Chapter 65: Army Divides North And South
In the summer of Shu Tian Calendar year 30, a new batch of northbound grain carts and soldiers entered Tianchi City. The new batch of officers from the Wu Family’s main lineage who came along entered the main camp, hearing accents completely different from their local dialect filling every camp. And after paying respects to Wu Hanluan, they found that even Wu Hanluan’s son Wu Hengyu’s accent had been influenced by those outsiders.
As one of the Wu Family Army’s direct lineage, Wu Fei’s cousin, Wu Hong, who had done miscellaneous tasks in the Battle of Yongji Pass and driven a war chariot out of the pass to impact barbarians, muttered to himself six days after arriving at this main camp: “Courage and righteousness are commendable, but lacking discipline.”
In the military tent, he strictly remembered Wu Fei’s instructions on the drill ground before departure: Observe more to understand clearly, do not let hot blood rush to your head, take discipline as the standard.
…Wu Fei version of “On Warfare”…
At this time, the northern and southern armies already had different attributes.
The southern army was formed after Shu Tian Calendar year 26, when Wu Hanluan mobilized the Wu Family Army’s main force to the north, and Wu Fei used Battle Soldiers from Yongji Pass as the backbone, promoting his old subordinates from previous battles to create a new family army. It looked new in terms of age, but in the eyes of the Wu Family, it better matched the family’s private soldiers’ values.
The Wu Family Army’s southern route as a local army had very strong local clannish grouping relations within the ranks. Wu Fei did not intend to cut off this clan relationship. Because in ancient times, there were no television ads or such propaganda.
Historically, talented individuals recruiting soldiers and buying horses, without local same-surname brothers hyping and vouching for you, then risking themselves to join as shills, could not attract people when raising a flag locally. —As for modern propaganda teams proactively going to various counties and villages to recruit, well, if they dared to touch the county lieutenant rights designated by Da Yao, the censors, patrols, and local officials would definitely step in to kick them.
Among the most elite battle soldiers under Wu Fei now, Wu-surnamed disciples accounted for thirty percent, though most were relatives beyond five degrees of mourning or distant kin unreachable by eight poles, but they all recognized Wu Fei as “main family,” just like Ah Q recognizing Elder Zhao as main family.
After the Battle of Yongji Pass, large numbers of clan disciples came to Wu Fei every year seeking opportunities. After absorbing them into the army, Wu Fei also handled the most troublesome grassroots work like pensions and remitting military pay through these same-clan brothers’ “fellow townsmen association,” ensuring the distribution of war profits.
Xuan Chong helplessly noted: Without the fellow townsmen association, even pension work would be hard to do.
That is, if the pension officer is not from the fellow townsmen association, but an outsider relative to this place, bringing huge profits to distribute to the families of the war dead in their hometowns, there would be two situations.
One: If too easygoing, the army pension officer would definitely encounter village shrews or such, who would throw tantrums to demand more, grab more. They would hold the pension officer back from leaving and start making a big fuss. And seeing this person is easygoing, locals would also pressure the pension officer to give more “as per reason,” otherwise threaten to propagate in the surrounding villages and towns to make people unwilling to enlist.
Two: Fierce and not easygoing, the pension officer becomes like the Stone Trench Clerk, with a face like a malicious ghost. But if using “Stone Trench Clerk,” how much of the pension money could be distributed?
Only using fellow townsmen as pension officers can control the degree, curb the unreasonable tantrums in the village, and also because they ultimately have to return home to be buried in ancestral graves, Da Yao’s people still believe in ghosts and spirits, and if they do not want to be debt-collected by brothers at the same grave in the future, they probably will not let lard blind their hearts.
Thus, Xuan Chong now roughly understood why the pre-Qin six generations could steadily advance Qin legalist systems, and why after the First Emperor suddenly unified under heaven, it suddenly blue-screened and crashed.
That is, the Qin legalist implementation took several hundred years. Over that long time, Qin people’s culture and Qin law co-evolved, similar to large animals and Homo sapiens co-evolving on the African savanna, preserving diversity. After Homo sapiens left, diversity collapsed on other continents.
Qin village commoners and local governing officials probably found ways to survive under Qin law through similar “fellow townsmen association” and other grassroots rule-of-man systems that he was now fumbling with.
While the Qin ruling class used legalists to treat commoners as machines, exhaustively pushing to the limit, they were completely unaware that Qin culture had been squeezed and deformed, no longer self-adapting to Qin law. So forcibly transplanting the Qin law system evolved over hundreds of years to the six states was like directly moving the First Emperor’s Qin law back to Shang Yang’s era, and it would also collapse.
The Wu Family Army southern route army is actually a “Qin army,” except Wu Fei, in major state affairs like warfare and sacrifices, when implementing legalist rewards and punishments, also leaves certain rights to village elders. Their qualifications are loyal men who obtained ranks on the battlefield, and Wu Fei does not use “punishment” to nitpick against such village elders when implementing legalist systems.
After acknowledging the necessity of default “village elder” rule-of-man operations, Wu Fei strictly controls their “quotas” and “qualification thresholds” to become village elders; every word and deed of each village elder must not violate ritual law, and any scandal disqualifies them from the position. For example, those returning-home pension officers must strictly observe etiquette during the process.
Note: Wu Fei absolutely will not engage in any “diverse team” or “add more distinctive voices” nonsense. Because this involves “discretionary power,” which absolutely cannot be held by people who are “too free, with overly flexible bottom lines”! Only those strict with themselves deserve to hold the sacred “discretion” power.
Wu Fei: I am a libertarian; “ritual” requirements are limited to scholars, and will not demand every commoner.
In contrast, the Wu Family Army northern route army is a “Chu army,” promoting righteousness and faith.
In terms of soldiers, the ones Wu Fei sent to Wu Hanluan’s northern route army in the recruitment system are different. As mentioned before, in Donghua Commandery’s main camp recruitment, after entering the porridge shed, those with families have the whole family as slave status, transported to the south. As for those without families coming alone, Wu Fei bundled these atomized individuals and sent them north.
As for why the two armies show such differences? It starts from the soldiers.
Unlike the northern Haotian General, Wu Fei does not yet have the “vanguard selection” concept, but out of inertia from his work habits, he subconsciously selects people he thinks are easy to manage. He stuffs the hard-to-manage ones to Wu Hengyu.
When those families fleeing together are captured, Wu Fei has to arrange land, livestock allocation, and labor for them, because he can grasp their “weak spots.”
These immigrants are slave status under protection, and in the future, to have permanent property under their own names, that is, successfully registered, they will have the need to go to the battlefield to seize merit, even second or third generation.
Wu Fei confirmed he is twenty years old this year; the children brought by those immigrants now are seven or eight years old, and in ten years can become soldiers; even if they give birth immediately after settling, in twenty years they grow into a generation, and Wu Fei can wait. Wu Fei is confident and capable of suppressing the various “high-profit” forces in his violence machine, extracting enough upward channels to ensure the growth of combat power.
As for those atomized young and strong individuals fleeing alone.
Wu Fei very modestly commented on this group of northbound young and strong: There are many schemers here; it is hard for him with his intelligence to come up with schemes fitting this era’s feudal values that satisfy them all. That said, if not limited by era, the ideas Wu Fei could propose are quite attractive. But Wu Fei dares not say.
However, for Wu Hengyu, there is no such problem; in achieving the goal of making people “convinced,” though he lacks brains, he has power.
Under such soldier diversion, the Wu Family Army northern and southern routes developed vastly different cultures.
…Unlike the profit-sharing alliance with Wu Fei, Wu Hengyu now gathers by shared righteousness.…
In the northern route army, there are first the clearly divided two social strata. See, if on the soldier roster, one side has proper names like Wang Yanli, Zhou Dewi, Ge Congzhou, and the other side has nicknames like Straw Rope, Hemp Pole, Black Pig from the village, it makes one suspect whether separate registers are needed.
Those with proper names are all the disciples of sponsors Wu Hengyu brought in by borrowing shells, that is, the powerful clans from the two places after the earliest pacification of Zhu Prefecture and Bamboo Prefecture. And recruited another batch in Donghua Commandery; here, among the batch Yu Li brought in, quite a few were from poor families.
These disciples supplied by great clans, though they also farm, at least their grandfathers played in schools. Influenced subtly, they know they share ancestors with those young masters, just they are legitimate while they are bastards. They are dissatisfied with the status quo. Now entering the army, they have more ambition than those whose ancestors for eight generations were farmers doing corvee. And fittingly, the current Wu Family Army is a rising stock, offering them chances to climb.
These local powerful clan branches and poor family disciples are obviously the backbone under Wu Hengyu; at least they can write their own great names! When Wu Hengyu lacks brains and only provides military strategist framework, these backbones fill in management details themselves.
However, as an outsider, Wu Fei can feel: These people, though open and talkative, with a “drink today, worry tomorrow” vibe, are actually very empty inside.
During the few times delivering supplies to the northern route army, Wu Fei discovered that these army backbones mostly talked about idealistic topics like “returning home in fine brocade robes.”
…Idealism and realism dividing line…
The soldiers in Wu Fei’s southern route army are very realistic: Rank matches land property rights, matches bureaucratic training system; obtaining battle merit means redefining order at home. No need to wear fine brocade and ride tall horses to show off return. Military ranks are recorded in local bureaucratic system’s bamboo tallies! They have priority privileges in various adjudication systems. Before they return, merit has already reached the village. In other words, only if the village cannot understand battle merit returns do soldiers need to go back and show off themselves.
After Shu Tian Calendar year 29, among the Wu Family Army northern route army’s mid-level officers, seventy percent are these branch and poor family factions.
Taking Zhu Prefecture and Bamboo Prefecture as examples, they themselves cannot allocate titles to local branches, so they invest in Wu Hengyu. So can they be expected to redistribute wealth in these two places through battle merit? Impossible. No matter how fiercely these branches fight outside, bringing back assets and women, they only get a chance to offer incense in the clan. But the legitimate line remains legitimate.
This problem is huge! A group of youth with knowledge, ideals, no property, and uncertain perseverance, converging with a large batch of similarly atomized lower youth. These attributes, in Xuan Chong’s previous life world, are definite destabilizing factors no matter the region or country.
What kind of leader do these people expect? —Wu Fei: I know this one; it needs a heaven-sent tough guy, a sufficiently tall and strong persona, leading them to break the current order.
If the southern route army is a block of iron, the northern route army is dynamite.
Just as Wu Fei manages the southern route army like an iron barrel, the northern route is completely gripped in Wu Hengyu’s hand.
Wu Fei excels at logistics, but due to the northern route army’s “bravest under heaven” brilliance too strong, even if Wu Fei takes other battle merits, he will forever be second, unable to shake Wu Hengyu’s control—because he cannot satisfy the hearts of these idealists in the northern route army.
Wu Fei also dares not replace Wu Hengyu; Wu Fei: They (northern route army) are bombs. Seemingly ideal but empty, actually with very high vision; they are not the type to be fobbed off with reclamation points. This is a group of men who want to seize power and become masters in one go.
Wu Fei’s current attitude toward the northern route army is: “Gentlemen, please go your way; our temple is small and cannot accommodate you great Buddhas, of course we can still gather travel funds; head north, go seek ideals from Da Yao, pursue the future.”
…From “clear” to “incomprehensible”…
In year 30, Wu Hanluan received family disciple Wu Hong in the army, listening to his report. But as he listened, his smiling face turned into an expression of “wanting to catch a little ghost.”
Wu Hengyu at the side was also happy to meet this clan brother; the enthusiastic reason was simple: the northern route army is growing stronger, but main family disciples are insufficient.
In terms of personality, Wu Hengyu tends more toward family than Wu Fei.
Wu Fei shows no favoritism to family in rewards and punishments; among generals under him, very few surnamed Wu. Only among personal soldiers and Security Bureau rosters are there many Wu surnames.
After Wu Hanluan heard Wu Hong talk about family matters, that Wu Fei had crossed Yongji Pass, opened a new city, and started using swords to guide southern tribes in farming, he nodded.
Because this year, the speed of stockpiling grain in Tianchi City and Yongji Pass was very fast; he worried if the old home was starving.
After all, from tax submissions, the old home’s three southern commanderies are sparsely populated and poor at the Imperial Court, but Wu Fei’s grain and grass scale completely exceeded what three Donghua Commanderies paid to the court.
Thinking of Wu Fei scraping the land elsewhere, he worried if home had already incurred heavenly wrath and popular resentment.
Oh, now learning that home is all fine, foreign race serfs have reclaimed large mountain fields and flood lands, using miscellaneous sweet potatoes and taro grain to meet local rations. He could finally relax.
After Wu Hong returned to camp.
Wu Hanluan sat down with son Wu Hengyu and said: “It seems we have to go north ourselves.”
When the northern route army was stationed in Longyou Commandery, Wu Hanluan could guess the Imperial Court would mobilize him.
As for driving the army there to do what? The Imperial Court did not say clearly, but could be guessed: Prince Bo fled there to establish a “Wei Guan” state. And neighboring Wei Guan, the very unstable Zhenzhou’s Prince Lelang.
Wu Hanluan nagged: “I originally wanted to wait for Yuan Chang to come together, so us three go north together, then things could be stabilized to ninety percent. But he is very busy there, and indispensable at home.”
Wu Hengyu frowned; though he very much approved of Wu Fei, he could not stand Wu Hanluan making Wu Fei sound especially important.
Wu Hengyu then said: “Father, this northbound does not need to be so cautious; our army has sharpened blades and hidden elites for long! Moreover, there are many masters assisting in the army. Truly hard to defeat.”
Wu Hanluan nodded, then said: “And after victory?”
Wu Hengyu: “After victory, of course capture the king to capture the thieves!”
Wu Hanluan looked at this son, helplessly bitter smiling. In charging formation and fighting, indeed has some talent, but just does not understand court politics! In this aspect, if Wu Fei were here, he would have thought of it long ago. That is, the Wu Family Army setting up main camp in Donghua Commandery has already aroused some Imperial Court wariness; after directly breaking Wei Guan state and establishing great merit, how should the Imperial Court reward?
Wu Fei now does not even report border head counts, because he knows the Imperial Court at this time will not reward at all. Theoretically exchangeable for rank, but actually already at Imperial Court psychological limit; the Imperial Court does not want to redeem, but if forced to, will pinch nose to add seal, then tightly guard against.
The Imperial Court now wants the Wu Family Army as a grinder, gradually gradually crushing Wei Guan to pieces, then have the Imperial Court dispatched army capture “Prince Bo” and take the top merit.
Wu Hanluan said to Wu Hengyu: “Arrange army vanguard to open the road, remember to go slow, stop and start. Do not conflict with Prince Lelang.”
