Chapter 82

Chapter 82

Can a strategist not ascend the throne? Volume 3: Galloping Through Bingzhou, Troops Depart from Hedong Chapter 82: Killing Hu to Redeem Death

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Can a strategist not ascend the throne?

Chapter 82: Killing Hu to Redeem Death

The drawbacks of the merit system, Qiao Yan herself is not unaware of, so the refinement of various details still needs to be balanced through the situations faced in subsequent battles.

Take an extreme example, like Dian Wei killing enemies on the battlefield a few days ago. If rewards were calculated based on the casualties caused in a war, it would inevitably lead to an imbalance in civil and military salaries.

But obviously, the drawbacks Guo Jia is talking about now are not of this kind, otherwise, he wouldn’t have the need to come and “pick a fight.”

Even the fact that he would say such things is a sign of his high regard for Qiao Yan.

In this situation, his first advice is particularly important, as it essentially establishes his position within this power faction.

Qiao Yan replied, “Follow me.”

Such words are obviously not meant to be said in public.

Guo Jia followed her into the main tent, and they took their seats.

Qiao Yan did not ask how he knew about the implementation of the merit system—if it wasn’t Xi Zhicai who told him, there’s no other possibility.

But at this moment, this timely disclosure cannot be considered a leak, but rather a push in the right direction, at least now Guo Jia is sitting in front of her.

After she opened the conversation with “I’d like to hear the details,” Guo Jia asked, “Using captives to replace heads is to preserve their lives and expand the population of Leping. This idea is indeed good. With the conditions of peace in Leping and rewards in war, it’s not difficult to make them switch sides. But may I ask, Marquis Qiao, how do you plan to restrain or deal with these captives?”

“Or rather, how will Marquis Qiao ensure that they won’t switch to your side today and someone else’s tomorrow? After all, when they joined your ranks, they were soldiers with military merits, and once accepted by you, they became one of your own.”

Unless Qiao Yan can always maintain sufficient superior conditions.

But this sentence, easy to say, is not so easy to do.

Like the situation she previously thought of, where Cao Cao recruited the Qingzhou army.

After his defeat at Wancheng, the lax discipline of these Qingzhou troops, even turning to evil and plundering, would become a knife pointed at themselves.

As Guo Jia said, if no restrictions or preliminary punishments are imposed, today they are captured, and tomorrow they can take up arms, kill enemies, and receive thirty stones of grain for their military merits.

It seems like the population is expanding like a snowball, but in reality?

Qiao Yan tapped the table with her fingertips, deep in thought, as Guo Jia continued, “Not everyone is like the Black Mountain Bandits, who have been under your command for three years. Three years of sharing weal and woe, enjoying harvests together, moral education, and various other factors have made them shed their identity as bandits and consider themselves people of Leping.”

“Even as I’ve heard, they didn’t enjoy the current treatment from the start, but first worked as prisoners, gradually earning wages, then obtaining Leping household registration, and now benefiting from the merit system.”

This is a gradual process.

But the premise of this gradual process is having such a slowly developing environment.

With the Han dynasty’s authority still holding and Bingzhou not yet plunged into chaos by foreign tribes, this can be done, but what about later?

A rather thoughtless approach would be to let these people go through the same process as the Black Mountain Bandits, starting as the lowest-level farming soldiers, undergoing a process of assimilation and education, but in most cases, only four words can describe it—

Time waits for no one.

Soldiers who have experienced actual combat on the battlefield often have a clearer understanding of the battlefield and are more lethal than ordinary people.

So, in situations where combat power is extremely lacking, there’s no condition to engage in any three-year training programs, but at most, they can be divided and scattered, then directly sent to the next battlefield.

As for dividing soldiers into different grades, with surrendered soldiers at the lowest level and gradually promoting them, this might be a feasible method for a while, but there are still significant hidden dangers.

The chain of contempt within the army, especially between original soldiers and surrendered soldiers, must not form!

Once this precedent is set, it’s easy for bullying behaviors to arise, causing cracks within the army.

These cracks, at their smallest, are just minor issues in cooperation, but at their largest, they are the beginning of the enemy exploiting our internal conflicts.

Therefore, Qiao Yan calmly and resolutely replied, “The merit system cannot be implemented only for a part of the people.”

In the face of the above drawbacks, this is a bottom line that must be strictly enforced and never compromised.

“Indeed, this is inevitable,” Guo Jia replied, “But taking this as an example, Marquis Qiao is determined to capture the White Wave Bandits, hence the previous three battles that didn’t achieve full success. But if Marquis Qiao captures the White Wave Bandits and turns them into soldiers, directly bringing them under your command, then—”

“Then, judging in a way that doesn’t shy away from thinking the worst of people, I’m afraid bandits will no longer fear opposing Marquis Qiao in the future, because once defeated, they only need to surrender! Not only can they avoid being beheaded, but they can also enjoy the excellent treatment of Leping soldiers, with thirty stones of grain for each head.”

“I’m not here to scare you.”

What he said is also correct.

Why were acts of killing captives and massacring cities so common among warlords in the late Han dynasty? On one hand, it was naturally due to food shortages, unable to support so many people, but on the other hand, it was also a form of intimidation.

Standing on their opposing side, one might receive the treatment of amnesty, or they might directly become a symbol of being killed to warn the enemy.

But just as Qiao Yan believes that the implementation of the merit system and its supplementary regulations must be a bottom line to adhere to, the acts of massacring cities and exterminating clans…

Even though she realized she had traveled to such an era and, from the moment she started striving for the position of Marquis of Leping, was more determined than any future warlord to first grasp enough initiative, and perhaps even have the ambition to compete for the world, she always believed in never massacring cities or burying captives alive.

This is another bottom line.

After pondering for a moment, she asked, “So, in Fengxiao’s opinion, what method should be used to restrain these captives?”

She said restrain, not deal with, making it easy for Guo Jia to discern her inclination in these words.

But this is obviously not a hesitant move driven by benevolence, otherwise, Guo Jia wouldn’t have seen in her letter to Xi Zhicai her arrangements for Zhao Yun’s actions, nor would there have been the decisive extermination in the river valley battle when she initially saved him and Mi Zhu.

Killing as a form of intimidation is clearly not something Qiao Yan considers unfeasible.

And with the situation as it is, times have changed.

Now she just wants a bit more population, what’s the problem with that?

Guo Jia, while traveling to Pingzhou, was relaxing and enjoying the scenery…








Jing Xingjiu’s reputation, actually riding on horseback, had already thought through what he wanted to say in the form of a mental draft.

At this moment, hearing that Qiao Yan only wanted to hear further suggestions rather than reject his ideas, Guo Jia breathed a sigh of relief first.

He looked at Qiao Yan at the head, becoming more composed as he continued, “Threshold.”

Using a threshold to control captives.

“Once those who surrender are recruited by the lord, if the reward system for military merits must be based on the first merit, then Lord Qiao should also set an appropriate recruitment threshold, rather than blindly incorporating captured soldiers into her own ranks.”

When Guo Jia was led into the Pingzhou camp, he saw the captives taken from the previous mountain division battle.

Seeing that these people were not heavily guarded, it was not difficult for Guo Jia to guess that some of them, who still seemed brave, might have already been selected by Qiao Yan to join her own team.

This was precisely to reassure these people, indicating that she did not intend to execute them as ordinary bandits.

However, in Guo Jia’s view, because it could not give other bandits the idea of “why not try, if we lose we can still surrender,” her approach was not entirely appropriate.

At the very least, an additional measure was needed.

He continued, “This might also be phrased differently, not calling it a threshold, but rather, if there is a reward for the first merit, there should also be a penalty for redeeming death. However, the Han Dynasty’s rules for redeeming death are based on gold, silver, and cloth. Lord Qiao should adopt a different approach.”

“Let’s hear it.” The mention of redeeming death piqued Qiao Yan’s interest.

Guo Jia’s tone suddenly became heavier, “Three days ago, Guyang County in Yunzhong was breached, the city was slaughtered, and all the wealth was looted. Before I left Leping, Mr. Zhongde had just received this report, probably because Lord Qiao was focused on eliminating the White Wave bandits first, and the Bingzhou Governor’s office sent the message to Leping first. He also entrusted me to bring this news to Lord Qiao.”

“There were no survivors in the Guyang incident, but with Lord Qiao’s intelligence, you would surely guess who did this.”

Hearing this news suddenly, Qiao Yan was startled, suppressing the shock in her eyes, only subconsciously clenching her fist.

Guyang…

During her three years in Leping, she had almost daily studied the map of Bingzhou, and it would not be an exaggeration to say she knew it by heart.

She would never forget where Guyang was.

In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the regional division of Bingzhou at the border was quite peculiar.

The northernmost boundary of Xihe Commandery was not far from the territory outside the Han Dynasty, but it was sandwiched by parts of Wuyuan and Yunzhong Commanderies, with Guyang right on this line.

In other words, Guyang was sandwiched between the assimilated Southern Xiongnu and the foreign Northern Xiongnu.

But the Northern Xiongnu were gradually moving westward, and north of Guyang was a tribe of the Xiongnu, namely the Xiutu.

The positions of Yanmen Prefect Guo Yun and Military Officer Zhang Liao, in the areas of Yunzhong, Dingxiang, and the northern border of Yanmen, were to prevent the Xianbei, after re-establishing their leader, from invading the border to assert their authority.

In this situation, it gave the Xiutu Hu an opportunity.

After Qiao Yan solemnly uttered these four words, she received a positive response from Guo Jia.

Guo Jia replied, “It is indeed the Xiutu Hu, but because the county people in Guyang City were killed, the enemy came at night and left at dawn, leaving no evidence. And precisely because the current border guards of Bingzhou do not have the capability to dispatch a sufficiently significant force to pursue those traces, to avenge this blood with blood!”

“If I were Lord Qiao, once the White Wave bandits are captured, why not drive them north, using the White Wave bandits as the vanguard, and the Black Mountain Army as the rear, with those who can kill joining the ranks, judged by the first merit system, and those who are killed dying, as a punishment for their banditry.”

“Today like this, tomorrow also like this. Lord Qiao residing at the border of Bingzhou, isn’t this the most suitable place for redeeming death!”

His words undoubtedly made Qiao Yan think of some people, precisely those who had survived the debate with Zhang Jiao during the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

Some of these people were sent to the camp under the Du Liao General, and some were sent to Youzhou, which was also a form of redeeming death.

Qiao Yan had originally planned to see what kind of situation Liang Zhongning was in now, but first with the difficult developments in Leping, and then the shocking locust plague in July, after ending her house arrest, she naturally chose to deal with the White Wave bandits first, temporarily forgetting about this matter.

But now was not the time to worry about these people, she withdrew her thoughts, focusing on the suggestion Guo Jia had proposed.

Those who kill join the ranks, those who are killed die.

This is indeed a threshold for screening people.

With such a screening, it undoubtedly makes people value the result of joining her ranks even more.

But…

“What if the White Wave bandits driven to the front lines turn to ally with the Qiang Hu? Or not limited to this time, if in the future this path is taken, but it boosts the morale of the border Hu people, what should be done?”

The White Wave and Xiongnu joining forces to cause trouble, this was something that had happened in history, even in the near future.

But Guo Jia seemed somewhat puzzled as he looked at Qiao Yan, saying, “Lord Qiao, this is precisely the least worrying thing. You just have to always be stronger than the Xiongnu and Xianbei outside the border, isn’t that right?”

Qiao Yan was shocked.

She suddenly realized that this was not just because Guo Jia was young and daring to think, hence proposing such a statement.

In the face of the reality of “those who offend our strong Han, no matter how far, must be punished,” repeatedly attacking the Xiongnu, if it were not for the Xiongnu tentatively resisting conscription and killing the Bingzhou Governor in the fifth year of Zhongping, they might not even know that the Han Dynasty could not make any effective counterattack, leading them to turn the entire northern border of Bingzhou into a paradise for foreign races to gallop.

If it were not for the White Wave bandits negotiating and allying with them, they might not even know that the people within the Han territory could still be their own people in such circumstances.

Now, there is not yet the chaos of the Five Barbarians, plunging the Central Plains into complete moral collapse.

Therefore, Guo Jia could openly say such things as always being stronger than the Hu people outside the border.

The captives in Qiao Yan’s hands could also face such a choice—

Continue to be her enemy, or choose a slightly simpler path, participate in border battles, and exchange merits in killing Hu for the opportunity to be included in the Leping first merit system.

There is a comparison of difficulty and ease here.

The Xiongnu’s tendency to forget past defeats, originally seen by Xi Zhicai as a regular expenditure on rewarding military merits, could potentially become a key link in a chain of replenishing troops due to Guo Jia’s suggestion.

If Guo Jia had not pointed this out with the mindset of someone from this era, Qiao Yan might have almost walked into a misunderstanding.

His advice was indeed crucial!