Chapter 655: Danyang Mountain People Request Surrender

Chapter 655: Danyang Mountain People Request Surrender

Although Ma Su led 30,000 troops to Ruxuwu this time, his real purpose was not to capture the city. His core goal was actually to build a vanguard city a hundred miles outside Ruxuwu.

Now the farming in Huainan has just begun, and it is difficult to be self-sufficient in food and fodder. The food needed by Ma Su's 30,000 troops to march south had to be specially requisitioned from Xuzhou.

Moreover, the road from Hefei to Ruxuwu is long and difficult to travel, and the loss of food and fodder is also unbearable for the Han army. So even if he only brought 30,000 troops, it would be difficult for the Han Dynasty to maintain it for a long time.

Therefore, if you want to maintain the front line in Ruxuwu for a long time, building a city on the spot is the only option. If it fails, Ma Su can only wait until the harvest season in Yangzhou is over, and then retreat to Hefei and wait for the next opportunity.

For Ma Su, if he fails to solve it the first time, it will be a huge failure. In the future, as Dongwu prepares, the action will become more and more difficult, and Dongwu's troops will become more and more experienced.

At that time, Ma Su could only wait for the Lianghuai farming plan to be completed, and then rely on national strength to forcefully crush Dongwu.

"This won't work. If we continue to fight at this pace, I'm afraid Sun Quan will really live in Jiangdong until he dies." Ma Su shook his head, his face solemn, and his eyes flashing with a thoughtful gleam.

"We must find the weakness of Jiangdong... or some hidden dangers that can be exploited."

Wherever there are people, there will inevitably be conflicts and internal contradictions, and this is the same everywhere. Especially for a regime like Dongwu that can maintain its main body by the monarch's checks and balances, it is normal to have many internal contradictions.

But when Ma Su kept thinking and looking for internal problems in Yangzhou, he was still disappointed. Although everyone in Dongwu had contradictions and enemies, the contradictions were not intense enough.

And when the Han army was at the gates of the city, these contradictions were all covered up in a short time. Under the pressure of the common enemy, the entire Yangzhou was extremely rare to be twisted into a rope...

This was something Ma Su had not expected before the war, and it was also the most troublesome thing at the moment.

Without being able to stir up internal conflicts in the enemy army, Ma Su would have no chance to take root near Ruxuwu. However, the premise of wanting to stir up internal conflicts in Dongwu is that Ma Su cannot be too close to Yangzhou and the pressure cannot be too great...

Well, it's a dead end.

Under Ma Su's great headache, the Han army began to build the city again. In the following time, Ma Su also began to be vigilant and increase the intensity of night patrols, trying to resist Dongwu's night attacks.

But it is obvious that some things cannot be stopped by being cautious. When Dongwu is not afraid of death, many things are doomed.

In the next half month, Ma Su encountered three night attacks by the Wu army. Although he was able to successfully repel and annihilate them every time, they caused Ma Su a lot of trouble every time.

For a whole month, Ma Su hadn't even built the prototype of the city...

"Envoy, given the current situation, we will have to withdraw to Hefei in another month." After another night attack, Liu Yin came forward to report to Ma Su.

"The resistance of the Jiangdong nobles is far beyond our imagination."

"Indeed." Ma Su was convinced and could only sigh.

"If they continue to resist, it will be difficult for us to enter Jiangdong."

Just as Ma Su and Liu Yin sighed to each other and began to consider withdrawing their troops, a soldier suddenly came to report,

"General, we captured a soldier wearing the clothes of the Eastern Wu...but he told us that he was not a soldier of the Eastern Wu, but a soldier who resisted them."

"Resisting the Eastern Wu?" Upon hearing this, Ma Su and Liu Yin were both stunned. At the first time, both of them guessed that it should be a spy from the Eastern Wu.

But when the so-called "spy" was pushed up, Ma Su's eyes suddenly lit up.

This is obviously a mountain man, not a Han Chinese from Yangzhou. Although he is dressed in the clothes of the Eastern Wu, both his temperament and appearance make Ma Su feel very familiar.

That's right, it's the elite soldiers of Danyang! And the most pure, uneducated elite soldiers of Danyang!

"Meet the Han general!" Seeing this Danyang man clumsily performing the Han etiquette, Ma Su's heart can't help but become active.

The moment he saw this Danyang mountain man, Ma Su suddenly had an epiphany. He remembered at this time that Yangzhou is not only home to aristocratic families, but also has countless mountain tribes of all sizes!

The central and southern parts of Yangzhou are mountainous, with a low degree of development. Most of the places were controlled by mountain people before. Since Sun Quan took the position of the Lord of Jiangdong, he has been fighting with these mountain people.

He needs the population of mountain people, and he also needs these brave and warlike mountain people as a source of soldiers. So for decades, the troops of the Eastern Wu have been capturing mountain people as soldiers.

Among them are the mountain people of Danyang County...

However, the mountain people of Danyang have always been the typical example of disobedience to education, and naturally they will not sit still and wait for death. Since Sun Quan set his sights on them, the mountain people of Danyang have been fighting with Sun Quan endlessly.

Historically, from the Battle of Chibi to the Qinglong period when Sun Quan became emperor, the mountain people of Danyang basically went down the mountain to rebel every year. Every year when the New Year is approaching, the mountain people of Danyang will go down the mountain to raid the grass valley, as if they can't celebrate the New Year without making trouble.

When the children of the mountain people of Danyang become adults, the first thing they say should be "I'm new here, and I want to ask whether we should follow the procedures or rebel directly this year?"

All in all, although the mountain people in Yangzhou were severely hit, they were not completely wiped out. Since the Danyang mountain people came to see him, Ma Di was sure that these mountain people still had the idea of ​​resisting.

Sure enough, the request of the Danyang mountain people disguised as soldiers of Soochow confirmed Ma Su's suspicion.

He is from a surviving tribe in Danyang, and their tribe happens to be located along the Yangtze River in Wu County. They expressed their willingness to welcome the king's army, and several of their tribes sent out small boats to take the Han army to the south.

In exchange, the Han needed to accept the surrender of their tribe and absorb the elders of their tribe into the Han's official system.

The news that Ji Han was willing to recruit foreigners as officials had spread, which gave the Danyang tribe hope. So while supporting Han and destroying Wu, they also tried to join the Han's power structure.

Ma Su flatly refused their request.

"Although your proposal is nothing, I am not ready to go south to Yangzhou at the moment."

Ma Di spoke calmly and expressionlessly rejected the Danyang Mountain People's suggestion.

With Soochow's self-defense flourishing, imagine how difficult it would be to cross the Yangtze River and enter Jiangdong to fight. Although Ma Su was not worried about the dangers of the war, he was not ready now.