Chapter 262: Six Towns in Turmoil
With the communication capabilities of that era, Xiao Wei in Yizhou certainly didn't know about the epic defeat in Northern Xuzhou. His main focus at this time was still on mobilizing the major clans in Shu to send troops.
Seeing the "strength" of Southern Liang, Su Ze was completely relieved. Leaving Hou Jing behind was enough to deal with the army of Southern Liang.
Now Su Ze still focuses on the war in Guanzhong.
As May approached, there was still not much progress in the war in Guanzhong.
Liu Kai's army set up camp at the foot of Yongcheng, the capital of Qizhou, and had been attacking fiercely for half a month, but still failed to capture Yongcheng.
On the rebel side, Mozhe Tiansheng of Qinzhou has finally balanced the various forces in Qinzhou and arranged the defense in the rear. It is said that he is preparing to lead troops out of Qinzhou to support Yongcheng.
The government troops were very frightened when they received the news. Liu Kai ordered the army to retreat and strengthen the city wall of a small town 50 miles away from Yongcheng.
There was no way. Mo Zhetian's several battles in Guanzhong really scared the government troops.
Even a fierce general like Cui Yanbo suffered a great loss at the hands of Mo Zhe Tiansheng and lost his life.
Liu Kai didn't dare to confront Mo Zhe Tiansheng's army head-on under Yongcheng.
On the other hand, the Jingzhou rebels led by Hu Chen and Jin Wei also fought with the government troops on the Huazhou border.
The army of Yuan Hao, King of Beihai in the Northern Wei Dynasty, finally arrived in Huazhou. They set up defenses in Baishui City west of Luoshui, preparing to intercept the rebels in Jingzhou here.
In addition, rebellions broke out in several states in the northwest of the Northern Wei Dynasty, including Binzhou (now Binzhou in Xianyang) and Xiazhou (Shuofang), and the entire northwest region was in chaos.
However, Su Ze still did not assemble the army. He released the soldiers back to the farmland to first get through the busy spring and summer farming season, and then take action based on the situation in the world.
Su Ze looked to the north. The storm in the Six Towns was getting closer and closer.
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As May approaches, the situation on the grassland has not improved with the arrival of spring.
The aftermath of the massive reduction in livestock caused by the winter is still continuing. The white plague is like a locust plague, affecting not just one season, but an entire year's worth of food reproduction.
Gaoqueshu to the west of Woye Town.
This is a small garrison west of Woye Town, but this garrison has a long history.
It is said that this fortress was built during the Warring States Period, when King Wuling of Zhao changed his customs and wore Hu clothing, practiced riding and shooting, defeated Linhu and Loufan in the north, and built a long wall from Dai and the foot of Yinshan Mountain to Gaoque as a barrier.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, this fortress was also highly valued. Qin Shihuang sent Meng Tian to cross the river to take Gaoque, Yangshan, and Beijiazhong, and built pavilions and barriers to drive out the Hu people.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, Wei Qing was made the general-in-chief and led six other generals with more than 100,000 men to attack the Hu from Shuofang and Gaoque.
Li Daoyuan, Su Ze's teacher, also once described Gaoque Shudao in his "Notes on the Classic of Waterways":
"At the junction of the Great Wall, there are mountains piercing the sky. There is a gap in the mountains, with two towers on both sides, which are good at raising clouds. From a distance, they look like towers, and they are shaped like a sign, so they are named Gaoque. From the north of the tower, it goes out into the wilderness and ends at the mountain, which is called Gaoque Fort. From ancient times to the present, heavy defenses have always been set up to prevent blocking the road."
However, at this time, Gaoque Fort had become the stronghold of Po Liu Han Baling.
Since the white disaster last winter, Po Liu Han Baling has been making donations in Gaoqueshu in the name of the true king, attracting many tribes to surrender.
But the development of things soon exceeded Po Liu Han Baling's expectations.
Po Liu Han Baling's original plan was to use the food from Gaoque Shu to attract refugees from Woye Town, and then slowly preach there, using it as a base to train soldiers and begin to cultivate the rebellious forces.
But Po Liu Han Baling did not expect that there would be so many victims this year!
The white disaster spread to the entire northern grassland, not just the Six Garrisons. The Gaoche people, Rouran people, Tiele people, and various nomadic peoples on the grassland, heard that they could survive in Gaoque Fort, so they all rushed over like moths to a flame.
The number of refugees that Gaoque Fort could accommodate soon exceeded its capacity, and the food stored by Po Liu Han Baling soon ran out.
May 20th, the second year of Zhengguang.
Surrounded by his disciples, Po Liu Han Baling began the meeting that would determine the course of history.
"True King! Woye Town's refusal to open its granary to Yuzhen to release grain has caused dissatisfaction among the people of Woye Town. As long as you raise your arms and call, the people will serve you as their leader and overthrow the false dynasty!"
The one who spoke was Po Liu Han Baling's fanatical disciple. They all looked at Po Liu Han Baling, waiting for his decision.
Po Liu Han Baling fell into a rare state of hesitation.
According to his understanding of the Way of Heaven, everyone has his own place. In the past few years, he has been traveling between the six towns, collecting talents, assigning positions to them, secretly training the army and forging weapons, and all of this has gone well.
According to this plan, by the end of this year, Po Liu Han Baling will be able to lead a rebellion.
But God's will is always hard to guess.
This white disaster not only overturned the Northern Wei's rule in the Six Garrisons, but also disrupted the deployment of Po Liu Han Baling.
Po Liu Han Baling was going to select suitable soldiers from the disaster victims and train them into an army. But things did not always go according to his ideas, and now the food was almost exhausted.
He had gathered so many people in Gaoque Fort. Even if the Northern Wei government was slow, they would definitely send troops to suppress them once the news got out.
If you miss this opportunity, you won’t know when the next one will come.
Thinking of this, Po Liu Han Baling also made up his mind.
He said to his disciples:
"The Way of Heaven will perish, and the Pure Land will appear! Today is the day of God's revelation. Let everyone take up arms and march towards Woye Town!"
The disciples cheered wildly, and then Po Liu Han Baling's trusted disciples opened the armory and began to arm themselves. Then they distributed some weapons to the victims and ordered them to rebel together.
Among these disaster victims, some had been brainwashed by Po Liu Han Baling and took up weapons to rebel.
But most of the victims were still ordinary people. Although they could not survive, they were still afraid of the government troops and were just driven towards Woye Town.
In Woye Town, in the town commander's mansion, Yu Zhen was still sleeping with his concubine in his arms.
Yu Zhen was appointed as the town commander of Woye Town through his family's arrangement. He originally planned to just make a transition there and then use it as a springboard to seek a position as a county governor and leave the Six Towns.
But he did not expect that after he left Luoyang, a series of events occurred in Luoyang, including the Yulin Rebellion and the Xuanguang Coup.
The good news is that the Yu family was the loser of the coup d'état in the early days of the young emperor's accession to the throne. After Yu Zhong's downfall, the Yu family had been liquidated, and the ministers who remained in the court had been marginalized and had no chance to participate in these events.
The bad news was that the few remaining in-laws and old friends of the Yu family were all lost in the Luoyang coups. The connections of the older generation were no longer useful, and Yu Zhen had been in office in Woye Town for three years without any chance of promotion.
When Yu Zhen first came to Woye Town, he knew how to win over the military leaders and commanders in the town and handle some government affairs.
By the second year in Yu Zhen, he had completely forgotten those military commanders and generals. He spent all his time feasting in the garrison, living a life of drunkenness and dreams.
In the third year, Yu Zhen even took out his resentment for not being able to return to the Central Plains on the Six Towns themselves.
He would often beat and scold his subordinates, and would go against the suggestions of the military leaders and generals. In any case, he just wanted to be a rebel and not let the people of the Six Garrisons get their way.
After the white disaster this year, the military leaders and commanders all begged Yu Zhen to open the granaries to release the grain, but Yu Zhen went against their wishes and refused to open the granaries.
Yu Zhen's reasons were also plausible. The imperial court had no decree for disaster relief, and as a general he could not open the granaries and release grain at will.
In fact, Yu Zhen didn't care about the lives of the people in the Six Garrisons at all. He even garrisoned himself in the Six Garrisons and blamed the Six Garrisons for himself. If all the people in the Six Garrisons died, the court would no longer set up the Six Garrisons. Wouldn't he be able to return to the prosperous Central Plains instead of enduring in this bitter and cold northern border?
Deep down, Yu Zhen, a young man from a noble family named Jia from Luoyang, looked down on the peasants from the Six Garrisons.
But Yu Zhen didn't know that before he arrived at the Six Towns, the previous town commanders also thought so.
He could not have imagined that in this game of passing the parcel, by the time it came to him, it was already the last stick, and the resentment of the soldiers and civilians in the Six Garrisons had already exploded.
On May 23, several messengers from Gaoqueshu entered Woye Town, and no one found anything unusual.
On May 24, the guards guarding the garrison were replaced by several unfamiliar faces, and the captain guarding the garrison did not find anything unusual.
On May 25th, several military commanders in the town returned to their tribes, and Yu Zhen let them go to avoid them begging him every day.
On the morning of May 26, the gates of Woye Town were opened, and the soldiers rushed into the city, attacking the town commander's mansion and the town warehouse at the same time.
Yu Zhen's crony who was guarding the town granary surrendered instantly, but his head was still chopped off and became a tool for the people to vent their anger, and his body was eaten by the hungry people in the six towns. Po Liu Han Baling personally opened the town granary, and the people rushed in to grab food.
The military commanders who had left the town the day before rushed into the town's mansion with their personal guards. Yu Zhen, who was hungover, was finally awakened, but when he put on his clothes and wanted to find out what was going on, he found that all the soldiers guarding him had run away.
Yu Zhen was moody and always punished the soldiers around him for the slightest mistake and often withheld their rewards.
So when these military commanders attacked the town commander's mansion, these soldiers quickly fled.
Yu Zhen walked out of the courtyard, cursing and killing all the soldiers who deserted their posts. He wanted to find someone to inquire about the situation, but he bumped into one of his military leaders.
Yu Zhen was used to being so powerful, and when he saw the military leader, he immediately called him and asked:
"Where are my personal guards? Why is there so much noise outside?
This military leader had already defected to Po Liu Han Baling, and had originally wanted to capture Yu Zhen alive to win credit, but when he heard Yu Zhen speaking in such a tone again, the memories of the oppression he had suffered over the years came to his mind.
Kill this little lamb!
The army leader raised his sword and swung it, and Yu Zhen fell to the ground with horror on his face.
On May 26th of the second year of Zhengguang, Woye Town fell.
(End of this chapter)