Originally, Lu Zhi planned to attack the city directly, and most of the generals also requested the same.
At that time, almost all the generals were impatient and demanded to attack the city immediately and kill everyone in the city to vent their anger.
Especially the Liangzhou soldiers under Dong Zhuo's command, almost everyone was furious.
But Liu Bei strongly advised Lu Zhi to wait and not attack the city immediately.
"Although there will be no reinforcements to rescue them, I guess that the defenders in the city should be very confused and frightened. The army should exert extreme pressure on them to cause them to collapse and cause civil strife. In this way, it may be possible to get twice the result with half the effort. The effect, all in all, is that the wait these days is by no means meaningless.”
Most of the generals had a negative attitude towards Liu Bei's suggestion. Everyone was tired of waiting. They just wanted to start killing people as soon as possible and did not want to continue to ink.
Only Xu Xuan, the garrison captain who led the troops in the war, was willing to support Liu Bei's opinions because he admired Liu Bei's fair and strict style of conduct.
Liu Bei expressed his gratitude to Xu Xuan, then insisted on his opinion and asked everyone to believe in him. Anyway, in the last day, everyone would be able to get the complete Julu City without any bloodshed, and everything in the city would still belong to everyone.
If you can win without killing anyone, why not?
Lu Zhi had never used the extreme pressure strategy proposed by Liu Bei, and he did not appreciate it, but he vaguely remembered seeing similar combat examples in military books.
Faced with the generals' request and Dong Zhuo's awkward yet polite smile, Lu Zhi thought about it, stared at Liu Bei for a while, and decided to choose Liu Bei's strategy.
"The last day, just one day, please make preparations. Tomorrow at this time, if the city gate is not opened, the army will break through the city!"
Liu Bei's suggestion was still adopted.
Except for the people under Liu Bei's command, other generals were more dissatisfied. However, considering the master-disciple relationship between these two people and the status of the special Confucian inheritance family, these powerful warriors were not willing to offend these two men. Two people of distinguished status.
They are equal in position, but in terms of actual political status, they are very different. Offending Lu Zhi and Liu Bei rashly is tantamount to the end of their official careers.
So they could only choose to prepare for war and wait, and then sigh and lament why their ancestors did not have a literate Confucian scholar, so that they could have the addiction of a Confucian general who was willing to be literate and military.
However, it turns out that reading more is really meaningful.
Maximum pressure succeeded.
After the Han army's ultimatum was delivered to the city, that night, the people in Julu City finally couldn't stand it any longer and civil strife broke out.
Many places were on fire, and there were sounds of fighting in the city. The men looked in the direction of Julu City in surprise, and looked at Liu Bei who looked indifferent in surprise.
Is it really done? !
At dawn, the gate of Julu City opened a crack, and a messenger in ragged clothes and a dirty face ran out. He knelt in front of Lu Zhi with a fawning expression and asked Lu Zhi to surrender.
"I just ask the general to spare our lives, and we are willing to surrender the city!"
Lu Zhi was dressed in military uniform and looked majestic.
"Where is the culprit?"
"You have been tied up by us. As long as the general needs it, I will offer it immediately!"
"Then bring the culprits and their families here, and then open the city. I swear in the name of Bei Zhonglang General Lu Zhi that as long as you don't resist, the Han army will never harm you!"
Lu Zhi swore his oath, but the envoy couldn't believe it and ran back to the city. After a while, a group of men and women dressed in white were tied up and sent out of the city.
Wang Meng, the "Messenger of the Middle God" who had occupied Julu County for more than a month, was dedicated to Lu Zhi, including the female believers who he brought into the house to "reveal".
When Wang Meng was tied up and sent to Lu Zhi, he kept begging Lu Zhi not to kill him. He was willing to give him anything he wanted, and he only wanted one life.
Liu Bei expressed great interest in the more than thirty female relatives, so he asked where these female relatives came from, and then he learned what Wang Meng had done during the period when he became the ruler of Julu County.
Good guy, you've just started to gain some ability and you can't wait to play in the wine pool and the meat forest?
Let’s not talk about whether Emperor Xin ever built a wine pond and a meat forest, just talk about how many generations of kings passed down his family for many years before he was qualified to do it, and the country ended up being destroyed.
You, a guy who started a rebellion, don't devote all your energy to training the army to increase its strength and manage the base camp, but you are actually busy giving enlightenment to these female believers?
You are really a little genius!
Liu Bei felt speechless about this.
Of course Lu Zhi was speechless.
So he ordered Wang Meng and the female family members to be taken into custody and packed up later.
Because Julu County had voluntarily surrendered, Lu Zhi did not allow the city-massacre demonstration proposed by some generals. Instead, he asked the officers to restrain the soldiers and strictly enforce military laws. He then ordered the Yellow Turban Army in the city to hand over all ordnance supplies and gold and silver treasures. Come out as trophies.
All the Yellow Turban troops in the city surrendered their weapons, and Lu Zhi's soldiers entered the city and occupied the city. Later, at Liu Bei's suggestion, Lu Zhi handed over the distribution of the spoils to Liu Bei, who presided over the distribution of the spoils.
Liu Bei did not allocate any property to his subordinates, but distributed all the property to the main force who followed Lu Zhi.
Liu Bei distributed gold, silver, jewelry, brocade, silk and other properties as well as a large number of practical materials to the main force.
After the main force received a large amount of property, they no longer complained. Everyone was smiling and praised Liu Bei for his understanding of righteousness and his fairness. He was worthy of being a disciple of Confucianism.
So the world is bustling with people just for a few taels of silver, but these few taels of silver can solve all the sorrows in the world.
If you have the money, if the money is in place and everyone's psychological expectations are met, everyone will have nothing to say.
Dong Zhuo regained his previous enthusiasm and blew Liu Bei's rainbow fart vigorously and hard, wishing he could blow Liu Bei to the sky and make him omnipotent.
But in the final analysis, Liu Bei's persistence really brought them so many benefits. All Han army officers, including Dong Zhuo, had all their resentment, dissatisfaction and suspicion disappear the moment the gates of Julu County were opened. Both are clean.
Even the most violent war maniacs are very happy to accept this kind of military glory that is almost fed to them.
So Liu Bei naturally gained a wave of popularity.
Lu Zhi was quite good at dealing with the aftermath of the war. He made many arrangements for Julu County, such as confiscating all weapons and separating the strong men from the old, weak, women and children. The strong men were outside the city, while the old, weak, women and children were inside the city. The elite Han army entered the city to clean up the battlefield.
When the battlefield is almost cleaned, the locals will be allowed to go home one by one, while the outsiders will be further screened.
This step is to identify all the literate people who hold positions in Taiping Dao, distinguish them from the general illiterate believers, and cut off the connections between them.
Lu Zhi believed that those who needed to be punished were the literate people who held leadership positions. As for other illiterate blind followers, Lu Zhi believed that the main purpose should be to appease and intimidate them, and spare their lives.
Then Lu Zhi began to let the illiterate people start working, handle some chores for the Han army, restore the county seat to its original state in the city, etc., anyway, he did not give them a chance to stop.
During this period, Lu Zhi reorganized his troops, collected and analyzed intelligence, and made plans for the next two marches.
He planned to let Dong Zhuo lead a group of troops to the direction of Changshan Kingdom, while he and Liu Bei would lead another group of troops to move to the direction of Anping Kingdom, and use a two-pronged approach to eliminate the other two Yellow Turban armies who refused to save them.
In this way, the main force of the Jizhou Yellow Turban Army will be eliminated.
(End of chapter)
