Support or oppose?
On the king's couch, the First Emperor's eyes were bright.
In the main hall, all the officials looked at each other.
Unless Zhao Tuo wanted to stand up to the First Emperor and go against the generals around him who were eager for military glory, he could only have one choice in his answer.
"Your Majesty, the land of Baiyue is rich in products and vast. If we send soldiers to conquer it, we can make our Great Qin territory from the south to the north. This is an achievement that has not been achieved in three generations."
Zhao Tuo opened his mouth and first expressed his support.
The First Emperor nodded slightly.
The term "south ends in north" suits him very well.
All the ministers in the palace had such expressions.
Qiang Xuan looked disappointed and thought: "Zhao Tuo's title has reached the level of concubine, and he is only one step away from becoming a marquis. However, he has not been able to find an army that has made great achievements. Now that the war against Yue will begin, he is afraid that You have to ask yourself to lead the army to conquer Baiyue, and then you can be made a marquis when you come back."
There are many people who think like Qiang Yu. Many generals looked at Zhao Tuo with envy and sighed secretly in their hearts.
Zhao Tuo conquered Yue, had combat experience against the Yue people, and was young, so he was a suitable candidate for general.
In addition, he has the ambition to become a prince. As long as he opens his mouth, the First Emperor, as his father-in-law, will definitely make him the general. It is impossible for others to compete with Zhao Tuo.
Among the generals, Tu Sui rolled his eyes.
What a good brother Zhao, the day he told me how terrifying the Baiyue Land was, it turned out that he wanted to stop me from writing a letter to ask for war. You can go on your own. You are such a good brother.
Li Si, who was standing next to Zhao Tuo, his eyes lit up.
Zhao Tuo had a talent for governing the country. He made several suggestions and suggestions in succession, and he also developed the art of papermaking and printing, which early won him the favor of the emperor. Having this son stay in Xianyang will inevitably overshadow the glory of Li Si.
Therefore, Zhao Tuo had better go out to fight, so that Li Si could show off his talents in Xianyang.
in everyone’s different thoughts.
What Zhao Tuo said took a turn, and he began to talk about the situation in the Land of Baiyue.
"The Baiyue should be conquered, but according to what I saw during the southern expedition, the land of Baiyue is not the same as the Central Plains. The land is hot and humid, with mountains and forests and swamps. There is dense miasma in the mountains and forests, and poisonous insects, snakes and ants are rampant."
"Moreover, there are few cities in the Yue region, and the Yue people live in mountains, forests, and valleys, and they rely on forest trails to get in and out. Those places are inaccessible to vehicles and horses. If the army enters the mountains, forests, and swamps, it will be difficult to pass, but it is not as agile as the Yue people."
"If we, the Qin Dynasty, want to attack Baiyue, we must not take it lightly. We should formulate corresponding tactics based on the situation in the territory."
Zhao Tuo talked eloquently and told the situation in Vietnam in front of the First Emperor and all the ministers and generals.
The west of the Central Plains of the Qin State was not connected with the Yue Territory. The previous offensive wars were basically fought against the Six Kingdoms of Shandong. At most, the surrounding Di Qiang and Rong Di are included, but the area where the Di Qiang are located is close to Guanzhong, and the climate and environment are actually similar, far less different than that of Yue.
Many Qin generals in the palace only knew about the Yue region through rumors. Now that they heard Zhao Tuo's detailed description, all of them frowned like Tu Sui before.
In addition to the difficulties in the geographical environment, Zhao Tuo also said something at the end of his words that made the general feel frightened.
The temperature is high in the country and mosquitoes and water bugs are rampant. Once the army enters the mountains and forests, they may encounter epidemic diseases.
Disease!
In this era when medicine is still underdeveloped, it is something that everyone talks about with disdain.
The Qin army was far away from their homeland, and they were already acclimated to the local environment. If they were unlucky and encountered an epidemic, let alone conquering the land of Baiyue, whether half of the people could survive was a question.
The First Emperor narrowed his eyes.
There was silence in the hall.
Zhao Tuo breathed a sigh of relief.
He did indeed do the right thing.
Faced with the desires of the First Emperor and many generals, rash opposition will only make oneself hostile, and even anger the emperor.
If you are admonishing, you can't say anything to appease the head of Guizhou and save people's power.
To the aloof emperor, the common people at the bottom were not worth mentioning and existed only as tools. The emperor might even have the intention of consuming the rangers in the princely lands through war.
Zhao Tuo could only lay out the practical difficulties of conquering Baiyue.
What he said was true, hoping to scare off the First Emperor and those military generals from their desire to conquer the country.
Zhao Tuo wants them to know that the land of Baiyue is not an easy bone to chew. If the Qin army marches south, their teeth may be broken if they are not careful.
After a moment of silence, Tingwei Li Si spoke.
He looked at Zhao Tuo with a smile and said: "Master Zhao, you are a famous general of our Qin State, and you know Baiyue so well. I think you must have a good strategy to help our Qin Dynasty conquer Baiyue."
"Yes, Mr. Zhao must have a good plan. We will listen carefully."
Wang Wu and other officials also responded and followed suit.
Xin Wu and other generals then said, "We are also willing to listen to Zhao Shaofu's plan to destroy Yue."
After being reminded by Li Si, they also guessed the intention of Zhao Tuo's words.
The emperor was ambitious and it was imperative to conquer Baiyue, so it was naturally impossible for Zhao Tuo to object.
Therefore, he publicly talked about the difficulty of conquering Baiyue in the main hall, probably because he wanted to show that it was difficult to conquer Baiyue, so who else could he do? In this way, he could scare off the generals, and then make himself the popular general in the conquest of Yue.
Zhao Tuo had this motive.
He is the chief concubine. After conquering Baiyue, he will definitely be able to become a marquis based on this merit!
A real man lives in the world, and when he is alive, he is a marquis, and when he dies, he is the food of the temple.
Everyone has heard this. Now that they have seen through Zhao Tuo's thoughts, they can't argue even if they think about it, so naturally they all follow suit.
Just wait for Zhao Tuo to tell you his good strategy, and then everyone can naturally support Zhao Tuo to the top. In this way, he will still be in a good position.
Listening to everyone's words and the eyes that seemed to see through his mind, Zhao Tuo guessed their thoughts just by thinking about it, and he felt dumbfounded.
The First Emperor seemed to think so too. He glanced at Zhao Tuo teasingly and said calmly, "You can tell me."
Zhao Tuo was speechless. He talked about the difficulty of conquering Baiyue for a long time, and finally the problem came back to him.
Fortunately, he was prepared for this.
After thinking for a while, Zhao Tuo said: "I think that if your Majesty wants to conquer Yue territory, he should use the technique of making friends from far away and attacking at close range as he did when he destroyed the six kingdoms before, and plan it slowly."
"The Yue land is vast, and there is not one tribe or one country, but numerous tribes occupying various places. Among them, the largest ones include Dong Ou, Xi Ou, Min Yue, Nan Yue, Luo Yue, etc."
"These large Yue countries are just like the Shandong princes in the past. They are not monolithic. For example, South Vietnam often fights with Minyue, and Minyue often conflicts with Dongou, fighting and attacking each other. I, the Qin Dynasty, can take advantage of this."
"We can send merchants and envoys with goods to win over the various tribes of the Yue people, and instigate discord, so that the Yue people will fight with each other and start a war. When the Yue people are both hurt, we, the Qin Dynasty, will send troops to attack again. This will be done Save effort and get full result.”
As soon as Zhao Tuo started, veterans such as Wang Bi and Xin Wu nodded.
Make friends from far away and attack close by, instigate discord, win over and divide, and finally defeat them one by one.
They are familiar with this. This is how the Six Kingdoms of Shandong were killed. This is indeed a mature and convenient method in war.
Moreover, those merchants and envoys can also assume the responsibility of spying on intelligence, which is in line with the art of war.
Zhao Tuo continued to talk.
In addition to the alienation strategy, Zhao Tuo also suggested that the Qin State should build roads first, build one from Yuyue to Dongou, build one from Gandi to Nanyue, and even build canals in other places depending on the situation. It ensured the logistics of the Qin army and allowed the chariots and horses to travel through the mountains and forests.
When building roads, the Qin army could also send small groups of troops to conquer the surrounding areas along the roads, conquer the surrounding small Yue tribes, and gradually encroach.
At the same time, Zhao Tuo also suggested training a powerful sea-going naval force. At that time, the navy can be sent into the sea from Jiangdong, along the coastline, and with the land army, it can attack Dongou and Minyue from close range, and from far away. Arriving directly at the rear of South Vietnam and engaging in a pincer attack with the army, the Vietnamese were caught off guard.
Relying on sea transportation, you can also transport grain and fodder, which is much more convenient than traveling over land over mountains and ridges.
In terms of specific tactics, the Qin army can first attack Dongou, which is the weakest, and then join forces with South Vietnam to attack Fujian and Vietnam.
After carving up Fujian and Vietnam with the South Vietnamese, they then turned to instigate attacks on South Vietnam. Generally speaking, they were to weaken and weaken the enemy, defeat them one by one, and prevent the Vietnamese from uniting.
As for epidemics, as long as a large army is not gathered, even if a small group of troops is infected by the disease, the damage will not be much serious.
To sum up, Zhao Tuo's strategy for conquering Yue was mainly to ensure road logistics, and at the same time use strategies to instigate fights among the Yue people, make friends from far away and attack close by, slowly encroaching, and finally achieve the goal of annexing the land of Baiyue.
This is a replica of Qin's destruction of the Six Kingdoms.
Wang Ben and other veterans naturally nodded in agreement with this tactic because it was very stable.
But the First Emperor on the imperial couch had an expressionless face.
When Zhao Tuo finished speaking, he asked indifferently: "I don't know how long it will take to follow the strategy of destroying the six kingdoms and conquer Baiyue."
Zhao Tuo replied: "The strategy to destroy Yue mentioned by me may take six years."
Six years.
Most of the time is spent on building roads, training boatmen, provoking spies, and buying off Yue tribes. As long as these preliminary tasks are done well, it should not be a big problem for Qin to destroy Yue.
At the same time, six years was enough for the Qin army in the southern expedition to adapt to the local geography and climate, and no major epidemics would occur.
Of course, after conquering Baiyue, the Qin army still needs to appease the local Yue people, use Yue to control Yue, win over the Yue people's upper-class nobles with benefits, and avoid Yue people from repeating themselves. Only in this way can it last for a long time, instead of falling into an endless war. In the quagmire.
Calculating all the time, Zhao Tuo estimated that it would not be possible in ten years.
The reason why he said six years was that he felt that it was impossible for the First Emperor to wait for ten years.
Secondly, it is also the number six of Qin State. He hopes that this number will bring luck.
It's a pity that the First Emperor, who usually loved Liu, felt dissatisfied today.
"Six years?"
The First Emperor looked unhappy.
It took him less than ten years from the beginning of the war to destroy South Korea to the conquest of the six countries in Shandong.
The six Shandong kingdoms were so powerful and huge. Among them, Zhao, Chu, Qi and other kingdoms were even more powerful in the world with hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It took the Qin army less than ten years to destroy them.
The Baiyue in the south has no armored soldiers and is full of barbarians living in the mountains and wilderness, but you want the supreme emperor to spend six years to conquer it.
His pride would not allow it.
too long.
too slow.
Did Zhao Tuo think highly of the Yue people and underestimate his Qin people?
The First Emperor nodded to Zhao Tuo first.
"Your plan is very good."
He turned his head and spoke again in front of all the ministers in the palace.
"I want to send an army of 500,000 troops south to attack Baiyue. Can I do it quickly?"
(End of chapter)
