Chapter 460

Even if they were reorganized, it would take a lot of effort to reverse their style and habits.

There were even many middle and low-level officers in the army who were children of gentry and powerful clans attached to Yuan Shu.

Su Xuan didn't want these people even more.

Because the loyalty of these people was hard to guarantee.

Unless Su Xuan was willing to spend great effort to rectify and reverse it.

It was too troublesome, better to just recruit new soldiers to cultivate.

It was more cost-effective to sell them to Yuan Shu, and the ransom obtained would be enough to cultivate more loyal and reliable troops.

"What?"

Yuan Shu was stunned: "You are willing to let me go?"

"Hmm, hmm!"

Su Xuan nodded affirmatively: "Naturally! You and I have been good friends for many years! Old friends! Aren't we?"

"Plus, Brother Gonglu, you are the legitimate son of the Yuan family, and your status is noble! Naturally, you should be different from other warlords!"

"Killing you directly would offend many people!"

"So, as long as you are willing to pay me a satisfactory ransom as a hard-work fee, I am naturally willing to let you and your troops go!"

"Of course, don't even think about Nanyang, this will be my territory from now on!"

"After all, this place also belongs to Jingzhou. I only lent it to you to stay temporarily out of consideration for your intention to crusade against Dong, but now that the crusade against Dong is over, this Nanyang should naturally be returned to me, right?"

Although this sounded nice, Yuan Shu knew that he was going to lose Nanyang.

But compared to his own life and these tens of thousands of troops, Yuan Shu felt it was not unacceptable.

It was just that he was afraid he would have a major hemorrhage this time.

After all, ransoming Ji Ling, Sun Jian, and the 40,000-strong army last time cost him a million shi of grain and 300,000 gold.

This time, even he himself was captured, and there were more troops than last time, so he was a bit panicked, not knowing how much Su Xuan wanted this time.

"Brother Boyuan is right! Nanyang naturally belongs to you now! It belongs to you!"

"The ransom is also negotiable!"

Yuan Shu said with a forced smile.

"Very good!"

Su Xuan was very satisfied with Yuan Shu's awareness of current affairs and said: "Then please come with me to persuade your troops to surrender!"

"To avoid too many casualties, which would reduce my gains and weaken your strength, Brother Gonglu, right? Please?"

"Please!"

Although Yuan Shu had cursed Su Xuan ten thousand times in his heart, he still had to pretend to be smiling on the surface, accepted Su Xuan's invitation, and under Su Xuan's "protection," began to persuade the vanguard and rear armies to surrender.

Things went smoothly afterward.

With Yuan Shu, the lord, to persuade them to surrender, plus Su Xuan's army being extremely fierce and brutal, Yuan Shu's army soon surrendered one after another.

In the end, Su Xuan's side counted, and the various routes killed 5,467 of Yuan Shu's army, Yuan Shu's army had more wounded, and including the wounded, there were a total of 64,353 captives.

Among them, naturally, was the Great General Ji Ling, who had been captured twice.

At this time, Ji Ling was also depressed and gloomy.

Feeling extremely aggrieved in his heart.

"Haha! Brother Ji Ling! We meet again! How have you been?"

Especially when Xu Chu saw the surrendered Ji Ling, he happily patted him on the shoulder and teased him.

This made Ji Ling even more ashamed and angry.

If he didn't want to die yet and still wanted to serve his lord, he would have wanted to crash into something and die.

Being captured alive by the enemy twice in a row, it's just...

He reckoned that once the world knew, everyone would mock him, right?

Xu Chu didn't care too much when he saw Ji Ling looking ashamed and angry and not speaking.

However, he didn't continue to make things difficult for him or tease him.

If he couldn't bear it and committed suicide, the loss would be great.

"Brother Boyuan! I don't know how much money and grain you need this time to let me and the troops under my command go?"

"By the way! Also include those troops and officials I left in various places in Nanyang. I want to take them all away! I hope you can make it convenient, I am willing to pay ransom for all of these!"

After accepting the surrender of Yuan Shu's troops, Yuan Shu found Su Xuan and asked.

"That's great!"

Su Xuan was happy when he heard this.

Yuan Shu didn't want to stay, and he didn't want those officials either!

It's better to take them all away, so as not to be troublesome to deal with.

Can't kill them all, right?

Su Xuan replied immediately: "Last time, for less than 50,000 troops, I only asked for a million shi of grain and 300,000 gold;"

"This time, there is you, Brother Gonglu, and the troops here alone are more than 60,000, and those in various places in Nanyang add up to no less than 30,000 or 40,000;"

"Then I'll count you as having 100,000 troops in total!"

"I'll give you a discount. You give me 2 million shi of grain and 1 million gold, and you can take all these troops out of Nanyang safely. I will send people to personally escort you out of the border. How about it?"

"What?"

Yuan Shu widened his eyes and said loudly: "2 million shi of grain? And 1 million gold? Why don't you just rob me?"

Where would he get the money and grain to compete for a while?

Even if he emptied his Yuan family, he wouldn't... uh! Emptying the Yuan family could still take it out, and even more than that;

This huge amount of money and grain would at most empty half or one-third of the Yuan family's accumulation!

But taking out such a large sum of money and grain made his heart ache!

With so much less money and grain, his expansion and development in the future would be greatly affected.

"Eh!"

Su Xuan heard Yuan Shu's words, his expression darkened slightly, and he said unhappily: "Brother Gonglu, saying this shows a lack of sincerity, doesn't it?"

"With our military strength, if I send troops to attack your lair in Runan now, do you think you can stop it?"

"Definitely can't stop it, right?"

"By then, wouldn't your Yuan family's hundreds of years of accumulation all benefit me?"

"In that case, I would actually gain more!"

"I only want this little bit now, it's actually very little!"

"Plus, I am willing to let your 100,000 troops leave Nanyang. Brother Gonglu, are you sure you don't understand my painstaking efforts?"

"Or is it that you would rather let me raid your lair, or would you rather leave all this for Yuan Shao to inherit, than use it to ransom your own life?"

The pattern is wrong, isn't it?

Money and grain are external things, why are you, Yuan Shu, so unreasonable?

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