Chapter 251

So, it's better to be low-key.

Of course, in the end, a small portion still had to be handed over to settle the Son of Heaven's mind, and at the same time, bribe the Son of Heaven and Zhang Rang to facilitate the smooth receipt of rewards later.

After all, he had pacified Zhao Ci's rebellion and retook the two commanderies of Nanyang and Jiang Xia, hadn't he?

This was a major merit.

"Yes! This subordinate understands!"

Cheng Yu smiled knowingly and accepted the order.

He liked this kind of work.

At this time, it was already dusk, and Su Xuan did not intend to launch a night raid on Wancheng.

Anyway, the rebel leader Zhao Ci was already dead, and his main force had already been taken down; the remaining people in Wancheng couldn't stir up any waves.

Secret guards were watching over there, and they could use golden eagles to send messages at any time, so there was no need to worry.

Immediately, Su Xuan had Huang Zhong, Zhang He, and the others escort the tens of thousands of prisoners to Xinye city.

All prisoners were handed over to Zhou Cang and the Xuanwu Battalion soldiers.

They rested in Xinye for one night.

Early the next morning, after breakfast,

Su Xuan personally led 4,000 Black Armor soldiers, over 3,000 Xiaoji Battalion soldiers, and 800 personal guard soldiers to set out toward Wancheng.

Considering there were too many prisoners in Xinye, relying on only 2,000 Xuanwu Battalion soldiers was still a bit unsafe.

So, he left behind 2,000 Black Armor soldiers to cooperate with Zhou Cang and Cheng Yu to escort these prisoners and the seized grain, fodder, and military supplies to Nanjun.

Xinye was only a few dozen li from Wancheng.

Su Xuan and his men were all elite iron cavalry, and it only took them a little over an hour to successfully arrive at Wancheng.

With the cooperation of the secret guards in the city, Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun, Su Xuan, Zhang Liao, and others first led the personal guard soldiers to sneak into the city in batches.

Then, working from the inside and outside, they directly seized the east gate.

Without much effort, they successfully took Wancheng and shredded the rebel army in the city.

Because, after Su Xuan breached the city, he ordered men to use spears to carry Zhao Ci's head to persuade them to surrender; the vast majority of the rebel army in the city directly lost their will to fight and chose to surrender.

Therefore, only a thousand or so were killed; these were considered Zhao Ci's die-hard loyalists or relatives.

The remaining nearly ten thousand were all captured.

They were prepared to be escorted to Nanjun later, also reorganized into engineering teams or reclamation camps, mining fields, and became free labor.

You know, most of these people were young and strong!

If it weren't for Zhao Ci, where would he find so many excellent young and strong people to serve as free labor?

Only need to give them a bite to eat, no need to pay wages.

Of course, in this era, many commoners and refugees couldn't even guarantee food; even without wages, as long as there was food, they would probably be very willing to work for Su Xuan.

But Su Xuan couldn't do that entirely.

He couldn't treat these refugees who couldn't survive entirely like cattle and horses.

He needed to distinguish the treatment of prisoners of war.

Currently, Nanjun actually already had multiple engineering teams, textile workshops, furniture workshops, and even mining fields, agricultural reclamation camps, etc., that had long been recruiting refugees to work and farm.

Not only giving food, but if they worked well, there was a certain wage every month.

Because of these policies, over the past year or so, Su Xuan had absorbed a large number of refugee populations from various commanderies.

Increasing the population of Nanjun by nearly 100,000.

Fortunately, he was very wealthy and could continuously earn large amounts of money through the Su-style Chamber of Commerce and exclusive commodities;

And through the Su-style Chamber of Commerce and the Zhen-style Chamber of Commerce, purchase large amounts of cheap grain to maintain all of this.

Of course, these refugees also brought Su Xuan a lot of value through their work.

Whether it is building bridges, paving roads, constructing cities, working in workshops, mining in pits, or joining the Agricultural Garrison to participate in land reclamation and farming, none of it is useless work.

It was of huge help to the development of Nanjun and the industrial development of Su Xuan.

In addition, a large amount of money was seized.

All of it was extorted by Zhao Ci from Wancheng.

Converted into money, it was no less than 100 million.

Su Xuan split off 10% of the wealth, mainly antiques, calligraphy, and paintings, prepared to hand them over to the Son of Heaven;

Anyway, these things had no value to him, and if he wanted to exchange them for money, he would have to spend effort to sell them.

Troublesome!

The rest, he secretly had people transport out of Wancheng and send to Nanjun.

After successfully recovering Wancheng, another 3 days passed,

Good news came from Jiang Xia from Gao Shun and Dian Wei.

They had successfully recovered Jiang Xia and cleared out the remnants of Zhao Ci's army there.

Only then did Su Xuan submit a memorial and send someone on horseback to Luoyang.

This could not go through the carrier pigeon or golden eagle communication channels.

It would expose his new communication means.

Wancheng in Nanyang was not far from Luoyang, and in just over a day, the memorial had been delivered to Luoyang and passed to the Son of Heaven Liu Hong in the palace.

At the same time, Jia Yi also quietly arrived at Zhang Rang's mansion again with 2 million in cash and eight pieces of glassware.

He presented the local specialties and stated his purpose.

"Tsk tsk! The General of the South is worthy of being the General of the South! He is truly capable!"

"This Zhao Ci hadn't even stirred up any waves before he was already dealt with!"

Zhang Rang praised, then guaranteed: "Rest assured! The General of the South is so sincere, I will help him put in a good word before the Son of Heaven!"

"Tell me! Does the General of the South have any special requests this time?"

Jia Yi immediately said: "That's not it! The only thing is that my Lord does not wish to be transferred away from Nanjun; as for the other rewards, the Lord can decide as he sees fit!"

"Understood!"

Zhang Rang nodded knowingly: "Actually, even if he didn't say it, his position as Administrator of Nanjun probably wouldn't change!"

"Because, other than that, with the General of the South's merits, if he wanted to be transferred to a civil position, he could only be transferred to Luoyang!"

"On this point, people from all sides probably wouldn't be happy to see it;"

"Fortunately, the General of the South clearly doesn't want to come to this Luoyang, which makes it simple."

After several years of contact, Zhang Rang also roughly understood what kind of person Su Xuan was.

Undoubtedly, this was an extremely ambitious and extremely intelligent person.

He was single-mindedly wanting to develop in the local area to strengthen his foundation and temporarily did not want to come to the right-and-wrong place of Luoyang.

It couldn't be smarter.

Of course, it was just that Zhang Rang couldn't see through it and didn't know that the Great Han was about to face a great turmoil and that a chaotic world was coming; otherwise, he wouldn't think so.

"Then I'll trouble you, my Lord! If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave!"

Saying this, Jia Yi cupped his hands and left.

"Hahaha!"

In the imperial palace, after Liu Hong finished reading the victory report submitted by Su Xuan and the attached handover of seized goods, Liu Hong couldn't help but laugh heartily: "Good! Good! As expected, it is my General of the South who handles things in a way that makes me most reassured and most satisfied!"

"This Zhao Ci came aggressively with quite a bit of momentum, yet in just a few days, he was annihilated by the General of the South, and Nanyang and Jiang Xia were both recovered. It is truly too good!"

Liu Hong was even thinking, if all the generals were as straightforward as Su Xuan and saved him worry, it would be great.

In this way, he would no longer have to worry, get angry, or have a headache every time the suppression of rebellions in various places did not go smoothly.

"Rang-fu, tell me, how should I reward the General of the South this time? How about transferring the General of the South to Luoyang to take up a post?"

Hearing this, Zhang Rang was shocked. How could the Son of Heaven think this way?

Fortunately, he calmed down the next moment and thought to himself: Next, it's time for my performance...

Immediately, he bowed respectfully: "Reporting to the Son of Heaven! How to reward him is naturally for the Son of Heaven to decide; how would this old slave dare to interfere?"

The usual tactic of retreating to advance.

It really made Liu Hong feel extremely comfortable. He pointed at Zhang Rang from a distance and laughed: "You old thing, you only know how to make me happy;"

"Tell me! It was I who asked you to analyze it for me; I forgive you."

"Yes!"

Zhang Rang immediately accepted the order, organized his thoughts, and said: "Reporting to the Son of Heaven, this old slave thinks it is better to let the General of the South continue to stay in Nanjun!"

"The reward can completely be an increase in his military rank and title; he doesn't necessarily have to be transferred to the capital."