Chapter 523: The Enterprise Not Yet Half-Built

The good news from the southeast was undoubtedly a shot of adrenaline for the Red Eyebrow remnants teetering on the brink of collapse; Xu Xuan instantly rallied.

"Liu Xiu is, after all, the famed general of the great battle at Kunyang. If the Red Eyebrows truly cut him down, it would surely shake Xu and Yang to the core. Liu Xiu raised his army barely two or three years ago; without him, his forces would splinter into chaos, and the Red Eyebrows could seize the moment to sweep south into the Two Huai region. The Two Huai are rich, especially the commanderies south of the Huai, with two to three million people and abundant resources, untouched by major calamity — enough to sustain a hundred thousand Red Eyebrows. Once we rally our scattered troops, we can hold out against Diwu Lun for a few more years."

Xu Xuan regarded the Red Eyebrows as his own enterprise. The massacre at Dingtao had sealed off any path to peace talks with Wei, so he had no choice but to find a way on his own.

However, when Xu Xuan led his remnant troops south and reached Liu County, barely a hundred li from Pengcheng, he encountered a great mass of Red Eyebrow soldiers fleeing in defeat from the south. From a village Elder among them, he learned that the battle at Pengcheng had undergone a drastic reversal!

"We were tricked — the Han army's defeat was a feint. When Lord Feng pursued them to the Si River, Liu Xiu counterattacked and routed us utterly. Another Han force circled around from Donghai Commandery and cut off our retreat. Lord Feng fell in battle. I barely escaped; most of the others were captured."

Xu Xuan was horrified: "Wasn't it said that Liu Xiu was also slain?"

"A false rumor. They only killed a Han Marquis named Liu Zhong during the pursuit. Everyone heard the surname Liu, and as the story spread from mouth to mouth, it turned into 'Liu Xiu is dead.'"

The Elder finished with a sigh, and Xu Xuan stood frozen in place.

This meant only one thing.

The Red Eyebrow Army had no road left to take!

……

Pengcheng at that moment was a scene of utter devastation — corpses strewn everywhere, crows so gorged they could barely fly.

First, last winter, the Han army had strengthened its defenses and cleared the countryside. The Red Eyebrows besieged the city for three months. After those two waves, the inhabitants within a hundred li in every direction had been plundered to the last grain. Those who could flee fled; those who could not survived only by cannibalism.

After spring began, Liu Xiu arrived at Pengcheng with the Han main force and fought a series of pitched battles against the Red Eyebrows. Although the Han troops ate rice from Huainan and Jiangdong and grappled with the hunger-panged Red Eyebrows, victory did not come easily.

Liu Xiu dispatched his generals Du Mao and the Chongling clansman Liu Zhong to feign defeat and lure the enemy eastward. The feigned defeat turned into a real rout — a retreat of thirty li that nearly triggered a total collapse of the entire army. It was only Liu Xiu himself who steadied the situation and turned defeat into victory. Coupled with his early order for his trusted general Lai Xi to march through Donghai Commandery and strike from the rear, he ultimately used strategy to reverse a tactical slump and annihilated the Red Eyebrow force under Feng An in one stroke. The details would take three days and nights to recount, so we shall not elaborate.

Suffice it to say that once the decisive battle concluded, and the tasks of tending the wounded, guarding the prisoners, and so forth were methodically arranged, Liu Xiu held a ceremony on the Si River outside Pengcheng to mourn the fallen.

Liu Xiu was still in full battle dress. The blazing Han banners stood at his side. He slaughtered a beast, sprinkled its blood, and placed the severed head of the Red Eyebrow Excellency Feng An at the center. Then he filled a bowl with wine and raised it high.

"The first bowl — I offer to the officers and soldiers who died in this battle."

Liu Xiu's forces had numbered less than half the Red Eyebrows. After the bitter fighting, the dead and those who later succumbed to severe wounds amounted to a full tenth of his army. Many among them were river bandits he had recruited in Jiangdong; fortunately, the elite Danyang troops did not suffer heavy losses.

His treatment of those who surrendered was always to "bare his heart to them." Though this could not alter the wretched conditions of the common soldiers in the army, at least he put on a full display. If the rank-and-file bore grievances, they would direct them at their immediate commanders, feeling only gratitude toward the King of Wu. Now, seeing Liu Xiu's first libation poured for the officers and men whose names would not even remain on their grave mounds, they were deeply moved.

"The second bowl of wine — I offer to the fallen General of the Central Army, Du Mao, and the Marquis of Gaoyou, Liu Zhong!"

Du Mao was a man of Champion County in Nanyang Commandery. He had once served under Liu Bosheng, but later, disheartened by the Greenwood faction, he returned home. When the Red Eyebrows entered Nanyang, he led his clan to Ming'e Pass and, along with the Nanyang powerful families, threw in his lot with Liu Xiu. He was appointed Assistant General and later promoted to General of the Central Army for his merits.

As for Liu Zhong, he was a Chongling kinsman of Liu Xiu and his brother. He had fought at the Battle of the Wei River, witnessed Liu Bosheng's death in battle, and carried his final letter a thousand li to deliver it to Liu Xiu. Among the Chongling imperial clan, he was the man the King of Wu valued most.

Yet in the decisive battle at Pengcheng, the two men volunteered to serve as the vanguard to lure the Red Eyebrow army. They underestimated the Red Eyebrows' fighting strength, and the result was a crushing defeat. During the retreat, Liu Zhong fell from his horse and was beheaded by the Red Eyebrows. Du Mao held on until he reached the ambush point, then stubbornly turned his remaining battle-worthy troops around to join Liu Xiu in annihilating the enemy. But after the battle, he too was gravely wounded and died of his injuries...

To lose a beloved general and a kinsman in a single battle — Liu Xiu was naturally overcome with grief. At the memorial, he could not help but cry out "Alas, what sorrow!" many times, which greatly diluted the joy of victory.

Add to this Chen Jun, who had been killed by the Red Eyebrows near Pengcheng back when Liu Xiu first marched south to secure Deng Yu's escape. The enterprise was not yet half-built, yet so many tiger-like officers had already been lost. Fortunately, the collapse of the Greenwood and Liang-Han factions sent a flood of leftover loyalists and scholars still clinging to the dream of restoring the Han to his side. This at least steadily swelled Liu Xiu's civil and military ranks, so he was not left without officials to govern the commanderies under his control.

After Liu Xiu finished reading the eulogies he had personally written for Du Mao, Liu Zhong, and Chen Jun, he raised the third bowl of wine.

"This third bowl — I offer to the people of Xuzhou, who have suffered displacement and misery since Wang Mang's chaos and the rampages of the Red Eyebrows!"

Apart from Langya Commandery, which was still under the control of the King of Qi, Zhang Bu, the other five commanderies of Xuzhou were all firmly in Liu Xiu's grasp. The envisioned "Two Huai palisade" had taken initial shape. But the situation in each commandery was grim. South of the Huai was tolerable, but Pengcheng and Donghai north of the Huai, once immensely wealthy and populous commanderies, now had barely three households left out of every ten — no better off than Yu or Yan provinces.

Just as on Diwu Lun's side, the territories Wei and Wu currently held could all be regarded as negative assets, leaving both sides incapable of taking another great stride forward.

After the memorial ceremony ended, a major question loomed before Liu Xiu: how to deal with the tens of thousands of Red Eyebrow prisoners captured in the battle?

The more bloodthirsty generals, like Fu Jun and Ma Cheng, vehemently argued for slaughtering every last one of them!

"Your Majesty, these Red Eyebrows are all desperate criminals. They have plagued Xuzhou for years. Chen Jun died at their hands. They absolutely cannot be shown leniency. It would be better to..."

Fu Jun pointed at the Si River not far away: "... drive them all into the Si River and drown them!"

The "civil officials," led by Zhu You, held a different view and urged Liu Xiu: "Killing prisoners is inauspicious. The captured Red Eyebrows may be many, but can they outnumber the bandits of Jiangdong or the Yue of the mountains? Your Majesty bares his heart to men and can win over the hearts of bandits; perhaps you can make the Red Eyebrows utterly devoted as well."

Liu Xiu did not declare his stance. Feng Yi and Deng Yu were leading troops to seize southern Jingzhou — that was Wu's primary direction of advance. He therefore asked Lai Xi, the man currently at his side whom he trusted most: "What does Uncle Jun think?"

Lai Xi was Liu Xiu's childhood friend and a relative, so he spoke bluntly. He simply asked Liu Xiu: "Though Your Majesty has triumphed at Pengcheng and now holds roughly Yang, Xu, and half of Jingzhou — can you now oppose Diwu Lun?"

Liu Xiu knew his own limits: "I cannot."

This was obvious. The territories in Diwu Lun's hands were the fertile heartlands of Guanzhong and Hebei. Although Jiangdong and Huainan had been somewhat developed under the Han, they could not remotely compare. In terms of numbers, once Wei recovered even slightly, it could easily launch expeditions of a hundred or two hundred thousand troops. Wu, straining its entire national strength, could barely scrape together that many. In terms of quality, the elite Danyang troops might not necessarily match the You and Bing province cavalry.

Lai Xi said: "Yet Diwu Lun is brutal. Recently we have learned from Red Eyebrow prisoners that the Wei army massacred prisoners at Dingtao — ten thousand slaughtered, the Ji River choked with their bodies. Apart from those captured in battle, the Red Eyebrow remnants mostly flee far from the Wei army and refuse to submit."

"Your Majesty killed Feng An and has already avenged your beloved general and clansman. The Red Eyebrow soldiers were merely coerced into banditry. Even if they are guilty, they should not be wantonly slaughtered. Wu is different from the Central Plains — what we have in surplus is land; what we lack is people! If Your Majesty is willing, hand the Red Eyebrow prisoners to me for screening. Given time, they may become another 'Danyang Army' to use against Diwu Lun!"

Liu Xiu deeply admired Lai Xi's insight — he was indeed a theater commander second only to Feng Yi and Deng Yu. He smiled and said: "Whatever Diwu Lun does, do the opposite, and the matter can succeed. Uncle Jun's strategy is excellent."

But there remained a major problem. Lai Xi was too close to the mountain to see it clearly; he had not grasped the current reality. Liu Xiu's Kingdom of Wu, aside from the generals who had followed him from the start of his enterprise, relied for grain, fodder, and manpower primarily on the powerful families of Huainan and Wuhui. They could not compare to the great surnames of Nanyang, but they were not to be underestimated.

The reason they supported Liu Xiu was their fear that in the chaos, the Red Eyebrows would cross the Huai and sweep them away. Thus, they had been quite zealous in the war against the Red Eyebrows. If Liu Xiu took in the Red Eyebrow remnants on a large scale, it might cause the Huainan and Wuhui families to grow alienated and disloyal — some might even secretly collude with Wei...

So whether this piece of meat could be divided well would determine whether the House of Han could truly revive in the southeast!

Liu Xiu therefore gave orders to Zhu You and the others: "Give the Red Eyebrow army food — one meal a day. Do not let them go too hungry, nor too full."

"Secondly, spread the news of Diwu Lun's massacre of the Red Eyebrows. Inflate ten thousand into a hundred thousand. Also put out word: any Red Eyebrow Elder willing to bring troops and surrender — those with over a thousand men shall all be appointed Colonel. Any Red Eyebrow Attendant or higher willing to surrender shall each be granted a residence and two qing of land."

While using official rank and salary to entice the middle and upper ranks of the Red Eyebrows, Liu Xiu was not the least bit stingy with the prisoners either. He split them directly in two!

Half were assigned to Lai Xi and the various generals. The other half were distributed to the Huainan and Wuhui powerful families who had supported him in winning the great battle. Spring had arrived, and the southern paddy fields desperately needed a massive labor force — strong laborers who could be worked to death, nurturing the rice with their blood and sweat.

This would both placate the powerful families and allow them to reclaim more land and plant rice. Come autumn, if the various clans were in a good mood, they might even pay the King of Wu a little more land rent.

Jiangdong was vast and sparsely populated; there was no need to distribute land. As long as one was willing to invest manpower, there was far too much arable land along the shores of Lake Tai. But exactly how much land each family held was an unknown figure. After the southern reporting system was restored, the taxes collected were pitifully small. Liu Xiu needed to cooperate with the powerful families and could not afford to fall out with them by thoroughly surveying the fields. So the amount of grain they handed over was entirely at their own discretion.

When Liu Xiu summoned the sons of these families, his smile was radiant, and he lavished praise on their public-spirited devotion to the state. But behind the scenes, he was deeply troubled.

The Red Eyebrow prisoners captured at Pengcheng were not enough. He still had to find a way to gather refugees north of the Huai — that was the true foundation for building a state.

"Though the powerful families of Huainan and Wuhui are close to me, to oppose Diwu Lun, I still need my own source of grain! Order the soldiers and civilians to farm and train simultaneously north of the Huai."

"I hear that Diwu Lun has already smashed the main Red Eyebrow force at the He and Ji rivers. The Wei army's southward advance is slow, but like our own army, that is due to a lack of provisions. Once the grain supply catches up and the Central Plains produce grain again, Diwu Lun will dispatch forces into the Huai region! At that time, the Two Huai will become the Great Han's foremost bulwark!"

Liu Xiu knew very well that with his own strength, contending with Wei in Qing and Yan provinces would likely be beyond his reach. For now, he needed to consolidate his forces and then wage war through strategy and diplomacy.

"Everyone who can oppose Diwu Lun — we must unite them all!"