Chapter 524 - Sima Yi"s Struggle (1)
Early June, 201 AD.
Traveled from You Province of Sima Clan, Sima Yi, Sima Lang, Sima Fu, 50,000 policemen, and 100,000 mercenaries arrived at Xu Province, where Cao Cao used to reside.
Sima Lang was Sima Yi"s elder brother while Sima Fu was Sima Yi"s younger brother These three brothers were the only ones who had the influence in Ji and Beiping Commandery. They secretly trained 100,000 men and disguised them as mercenaries to keep the royal clan in check by the order of Sima Fang.
The Sima household had this privilege since Tong had authorized them to do so since the beginning of their services, compensating for Tong"s past offense of killing Sima Xin.
However, this army became Sima Yi"s a.s.sets after Sima Fang"s pa.s.sing, which threatened Dong Bai and her authority.
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As ordered Sima Yi lead his family and his clansmen to occupy Cao Cao"s headquarters, so they could secure a major agriculture region for the next harvest season in July. Then, the vanguard troops in Lujiang wouldn"t have to worry about their provision.
But when Sima Yi found out that the cities" treasuries left them with nothing, he could only grumble and ask Dong Bai to send him more supplies.
Sima Yi: "Cao Cao left nothing in Xu. I need gold and a provision to maintain the territory. Please send supplies to my province."
Even though Sima Yi swore allegiance to Lilim, he didn"t flee along with Cao Cao to regroup with Sun Ce. He knew that he would be targeted after the war, but he had his agendas for staying within Dong Bai"s ranks.
After all, he still wanted Sun Ce dead. He couldn"t stand working together with his father"s murderer.
Moreover, he didn"t have to fight against Tong"s wives head-on even though he was Lilim"s subordinate. From Sima Yi"s perspective, Lilim hadn"t given him any reward, so there was no need to fight for her at the moment. He could as well resume his duty as Tong"s retainer and persuade Dong Bai to leave him alone.
Dong Bai: "The Silver Axe will head there along with supplies. Hand over your soldiers and province authority to them, and they will handle the rest. After you pa.s.s the authority over, join me on the frontline since I need there."
"…"
Sima Yi wasn"t satisfied with Dong Bai"s order as she just asked him to strip his power to her underlings.
"Am I the next target after Te Langpu? Are they suspecting me? Well, s.h.i.+t. Don"t blame me if I have to use this method. I still want to live."
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Three armies from Ye stopped at Qiao Commandery, which located southwest of Xiapi.
Xu Huang led his Silver Axe Legion here as ordered by Dong Bai. As for the other two armies, they were the newly formed troops, the Wu Legion, and the Red Tiger Legion.
Sun Quan acted as the grand commander of Wu Legion personally as he had the highest cultivation and status among the group. Lu Xun followed Sun Quan as the unit"s strategist, and Cheng Pu acted his Sun Quan"s aide.
As for the Red Tiger Legion, named to honor Sun Jian, Huang Gai became the grand commander. Lu Meng was his strategist, and the old veteran Han Dang worked with Huang Gai as his aide as usual.
The latter two armies were established after Sun Quan and Wu Guotai had agreed to submit to Diaochan and gave their immortal oath. From now on, they worked directly for the grand demoness.
Each army consisted of 50,000 mixed infantry and cavalry. All units also had reserve troops of 20,000 men to guard their army provision.
As such, 210,000 soldiers got into a position to guard against Sima Yi"s 150,000 men in Xiapi. The rest depended on Sima Yi"s action if he wanted to cooperate with Dong Bai in this campaign.
In the case if Sima Yi tried something stupid, Xu Huang, Sun Quan, and Huang Gai would attack Xiapi and destroy Sima Yi"s entire clan.
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= Meanwhile =
Xu Huang: "I refuse! The Han Dynasty has already restored! There"s no need for another civil war!"
Xu Huang: "Surrender now, and I"ll persuade her majesty to spare your life!"
Cheng Yu: "We"re not trying to rebel or anything. We"ve just sent our army south to Jianye and searched for Sun Ce"s whereabouts. Why are you so agitated? A good general like you shouldn"t point your sword against your former lord."
Xu Huang: "Stop the charade, Senior Cheng. We"ve worked together in the last life, and I know Cao Mende"s personality! Your escape is nothing but a tactical retreat before a counterattack against the royal family forces. That"s Mengde"s favorite strategy in war!"
Cheng Yu: "Your accusation is baseless, General Xu. Please don"t be so hostile. Mengde also wants peace, so he is working hard to prove himself. We need all the forces in Jiangdong, so we can search the region thoroughly."
Sitting in his resting tent, Xu Huang was debating against Cheng Yu using the private chat messenger.
Cheng Yu attempted to freeze Xu Huang"s military activities while Xu Huang convinced Cheng Yu, trying to make the latter surrender.
Unfortunately, things did not go well for both sides.
Xu Huang: "I can"t trust Cao Mengde anymore, Senior Cheng. You and Mengde committed too many atrocities in the other world, but I already turned a blind eye and ignored it. To be honest, I still regret it even now. I shouldn"t have worked for genocidal lunatics like you and Cao Mengde!"
Xu Huang referred to the genocide incidents that Cao Cao and Cheng Yu committed during their early career in the other timeline.
The first major incident was the slaughtering after Cao Song, Cao Cao"s father, was killed by Tao Qian"s men. Not only Pengcheng City was burnt down, Lü, Julin, and Xiaqiu, people of these three cities were hunted and killed to the last man. Even dogs and chickens couldn"t escape.
Cao Cao"s infamous deed was not the only genocide in Xu Province.
In 194, Lu Bu robbed Cao Cao"s cities when the latter sent out his troops to attack Tao Qian. At that time, Cao Cao fought losing battles against Lu Bu and Chen Gong one after another. Moreover, a famine broke out in Yan Province, which was the roughest time of Cao Cao"s life.
Cao Cao was on the verge of surrendering to Yuan Shao to save his skin at that time, but Cheng Yu stopped Cao Cao from relinquis.h.i.+ng his position.
In addition, Cheng Yu came up with an inhumane idea. He sent his troops to pillage villages, including his hometown, to replenish their food supply.
Killing innocents for food was terrible enough, but Cheng Yu went further. Some of the food that Cheng Yu had plundered were consisting of human meat of the townspeople.
And lastly, after Yuan Shao died, 80,000 former Yuan Shao soldiers gave up fighting and surrendered to Cao Cao. Yet, ruthlessly, Cao Cao killed them all.
This was the main reason why Liu Bei resisted Cao Cao to the very end as he was afraid that the latter wouldn"t have let the former life had he been captured.
As for Xu Huang, he joined Cao Cao in the year 196 after his former lord was defeated.
In the previous life, Xu Huang had limited information about his lord, so he believed that he served the righteous liege. But after comparing Tong with Cao Cao, Xu Huang could see the great difference between the two.
Both Tong and Cao Cao committed some atrocities. Both regretted it and attempted to redeem themselves. However, Tong did a better job by not approving peasant slaughtering after he had done it once. Meanwhile, Cao Cao ma.s.sacred more peasants and helpless soldiers a few more occasions before he stopped.
Tong overwhelmed and suppressed his adversary with his absolute military strength and economic power, but he rarely promoted wars. However, Cao Cao waged war everywhere to scare his enemies into submission.
Tong"s semi-pacifism method won Xu Huang"s heart.
Xu Huang: "This conversation is going nowhere. I"m blocking you, now."
Xu Huang blacklisted Cheng Yu as he no longer wanted to continue the pointless chat. Since the latter didn"t want to surrender, they could only be enemies.
"I would have been a fool if I betray the immortal emperor! The past is the past. This world has nothing to do with the previous life!"
Chat messenger kept flas.h.i.+ng as one more person wanted to have a word with Xu Huang.
Xu Huang opened the messenger to see who wanted to conspire with him in secret this time.
Sima Yi
"What now? Another b.a.s.t.a.r.d trying to backstab my emperor?"
Currently, Sima Yi was under the suspicion of masterminding, scheming with Te Langpu, and plotting a rebellion due to the Sima Clan"s army size.
When Sima Fang was still alive, he always reported back to the court that he limited the troop size to 50,000 to optimize the military budget. But when Sima Yi took over Sima Fang"s duty, he drafted more soldiers than necessary, which threatened the capital. Combined with his descendants" rebellion deed, all court officials didn"t trust the Sima Clan anymore.
Sima Yi: "Excuse me, General Xu. Please don"t mind my overly-paranoid tone, but am I a marked man? Does Dong Bai want me dead?"
Xu Huang was surprised that Sima Yi"s tone seemed distressed and worried, which was different than his usual snarky att.i.tude.
Sima Yi: "Was it because I used to chase her highness Zhang Min"s skirt? Can you tell me?"
Although Xu Huang knew that Sima Yi was cunning in the other timeline, he pitied this world"s Sima Yi as the latter had done nothing wrong. Everything was still a baseless suspicion.
Suddenly, Sima Yi sent his messages to the public chat.
Sima Yi: "I"ve completed my duty and occupied Xu Province. However, I would like to relinquish my position in advance after this job. I would like to retire from the political world for good."
This shocked Xu Huang even further as Sima Yi"s tone was really desperate. From Xu Huang"s point of view, Sima Yi looked like an innocent official who gave up after he was bullied by the higher-ups.
Sima Yi: "I also wish to return all of my a.s.sets, land, and soldiers in my clan"s possession. I hope that her majesty could pardon me for whatever I had done in the past. I"m willing to make my immortal oath I"ll never harm the Han Dynasty or the royal family in the future."
Reading the messages, Xu Huang sympathized with Sima Yi. It seemed that the royal family was too excessive in their purge and harmed the Sima Clan, who was innocent in this political conflict.
Thus, Xu Huang chose to reply to Sima Yi using the private message option.
Xu Huang: "What can I do to help you?"