Chapter 77 Northern Expedition
One month after cleaning up those gentry, the entire Central Plains has gradually calmed down, and finally began his plan for the Northern Expedition.
The first batch of 200,000 troops was ready, and the leaders of the 20 armies were also ordered. Among them, Gongsun Zan, a commander who was proficient in grassland warfare, was more famous.
There are also Cao Cao and Liu Bei who are more resistant to fighting, and they were also photographed by themselves, and some Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao, and Lu Bu were attached, and these people who have lived in the border for a long time were used to play a relatively famous first victory. It shouldn't be a big problem.
Of course, even if the entire army is wiped out, Zhong Yu won't be too sad, but he just feels sorry for those talents. It is impossible for his subordinates to exchange such talents from the system without him having a few hundred luck points.
The mighty Northern Expedition began under the attention of all the princes and local gentry in the world. This is the first official war after the establishment of the Imperial Kingdom, and the suppression of rebellions before was nothing.
Only the current head-on collision with those nomads is regarded by the gentry everywhere as a war of real scale, a war worthy of the table.
The nomads in northern Russia also received news of the Great Northern Expedition at this time. Some of them sneered, showing disdain for the so-called Northern Expedition.
Some people also showed panic, and felt very terrified of the first northern expedition of this newly established empire, because since ancient times, when the Central Plains Dynasty was first established, the army was often the strongest.
And that period of time was often the time when the Central Plains Dynasty slapped nomadic tribes. Now that the imperial court is making a northern expedition, even if we grassland tribes can win, we will inevitably pay a sufficient price.
And these costs are often brought about by the extinction of most of the clans among the nomadic tribes. And at this moment, it is often the time when those small tribes rise.
By devouring the remnants and defeated generals of the defeated big tribes, the small tribes gradually gathered strong forces one after another, and trained elite soldiers one by one in the process of fighting the army of the Central Plains Dynasty.
Then a new, robust new clan rose up. Become the overlord of an area on the grassland. If this overlord is lucky enough to defeat the attack of the Central Plains Empire, then maybe he can extend his lifespan for decades or hundreds of years.
Of course, if you are unlucky, you may encounter a stubble from the Central Plains Dynasty not long after the establishment of the new tribe, and they will be famous and besieged by them.
All of this is full of uncertainties and countless opportunities. It depends on whether people can be decisive enough and lucky enough to succeed.
The Northern Expedition went out in this way, and the 200,000 troops set foot on the journey of the desert under the tearful farewell of their family members. Since then, they have been shrouded in horse leather.
The sky is gray, the wild is vast, and the wind blows the grass and the cattle and sheep are low.
It is midsummer at this moment, when the water and grass are fertile. Originally, at this moment, every tribe is busy fattening up the cattle and sheep that have been hungry all spring and winter, so that they can grow enough fat this summer.
But at this moment, those shepherds were not seen releasing their cattle and sheep. I am a man, riding their horses and carrying their hunting bows, gathering one by one to their tribal chiefs.
They were taken by their leaders to other large tribes to join them, forming armies of hundreds or thousands of men one after another, and marching towards the south.
The two nations, born with irreconcilable contradictions, launched a life-and-death war in this summer. The winner will have everything, and the loser will pay his life as a bet in this war.
In the beginning, due to unfamiliarity with the terrain, the rebels had a lot of unnecessary troubles, or lost their way, or were defeated by the local nomads using the terrain and fled.
Several armies with poor generals or bad luck were defeated. Thousands of tens of thousands of people were directly annihilated by the advantage of the nomads on horseback, and the remaining thousands of remnants also fled directly to the south, and they were not given up by the nomads who were chasing and killing them until they fled to Yujing.
Of course, there are also troops that have performed quite well, such as Lu Bu Zhang Liao, who has been fighting nomads and has a certain reputation among the nomads, and Gongsun Zan, who is known as the White Horse General. These three have achieved very large victories.
Each of the three of them captured a few large tribes with tens of thousands of people, and the annihilated army was mainly tens of thousands of them, while their own losses were only four to five thousand.
Others such as Cao Cao, Liu Bei, etc., although they didn't have much victory, their own troops didn't suffer too much loss. They killed one or two thousand of his nomadic troops, and they retreated to the frontier after losing two or three thousand people.
In short, the Northern Expedition of the whole imperial kingdom was considered a success in the first trip out of the fortress, and 200,000 people died. He also killed 70,000 to 80,000 nomadic troops, and killed more than 200,000 women, children, old and weak.
This Northern Expedition, and even the subsequent Northern Expedition, finally made it clear to those generals that no prisoners will be left, and all nomads encountered, regardless of men, women, or children, will be killed.
It's not just men who kill, but also unarmed women who can shepherd sheep and provide food for tribes who are always at war.
It can also continue the descendants of those nomadic peoples, give birth to batch after batch of warriors for them, and contribute every trace of their value to the development and growth of those tribes.
And the child is a fighter when he grows up, and he can kill even before he is ten years old. Therefore, those nomads, regardless of men, women, old or young, are a threat to the Central Plains Dynasty.
In Zhong Yu's understanding, they could neither obey his orders faithfully, but also coveted the surplus of their Central Plains territory from time to time.
After I conquered them, I couldn't collect any taxes, I could only get some useless wool, so what's the use of keeping them, I might as well kill them all, lest they often come to harm me in the future.
Zhong Yu, he would rather let the grasslands in the north of his own become a barren land with thousands of miles of people, and he would not let one of those grassland barbarians live there.
And those generals, most of them are strong-tempered people. To put it bluntly, they are a bit tyrannical and easy to kill. They agree with Zhong Yu's order with both hands and feet.
With the order of their own emperor, they can try to let go of the tyranny in their hearts, enter their favorite hobbies to kill those grassland peoples, and they don't have to worry about impeachment by those nosy civil servants.
Because this is the emperor's order, do you dare to question the emperor's order because you think your family has too many people? If you want to reduce it, our emperor is even more brutal than those prairie barbarians!
Therefore, after the scourge of the Northern Expedition this time. The Xianbei tribe, which had a population of more than two million on the grassland, has completely reduced him by more than 300,000 people this time, which can be said to be a great loss of strength.
However, they were not happy yet, and repelled Yuguo's attack this time. Cao Cao and his group of troops had just been replaced, and the second group of troops, Sun Jian and Dong Zhuo, these two powerful generals led their troops and started the second Northern Expedition.