Chapter 1736: Heads for Reward Money

Yulin, Xiazhou, Huangyangping.

In no more than half a year, this once-prosperous border town had completely changed its appearance. In past years at this season, it was the critical period for making a living and seeking food and clothing — Hu and Han merchants and commoners gathered together, and border market trade flourished beyond measure.

Even at this time last year, although the atmosphere in Huangyangping had been somewhat suppressed by the influence of Li Jiqian's rebellion, it had still barely maintained normal order and living conditions.

But now, only endless desolation and bleakness remained. Looking out in every direction, one saw ruin everywhere — traces of war on all sides: collapsed earthen city walls, toppled houses, burned huts and shelters, and skeletal remains scattered here and there.

After the Battle of Fengzhou, the Yulin government troops, under the coordination of the field headquarters, began the work of mopping up the various rebel forces, especially the remnants of the two major rebel groups under Li and Yuan.

And Huangyangping, as the base camp of Li Jiqian's rebellion — even if it had only existed for a little over two months — was still a key target for elimination, especially given how close this place was to Xiazhou city. The outcome was predetermined, the process was cruel. This border market town where Hu and Han intermingled was utterly destroyed by the flames of war. The Han general leading the troops, Wang Meng, together with more than three thousand mixed Hu cavalry, slaughtered the entire town and the surrounding Tangut people to the last. While capturing this rebel concentration camp, he also took over ten thousand heads back to Xiazhou to claim merit.

Wang Meng had originally been just an ordinary cavalry battalion commander under the Yulin Regional Military Commission. When Wang Shen had first mobilized troops for a major campaign against Li Jiqian, he had even led troops into Huangyangping to serve as an outpost.

But human fortune is truly fickle. A year ago, he was merely a cavalry battalion officer; a year later, he had become the Commander of Cavalry in Xiazhou, someone who could rank within the military system of Xiazhou. Of course, all of this was also earned by Wang Meng with his life — it was through the blood of rebels and Tangut people that he had dyed his future red.

The most critical battle was, without question, the Battle of Fengzhou. Wang Meng fought with the army, leading his cavalry in no fewer than seven fierce charges against Li Jiqian's forces until they were broken. He himself suffered more than ten wounds of various sizes, and thus his name became known.

Comradeship born on the battlefield — Wang Meng, through the recommendation of Pan Luozhi, came into the notice of Prince Zhao, Liu Fang, and Liu Fang had always delighted in brave warriors. Even though Wang Meng had a fairly close relationship with Wang Shen, he was not implicated. Instead, after the Battle of Fengzhou, he was promoted to Commander of Cavalry in Xiazhou, becoming a typical example of one who rose with the tide during the great Yulin chaos.

Likewise, the former town head Zhang Yan — who just a year ago had been arm-in-arm with Wang Meng in Huangyangping, calling each other brothers — because he participated in the rebellion, even if he had been coerced by Li Jiqian and the Yeli Tangut, could only have his fate described as miserable. His entire family was killed, their heads taken to be exchanged for money. And the one who ordered the deed was precisely Wang Meng, this "good brother" of his.

Using heads to claim merit — this relatively primitive method of recording achievements had already been gradually phased out in the Great Han army. Officers needed no mention; their assessment for military merit had higher requirements and had long since moved beyond mere decapitation achievements. But even for ordinary soldiers, there was a more complete system combining army supervisors and witness testimony for recording merit.

In the past, apart from intimidation objectives, the Han army rarely carried out decapitation operations. The most recent time had been when Tian Qinzuo massacred the indigenous Jurchen of the East Sea in Andong, piling corpses into a mound to overawe the various barbarians...

Years later, a similar scene reappeared in Yulin, and it was more direct, more cruel, and more taken-for-granted. Whether for the Han army or the auxiliary mixed-Hu troops, those heads represented merit and wealth. The field headquarters had long issued a clear order explicitly stipulating: one rebel head, one string of cash.

This price was not high for the government, but for the lower-ranking soldiers, especially those auxiliary barbarian troops, it was indeed extremely attractive.

With domestic copper smelting opening up and foreign copper flowing in, the Great Han was minting more and more copper coins. Han currency had depreciated considerably compared to the past, but one string of cash was still something many bottom-tier commoners could not earn even with a full month of hard work without food or rest.

But for the government troops suppressing the rebellion in Yulin, this was a business with no capital. Kill a few people, chop off a few heads — how much difficulty could that be? At most, it just cost a bit of physical effort.

And the court's regular soldiers received pay in peacetime and allowances in wartime. Add to that this decapitation merit — participating in one operation meant a large influx of income, so their enthusiasm was naturally high.

It had to be said that the Great Han government army was becoming increasingly professionalized — and, of course, increasingly developing toward a mercenary force. Even though Emperor Liu had spent the past few decades emphasizing loyalty to the sovereign and love of country, using the Xuanwei Officers to carry out indoctrination with some effect, in the end it could not compare to the more direct temptation of money and profit.

Moreover, why be loyal to the sovereign? It was to obtain promotion in position, elevation in social status, and growth in wealth. Why love the country? Because the empire could safeguard their vested interests. Setting all this aside, loyalty to the sovereign and love of country would have nothing to stand on. Of course, ideals were still very important — it was just that compared to interests, they were ultimately somewhat pale.

Compared to the well-treated Han army, those barbarian troops had even higher enthusiasm. In this northwestern region, poverty was still widespread, especially among those mixed Hu people, who were long accustomed to destitution — give them a bit of money and they would sell their lives.

At the same time, they had another layer of concern: the pressure of survival. The Tangut rebellion had no small impact on them. Under the immense pressure of the court, if they did not want to be branded as rebels and eliminated, the only way was to protect themselves with the corpses of rebels.

Especially when the field headquarters produced nakedly naked interest-based temptation, the choice became even easier to make. Thus, since the beginning of spring, the series of killings that occurred in Yulin — inhumane toward the Tangut, but for the rebellion-suppressing officers and soldiers under the command of the Yulin field headquarters, every swing of the blade meant an income of one string of cash.

And the targets of the killing were, without question, those Hu and Han rebels who had risen in revolt and opposed the court. These people deserved to die anyway — it was just that Yulin was in utter chaos, and how to distinguish them was a difficulty.

The field headquarters gave no clear directive, but the actions below were given free rein. At first they kept their eyes on the rebel bandits; later, clever people set their sights on all Tangut.

In the end, it evolved into killing everyone without distinction of male or female, old or young. This trend was started by the White Horse Hu, mixed Hu from Lingzhou. After failing to find the "main rebel force," the White Horse Hu actively exercised their not-very-agile brains and turned their attention to those Tangut tribesmen with "suspicion of following the rebels." Especially after they exterminated one tribe and found that even the heads of the old, weak, women, and children could be exchanged for equal reward money, Pandora's box was thoroughly opened — and it could not be stopped...

In the great slaughter that spread across the whole of Yulin, some killed for merit, some for reward money. Of course, there were also more who killed for survival — and among this latter group, the vast majority had to gamble with their lives.

Pressured by the chaotic and unmanageable situation in Yulin, and the butcher's knives wielded by the government troops and barbarian soldiers, the Tangut within the region did not sit idly waiting for death or stretch out their necks for the blade. Some resisted — the result of resistance was death, at most a desperate counterattack before dying, inflicting a few casualties on the government troops.

Some chose to flee. Migration was the instinct of these Tangut who maintained nomadic habits. But though Yulin was vast, the places where one could survive were limited, and the entire territory of Yulin had long been sealed off by the government troops. Those who tried to escape were either intercepted and killed halfway, or blocked at the government troops' blockade lines, ultimately becoming "reward money" themselves.

For most of the Yulin Tangut, the past few months had been a time of no road to heaven, no door into earth, nowhere left to flee. Of course, there were not absolutely no survivors — the world always has its lucky ones.

Some broke through layer upon layer of obstacles and fled into the Northern Shaanxi plateau, hiding deep in the mountains. Others charged headlong into the desert — if they could find an oasis, there was still hope of survival.

But these were, in the end, only a minority.

The deaths caused in Yulin were not only from killing, but also from starvation and disease. In fact, during that past bitter winter, tens of thousands of local Hu and Han had already died in the frozen wilderness.

After the beginning of spring, all productive activities were completely halted — there was no space for them either. Hunger and death remained the theme. The government and the army alike adhered to the attitude of not leaving a single grain of rice or a single noodle for the rebels.

Even so, the rebellion-suppressing officers and soldiers did not spare the dead Yulin people either. As long as a head was still presentable, it was cut off and taken to claim merit and exchange for money. Perhaps for those who had died, the fortunate thing was that at such a time they could no longer feel anything — compared to the suffering of the living, it was much lighter.

The suggestion of exchanging heads for money was proposed by Shangguan Zheng, the Prefect of Xiazhou. This man was no kind soul — he was a flesh-eating member of the exploiting class — but his abilities could not be denied. In those years, he had accompanied Wang Quanbin on the southern campaign against Dali. Thanks to his outstanding performance during the Yulin rebellion, discussions about promoting Shangguan Zheng had already begun in the Ministry of Personnel.

Shangguan Zheng's proposal received the court's approval — of course, mainly Emperor Liu's approval. The court agreed, and even if there were some objections within the Yulin field headquarters, they could only implement it with full effort. At such a time, no one dared to put themselves at risk by treating the court's edicts as a joke again.

To this end, Emperor Liu also had the Finance Commission specially allocate one million strings of cash, earmarked for this specific purpose. In Emperor Liu's words: spending a mere one million strings of cash to buy all the "rebels" of Yulin, to buy a hundred years of peace for Yulin and even the entire northwest — however you calculated it, it was worth it.

Of course, among those heads taken to exchange for reward money, not all were Tangut — there were also Han. When this de facto "purge movement" reached its climax, it was pathological, making no distinction between friend and foe.

At first the government still inspected the heads. Later, the various prefectural offices simply opened "head pits" and sent people to wait with reward money. When someone came carrying the head of a "rebel" they had killed and tossed it into the pit, the reward money was paid out according to the count.

Overall, the Han commoners were somewhat luckier in this great Yulin upheaval — though only compared to the Tangut. Especially those who had fled early, or who had rushed to the towns and sought protection from the government — although they also suffered no small losses, most of them managed to barely survive.

But not all Han commoners were so clever, and luck varied this way and that. At the same time, there were also scum among the Han — foolish commoners and simpletons who had been deceived by rebel leaders like Yuan Ke. These people, though wearing Han skin, met equally miserable ends — most of them became the dregs of the era, their heads chopped off to exchange for reward money.