Yang Duanhe was surprised when he heard the news at first, but when he thought that Shen Bing was responsible, he felt it was natural.
Then his whole body relaxed...
If Shen Bing's plan works, Chu people will move from Chu territory to Huaibei one after another.
So does he still need to be so anxious and nervous about the Chu army coming to attack?
It was Shen Bing who was the last to know the news.
A personal guard rushed to Shen Bing's camp and reported:
"Lieutenant general, the people of Chu...the people of Chu have come to surrender, there are thousands of them!"
In fact, even Shen Bing did not expect so many Chu people to come in the first batch.
Because he knows that people are naturally afraid of strange things.
The people of Chu didn't understand Qin, so they couldn't be sure whether the conditions offered by Qin were a lie to them, and it would be too late to regret it after they arrived in Huaibei.
Therefore, Shen Bing thought that there would only be small batches at the beginning, dozens or hundreds, and no more than a thousand at most.
These are all things that you are brave enough to try, or there is no way to survive.
After they became the first group of people who dared to eat crabs, more and more people moved to Huaibei.
Another difficulty is the blockade of the Chu State... The Chu State will not allow its people to migrate to Huaibei like this, so it will definitely take some measures.
So this requires a process.
But thousands of people came in the first batch. In Shouchun alone, there were 8,000 people. If the whole line was counted, there were more than 12,000 people... But Shen Bing was not expecting it.
Later, when Shen Bing asked, he realized that it was actually the Chu nobles who had messed up their positions.
Needless to say, there are three major clans. Their vast territory occupies almost half of Huainan, so everyone is worried that the Qin army will attack them first.
Their countermeasure was to "gather up food widely and build walls high."
There is nothing wrong with this strategy, and it should be done.
The problem is that they have already used a large amount of food to support Xiang Yan in the battle, and now there is very little left, and the food outside the city has not yet been harvested... How can they "accumulate food widely"?
The method is very simple, but it is in the hands of the people.
Of course they won't rob outright, but they will create a temporary excuse to collect taxes.
Zhao's is the "anti-Qin tax", Qu's is the "war preparation tax", and the "strong military tax" and so on.
In short, just pick a name and send troops down to tax the people.
How can we “build the city high”?
It's just recruiting labor and recruiting young men from everywhere... This is unreasonable in the Chu Kingdom.
If the Qin State requires remote service and military service, then there are Qin laws there, such as the age at which military service is required, when the remote service is required, how many years of punishment will be required for any crime, etc.
Although the burden on the people is also heavy, at least everyone is mentally prepared for the legal provisions and everyone is the same, so they can still accept it.
But the people of Chu State are the private property of the nobles, and they are usually fine. They also know that they need people to farm the fields and will not seize young men randomly.
But when it came time to prepare for the war...the whole clan was about to be wiped out, and there was no need to worry about farming in the coming year. So when they saw young people, they captured them and either worked as coolies or as soldiers.
What's more serious is... what to do with the large tracts of food outside the city that need to be cooked?
Wait until the grain is ripe?
Was it the Qin army who came to collect grain at that time instead of them?
It is even possible that the Qin army has been waiting for that moment!
When will the Chu army leave the city to protect food?
Just kidding, who doesn’t know that the Qin army is the best in the world in field battles, and if you don’t defend a city and go out to fight, that’s still a death sentence?
The Zhao family and the Qu family were still strong enough to fight, so they decided to wait a little longer.
The weak Jing family gritted their teeth and seized the unripe grain outside the city.
As a result, the people's losses were huge... They had waited for half a year and relied on these grains to survive. How could they survive with this harvest?
Moreover, while increasing taxes, they also plundered the grain from the fields, which was to drive the people to a dead end.
But at this moment, the streets and alleys were covered with notices.
This was tantamount to pointing out a way out for these Chu people, so they looked for various opportunities to leave the city and surrender to Qin.
Fusu looked a little embarrassed when he saw Shen Bing again... He didn't want to come originally, but the duty of supervising the army is to participate in the command and decision-making of the army. Otherwise, how can he "supervise the army"?
This was his father's order, and Fusu did not dare to disobey him, so he would go to Shen Bing's camp at least every day to ask questions.
Shen Bing didn't say anything, but after saluting, he said:
"Your Majesty, everything goes smoothly."
Fusu was very surprised by Shen Bing's words.
Originally, Fusu thought that Shen Bing would show off a few words, and even if he didn't dare to say it explicitly, his words would be thorny. Unexpectedly, Shen Bing's words were not sarcastic at all, and he didn't take Fusu's previous disdain to heart at all.
Fusu didn't say much, just said "hmm", then knelt down in front of the case and flipped through the roster...
Then the more I looked at it, the more frightened I became.
This is because this register not only records the names of the people who came to Chu, their names and other common information required for household registration, but also has a valuable information book appended to it.
For example, mountains and rivers, hydrology, number of defenders, garrison situation, etc.
Looking at these, Fusu sighed:
"The deputy general is so thoughtful, Fusu admires him."
Shen Bing cupped his hands and replied:
"Every thought may cost hundreds or thousands of lives, and I dare not neglect it."
Fusu nodded, and then asked in confusion:
"If the deputy general is so kind-hearted, why should he be obsessed with war?"
Shen Bing smiled and replied:
"If my subordinates can prevent the whole world from fighting, they will not be obsessed with war."
"But if war is inevitable, we can only strive to end the war with minimal losses."
Fusu was stunned for a moment, and then asked:
"Did the deputy general mean to unify the Central Plains?"
Shen Bing secretly praised it.
At least this Fusu is not as pedantic as Chun Yuyue.
Chun Yuyue's benevolence refers to "maintaining the status quo", which means that it is best for everyone to stop the war under the current situation... This is of course a situation with minimal losses and casualties, but it is basically impossible to achieve.
There is a saying that "if you fall behind, you will be beaten." The Qin State is strong but the Chu State is weak. Another example is the Yan State, which was weak but still assassinated Ying Zheng and even attacked the Qin State. Is it possible to avoid this war?
If we maintain "non-annexation" for a long time in this state, we will suffer the greatest casualties.
Fusu had obviously thought about this, so he asked this question.
Shen Bing replied:
"Exactly."
Fusu asked again:
"The deputy general thought... that the war would be stopped after unifying the Central Plains?"
Shen Bing answered simply:
"cannot."
Fusu was a little surprised, and then looked at Shen Bing angrily:
"If the war cannot be stopped after unifying the Central Plains, then the lieutenant-general's expedition to the north and south is just asking for merit and honor at the expense of the people and soldiers."
"What's the difference between the deputy general's actions and others?"