Chapter 277: Seven Hundred Thousand Captives Awaiting Sustenance, Swift Descent Into Southern Xinjiang To Plunder Grain
It was the month of June, and the Northern Frontier Army launched a decisive battle in the Hexi Corridor, with iron hooves trampling everywhere west of the Great River, and over seven hundred thousand Xia Kingdom troops and civilians becoming captives.
At the same time, the wheat in Southern Xinjiang also ripened.
Jimo City was precisely the area of Aksu in later generations.
An old man dressed in Geluolu attire, wearing a white small cap on his head, with graying hair and beard, leaned on a wooden crutch and stood at the forefront of the field ridges.
He gazed at the wheat waves stretching to the edge of the sand dunes, suddenly straightening his hunched back, his wrinkled face breaking into a smile, revealing his only two big yellow teeth.
“This year’s harvest is pretty good.”
The old man spoke in the Geluolu language.
The Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate was originally a country jointly established by Uyghur People and Geluolu People, dominated by Uyghur People, with Geluolu People also being important stakeholders.
Especially during the time when Li Xiao’s mother-in-law was in power, given that the Geluolu were disobedient and repeatedly rebelled, iron-fisted measures were used to forcibly migrate the Geluolu People from the Hezhong Region to Southern Xinjiang.
Therefore, the number of Geluolu People within the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate increased.
The Yushege Family arrived in Jimo during that migration and, through bloody fighting, quickly established a foothold locally.
Through decades of development, they gradually became a powerful clan in Jimo and even received an imperial edict from the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khan, becoming nobles of the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate.
Nowadays, one-tenth of the fields in Jimo belong to the Yushege Family; Yushege can be said to have laid down a vast foundation for the family.
As the wind swept over the heavy wheat ears, amid the surging golden waves, the old man stood at the front of the field ridge, as if he could hear the echoes of the killings from back then; those once arrogant clans had all turned to dust.
He killed all the men of those families, seized the women of those families, and buried all the children alive.
It can be said that every inch of soil under the Yushege Family is soaked with old blood debts.
But the old man did not think he was cruel at all; Southern Xinjiang was a place of the law of the jungle, where if one wasn’t ruthless, one couldn’t stand firm.
Only by being more ruthless than everyone else could one become a person above others.
“Grandpa, can we start harvesting now?”
Beside the old man, his eldest son Yimosu asked softly.
This was a tradition of the Yushege Family; every year at harvest time, the old man would personally hold a ceremony, similar to sacrificing to the grain god, praying for good harvests every year.
At this moment, the ceremony had ended, and the old man nodded slightly: “Begin!”
Then, the family servants and guards of the Yushege Family mounted horses and rode out in all directions, holding person-skin drums, beating them while shouting: “Harvest the wheat~”
The common people, who had long been prepared, rushed forward upon hearing this, holding farm tools.
They were called common people, but in reality, they were all serfs of the Yushege Family.
The Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate was inherently a slave state, where the status of common people was very low; without being nobles, they had no human rights.
Over eighty percent of the harvested grain had to be handed over to the Yushege Family, leaving less than twenty percent for the family to barely survive.
It was extremely miserable.
But the class structure of the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate had solidified; unless there was another massive population migration, serfs would always remain serfs.
This status would not change from generation to generation.
“Grandpa, I’ll keep watch here; you go back and rest first.”
Yimosu walked over from between the wheat ridges, bowed slightly, and said respectfully to the old man.
He was around thirty years old, wearing a loose brown robe, with a saber at his waist.
The old man narrowed his eyes at him and tapped the ground with his crutch: “It’s yours now.”
His cloudy eyes scanned the distant outline of the sand dunes: “Watch the grain stacks; don’t let those horse bandits smell it and sneak in.”
“Don’t worry, Grandpa.”
Yimosu straightened up, patted the scabbard at his waist, and the metallic clash was especially clear amid the wheat waves.
“A bunch of horse bandit brats? Who doesn’t know that the guards of our Yushege Family are the fiercest!”
“As long as it’s not those Northern Frontier barbarians stepping into Jimo, our family’s granary will only pile higher than last year.”
Hearing Yimosu’s words, a shadow flashed across the old man’s face.
Just last year, Northern Frontier barbarians looted Southern Xinjiang, sweeping through Kuxian, Kuzhi, and other places.
Even Jimo City, heavily guarded, could not withstand the Northern Frontier barbarians’ assault.
If the old man hadn’t been cunning and hidden his family in advance, the Yushege Family would have been gone last year.
Though the people survived, the family’s granaries, gold and silver, and more were looted in great quantities.
But fortunately, the Northern Frontier barbarians soon withdrew, leaving a white land.
One family with power comparable to the Yushege Family was unlucky and lost many people to the Northern Frontier Army.
The old man simply killed off the survivors, seized that family’s land and slaves, and recovered some vitality.
So, whenever the old man heard the words “Northern Frontier barbarians,” he felt deeply uneasy.
He snorted lightly at Yimosu: “Shut your mouth.”
“If the grain is robbed, dig a pit and bury yourself.”
Hearing the scolding, Yimosu instinctively shrank his neck, looking at the old man’s receding figure, shaking his head helplessly: “How could it be so coincidental?”
“The Northern Frontier barbarians only reached a reconciliation with the Khanate last year; they won’t come to Southern Xinjiang again.”
With that, he turned around, looking at the common people laboring like cattle and horses under the blazing sun in the fields, a flash of disgust in his eyes.
“Too slow, too slow.”
“Speed up.”
“Whoever doesn’t finish the work won’t eat lunch.”
“Pa~”
With that, the whip heavily lashed the back of a man nearby.
The man let out a heavy grunt but still didn’t dare stop his movements, continuing to hunch over and work.
After more than ten days of tense busyness, when the last bag of heavy wheat grains was carried into the Yushege Family’s granary by the serfs.
The serfs did not disperse; instead, they carried empty baskets, standing on tiptoe gazing at the granary’s tall rammed-earth walls, their eyes full of hopeful expressions.
On the high platform in front of the granary, Yimosu stood pressing his hand on the saber at his waist, the hem of his brown robe still stained with wheat stubble.
He cleared his throat, his voice echoing in the open courtyard: “Listen up, all of you!”
“The land under your feet belongs to the Yushege Family, and the grain before you also belongs to the Yushege Family.”
He pointed at the land under his feet, then at the tightly closed granary door, his tone carrying condescending disdain.
“Behave obediently from now on, pay the rent in full, don’t slack on corvée labor, and when the lean season comes, there will naturally be grain for you to eat.”
As soon as the words fell, a few low responses rose from the crowd.
In essence, these people were no different from serfs.
Only by working endlessly for the Yushege Family all year round could they get a little grain at harvest time.
The vast majority of the grain went into the granary, with less than twenty percent left for so many families to share.
It was simply not enough to go around.
Dissatisfied?
Kill a few ringleaders, and the others become more docile than house dogs.
Human nature is like this; everyone wants others to take the lead while they reap the benefits.
But when everyone thinks that way, it becomes a plate of loose sand, deserving to be oppressed.
Yimosu glanced at the unrest in the crowd, sneered, and waved to the steward: “First give each household half a dou of old grain and let them scram.”
Fine cheers immediately erupted from the crowd, and they lined up to move forward.
An old woman hunched over, watching the steward pour a basket of old grain into her basket; choking dust mixed with a moldy smell hit her face, but she paid it no mind.
Her withered hands clutched it tightly, afraid of dropping even a single grain.
Finally, she “thudded” to her knees on the ground: “Thank you, Master! Thank you, Yushege Master, for the reward!”
“Scram~”
The steward snorted disdainfully; though just a servant of the Yushege Family, he had to bow and scrape before the masters on ordinary days, but facing these lowly people, his back was straighter than anyone’s.
It seemed that only by bullying these lowly people could he gain a psychological sense of superiority.
And just as the old woman was about to stand up, she suddenly felt the ground under her knees trembling lightly, as if some massive thing was rumbling from afar.
At first it was a barely perceptible vibration, soon becoming a dense “thump thump” sound, with the dust underfoot jumping along.
“What’s going on?”
Someone noticed something wrong and looked around holding an empty sack.
“What is this sound?”
“Is it a flood?”
“Impossible; it hasn’t rained for days. How could there be a flood?”
The common people gathered outside the manor, nervously shaking their heads and looking around.
Yimosu, standing on the courtyard wall, felt a hidden panic in his heart.
He had more experience than these lowly people and immediately realized this was no natural disaster but more like the roar of galloping war horses.
His hand pressed on the hilt, his expression tense as he scanned the northeastern sand dunes.
The vibrations grew fiercer, like muffled thunder rolling over the Gobi Desert, followed by a gust of wind carrying sand and gravel that blinded people.
Atop the sand dune, a crimson wave suddenly appeared.
Battle flags!
Red flags with white borders bore the sun and moon emblem glaring under the blazing sun.
Behind the flag formation were gleaming red cavalry, their hooves shattering the silence of the sand dunes, like a burning crimson cloud pressing down, shaking the granary’s rammed-earth walls with a buzzing sound.
“Giddyup~”
“Hah hah hah!”
“Kill!”
The thundering of war horses mixed with the roars of Northern Frontier Soldiers swept in.
“Northern Frontier barbarians.”
“Northern Frontier barbarians are here.”
Someone suddenly screamed, and the crowd instantly exploded in panic.
Just last year, the Northern Frontier Army had looted Southern Xinjiang, their forces sweeping through Jimo City and routing the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate’s army.
So, the Northern Frontier’s Sun and Moon Battle Flag was no stranger to the people of Jimo City.
Seeing countless Northern Frontier troops in red armor charging from afar, the common people scattered like startled birds.
Yimosu’s face also turned “pale” in an instant, his expression full of terror.
He stared deathly at that crimson Sun and Moon Battle Flag; last year when the Northern Frontier Army passed through, he had seen this flag from afar.
A family with power comparable to the Yushege Family had resisted with weapons and was completely massacred by these demons in red armor.
At this moment, these people had actually come outside the Yushege Family’s manor.
“Quick! Close the courtyard gate!”
He roared and turned, but found his legs heavy as lead.
Those cavalry came too fast; red cotton armor shuttled through the yellow sand like a swarm of bloodthirsty red ants, charging to the foot of the dune in an instant, the smoke and dust from their hooves blotting out the sky and dimming the sun.
“Roar roar roar!”
“Kill!”
On the distant sand dune, the red-and-white Sun and Moon Battle Flag fluttered in the hot wind.
Er Hu wore crimson red cotton armor, its white edges outlining a sharp silhouette in the sunlight; he raised a telescope in one hand, his gaze locked on the Yushege Family’s manor.
Tawny rammed-earth walls enclosed clusters of granaries, with crowds of people inside and outside the courtyard like dense ant swarms—the common people collecting grain and the manor’s guards.
“Haha, perfect timing!”
Er Hu lowered the telescope and laughed: “Winter wheat just stored, these kids’ granaries are about to burst.”
His personal guards behind him all laughed; the red cotton armor formed a sea in the yellow sand, like a blazing bonfire.
Jimo was Aksu in later generations, bordering the Great River, one of Southern Xinjiang’s oases.
It could yield two harvests a year; now with winter wheat just in storage and summer millet still filling in the fields, it was the time of thickest reserves.
The reason Er Hu led troops here was a letter urgently sent by Li Xiao on fast horse not long ago.
“Xia Kingdom warfare ended, seven hundred thousand Hexi captives awaiting food; quickly raid Southern Xinjiang for grain.”
Er Hu laughed heartily upon receiving the letter, his mouth grinning even wider.
Not being able to follow Li Xiao on the eastern expedition had always been a regret for Er Hu; unexpectedly, Li Xiao gave him an even more important task.
Over seven hundred thousand mouths waiting to eat—this job had to be done boldly.
“The Yushege Family is quite fat.” Er Hu squinted at the manor’s arrow tower, vaguely seeing figures behind the battlements on the earthen wall.
“Unfortunately, they ran into us.”
These Southern Xinjiang nobles were cunning, building their manors into earthen fortresses with several hundred family servants and guards.
But they forgot that last year, the earthen fortress in Kuxian City was also trampled flat by their own cavalry.
Inside the manor, a girl’s miserable screams came from a courtyard.
The guards outside heard it and felt a secret pang, but none dared intervene.
The old man was old but not harmless; he often snatched girls from lowly families for his pleasure.
But being too old, he couldn’t perform, so he vented in this perverted way.
Those girls always left the room lying down, covered in blood, without a patch of good flesh.
At that moment, on the horse path in the back courtyard, a young man galloped in on horseback.
Dressed in Geluolu-style short robe, he was the most capable steward under Yimosu; he yanked the reins sharply and roared at the guards under the corridor: “Where’s the Master? Where is he?”
The guards exchanged glances and glanced at the tightly closed room door nearby.
The steward couldn’t care less and pushed open the half-closed door, rushing in.
“Master! Big trouble! Northern Frontier barbarians are killing their way here!”
The sight inside made him catch his breath: a girl in light gauze lay on the carpet, her fair back covered in crisscrossing whip marks, curling in pain and squeezing out broken screams from her throat.
The gray-haired old man chased behind, holding a leather whip, his wrinkled face flushed with sickly tide.
But upon hearing “Northern Frontier barbarians,” the old man’s whipping motion froze abruptly, as if doused with ice water from behind.
The leather whip in his hand dropped “clatter” to the ground.
“What? Northern Frontier barbarians are here?”
His voice was shrill like a cat stepped on; his usual dignity vanished, leaving only incredulous terror.
“Absolutely true, Master!” The steward knelt with a thud.
The old man’s face turned even paler; he had just discussed the Northern Frontier Army with his eldest son not long ago, and now they had actually come!
“How is that possible? How?”
“Didn’t they say the Khanate already negotiated peace with the Northern Frontier?”
“Three princesses have already been sent to the Northern Frontier for marriage alliance; how can those barbarians still come to our Khaganate?” The old man muttered, his expression panicked.
But he didn’t know that last year’s peace talks had nothing to do with this year.
If Southern Xinjiang wanted peace, they could negotiate again.
“Where’s Yimosu? Where did that waste go to die?” The old man bellowed bluffing despite his fear.
“The Eldest Young Master is commanding the servants to defend on the courtyard wall…”
Before the steward finished, a burst of terrified screams erupted from deep in the manor.
“The Eldest Young Master has been killed.”
“The Eldest Young Master is dead.”
“Northern Frontier barbarians have broken in!”
“Help!”
“Run!”
The Yushege manor was large, and the sounds weren’t very clear, but the old man still heard.
His eldest son was dead?
His pupils contracted sharply; he staggered back two steps, bumping into the wall.
“It’s over… all over…” The old man slumped onto the carpet.
The manor’s main gate had long been reduced to a pile of splintered wood under the Tiger Zun Cannon’s bombardment; countless cavalry in crimson cotton armor charged in, their iron cavalry thundering and shaking the entire manor.
The guards had long lost the will to resist and fled in all directions.
“Kill~”
Northern Frontier Cavalry charged on horseback, their cavalry sabers drawing cold arcs in the air, blades lightly slicing the necks of the guard team.
Another guard ducked into a room and tried to close the door, only to be pierced through the chest by a cavalry spear through the crack.
In the manor, more guards were being surrounded by cavalry; some knelt begging for mercy, others tried to climb the walls but were shot down by the Northern Frontier Army.
In fact, the number of guards inside the manor outnumbered the Northern Frontier Army.
Because the Northern Frontier Army was attacking several manors simultaneously with divided forces.
Attacking the Yushege manor were only three centurions personally led by Er Hu.
But these Geluolu guards had all lost their courage.
Everyone harbored fluke thoughts; as long as there was a glimmer of hope, few would fight to the death until the last moment.
Soon after, Er Hu strode into the Yushege manor through pools of blood.
The first thing he saw was Yimosu’s corpse hanging under the gate arch and a large number of kneeling Geluolu People surrendering.
Immediately, a centurion dragged the old man before Er Hu with an iron hook.
“Commander, this old thing is Yushege; heard he often tortures and kills women for fun.”
The ground behind was stained with the old man’s blood into a long crimson corridor, and he was screaming in agony.
“Tortures and kills women for fun?”
“Then let him taste that flavor too!”
“Take him to the next manor and dismember him by a thousand cuts in front of those Southern Xinjiang barbarians.” Er Hu ordered coldly.
In the Northern Frontier, women’s status was low, but few killed women without cause.
Because women could breed heirs and were important property.
Li Xiao had even set military rules strictly forbidding the killing of women without reason.
So, Er Hu was furious about this old thing’s behavior.
Jimo had already been conquered by the Northern Frontier; the women here were Northern Frontier property.
Dare to kill Northern Frontier women?
He deserved to be cut to pieces!
“Yes, sir.”
The centurion responded gravely and dragged the old thing away.
The Northern Frontier Army had just arrived at Jimo City, and the first to attack was the Yushege manor.
Unfortunately, the Yushege Family became the “chicken” for Er Hu to kill the chicken to warn the monkey.
Afterward, Er Hu ordered a cleanup of the Yushege manor and the surrounding common people.
Looking at the full granaries inside the manor, Er Hu’s face was full of smiles.
“Now, Elder Brother should praise me for doing things efficiently.” Er Hu laughed.
“Men, go gather all those prisoners of war and common people.”
“Regardless of men or women, we take them all.”
These Geluolu Men could be used as livestock to transport grain to Yanqi City; if they starved or died of exhaustion on the road, so be it.
Women could also be used as tools.
Perfectly, among the Western Xia civilians migrating west this time, there were over a hundred thousand Western Xia soldiers and civilian laborers.
Their wives were left in Western Xia, or some hadn’t even married.
These Geluolu Women could be sold to them for breeding, helping these Western Xia soldiers and civilian laborers gradually develop a sense of belonging to the Northern Frontier.
That night, Er Hu’s three centurion troops camped at the Yushege manor to rest.
Eating plump Southern Xinjiang roasted mutton and enjoying fiery Geluolu Women, the noise didn’t stop for most of the night.
And while Er Hu led his three centurions’ cavalry to break through the Yushege manor.
The other Northern Frontier Army forces were equally successful, breaking through several manors.
Some Geluolu nobles, some Uyghur nobles.
They seized over fifty thousand shi of provisions and captured thousands of common people, including over two thousand women of childbearing age.
In fact, the Jimo area definitely had more population than this; many common people living outside the city had fled into the mountains or desert upon hearing the Northern Frontier Army was coming.
Er Hu had no mind to send people to pursue them.
Instead, leaving them had great use.
After the Northern Frontier Army left, these common people would surely return to farm, and next year Er Hu could come back to cut the leeks again.
Ten days later, there were no large manors or towns left in Jimo, and for the scattered village common people, Er Hu didn’t know how many people he sent to surround and exterminate.
So he called a chiliarch under his command.
“Shunzi, take your main force, escort these slaves and grain back to Yanqi City.”
During the last southern expedition, Er Hu had turned Yanqi City into a white land and kept a Northern Frontier Cavalry detachment stationed there.
Moreover, it was right on the road between Yili and Southern Xinjiang; Western Xia common people heading to Yili would have to rest at Yanqi City first.
These grains and women could serve as supplies for them.
Afterward, Er Hu continued leading his army south.
Last southern expedition, he had only reached Jimo City; this time he wanted to see the Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate’s capital Kashgar.
The previous Eastern Kara-Khanid Khanate Khan had just died.
The newly appointed one was the common father-in-law of Li Xiao and Er Hu.
So, Er Hu planned to borrow some grain from his father-in-law.
