Chapter 397 Blood Revenge

On the battlefield of Yuzhong, order was quickly restored as the Qiang coalition forces surrendered.

But the heavy food burden weighed on the shogunate.

Here are the old, weak, women, children and some young and strong Qiang people. The herds of animals they brought are not enough to sustain them through the winter.

More herds of animals were either slaughtered or driven away by the main force from the four counties of Hexi.

It took five days to complete the statistics of this group of Qiang people.

If we search through the young and strong men, those who are over 17 years old and under 45 years old can barely form a combined infantry and cavalry force of 35,000.

The rest of the population is mainly children. There are actually not many elderly people and few women of childbearing age.

There were no slaves among them. When the Qiang tribes formed an alliance, a ceremony was held to eliminate hatred, and the slaves who had attacked, killed and looted each other were released and became free men.

This population of women, children, the elderly and the weak numbers as high as 150,000.

This data far exceeded the shogunate's expectations and also exceeded the upper limit of battlefield reconnaissance.

After all, there were too many children, and more children could live and hide in the same tent.

Inside Yuzhong City, Black Bear sat listening to the music while flipping through account books with both hands, reviewing the data.

Beside him, Lu Bu was kneeling upright, fiddling with an abacus in each hand, calculating the food ration expenditure.

With such a primitive humanoid computer, Black Bear's workload was greatly reduced.

There are so many wonderful uses for puppets, which are yet to be discovered.

After he finished reading the two volumes of data, he stood up and went to look at the table in front of Lu Bu, who had stopped using the abacus. After looking at the data on the abacus, he took a pen and took the bamboo slips to record it.

Ma Chao in the hall was ashamed to raise his head. He really couldn't understand this phenomenon.

It is understandable that he is good at fighting and extremely brave, but it is hard to accept that Tai Shi Wen Gong is so proficient in paperwork and accounting work.

Ma Chao even felt that Tai Shi Wen Gong was too lazy to open his eyes or look at the abacus when he was using it, and was simply typing blindly.

So much so that Ma Chao was certain that Tai Shi Wen Gong must have a plan in mind.

Ma Chao has amazing intuition. If a puppet like Lu Bu is given an operating rule, he will naturally have mental arithmetic ability, but the data is difficult to output.

The dialing process of the abacus is the process of outputting data.

Black Bear showed the calculated data to Ma Chao, and said while sitting on the table in front of Ma Chao: "We miscalculated. The Qiang people were more decisive than we expected. They slaughtered the animals and dried the meat in early August to make vehicles and dry food. So their herds are much smaller than we expected, and their migration speed is faster than we estimated."

"This means that the main force of the Qiang people who migrated westward should have passed Dunhuang and entered deep into the Gobi Desert."

Black Bear couldn't help but sigh as he spoke: "I miscalculated. They almost left all the children to me."

Ma Chao held the bamboo slips in both hands and examined the data, and saw that there were nearly 90,000 children and teenagers.

At this moment, Ma Chao did not have much anger, but persuaded: "This may not be a bad thing. It seems that we have captured a lot of people, but how much can a child eat in a day? The burden of food this time is mainly these nearly 40,000 young and strong men."

"Well, we can barely get through this winter and last until mid-March."

Black Bear was still a little distressed: "Since I started the war, I have always been so short of money and skinny. Many babies have been born in Guanzhong since the beginning of autumn. When we plough the fields next spring, women will have to raise the babies. If they don't eat well, both mother and child may die."

Ma Chao did not feel any regret about this loss.

Then Black Bear said, "In order to encourage the people of Guanzhong to have children, I will issue a birth incentive law after returning to Guanzhong. For those who give birth to a baby, the corvée of the father and grandfather will be replaced by service in the county within three years. If the baby dies or is lost, the preferential treatment will be cancelled."

Ma Chao frowned and said, "Your Majesty, this is not conducive to the construction of the border counties."

Then Ma Chao felt that this was inappropriate. There was almost no significant border defense pressure on his side, so there was no need to gather manpower and material resources to strengthen the border defense.

Human and material resources can be mobilized nearby with the goal of increasing production efficiency.

He thought for a moment and said, "If this decree is implemented, if the prefectures and counties want to build large-scale projects or repair canals and roads in the future, I'm afraid there will be a shortage of corvée labor. If we hire labor, the cost will definitely be high."

"No problem, I have slaves." Black Bear said with a smile, and said to Ma Chao: "Now there is a proposal in the army, saying that it is not easy to gather a large army, why not attack Hanzhong nearby and eat the enemy. This can save 30,000 to 50,000 people's winter food consumption. What do you think, brother?"

Ma Chao felt something was not right, so he said, "The road to Hanzhong is difficult and if the expedition fails, it will only damage our prestige. We might as well send an envoy to persuade them, explain the benefits and the righteousness, and perhaps we can take Hanzhong without bloodshed. If we take Hanzhong, the Qin and Emperor Gaozu will be strong, and the whole world will be at peace."

"Let me think about it."

Black Bear promised to act in one fell swoop, so the troops should be mobilized as soon as possible.

At this time, Yang Fu, who was standing at the door, took a few steps forward and said, "Your Majesty."

Yang Fu glanced at Ma Chao as he spoke. Ma Chao also noticed Yang Fu's look and immediately became unhappy. He also stood up and said, "Your Majesty, I will take my leave."

"Well, take care, brother."

Black Bear took the bamboo slips recording the grain expenditure data from Ma Chao and sent Ma Chao to the porch.

Looking at Ma Chao's back as he walked away, Black Bear didn't think there was anything wrong. Just like Ma Chao's personality, if he walked slowly and carefully, he would be alert.

Yang Fu also noticed that Ma Chao was too confident from behind, and when he saw the black bear's gaze from the side, he suddenly felt worried about Jiang Jiong's future.

Yang Fu hid this worry in his heart. When he saw Ma Chao disappearing around the corner, he said, "Your Majesty, Han Wenyue has been arranged to stay in the side hall. When he came, he brought Song Jian's surrender letter."

"I am just a Grand Marshal, how can I tolerate this King of the River?"

Black Bear smiled and looked up at the slightly white sky in the afternoon: "Let Han Sui wait a little longer."

"Here."

Yang Fu looked puzzled, but still bowed deeply.

The black bear also turned his head to look at Yang Fu. Yang Fu then took a few steps back, turned around and left to find Han Sui.

After Yang Fu walked away, Black Bear turned his head and looked at a personal soldier holding a halberd: "Go find my brother, I'll give him a moment."

The guards were stunned, but they still clasped their fists and said, "Yes!"

He immediately placed the halberd on the porch, adjusted the sword at his waist, and then walked quickly with his left hand on the sword.

Seeing his reserved look, Black Bear laughed and said, "Big steps! Faster!"

Immediately, the soldier stopped walking and ran quickly. The soldiers guarding the gate did not try to stop him.

The soldiers on the follow-up sentry posts did not see any unusual movements, so they did not stop them.

When the personal soldier caught up with Ma Chao who was about to mount his horse, Black Bear climbed up the ladder and stood on the roof.

Compared with Ma Chao's blood revenge, Black Bear cares more about the actions of his personal soldiers everywhere.

Although his personal guards did not set up guard posts every five steps, all passages were under surveillance.

So theoretically speaking, if a guard was running abnormally fast and no one stopped him, the other guards would just be confused and would not stop him.

Of course, the trigger condition is to run outward from oneself, not from outside to inside.

It is almost the end of the year, and it is time to select a new batch of personal soldiers.

As Black Bear was thinking, he saw the personal soldier leading the way, and Ma Chao led a dozen guards and marched forward, bypassing several sentries and gatekeepers, and went straight into the side courtyard.

As expected, Ma Chao, wearing armor and holding a sword, rushed in alone, while Han Sui and his twenty or so entourage were not wearing any armor to protect themselves.

Ma Chao killed several guards and chased Han Sui into the house. Soon he came out holding Han Sui's head.

While the black bear was observing, Yang Fu also followed the ladder to the roof about seven or eight steps away, bowed with his hands clasped, pursed his lips and said nothing.

Who in the eastern part of Liangzhou doesn't hate Han Sui?

(End of this chapter)