emerging powerful country, the whole country has almost no other background except for the "burst of wealth" brought by the appearance of Mo Jun.

  But Qin State can use all the power of the entire country on the war, and all the drag from the rear will either be suppressed or massacred.

   Investigate the fundamentals.

  It is because the state of Qin now has two people, King Qin Yingzheng and King Shengping Mojun.

   These two are too young, and because they are young, they are ambitious and courageous.

   Even this war alone.

  In the past, King Yingzheng of Qin led the conquest, and later, Lord Shengping and Mo Jun went to the front line without fear of hardships and dangers.

  With these two people taking turns to sit in command, how could the soldiers of Qin State not be brave? With these two people sitting on the front line, who would dare to do some **** in the rear of Qin State?

   This kind of "God Teammate" is what Li Mu really envies.

   "Report to the general, an urgent letter from the border."

  Just as Li Mu was lamenting that his old opponent, Meng Ao, had a group of good teammates to assist him, suddenly, a scout rushed out of the tent and reported loudly.

  Li Mu was startled when he heard the words: "Border border? Submit it."

   The scout hurried into the tent, held a scroll in both hands and handed it to Li Mu. Li Mu opened the scroll and only glanced at it, and his expression changed immediately.

   "These wolf cubs really know how to choose the time."

  Li Mu's expression fluctuated. This sudden and urgent letter came from the northern land of Zhao State. Zhao State's northern land has always been bordered by the vast grassland, and on that grassland, there has always been a group of enemies from the Central Plains.

  —Huns.

The living place of the Xiongnu is extremely dangerous, but the vast grassland is extremely suitable for the survival of cattle and sheep. The dangerous environment makes the survival rate of the Xiongnu people extremely low, but the sufficient beef and mutton bring those who survived. Huns, an extremely strong body.

  Tough, cruel, cold-blooded, barbaric... These are the adjectives that the Central Plains people put on the Huns.

Therefore.

  The Xiongnu has another name in the mouths of the countries in the Central Plains—the Wolf Clan.

   means: a ferocious, cunning, and savage alien like a wolf.

   All the time.

   These Huns on the grassland are trying to capture the Central Plains and rob the Central Plains.

  But it has been repeatedly defeated.

  There are many reasons. One is that although the Huns have a strong body, they do not have a smart mind. The dangerous environment on the grasslands makes it impossible for the Huns to develop their civilization steadily.

  So the Xiongnu’s army does not have sophisticated weapons and armor like the countries in the Central Plains. Many times on the battlefield, the Xiongnu’s weapons are even in the bone and stone age.

  The second is because of Li Mu.

   Li Mu is the border general of Zhao State, and Zhao State's geographical location is the first pass for the wolf clan to attack the Central Plains, so Li Mu and Zhao State's army have extremely rich experience in fighting the Xiongnu.

  Li Mu was known as "Wu An Jun" in Zhao State.

   In the Seven Kingdoms Army, he is known as the "God of the Army".

   In the mouth of the wolves, they are called "wolf hunters".

   With the power of one person, one hundred thousand wolves dare not step through the Yanmen Pass. This is Li Mu's deterrent power to the Xiongnu.

  Because of the existence of Li Mu, the Huns on the grassland have not set foot in the Central Plains for a long time, but perhaps because of the heavy snowstorm last year, the cattle and sheep on the grassland suffered heavy losses.

  So in order to survive, the Central Plains had just harvested autumn this year, and the Huns on the grassland suddenly sent troops to attack the border of Zhao State.

   Not so long ago.

  The Xiongnu divided up their troops by 100,000. They not only attacked the border of Zhao State, but also took the opportunity to burn, kill and loot the villages and towns along the border of Zhao State.

   Not only took away the autumn harvest food of many people, but also killed a large number of men in the Central Plains, and forcibly robbed a group of women to return to the grassland.

  In fact, Zhao's army was originally defending, and the Xiongnu had no chance to break through the defense and attack the Zhongyuan people on the border of Zhao.

  But because of the excessive pressure caused by the Qin army on this battlefield, Zhao Guo had urgently dispatched a group of troops from the north to help this battlefield when the war started.

   It is precisely because of this that the defense of the northern border of Zhao State was vacant, which happened to be a big loophole for the Xiongnu.

  Now the north of Zhao State is threatened by the Huns, and the local people are in deep danger.

  However, the frontline battlefield was threatened by the Qin army, and Li Mu couldn't escape at all.

   It can be said that there are tigers in front and wolves in back.

   One time.

  Even Li Mu couldn't help hesitating.

   At this moment.

  A scout came again outside the account, and this scout also sent an urgent letter, but this urgent letter did not come from the border, but from Zhao Guochaotang.

  【The border is critical, send troops to help quickly】

  The urgent letter from the imperial court once again gave Li Mu a 'reminder'. This urgent letter is very interesting because it is a letter, not an edict.

in other words.

  The meaning of this secret letter is to let Li Mu send troops to solve the problem of the Huns in the North without giving up the Qin-Zhao battlefield.

  If something goes wrong on any of these two battlefields, then the blame will fall on Li Mu, and it has nothing to do with King Zhao.

  Because King Zhao only asked Li Mu to send troops to the northern border, but he did not issue an edict to let him abandon the frontline battlefield.

   It's about this time.

   Zhao Guo’s court still wants to cheat Li Mu secretly, so one can imagine Li Mu’s current situation in Zhao Guo.

  Li Mu held the letter in his hand, his eyes were extremely tangled.

  This urgent letter from the imperial court made Li Mu feel a bit chilled, but it still couldn't make him lose his judgment. After all, Li Mu has experienced too much in this kind of situation these years.

  Nowadays, Li Mu no longer cares about any rights. What really makes him unable to let go is actually the Zhao country that he has guarded all his life, not the group of people in the court.

   Li Mu couldn't let go of Zhao Guo, which he had guarded all his life, and fell into the hands of Qin State.

   But in the same way, he couldn't just watch the people of his country let the Huns bully them in the border area.

   Li Mu closed his eyes and pondered for a long time.

   After a while.

  I saw him slowly open his eyes, then took out a brush and a roll of bamboo slips, wrote a letter, and handed it to the scout: "Send an envoy to deliver this letter to the commander of the Qin army on the opposite side."

"Um?"

  When Li Mu said this, the scout was obviously taken aback.

  But then he responded decisively: "Yes, this subordinate obeys."

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   Half an hour later.

  Tongxu City.

  Meng Ao and Wang Jian summoned a group of generals, looked at the letter in their hands that had just been sent by the envoy of Zhao, and couldn't help falling into silence.

  After a long time, the coach Wang Jian was the first to speak: "What do you guys think of this 'Letter of Waiver of War' sent by the enemy?"

   Meng Ao answered, "Is the news reliable?"

   What Meng Ao asked about was the news that the 100,000 wolves attacked the border of Zhao State, which was recorded in this 'War Free Letter'.

  Li Mu didn't use any so-called tricks and plans. The 'War Free Letter' he sent just stated all the facts, and then asked the two sides to temporarily cease fighting.

   Li Mu's move is aboveboard, almost directly exposing all the crises and weaknesses he is facing now to the eyes of Wang Jian and others.

  As long as Li Mu encountered some opponents who didn't care about martial arts in this battle, just relying on this 'Letter of Exemption from War' may directly lead him to a place of eternal doom.

   "Our spies have already received relevant information before, and we can basically confirm that the content recorded in this 'War Free Letter' is correct." Wang Jian said.

  Meng Ao heard the words, after a moment of silence, he said slowly: "If that's the case, then this old man thinks that this battle...can't be fought."

   "General Meng, think twice!"

  As soon as Meng Ao finished speaking, he heard someone's face change in surprise, and hurriedly said: "War is not a child's play. If this is true, then it will be the best time for our army to attack."

"Once Li Mu supports the northern border, the Zhao-Wei coalition army without Li Mu in charge will be equivalent to a group of stragglers without a commander. We can take down the enemy army at the lowest cost, and if we handle it properly, it may come this winter." Before that, we could end this war early."

"Yes! General Meng, please think about it more. War is to defeat the enemy by any means. Although it is a bit despicable to take advantage of others' danger, it is not a means of attack. Besides, it is not our crime to attack the Huns. It's God's will."

  Some people are opposing Meng Ao's views.

   Naturally, some people agree with Meng Ao's decision.

"The last general has a different view. War is not only about fighting for territory and resources, but more importantly, fighting for the hearts and minds of the people. The so-called being famous, if we use such despicable means to win the war, the enemy may not necessarily convince us. "

"What General Zhang said is very true, and the last general also has the same opinion. We already have a great advantage in this battle, and there is absolutely no need to take such unnecessary actions. If we can win this battle with a more open and honest method, Wouldn't it be able to further demonstrate the national prestige of our Great Qin?"

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  (end of this chapter)