Chapter 64 Chapter 64 After this battle, he really changed...
Ji Yanlang had been thinking about this matter over and over again these days, but he had no one to discuss it with. Now that he had brought this up today, he decided to tell Fang Ying everything.
After listening to this, Fang Ying thoughtfully picked up the dice, threw them casually, and made a move according to the number thrown. Then he pointed at the chess piece and sighed, "In fact, ordinary people are no different from the chess pieces on this chessboard. We are all helpless. As long as we can live a stable life, I think it doesn't matter whether it is a Hu or a Han chess master."
Ji Yanlang frowned: "Then they should not help each other, instead of aiding and abetting the evil."
"Yes, so we can't just focus on how to fight. We must first investigate why the people of Youzhou are acting this way. Are they being deceived by the Hu people or have they misunderstood our dynasty..."
Ji Yanlang's eyes lit up. "Right! Why didn't I think of that? It must be the barbarians who are slandering our dynasty. With so little communication between the two sides these years, it's understandable that the people have been deceived and misunderstood."
Seeing his expression suddenly brighten, his gloom lifted, Fang Ying silently swallowed the last half of his words, "Perhaps there is something about the Hu court that is more convincing to the people of Youzhou than ours," and simply nodded and said, "Find a way to make them understand that their lives will be better if they join our dynasty. Perhaps we can defeat them without fighting."
"We have to fight. The Hu people will never give up easily." Ji Yanlang smiled with fighting spirit. "But as long as the people are on our side, we will have no problem driving these Tartars away."
Once he had an idea to solve the doubts that he had been unable to solve before, he became very excited and thought far ahead in an instant.
Seeing him suddenly lost in thought, Fang Ying guessed that he was probably thinking about who to report the matter to and how to report it. She didn't call him, but picked up the tea and drank it while looking at the scenery.
Ji Yanlang didn't think about it for long. When Fang Ying was about to finish her tea, he came to his senses and apologized, "I agreed to take you to cruise the Bian River, to relax for a day without thinking about anything, but in the end, you have to worry about me..."
Fang Ying put down her tea and interrupted him with a smile: "What's there to be sorry about? I'm so happy that you are willing to tell me this." "Really?" Ji Yanlang was a little surprised. He knew that Fang Ying didn't like to hear about the war.
"Yeah." Fang Ying nodded. "You told me all this and are willing to listen to my opinion. It's obvious that you don't treat me as an ignorant woman. I'm very happy."
This was what she really meant, so the smile on her face was very sincere. Ji Yanlang couldn't help but laugh as well, "Madam, you are so smart and have solved my doubts many times. You are truly a female Zhuge Liang. How dare Yanlang regard you as an ignorant woman?"
As he spoke, he bowed and feigned respect, looking quite frivolous. Fang Ying glanced at him sideways: "Stop it, are you still going to play chess?"
"Play, of course." Ji Yanlang picked up the dice and rolled them with a smile. He made a move according to the points and said seriously, "I'm serious. What you just said is beyond the imagination of many knowledgeable and accomplished men. Anyway, as your husband, I really admire you."
"I don't think it's necessarily that you can't think of it," Fang Ying took the dice he handed her, looked at him with a smile, and gently threw it, "but rather that you're unwilling or afraid to think about it too deeply."
Admitting that the Hu people were able to win the hearts of the people and govern them wisely would probably be very difficult, whether for a military general who was good at fighting or for a civil official who was dedicated to governing the country and benefiting the people.
"You're right." Ji Yanlang nodded, picked up the dice, thought for a moment, and then said, "But I really haven't thought about this place at all. We fought in Taiyuan, from south to north and from north to south. Everything we saw and heard along the way was that there were no people living and working in peace and contentment. In some places, it's not an exaggeration to say that there were starving people everywhere."
In his opinion, Northern Zhao was already like this, so how could the people of Youyan, who were struggling under the iron hoofs of the Hu people, still have a good life?
"We know too little about Youzhou." In fact, before Ji Yanlang said those words, Fang Ying could not imagine that the people of Youzhou would help the Hu people defend the city.
"Yes." Ji Yanlang sighed, "When I met the people of Northern Zhao, I naturally thought that the people of Youyan were the same. But I didn't know that in the eyes of the people of Youyan, they might think that we are the same as Northern Zhao..."
He couldn't bring himself to say the rest of the sentence. He paused, then changed the subject. "You know what? When I was leading the cavalry on patrol in Taiyuan City, I saw the tragic scene. Thinking back to the fight between you and General Wu when we were young, I felt quite ashamed. You were right. General Wu is the truly benevolent, righteous, wise, and brave general."
Fang Ying smiled and said, "Didn't we already discuss this matter?"
Ji Yanlang said, "I thought I had figured it out a long time ago, but when I saw with my own eyes the tragic situation of the people in the city being trapped for half a month with no food, and many freezing to death or starving to death because the Northern Zhao leader refused to surrender, I realized that my previous understanding was really superficial."
After this battle, he really changed a lot. Fang Ying's eyes fell on Ji Yanlang's face and looked at him carefully.
Ji Yanlang looked at her and said, "So I'm very curious. You were only eight years old back then. How did you figure out these truths that even adults might not understand?"
As far as Ji Yanlang knew, Fang Ying's family had never been to Fengzhou, let alone received any favor from General Wu. How could an eight-year-old girl understand this matter so clearly?
"How can I understand all this on my own? I just heard it from others." Fang Ying looked away, slightly absent-minded.
"Who do you want to listen to? My father-in-law?"
Fang Ying shook her head: "My father would never tell me this."
She tilted her head slightly, looking at the flowers and trees on the shore. "When my father went to Shuzhong to seek a career, I was born not long ago. He entrusted my mother and me to the care of the clan members. It was not until he had established a foothold in Yangzhou and his salary was enough to support his wife and children that he wrote home and asked my mother to take me with him to Yangzhou with the family of one of his close friends."
Ji Yanlang had never heard of this past event and was surprised for a moment: "How old were you then?"
"Five years old." This was an experience Fang Ying rarely recalled. She didn't want to talk about it. She took a sip of tea and tried to speak as simply and clearly as possible. "From Fang's hometown to Yangzhou, the journey isn't far, but we were unlucky. We arrived in Huxian County just as the rebellion in Jingzhao Prefecture in the Former Jin Dynasty began..."
"Jingzhao Prefecture rebellion? Which one? Wei Ruzhen?"
"Yes." Fang Ying nodded. "We want to enter Shu, and Huxian is a necessary place to pass through. So even though we heard that Wei Ruzhen rebelled in Chang'an, we didn't think it had anything to do with us."
Ji Yanlang interjected, "I vaguely remember Wei Ruzhen sending a letter to Shuzhong, seemingly wanting to arrange a joint uprising, but my grandfather ignored it. Although Huxian is located on the border between Jin and Shu, it's only a small place. Has it also been affected by this rebellion?"
He kept asking, and Fang Ying couldn't help but recall more details. "It was precisely because it was a small place that things went wrong. Wei Ruzhen didn't take Huxian seriously at all. He simply instructed the messenger delivering a letter to Shuzhong to inform the magistrate when passing through Huxian that this place would no longer belong to Jin and would only obey orders from Chang'an."
But the magistrate of Hu County refused to obey. Seeing that the envoy had few followers, he first served a table of good wine and food to calm these people down, and then arrested them all when they were half drunk.
"He won't kill all these people, right?" Ji Yanlang asked with a frown.
"They didn't kill them all. They kept the messenger and ordered him to be escorted to Bianliang with the letter addressed to Shuzhong."
Ji Yanlang: "...Can this be delivered?"
"Of course, we were stopped by Wei Ruzhen's men along the way." Fang Ying sighed softly. "Unfortunately, we were completely unaware of this. As soon as we entered Hu County, Wei Ruzhen sent several thousand soldiers and horses to surround the county."
Even though Fang Ying was sitting peacefully in front of him, Ji Yanlang couldn't help but feel worried and asked, "Did the fight break out? Did it not harm you and your group?"
Fang Ying said, "If a real fight had broken out, it would have been fine. Hu County doesn't have many soldiers and is vulnerable. We could have delayed them for two days at most and continued on to Shuzhong. Unfortunately, Wei Ruzhen had given orders beforehand, not to attack the city, but simply to surround it and shout, demanding that the Hu County magistrate take off his official uniform, let his hair down, and lead his officials out of the city to surrender."
"They're holding a grudge against the magistrate for what he did last time, and they're deliberately humiliating him." Ji Yanlang finished speaking, then remembered that the reason they were discussing Fang Ying's childhood was because of General Wu. His heart skipped a beat. "Could it be that the magistrate is refusing to surrender or commit suicide in apology, and is simply going to remain in a stalemate with the rebels?"
Fang Ying smiled sarcastically, "That's right. He saw that Wei Ruzhen couldn't accomplish anything great, so he killed two officials who wanted to surrender as a warning to others. Then he held on to the county town, stalling for time until Wei Ruzhen was defeated."
Ji Yanlang frowned. "Even if Wei Ruzhen couldn't succeed, it would be easy to capture the county town and kill the magistrate before the army was defeated. Does he think Wei Ruzhen would let him die after him?"
Fang Ying nodded and sighed, "Yes, that's why my father's close friend—I call him Uncle—said that this county magistrate has vision but no strategy, and is too obsessed with fame and profit. He thinks that if he can hold out until the Jin State suppresses the rebellion, he will be promoted for his unyielding spirit, but he doesn't consider whether he can live to see that time. Besides, even if Wei Ruzhen doesn't bother to kill him, how many days can a small county like Hu County withstand a siege?"
Huxian was originally a small county with barren land. It was only because it was located on the main road into Sichuan and there were merchants passing through that people's lives were not so difficult. Now the city is under siege and people cannot enter or leave. What should the people do?
There were constant wars in those days, so how could ordinary people have any surplus food?
"Is it your uncle who told you about General Wu?" Ji Yanlang asked.
"Yes. Three days into the siege, the inn we were staying in ran out of food. The grain store had some but refused to sell. The city was becoming increasingly chaotic. The magistrate, unable to contain the situation, forced the grain store to take out the grain and distributed porridge on the street. The porridge was so clear you could see the bottom. My mother was afraid I'd starve, so she only drank half a bowl of rice soup and gave me the rest... Even so, I was so hungry I couldn't sleep at night."
Ji Yanlang didn't expect that Fang Ying had really been hungry. When he saw her mention her deceased mother-in-law, his eyes reddened. He quickly stretched out his arm and held her hand on the table to comfort her.
Fang Ying exhaled, gathered her thoughts, and said, "It was at this time that my uncle told us about General Wu's love for the people."
In a small county town besieged by thousands of rebels, a hungry and terrified five-year-old child heard that in Fengzhou City, hundreds of miles away from them, there lived a general whose surname was Wu but who would not easily resort to force. No matter how the dynasties in the Central Plains and Shu changed or who gained the upper hand, he was not moved by fame or fortune, and was only concerned with protecting the people in the city from the ravages of war.
"My uncle said that Fengzhou is a strategic location, but General Wu has never used this as a bargaining chip. No matter which side surrenders, it is always on the condition that they do not disturb the people and do not impose heavy taxes. When I heard this, I thought, it would be great if the magistrate of Hu County was General Wu."
It would be great if all officials in the world were military generals.
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Author's words: Sorry for the long wait, I'm back to update (but I can't update daily for the time being...
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided nutrient solution between 2021-06-02 10:23:42 and 2021-07-04 19:44:21~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution: 10 bottles of Morning Color Tipsy;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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