Chapter 402

Zhuge Liang, Xiao He, and others stood at the gate to welcome him.

All the important figures had arrived, except for Ying Zheng.

As the Retired Emperor, there was no need for him to come personally to greet his own son's return.

After Ying Su entered the palace, he immediately summoned Zhuge Liang and Xiao He before him to ask about the events of this period.

After listening to Zhuge Liang and Xiao He's report, Ying Su fell into deep thought.

Not wiping out the nobility completely was his own idea.

Especially the hundreds of thousands of troops on the noble side; he could not bear to kill them.

Hundreds of thousands of young men! This was a precious asset.

Now the Great Qin already lacks population, and every place needs people.

Farming needs people, war needs people, and bearing children needs people.

Without people, how can the Great Qin develop?

The Xiongnu in the north have been destroyed; vast tracts of land in the north need people to inhabit them.

Otherwise, given time, they will become wastelands and be occupied by other forces.

Additionally, Nanyue needs to be resolved.

There are also some forces in the west and east that need to be resolved.

"What our Great Qin needs most right now is people. Think of a way to get those armies from the nobles' hands!"

Ying Su asked.

"Currently, it seems they are about to collapse. As long as we apply a little more pressure, they will crumble."

"However, the pressure applied cannot be too great, to prevent them from being driven to desperation and fighting us to the death."

Zhuge Liang said.

"Give some specific suggestions. Exactly how should this pressure be applied?" Ying Su asked.

"Surround them without attacking, and at the same time send people to defect them," Zhuge Liang said.

"Defect them?" Ying Su thought for a moment and then nodded: "This is a good method. See who would be suitable to send?"

"I have one person who can go," Zhuge Liang said. "He is the eldest Young Master of the Cheng family, named Cheng Ze. This man is shrewd and capable, a talent, and he is a relative of Feng Qiji, making it convenient for him to meet Feng Qiji in Huashan."

"Good, send him! If this matter succeeds, it will count as a great merit for him!" Ying Su said.

"Your Majesty, Cheng Ze told me that if he establishes merit, Your Majesty should reward him, and he wishes to use that reward to mitigate Feng Qiji's guilt," Zhuge Liang said.

Ying Su smiled but said nothing.

Feng Qiji caused such a major incident; how could it be said that he could simply be pardoned?

If he is pardoned, others in the future will surely follow suit and rebel at the slightest provocation!

"Your Majesty, Feng Qiji cannot be lightly pardoned, but if he agrees to surrender, that counts as establishing merit. I believe we can let him live, either by exile to the frontier or by house arrest."

"As for his family members, they can be dealt with leniently. Speaking of which, the Cheng family is also a relative of Feng Qiji. Since the Cheng family can receive a reward, it is reasonable to deal leniently with Feng Qiji's family," Xiao He said from the side.

Hearing this, Ying Su could not help but nod.

Xiao He was right; the Cheng family is a distant relative of Feng Qiji, counting as within the five clans.

Since the Cheng family can be rewarded, then pardoning Feng Qiji's family is also reasonable.

This kind of practice has existed in the past and will exist in later generations.

"Let it be as you say; we can pardon Feng Qiji's family, but the premise is that the Cheng family's merit must be sufficient!" Ying Su said.

"Your Majesty, I have another strategy to accelerate the collapse of the rebels," Xiao He said.

"Please speak!" Ying Su said.

"Your Majesty can announce that all rebels below the rank of Thousand-Man Leader will be exempt from punishment. Additionally, if ordinary soldiers surrender, they will be issued a certain amount of reward and given land to farm, allowing them to settle down and live in peace and prosperity in the future!" Xiao He said.

"Prime Minister Xiao's method is excellent!" Zhuge Liang immediately chimed in. "The land promised to them can be allocated from the lands of the rebel leaders. Additionally, I suggest pardoning some of the rebel leaders as well; this will trigger suspicion within their ranks, thereby accelerating their collapse!"

"I agree with Prime Minister Zhuge's opinion. Except for the chief evildoers, other rebel leaders are not beyond pardon. Of course, even if they are pardoned, they must be treated differently. Those who surrender first or have merit can have most of their crimes pardoned, or even be fully pardoned. Those who surrender later can only have their lives and their families' lives spared," Xiao He said.

Zhuge Liang and Xiao He spoke back and forth, offering many specific suggestions.

And Ying Su grew happier the more he listened.

These two assistants are simply too amazing.

They are equivalent to two brains on the left and right.

With them here, I don't even need to use my own brain.

187. The Strategy of Sowing Discord

"Wei Pao is a person who cannot be pardoned. The several rebellious Young Masters can live but must be placed under house arrest. As for the handling plans for the others, you two shall decide," Ying Su said.

Zhuge Liang and Xiao He discussed for a while, and soon a list was written.

Ying Su took a look and felt very satisfied.

The people on this list are all important figures among the rebels.

There are members of the Wang Zu, nobles, and generals of various ranks.

The handling of them is roughly divided into three categories.

The first is that the chief evildoers must be punished; people like Wei Pao must be executed, and even if they surrender, they will not be accepted!

If anyone kills Wei Pao or hands Wei Pao over to the Emperor, that will count as a great merit.

The second category is the object of active efforts; if they surrender immediately, past offenses will be forgiven, and they may even be appointed to official positions.

This category consists mainly of generals, because in the view of Ying Su and others, generals merely obey their masters. Their duty is obedience, and sometimes they are helpless; thus, their role in the rebellion is much smaller.

The practice of showing leniency to generals is very common; there have been many such examples in later generations.

Among them, Zhuge Liang captured Meng Huo seven times, and Huang Zhong and Jiang Wei were all generals who surrendered.

They were not only not killed but were instead heavily utilized.

However, in the list drafted by Zhuge Liang and Xiao He, Meng Tian, one of the main leaders of the rebels, was placed in the second category.

In their view, doing so could sow discord between Meng Tian and Wei Pao.

As for the third category of people, they were those like Feng Qiji.

Their handling was based on the principle of offsetting crimes with merit.

If they established merit, their crimes would be offset according to the size of their merit.

But as long as they surrendered, they could at least preserve their lives.

Once the three lists were finalized, the remaining task was to transmit them to the rebels.

Sending someone to deliver them was definitely not an option; Wei Pao and others' confidants would intercept the lists.

If Cheng Ze were sent to deliver the lists, he could at most only inform Feng Qiji.

If Cheng Ze told anyone else, his own situation would become dangerous.

After much thought, Zhuge Liang came up with an idea: he prepared to send the scouts at the front to deliver the lists and the surrender letters to the frontline.

In this way, when the enemy's patrol units or frontline soldiers discovered the lists, they would spread throughout the army.

At the same time, kites could also be utilized.

Now that paper was so cheap, paper could be used to make kites.

The surrender letters could be written directly on the kites, and then people could be sent to fly the kites into the enemy camp.

In this manner, the surrender letters could be dropped directly into the middle and rear positions of the enemy camp.

This would let all the rebels know the contents of the surrender letters.

After hearing Zhuge Liang's idea of using kites to transmit the surrender letters and lists, Ying Su was extremely pleased.

He ordered Zhuge Liang to take full charge of the matter; minor decisions could be issued directly by Zhuge Liang without the need to report to him.

After confirming the action plan, Zhuge Liang immediately set into motion.

The first step was to make kites.

This was easy; making kites was not difficult.

Especially with a large quantity of paper available, the speed of kite production was even faster.

As for writing on the kites, that was not troublesome either.

One only needed to find a group of people who could write and have them copy the text.

Soon, one thousand kites were finished.

Of these, eight hundred kites bore the surrender letters, while the other two hundred kites bore the pardon lists.

These one thousand kites were merely the quantity intended for the first batch of deployment.

More kites would be produced subsequently.