On the main street of Zhi County, Cai Qinhu and Zou Xin threw the tied-up Zhi County guard Sun Shuke in front of Zhao Hongrun.
It can be seen that although Sun Shuke tended to be conservative in his military use, he was a very courageous general. Even if he fell into the hands of the enemy as a prisoner, he still had an indifferent expression, as if he took life and death lightly.
He glanced sideways at Zou Xin and cursed coldly: "You shameless villain, you betrayed your country and surrendered to the enemy. How dare you show off your power in front of me? Is it to please your new master?"
"You..." Zou Xin looked angry when he heard this, raised his leg and kicked Sun Shuke's left knee. However, the latter seemed to be on guard. Even after being kicked, his left leg bent uncontrollably.
But still relying on the strength of his right leg, he stood arrogantly in front of Zhao Hongrun, scanning the surroundings with a squinting look.
Seeing this, Zou Xin frowned and was about to force Sun Shuke to kneel down again, but saw Zhao Hongrun sitting on the horse wave his hand and said gently: "Okay, General Zou (Xin), kneeling or not is just a formality.
...Even if you force him to kneel down to me, he will definitely curse me in his heart. There is no benefit to me from being kneeled down by him, and I have to be scolded by him in vain, so I don’t deserve it.”
Listening to Zhao Hongrun's open-minded and humorous words, the nearby soldiers laughed knowingly, while Sun Shuke looked at Zhao Hongrun with strange eyes, a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes.
After a while, Sun Shuke asked Zhao Hongrun suspiciously: "Are you the commander-in-chief of the Wei army, the Su Wang Ji Run of Wei?"
"Exactly." Zhao Hongrun nodded, then he looked around and said to Sun Shuke: "This is not the place to talk. Let's find a place to stay and rest first...Does General Sun Shuke have any recommendations?"
"Ask me?"
Sun Shuke had a strange expression on his face.
You must know that he is already a prisoner of the Wei army at this moment, but this strange King Su of Wei State seems to regard him as a friend when he speaks.
However, although he felt strange, Sun Shuke still answered Zhao Hongrun's words: "According to your status, the only one in this city worthy of your status is the mansion of County Duke Wan Xi..."
"The Wan clan...?" Zhao Hongrun frowned slightly, and after thinking for a while, he said: "That place is not suitable, let's find another one... As long as it can shelter from wind and rain, I will not dislike it.
"
"..." Sun Shuke looked at Zhao Hongrun with an increasingly weird look, and then said casually: "Then there is nothing I can do."
After hearing this, Zhao Hongrun thought for a moment and said, "Then go to the sentry post."
A sentry post, also known as an outpost or a city camp, is a place where garrison soldiers and generals stationed in a certain city or county live. It is a military building, but it occasionally interferes with the security of the city, detecting theft, etc.
Generally speaking, the size of garrison posts in such cities and counties is not very large. For a city the size of Zhi County, if it were in the Wei State, the sentry posts in the city could only accommodate about 800 to 1,000 people at best.
.
However, it is hard to say in the Chu State. After all, the Chu State has too many people, which leads to a large number of troops. Zhao Hongrun would not be surprised if nearly 10,000 garrison troops are crammed into a city the size of Qi County.
As soon as the words were spoken, all the nearby soldiers and generals naturally had no choice but to obey. Even Sun Shuke, who was confused, followed Zhao Hongrun's horse obediently and headed to the outpost in the city with everyone.
He was very confused as to what the young Prince Su of Wei wanted to do.
On the way, the group passed by the mansion of the Wan clan. Sun Shuke could vaguely hear the screams of grief and the cries of women in the mansion. This made his heart sink, and then he couldn't help but snort secretly.
"You will not live if you do it yourself!"
Of course he understood what was going on in the county palace of the Wan clan, but he did not have any sympathy for the clan. In fact, for some unknown reason, Sun Shuke felt a faint sense of joy at this moment.
The reason is very simple, because he had already warned Wan Xi, the county magistrate of Zhi County, to use a sum of money to motivate the soldiers. However, the latter, a greedy and stingy fool, refused to spend a sum of money to motivate the soldiers in the end.
The soldiers died, so that Zhi County was captured by the Wei army, and the wealth of the Wan family also fell into the hands of the Wei army.
If the county prince Wan Xi were around at this moment, maybe Sun Shuke would sarcastically say: Look! This is the consequences of your greed for small things and losing big things!
Suddenly, Sun Shuke's heart moved slightly, because he remembered Zhao Hongrun's words "not appropriate" just now, and he vaguely understood something in his heart.
After all, the Chu army in Yuanxiang City, who came along the way and had been named the Yanling Army, did not dare to offend the people in the city under the constraints of the Wei army's military discipline.
Although this reflected the discipline of the Wei army, it also made the soldiers dissatisfied.
After all, if you break the enemy city, you can plunder the city's wealth arbitrarily. Although this is the ugliness of wars in the past, it is also the fundamental reason why the interests of the soldiers at the bottom and the generals are consistent - ordinary soldiers do not have such a high ideological awareness, and they risk their lives
In addition to the constraints of military regulations when vigorously attacking an enemy city, the temptation to plunder wealth after breaking the city is also a major reason for maintaining morale.
Obviously, the young King Su of Wei in front of him, Ji Run, while strictly prohibiting his troops from harming the civilians in the city, also made corresponding concessions and compromises.
This made Sun Shuke think highly of King Su's character.
After all, even Sun Shuke sometimes couldn't look past some of the nobles in Zhi County, so the former didn't care about their life or death.
After estimating how long it would take to burn incense, Zhao Hongrun and his party arrived at the outpost in Zhi County - this place was already controlled by the Wei army.
The outpost is naturally not as well-equipped as ordinary mansions. At a rough glance, it looks like a small fortress with towering stone walls and four-corner sentry towers.
However, although this kind of sentry post looks good, in fact, it is not so much strategic significance as it is used to intimidate - when the city falls, a small outpost cannot save the situation at all.
At this time, the Wei army in the outpost has taken over everything here. The Yanling army who did not participate in looting the rich man's mansion, or the soldiers of the Chu army in Yuanxiang City, are collecting the surrendered troops nearby.
From a distance, several men who looked like generals were looking at Zhao Hongrun. After seeing Zou Xin beside him, they all looked at him and saluted. They were probably the generals under Zou Xin.
Zou Xin nodded towards those people, and then invited Zhao Hongrun and the others to the post and the hall inside.
King Su's guards quickly took over the hall. After all, this would be the place where His Highness would stay. This loyal guard naturally had to do a good job of defense.
While these people were busy searching for potential safety hazards in the outpost, Zhao Hongrun started persuading Sun Shuke to surrender in the hall.
"Serve me, General Uncle Sun."
Perhaps because he stayed in the military camp for a long time, Zhao Hongrun gradually got into the habits of the military camp. He spoke straightforwardly, unlike the nobles who minced words to show their status.
However, when Leng Buding heard Zhao Hongrun's straightforward words of persuasion to surrender, Sun Shuke was really stunned for a moment.
Although he had vaguely guessed something about Zhao Hongrun's attitude towards him just now, Sun Shuke was still surprised when the latter said those words himself.
"A certain person is from Chu..." Sun Shuke said suspiciously.
Hearing this, Zhao Hongrun laughed and said: "My king now has nearly 80,000 troops from Chu people under his command, and there are also hundreds of thousands of people from Chu people living in the southern part of Yingshui County in Wei Dynasty...
What does General Uncle Sun want to express?"
Sun Shuke suddenly became speechless, because he just remembered that almost 80% of the Wei troops who attacked his Zhi County were soldiers from the Chu state.
This kind of thing is extremely rare in ancient and modern times: He is obviously a prince of the Wei people, but he actually trusts the army composed of Chu people so much. However, those troops composed of Chu people are willing to fight for this Wei people.
Driven by His Highness King Su of the country, he did not hesitate to go to war with his compatriots.
After thinking about it, Sun Shuke shook his head and said: "Sun Shuke understands your kindness... I swore to serve Lord Juyang at the beginning and cannot break my promise. Now that we are defeated, we can only die."
The implication was that he hoped Zhao Hongrun would execute him.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongrun curled his lips and said with a bit of sarcasm: "Stupid!... I was optimistic about you at first, but I didn't expect that you are a fool!"
Sun Shuke looked slightly angry when he heard this, and said displeasedly: "What do you mean by your words?... Even if someone is defeated and captured, you can't humiliate me like this!"
"Humiliation?" Zhao Hongrun said with a smile: "I am just telling the truth! ... Before I attacked Zhi County, I moved the residents of nearby villages to Xiangcheng. At that time, I had heard about the giant
What kind of thing is Mr. Yang? And you would rather die for that kind of guy than keep a useful life to benefit your compatriots. If this isn't stupidity, what else is it?"
Sun Shuke opened his mouth when he heard this, but was speechless.
At this time, Zhao Hongrun waved his hand and signaled Zongwei Lu Mu to loosen Sun Shuke's bonds, and then said to the latter lightly: "Now Zhi County has fallen into the hands of my king. Whether or not I kill you has nothing to do with the overall situation... It's just that I care about you.
With your talent, I can’t bear to let a general like you fail to die on the battlefield with great vigor, but die under my king’s sword... Just go.”
"Walk?"
Sun Shuke glanced at Zongwei Lu Mu who was untying him, and then looked at Zhao Hongrun with incredible eyes. He was shocked in his heart: Did the other party mean to let him go?
As if he had read through Sun Shuke's thoughts, Zhao Hongrun said lightly: "Yes, I cherish your talents, so I let you go... You can go to Ju Yangjun who is reviled and hated by the people of Chu nearby.
Continue to be the enemy of our Wei army; or you can leave the city and find a deserted place and commit suicide because you cannot bear the shame of defeat; or you can save your life and really do something for your compatriots.
." After a pause, he looked directly at Sun Shuke, shook his head and said: "Actually, I am very confused, what are you protecting? With all due respect, I am not protecting this country at all, nor is it this country.
Our people, you are only protecting that small group of people... You can't even talk about 'sacrifice for the country'! Therefore, don't show this pride in front of me, as if you are sacrificing for the nation."
"..." Sun Shuke was shocked all over.
Especially the last sentence seemed to tear his heart apart.
Beside him, the newly promoted general Zou Xin also showed a pensive look.