Chapter 294: Zhao Yu: Schemes Laid in Every Direction, Yet the Mediocre Slip Through

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Zhao Yu knew Yelu Yanxi was an incompetent fool beyond saving, and he had never truly intended to prop him up. He had even anticipated that Yelu Yanxi would, just as in history, lose Liao's Eastern Capital, Liao's Upper Capital, and even Liao's Central Capital, becoming a stray dog through and through.

This was precisely the outcome Zhao Yu wanted.

Because only at that moment, when Zhao Yu extended an olive branch to Yelu Yanxi, would Yelu Yanxi possibly take the bait.

But no matter how much Zhao Yu calculated, he never anticipated that even after he had already brought Xiao Sese back to the Zhao Song dynasty for ten years, Yelu Yanxi could still pull off the stupidity of forcing Yelu Yudu to flee to the Jin and cripple his own martial arts, thereby strengthening the enemy.

Put it this way: Zhao Yu wasn't afraid of Yelu Yanxi losing cities. Those cities weren't his anyway, so Yelu Yanxi could lose them as he pleased—it had nothing to do with Zhao Yu. Zhao Yu simply didn't want Yelu Yanxi to lose his armies, because those troops were cannon fodder meant to bleed the Jin dry.

In fact, if Zhao Yu wanted to, he could absolutely recruit a considerable number of Liao soldiers.

Even without Zhao Yu sending anyone to recruit, large numbers of Liao people had already fled to the Zhao Song dynasty.

If Zhao Yu were to specifically send people to recruit, he might well draw over half of Liao's army.

Then why didn't Zhao Yu go recruit them?

Of course he couldn't.

Zhao Yu wasn't stupid—how could he not know that recruiting this rabble wouldn't mean gaining a pile of strong soldiers, but rather picking up an extremely heavy burden?

Maintaining an army in this era wasn't a matter of just rounding people up and giving them a full meal.

If you sat down and tallied the expenses, the figure alone could frighten a person to death.

Start with the most basic: provisions.

Don't even mention feeding several hundred thousand people with open bellies—that alone would consume over ten thousand shi of grain a day. In spring you had to stockpile summer grain, in autumn you had to hoard winter stores, and you had to dispatch people to haul it thousands of li to the camp. Losses along the road and skimming by the escort soldiers often exceeded what actually arrived.

Forget these chaotic times—even in peacetime, Liao had to buy grain from the Zhao Song dynasty.

If the Zhao Song dynasty took in these several hundred thousand Liao troops, shipping grain to Liao would be a guaranteed silent hemorrhage.

Next, military equipment.

Blades, spears, swords, and halberds had to be forged in reopened furnaces; good iron had to be dug out of mines; and the smiths had to be paid wages.

Bowstrings needed ox sinew, arrowheads needed good iron, and a single fine bow could cost as much as half a year of living for an ordinary household.

Not to mention cavalry—one warhorse cost as much as ten mu of good farmland, and sometimes you had to feed it concentrated feed too. Money flowed out like water.

These Liao troops were mostly defeated soldiers; whatever armor and horses they had were long since lost in bits and pieces. If Zhao Yu really took them in, he'd definitely have to shell out to re-equip them from head to toe.

The money thrown out for that could build ten palaces in Bianjing.

Then there were military pay and rewards.

You had to issue pay monthly, or else why would soldiers risk their lives?

Holidays required bonuses, minor victories required prize money, and if anyone were wounded and crippled, you had to give their family a settlement.

Take the Zhao Song dynasty's standing army as an example: the monthly pay of an ordinary infantryman was enough to feed a family of three, and that was the peacetime standard.

If the recruited Liao troops were paid at the same rate, with several hundred thousand mouths waiting for their money, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue would probably have to go crying to the treasury every day to haul out cash.

Not to mention clothing, quilts, marching tents, medicine for the wounded and sick, compensation for the families of the fallen, barracks and stables in the camps—which of these didn't cost money?

The key point: these Liao troops were already demoralized. If their treatment fell short, today they'd mutiny over pay, tomorrow they'd desert the camp. Instead of serving as cannon fodder, they'd cause trouble inside Zhao Song territory, and Zhao Yu would truly be lifting a rock only to drop it on his own feet.

Fine—if these Liao troops were battle-hardened elites, that would be one thing. But they were all startled birds routed by the Jin, utterly unfit for any major use.

More importantly, the Zhao Song dynasty currently wasn't short on soldiers and had no use for these Liao troops at all.

So Zhao Yu saw it as clear as a mirror: these Liao troops looked like soldiers, but in reality each one was a money pit that could never be filled. Rather than throwing money at them, it was better to leave them in Liao, letting them linger on Yelu Yanxi's meager rations, so they could at least continue to bleed the Jin army a little more for the Zhao Song dynasty.

Put plainly, using Liao's money to feed Liao's soldiers and letting them wear each other down with the Jin was the most cost-effective deal.

Then there was the saying: a measure of rice earns gratitude, but a whole sack earns enmity.

If these Liao troops remained Liao troops, fighting to recover their lost lands, Zhao Yu could casually supply them with some grain and armor, and they might well sing his praises.

But if Zhao Yu incorporated these Liao troops into the Song army, then if their treatment was even slightly worse than that of Song soldiers, they would nurse grievances, believing the Zhao Song dynasty played favorites and treated them as second-class citizens. They'd feel that leaving their homeland and wandering far from home had earned them no proper respect or treatment.

At that point, they might not feel grateful to the Zhao Song dynasty for taking them in, but would, faced with the gap between expectation and reality, quickly turn that into deep resentment toward the dynasty.

If that day truly came, these former Liao troops might not become a solid shield against foreign aggression, but could instead become a source of internal unrest—like an undercurrent hidden beneath a prosperous surface, ready to surge forth once the time was ripe and strike at the foundations of the Zhao Song dynasty. Or perhaps the former enemy, the Jin, might instead become some kind of "fellow sufferer" they compared themselves to.

Moreover, among the Song army, they might be ostracized and branded as "surrendered soldiers." That humiliation and unwillingness would be enough to ignite the fire of rebellion in their hearts.

In other words, once these Liao troops were brought into the Zhao Song dynasty, one had to face the thorny problem of how to integrate and pacify them. A century of Song-Liao enmity could not be dissolved overnight. Among these Liao troops, plenty harbored hostility toward the Zhao Song dynasty; mishandled, they could become a source of internal instability.

Furthermore, Zhao Yu also had to consider the long game. If he truly absorbed large numbers of Liao troops, when the Jin eventually fell into internal strife or declined, would these former Liao troops turn into a new force opposing the Zhao Song dynasty? After all, the longing for their homeland and the desire to restore their state in their hearts would not easily fade.

Zhao Yu was unwilling to plant hidden dangers for his future self, nor to push the Zhao Song dynasty into unknown risks for the sake of a moment's mercy.

Zhao Yu knew well that the subtleties and complexities of human hearts far surpassed any military strategy. Though he could foresee the grand picture, he could not fathom the mind of every individual. Incorporating the Liao troops looked like a clever move to strengthen his own power, but in truth it hid deadly peril—one careless step and he might set himself on fire.

Besides, if the Zhao Song dynasty recruited Liao troops, it would inevitably cause extreme panic and fury among Liao's rulers, which might in turn drive them to take more extreme measures.

Though Yelu Yanxi was incompetent and foolish, if Zhao Yu pushed him into a corner, he might pour out the entire nation's strength and unite every force that could be united—including those tribes and powers that had long been dissatisfied with Liao—to jointly resist the Zhao Song dynasty's "invasion."